Shadows of the Past

[Jagtai]

Roon
Covenant Citadel
The sanctuary was dim, lit only by the cold, crimson glow of Sith runes etched into the obsidian walls. Silence clung to the air like dust—heavy, ancient, expectant.

At the center of the chamber knelt a solitary figure. Darth Obscurus, Dark Lord of the Sith.

He had endured much. He had watched the rise and fall of the new Sith Empire, seen the Sith Covenant shattered by the traitorous Enclave—led by his own former apprentice. He had even died once, his spirit cast adrift before anchoring itself in a clone body grown in secret.

And yet, through it all, his will remained unbroken. His conviction, unchanged. Even if the years had chipped at the edges of his once-absolute certainty.
Not that he would ever admit it.

Then came the tremor.

The Citadel shuddered violently beneath his feet. From hidden speakers came a cold, mechanical voice: “Warning: The Citadel is under attack. Prepare for immediate defense.”

Obscurus rose in a single, fluid motion, his cloak swirling behind him like ink in water. His eyes burned under the hood. “Who dares?” he hissed.

This sanctuary—his last bastion, his sacred ground—violated. Rage flared within him as he strode from the room, the Force coiling around him like a storm.

Another explosion thundered through the citadel, stronger this time. Obscurus stumbled, clutching a pillar as a spike of agony tore through his mind. He froze.

Then he felt it—like a thousand candles snuffed out at once. The clones. His future vessels. Destroyed.

He bared his teeth beneath the hood, cursing under his breath in the ancient Sith tongue. The interlopers hadn’t just found him—they had planned this. They knew what to strike.

He turned on his heel, moving quickly through the labyrinthine corridors of the dying fortress. He reached the Inner Sanctum, where a black holocron pulsed faintly atop a stone pedestal. He seized it, feeling its darkness thrum in his palm.
There was no more time.

* * * * *

His personal freighter, the Eclipse Serpent, was already powering up as he entered the hangar. Fire bloomed from the far end of the bay. The entrance behind him collapsed, and enemy forces were closing in.

Obscurus leapt into the cockpit, his fingers dancing over controls. The ship roared to life.

* * * * *
He blasted from the hangar just as a turbolaser barrage rained down from the clouds. A swarm of starfighters fell in pursuit, peppering his ship with fire. He jinked and rolled, guided by instinct and the dark side, narrowly avoiding death with every breath. A blast clipped his wing. Sparks flew. Alarms screamed.

Then the stars stretched.

And he was gone.

* * * * *

Obscurus sat alone, breath rasping in the quiet hum of the cockpit. The holocron rested in his lap, flickering with faint red light.

His future had been severed—but not his will. Not his vengeance.

First, he would recover. Then, he would rebuild.

And to do that... he needed to find the one thing he’d long kept hidden, even from himself.

His children…

[Halomek]

Stronghold

The planet known as Stronghold was mostly an unremarkable chunk of rock stuck in the Taldot Sector of the Mid Rim. It had little strategic value, it harbored almost no native life, and it seemed bereft of any valuable resources. The only structure of note ever built on the planet was a modest listening post that the Rebel Alliance and, later, the New Republic had used to try and keep tabs on that part of space.

The planet likely would have been forgotten entirely if not for the fact that it had briefly become the epicenter of the first known Charon incursion shortly after the Battle of Hoth in 3 ABY. Raii Meriaz knew it well. During the War of Darkness, she had led the extermination of the New Republic personnel at the listening post so her master, Sivter, could secretly secure the planet as part of a plan to bring the Charon under his control.

Even though her master’s war had eventually been thwarted and he had met his end at the hands of the cursed Leidias family, Raii still kept an eye on Stronghold. It was part of the legacy Sivter had left her. In this case it was to make sure no one else tried to recreate his work. There were still plenty of Darksiders out there with enough misplaced arrogance in their own power to think that they could be the next Sivter.

However, one mistake with the Charon and it would doom the galaxy.

So Raii had been quite alarmed when her deep cover agent on Stronghold had suddenly failed to check in. Instead she had received a message using the agent's contact code requesting a meeting. It was a clear ploy to lure her out, but Raii had agreed to the meeting against her better judgment. Eliminating one of her agents was no easy feat and she needed to know who was behind it.

***

Raii expertly guided the slim form of the Specter past the capital ships in orbit above Stronghold. The number of ships worried her. The listening post on the surface should only have rated a patrol craft and maybe a squadron or two of starfighters. None of her agent’s reports had said anything about the small fleet, which meant that whoever had eliminated the agent had likely brought the fleet with them.

Fortunately the Specter was packed with stealth functions to make it practically invisible. Raii was able to slip past the fleet and head towards the meeting place without being noticed. The meeting place designated in the message wasn’t actually at the listening post, but in an empty rocky wasteland far away from the base.

The Specter’s long-range scanners picked up a Sentinel-class Landing Craft already at the meeting site and its shields were active. It meant Raii couldn’t just strafe the meeting area and fly away. The Specter wasn’t designed for combat, but even if it had been, the shields of a Sentinel-class were notoriously tough.

With an annoyed sigh, Raii steeled herself to play their game for the time being – at least until she learned who she was dealing with... She landed the ship next to the landing craft, but to the side so its forward-facing guns wouldn’t be able to target the Specter. Once she was on the ground, Raii activated the Specter’s internal security measures before descending down the landing ramp.

A burst of wind ripped at cloak and threated to blow her fine black hair everywhere. Raii narrowed her violet eyes and gripped the garment to keep it from blowing everywhere. There was a lot she kept hidden under the cloak that she didn’t want revealed to the enemy.

As Raii stepped on to the hardpacked rock, she felt the chill of the air around her. It was bracing, but it didn’t compare to the icy calm she felt inside. All she needed was one mistake from this mysterious interloper – one momentary drop of their guard – and she could end this distraction and resume her own agenda.

Raii approached the landing craft cautiously, extending her senses to try and get an idea of what was lurking inside of the other ship, but alarmingly she could sense nothing. According to the Force, the ship was empty.

Even as Raii considered the possibility of a trap, she was taken aback as a lone figure suddenly walked out of the shuttle. The Force still insisted nothing was in front of her, but her eyes told a different story. It was a slim woman wearing a black uniform styled after that of an Imperial officer. She had dark black hair and skin that was a mixture of pale gray and lavender, all set off by a set of piercing green eyes.

She looked almost exactly like Raii herself. The eye color was wrong, the hair was shorter, but otherwise it was a very close approximation.

The stranger spoke before Raii had a chance to say anything. “It’s like looking into a mirror, isn’t it? You have no idea how hard you made my life back during the War of Darkness... Sivter’s apprentice; his favored lackey. I had to hop from one backwater planet to the next to try and find a place where no one knew who you were just so I could live in peace.”

Raii felt her curiosity overwhelm her killing intent. She continued walking closer to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her, but nothing changed. If anything, she seemed even more real the closer Raii got to her.

“What are you?” Raii asked suspiciously. “I’m not in the mood for tricks.”

The other woman smiled and held out her hand. “I’m not a trick. Go ahead and touch me if you want proof that I’m real.”

Raii was severely tempted to just cut the other woman’s hand off, but she restrained herself and instead touched the other person’s palm with her finger. It was solid, warm, with just enough give to be convincingly organic.

It ruled out a few possibilities: she wasn’t a mental projection, she wasn’t a hologram, and if she was a replica droid, then she was one of the most advanced models Raii had ever encountered. A clone perhaps? But then why couldn’t she be sensed through the Force?

“You hide it well, but I see you’re still not sure what to think about me,” the other woman said to her. “I’d be suspicious too if things were reversed. Tell me... how much do you know about your family?”

Raii arched an eyebrow as she anticipated where the conversation was headed. “You’re saying we’re related? Even if I were to believe you, why would you risk trying to contact me now? You just told me how hard I made your life due to my notoriety. Who are you even supposed to be? My mother?”

"Your sister, actually,” the other woman replied. “Your older sister. I was also called Rai, but I changed it to Meri years ago to try and escape any association with you.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s true that I don’t like you, but our leader felt it was important to reach out to you for help in bringing down a monster – our father.”

“A monster?” Raii repeated, amused, as she put emphasis on the word. “I stood at Sivter’s side without a shred of protest as he orchestrated the deaths of billions of lives. Is our father worse than that? I somehow doubt it unless it turns out he’s Darius Malakai or maybe Cadden Blackthorne.”

“There are all kinds of monsters, Raii, and I think you protest a bit too much,” Meri answered her calmly. “I know you’re generally described as a heartless killer, but I’ve heard less terrifying descriptions of you too, like ‘loyal’ and ‘honorable’. You’ve also never been described as taking pleasure in the suffering of others.”

Raii crossed her arms and avoided looking directly at Meri. “That doesn’t make the heartless killer part any less accurate.” She glanced back at the other woman. “I presume my undercover agent here confused you for me and it got them killed?”

Meri nodded back. “To clarify, they took their own life to avoid answering our questions.”

Raii nodded in satisfaction. “As well they should have.”

“Do you wish for retribution?” Meri asked her. “We can take care of that now if you want to challenge me.”

It was a tempting proposition. Raii once again tried to estimate just who her so-called sister was, but Meri’s body posture gave nothing away. She didn’t seem like a fighter, but something about her made Raii uneasy. Her lack of a presence in the Force was the most mysterious thing, but Raii suspected there was even more that Meri was hiding.

"No,” Raii decided. “Their weakness has been dealt with. Just get on with it. Tell me who my father is and why I should care.”

Meri reached into one of her pockets and withdrew a handheld holoprojector. She then activated it to show a still image of a pale man with light gray skin and green eyes wearing a black cloak. “This is our father. He uses the lives of others to sustain his own in a twisted bid for immortality. He’s had many names, but you probably know him best as Darth Obscurus.”

[Jagtai]

It had been a month. Darth Obscurus remained cloistered aboard the Eclipse Serpent, sifting through shadows and half-truths, searching for any trace of his children. He dared not make his efforts too visible—if his enemies were watching, he couldn’t risk alerting them. Fortunately, he had many threads to pull, and he pulled them in silence.

He had activated the Black Shyrack, dispatching their agents across the Outer Rim to sniff out whispers and rumors. But so far, the silence was deafening.

He returned to his old cloning facility—long abandoned, covered in dust and the weight of memory. He walked among the empty vats, laying a gloved hand on their glassy walls. Phantom images flickered in his mind—his children, barely grown, suspended in fluid, eyes closed, unaware of the world they had been crafted for.

Later, he discovered fragments of old holo-recordings: brief, haunting clips. Some showed them sparring. Others—screaming. One simply sat and stared into the camera, silent, unblinking. Something in him twisted. He pushed the feeling down like he always had. But this time… it didn’t stay buried.

“You were not meant to live apart from me,” he murmured aloud, his voice low and uneven. “Not without purpose. Not as people.” Regret crept in uninvited. “How many of you still live? Where are you now? And what have they made of you?”

Then came the dreams.

In one, a child reached for him through the Force. He saw glimpses of what they might become—Jedi cloaked in light, drifters wrapped in storm, or worse: shadows like himself. It was not prophecy. It was possibility. And it rattled him.

In another, he stood in an endless void, silent and cold. A cage made of light floated in the dark, and inside it, a child—no more than five—peacefully built a model starship. As he drew closer, the light intensified until it seared his vision. A voice whispered through the brilliance: “You built the cage, but we learned to live in the light.” He stumbled back into darkness, laughter ringing in the void behind him.

In a third, he wandered a pale forest at twilight. The trees whispered names—familiar, yet indistinct. One bore carvings of faces, each marking an age, a moment. When he placed his hand upon the bark, it grew warm… and began to beat like a heart. Then, one carved face opened its eyes. “You had the power to create us. You never had the right.” The forest withered around him, its branches turning inward—clawing, grasping. Accusing.

Each time, he awoke in silence, drenched in sweat. His breath ragged. And always - always - he found he could no longer recall their faces.

Desperate, he turned to ritual. He called upon the Dark Side to pierce the veil of time and distance - to find them. But the power slipped through him like fire through ice. The ritual collapsed, nearly consuming him in its failure. Only his mastery, honed over centuries, allowed him to tear himself free before the void swallowed him whole.

And yet, something came through. A sensation. Warmth. Distance. And fear. But whose? Theirs… or mine? The thought struck him deeper than any blade.

What is wrong with me?

[Halomek]

Stronghold

Raii looked over the image of Darth Obscurus that Meri - the woman who claimed to be her older sister - was claiming to be her father. She was familiar with Obscurus. On two separate occasions he had tangled with some of the most powerful Dark Lords who had been part of the Cult of Shadow – once with Crix and once with Uvon Okdoro. Despite that, Sivter had never seemed to consider Obscurus to be a threat to his plans.

As she recalled the past, Raii found herself wondering just how much Sivter had known about Obscurus. Her master had barely mentioned the man, but then again Sivter hadn’t been the type to share his knowledge until it served his purposes. It was almost a certainty that he had known more than he had ever said to her.

Finally she looked back at Meri. “I know of Obscurus. He never seemed worth my time to target.”

Meri deactivated the holoprojector with a grimace and repocketed it. “Staying out of the way is partly how he’s survived for so long. The other is his trick for immortality: he has to use other bodies that share his genetics, so he’s mostly just a threat to his own progeny.”

Raii caught on quick. She had to admit the implication was fairly alarming. “In other words, as long as he’s alive, the two of us are at risk of being possessed by him.”

“I wish it was that simple,” Meri said with a shake of her head. “We’re not his only children. Obscurus has spread his influence across the galaxy. We’ve got more siblings and half-siblings out there that he could use to survive. Once he takes over a body, everything they once were is gone forever.”

Raii felt a flash of anger as Meri described the process. She still vividly remembered how she had struggled to survive on the streets of Roon before Sivter had found her. “If his children are so valuable, why was I abandoned? Was I not even considered worth his time?”

For the first time since they had started their meeting, Meri gave Raii a look of sympathy. “You’re not the only one he’s abandoned. If his children don’t meet his standards, Obscurus leaves them to fend for themselves to hopefully get stronger on their own – so they can be useful to him later. Many don’t survive.”

Raii had to admit to herself that it wasn’t that far off from how the Cult of Shadow used to train their recruits, but at least in the cult there was a certain amount of guidance towards progression. There was no deceit about the purpose of it. What Obscurus was doing – had done – felt much worse.

She clenched one of her fists and turned to walk back to her ship. “Fine. Thanks for the warning. I’ll deal with this right now. Nice meeting you.”

Raii was stopped by Meri placing a hand on her shoulder. “Wait! I can’t let you leave!”

In a flash, Raii turned and swatted the hand off of her shoulder. Her next move would have normally been to grab her swords and attack, but she stopped herself from going that far. “Don’t do that again, Meri. No one lays hands on me unless I allow it!”

Meri took a step back to try and defuse the situation. “Fine, I apologize for that, but hear me out. If you kill Obscurus now, he’ll just resurrect in another body. We need to make sure he doesn’t get that chance. We need to make sure his spirit has nowhere to go before we kill him. That’s why I contacted you; to bring you somewhere safe before we take him down.”

“I’ll be fine,” Raii assured her. “Sivter was an expert at absorbing spirits. I know the technique. I’ll take Obscurus’ life and then absorb him. Your problems will be over.”

“You’re neglecting to mention the other side of that technique. If the spirit is more powerful, it can dominate the one trying to absorb it and essentially take over their body,” Meri argued. “Have you even used it before?”

“On... animals...” Raii admitted reluctantly. “The point is I’m better equipped to deal with this threat than you are.”

Meri simply smirked. “You haven’t met our leader yet. No one knows more about Obscurus than him. He’s saved so many of us. Why not speak with him yourself?”

The idea was tempting, the whole reason she had come to Stronghold was to find out more about the people who had interfered in her business. However, she didn’t know what to believe at the moment. She needed time to process everything she had been told and to try and verify it independently.

“I’ve already spent enough of my time here,” she finally said aloud. “Just tell your leader to stay out of my way. I’m too busy to wait around for another chat.”

“You don’t need to wait,” Meri promised her as she took out another device. This time it was a comlink with holoprojector functionality. She then activated the transmitter to display a projection of an armored man wearing what looked like the helmet of an Imperial Royal Guard. The rest of him was obscured by a cloak around his body.

The projection turned to look at Raii. “Greetings, Raii Meriaz. I am the leader of the effort to finally end Darth Obscurus. You may call me Shepherd.”

[Halomek]

Raii eyed the holoimage of Shepherd dubiously. “You may call me unimpressed. You couldn’t even come to meet me in person?”

“Would you have come if I asked?”

“No,” she admitted. “Probably not.”

“Then why would I pursue a plan that would be doomed to failure?” Shepherd asked her rhetorically. “I’m no fool and neither are you. Whether you wish to admit it or not, Darth Obscurus is as much of a threat to you as he is to the rest of his family. Help us take him down for good.”

“I had one master already. I’m not looking for another,” she said with a shake of her head. “Besides, what business is it of yours anyway? Who even are you? My uncle? My second cousin twice removed?”

“I’m someone who despises Obscurus and all that he stands for,” Shepherd answered her. “And I’m not asking you to serve me. I’m asking you to serve with me. There is a difference.”

“Not for me there isn’t,” Raii corrected him. “If that’s all your argument is going to be, then we’re done here.”

The armored figure chuckled. “Very well. I knew you were going to be stubborn and difficult. I can see trying to persist as we are now will get me nowhere. I’ll give you a little time to think about my offer... and a little more proof. Meri – if you would?”

Before Raii could ask what he meant, Meri took out a dagger and sliced it against her palm without so much as a flinch from the pain. The weapon came away with a smear of blood along its edge. She then tossed it to Raii, who caught it almost automatically.

“Analyze Meri's blood,” Shepherd implored her. “See for yourself that we’re telling the truth. We have the same enemy, Raii. We should work together to take him down.”

If Raii was being honest with herself, it was a more reasonable request than she had been expecting from the man. She grimaced at her next words. “Very well, if your claims are accurate... I’ll consider it.”

“I suppose that’s all I can ask,” Shepherd said with a nod. “I look forward to hearing your response.”

The holoprojector then shut down as the transmission ended.

Raii looked back at Meri. “How should I contact you?”

“There’s a contact code etched into the handle of the dagger,” Meri explained. “Use that to send a message and we’ll respond.”

Raii looked down at the dagger’s handle in surprise to see that there was indeed a string of numbers carved into it. “That’s a new one.”

“Shepherd thinks of everything,” Meri assured her. “He knew this was how the meeting would end.”

Raii grunted in annoyance. “Even if everything he says ends up being true, there’s still no chance of me joining you. You know that, right?”

Meri shrugged. “I suppose we’ll find out. We’ll meet again soon, Sis.”

***

With the meeting finished, Raii piloted the Specter away from Stronghold before making several random hyperspace jumps to discourage anyone or anything trying to follow her. Once she was satisified that she was alone, Raii made one last jump, this time making the shift from Realspace into the gray void that was Otherspace.

Even if someone had somehow placed a tracker on her ship, they’d be unable to pursue her into this dimension. She had some things to ponder, some data to investigate, and she didn’t want any interruptions...

[Halomek]

In the depths of Otherspace, Raii stopped the engines of the Specter and let it drift. She wasn’t too worried about being detected by the Charon, but there was no sense in taking chances. Once the ship was adrift, Raii opened up a secret compartment within the ship and withdrew one of the most precious treasures in the universe: the Arcanix holocron.

She set the holocron down on the floor with reverence before activating it. A dark shadow emerged from the projector at the top: a lifesized silhouette of a cloaked figure punctuated only by two glowing red eyes. The dark figure held out a clawed hand before the holocron floated up and appeared to rest within his palm.

It was the primary gatekeeper of the holocron, patterned on her master, Sivter.

“Hello again, Raii,” he rasped. “What is it that you wish to know?”

She didn’t mince words. “I was contacted by someone claiming to be my sister. She told me my father was Darth Obscurus. Did you know anything about this?”

“Of course,” Sivter answered her. “You were under my service for years. It would have been foolish not to learn where you came from. I never told you because it was never relevant.”

“So it’s true,” she summed up, mostly for her own benefit. Her discussion with Meri and Shepherd had admittedly been compelling, but Raii had been secretly hoping it had all been an elaborate lie. She took out the dagger with the sample of Meri’s blood on it and examined the weapon for a moment, pondering what course of action she should take now.

The Sivter gatekeeper noticed the weapon too. “Did you kill them?”

“No, Master,” she replied before moving over to the small analyzing station on the Specter. She placed the dagger under one of the scanners and let the machine do its work. “I was tempted, but I decided to spare their lives for the time being.”

Sivter chuckled at her answer. “How very interesting. Are you becoming sentimental in your older years?”

Raii knew the gatekeeper was just a simulacrum of her old master, but it had been patterned on his memory engrams and it had been programed with the ability to learn and adapt. She didn’t know how advanced it really was, but at times it felt just like Sivter was speaking to her again in the flesh.

“I spared them because they’re more useful alive,” Raii explained. “If everything they said was true, then Obscurus is a threat to our plans. If he ever finds out about the child, everything we’ve been working towards will be undone.”

“A valid point,” Sivter agreed. “Tell me all that has happened.”

Raii took a few moments to sum up her conversation, after which Sivter nodded thoughtfully. “I felt it wiser to leave Obscurus alone as his ambitions were mostly self-contained, but this Shepherd seems intent on disrupting everything. Our work will have to be suspended until this situation is dealt with.”

Raii nodded in deference to the projection of Sivter. “As you wish, Master. Which side should I eliminate?”

Sivter grinned. “Still so quick to resort to violence, Raii. Use this as an opportunity. Proper manipulation and leverage can make an enemy into an asset. The easy choice would be to side with Shepherd, but consider this... it’s rare that a Sith Lord of Obscurus’ power and abilities find themselves in need of help. Don’t overlook the possibilities such a crisis can provide.”

“Helping Obscurus seems needlessly risky, Master.”

Sivter laughed again. “The greatest risks reap the greatest rewards. You choose how to deal with this and I’ll provide you with guidance.”

Raii thought about it for a moment. “I’m going to confront Obscurus. I still think he’s the bigger threat, but I’ll try things your way for the moment. Where do I find him?”

“Roon would be the best place to start,” Sivter said to her. “That’s where he concentrated most of his power.”

Raii grimaced as the planet was named. She really had no desire to return to Roon. It was mostly filled with bad memories. However, if that was where she had to go, then... “Roon it is.”

[Jagtai]

Roon

Obscurus slipped back to Roon, once his spy droid said that it was safe. He landed the Eclipse Serpent at a safe distance, and made his way to the Citadel.

Where once his citadel had loomed, carved into obsidian cliffs like a scar in the world, now only ruins remained. Local carrion birds perched on broken battlements.

As Obscurus entered, he passed beneath the shattered arch of the carved visage of Darth Martal, the founder of the Covenant, now split down the middle.

He didn’t announce his presence. Instead, he stalked his own legacy like a thief in a tomb.

A few fools had moved in: smugglers, scavengers, warlords. Fools. Ignorant fools.

He reactivated an old sub-level passage known only to him, descending deep beneath the ruins - to where the heart of the citadel once beat.

* * * * *

The lower vaults of the citadel were untouched by time or plunder - sealed with Force-locked mechanisms that only responded to his presence.

The temperature dropped as he entered. Frost coated ancient servers and data pylons. Crimson light flickered to life, bathing the corridor in an eerie glow. The deeper he went, the louder the hum of old machines still dreaming in silence.

He finally found the central archive - a massive, ringed hall containing memory cores, holocrons, genetic logs, failed AI constructs, and records of the cloning process. His children’s files were here - redacted even from himself.

As he searched the archives, he realized someone else had encrypted and sealed the records.

He broke through layer after layer, bypassing encryption with raw Force energy, cracking sealed partitions like bones. Each data file retrieved shows fragments - childhood trials, testing phases, psychic profiling. A few logs disturbed him: signs of emergent consciousness much earlier than expected; notes from a now-dead scientist: “One asked if they had a mother. None of us knew what to say."

Eventually, he found the truth: Deep within the archive's cold, humming vaults, Obscurus located a locked sub-directory marked simply: "Contingency Protocol: Variant Disposal."

The file shouldn’t exist. He never authorized a disposal.

As he cracked it open - fire burning in his veins - he found a chain of garbled logs, security footage, and field reports from a former geneticist: Dr. Ves Orlan, long presumed dead. The last log played automatically. It was a flickering holo-recording, the image of Ves barely holding together, her voice strained, shaky:

“He said they weren’t ready. Not yet. That they weren’t to be released into the program. I - I misunderstood. I thought he meant to shut them down. Destroy them. But I couldn’t… I couldn’t do that. They were children. They looked at me like… like they knew. I used the offworld protocols. Randomized drop planets from the old Outland routes—places no one would think to look. Roon, Tatooine, Rishi, Ryloth. Scattered them to the winds. I wiped the logs… but just in case, I left a trace. If you're seeing this, it means he’s come back. And if that’s true... I hope he burns for it.”

The recording ended. Obscurus stood motionless, thoughts swirling.

She thought I ordered their deaths. I meant only to delay them. To perfect them. She took them… and cast them into the galaxy like broken tools. They were never meant to live free. Never meant to live without me. And yet… they did.

The thought hit him harder than he expected: They’ve grown up without me. On strange worlds. As strangers to themselves. For the first time, the idea crept into his mind: What if they’re better for it?

[Halomek]

Raii couldn’t decide if it was a good or bad thing that Roon was exactly as she remembered. After everything the galaxy had been through since Sivter had found her and taken her away from the slums of Nunurra, it seemed as though nothing had changed. The city was still a galactic stew of various Humans and Non-Humans, all going about their business as the ancient buildings crumbled around them. Dirty, dusty, and painted in garish colors to try and disguise the decay.

Some of her earliest memories were of her being dropped off in the city with some other children and then being told to “go explore” only to hear the distinct whine of repulsorlifts once she ran out of sight. She barely remembered the other children that had been with her that day. Had they also been her siblings?

Raii vaguely remembered finding one boy that had been part of their group face down in an alley weeks later, being chewed on by rodents.

She never found any of the others that had been abandoned with her.

After a while Raii had stopped thinking about it as she focused purely on survival. Years went by of nothing but the struggle to survive one more day.

That was until that fateful moment when the shadows in her hovel had seemed to come to life with a pair of glowing red eyes. The living darkness had promised to change her life and take her away from the slums of Roon. It had promised power. Respect! Never again would she know fear or hunger!

All it had demanded in return was absolute obedience.

Sivter had kept his promises. That was always his paradox. Despite being known as a master manipulator, he had always preferred to state the truth. Sivter had always kept his word.

Raii never knew why Sivter had chosen her, but the more she thought about the past, it seemed as though he had come to the planet specifically to find her. Had he known about the children of Obscurus that far back? If so, was there more he had never bothered to tell her?

Those thoughts nagged at her as she hotwired an unattended speeder bike and made for the outskirts of the city.

Raii had been able to gather enough information from the locals to learn about a location that been destroyed by an orbital bombardment roughly a month ago. No one in the town knew why. It had just been a system of caves said to be haunted by spirits. Most assumed it to be the work of drunken pirates.

Raii suspected a different story. The Sith loved to use superstition to hide their places of power from prying eyes. Even though the cave system had supposedly been destroyed, Raii knew enough from the various contingences Sivter had always put in place that it probably wasn’t that simple.

When she arrived the place did indeed seem thoroughly destroyed, but she had been trained by some of the best in the Cult of Shadow – including how to track prey by Vok Ruvege. She found faint imprints in the dust that would have been lost to anyone without an experienced eye. They were recent. Wind and time would have erased them otherwise.

Putting her senses on full alert, Raii ventured deeper into the ruins...

[Jagtai]

Central Archive

Obscurus felt her presence before he heard her steps - a ripple through the Force, sharp and strangely familiar.

Could it be?

Without a sound, he slipped into the shadows.

* * * * *

Lower Gallery

As Raii stepped into the lower gallery, a voice cut through the stillness, stopping her in her tracks:

"You are no scavenger," came the low, resonant voice. "Your connection to the Force betrays you."

Obscurus stepped from the darkness, his gaze heavy with expectation—and suspicion.
"Who are you, girl?"

Raii directed her attention to the sudden appearance of the cloaked man at the other end of the room. It was hard to make out details due to the distance and the poor lighting, but something inside of her told her that she had just found Darth Obscurus. Although Raii had never encountered the man before, his presence still felt familiar to her - kind of like looking at a distorted mirror.

"What a surprise that you don't recognize me," she replied sarcastically. "You really couldn't be bothered to know any of us, could you!? Well, I know who you are, Darth Obscurus, and I'm already disappointed by the encounter."

Obscurus’ eyes narrowed to slits. "You’re one of them. One of my children." It wasn’t a question. He fought the impulse to close the distance between them, his presence coiled tight like a storm held at bay.

"You know nothing," he murmured, reaching into the Force, brushing against her essence. A name came to him, slightly unexpected until he realized how it came about, "...Raii." His brief amusement faded and his tone darkened as he exerted his authority. "Do not presume to judge me, child."

Raii glowered at him. She knew that killing Obscurus wouldn't be ideal. Despite her assurances to Meri, she wasn't confident about trying to absorb his spirit to prevent him from jumping bodies. Still, she wanted to at least humble some of her "father's" arrogance. Walking through Nunurra earlier had brought up memories and feelings she thought she'd long ago discarded.

And she could blame it all on the person in front of her! Raii felt her anger flow through her, imparting power and focus.

"You lost the authority to tell me to do anything long ago!" she yelled at him before dashing forward with lightning speed, her Sith Swords suddenly in her hands. If she could land just one strike, then maybe she could give him a scar that would make sure he'd never forget her name again...

Obscurus shifted one step to the side - precise, effortless - and Raii’s blades carved sparks into the stone behind him. With a gesture, he spun her momentum away from him, sending her sliding across the chamber floor - not violently, but enough to leave her winded.

“You are strong,” he said. “But you wield that strength like a child swings a torch in the dark. Careful, Raii… or you’ll only burn yourself.”

He stepped back. "You want answers? Then ask."

Contrary to Obscurus' taunt, Raii had plenty of energy left. Intense physical conditioning was part of her daily regimen. Her master had expected her to be able to face off against the likes of Tulsar Leidias. Even though both were long dead, she had kept up the training - and she dearly wanted to make her father eat his words, but she also recognized that he was goading her.

If it wasn't Dun Möch, then it was something close to it. As much as she wanted to prove herself, she would be a fool to continue to let him provoke her. Swallowing down her pride, Raii adopted a more casual stance, although she kept a grip on her swords.

"Fine," she relented. "Here's a question for you: did any of your children meet your standards or did you abandon all of them?"

Obscurus froze, the tension in him sudden and absolute. When he finally spoke, his voice was low — eerily calm, stripped of its usual edge. “They would have,” he said. “In time.”

He let the silence stretch a moment longer before continuing, quieter still. “I didn’t abandon my children. A subordinate misread my orders… and scattered you.” His gaze darkened, not with anger, but something older. Regret, maybe.

“You were never meant to be cast aside. Never meant to face the galaxy alone.”

"Even if that's true, the fact is you did abandon them... us..." Raii corrected him. "I was left to survive on my own on the streets of Nunurra over 30 years ago. Where were you in all that time?"

Obscurus didn’t answer immediately. He stood in silence, the shadows clinging to him as he wrestled with a truth he’d buried long ago.

At last, he spoke: "I believed you were dead," he said at last. "My subordinate... she masked your dispersal with a staged pirate attack. The facility was destroyed, and I was told all of you had perished. At the time, I had no reason to doubt her."

A flicker of something almost human passed through his voice. "She thought dispersing you was an act of mercy. She was wrong."

"Maybe it was mercy..." Raii grumbled bitterly. "Let's not overlook the biggest issue here. I have a hard time believing you cared about any of us when I know the truth! Your children were just components to continue your research into immortality. You needed spare vessels to inhabit in case you ever died. Do you still want to claim that you intended to be a good father?"

Obscurus smiled beneath the hood - a faint, unreadable expression tinged with both amusement and something dangerously close to sorrow. "I am Sith, Raii. You were tools - means to an end, nothing more."

He let the words hang in the air like a sentence passed. Then, with a quiet scoff - not of disdain, but resistance to an uncomfortable truth - he added, "yet... something shifted, the older you became. You weren’t supposed to be free. You weren’t supposed to become anything beyond what I needed. And yet, here you are."

His gaze swept over her, inscrutable. "I won’t pretend this was ever meant to be love. But I find myself... curious. Curious to see what you’ve all become."

He gave a slight shrug, as though shaking off the weight of his own admission. "Besides, if I truly meant to take over one of you, I wouldn't have made it difficult. A blank clone is far easier to possess than a soul already forged in fire."

Upon seeing signs of emotional vulnerability from Obscurus, the words of the Sivter AI about making an ally out of an enemy echoed through Raii's head. This was a crucial moment. She could either continue to antagonize her father or try to come to an understanding.

Raii closed her eyes and sighed as she cooled her rage. She then leveled a stare at Obscurus. "At the very least I can respect your honesty. So, tell me this - honestly - does your change of heart mean we've ceased to be spare parts for your research?"

Obscurus looked at her for several seconds. Then: "Yes. You have instead become my legacy, whether I want you to be or not; whether you want to be or not."

"How fitting for you to tell me that here, in the ruins of your citadel," Raii replied as she finally put away her swords. "You've managed to inspire a bunch of your legacies to seek your destruction. They tried to recruit me and I got the impression they're working on tracking down the rest to do the same."

Obscurus smiled - wryly this time, touched with something more human than before. "Is that not the Sith way? The apprentice rises, the master falls. A cycle as old as the Order itself." His voice lowered, no less firm but lacking the icy edge. "But if they believe I will quietly surrender, they underestimate me. I did not endure centuries by letting others decide when I fall."

He studied Raii for a long moment, not just with suspicion - but with curiosity. "You have sheathed your blades, cooled your anger." A faint nod, almost a gesture of acknowledgment. "So tell me, what do you want from me?"

"I sought you out to try to understand you better," Raii said to him. "If I didn't like what I found, I was ready to destroy you. I still haven't made up my mind about that, but I'm intrigued to see if your words about valuing all the children you sired holds true or not. Maybe I can even learn a thing or two from you along the way. Although, to be clear, I have no desire to be your apprentice. There's only one being I will ever call Master. No one else may take his place."

Obscurus nodded. "I have no interest in an apprentice, so we agree there. Though I would appreciate the company of a... daughter. Especially one so accomplished as you." A little flattery never hurt - and he had no doubt that if she had really tried, it would have been an epic battle.