Asajj sensed her before she saw her.
The air in the derelict ship changed—charged with familiar energy that made every nerve in her body tense. She didn't need to turn around to know who had arrived. That particular signature in the Force was unmistakable, wrapped in chaos magic that set her teeth on edge.
"Wanda." Kreia's holographic form shifted, her tone carrying genuine warmth. "How comforting to see you returned safely."
"Master Kreia. Master Pall." Wanda's voice was carefully polite, but her eyes never left Asajj's back. "I hope the girls haven't been too much trouble."
"Don't I warrant a greeting, Maximoff?" Asajj's practically radiated smugness.
Wanda's response was a dismissive snort, but when she spoke, her words were aimed like weapons. "What are you doing here, Ventress?"
Asajj turned, moving with deliberate slowness to face the Scarlet Witch. "Why should I explain my presence to you, Avenger?" Her tone dripped contempt. "Last I checked, Dathomir didn't belong to you."
"No." Wanda took a step forward, and the temperature in the confined space seemed to drop. "But it matters to me. This place, these people—they're under my protection."
Red energy began to swirl around Wanda's fingers—subtle, threatening.
"You didn't want me to find them, did you?" Asajj gestured toward the floating holocrons. "The ancient Sith Lords? You wanted to keep all that power to yourself and your little adopted daughters."
Wanda's eyes flashed crimson for a fraction of a second. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" Asajj's smile was all teeth. "Mother Talzin doesn't know about this, does she? That you've been training these children with Sith knowledge, filling their heads with dark side teachings while pretending to be their benevolent guardian—"
"Asajj stumbled upon us during a walk," Merlin interrupted quickly, her young voice cutting through the rising tension. "It was an accident. She wasn't spying or anything."
Wanda's gaze remained locked on Asajj. "An accident. How convenient."
"Merlin's telling the truth," Illyana added, moving to stand between the two women—a position she'd occupied far too often lately. "Asajj just... she needs help, Wanda. With her power. The Masters sensed something in her—"
"She can leave my planet and find help somewhere else." The words came out flat, final.
Asajj's hands clenched into fists. "Your planet? You arrogant—"
"Enough!" Illyana's shout startled everyone, including the ancient Sith spirits. The young Nightsister looked between Wanda and Asajj with tears of frustration welling in her eyes. "Why do you always do this? Every single time! You see each other and immediately start fighting like... like children!"
"Perhaps your cousin needs to learn basic respect," Wanda said, her tone deceptively calm.
"And perhaps you need to stop reading everyone's thoughts without permission," Illyana shot back, surprising herself with her own boldness.
Wanda's expression flickered—hurt, then defensive. "I don't need to read her mind, Illyana. Every time she looks at me, I can feel the hatred. The violence. She's thinking about how to kill me even when we're just standing here."
"Maybe if you tried to forget—"
"Forget?" Wanda's voice rose sharply. "Illyana, how would you feel if someone who tried to murder Merlin stood in front of you every single day? If you had to see them and smile and pretend it was fine?"
Illyana flinched. "That's not—"
"What if it was your aunt?" Wanda pressed, her composure cracking. "Your mother? What if she'd done to them what she did in Zalem?"
"Stop!" Illyana's voice broke. "Just stop!"
The silence that followed was deafening. Illyana stood trembling, tears streaming down her face. Merlin had gone very still, her own eyes wet.
Wanda seemed to collapse inward. The rage drained from her features, replaced by horror at what she'd just said. "Illyana, I—"
She crossed the distance in three quick steps, pulling the young Nightsister into a tight embrace. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I shouldn't have— That was wrong of me. I'm sorry."
Illyana sobbed against Wanda's shoulder while the Scarlet Witch murmured apologies and rubbed soothing circles on her back.
Asajj stood frozen, arms crossed defensively across her chest, unable to look at the scene before her. Her family—blood family, the cousin she'd only recently learned existed—being comforted by a woman who was her enemy. The wrongness of it made her skin crawl.
But the guilt... that was worse.
"Wanda..." Merlin's small voice carried across the wreck. "I know you and Asajj hate each other. But you don't have to keep fighting about it." She pressed a hand to her chest, right over her heart. "It hurts. Right here. When you're angry at her, Illyana gets sad. And when Illyana gets sad, I get sad. We don't want to see you angry all the time."
The young Nightsister looked up at Wanda with eyes far too old for her age. "Can't you just... pretend? Just pretend to be okay with each other? For us?"
Wanda closed her eyes, still holding Illyana. "I'll try," she whispered. "For you two. I'll try."
Then Merlin spun toward Asajj, and her expression transformed from pleading to furious in an instant.
"And you!" She advanced on her cousin, finger jabbing accusingly. "Stop being so mean to Wanda! She's been taking care of us for months! She feeds us and teaches us and makes sure we're safe, and all you do is insult her and threaten her!" Merlin's voice rose to a shout. "You're such a bitch!"
The word hung in the air like a detonation.
"Merlin!" Wanda's voice cracked like a whip. She released Illyana and turned to face the young girl, and her entire demeanor shifted. No longer the comforting guardian—now she was the strict disciplinarian. "What did you just say?"
Merlin's eyes went wide with realization. "I— Wanda, I didn't mean—"
Red energy coalesced around the girl before she could bolt. Merlin rose into the air, suspended in chaos magic, and floated inexorably toward where Wanda stood with hands on her hips.
"You know better than to use that language," Wanda said, her tone brooking no argument. "We've discussed this. Multiple times."
"But she deserves—ow!" Merlin's protest cut off as Wanda's fingers found her cheeks, pinching firmly.
"No buts. No excuses." Wanda maintained the cheek-pinch, and Merlin squirmed helplessly in her telekinetic grip. "I warned you about the consequences. Now you're going to stand here and think about why we don't call people names, even when we're angry."
"Owowowow—Wanda, please—"
"Are you going to apologize?"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Merlin's tears were genuine now, streaming down her reddened cheeks. "I won't say it again!"
"Apologize to Ventress. Not to me."
Merlin's face contorted with the injustice of it all, but Wanda's expression remained implacable. Finally, still suspended in the air with her cheeks being pinched, Merlin choked out: "Sorry... Asajj."
Wanda released both the telekinetic hold and Merlin's abused cheeks. The girl dropped to her feet, immediately rubbing her face and glaring at the ground.
Illyana, despite her earlier tears, couldn't quite suppress a small, slightly mean-spirited giggle at her friend's humiliation.
Throughout the entire exchange, Asajj had remained motionless, watching with an expression she couldn't quite define. Part of her felt vindicated—the little brat had gotten what she deserved for defending Maximoff. But another part, a part she didn't want to acknowledge, felt... something else. Something uncomfortably like shame.
"Fascinating." Kreia's voice cut through the aftermath, drawing everyone's attention back to the holographic Sith Lords. "Is this how the young challenge authority in your era?"
"Emotional discipline requires effort," Ajunta Pall observed with detached interest. "Though personally, I never concerned myself with such matters. Children were someone else's responsibility."
"And that," Kreia said dryly, "is why the Sith of your era failed to establish a lasting legacy. You created warriors, not a civilization." She turned her eyeless gaze toward the group. "At least allow them to express emotions while young. Suppressing feeling too early creates adults who cannot properly channel passion—they either burn out or burn everything around them."
There was a pointed quality to that last statement, and Asajj had the distinct impression Kreia was talking about her.
"Now then." Kreia's holographic form drifted back toward the center of the wreck. "We've had quite enough melodrama for one afternoon. What we need to address is the matter of Asajj's training."
The word jolted Merlin out of her sulking. She looked up, cheeks still red, eyes still watery, but suddenly attentive. "You're going to train her?"
"If she proves teachable," Ajunta Pall said, studying Asajj with new intensity. "Which remains to be seen."
Wanda's expression hardened again. "Absolutely not."
"Your approval," Kreia said mildly, "was not requested."
"She's dangerous. Unstable. You want to make her more powerful?" Wanda shook her head sharply. "I won't allow it."
"You won't allow it?" Asajj found her voice again, rage flooding back to fill the hollow space where guilt had been. "Who do you think you are, Maximoff? You have no authority over me!"
"I have every right to protect these children from—"
"From what? From me?" Asajj took a threatening step forward. "I'm their family! Their blood! You're just some outsider who swooped in and—"
"I'm the one who's been here!" Wanda matched her step for step, the two women closing the distance until they were nearly nose to nose. "I'm the one who held Illyana when she had nightmares about what happened to her clan! I'm the one who taught Merlin how to control her magic so she wouldn't hurt herself! Where were you, cousin? Oh, that's right—you were busy trying to kill Jedi and terrorizing the galaxy for your Sith master!"
"At least I didn't pretend to be some noble hero while using children as pawns in a war!"
"Pawns?" Wanda's eyes blazed full crimson now. "I would die for them! Can you say the same? Or would you sacrifice them the moment Dooku ordered it?"
"I am done taking orders from Dooku! I'm going to kill him, and then—"
"And then what?" Wanda's laugh was bitter. "You think killing one monster makes you less of one? You think murder somehow redeems all the blood already on your hands?"
Asajj's hand went to her lightsaber hilt. Wanda's hands erupted with chaos magic.
"ENOUGH!"
Kreia's shout—amplified by the Force itself—slammed into both women like a physical blow. The ancient Sith Lord's holographic form blazed with dark side energy, and for a moment, she looked less like a recording and more like a wrathful god.
"You. Will. Stop." Each word carried the weight of millennia. "Both of you. Immediately."
Asajj and Wanda froze, hands still on their respective weapons, but neither moved to attack.
"You are both wounded," Kreia continued, her voice returning to its normal measured tone. "You circle each other like rabid animals, lashing out because pain is easier than healing. The Avenger sees in Ventress a reflection of what she could have become—what she was becoming before she chose a different path. And Ventress sees in the Avenger everything she thinks she can never be—loved, trusted, forgiven."
Silence. Neither woman could look at the other, but neither could they look away from Kreia's burning gaze.
"Your conflict serves no one," Kreia said. "Least of all these children you both claim to care about. So here is what will happen." She gestured toward Asajj. "Ventress will train with us. We will teach her what we can of the ancient ways, help her understand the power within her."
"And if she uses that power to hurt people?" Wanda demanded.
"Then you will stop her," Kreia said simply. "Is that not what you do, Scarlet Witch? Stop those who would do harm?" She paused. "But I do not believe that will be necessary. Ventress seeks to kill one man—her master. A goal you should understand, given your own history with those who enslaved you."
Wanda flinched. The comparison hit home.
"As for you, Maximoff." Kreia's attention shifted fully to Wanda. "You will cease your antagonism. Not because I command it, but because your daughters—and yes, they are yours in all ways that matter—have asked it of you. Will you make them choose between loving their cousin and loving you?"
"That's not fair," Wanda whispered.
"Life rarely is," Kreia agreed. "But you are an adult. You have survived impossible loss and rebuilt yourself from the ashes. Surely you can manage basic civility for the sake of two children who love you both."
Wanda closed her eyes. Took a breath. Released it slowly. "Fine. Fine. I'll... I'll stay out of your training." She opened her eyes, pinning Asajj with a look that could have melted steel. "But if you hurt them—if you even look at Illyana or Merlin wrong—what I'll do to you will make Dooku's lightning feel like a massage."
Asajj met her gaze evenly. "I would never hurt them."
"You already have," Wanda said quietly. "Every time they watch us fight. Every time they have to choose sides. You're hurting them right now."
The words landed like physical blows. Asajj looked at Illyana—her cousin, her family, her blood—and saw the tear-stained face, the exhaustion, the desperate hope in those young eyes.
She'd done that. Her pride, her rage, her inability to let go of past grievances. She'd hurt someone who loved her without ever lifting a finger in violence.
"I..." Asajj's voice cracked. "I don't know how to stop."
"Learn," Wanda said. "We both have to learn." She looked at Kreia. "Will you teach her that too? How to be something other than a weapon?"
"That," Kreia said with something that might have been approval, "she must teach herself. We can only provide the tools."
Ajunta Pall chuckled darkly. "This is going to be either enlightening or catastrophic. Possibly both."
"Either way," Kreia said, turning back to Asajj, "we begin tomorrow at dawn. Come prepared to be challenged in ways you cannot yet imagine. And Ventress?"
"Yes, Master?"
"Leave your pride at the door. Where we're going, it will only get you killed."
Asajj swallowed hard and nodded.
As Wanda gathered Illyana and Merlin to leave, the young Nightsisters looked back at their cousin with hope and apprehension in equal measure.
And Asajj, standing alone before the ancient Sith Lords, realized she was more terrified of this than she'd ever been of Dooku's wrath.
Because this time, she actually had something to lose.