Part 2
### Chapter 1: Chap 1 Korriban Arc I Would Like To Go Home Now
Darkness is all Morgan sees as he comes to. With a parched throat, aching wrists from being bound and only his ears to tell him what’s going on, you might forgive him for trying to speak.
The guard did not, and with a harsh “Silence, slave!” he was knocked back unconscious again.
Regaining consciousness the second time was no more pleasant than the first, now with a painful bump on his head and a splitting headache, he stayed silent.
“The guard is gone. Speak, if you can.” A not immediately hostile voice whispered. He liked that voice, it was speaking softly.
“Whe- Where am I?” A coughing fit overtook him as other voices urgently tried to shush them. Morgan ignored them, mostly out of confusion.
“From what I can guess, we’re on a shuttle. Where that shuttle is going, I have no idea.” The nice, soft, voice told him.
“Both of you, shut it. Do you want the guard to come back?” A third voice demanded, just as quietly. Morgan’s stomach did a flip as the shuttle turned. ‘Wait, did he say shuttle?’
“Shuttle? You mean a bus?” Talking was making his throat worse. The others shushed them again, even more incessantly than before.
“What’s a bus?” The soft voice asked curiously. A much louder voice broke in, barking. “What did I say about talking, slaves?”
Just before darkness claimed him, just before both of them were knocked unconscious, he got the faint sense the soft voice was laughing. Laughing and laughing, then sudden silence.
“ETA to spaceport 6A in five minutes.” Morgan woke up again, delirious. Not remembering what happened the first two times he made noise, and not caring besides, he spoke again.
“What spaceport? Where are we going?”
“Where are we going, it asks?” A level voice mused. Without waiting for a reply, the man continued.
“Well, I’m going to the cantina the moment my shift ends, spending half my paycheck so Kat will pretend to love me. You, on the other hand, are going to hell. Or, more accurately, as close as you’re ever going to get.” He seemed to read the confusion off Morgan’s face, laughing again.
“Korriban.”
He needed no guard to knock him unconscious that time. The head trauma, shock and delirium seemed perfectly happy to do it for them.
‘Waking up like this is really starting to get annoying.’
Morgan shook his head. His second thought was more panicked, looking around.
‘What. Where am I? What’s going on?! what the fUCK IS GOING ON?!’
Heads whipped around to look at him. Morgan flinched, realizing he had shouted that last bit at the top of his lungs. Oops.
“Easy there, everything’s alright.” A soft and reassuring voice murmured from behind. Morgan twisted, stars briefly dancing in his vision. He gave the one that must be Soft Voice an empty glare. “Liar.”
Soft Voice shrugged unapologetically. “Yes, but it got you to focus on me and snapped you out of a panic attack.” Morgan blinked, seeing Soft Voice was, in fact, a hulking eight feet tall devaronian. He shook his head again, ignoring that oddity.
“How long have I been out?”
“About a week.” Soft Voice answered promptly.
“A week ?”
“Hmm. They brought you here a couple of hours ago. How do you feel?”
Now that he thought about it, pretty good. No headache or nausea, no sore throat or bump on his head. No pain of any kind, really. He felt great. Saying as much to Soft Voice had the giant shrugging. “Must have given you kolto.”
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“Right, kolto. ” Morgan parroted, unimpressed.
He stood, looking up at the ceiling. He gave that a look to make sure it also understood how utterly done he already was with the situation. Noticing the ceiling was quite high up he gave the room a cursory look, spinning slowly. It seemed much like a military bunk room, not that he had any experience with those, and was filled with cots. The beds were stacked ten high, giving the room a strange three dimensional feeling.
“Alright, that’s enough. Cut the simulation.” The ceiling, beds and other objects in the room, of course, did not reply. “Wake up!” Pinching himself, and then slapping himself in the face when pinching didn’t work, he got slightly more desperate. “Whatever mushroom induced hallucinogenic coma this is, I’m done with it! Wake up!” Slapping himself a couple more times to make sure, he finally noticed that Soft Voice was looking at him funny.
“You’re not dreaming.” Soft Voice informed him carefully. Like one might talk to an injured animal. Or a crazy person.
“Well of course you would say that.” He bit back. Morgan finally noticed how all the red wearing people were holding weapons, tensions high. It took precedence over freaking out. For now.
“If I was gone for a week, do you know where we are? What we’re doing here?”
“Ah, yes. That. We’re currently on Korriban, the main training planet for the sith. Seeing as we’re all slaves and have no training, we were not sent to the main academy.” Soft Voice spoke calmly, making soothing hand gestures. “We were sent to a training camp, of sorts. If we survive our training to the Overseer's satisfaction we will be promoted to acolytes and sent to the academy proper.”
He shot Morgan a fleeting look before sweeping his eyes across the room. “The Overseer didn’t seem very hopeful many of us would make it.”
Soft Voice grabbed a uniform and weapon from Morgan’s locker, under his bed, then motioned him to follow. Morgan was quiet as they walked, silently freaking out and trying not to stare at the enormous alien. “If you want any hope of surviving for more than an hour with the Overseer tomorrow you’ll need to catch up.”
Soft Voice stopped at an empty training room, weights, treadmills and a sparring ring dominating much of the space. He threw Morgan the gear and made no move to leave as he numbly started changing out of his hospital garb. He got about half way, his shirt thrown in a trashcan by the door, before catching sight of his stomach.
‘Really? I get transported - isekai'd, whatever - to another world, or universe, get enslaved - helpfully reminded to him as the collar around his neck pressed cool steel against skin - and I'm still fat?’ Delirious laughter filled the room, before he tried, with some success, to fit in the standardized, too small uniform.
Finding a mirror in front of the weights, and seeing Soft Voice was looking at him curiously, he found he looked much like an overweight, harried man stuffed into a cosplay costume four sizes too small. In a word, ridiculous.
He flexed his legs, finding strong muscle pushing against fabric. ‘At least they didn’t take my muscles. Nice thing about being fat, I suppose. Your body never limits muscle growth and you always hit your protein goals. It’s almost scary how quickly overweight people build muscle, assuming they try.’
Soft Voice interrupted his pity session by loudly clearing his throat, throwing one of the weapons. He turned to see Soft Voice looking at the weapon on the floor, nodding at him to pick it up.
Doing so, and pressing the red button on the handle, a crackling sound filled the room. Soft Voice grinned. “Want to start sparring with the shock function on?”
Morgan looked down at the weapon, flicking the button again. Then he whipped his head up, looking upon a charging devaronian raising a saber poised to strike. Morgan panicked, swore, and dove to the side. He dropped his weapon in the process, landing painfully on his knees.
Soft Voice, still far enough to course correct with ease, tapped him gently on the head. “So you have no fighting experience to speak of.”
“Of course I don’t!” Morgan half yelled, brushing his painful knees and standing. Adrenaline overcame his fear and confusion, rounding on the giant. “You do ?”
“Before I came to this place? No.” Soft Voice lied easily. “But I learned, and now you must learn.” He took a stance and motioned Morgan to mirror him, who complied with shaking hands. “Now, this is the first set of kata’s. It’s for the form known as Shii-Cho, invented for lightsaber combat. You better learn quickly, little Mad Mouse. You’re a week behind.”
Dropping into his bed hours later, the bunk just under Soft Voice’s, every part of his body begged him to sleep. Nevermind the impossibility of being in a different universe. Nevermind being able to use the Force, if only once and in desperation. His body was tired and bruised, and nothing mattered nearly as much as sleep.
But before he surrendered to unconsciousness, before he could pretend this was all a dream he forced himself to pray. Not that he was religious - outside of some minor fascination on the topic - but because praying is what you do after hours of a giant devaronian - an alien - drilling you to fight with a saber. In an alien place, with hostile and unknown aliens all around him. With aliens!
And tomorrow would be worse, Soft Voice had promised. He’d described how training with the Overseer filled half the day, painfull hours of instruction where every failure could mean death. How they would be given the other half to do as they please, to fight and study and train.
‘To whomever, whatever, might be listening. Please return me home. Please. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to. Please .’ He cried, barely noticing he wasn’t the only one. It came as little comfort.
No one answered. No one fulfilled his wish. And they never, ever, would.
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### Chapter 2: Chap 2 Korriban Arc Fear Not The Dark Fear The
Fear filled the chamber, and the smirking sith pureblood seemed to revel in it.
She paced back and forth, suddenly blurring across the room. She appeared in front of Morgan, making him flinch.
“It seems our sleeping beauty has finally decided to join us.” No laughter filled the room, the silence filled with fear. She glanced down, smirking wider. Morgan knew what he looked like. His stomach bulged out of his uniform, doing a good job of showing his physique. He mentally shrugged, keeping his face blank and eyes down.
‘If you think being fat is my biggest problem, I’m Tenebrae.’
The Overseer sneered, then turned around to stalk across the room. Hands shook in fear, and one woman pissed herself. She blanched white with terror, looking at the smirking Overseer. ‘Why aren’t I that afraid? I should be. Must be shock. Yes, I’m simply in shock. Can you notice shock when you’re experiencing it?’
“Today we’re going to be training your endurance.” Her voice cracked across the large training room, hidden doors opening to reveal rows of droids. More people flinched. “You’ll be sparring against them, and they will keep attacking if you don’t defend yourself.”
With a dramatic clap the droids marched forth, Morgan only barely suppressing the urge to step back. The slaves, already lined up in two rows of fifty, were soon looking not at each other but faceless droids armed with sabers.
“Begin!”
The droids attacked, pain filling his hours. Pain, and ever so slowly, progress.
“Soft Voice?” Morgan asked quietly. Quiet enough the people surrounding them couldn't hear, or so he hoped. The devaronian looks up from his datapad. “Why did you decide to help me?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you decide to help me?”
“When?”
“Last week, when I just woke up. Yesterday, today. All the time, really. You’re helping me, even though it doesn’t feel like help. Even though it doesn’t really benefit you.” And wasn’t that the truth. His body was filled with bruises, refreshed daily.
“No reason.” Soft Voice answered, turning his attention back to his lap.
“Oh? You mean that with a week of the Overseer preaching values of the strong and condemning the weak, you decided to help a complete stranger for no reason? ” Morgan eyed the other man, sarcasm thick in his tone.
“Hmm.”
“Fuck that. The Overseer killed Weak Eye for helping his opponent correct his grip on day two, and she sure hasn’t been getting softer. You told me what happened before I woke up, too.” Weak Eye, a poor twi’lek with a lazy eye that never got corrected. Overseer shot him with lightning until he dropped dead. He could still smell it, days later.
‘Strange how little death affects me after only a week in this hellscape. Humanity's greatest super power has always been adaptation, I suppose. And self-delusion, but let’s not dwell on that.’ Morgan turned his attention back to Soft Voice when he felt the man’s eyes on him. The devaronion really had quite the intimidating stare.
“The Overseer didn’t kill Weak Eye for helping someone, you know this.” Morgan waved his hand dismissively. Soft Voice shrugged. “Fine. It was your eyes.”
When Soft Voice made no move to continue and looked back to his study material, Morgan sighed, “My eyes?”
“When you woke up. Your eyes were wild, mad,” Morgan twitched, blaming his friend for that nickname. Mad Mouse. Fucking ridiculous. “afraid and confused. But not defeated. All of us here, and I mean everyone, were slaves. Our parents were slaves. Our grandparents were slaves. Maybe not always to the empire, but we were slaves. We’re casting off those shackles now, true enough, but not you.” Soft Voice was quiet, speaking with purpose. “Whatever you were in your old life, you were no slave.”
The words ‘old life’ bounced in his head, bringing up memories he’d rather not think about.
“That is why I decided to help you. You’re an anomaly. You’re also not nearly as batshit insane as many of the others, so I chose well.” Soft Voice hummed, clearly pleased with himself. “And look at you now. You must have lost a few pounds at the very least. You almost never hit yourself with your own weapon anymore, and you can very nearly stop yourself from running away when we spar.”
Morgan scoffed. “Laugh it up. Not everyone can bend steel and ignore pain like a freak.” The thought, however, stuck with him.
Looking around he could almost see the lines drawn in the cube that served as their home. Three territories, carved with bloodshed and cruelty. Soft Voice noticed him looking. “We’re fractured. Stump and Spiky each build their own little armies and are half the reason our numbers dwindle so fast. The rest flock to us for safety, in case you forgot.”
Morgan would be hard pressed to, since their own - well, Soft Voice’s - faction made up the third territory. With some two dozen members, all of them weak in the force or with the saber, had joined with Soft Voice. As the third strongest of the ‘class’ - as the Overseer called them - it seemed almost natural for him to have his own ‘little army’. Unlike Stump and Spiky however, Soft Voice saw no need for cruelty or fear.
And he’d somehow roped Morgan into becoming his second. Not for lack of trying to refuse, but there he was. Truthfully, even with a week less training, he was fairly powerful in the Dark - when he could command it, which wasn’t often - and his saberwork, thanks to Soft Voice, wasn’t half bad. The combination was enough to place him above the rest of their faction. Not that that put him very high in the ranking.
The legion of weakness, Stump had dubbed them. Soft Voice was the only reason they still existed at all.
‘Ahh, the rankings. Such lovely cruelty by the Overseer.’ Morgan reflected darkly. ‘Simply have the system watch our every move, and rank us in a nice big list. And each week, every week, kill the lowest ranked.’
Only two people were killed that way, but both had been from their faction. It made them seem weak - because they were - but Soft Voice was strong enough it didn’t matter overly much. Strong enough to hold off or kill anyone that tried anything, anyway. Not that killing was allowed, but crippling someone sure was. And if you get crippled, well, you spend some time in kolto. Time that you should spend training. And when you get out? You might be mighty close to the bottom of that list.
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Shouting filled the room and he didn’t need to look to know that Stump was at it again. Him and his speeches . Disgusting.
Stump, nicknamed for only having one arm, was the first to figure out that the Overseer didn’t only not care, she encouraged us to build our own ‘power bases’. With power over your followers it twisted the strong to rule and the weak to serve. How fast society breaks into tribalism.
Spiky wasn’t much better. He used to be Stump’s lieutenant, before he - in true sith fashion - betrayed and tried to kill him. He failed, but didn’t die. Now he commands nearly half the remaining acolytes. A sadistic bastard, he likes to reward his loyal followers by passing around women like playthings. Those not strong enough to resist. The desperate. The ones that didn’t, for one reason or another, signed up with them.
When the betrayal - as they called it - happened, those not involved, or smart enough to get out when it happened, signed up with Soft Voice and Mad Mouse. Madness, all of it.
‘Well, they signed up with Soft Voice. He was the one that made our little sad attempt at a faction in the first place. Trained them. Trained me.’
More shouting drifted over, the room not nearly big enough to dampen the noise. ‘Lucky the room’s so small, really. Means fighting isn’t really an option here, so we at least have a semi secure place to sleep. Most of the fighting happens in the hallways or training rooms.’
“That idiot won’t shut up for a while, so study time’s over. But before we go train with the saber, pop quiz time.” The other acolytes of their faction put down their datapads and gave Soft Voice their full attention. Mild mannered he may be, when he commands, they obey.
“Mirla, cite the sith code.” She startled, twitchy as usual.
“Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall set me free.”
A bitter smile briefly touched Mirla’s face. “Not that I would call this freedom.”
Some laughed, but it was quiet and awkward. Soft Voice looked at her, Mirla visibly composing herself. “Apologies, my lord.”
Soft Voice nodded. “We will feel how we feel, think what we think. That we do not control. But what we show, what we say, what we do . That we have control over. Show no weakness, no hesitation. Even if you feel it. Especially when you feel it.” He briefly looked around, the acolytes around them straightening.
“Mad Mouse.” Morgan blinked, not expecting to be called on.
“What does the sith code mean?”
“It means that we control the force, and are not controlled by it. It is freedom because we command it, and are not commanded by it.” He replied. He’d had some time to think about it, even before he came to this place. When he was still happy, and death didn’t loom around every corner, he’d been a nerd.
Soft Voice nodded, pleased again. He called upon a few more, correcting or scolding those that hesitated or answered wrong. After that it was off to the training rooms, walking in the formation Soft Voice had drilled them in.
No blind spots. No easy angles of attack. Close enough to assist, but not too close to get in each other's way. Pack tactics. The hallways were big, closer to a street than a path, and the Overseer didn't care if they fought. Killing between acolytes was forbidden and so far no one had tested that rule. Morgan wondered how long that would last.
Maiming, crippling and enslaving was common already, the strong reveling in the power they possessed.
‘Power. Command. A master and slave. That’s the real difference between the sith and jedi. One holds the whip, the other submits to it.’ He shook his head, his mind spiraling down dark paths again. ‘Still. Dark and Light, Good and Evil. People are never pure good or all evil. The Force isn’t something you can put in a nice little box, labeling it as you wish . The Voss aren’t jedi or sith, nor are the Knights of Zakuul. There must be thousands of cults, groups and sects using the Force. They’re using it just fine, no sith or jedi dogma to be seen.’
Something stirred. Something his nascent, unreliable, command over the force barely detected. He shook his head again, already putting it out of his mind. ‘Might be worth meditating some more. God knows the Dark isn’t getting me anywhere.’
They arrived at one of the larger training rooms, Soft Voice starting to direct people around. Some he ordered to practice with the saber, others to call upon strong emotion and practice enforcing their body with it.
Morgan sparred against his fellows. Kripaa the sith pureblood, a former hutt slave and all around nervous wreck. Maco, a human with dead, lifeless eyes just going through the motions. Bastra, a former trandoshan slave gladiator. A man yet to display Force powers but good enough with the saber to survive.
On and on the list went. Morgan tried to give good advice, and as Soft Voice’s second in command, he was listened to. But he was no trainer. No instructor. He barely knew what he was doing himself, unlike their glorious leader.
Soft Voice called a halt after a few hours, the group turning to him. He had everyone sit in a wide circle, sparring with them one by one. Give them pointers, advice. Had people critique the fights, ask what they learned from observing.
And saved for last was Morgan. He steeled himself. Told himself this was nothing next to what the Overseer did to him every morning. But Soft Voice was a natural with the saber, a natural with the force. He was not. Pain became his life, progress in its wake.
Days turned into weeks. People died, others becoming husks and cracking under the pressure. They didn’t last long.
He meditated daily, either under Soft Voice’s guidance or alone. He tried to find balance. To neither submit nor command. It wasn’t going very well.
It was a good thing he had his extra training, for, day after day, he fell further in the rankings. Without the Dark’s aggression he lost more battles. Without the ability to enforce his body, strengthening it, he was taking more losses.
Failure meant pain. A great, great deal of pain.
If it wasn’t for Soft Voice he would be dead by now, of that he was certain. He trained him, as he trained the others. Pushed his skill with the saber high enough that he could survive without the Force. Never triumph, but survive.
Spiky’s favorite pet was at the bottom of the ranking that week, and the Overseer killed her. His tantrum nearly started an all out war. Then, without warning, Spiky was dead. Stabbed through the skull with a shiv by another of his pets. Then she died, killed by a loyalist.
He and their faction had huddled around Soft Voice as the room devolved into chaos, five more dead before morning came. Morgan hadn’t slept well since then.
The Overseer did nothing.
After nearly a month of failure, of pain, it clicked. He didn’t know how, or why. He hadn’t been trying anything new. He’d just breathed, letting the brief moments of peace sooth his mind.
Then the Force flowed, filling his body. Not the biting, stinging Dark. Nor the soothing, insistent Light. Both he had felt before, and he had been so sure the Overseer was going to storm into the dorm and blast him into a million pieces when he had felt the Light flow through him.
But she hadn’t. And now the force moved like a puppy through his body. Excited. Nervous. Curious.
Morgan smiled. For the first time in his new life, it was a smile of joy.
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