The Apprentice (Hawkins)

He was a most unusual man, but the wealth of emotions contained within his artificial carapace were a mine of corusca gems when it came to the Force. After training him a little, and then leaving him to his own devices for weeks, Lilaena knew what little patience the man had would be gone.

So, out of the Mandalorian armor, she slipped back into the City during the night and went to his house. The three story building was not burnt to the ground, which was good, but he appeared not to be home. A quick search of the premises confirmed her initial accessment. Lilaena narrowed her eyes, and took a seat in a chair that looked relatively clean.

She waited.

The door slammed open as Grime entered his humble abode. He dropped the bag carrying the recently bought food substances and looked to the stairs. The door had been tampered with since he had left, the small debris had been disturbed at his door step. And the path leading up the stairs also showed signs of another's presence. Not to mention the motion sensing alarms he had set up last week had cut his shopping excursion short.

His voice was dry and raspy, and when raised to a shouting volume, it sounded more like a dying beast being drug through shards of broken glass.

"State your business, trespasser, or I'll step outside and blow the explosives I've got hidden throughout the building. And there is only one way out."

Most would assume he was bluffing, and in earlier days, he would have been. But these days, Grime saw Hutt spies at every corner and traitors behind every gaze and even the children that played stones at his door step were suspect. He knew where they lived and in what room they slept and had determined he could throw a thermal detonator through their windows. One of those windows would prove effective enough to kill both of them actually. And their families. The explosives were incredibly deceptive as well, tricks of the trade from his past life and crawling up the ladder of the underworld hierarchy. He'd sealed and shut off all the windows and set up a few nasty traps for anyone who thought the ventilation shaft would be a good entrance/exit. And he was already stepping back.

"And here I thought you might be glad to see me," she answered. "My intention is to teach you what I can, though if you'd rather blow me up, then by all means."

Lilaena got up and walked to a doorway, presenting herself to her student. "You did well in the jungle to follow and not be discovered by the Mandalorians."

"Rot you green eyed sycophant. First the Mandalorians, now the Onderon government, who else do I have to wait around for you to make nice with?"

He'd had plenty of time to think and the appearance of De'Ville with her Mandalorians in tow had set a few gears to work in the contraption of conspiracies and hatred that imprisoned Grime's mind. Hawkins, in his previous life, had strived for power and knew the complications it took. No one accomplished great things alone. Hawkins had done nothing to really further her agenda so far, so who else was involved?

"Today the Mandalorians, tomorrow... the galaxy." She didn't smile. He hated her. She could feel it almost like an aura around him. But he was still here, and that meant something.

"I will not put up with people wasting my time, and I am sorry that it appears to you that I have been squandering yours. I assure you that is not the case. The... thing with the Mandalorians came up suddenly." Her eyes didn't waver from his sickly stare, in his too smooth face. "I am only here on Onderon at all because of what lies above us on Dxun. To gain access to it without causing an official disturbance was taking too long. Salem Ave, the Prime Minister, offered me what I want, and I got him what he wants. World peace. This world, at least."

Lilaena continued on before Hawkins could get a word in edgewise. "This ultimately benefits you, of course. On the Demon Moon is a tomb of an ancient Force user. There are objects of great power up there, and I intend to go and discover the source. Something to give us both more power than you can imagine."

The idea of stars going nova and the galaxy roasting in five seconds of absolute destruction flashed through his mind.

"Of course. The Prime Minister? I've heard he's slick. Too slick. In fact, the palace is rampant with rumors of queens and princesses and generals. It all smells of royal breeding and stale incest to me."

The image of the "Jedi" standing before him didn't seem to be the same one that wore the armor of Mandalore, the leader of the surviving remnants of warmongering hordes, the Mandalorians. Outside of the armor even now, she looked more vulnerable, weaker than the image she was allowed to present within the facade of Mandalore. The facade, yes, because Grime knew what was beneath. And as history had shown, Jedi were not immortal.

Grime had been experimenting with his powers and he was still unsure of his limits and how they compared to De'Ville's. He had learned that reaching his limits not only called upon his mental endurance but caused his body to wretch painfully, leaving his fragile corpse within the exoskeleton to hours of reality rupturing pain. He still didn't know if she could read his mind or even how to do it; he expected that she was keeping it a secret from him. She was using him; Hawkins knew from example, she was obviously skilled at the methods. Where he necessarily fit in when she could read his mind and see how many ways he planned to kill her in his restless dreams was still unknown to him. And that put him at a state of paranoid vigilance at all times, awaiting the moment when everything flipped, the treason happened upon the traitor. Like before.

"I'm so glad you can relate to my position and I accept... your apology... Master. When do we leave?"

Hawkins didn't believe she was done with Onderon at all. They wouldn't just retreive the artifacts and then leave. But he would like to see how obligated she had suddenly become. And how much longer he'd be rotting in wait. His weary gaze, held aware by the nagging pain of living, anticipated her answer.

"We are leaving in two days, for Coruscant. A little... on the job training." She leaned against the door jam. "I have explained you to Bretak, my second-in-command, and you are welcome to live in the wilds with the Mandalorians upon our return. But if you prefer to stay in Iziz, that is your choice, though it may lengthen your training."

Lilaena straightened up, adding, "I want you to accompany me to Dxun, and you will have to be able to protect yourself. It is a hundred times more deadly on the moon than it is here on the planet." She nodded towards the wall where an antiquidated fireplace was built. "Your most apparent skill is telekinesis - you use the Force to heat the air instinctually. Exciting air molecules, et cetera." She waved her hand dismissively, "I am sure you have figured that much out already. By drawing on the pain and anger that this causes you, you can amplify the effects, make things hotter, start controlled fires."

She looked pointedly at the fireplace, where a jumble of garbage had collected.

Grime's flesh beneath his white face twitched but the movement didn't breach the surface as his gaze followed hers to the fireplace. Again, simple tasks that felt so pointless but he had to recognize as ultimately furthering his training. The concept that he even had to train irritated him. He didn't deserve to be any lower on the ladder than he had become. Was torture and being cast down from his throne not enough?! He had to start anew at something he had never imagined was within his grasp but the conclusion promised such an advantage, what was there to deny it. How he craved the absolute power of the Jedi that he might do what they had been too weak to accomplish their own revenge after the Empire had ran them to the edge of extinction.

The air began to feel thicker, Grime's skin itched in response to the discomfort and the perpetual cycle began. The convolution of frustration to anger to hatred to craved promises of conclusion and then back to the frustration was a cyclical process that turned Grime into a furnace of seething energy. He could never feel where it came into him. He'd heard enough from the few Jedi he dealt with that the Force was everywhere and everything but Grime only knew that it came from him and him alone; nothing else gave him such power but his own raw passions, his suffering. A wave of molten lava that left a wake of icicles ran through his mind as the furnace began to churn, how it tried to overcome him at times. But direction, focusing on something helped immensely as Hawkins found the reigns to his unbridled hatred and it would cease devouring itself and seek to mutilate his target.

The garbage stirred, as if caught by a wind. The fact that immediate results weren't coming only made Grime's disposition worse and the immediate temperature around him continued to rise. His eyes glassed over similar to someone's eyes that might water if too dry and his fingers twitched uncontrollably; small slivers of pain worked themselves throughout his body, as if hot steel wires were being run between the connecting tissue of his muscles all over.

What good did this do you before? You watched them all die, and did nothing, and then you died. And now you have such a power? You deserved that death.

As his own thought finished degrading himself, the garbage stirred again before combusting. The flame exploding up and out of the fireplace as the oxygen rapidly fed the sudden ignition.

Her eyes seemed to glitter in the sudden firelight, and Lilaena nodded slowly. "Excellent. Of course, creating fire in a fireplace isn't good for more than a simple parlour trick. Creating fire out of nothing, however..."

She held her hand out in front of her, palm up, and stared at the space above her palm. After a moment the air seemed to shimmer with heat as she manipulated air molecules, exciting them to action. Then the air flamed up, a roiling ball of fire. Lilaena let it burn for a while, then it winked out of existance. "Can you see what I am doing?" Some Force users could see how things were done, others had to be shown repeatedly and told.

She began to repeat the 'trick,' instructing Grimes as to how she created it. When she was done, the fireball extinguished itself once more, and she leaned against the doorframe again. "Now, you do it."

"Now, you do it."

As if it were that easy. He had watched and listened and it 'sounded' so easy. For the first time though, he could see the darkness, how it twisted and writhed into reality from nowhere and became the small ball of flame hovering abover her hand. And then she just wanted him to do the same thing? This wasn't like easy-pac reheatable consumables or anything. One didn't just read the back of the box and 30 seconds later, a fireball was hovering above your palm.

His gaze rested on her for a moment before he held his armor coated hands out for him to see. The seething anger rose slowly from his armor, the darkness emanating from him like fumes, as his mind followed the instructions that De'Ville had just given him. The darkness moved so slowly at first it only added more putrid substance to feed the depths of Grime's impatient soul. His progress never halted but he had to review the steps several times before he could continue faster.

Still, the temperature continued to rise around Grime regardless of the focus he made before his hands. He hissed out a sigh of breath as the weaves of darkness began to ignite; the surprise settling in because Grime had yet to will it into a controlled sphere. Flames licked at his arms and rose directly from his hands. He grit his teeth, the pain lancing across his arms, but what was yet another brief experience of such minor pain? What a threshold Grime boasted of now. His open hands clenched into fists and opened before he could will the flames finally into their sphere like shapes, one in each hand.

Maintaining it lasted only a few seconds as his attention was drawn aside from the perpetual darkness that fed the fire. Out of nothing indeed. His mind became withdrawn to what he was actually seeing and in response the furnace from which his power fed upon was diverted. The spheres of flame vanished and Grime lowered his still stinging arms to his sides.

"Satisfied? I've burnt myself enough, and accomplished your next parlour trick."

Beyond his venom dripping voice, Grime was eager to practice the skill. Hungry to see it at work and test its limits. The pain was nothing but worth the price of the power. He would burn himself many times over just to see the magnitude at which it might be accomplished. Let De'Ville think he cared little for it. She would see.

He was gifted, that was not in question. He picked up skills that took padawans years to master, yet he was limited in the scope of his power. If she had a child... a child to mold as Master A'na Eldhil had molded her... a youngster would be the perfect student to teach.

Hawkins was willing, she could tell, but his hate for her was nearly overwhelming at times. It was all she could do to remain calm herself as his emotions roiled around the room. As long as she could teach him, he would be loyal. But as to how she would ultimately bind him to her... it was beyond her at the moment.

Once he had mastered fire, then she could begin teaching him Destruction. He would take easily to it, she imagined, as it was merely another form of energy manipulation. Grime would become a walking weapon, and he would be nearly unstoppable. As she herself was.

Lilaena turned to the fire in the fireplace, and slowly the flames faltered, and began to dissapate. "To truly control your power, you must know how to rid yourself of unwanted affects. A burning shield of flame is of no use if you yourself are burnt by it." The fire was almost gone, and then it leapt from the fireplace to the floor between student and teacher. She fanned the flames a bit, driving them towards him as the moldering carpets burned.

"Blast it, Witch!"

Hadn't he just muttered something about being burnt enough? The directed flames bit and snapped at him like dogs, his fragile flesh crawled beneath his warming metal exoskeleton. The smoke stung his already agitated eyes and only worsened his eye sight. He struggled to draw upon his angered demeanor but the irritation and renewed hatred in De'Ville and her games burned itself across his concentration. Grime could tell that he wasn't helping his own situation, his emotions only heating the atmosphere more.

Hawkins couldn't stop it either. He was losing control of himself and a sensation of panic was rising from the pit of his stomach. His eyes struggled to open amidst the smoke and the stinging light of the fires and his desperation unleashed an adrenaline rush his frail body was fraught with to handle. Grime's mind devised a multitude of visions of what his corpse might look like after all this and the images didn't help in the least. He tried to do anything, something, before his angle of vision changed drastically; Grime was somehow closer to the ground; a moment passed before he realized he was on his knees. His head felt like it was spinning within itself, his throat constricting.

=======

"Ey 'dere, boss. 'Member meh? Ya cut mine eyes out and made me swallah 'em thrah some broke teth, yah? I be knowin' ya can 'ear me in 'dere, boss. An' I was wishin' yah'd bein' able to watch this, yah? As I sit 'ere and be meltin' yah bloodin' skin off, yah?"

The welding torch flashed to life. No, CENSORED couldn't see by this point, or much else, but he could feel the slicing pain as the torch was held near his back and then something slick slid off his body in a heat that almost seemed cold as the nerve endings died and a piece of sizzling skin hit the floor beneath him.

=======

Not that again, not ever. Never. Grime slowly stood, the pain running like a current through the iron grip of his resolve. His willpower to live, a remark that backstabbing doctor had made, was beyond realistic bounds. And he could feel it, the confidence that his will to wreak vengeance was deeper and more his foundation of existence than anything else. His hatred and lust for revenge molded the pain into a tasteful sensation that wrapped about him, enveloped him that it might be his to give to the galaxy. The fire twisted in his mind, symbolic of the pain, and it twisted with it, pushing away from him as his mind staved off the pain in a similar fashion but yet kept it as close as a few inches from him. In moments, his armor was quite cool as if he were pushing all the heat away from him and he took a moment to marvel at it as the fire dissapated without anymore of his concentration to feed it. His sneer lifted in response to De'Ville as soon as his eyes reached hers.

"Rot Witch, I might've died."

=======

"...eyes so green..."

She looked entirely unsympathetic, and unconcerned. "What a waste that would have been. But if I told you that you were in no danger and that I would have protected you, that would only enrage you more." Green eyes looked down at him, where he knelt on the floor. "No, your fate is in your own hands. Only the strong survive... only the most determined will survive."

Lilaena quenched the rest of the small fires that were trying to find hold in the wall and ceiling, and stepped closer to Hawkins. She held out her hand to help him to his feet.

Grime looked up to her outstretched hand and wished he could've sneered as he attempted to stand without her help. Hawkins couldn't possibly sneer or exhale with any amount of force because as he stood it required all of his effort to keep his footing.

Dren...

And then only to discover that his effort was for naught and not enough as his knees buckled and one metal hand desperately reached out for the slender hand before him.

As Hawkins clutched at her hand, she marveled at how frail he seemed. The metal exoskeleton that surrounded him seemed like a net that had just barely caught his spirit before it could be one with the Force. The fingers of his hand tightened on hers, holding on with thready strength - not the bonecrushing force that one might expect.

She pulled him up and steadied him, adjusting her hold so each gripped the other's wrist. His eyes, the only living part of his face, burned with hate, and he did not hesitate to make eye contact. Lilaena released his arm once he was firmly on his own two feet, but did not look away. "Each person must learn to work around their weaknesses. The blind become more sensitive to sound."

She paused. "You have the Force to make up for whatever else you might lack."

The mental picture of backhanding De'Ville, the satisfying sound of the back of his metal fist connecting with her mouth and the arch of her back as she faced the ground and spit blood was increasingly appealing but the edges of his vision swam red and he stifled his hatred born fantasies as he attempted to remain within the boundaries of this dismal reality.

Weakness... Grime was a walking, barely breathing weakness. All he was more sensitive to was the agony of being alive. The Force to make up for his flaws? Bah. Where had it been at the origin of Grime, where had it been to save him and everything he had worked towards? Why couldn't it have made up for those flaws then and not the aftermath now?!

And in a more current focus, what is De'Ville's weakness?

His vision still swam though and he could feel the fatigue setting in, so familiar by now to his weak corpse.

"I doubt the Force will make up for a lack of sleep, Witch. Let me be for now... Play your games, your eager... student eagerly looks forward to his next cryptic seminar and lesson of the soul and inner workings of the universe..."

Sarcastic but true.

Hawkins tried his best to hide the trembling in his step as he backed up to lean against the nearest wall.