Before - Legends The Wise

Keanu can't have it. It's ours!

Rule number Ten: Never, under any circumstances, ever go into any engagement without backup waiting.

And he did have backup, didn?t he? The relief of it made him aware of the intense pain in his foot. It made him aware of intense pain in his shoulder. It made him aware of his lightheadedness. The ground banked to the side, becoming a hill, becoming a cliff, becoming a wall. It hit him. He felt waves of nausea batter his stomach like a riptide. It seemed like he could see the blood vessels inside his eyes, pulsing, sparking, twisting his vision till it was double, triple, quadruple. His thoughts became jumbled again, he started repeating himself compulsively in his mind, like a droid?s restraining bolt ? on infinite loop. He retched.

The act of retching brought him up to a kneel, which was when he heard the rustling sounds of the girl?s approach. He willed himself to get up. He didn?t want to, he truly didn?t; he wanted to just vomit and lay down and pass out. He didn?t want to put pressure on his foot. He didn?t want to put no pressure on it, either. It seemed to hurt going both ways.

Maybe it?ll feel better if I just cut it off. But it wasn?t funny, because the pain wasn?t going away, just throbbing worse and worse. There was no way he was getting up. He would just lay there and?

There was one way he could get up: if his life depended on it.

And it did.

He got up.

I loved the pattern of this post, and this was my favorite part.

 

Excellent!! This was really a neat chapter in combination with the last, because I love to see different sides of the same situation. I like that you went back into Ten's history some more here, too.

I'm really nervous to see who comes out on top, here!

 

Ah, back to our old friend, dubbed ?Ten?.

But, throughout it all, he kept one copy of his List. His Ten. Because he truly believed the words he wrote, and fully intended to live by them, regardless of what his Master claimed. Sure, knowing the colors of voice was invaluable, but it wasn?t the same as his Ten. His Ten was more than a list of words, after all. It was a philosophy.

I loved the ?Rules?, and seeing his own special set of rules take over and dictate his actions as Mouse strove to best him.

I enjoyed re-reading the scene through Ten?s eyes.

 

---

[b]Chapter 8: Prey[/b][hr]


Okay, first off; your PM said Chapter 9 - but the post is clearly labeled Chapter 8. [face_plain]
What kind of game are you playing at [b]Yodimus[/b]?



Ah, [i]Certain Point of View[/i]-esque update? [face_tongue]

I loved the flashback and seeing more on 'Ten' and his method for creating and controlling an 'army'. Information that can be of use someday if passed down? Including his Ten Rules for Engagement. (there must be a Rule 66 he hasn't thought of yet though)[face_whistling]


Really, it was a lot of fun to see things through ten's POV in the chase. I wouldn't mind it again for the upcoming confrontation. *hint, hint*

[i]Then he started to feel pain. Like a glow, like an ember, like an anchor, and then he remembered who he was and what he was and where these things were happening. The temperature began to come back a little bit (hot at first), and then sounds, and then the smell of stale minerals, of rotting iron. What he would later identify as the smell of blood.[/i]

*Mr. Burn's voice* [i]Eeeexcellent...[/i]

Phenominal update my friend, and congrats on all those well deserved nominations too!

[face_applause]

 

(I'm cutting my response into two posts, because the boards really aren't liking this reply for some reason.)

Pre-PS: Thanks to everyone who nommed me! While I cannot hug you, I send a worthy ambassador in my stead -

Hey, as long as there's more to tell, I'm gonna tell it.

Yeah, funny how they both think they're right. Also, I'm afraid no amount of eye batting will sway me from changing my mind about the final outcome. All is set in stone, my girl. You'll have to wait and see.

Always.

It's interesting to see everyone here start taking sides now. ..I wonder at what point the face paint and 'go team!' banners start to appear?

For shame! Stealing the man's only tenuous, superficial link to real acting like that! Next thing I know, you'll be taking the Wayne's Brothers' only funny joke. Horrible.

It's was a neat break from straight paragraph-scanning. I enjoy messing around with composition when I can.

<cut>

 

Originally, I had very little of his history included with this chapter. But after posting the earlier parts, I (and Oqi. Mostly Oqi) began to notice that the girl was way, waay more fleshed out that he was. And that just wasn't fair at all.

Then you're gonna be nervous for a while, I think.

I'm really happy that everyone approves of the rules. It was really hard coming up with them, because that had to be two things at once. 1) useful, well thought out and realistic, while also 2) look like something a seven year old (a brilliant seven-year-old, yes, but the point still stands) would come up with. Very tricky, to say the least.

The kind of game where I constantly forget the rules, apparently

Here's the deal: in the midst of getting ready to post this chapter, I was struck with a bit of inspiration which turned it into two chapters (this one and the next one). So while this clearly isn't chapter 9, nine was very much on my mind at the time of the PMing. But look at it this way - it got you some insight on whose POV the next one will have.

all of that assumes he lives long enough to pass anything down, of course. It would be the height of my generosity, I think, were the boy to last the night in his current condition.

What I do next is a mystery I dare not disclose my friend, but trust me (and I say that much the same way a used car salesman would), my dealings in the foggy land of POV are faar from over.



See yous next update!

 

*grumblegrumble* kriffin spotty connection *grumblegrumble*

[EDIT] *does the time warp to respond to Oqi via the past*




Oqi: "Better than before."
I'm seeing you in folded-arm eye-over-shoulder Professor-mode here. Which begs the question - is that what you tell people when they're getting an A, or just not getting an F?

"Excellent job--you've added so much depth to this chapter"
Just a matter of flexing my latent and unmatched genius in order to casually pull out a couple extra tidbits of brilliance. *shines fingernails* Yep.


..Oh yeah, that, and following the advice of all those comments in red you added.

[/EDIT]

 

Better than before.



Excellent job--you've added so much depth to this chapter.

Brilliant!

 

I finally caught up!!!

I really love this story!! The backgrounds of Ten and Mouse are really . . . cool? Interesting, I guess. Scary. And I'm dying to know why there are two people claiming to be the same person -- unless they ARE the same person . . .

Anyway, update soon, please!! And I'd like to be put back on the PM list This time, I promise to read when you post

 

And I promise to post for you to read
I've just been released of my parents' first LA visitation. Whirlwind tours, Malibu excursions, and Hollywood craziness abounded; now they're gone and I can go back to my regular life in the valley, ignoring all that crap

So expect an update soon.

Well...I think Oqi needs to look at it first. I don't know if she's done that yet, I haven't checked. In any case, we're spinning back to the boy again. It should cool. And Interesting. And scary.

 

*wanders into thread, droopy-eyed and very late*

Who's a miserable workaholic to the point where she neglects her hobbies? Yes, you're looking at her.

But I gotta say - it was sort of awesome to read those chapters one right after the other! The differences in POV were great fun. As was the swashbuckling.

The foot-stabbing was ouchy, though... jeez Mouse...

Keep the good stuff coming, I'll be around.

 

And it's like lookin' into a mirror.

I'm glad you liked the POV switches. As for swashbuckling...I...don't remember pirates being involved with this story, but perhaps I'm mistaken. Unless there's some hidden paragraph where people frantically buckle swashes...or I simply have know real idea what that word actually means. Either way, I'm happy you enjoyed them.

Though I thankfully can't speak from experience, it needs to be said that foot stabbing is rarely not ouchy. Mouse definitely should have known better. Makes you wonder: Nature or Nurture? Who is to blame for this, or should we just put 'em all on Ritalin? I fear we may never know for sure. Oy, kids these days.



And please, please - do stick around.
You won't be disappointed

 

---

[b]Chapter 9: Choice [/b][hr]


He got up.

He got up and it was like standing upside down, like ascending a thousand meters, like falling into space, he got up and everything went dark but he got up, he got up anyway. He got up and his brain flew away.

His body stayed there, stumbling wretchedly through the dark woods, while in the meantime, his mind retreated someplace else. Someplace where the pain from his shoulder and from his foot and from the growing bump on his head could not follow. Someplace safe.

Someplace warm. Rainy. Sunny. Someplace?

A triple rainbow held strong just over the rarely-tended orchard. Three bands of all seven colors ? the bottom band the most brilliant, the middle one the widest, the top one the most violet ? spanned the tiny valley between two enormous mountain ranges. They seemed to stick together like brother gods: bright, strong, and all-knowing. The birds were out too, filling the entire estate with a chorus of sounds. All these things were pleasant, but at the moment, his attention was held firmly toward the ground.

The boy knows exactly where he is.

It?s a year prior, on Dolus, right at the sweaty, suffocating end of a heat wave. There is no nameless planet yet, no freezing fields of snow blocked in by canyons on all sides like a giant [i]cul-de-sac[/i], hemming him in, cornering him. No girl out to kill him. No tree to fall from. No endless dark forest stretching out before him, mocking his ragged, injured form with the promise of a long, hard, difficult, painful, [i]impossible[/i] trek.

None of that. Only the hint of a Shadow Beast in the back of his mind, and the tail-end of a sweltering summer promising a whole upcoming season full of new things to learn about. That was all. Maybe this was a memory being lived in by a fevered, freezing mind?or maybe all this stuff about being chased to his death on a snowy night was just a bad dream, playing out in the back of his mind. That could be it. He?d been daydreaming and it turned ugly. The storm must have caused it ? the first rainfall of autumn. The natives say the first one always brings about strange things. That was probably it. Maybe. Hopefully.

It didn?t matter. Right now, he was staring at the most beautiful lifeform he ever saw. He had seen them before, flitting swiftly in the distance, but never so close. He?d never known how brilliant and shimmering its large glossy wings truly were. He?d never caught how they swam with color, morphing those membrane surfaces into constantly shifting, complex patterns. He knew they were pretty, but he never knew they held such capacity for?[i]depth[/i].

As he watched those pretty wings with their complex colors and shapes, shifting fluidly, reshaping and reforming ? his eye catching patterns that altered at [i]just[/i] beyond the horizon of predictability ? it struck him that these creatures might actually be intelligent.

He sensed his Master approach and anticipated the question she would most likely ask first, ?I?m watching a Pixie Moth?

She did not so much as flutter in her step. If there had been surprise that her supposedly hidden creep had been easily caught, she hid it perfectly. That is, unless she had intended him to sense her all along, for some purpose he?d yet to learn. This was one of those things he loved most about her: nothing ever caught her off guard. He never felt bored around her, because she would always be a mystery still-unsolved.

Darth Averus ? but right now it was ?Baroness Sarogga,? because nobody on Dolus knew her by any other name, and she insisted he help maintain that appearance even within her orchard, which was sometimes open to the public. She casually looked over his shoulder, presumably to get a better look at this creature he said he was watching.

?More like ?gawking? I?d say.?

?If I may, Baroness, but what is the difference?? he preemptively floated a couple stones into the air, knowing she would demand something like that soon. She always did, ?It sounds like just a derisive way of saying the same thing I said.

 

Well, to me the word was "that one you can say when you're pretty sure you've already said 'fighting'"

... ah, well anyway.

Great, great chapter. I loved the moth vs. the spider, but it really made me wonder if the kid gets this whole Sith thing. I mean, if you're trying to remake nature according to your own ambitions, who cares about a starving spider? Can't wait to see more on this.

And if I'm not mistaken, here comes the big reveal - what's up with the apparent two Darth Averus-es?

Yay! More!

 

You already know the parts I love the most and I still love them as much today as before.
Beautifully written.

I love the new title.

 

Thank god! I thought my membership had expired or something!

?Oh.? The boy was taken aback. It put everything into a whole new, and rather sinister, light. This whole time, he thought he was simply enjoying the beauty of nature. Had he known this little insect ? this possibly intelligent lifeform ? was actually struggling and suffering, well?

It is the beauty of nature...oh, wait. If I cared to read on I'd see you make that point.


But then, just as he thought it, there was light. From the window. Averus must have heard him. The door opened. He looked up at her, but she was looking at the girl and, for perhaps the first time since he met her, Averus was truly angry. Good, kill her. Show her who?s boss!

?I see you?ve brought a friend,? Darth Averus said, almost snarling. She removed her hooded cloak, and the lightsaber on her belt glinted gently from the cabin?s dim glow.

The boy looked back at the girl, and he smiled.

what was it Han and Leia would say in a moment like this?

Great to see this back Yod!

A very manly update!

 

Simply incredible!

 

Finally, the boy stood up and stepped back, placing himself next to his Master, ?So, if I save the Pixie Moth, the Wisp Spider dies; if I do nothing, the Pixie Moth dies. Baroness, I do not think you could have invented a better moral conundrum if you tried.?

That spider/moth conundrum was wonderful - a delightfully thoughtful discussion between the Master and Student.


The chapter finished on an awesome note: the three core characters finally come together. I can't wait to see how it plays out.

 

Awesome update. loved the spider&moth dilemma. Avrus has a very different third option from what he has in mind.

The Baroness tenderly placed a hand on his shoulder, ?The universe can be an exceedingly difficult thing to reshape.?

?I?guess it can be, yeah.?

Loved it!
Because it's so ture. every solution has a problem... and they grow bigger.

If you become my Apprentice, this question will need an answer that does work. And on a much, much larger scale.?

I think this is now, isn't it.

?I see you?ve brought a friend,? Darth Averus said, almost snarling. She removed her hooded cloak, and the lightsaber on her belt glinted gently from the cabin?s dim glow.

I wish I knew whom she's going to strike down if any of them.
Great update!

 

I love this chapter!!! Quite a moral choice: who lives and who dies . . . I like the bit about her saying that it's like playing God. Very true.

I'm really curious about who is going to die here, the boy or the girl. My theory is that Averous is the same person teaching two children, though I might be way off.

 

Yes well, he may be smart, but we can't expect him to get every lesson Averus tries to teach him.

Yeah, what is up with that?

Thought you would

No worries. They get automatically renewed. In much the same way that the hidden subscription fees are automatically removed from your bank account.

Thank you! That's good to know, too, since the next update is probably going to be very girly..

It does seem unusual at first. But we must remember that the Sith aren't inherently evil (well...the religion is, but they aren't their religion. They are still living beings, with feelings and imperfections), and along with that, their core values involve intense affirmations of individuality. No two Sith experiences will ever be alike, and lessons can rarely be expected to have any sort of predictability to them. Traditions are for Jedi.

Why thank you! I return the guesture:

Indeed. I'd like to take this moment to give credit where credit is due: Anyone who has ever watched the limited-run anime serial "Trigun" will realize that the philosophical question of the spider and the (in their case, butterfly) originated in one of those episodes. I always found the question to be deliciously devious, and I kind of consider my scene to be a sort of obscure homage.

...Maybe they'll just shake hands and put it all behind them?

Indeed they do. Really, it's hard to imagine any group taking over the galaxy, no matter how much time they give themselves.

 

---

[b]Chapter 10[/b]
[b][i]part 1: Monster[/i][/b][hr]


Mouse smiled back.

The first time the real Darth Averus hinted to Mouse that this would be her final test was over a year ago. It had been only a few months earlier that Mouse truly began to realize exactly how vast and complex her Mistress?s network of spies and contacts really was. There didn?t seem to be a limit to how much information Darth Averus had access to. Every sensitive document she could imagine was filed somewhere. There was even an encrypted collection of datadisks entitled ?Jedi Council Meeting Transcriptions.? Most were unlabelled, but two had ?1st Hand info? written in red, underlined.

[i]Like, first hand?from a Jedi? Master?!?[/i] She dared not bring it up. She wasn?t even supposed to be there. There were lots of places Averus had explicitly stated Mouse wasn?t supposed to be, and Mouse always made sure those were exactly the places she went. It was that survival instinct of her?s. As much as Darth Averus talked about the dangers of the Jedi or the Republic or the Black Sun, Mouse knew the only enemy that posed any real threat to Mouse was Darth Averus herself. That was just how their relationship worked, even if Averus refused to acknowledge it as such. Maybe, she didn?t even realize what she was doing.

Her ignorance ? honest or feigned ? was irrelevant. The effect was the same: Averus taught her by being her enemy. Mouse understood this, clear as if it were written on a wall, and even though she hated it?it worked. By being her opponent, Mouse was learning much faster than she ever had when she was Level?s friend. Even with Lock ? [i]shut up about them. Shut up.[/i]

As someone who was incredibly familiar with trying to find the cracks in Darth Averus?s seemingly perfect defenses, Mouse knew there were some places where looking for weakness was futile. Like for instance, in the woman?s ability to find accurate information.

So when Averus came to her looking furious, and vented to Mouse about how this ignorant ancient hack of a Force Sensitive named Baroness Sarogga, from some backwater called Dolus, had stolen her identity and was strutting around the underworld pretending to be a Sith Lord, Mouse was only surprised that someone actually had the guts to pull such a stunt. That Darth Averus found this out somehow?that wasn?t so surprising.

The real question on her mind at the time ? diligently looking for cracks, as any good opponent should ? was why her Mistress had bothered to tell her that in the first place. The only thing such information could possibly do was undermine the Sith Lord?s status as someone who made no mistakes. What if Mouse concluded that Averus?s carelessness with her identity translated to weakness and decided the time was right to kill her? Even the most perfectionistic dictators in history couldn?t be on guard all the time. Surely she didn?t think Mouse was unwilling to kill her. There was no way Averus was that stupid. In fact, from Mouse?s experience, Averus wasn?t even a tiny bit stupid.

Maybe?maybe this had to do with those stories she told her. The ones about the twins who fought under one of those dusty old Sith Lords from way long ago. Something-Shadow? Naga Shadow, maybe? Whatever. They were called?the Eva Twins. Averus told her all about how they rose to be the most formidable and dangerous women in the galaxy, and how they used their identical features, identical fighting styles, and identical names to help them do it.

Averus had a whole handful of great stories about those two and the battles they seemed to win so easily. Their fighting style was unbeatable, because it was unique. Not only was it unique, it was irreproducible. For what they did was master a style that required two people who were exactly the same. Exactly the same in every way, down to the pores on their skin, to their very presence in the Force. No detail could ever be allowed to be different. If one got a haircut, the other got the same haircut. If one had to make a new lightsaber, the other would destroy her own

 

To quote myself:
*grabs Yod at the throat and shakes him*

Argh! A complete update and not a single step further to knowing what's gonna happen.

Now I'll just hand in here, until the showdown comes.

*hangs in there*

Soon please?

 

My favortie passage in this story in quite a while...

Even though Averus knew how harshly they treated suicide attempts, even though she knew there was no reason to torment him any more ? he had done his job, he should have been left to his fate ? what does she do? She makes it so that he?s so humiliated and so utterly destroyed, he can?t even die. And at that moment, as his own legs give out from under him out of sheer emotional collapse?as he?s rendered speechless at the total undermining of not only his life, but his death as well?Averus mocks him. She mocks him. She mocks him like some cop, drinking caff over a chalk line. As he?s taken off to prison to be worked to death in the brutal suffocating ore mines they will surely sentence him to, the last thing the man hears out of the ?greatly respected? Averus?s mouth is how he?s pathetic.



Mouse would slay the monster and free the world. She would go on to become the most powerful Sith Lord in history. She would unite the galaxy so that there would be no more wars.

And henceforth you shall be known as Darth......Jerry!

I know, I know, your're trying to write drama here. sorry.


Raaaa! I'm with Lanna, all that great narrative and we're still where we were 2 weeks ago!?!?

But great none the less. Now hurry up and write more!