The moment my bottom settled into the chair, it didn't feel like I was sitting; instead, I was almost immediately sucked into a strange state. For me, I wasn't there anymore; instead, I was standing somewhere else. It was an instant, like one moment I was still lowering myself, but the next, I was whisked away, to... who knows where. When I tried to sense where I was or what I was doing, if it was the influence of the Dark Side or... Mhm... Yes, I could feel its presence, but this was different from how it was on the Rakatan world. Drawing on it, the Force flowed through me as usual, and carefully, I reached for the faint darkness, expecting maybe anger or something similar. Like... screaming or another vision of killing...
No... It answered me with a vision that cleared away the uncertainty, and as I blinked my yes, a vast hall now stretched around me, but it wasn't built of stone or metal. Whatever it was made of, I couldn't perceive, but it was created out of pure geometry. I could see edges everywhere, columns made of flowing script-like text that rearranged themselves when I looked directly at them. It was... weird... and when I took a breather, I already knew that the air I inhaled didn't exist at all.
Looking up, above me, there was no ceiling, only a vast darkness, but it didn't bear on me or weigh me down... but it was there, as if... watching.
I can't lie, my first instinct was to retreat, while my second was to ignite my lightsaber, which, of course, wasn't hanging off my belt, because my body wasn't really here. I tried to reach for Vila through the bond we shared, and found nothing but static... Huh... That's... not good. Then, just as I thought of that, something moved, and a new presence crossed the distance, coming down from the darkness above me as a man stepped out of the shadows, now standing before me.
He was tall, robed in ancient Sith clothing, his skin shining in the deep red hue of fresh blood, while his face was marked with very, very old lines. As we looked at each other, his yellow eyes gleamed with the self-satisfied pride of someone who believed he was above it all, whether it be anger or the sensation of peace. As I looked at him, I noticed how gold rings hung from the flaps at his chin, and Sith glyphs constantly crawled along his sleeves, shifting like living ink, just as they were doing it all around me in this strange place.
But the most wrong-feeling part wasn't his look, or the glyphs, or the Dark Side... Quite the opposite. Sensing that told me I was still fine, but everything else... it felt like they weren't real. It gave me the creeps. That thing I was facing now wasn't a spirit or a Force-ghost... Whatever he did to himself was... not good. It felt... artificial.
"Who are you?" I asked, breaking the silence between us.
"You sit in my chair, and you don't know?" he asked back, his voice being surprisingly smooth, "You step into my work, and you ask who I am?"
"Yes, I do." I answered without flinching, "But I can rephrase it... Should I know you?"
"Hmph," He snorted, but also grinned, "You are young, so I can forgive your ignorance," he mused, playing with the flaps hanging from his cheek, "Yet... Despite your age, you carry scars older than your bones, young Jedi. You had a brush with something older than us, hm? Ahhh. I can feel it. The ancient stench of the Rakatans..." He sniggered, "Never thought I would feel it again."
"..."
"No need to look at me like that," He chortled, tilting his head to the left, "Although I never met any, as they were before my time, I studied them intensively. You see, their method of using the Dark Side to build from it and manifest their ideas into reality was a fascinating power, one I wanted for myself."
"What is this place?" I asked, keeping my voice steady.
"A workshop," he said simply. "A vault. A cradle. Heaven or hell... take your pick."
"A trap," I muttered, which made him laugh in amusement.
"A trap? No, that is one thing this isn't. But it is my work of art, my... greatest design... My Nexus."
As he said it, the hall's script-filled columns shifted, and the world around us briefly flickered as thousands of images began spilling into the air like projections. I could see diagrams of the chair I had sat down on, a crown-like device, a humanoid body cut open and then rebuilt... then a skeletal chassis of a droid being lowered into a frame.
I stiffened suddenly, because by just looking at the images, the decades of experiments... He was showing it to me, out of sheer pride, as if he had never had a chance before to show off his success of... this abomination.
"Transference," I whispered, an understanding dawning on me as the knowledge flashed before my eye. Maybe... this was inevitable since the moment I sat down on the chair, as it began telling me everything. Maybe the thing I was talking to wasn't the real Sith but... what imprint remained inside this machine.
"Yes," he purred as I was thinking. "You understood my plans with just a look... That means you can understand the achievement I had here. The Rakatan touch your soul received is a great helper... hmmm... Maybe I could take you as my apprentice, hmmm..."
"I wouldn't count on that," My throat tightened after hearing what he just said.
"I just need to copy you over," he declared with another smirk, looking at me. "It is the transference chamber you are in after all," he added, turning his voice into a blade, threatening me. "Do you have any idea what it cost to build it? How many failures? How many bodies did I have to work through? How many minds were shattered before I finally perfected it? Boy... you called this a trap... Don't anger me, or I will turn it into one with a snap of my finger."
"So... What do you want?" I asked, feeling a bit confused... especially because he was rambling like a faulty... program. Like how HK had issues...
"I just told you... A disciple." He said again, "You have been touched... I can see it, so I want you. It is that simple. At first, I wanted you all because I needed this era's Jedi to experiment on... the ones I already recruited had been too few... Haaah. I lack proper specimens."
Shit...! This isn't a recording after all! He knew about recent events... it couldn't be...
"What did you do to them...?" I gulped, watching him slowly tilt his head to the other side.
"What do you think? Repeat to me the name of this place."
"That's impossible... That can't be done!" I blinked, feeling that the idea that was swirling in my head couldn't be the truth.
"I heard that too many times," He snorted, "But I made it." he added, being much softer, almost reverent of his own work, "I was the best of the best. The artisan of the Empire! Everyone hated me, which only made me stronger... Even if they betrayed me to our enemies to get rid of me, it only gave me the moment to disappear and skip the collapse of our species to a time where nothing could stand before me!" His eyes narrowed with greed and happiness, evaluating me again. "You came here chasing droids," he said, smiling again. "I was about to destroy you all eventually, but now... I am welcoming you instead. I want you to find me, but my future apprentice... It is still a test you must pass."
"As I said," I snorted again, "I'm not going to learn from you..."
"I heard that before," He answered, shaking his head, "Yet I did what no Sith before me dared," he declared proudly, and as he spread his hands, the hall filled again with moving diagrams. I could see a living brain highlighted in red, then a droid core in gold, and finally, the thin line between them. "What is a body?" he asked me suddenly.
"..."
"A vessel that rots." He continued, seeing me not give him an answer, "A weakness that betrays you... A limitation! So... What is a machine?" he continued asking, and as his eyes moved to my mechanical hand, his smile grew crooked. "A body that endures... Everything. Some can even withstand a lightsaber... It is something that does not tire, does not age, can sleep for ten thousand years, and wake as sharp as the moment it was forged. Perfection... that is what it is."
"You transferred a person into a droid body..." I said, feeling my whole body shiver because he just kept smiling, and the pride coming off him was the strongest I have ever felt, almost making me nauseous.
"I put our essence into an undying form," he said, opening his arms, speaking as if he were teaching a child... "It is the only way to become free of the laws of the universe... to be freed from the Force and its wretched manipulation, of always balancing between good and evil. I threw away those shackles and embraced a higher existence, Jedi. And you will see why, the more you live with that..." he pointed at my hand.
"You are mad..." I felt sick listening to him.
"The Force is the only mad existence in this Galaxy. It influences our feelings, boy, don't you see it? Sith? Jedi? Both are slaves to something that can take over their whole being! My transference is perfect. The preservation is perfect... The immortality is perfect!" He yelled as he leaned closer to me, "The loss of Force attunement," he said, his teeth showing, "is an engineering problem. And all problems can be solved... Without its influence, I could see it all, as it should be. And in the end, without ever needing to bend to its influence ever again, I will be free to use it as I see fit."
"So your grand achievement wasn't complete..." I stared at him, watching as his smile slowly disappeared, "Dare I say... It failed you?"
"I was working on completing it," he snapped at me, "A Sith that cannot die, that does not age, that does not lose memory, that can rebuild itself, replicate itself, spread itself, and without ever succumbing to the rage and paranoia the Dark Side pushes on him..." As he was saying it, his voice softened again, "Just imagine it..." he whispered. "A mind that endures forever. A mind that can outlast stars... and solve everything."
Suddenly, I felt the machine behind this space, or to be precise, the chair, tighten around my mind like fingers.
"As I told you," he said. "You will become my apprentice..." My pulse spiked at once, like an adrenaline shot directly into my heart, which made him chuckle, "Don't fight it... You are already being processed."
I felt it then; he meant it for real. I could feel a sensation like hooks sinking into the back of my thoughts, searching, mapping everything I knew or felt, as if... preparing to lift me out. No... It was... copying? Both?
"No," I breathed heavily.
"You are compatible." He whispered, "Let it happen, you will learn to appreciate it after you are here, with me."
I pushed against it and tried to wrench myself free, but then the script-columns trembled, reshaping faster, as if the space around us was reacting to my resistance... and it was exactly the case.
"Hmmm, you remind me of the other stubborn one who once came here, looking for answers..." he muttered, being conversational, as if we weren't in the middle of me being skinned from my own body, "He also refused my gift, even though he was looking for the same thing, for transference and immortality. Heh, he was too fond of his Force-powers to give them up."
"Shut up..." I snarled at him, "I don't care."
By then, the hooks in my mind tightened again, and the hall darkened even further, and suddenly, the Sith bastard's voice dropped into something almost intimate, like how Vila usually whispered to me when we were snuggling.
"Do you feel it?" he exhaled, making me shiver. "The moment before the leap? Take it... Come, my apprentice... become more than a Jedi or a Sith... become eternal!"
I felt my awareness being pulled toward a point, out of my body... This is not good... very not good! If it succeeded, my body would be left behind like an empty shell, dead, or worse... I was panicking now, I can't lie. But just then, a violent jolt yanked me sideways, and a presence grabbed hold of me.
"KAEL!"
The hall cracked when I heard Vila's voice, and the script-made columns shattered into fragments of light, and the Sith's smile also fractured.
"Oh well..." He muttered, "We can do this again when you find me. You will see... I always get what I want."
Just as he finished, I was jerked out of that... thing, my vision stuttering between Sith glyphs on the walls and the dim cone of my suit-lamp, seeing double while Vila had both hands on me, dragging me out of the chair like she was ripping me out of the jaws of a rancor.
"Kael!" Vila barked at me again. "Speak!"
"I'm here," I sucked in a breath that tasted like... fear. "I'm—", my voice cracked a little, "I'm here."
"What did you do?" she demanded, shaking me, "You sat down and immediately began convulsing!"
"I managed a long-range call with our Sith..." I swallowed hard, staring at the chair, "How long was I on it?"
"Three seconds." Sareh said, looking down at the chair, not even glancing at me, studying it and then the tubes above us, "No more than that."
"Only...?" I gulped, slowly straightening myself, feeling my mind clear out, "It felt... longer."
"I could barely pull you out," Vila grunted, still checking me, examining my vitals with her wrist-mounted scanner, "Your heart rate spiked to triple what it should be!"
"From what I can read from here," Adrian spoke up suddenly, "It isn't just his heart. I recorded everything... I can share it when you are back on the ship."
"I have a lot to say," Vila snorted, but then said something I felt was the best idea, "But he has one thing right... We have to go back to the ship. Now."
"Already?" Sareh turned, wanting to argue, but Vila took over the leading position, and she wasn't having it.
"Stay if you want. Kael! We are going. Now."
"Yes..." I nodded eventually, following her out, watching as Sareh was undecided, looking back and forth, but eventually, just as we would disappear into the corridors... she followed us.