Chương 112: Path of Ruin [Star Wars SI] by Rictus
A great swotr sı story highly recommend it
Words: 200k+
Link: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/path-of-ruin-star-wars-si.541256/
Prologue
You would become Sith, or die trying. That's what Overseer Iren said when we landed on Korriban.
Guess I should rewind a bit and explain how I got here.
To make a long story short, I don't know how I came to be in Star Wars. I just woke up one day with a shock collar slapped to my neck on some hellish dust ball. Turned out, it was a cortosis mining camp on a Sith-controlled world and I was a slave.
I didn't get any flashes of memory from another life or anything, so I had to ask around carefully about who I was after I regained control of myself. I got some strange looks, but they told me. Turned out I had a different name and homeworld, yet my body was still physically the same. Minus the brand on my face. I had just arrived, burns still fresh.
Aldrex Zare, former citizen of Brentaal IV. It took a while for me to get used to responding to that name. Well, on the rare occasions when it got used. Most times I was just referred to as "slave" or "hey you."
It didn't take long to figure out when in the timeline I was after a Harrower-class dreadnought stopped by for refueling on its way to somewhere else.
Of course, I was terrified out of my mind. I'd jump at shadows or flinch and cower every time someone approached. I didn't sleep for days at a time. Barely nibbled at food.
One of the other slaves, an older Zabrak, tried to reach out to me. But I ran and hid from him. From all of them. This irrational terror (and that's exactly how I see it now) continued for weeks. I dropped weight like it was made of concrete and freaked out at the slightest touch.
By the end of the first month, I was little more than trembling skin, bone, and poorly-developed muscle barely able to do the work I was assigned.
I think the guards were amused, but their supervisor had them force-feed me to keep me alive. A half-dead slave couldn't work, especially a heavy labor slave. I would appreciate his pragmatism months later.
As Yoda once said, fear led to anger. After I regained proper cognizance, I was angry. Angry at my enslavement. Angry at being afraid. Angry at anything and everything. My temper was on a hair-trigger. I wasn't stupid though, so I didn't try to take out said anger on anyone else. I had no desire to feel what it was like to get an electrical shock directly to my spinal cord. Still, the other slaves apparently sensed it and kept away.
I recovered from my terror-induced stupidity and actually took care of myself, exercised when I could. I was never a large man as I stood a few inches shy of six feet tall, but I was stocky. Heavy labor just made me fill out.
Rage fueled me for a while, but I needed to blow off steam before I did something stupid. Directionless anger didn't help me, so I vented on the poor unsuspecting rocks. It worked for a while, until something happened.
I don't remember what it was that set me off that day, but my anger spiked as I was hammering away. Before my eyes, my jackhammer let out a squeal as giant invisible fingers crushed it into scrap.
I was so surprised that I didn't try to resist when the guards found and beat me later for "damaging equipment." To untrained eyes, it looked like I just went at it with a rock. Luckily, none of the camp's personnel were Sith, so they couldn't tell the difference.
I also didn't mind that I wasn't trusted with power tools after that. I was given a pick-ax and told to get back to work.
My accidental use of the Force snapped me out of my months-long rage. I needed to figure out how I did that. I wanted to learn how to use the Force just for the sake of it. It was something to break the monotony.
So I practiced while mining away from the others, using the Force to crush rocks and pick out the bits of cortosis. I got good at it, too. The guards' expressions of confusion when I brought in the largest haul fueled pleasant dreams for days.
I learned quickly, despite my fumbling. Just getting angry wasn't effective. Anger could be used to give me sudden spikes of power, but it gave me tunnel vision. I had more consistent results when I willed something to happen. Effectively, I metaphysically demanded something. And reality eventually complied.
Telekinesis was easy to learn once I figured out the trick. It was moving progressively heavier things that took effort. I thought about trying to practice other abilities, but I didn't think I could do so safely. What if I tried to read someone's thoughts, overpower it, and accidentally cause a brain hemorrhage? I didn't want to take the risk and expose myself yet.
I acknowledged that it would be inevitable that I'd be found out. I might as well have a really good trick by the time it happens.
I thought about using my newfound powers to help a slave revolt. But when I started seriously considering it, I couldn't bring myself to care. I wasn't attached to any of the slaves. I didn't really hate the guards that much. But above all, it wasn't pragmatic. Even if it was successful, there were no hyperspace capable vessels on planet. Those came to us. The Sith would simply bombard us from orbit and restart the operation.
The odd thing was that I wasn't angry anymore. I could still get angry, but it wasn't a constant state. If I had to describe my mindset in a word, it would be "detached." I wasn't apathetic, at least towards my own well-being.
So a few more months passed. Then the Sith governor paid his annual visit.
I made up my mind quickly. I gave in to the inevitability and let myself be found. When he and his entourage confronted me, the pride and bluster gave way to surprise as he came upon me meditating while lifting four of my fellow slaves. I set them down and presented my hands for the cuffs.
Then, I was out among the stars for the first time in my life.
But if I am to be Sith, it will be defined by a code of my own choosing.
"There is no passion. There is solely obsession.
There is no knowledge. There is solely conviction.
There is no purpose. There is solely will.
There is nothing. Only me."
Around fifteen hundred years from now, Darth Ruin will base his resurgent Sith Order upon those words. To him, they represented his views of moral nihilism and solipsism, a madness derived from his narcissism. To me, it is a guideline towards endurance.
A Sith requires an obsession to remain focused. Darth Vader, after losing everything, retained his sanity by obsessing over enforcing order upon a chaotic galaxy when blind rage failed him.
A Sith requires conviction to push forward. Darth Bane toppled the Brotherhood of Darkness single-handed by forging his own path against all odds and sense.
A Sith requires willpower to survive. Darth Sion arose from the dead again and again by simply refusing to die, with little more than bloody-minded determination fueling him.
In the end, my path…Others may guide it, but I alone choose where to walk.
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A/N: I have no idea what prompted me to start this story.
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