A group of Reformed Sith led by Awgro entered the room and lowered the containment field. Fane lunged forward only to fall back down, drained of the Force and feeling the drain of life at the same time.
            ‘You are powerless, Fane,’ said Awgro. The Chagrian was with him, and so was the mysterious masked man, along with several others.
            ‘With what? Six of you? It takes six of you to ensure I can’t defend myself? That qualifies me as more powerful than each of you.’
            ‘Make sure he can’t move,’ said Awgro.
            The Sith held him down as well as drained the Force from him. Anything that had replenished itself was now being drained anew. Fane gritted his teeth as he lay helplessly, flat on his stomach.
            Awgro bent down and held a cupped hand above Fane, draining him of life. Fane felt weak, pained, and he resisted the urge to close his eyes, perchance he might not wake up. He simply stared at Awgro. The Sith began to strain. Finally, he let go, jolting backwards.
            ‘So the rumours are true, then. I cannot drain you completely of your life because you cannot die. The secrets that Perce had unlocked have now been discovered by you.’
            ‘If you wanted to kill me,’ said Fane, ‘you’d know exactly where to strike me and I would be helpless to stop you. So you want me alive. Why?’
            ‘I want to take your life away from you,’ said Awgro. ‘Seeing as we have you and not your Mandalorian husband, I figure why not.’ He inclined his head.
            ‘You can’t take my life away from me,’ said Fane, ‘as long as I’m alive, you’ve not taken it away.’
            ‘Don’t be so sure about that,’ spat Awgro. ‘I will take it all away, you will see, everyone will see.’
            Fane scowled. ‘What are you planning on doing to me?’
            Awgro smirked but did not answer. ‘Drain him,’ he commanded the other Sith. He left the room.
            Fane struggled to fight back but pinned down as he was, he was indeed helpless. He could sense the Force Drain being used to keep him from moving, and he could sense amusement from one of the Sith. It came from the same Sith from earlier, the masked figure. Fane heard a chuckle coming from behind the mask.
            Now that Fane studied him more carefully, this masked Sith matched the descriptions the other had given him of the masked Sith aboard Relsor’s flagship, and Fane could sense his power.
            The Sith surrounding him drained him for a long time, and after a time, Fane could barely feel the pain anymore, it had numbed his entire body, as though subdued, yet still jolting him.
            When the group of Reformed Sith were done with him, they left. Fane felt weak, tired, drained. He panted a few times.
            ‘Is this how you felt, Shadie, when Relsor was draining you?’ he asked himself aloud. ‘Kriffing kark, I understand how you felt now.’
            Fane turned over onto his back and took a few deep breaths. He barely managed to sit up; he leaned against the wall. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes; even breathing was a struggle. He had been thinking about reaching out to the others with the Force before the Sith had entered the room, but somehow he felt so tired, he could not bother to focus. Instead, his mind was boggled by Awgro’s words. It created a headache, but he did not even have enough energy to scowl at the pain, for even that was too taxing.

Continue reading Chapter Eleven

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Fane fell to his knees as the Sith dragged him along and into a circular room, where several other Sith sat with Awgro in the centre. It looked like a meditation chamber of some sort. Fane ignored the friction burn he felt on his knees. He took the time to catch his breath.
            Awgro stood, as did others, and walked towards Fane. Awgro scowled.
            ‘I thought you were going to bring back Talyc Kandera!’
            ‘He proved more difficult to capture than we anticipated,’ replied one of the Sith holding Fane.
            ‘More difficult to capture than a Jedi?’ Awgro snapped incredulously.
            ‘He had help! Shadie and Knarf arrived at the scene.’
            ‘Well, I suppose Fane will do. He’s not going to help me claim the Crypt, though, is he?’
            ‘We could use him as leverage,’ another Sith said. ‘We’re not going to claim or gain anything without some of that too.’
            ‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Awgro.
            ‘You know, for a leader, you’re awfully lenient,’ said Fane, defiance in his voice.
            ‘That’s because the Reformed Sith have no leader,’ said Awgro. ‘We work as one, and follow the dark side of the Force as it should be.’
            ‘What are you going to do to me?’ asked Fane.
            ‘That is a matter that is up for debate,’ replied Awgro.
            Fane frowned. ‘I’m more powerful than you, Awgro. I killed Relsor.’
            A masked Sith standing further back made a noise in his throat.
            ‘That you did, but we’ll see how powerful you are once the Force has been completely stripped from you.’
            Awgro ignited his lightsaber and grazed Fane’s arm, ripping his shirt in the process. Fane moaned in pain, putting his hand on the wound to cover it up and holding it there.
            ‘My best shirt. You certainly have timing, to plan this coup on my wedding night!’ Some of the Sith snickered. ‘But you know what? You can never fully strip me from the Force because I have the power of the Crypt and you don’t. I will always have a piece of the Force within me, no matter what.’
            Awgro crouched to look at Fane at hise eye level. ‘Maybe what you say is true, Fane, but you see, I will take your life away from you, I will take everything away from you. I want that Crypt and I will have it. And my companions want the galaxy they were promised, no matter how they get it.’
            ‘If this is about avenging Relsor’s death–’
            ‘This is not about revenge!’ one of the other Sith said firmly, a tall male Chagrian of a pale purple colour. He took Fane’s face and squeezed his cheeks hard. ‘This is about rectifying the error you made and correcting the course of the Force to balance it out towards the dark side.’
            ‘Balance? Pfft! You want to tip the scales!’
            The Chagrian narrowed his eyes and began to drain Fane of the Force again. He seemed to be the strongest in that ability among the rest of them. Awgro began draining Fane of his life. Then they both stopped.
            ‘Let’s lock him up,’ said Awgro. ‘We’ll figure out what to do with him later.’
            The Chagrian nodded and stood. ‘Take him away,’ he said.
            Fane was dragged by the arms out of the room and propped up. He staggered into a room with containment fields and was thrown into one of the smaller cells. The containment field came up. He observed how Awgro and the Chagrian seemed to have the most authority, though they claimed they had no leaders. This was odd, yet perhaps they decided things as a council but with spokespersons.
Fane watched the Sith leave. One of them, the one who wore a mask over his face and hood over his head, turned back to look at him for a moment. Fane tried to get a sense of the man who merely stood there watching him before he turned back and exited like the others.
Fane lifted his hand from the wound on his arm and looked under the rip in his shirt. He sighed in relief. Although he still felt remnants of pain, the mark was gone; there was no cauterization whatsoever.
            ‘Healed,’ he whispered to himself.
            He closed his eyes. Even drained from the Force, his body could regenerate. He focused and tried to muster the Force within him, however much of it that had not been drained, the little bit that was still there. He tried reaching out to the others, but he could not find them in the Force. He focused on Lian, but the Jedi healer felt too distant for him to feel him. So Fane turned his focus on the Sphere, he felt it searching for him, he felt it more strongly than he could feel the others, he assumed it was because of its own abilities. He let himself shine like a glowing beacon for it, ready to be found, calling out to it through the Force as loudly as he could, hoping it would sense him and find his location, wherever that actually was.

Continue reading Chapter Ten

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