The Dathomir twilight painted the sky in shades of blood and bruise. Asajj Ventress sat alone on the edge of a rocky outcropping, her legs crossed, hands resting palm-up on her knees in a meditation pose she'd learned from Ky-Narec a lifetime ago.
Several days had passed since Savage Opress departed for Serenno—her replacement, her substitute, the brute who would maintain the illusion of her death while she pursued true power. She'd delivered Dooku his new toy. Now came the hard part.
Making herself strong enough to kill him.
Her pale fingers flexed unconsciously. Hand-to-hand combat? Mastered. She could dismantle most opponents with her bare hands, had proven that countless times. Weapon proficiency beyond lightsabers? Improving daily. The Nightsisters had introduced her to energy bows, ritual blades, even unarmed Force techniques she'd never learned in the Jedi temple.
But none of that was the problem.
The problem was the power.
Asajj's eyes remained closed, but behind her lids, memories played like a holodrama she'd watched too many times.
The first manifestation had come on Rattatak, in the blood-soaked aftermath of Ky-Narec's death. She'd been barely more than a girl, surrounded by warlords who thought her master's fall meant easy prey. They'd been wrong. When their combined forces closed in for the kill, when death seemed certain, something had erupted from within her.
Raw power. Blinding. Overwhelming. Unstoppable.
She'd torn through an entire army that day, moving like a force of nature, every strike carrying supernatural strength. At the time, she'd attributed it to grief-fueled rage, to the dark side responding to her pain and channeling it into violence.
But that explanation didn't account for the second time.
Her duel with Anakin Skywalker in the ruins of an ancient temple. She'd been winning—had the Padawan on the defensive, driving him toward the edge of the massive canyon. And then Skywalker had done what Skywalker always did: tapped into reserves of Force power that shouldn't have been accessible to someone his age.
He'd caught her in a Force grip, pinned her against crumbling stone with pressure that would have crushed most beings. She'd been seconds from being hurled into the abyss.
And then the power had come again.
That same blinding surge, flowing through her veins like liquid lightning, shattering Skywalker's hold and giving her the strength to escape. She'd written it off as survival instinct, as the Force itself refusing to let her die.
But the third time...
Asajj's meditation faltered. Her eyes snapped open, staring unseeing at the darkening horizon.
The third time, she'd been kneeling before Dooku in the training chamber. He'd commanded her to endure his Force lightning—not to defend against it, but to absorb it, to build her tolerance through pure suffering. She'd obeyed, gritting her teeth against the agony as blue-white electricity coursed through her body.
She'd been reaching her limit, her nerves screaming, her muscles seizing—
And then it had happened.
A corona of blue-white energy had erupted from her core, spreading outward in waves. It gathered in her palms, swirled around her body like protective armor. For one impossible moment, the lightning hadn't hurt at all. More than that—she'd felt healed, energized, powerful beyond measure.
Dooku had seen it. His eyes had widened fractionally—the closest thing to shock she'd ever witnessed from the Sith Lord.
Then, as quickly as it came, the power had vanished. Gone like a candle snuffed out, leaving her gasping on the floor, the phantom memory of invincibility already fading.
Since that day, she'd tried everything to summon it again. Meditation. Combat practice. Deliberate exposure to danger. Nothing worked. The power remained locked away, inaccessible, mocking her with its absence.
What's blocking me? The question had become a constant refrain in her mind. What am I missing?
All three manifestations had one thing in common: mortal peril. Being pushed to the absolute brink of death. But she'd faced death dozens of times since that third awakening, and the power remained dormant.
There had to be something else. Some key she wasn't seeing.
Asajj rose to her feet with fluid grace, frustration coiling in her chest like a living thing. Meditation was getting her nowhere. She needed to move, to act, before the spiral of unanswered questions drove her mad.
Maybe she'd find Wanda. The Scarlet Witch understood unusual powers, forces that defied conventional explanation. And despite their... complicated relationship, Wanda had been willing to help explore Asajj's connection to Nightsister magic.
The thought of seeing Wanda brought a complicated twist of emotions Asajj didn't want to examine too closely.
She started toward the nearby forest, following a path she'd walked often enough to know by heart. The sounds of Dathomir's nocturnal life began to stir—distant howls, the rustle of things moving through undergrowth, the ever-present whisper of the mist.
Then, cutting through the natural symphony, came the distinctive whine of a speeder engine.
Asajj's hand went to her hip instinctively, fingers closing around a lightsaber hilt that wasn't there. She'd left her weapons in her quarters—a measure of trust she was still learning to accept on Dathomir.
The speeder rounded a bend in the path, and Asajj felt her entire body tense.
Wanda Maximoff sat in the driver's seat, her expression unreadable. Behind her, in the passenger section, sat Illyana and Merlin—the young sorceress and the wizard who'd become fixtures in the strange alliance between Nightsisters and Avengers.
The speeder's engine died to a purr, then silence.
For a long moment, neither woman spoke. They simply looked at each other, and the air between them crackled with unspoken tension.
"Maximoff." Asajj's voice came out calmer than she felt.
"Ventress." Wanda's tone was equally controlled, but her eyes—those eyes that could burn red with chaos magic—held something dangerous.
"What brings you here?" Asajj kept her posture relaxed, but every muscle was coiled, ready.
"Meeting with Ros Lai." Wanda's hands remained on the steering controls, knuckles slightly white. "Nightsister business. Nothing that concerns you."
The dismissal stung more than it should have. Asajj felt her jaw tighten. "I see."
"Good." Wanda shifted the speeder into forward motion, intending to drive past. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to speak with Talzin."
Asajj fell into step beside the slow-moving vehicle, her long legs easily keeping pace. "And what business do you have with the Mother?"
Wanda's head snapped toward her, eyes flashing. "Are you questioning me? Seriously?"
"I'm asking a simple question." Asajj kept her tone level, but there was an edge beneath it—pride and possessiveness mixing in dangerous ways. "This is Dathomir. The Nightsisters' home. My home now. I have a right to know what—"
"You have the right to nothing." The words came out sharp as broken glass. Wanda brought the speeder to an abrupt halt, causing Illyana and Merlin to grab the restraints. "You're here on sufferance, Ventress. Because Talzin allows it. Because I convinced her that you might actually be useful instead of just another Sith lapdog pretending at redemption."
The words hit like physical blows. Asajj felt heat rising in her chest—anger, shame, and something else she couldn't name. "How dare you—"
"How dare I?" Wanda stood up in the speeder, and the air around her began to shimmer with red energy. "You attacked my friends. You tried to kill members of my team. You served a monster who wages war on the entire galaxy. And now you want to act offended because I won't share every detail of my conversations?"
"I have changed—"
"Have you?" The question cut through Asajj's protest. "Because from where I'm standing, you're still the same arrogant, entitled woman who thinks the universe owes her something."
Red mist began to coalesce around Wanda's hands. Without apparent effort, Asajj suddenly found herself lifted off the ground, held suspended in a telekinetic grip that allowed no movement, no resistance.
"Hey!" Asajj struggled instinctively, but chaos magic was nothing like the Force. There was no technique to counter it, no leverage to exploit. She simply hung there, trapped, helpless.
Furious.
"Wanda, please." Illyana's voice cut through the tension. The young blonde stood in the speeder, her own eyes glowing with borrowed power. "Let her go."
"Your cousin—" Wanda's voice dripped with disdain on the word, "—needs to learn humility. A concept she clearly has no grasp of."
"You have nothing," Asajj spat, rage overcoming fear. "You hide behind power you barely understand, playing at magic while pretending you're not—"
Wanda's eyes flared crimson. She moved with terrifying speed, closing the distance until she was barely a hand's breadth from Asajj's suspended form.
"I could turn you to ash." Wanda's voice was soft, deadly. "Right now. Instantly. After what you did to my friends, after you tried to kill people I love, I should have torn you apart the moment you let me into your mind during our training."
The memory flashed between them—that session where Wanda had guided Asajj through meditation, where their thoughts had touched, where Wanda had seen the depths of Asajj's pain and rage and self-loathing.
Where Asajj had seen Wanda's grief.
"Then why don't you?" The words came out as a challenge, but Asajj's body trembled. Not from fear—from fury at her own helplessness. "You can do it easily. What's stopping you?"
Wanda stared at her, those red eyes boring into Asajj's skull. For a moment, chaos magic crackled more intensely, and Asajj genuinely believed this was it—this was how she'd die, not in glorious combat but executed like a criminal, hanging in the air—
"Wanda, please."
Illyana again. Quieter this time. Almost pleading.
And somehow, that gentle voice succeeded where defiance had failed.
The red glow faded from Wanda's eyes. The telekinetic grip released, and Asajj dropped to the ground, landing in a crouch. The chaos magic dissipated like smoke.
"You know why." Wanda's voice was raw now, stripped of anger, leaving only exhaustion. "You know exactly why."
Because they'd both lost everything. Because they'd both been weapons wielded by others. Because in another universe, they might have been friends instead of enemies forced into an uneasy alliance.
Because Illyana cared about both of them, and killing Asajj would break the young sorceress's heart.
Asajj slowly straightened, her own anger deflating into something more complicated. Shame, perhaps. Or recognition.
Wanda turned away, moving back to the speeder where Illyana and Merlin waited. She took both their hands, her touch gentle despite the violence that had nearly erupted.
"Come on," she said softly. "Let's go."
The speeder hummed to life. Asajj stood there, watching them disappear down the path toward the Nightsisters' stronghold, her pride in tatters around her feet.
Dooku had told her that working with Wanda would make her stronger. Mother Talzin had echoed the sentiment. Both had insisted that the Avengers—particularly the Scarlet Witch—could help unlock her potential.
But every encounter devolved into this. Conflict. Hostility. Two women circling each other like predators, never quite striking the killing blow but never backing down either.
I'd rather die than work with that witch.
The thought came automatically, a reflexive defense against the vulnerability of asking for help.
But even as she thought it, Asajj knew it was a lie.
She'd seen what Wanda could do. Witnessed power that made even Dooku seem limited by comparison. If anyone could help her understand the mysterious energy that kept manifesting and vanishing, it was the woman who wielded chaos itself.
She just had to swallow her pride long enough to ask.
And pride, Asajj reflected bitterly as she started walking back to her quarters, had always been her greatest weakness.
Perhaps even greater than her need for power.