Chapter 121: 121. Chapter

-From the perspective of Nizzal-

From the moment I became Grandmaster, a lot of things have become clearer and also more complicated… It was a traumatizing experience. Similar to the process of becoming an apostle, eye-opening yet sobering, and also very, very disappointing.

The process has shaken me to the core. Methodically uprooting the already scorched remains of my childish fantasies about my order. Destroying such thoughts in the blink of an eye. Only to replace them by cold, calculated logic and a plethora of intricate plans creating a series of impenetrable webs.

This was what happened when I unlocked the sealed memories of a grandmaster. These same memories were sealed into every apostle which had reached its tenth successor. It was a sign of capability and adaptability. Skills that every hypothetical grandmaster needs. However, only one person could unlock the memories at a single time.

Unfortunately, decrypting such dense memories differed completely from simply reliving them, as I did when I inherited the memory line.

It was a chore. Trying to analyze such a wide perspective, which pierced into thousands of likely future scenarios. And created a reaction to all of them. It was dry, complex in a multidimensional sense, as most actions and reactions were interconnected with a series of multiple lines of possibilities, creating an immensely complicated whole.

I only managed to scrape off the surface from the giant nodes of compacted data. Yet the very thought of how much I would have to work before absorbing most of that information made me shudder in terror. Yet from the little I have learned, my world had already turned on itself.

I had to realize that my whole life was planned, and put in motion, by those who walked in front of me. By that I mean first and foremost the grandmasters, and their immortal council.

I was terrified of the raw knowledge, the cold facts, that were laid bare in front of me.

My free will turned out to be theirs, my thoughts were theirs, my life… also… belonged to them.

Becoming the Grandmaster of the Gray Order was nothing more than being enlightened about the dreadful fact that I was a prisoner in my own mind and body. Long since derived from any free will, I was a puppet, which they moved across the galaxy as they desired.

Now, they have even taken the illusion of freedom from me, and ripped it apart into countless little pieces which were soon blown away by the wind, never to be seen again.

Their thoughts have been hammering against my mind since the moment I became grandmaster.

Their expectations echoing through my skull… What I had to do, my obligations towards the order, why I shouldn’t oppose my destiny, that running away would be foolish, and I would become such a disappointment in my master’s eye. Reminding me that I was a tool, but a necessary tool. I received a burden that was needed. That my work was crucial, and only I could do it at this time and age.

I had been groomed to be an existence that was supposed to serve the will of the old masters. In a more literal sense than I could ever dare to imagine.

That my individual feelings and thoughts were of lesser importance. I was not the first, who had to make this sacrifice, they lectured me… and I won’t be the last either. They told me many times…

For a long time, I didn’t want to accept it. I pushed the thoughts away, turned into myself, and tried to close off the voices, stifle the growing guilt in my chest. Alas, the voices would not leave me alone… the constant sense of guilt would never allow me a single peaceful moment, not in my dreams, and neither in my wake hours… not even in a drug induced sleep or meditation was I completely freed from those echoes.

I have suffered through tireless nights, trying futilely to shake off the chains, the additional responsibility of that terrible purpose. To create the illusions of safety and certainty for the entire order… while knowing that most of them were based on half truths and lies… Our greatest achievement… our immortality was a lie, for fuck’s sake!

The voices were scolding me now… telling me to stop being so childish… It was a necessary lie, and I should know it just as well as they did… and it was temporary.

I felt the suffocating pressure growing on me. As I could barely withhold the tears of impotent rage and desperation.

There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The archive was inside my mind, as much of a part of me as any internal organ of my body which I was born with. Now with this knowledge, I understood that even in my death… I would not be freed from those chains that tied me to my Order, to my masters…

In any other time, those thoughts were giving me peace, a sense of certain belonging. But now… it was making me uncomfortable, disgusted even. They have lied to me, lied to every single one of us… and now I will be forced to become another link in their carefully designed plans.

And even when I knew all this, I could not go against their wishes. The voices came down at me with the force of an avalanche. My struggle was weak and hopeless from the start. I was similar to a collared dog tied to an immense tree. I could bark all I wanted, but my teeth could never reach them. My small rebellion was broken and swept out of the way even before my thoughts could properly manifest themselves. I could not plan to turn against the order. The conditioning was too powerful and my mind was already weakened.

My willpower has been slowly eroded from the beginning, just to prepare for this time.

Everything was prepared in advance. My time on Zyggeria… my time in the Jedi temple, even my time with my father, the pirates all… Everything was foreseen, and put in place to serve like gears in the greater scheme of things.

Since I was brought to the Jedi Order, wait… no, even before… since the ritual. No? It wasn’t that either… It must be then, yes… from the day master found me on Ryloth… right? That must be it… right, right?

The voices were silent, for once they were not scolding me or demanding my obedience. They stayed eerily silent, and that told me everything I needed to know.

So it was even before that!

I could feel their influence as they were changing me from the inside, with subtle doses of cunning suggestions, thoughts, and feelings. Just as they did in the grandmaster trials, all of those were to see if I could be molded successfully into the shape they needed me to take. Being a prisoner to the Jedi, then being a slave to a queen, has weakened my willpower just so they could gain influence over me a lot easier. Fulfill the necessary changes faster and more efficiently. That was what mattered the most.

A strained smile crossed my face as my eyes became hollow. It was too much… this was too much… I wanted to cry… Yet I was not alone here… I can’t allow myself to scare the others so suddenly… They don’t know what I am thinking of… they can’t understand this responsibility, this pressure…

Suddenly, I felt envy towards them. How lucky and ignorant they were… Why couldn’t I go back to be a simple apostle… or… or maybe just an insignificant orphan girl… or even a slave on Ryloth?

The voices were in an uproar.

How dare I humiliate their legacy, their trust, and the sheer effort they put into me? And I felt a sharp pang of guilt… maybe they were right… I wouldn’t want to be a slave, or an orphan anymore… that was a shameful exaggeration. I regretted it with a wince of shame for even entertaining the idea.

The voices calmed as well. They were mollified now. Still, they were thinking about how to punish me for disgraceful thoughts. Thinking of punishment… I was starting to feel annoyed again.

They have punished me once already, more like half of my life was a punishment or a trial for something. I smirked…

Based on those experiences, resisting too much is not wise, a little is easily overlooked, but doing anything with an actual threat is stupid. An obedient girl is allowed to have some leeway, while a naughty one needs to be punished.

When I first showed my intentions to oppose some of their wishes, I was isolated from everyone in Unity. Guarded all the time and rarely allowed to meet with anyone… especially one of my few friends. Of course, they told me that it was to help me figure out my new eye technique…

Bullshit; it was a warning that reminded me of my weakened state and how much I depended on them. Naturally, I knew that it was true in both directions, but I couldn’t influence their personality and thoughts, while they could mine. In exchange, they could not physically influence my physical actions, but they had enough people to do that in their place.

Because of that, I was desperate to leave Unity… A thought that before being a grandmaster would never even occur to me. The irony…

Then, as if to answer my pleas, Anakin came to my room and asked me to bring him back to Coruscant. Because of his bothersome visions of her wife's being in danger, visions similar to the time his mother suffered under the hands of the sand people. Even though I understood the fact that I could not run away for long either way… the temptation was too large… so we sneaked away secretly, in the middle of the night.

The voices only told me that they were disappointed at the time… but they have not sent the guards after me. Not immediately. It was not like I could escape from them, anyway…

On the other hand, I realized that Anakin’s visions were an obvious attempt from the light side to pull me into galactic conflict at last.

However, it was in line with the needs of the Gray Order. We could not allow the jedi to perish and to be honest… I couldn’t give a shit for that back then. In the end, I had no proper choice. I never had to begin with.

The light side wanted to preserve itself against the darkness… The inevitable doom of the Jedi Order was long since revealed to us. So we had to intervene, which I already did. That was my part in my master’s plans. Using me to drop hints in the Jedi Order for their masters and, in the meantime, open their eyes to the presence of a powerful Sith Lord.

My master’s plans worked out perfectly. And the Jedi Order prevailed, injured and possibly broken, but still holding onto its position in the Republic, and the Sith had been evicted from the shadows, now fighting in an open war against the light. One that was a lot more disadvantaged for them.

While playing around in Coruscant, I couldn’t help but feel my thoughts on this matter slowly changing. Eventually, my feelings of disgust and the sense of abhorrence of being used in such a manner abated. Even now, I am starting to accept it. I belong to the Gray Order. I always belonged to them. Just as I was always chained to my master’s whims, it was my fate…

The longer it takes for me to accept it, the harder it will be…

But then, if it was all so good and dandy… why manipulate everything to the smallest of details around me? The answer was obvious… because nobody, from their own intentions, would ever desire to be cornered into such a miserable position.

Power was one thing, yes… I had power and influence, more than I could figure out what to do with. Yet, that very power and the responsibility connected to it had chained me, and tied me up so tightly… that doing anything with it had become an inhuman effort in itself.

Now I started to feel envy towards the Sith, that they could use their power without giving the slightest thought to the consequences. Their freedom seemed truly alluring for the first time in so many centuries.

The thoughts had seemed to touch something buried deep inside my heaving chest, a rabid disgust leaked back into my body, but it quickly abated, it was forcefully suppressed by something else… and I could not find the strength anymore to grasp at the feeling, to harness it and fuel my hatred with the emotion… There was nothing to grasp, in its place anymore.

They have suppressed my anger. Dispersed it or redirected it… it didn’t matter.

A grandmaster must not allow her emotions to control her decisions.

The voices scolded me again.

A sense of utter helplessness arose inside me.

I wanted to shake off the weight of those chains stubbornly attached to me. The chains that were always there, but I could never notice them. It was heavy and suffocating, painful even. And it was getting heavier by the days. Even now… I could not refuse them… I could not run. I was the bridge, connecting the will of the immortals with the will of the living.

The only other person who knows.

The only other who could understand what was at stake.

What you need to realize is that the force speaks and acts with the world through the body of every true apostle, and with every force sensitive. An apostle is only truly considered such, after she or he has successfully gained its first memory inheritance.

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However, the Grandmaster was a lot more unique than a simple apostle. The Grandmaster was the knower of the truths… However harsh those truths were. And there were many such things… like the Chamber of Sleepers… Where three tenth generation apostles were meditating, permanently frozen in time itself. Only to serve as a foundation to the Immortal Grandmasters council members.

Frozen similarly as Master Cil-Cil Muz has accidentally managed to freeze himself in the past. Except, they could not wake from their own will, only through the help of an outsider, undoing the ritual put in place about two thousand years ago. They were to ensure the existence of the core of the immortal council and grandmasters… Even if all other apostles died, they would remain still, allowing some of the most influential and wisest immortals to exist.

And they naturally did it voluntarily. However, who is to tell if they were not made to be volunteers? In fact… Who is to tell, that I will not be forced to join them, if I dared to act too troublesome in the eyes of my masters? The thought alone made me want to scream. Yet I needed to stay calm… silent…

The voices reassured me that the grandmaster was not someone who could serve in the Chamber of Sleepers. There could not be two grandmasters at the same time.

Finally, some good news.

The weight of the truths about my order was heavy… and I could not swallow them easily. Even with their mind influence… I could not accept all of them, and I will not.

It did not bother them… I only needed to fulfill my duty not to believe in it.

Fine, I will do my duty… Through all the lies and manipulation, I still loved this order… even when I was not certain anymore, if that love originated from me, or was planted into my heart with careful deliberation. However, I didn’t dare to think about that… The possibility was too terrifying for the current me.

They were the ones who saved my life. I clung to the thought, trying to calm my emotions. In that sense… my life truly belongs to them. But, I don’t have to agree with all of their methods… and I will not.

I sighed deeply, looking at the broken droid, and feeling an unnatural anger rising in me…

I have already agreed to serve as your hand in this world. I have accepted to do what you expected from me… It took some time, yes… but I did so… Then… why is there an assassin droid trying to kill me? Was that not enough for you? Was I not obedient enough? Are you trying to discard me now? I… I apologize, okay?

I felt my breath quickening while kneeling next to the destroyed droid. My hands clasped into small fists tightly…

The voices were silent once again.

They tended to do that, at times I wanted to hear their answer… The bastards.

I was brought out of my trance by the sharp noises of bending and breaking metal. Followed by a pair of scared squeaks from the girls looking at me with worried, tense expressions. I quickly realized that I had lost control. My anger was leaking out, which was slowly bending the metal body of the droid…

I had to force myself to calm down…

-Take a deep breath, and try to relax.

I whispered to myself.

Anyway, this is why it is impossible for an apostle to betray the order… Although, the apostles don’t know the true weight of their memories… they still understand on a subconscious level how important guarding them is.

The inherited memories are not simply memories… they are true and unique existences that do not wish to disappear. Even if their current life is lacking in certain aspects, it could still be called living, in a certain sense. Their voices, and wishes, could certainly drive you mad… but they could help you just the same, or influence your thoughts in subtle ways. Making you think that their ideas were your ideas and plans.

You can’t get rid of them, and they want to exist. Therefore, any apostle to betray the Order would mean putting a knife against their own throats.

And that is why it should not be possible.

But what does this droid mean? Could it be a mere accident? Someone might have reprogrammed an old model, but the serial number and the signet placed on it clearly puts this unit under the order’s army…

It is unlikely for someone outside of the order to get their hands on this… unlikely but not impossible. Still, it would be a very complicated endeavor.

Could this whole situation be a punishment for me running away from Unity?

Are they trying to threaten me with my friends’ wellbeing this time? That seems like a low blow, but something like that would completely fit their repertoire.

But these people, who are here with me, I barely know the lot of them. They are definitely not someone I would call friends.

In the end it seems that I didn’t understand anything.

A sudden commotion filled the surrounding chamber, and as a result I looked up, finishing my ravings for now, only to find myself in a distantly unfamiliar situation.

There were a bunch of strangers pointing guns in my direction, while my companions were standing between me and them. Lightsabers activated. While everybody was shouting and roaring at each other in a chaotic manner. Insults and threats were thrown left and right, but miraculously no weapons were fired in the entire time.

My eyes slowly took in the situation, then a high-pitched voice shouted over the rest, creating a strange silence for a few seconds.

The next thing I knew was a blurry orange mess jumping in my neck and hugging me tightly. A faint, but familiar scent reached my nostrils, my head still pulsing under the earlier brainstorm and whirlpool of emotions.

A cold and dreadful suspicion clawed into my guts, making my entire body shake with it.

My mouth opened, and I asked in a whisper.

-Is… is this you, Ahsoka?

I asked, disbelief coloring my voice.

-Of course it’s me, don’t be stupid!

Came the answer immediately, and I was feeling her arms tighten around me even further.

I felt faint.

I didn’t know what was going on. Why would Ahsoka be on Korriban? Wasn’t she supposed to be with the order… wait… A dreadful thought assaulted me. Could they really… could they really want to threaten me with my friend? With the life of my only real friend? I wasn’t willing to accept that thought. Why would they do it? They were already winning against me…

No, no, no… there must be a different explanation!

But what other explanation could there be? No, I shouldn’t allow myself to come to such hasty conclusions.

But if that was the case, then why were the voices still silent?!

A man’s annoyed and gruff voice interrupted my thoughts.

-Geez… so you know each other? Ha! This is… ridiculous…

I glared at the unfamiliar man.

-Now why are you looking at me like that… Sigh…

He rolled his eyes, then continued.

-Fine, I am sorry for interrupting your sweet reunion… or whatever this is… But would someone explain to me what the fucking hell is actually going on here? What’s next? Is it going to rain frogs from the sky?

I could feel my expression changing from an icy glare into a confused, distressed look. He was clearly annoyed by the change.

-I mean… my Sith language skills can’t be that bad, or can they? I read Sith Academy on the walls before we came here… not Sith Kindergarten… however, now I find a bunch of dirty little girls waving lightsabers in front of my face… and…

His eyes wandered to Lily, giving her a frustrated look, while taking in his wings with a new level of caution sneaking onto his stony expression. Then he said with a flare of anger.

-And… I don’t even know what that thing is!

As a reaction to this, Lily blinked, then downcasted her eyes, looking in front of her toes with a somewhat sad expression. The man didn’t care though as he refocused his gaze on me and asked.

-So what now? Am I intruding on some Jedi school trip without knowing? Because I am seriously starting to feel like that…

I looked at the man, then back to the other people, who were still holding their weapons at the ready.

I confirmed that I had absolutely no idea what was going on. And I didn’t feel the strength in me to handle this bullshit right now. I felt utterly lost, so I turned towards the rest of my companions with a pleading expression, mouthing silently.

Would you help me out, please?

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