The ship drifted through the stars akin to a boat floating aimlessly, a ship of republic make, a Corellian cruiser whose crew were as silent as a whisper within the halls of the vessel.
However the ship was not silent, not in anyway, for the vessels sirens blared a shrill cry that echoed through the empty halls. Red lights surged, yet for all their noise, for all the light. Nothing moved, the white halls dyed red didn't chatter with life. The mess hall didn't flutter with activity and the bunks didn't drift with sleeping men and women.
Silence was all their was, no life... no death... just empty, As if this vessel farther away from the galactic center an ship had ever been had never been crewed in the first place.
And as it drifted, a cold weight fluttered through sterile halls, a chill that would have made spines tingle and bodies quake, an oppression so strange and so wrong that if felt like aberration given form, like the void had crawled forward to give itself life and mocked the creation of everything else.
" ..... "
Darkness stared through the cruisers bridge, towards the spinning skyriver galaxy in the distance, where everything that had ever happened in this universe originated from. A figure draped in black stood at the helm of the abandoned vessel, shrouded by night and caressed by creeping tendrils that crawled from under the hood he wore.
".... "
The hood of what was assumedly a male tilted ever so slightly as it studied, the only thing visible behind the fluttering hood being a kaleidoscope of stars, shifting lights and galaxies slamming together, supernova blending together in furnaces to burn away worlds, blackholes colliding to consume.
Stars rupturing, all within this beings eyes... a reflection of the world it had once existed within. It stared across space, across the void that separated him from the galaxy that it was sure had changed drastically in its absense.
"..... "
Its hood snapped to the side suddenly, staring at a particular portion of the galaxy, where spinning dust clouds crawled, where stars dimmed and shone all in tandem together.
" ..." And so, the force grew heavy as a visible distortion rumbled around the ships exterior, as a sort of purple colored bubble formed around the vessel, and without so much as a whisper, the ship vanished from the dead planet it had found itself orbiting. It didn't jump to light speed for there was no working hyperdrive, no it was more akin to the universe folding around the ship, a like a hole punched in the fabric of space for a second to allow for the ship to fall through and transfer across space.
....
The force didn't announce the arrival of this being, it wasn't like the birth of a new entity, rather the transference of an entity that had always been, a shadow so engrained it had simply always been. Anyone whom had touched the force had felt its presence and had mistakenly assumed this to be the natural feel of the force, a heavy presence felt by all. Time had long since erased the nature of the force and how it was meant to feel, had long since engrained the silent taint that many tried futilely to vanquish. For this shade couldn't so easily be removed, couldn't so easily be dispersed or dispelled .... for this darkness had a origin... and this origin suddenly appeared on a planet long since lost to the rest of the galaxy.
....
" ..... " Korriban shifted and quaked, as walls of sand hundreds of meters high tore across arid wastes. Tinted orange by the bloods spilled on its sands for millennia, the planet whispered with voices long lost to time. It cried a perpetual weep into the force, screaming into the void with a thousand years of endless violence.
On it's arid surface, with dunes shifting below sunken statues, the figure of black tread leisurely across the arid dunes towards a half sunken towering structure.
wails of entities long since dead rounded the dunes at his side, as shades and spirits gathered aplenty to witness the return of their own.
" ... " The taunt jaw of the black robed figure didn't move to greet the spirits that rushed to bask in his presence, for the dead had no right to be acknowledged, instead he walked a simple path forward past these shades, the gathered darkness parting his presence like a field of flies.
The pale sun dipped over the horizon in his wake, as he passed the temple where he once took his first steps in the ways of the sith, where he killed his first man as a sith acolyte, where he met the fool spindral in that tomb and leant the sith code.
" ... " He simply regarded the tomb with nothing but quaking, agonizing silence, a frown the only thing visible below his hooded robes, thin pale lips parting ever so slightly to show white pearls that ground together. With nothing but a silent sneer, he turned back to the academy... and slowly ascended the long ramp into the half buried tomb he once studied in.
...
The smell of decay and rotted stone slunk in through his open hood, as a simple wave of his hand simply undid the destruction of time, collapsed passages reforming and solidifying back the way they once stood to allow him into the larger antechamber of the academy.
" ... " He ascended the stairs past the ancient monolith that once radiated darkside energies and stepped out onto the second floor. For a moment his gaze passed the halls where Zash and that other one's master ... Baris, had served, now merely just crumbed passages and lingering whispers.
He didn't utter even a grunt as he turned away, instead he moved to the central elevator shaky of the academy, the force prying the doors open to which he simply jumped up and into the shadows of the shaft, ascending a hundred metres in a single bound before he landed on the only floor he sought.
...
THE DARK COUNCIL CHAMBERS
...
The council chambers, or what remained there of, was a ruin of destruction, with stone slabs and crumbled rocks having overtaken over half of the chambers due to a hold on the side of the academy, whether it was made by man or age he couldnt tell.
Dark eyes scanned the twelve seats that once ruled, Marr... Ravage ... Acina ... the men and women whom made up the backbone of his empire before he became emperor and so on and so forth.
His footfall echoed through the chasmic shadows, soft taps that rebound in silence, as he passed by Mortis's chair and instinctively moved towards what was once his own.
" ... " Hidden eyes stared at the mold covered cushion, crumbled stone met his smooth fingers as he traced his one time seat.
" ... " His attention swiftly departed the copious memories stirring his thoughts, the shuffling of his robes the only accompanying sound as he turned to the only working piece of technology in this entire academy.
He stalked like a walking shadow, crossing the cracked hallowed grounds of the dark council, coming to a stop before the long range transmitter, reaching for it with pale fingers as white as paper.
His fingers touched its surface gently, a resonant beep echoing throughout the chamber a single time in response to his activation.
The long range transmitter didn't announce anything, just awaiting a single word to send a transmission across the galaxy for one to pickup on.
After several beats of silence, his lips slowly parted, cracking ever so slightly as white teeth split apart and saliva swirled in preparation.
" Scyva ... " The word rumbled out in an apocalyptic crash of energy, a voice unused cracked with a thousand tones. Men and women's voices of all ages merged together in one expression of a word so powerful it shook that chamber and threatened to bring down the academy itself.
Korriban rumbled, as towering dunes of sand collapsed as the ground shook, mountains crumbled and statues exploded apart under the weight of his voice.
In the darkness of the academy, He slid his fingers from the long range communicator, allowing his hands to fall to his sides and become hidden by his sleeves once more.
For nearly two days he stood there, in the academy ..waiting.
" .... " The apocalyptic aftermath of his single utterance caused a swirling hurrican of sand to form all over the planets surface, which he, standing atop the academy , simple watche swirl similarly to the galaxies in his eyes.
....
Across the galaxy, in the unknown regions. A Dyson sphere many times larger than the star it surrounded, floated in space, as it had done since its inception millions of years ago.
It was a marvel of technology few species in the galaxy could hope to rival let alone replicate. Panels of steel rivalled the size of entire planets. The star at its centre provided enough power to give life to a thousand city world for thousands of years.
In a towering spire circled by cross shaped ships the galaxy had long since forgotten, a droid floated several metres above the ground, a giant compared to other droids, standing at twelve metres tall. She was a marvel of perfection, with lime green energy flowing up and down seams in her chassis, with two antenna pointing outwards from her humanoid skull.
She floated there, as she had done for four thousand years, waiting ... and waiting. Until this moment.
As a single signal breached her senses, rousing her from her self induced slumber in an instant, her lenses erupting with emerald light as she turned her head in the direction the signal had come from.
" Master ... "
....
He stood, stating up from the academy he ruled, and stared unbinklingly into the galaxy at large, black sockets staring at coruscant, seeing its decay... feeling the suppression.
The sides of his lips threatened to tug upwards at the feeling he felt, from those strange dreadnoughts throughout the galaxy to the wake of death he still smelt in the air. He could practically taste the recent suffering of the galaxy.
' How ... interesting... ' He could feel them darkness radiating from coruscant, and as he stated across the space between these two worlds, he could see the new ruler of the galaxy toiling behind a desk. ' Why sit at a chair ... when you could be studying... oh little sith '
With that thought, his eyes darted to another encapsulated by the darkside, a monolith of shadow, a shadow of a man wrapped in suffering, standing at the bridge of a ship many times larger than the other dreadnaughts.
' Who ... are you ... ah ... the apprentice ' That wasn't the things he felt however, across the galaxy, he could feel them all. Jedi hidden away, he could see pockets of darksiders none new of , cults on Dromund kaas, a sister on dathomir. He could feel them all, from that green creature hiding away in a swamp, to the ...
His eyes darted to a familiar planet of sand he once tread. And as he stared, he felt the corner of his lips twist in amusement, he didn't understand how they didn't sense nor see it, the sheer radiance in the force surrounding a young man with platinum hair calling out to his aunt and uncle about going to a town.
' How ... interesting ... '
By the time he turned away from staring into the galaxy, a ship was already dropping through the atmosphere of korriban, a legion of silver droids exploding into action as shuttles filled with even more droids flee to their masters side.
As he watched their approach like a swarm on the horizon, he felt the prickling of his senses, casting one single glance back at the transparent spirit seemingly watching him from afar, he almost let out a booming cackle in delight.
' This is going to be ... interesting'
...
I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKED THIS OPENING CHAPTER, WE'LL BE JUMPING RIGHT INTO THE CLONE WARS WITH THIS ONE
IF ANYONE HAS ANY THOUGHTS, COMMENTS OR IDEAS PLEASE FEEL FREE TO POST AS I LOVE HEARING FROM MY READERS