16 BBY
Coruscant
Royal Imperial Academy
"He wouldn't hit her hard would he ? She's a woman after all." Vanto asked looking rather concerned at the sparring match between their new acquaintance and Elia Tirel a rather pompous irritating girl who hadn't hidden her disdain for their lot as outer rim students and in thrawns case aliens.
"Well Menno believes in equal rights for women across all walks of the galaxy" Raith Sartha the black haired 22 year old from Jabiim stated in a mocking jape though Eli saw through his sarcasm.
"And equal lefts", The 21 year old Elam Tenit says with a small chuckle as he stood arms crossed watching the match.
The Ab Dalis native had been the fiery mouth piece of the little group formed by Menno Coehorn and he was shown to be borderline psychologically mischievous, and cunning.
Located in the Outer Rim along the Corellian Run, Ab Dalis was a grim, marshy world where a weak government catered entirely to the whims of trillionaire oligarchs. The planet was defined by a stark social divide, featuring massive factories and slums that stood in the shadow of the elite's towers. This dystopian landscape faced total catastrophe during the Great Hyperspace Disaster when a fragment of the Legacy Run unexpectedly struck the surface in an event known as the First Emergence. The collision killed roughly twenty million people and was powerful enough to crack the planet's crust, leaving Ab Dalis tectonically unstable and permanently scarred by a massive impact crater.
Elam had been raised in the slums of this world and for that he wasn't one that you could call….soft. He was a product of this acidic society yet he held and kept a sharp mind, impressing the local commandant of their academy so much that he recommended the boy to the Royal Imperial academy for further training.
*Thwack!!
The entire crowd cringed at the sound.
Menno had delivered a devastating punch to Elia's right cheek and even though they both had on head gear and kept in teeth guards, the impact from the boxing glove making a hard impact was not oblivious.
The girl crumpled like paper onto the cushioned ground, already unconscious and unresponsive.
Everyone here or at least everyone within their class knew that Menno was amongst the best if not the best, hand to hand combatant within their grade.
Even instructors feared sparing him directly as they wanted not to embarrass themselves or injure their pride in a loss they knew would happen if they dared to face him.
But here was Elia Tirel, a pompous self absorbed coruscanti native that thought herself better than everyone else here and so she had challenged her other fellow Coruscanti Menno who was at the top of the leaderboard in regards to hand to hand fighting .
Well by all rights Menno's origin wasn't truly from coruscant but to the public he told them all that he was, but on the other hand he told his friends and a few close associates that he came from a world named Kaas. He didn't inform them of its true name nor would he ever.
And so in truth he fed them just enough answers to satiate their curiosity, and also lied to them that he remembered little from that place he came from ever since he left when he was approximately nine years old and brought to Coruscant by his sponsor which was the emperor himself another part he left out.
Few knew who he truly was and who he was connected to and those few could be counted on one hand.
The Emperor had sponsored numerous children through third party organizations to attend the imperial academy, and as seen the empire had even established scholarship programs to see exceptional peoples flourish and just as in the case with Thrawn and Elam.
These programs were not only for military society but also for the regular masses. That endeavored to study at the most distinguished colleges and schools.
Unknown to many though Menno and Palpatine held little if no public interaction whatsoever. If Palpatine wanted him then he'd request his presence privately away from even the eyes of a many of his inner circle.
And this Menno had appreciated very much. If one could understand the imperial structure well enough then you would know that the closer you were to the Emperor the more power you had but that didn't mean that it was entirely good. Failure wasn't tolerated, sabotage from others vying for your position and jealousy would see your life and career under threat. Then there was Palpatine that would do as he did. Once you had served your purpose then you'd no longer be needed, you'd find yourself killed by his own hands and if he was feeling merciful he'd have you shot or imprisoned on some labor camp to work till death or he'd have his enforcer lord Vader carry out the execution.
One had to understand that there was no quick painless death with Palpatine. The man lived for pain, he lived for torture , fear and all other negative emotions that sentient beings could conjure.
And through it all he had disciplined himself so much in the ways of the dark side that he had found the balance needed to be a astonishing politician, maneuvering out of the worst of political traps and running an entire galaxy and its economy without exposing himself as a psychotic maniac. To the public he was a hero, an injured old man that had saved and converted the republic into something better. Something stronger.
And some of these traits he had also relinquished onto his secret protegee.
Palpatine personally mentored Menno from the age of 9 till he was 15. Training him in the ways of Politics, economics, etiquette, philosophy, manipulation , warfare, combat, assassination, light saber forms and of course usage of the dark arts. The dark side of the force was their weapon afterall.
And just like Palpatine did in the days of the republic, the boy had hid his true nature under a shroud of charisma, calm, kindness, empathy , strategic and a controlled cunning mind. Though at times his hidden traits leaked out in rare intervals. For instance his sadism and soft brutality at times could not be hidden.
A trait one could always find in most dark-side users.
And even as the young disciple had been attached to Palpatine's chains. He still held the autonomy to do as he pleased. He had his his own apartment where he lived fairly decently among the lower high class of the city planet.
Though said apart wasn't really used since recently as most of his time had been spent at the academy where cadets now lived. The Royal Imperial academy Located on Coruscant, was the main campus for training Imperial cadets for officer positions in the Navy. And Menno wanted being as he was… trained as he was by a dictator…. he wanted power…. Mastery over his life and his future that he ordained to write for himself. And he recognized that the steps toward that future was through the resources of the imperial military complex.
With what he remembered was to come of the future he wished to carve out his own domain he could call his own, a place he could truly call home, a place where he endeavored to make a change on the wide cruel galaxy . This desire was not a selfish endeavor. It was his calling, it was his calling to rule.