The Deep Woods

Chang had been there when Skreek had been born to a broodmare deep in the under-warrens of Clan Moonblade in eastern Dragusblight. The ranat mewling had been one in a litter of thirty-seven squealing ratlings, all fighting for one of the monstrous hairless mothers limited six breasts, learning lethal instinct straight out of the womb as he had strangled his siblings and devoured their nutritious rodent flesh. It was rare for the Shogun to attend the breeding chambers, but he had been there, watching with foreknowledge of the great Shadow Squeak that Skreek would one day become. All that had ended in a single moment of betrayal. Like Tyna, he too had pieced together who was beneath the dark plate of that brutal bipedal tank. You didn't reach the rank of Vermin Lord without a great deal of cleverness and cunning. It had been a mistake to trust the Eye Worshippers, they were all avatars of chaos afflicted with mad devotion to something he couldn't comprehend and had no interest in knowing, he should have known better from his own dealings with the Great Devourer. Now Snikch and Skreek were dead, one at the hands of the undead horde that had stood between him and his prize, the other by their so called allies. Curse the Eye and all its servants!

Fortunately for Chang there was little standing between him and the object he so viciously sought, as he leapt from rusting beam to dilapidated strut, running along walls and swinging from the rafters with the grace and precision unmatched by any other citizen of Dragusblight. He merged with the shadows, becoming the darkness to deceive the light, each step soundless and leaving no trace of his passage. Rotting flesh dripped from his knuckles, the remnants of the dead that had barred his passage. There was no deadlier art in all the galaxy than the ninth form of Teräs Käsi, Squeak-Fu, the Way of the Ranat. Where Chang went, death followed, undeath as well. With his three remaining Shadow Squeaks he carved a surgical path through the ruined factory until finally his reached the foreman's office at the tallest heights, unreachable now that the durasteel scaffolding had rotted and fallen to litter the debris strewn floor below. The heat was intense at even that height and the smoke tickled the nostril lining of his snout, causing his beady red eyes to weep tears. Not all may have been caused by the smoke.

He landed with agile vermin skill at the entrance to the office, occupied with a thick desk of Pzobian oak with a tarnished bronze placard that still faintly read "Ballz Bartholomew Bralor" in bold basic script. A verminous desiccated mummy laid on the floor, transfixed in place by a black shafted voulge thrust through its spine, pinning it too the floor, trapped in place since the facility's original fall years ago. Like every other corpse in the building, its eye sockets were lit by cobalt blue unlife, animated through some unnatural necromantic power. It scratched at the ground with more enthusiasm as Chang and his Squeaks entered the office, trying to pull itself closer, but unable as its ribs kept catching on the voulge's fat blade. The Shogun nodded his snout and ignored the mummy as one of his silk clad agents drove their ninjatō through its dusty skull, bringing an end to its eternal suffering as the cortosis alloy seemed to swallow the soul flame kindling in its eyes. Chang's entire focus was on the sheathed length of songsteel on the floor, just out of the reach of the now silenced mummy-rat's skeletal paws. The Doujikiri Yasutsna, the Death Shard of Lord Mortale, the Greatest Necromancer of the modern age. The blade had long been a symbol of Clan Moonblade, ever since the horrific undead sorcerer had shed it from its fractured soul, the first of many cursed splinters to be spread across the galaxy. The mouse that wielded it was the unquestioned leader of Clan Moonblade, and now it was finally Chang's. He grinned, exposing long yellow fangs more akin to fileting knives than enameled cuspids.

"I've waited a long time for this. Now, finally, we are reunited." He squeaked in amused glee, striding confidently over to the blade sheathed in a scabbard of terentatek hide. Kneeling, he slowly reached a paw towards the blade, hesitating at the threshold of destiny, then plunging snout first into his fate.

A horrifying shriek shook the the ruined factory, shaking loose metal beams and bricks from the ceiling, burying scores of the burning dead below in a layer of crumbling debris.

---

The cry in response came from above as the smoke parted way long enough to reveal a rodent made of shadow crouching on a pillar, the eyes set in its verminous skull blazing like two red balls of hellfire, its yellow fangs elongated and dripping with venom. The Shogan's silken kimona had turned black, changed just as the martial master of Squeak-Fu had been, transformed into something not of this world. Held in the Vermin Lord's enlarged gnarled paw was a blade of unparalleled elegance and dread, a gleaming length of songsteel that glowed wickedly with red runes written in Pzobian blackscript, weeping smoke and hissing in the toxic factory air. Chang's powerful, if somewhat short in stature, physical form was superimposed by a dark spectral entity that seemed to hang just behind the ranat ruler of Clan Moonblade. Every move the mouse made was mimicked by the spectre, its power suffusing the the albino furred ranat until his mortal form swelled with necromantic power.

From out of the darkness, emerged three Shadow Squeaks, no longer of the living if the cobalt flame lighting their eyes was any indicator. With the same lethal martial perfection they had exuded in life, they drew their metallic blue ninjatō from charcoal blackened scabbards and held them in combat stances. Groans echoed behind them as the ranks of the dead began to emerge from the darkness, all drawn to the power of the Doujikiri Yasutsna, bound to follow its wielders command. Despite all the walking shamblers that had been eviscerated in the cleansing fire of holy plasma, their numbers seemed no less diminished, lurching forwards in droves that seemed endless.

Chang pointed the tip of the Death Shard towards Starkiller, then Tyna, his eyes wild and undecided on who should feel his wrath first. His fur was shedding in patches, his flesh wrinkling and growing taut. The part of Mortale that was housed in the blade was consuming its new host, but it hungered for more. It hungered for a Saint.

Darth Tyna stood tall on her pillar. The roof above the pillar had long decayed and fallen, leaving the column standing like a 7 story tall sentinel in the midst of the open night air and bathed in moonlight. The moonlight shown down on her wings and the boney horns crowning her forehead glinted along with the golden streaks of dried metallic tears on her cheeks. There she stood like a tiny bristling fortress, separated from the gantry by a moat of empty space.

The sith apprentice briefly contemplated the survivability of the situation. The rotting ranat assassins were already on their way. Though invisible to human eyes, Darth Tyna could sense the elite foot soldiers scamper, run, and leap from platform to platform, skillfully using the shadows, as they hissed and snapped their rotting jaws twisted with necromantic power. 
Meanwhile, Tyna had been drawing from the well of power of the deep woods more and more to sustain herself. The virus inside her was battling for her organs, and she didn't have time to try to draw out or purify the corruption. All she could do with the limited time was pull the dark threads of fate running around her and pack her decaying wounds with the raw mutating power of the dark side to hopefully forestall the rapid approach of destiny.  She was certain that she was mutating at that moment and could not spare time to care.  Her mechanical friend-monster fighting hosts of the undead below, was her concern. Whatever happened, she needed to survive to help him.

Almost on cue, ID-10 floated through the rafters to Tyna's location. "There you are!" Tyna was pleased to see her droid.  The droid was carrying her backpack with powercells and Tyna's battered training lightsaber. Single bladed, but far more sturdy and reliable than the flashy double bladed inquisitor's lightsaber.  "I.D., give it! Quickly!"  Rather than dig through her backpack, Tyna took the whole thing from the droid.  She slung the backpack over a shoulder as the virulent shadow squeaks converged at her former position on the gantryway. 

"Great. Now stay out of my way." She hissed to ID-10 who shot off up into the darkness, warbling its protest.

Across the 10 meter wide chasm, the oracle stared into the glowing red eyes of her putrid former comrades, staring at her from the darkness. Still, her thoughts were on her friend below.  "Sir Starkiller." Tyna's small voice was not loud, but still pierced the air. "They took your armor, but they did not take your soul!" Tyna had not forgotten the miracle in the the courtyard. It was fast making her a believer. "Loose holy rounds of judgment, stomp heathens and heretics alike, know the sanctity of your purpose, let the fire of your faith purify all, until only you remain!  Eye be praised!  Amen!"  She hoped the Eye would hear her prayer on his behalf.

The undead elite foot soldiers hissed and snapped their jaws twisted with the power of decay as if to taunt her. <<"The Eye cannot see you; the Eye does not hear you...">>  With their menacing unblinking eyes watching her, she found her voice and answered the darkeness:  "We'll see about that..." She felt confident until the sith-ling reached for the lightsaber clip in the small of her back and realized she hadn't retrieved it from her bag yet.  "Fuck."  She didn't want to take her eyes off the Ranat for a moment to dig in her bag.  Balancing like a bird on the tall thin pole, she drew the stubby survival vibroblade from her utility belt instead.  "Here I stand, sword in hand, waiting for thee, who cannot see. Come forth and walk, who cannot talk," The simple sing-song chant riled up the feral Ranat who snapped their jaws at her.  With a great standing leap, one lunged at her with his grasping claws and sharp incisors. 

From the adrenaline, Tyna threw the vibroblade far harder than she needed to, (perhaps even strengthened by the force). The blade cut clean through the chest of the undead creature, disemboweling it, but also cutting short its flight.  The ranat hit the column a few meters below the Sith, before the rodent's guts spilled out and dangled from its torso.  The organs coated the pillar in black putrid ichor.  The creature clawed at the surface to maintain a grip as it started sliding down the bare multistory pillar.  
Once again weaponless, Tyna had to take a chance and dig in her pack.  Without taking her eyes off the ranats across from her, she blindly dug for her lightsaber and pulled out... a landmine?  Below her, the Ranat was proving tough and resourceful.  The undead abomination had slung its own entrails around the pillar as a brace to halt its decent and start inching its ascent towards the small apprentice meters above it.

"Fuck!"  Her profanity was on autopilot at this point.  Without thinking, Tyna armed the landmine and immediately threw it at the climbing threat.  The mine hit the Ranat's head and bounced off, only spurring it to climb faster. She thought that the smart landmine might act like a grenade and explode on impact when it hit her foe.   "Shit!" The landmine exploded when it reached the ground floor, shredding a host of shambling corpses and shaking the base of the pillar. "Mother F-"  Tyna balanced on the shaking column, her wings outstretched for balance.  The dead Ranats across the way from Tyna sniggered at her dismay while their comrade closed in.  Glancing back down, Tyna saw the creature had dug her vibroblade out of its chest and brandished it with a gleam in its eye as if to say <<I'm coming for you.>> 

Tyna pulled another landmine out of her backpack and armed it, this time taking a moment to synchronize it with her gauntlet controls.  While her foes laughed, she stuck it to the pillar, facing the climbing disemboweled rat.  "In the name of the Eye..." she muttered, before she triggered the smartmine.  The directional explosion blasted duracrete off the pillar and flechettes shredded the ranat into chunks of meat that rained down on the rotting hord below.  There was no doubt that the sith apprentice had ended the threat and ended one of the three undead foot soldiers.  The glowing eyes of the unholy ranats narrowed across the chasm from her furious at her success.  In need of another weapon, Tyna's eyes strayed from them to dig in her backpack for her light saber.  She felt a handle. "Ah HA!" She looked back up in triumph to see only one set of red eyes...

The sith oracle instinctively jumped straight up, sensing incoming danger.   As her body shot upwards in the moonlight, the missing Ranat-ninja landed on the column beneath her, slashing and clawing the air where Tyna had been milliseconds earlier.

In the air, Tyna spread her small wings wide and caught the winds blowing over the roof.  Arching into a backflip, Tyna landed on a section of the roof... that promptly shuddered and started to buckle.  Again aided by the force, Tyna sprinted along the roof as it sagged and collapsed behind her.  Each footfall seemed to trigger additional sections of the decaying factory roof to give-way.   "No wonder..." (puff puff,) "those little... furry...  bastards...." (huff huff)   "couldn't get in ..."  (huff) "through the roof!"  It was evident why Fang's Ranat warriors could not use the roof to infiltrate the facility and retrieve the Death Shard.  Cursing under her breath, Tyna prayed that she did not run in the direction of Starkiller.  As much as everything she touched seemed to be collapsing, she didn't want the roof to collapse over her friend.

Even quickened by the dark side, the sith apprentice was not able to outrun the decay of the factory roof.   She suddenly found herself plunging through a cloud of debris; rolling and pinwheeling off rusty durasteel and crumbling cinderbrick. one of the straps of her backpack caught on a pipe stopping her before the strap and the pipe broke. She twisted like a cat, landing right-way-up and rolling through the fall, and ended up under a sturdy table that protected her from falling bricks.   She brushed dirt and dust from her eyes as she crawled out from under the table and stood up.  Her ass and lower back hurt, but then again, she just fell more than 30 meters.  Pain aside, she did a quick jumping jack.  "No broken bones." she declared as she looked around.  Her backpack had torn and flung her supplies around the room, which appeared to be a droid assembly room.    

"ID10! Scan! Location?" Tyna whispered loudly, looking around the basement level. No response. "ID10?" Tyna entered a command on her techno-gauntlet. "Where the EF am I?" She did not want to attract additional attention by being louder, with the undead Ranat undoubtedly looking for her.  Around her, the walls that she originally took for plain duracrete appeared to actually be computer banks.   There was alot of machinery in the assembly area, but a decent blue glow provided some light for her to follow...   In the far corner, Tyna could see a store of spare droid parts as well as a stock room/armory. Tyna rubbed her hands together and headed for it.  Those undead Ranat were going to find her armed to the teeth...

Then she saw it, there gleaming on a table was the pale blue flame of Starkiller's soul lantern.  It lay next to a pile of discarded spiked metal plates... Which she realized looked like Starkiller's armor.  She grabbed the lantern, then noticing the sanctified chain!  There could be no mistake with the dried blood of Hannite virgins, neti and spiders on it.  Armed with the lantern, Tyna spied her old battered lightsaber on the ground and clipped it to her belt. It had been the lightsaber Lord Havok first gave her when he started her fencing training. It's simple design and handle wrapped in worn reek leather had survived every engagement up to that point, unlike the more delicate and flashy inquisitor model.  Although her body ached, having her old lightsaber made her feel ready to face the shadow squeaks again.   But she'd feel even more ready and deadly after raiding the armory...

After a minute or two, the sith reappeared slowly dragging an over-stuffed bag of equipment larger than her, and laden with bandoliers of assorted grenades and power cells.  She pulled a powercell out and reloaded Guts, before spinning the blaster on her finger and dropping it into her thigh holster.  The small apprentice had not been able to find armor that fit her small form, and the horns on her head and wings on her back, got in the way of helmets and other body armor.  Her short black wings stretched and fluttered before laying flush against her back.  Tyna couldn't lift the large bag of gear... but she wouldn't have to if she could find a cargo repulsor sledge. 

Tyna's techno gauntlet came alive with chirps from ID10. "Ah There you are! About time!" 
The ID10 droid floated down through the hole in the ceiling that Tyna fell through into the room.  
"Drop a way-point on my present location for Starkiller's chain. I needa find a way outta here." The chain belonged with Starkiller. They needed it for their mission. How else would they be able to find the Lord of Death and bring him back to the Black Temple?  "Did you see those Ranat?"  Tyna further asked, as she consulted the schematics of the factory on her cracked gauntlet screen. 

ID10 waived a clawed leg dismissively at Lady Tyna with a chirp and an explanatory series of beeps.
"You killed them." She translated the droid aloud, with the words not registering.  "I killed them?"  Tyna repeated again, "when I dropped the roof on them?"  She blinked her golden eyes... and then pumped her fist in celebration.  "YEAH! That's what I am talking about! Yes!"  She high-fived the bare arm on a partially assembled droid, coming face to face with the grinning skeletal features of a Starkiller droid. 
"Oh shit.  ID10, did the roof fall on Starkiller too?"  Tyna felt like a bad friend for having momentarily forgotten about her companion.
ID10 quickly burbled and beeped that from what it last saw, that part of the roof had not collapsed and the huge war droid had been still stomping and cutting down corpses when ID10 left the main factory assembly line floor to follow Tyna. "That's a relief."   Tyna sat on the gear bag and pulled off her dusty gloves to put her face in her hands. The exhaustion was starting to hit her again.   The Ranat- dead.  Starkiller- alive. Not bad.

She looked at her palms in the blue light of the soul lantern and notice that her hands were crisscrossed with with branches of black veins.  "Oh Fuck.  Mutations?" Or worse?  Her fingernails had turned black and necrotic. She unfastened the neck of her assault jumpsuit to check her chest where the undead Ranat from the courtyard had scratched and nearly stabbed her.  The black veins all traced back to the wounds on her chest. No. It was worse. "The dead plague!" That was her new name for the infection that had spread through the corpses in the factory.  
"ID10, if my vitals start failing, inject me with anything you have."   With the Ranats no longer stalking after her, She now had time to deal with the infection that was running rampant in her body.  Unfortunately, it would require digging deeper into the currents of the dark side flowing in the Pzobian wilderness.  She had done something like this once, a month ago and it sucked-- alot. She was not sure if she could pull this off.    

"By firelight, by firelight..."
Darth Tyna closed her eyes and once again fanned the flames of hate as she focused inward to begin rooting out the contagion spreading to rot her organs...  Her body tensed and her hands dug into the meat on her legs with the concentrated effort that the task began exacting from her. 

Far from the serene meditation of a jedi, the sith's tear streaked face was contorted into a grimace.  In her mind's eye, the ghostly veil of the netherworld grew thin and called to her to surrender to the darkness.  In the black temple, the voices of the crones in her head helped her push back the call to surrender, but now there was only the embers of her own will and heat of her ambition pushing back the darkness of eternal sleep.  SHE. Would. Yet. Be. The DREAD ORACLE! Speaker. of. doom. If not in this life, then the next? NO!  Impatience! NOW! Tomorrow. LIVE! 

Outside of time and space she could see her master, Darth Havok sneering at the news from Commadore Starkiller that Tyna perished on the mission to investigate the deep woods region for necromancy. "Dying, like a victim? From a sickness?  Only the strong can see death at every turn and avoid it.  If I gave her my title of Dread Seer, the weight of the words alone would crush her. Psht. Grandfather Pzob found a place for her in his dirt, I suppose." 

The vision set her off. Havok's dismissal was infuriating. Her anger warped everything in her consciousness into a single thought: SURVIVE!
"No. Not a victim, not the dirt. A throne!" She repeated and traced her path through the splintering threads of her life, grabbing them in a fist to hold them together. "There will be only ONE." The heat of her anger burned and melted fraying threads of her destiny back together. She felt as if her chaotic course was changing.

"Only one dark seer." The forbidden yearning resurfaced in the sea of her anger. "And that will me ME!"  She willed her words into being, empowered by the force she wielded, and supercharged by the deep woods of sacred Pzob.  In her hand, the threads of her disorganized destiny twisted themselves back together into the one dark thread that lead toward her master, Lord Havok.  Over his blind head loomed a giant eye peering out of the Pzob nebula.  Hand-over-hand she pulled herself towards her goal, towards him.  "One path." She wouldn't let go... 

Tyna was wracked with pain as her body began to freely mutate.  There was searing pain at the base of her spine, pain in her hands, feet, legs; even her teeth!  Her skin felt like it was on fire and she had to use the force to try to put out the flames.  It felt like molten metal was pouring from her eye sockets.  The apprentice involuntarily spasmed and pulled at items in the room with jolts of telekinetic attraction.  A plate of Starkiller's spiked armor shot across the room to find itself in the debris swirling around her.   And her organs? Her organs felt like they were being stirred and liquified into something new and unnatural. 

Tyna hugged Starkiller's spiked poltroon, shaking in the fetal position as her body soaked up and devoured the dark side and mutated to fight the plague. Her small wings wrapped around her and grew to cover her completely.  The sweat that oozed from her pores was thick and viscous, eventually covering her in a black iridescent coating that slowly hardened into a shell.  

ID10 scanned Tyna and readied its remaining doses of bacta, anti-virals, anti-biotics and anti-fungals and anti-venoms.  The droid also noted in its periphery the packet of human skin with the sprig of blood berries... highlighted in the blue light of Starkiller's soul lantern.  At one point, it registered that her heart stopped beating. Though the droid tried to intervene, it couldn't administer any aid through the shell that formed over Lady Tyna.  Several minutes later, the droid detected her heart rate resume again and noted that her vital signs drifted and fluctuated periodically, registering less human, and more animal as time went on.  The droid could only sit and wait while pinging her location on an emergency frequency.  

The ID10 seeker droid watched the goings-on of the camp while continually scanning the black lump of organic material that marked the physical location of its master. The Commodore Starkiller droid was not talkative, but likewise kept his vigil over Lady Tyna and ID10 stayed out of the wardroid's way.

Time passed as the dark night faded into the greys of approaching pre-dawn, and then into the glorious rays of the Pzobian sun. Starkiller continually stoked the fires with wretched bodies of the NOE facility's former workers. There were alot of bodies to burn. Throughout the day, a small flock of golden butterflies flittered from the tall grasses to land on the chrysalid form of Havok's apprentice. The day marched on, blending into the waning light of the afternoon and evening, as the calls and hollers of the woods' inhabitants settled into the approaching dusk. The light extinguished as the sun set over the distant deep woods. Once again the Pzobian moon rose adding a silver shine to the blue light and shadows that danced in the grassy hollow by the factory lake.

As night progressed, the ghostly form of a lone emaciated albino Tuk'ata silently stalked from the tall grasses into the clearing to watch Starkiller and burning bonfire of stinking corpses. It watched for a moment, seeing no living creature it recognized as prey before padding back into the grasses.  The night continued as the moon and stars marched overhead. In the distant woods, the shrill shrieks of the Murder Drake drifted through the mists that rolled in from the polluted reservoir feeding the defunct factory's coolant vents.

The grey predawn began to filter in over the hills on the far side of the reservoir when ID10's auditory sensors detected scratching from the hardened egg-like shell.
"Beeo boop!" The seeker droid announced, running additional scans of the black iridescent shell. It noted a decrease in shell size of 3.51%.

The scratching continued briefly before the Tyna-sized crystalis vibrated and shook and a muffled humanoid voice could be heard inside. With a violent crack, the oval shuddered and rolled over as a line of spiked bones pierced the shell. The shell continued to vibrate and wobble until it split in half pushed apart by two black feathery wings. The wings spread and shook, shedding oily drops around the humanoid figure lying underneath. The humanoid form sat up, shivering in the light and shadows of the blue bonfire. It clutched the hilt of a lightsaber in one dark hand and Starkiller's electrum medallion in the other.

The face of the female was covered by long and wild black locks of hair that had been absent from Tyna's previously shaved head. With clawed hands, the female pulled her hair away from her face to look around the clearing with the wide golden eyes of an animal. Her previously pasty skin now had a darker crimson hue. Her face was gaunt and looked unwell below the seven bony horns on her brow.  Immediately seeing the towering form of the Commodore, the reconstituted sith apprentice bared her noticeably sharper teeth and hissed in a crouch pointing her lightsaber emitter at him. On her cheeks remained the golden metallic streaks of dried tears the Oracle had shed for the Star Killer.

The hiss built in volume to grow to a twisted and bastardized form of a proto-sith language, challenging the droid and demanding to know where she was, until she saw the glowing red eyes of Starkiller's skeletal face and the humming runes on his twin axes. Reading the runes of the axes, the sith apprentice's face changed into one of joy and recognition, like a Hannite child on Adventist Day.

"Stahrkillehr! Stahrkillehr!" She tried to jump and clap her hands, but fell when she took a step forward. Rolling in the sandy soil, she angrily rejected any help as she tore at the fasteners on the boots that no longer fit.  The boots spun around backwards on her feet facing unnatural directions.   With a grunt of victory, the angelic winged-sith kicked off the loose boots only to find the weird and terrifying sight of dark cloven hooves! The Sith reached down to touch them with dismay, as the realization began to dawn on her that she was not what she once was. Kicking in the dirt, she stood up, and turned around patting herself all over through the armored fabric of her imperial assault suit.

Between the black wings on her back, a line of bony spikes on her spine had cut and grown through her suit. She felt them and gasped, feeling lower on her back until she felt a thick length of snake -like flesh on her rear in her pants. She jumped in alarm and tore at it with her claws, spinning in a frenzy trying to get at it before she realized it was not a snake. With a deep breath and the brief activation of her lightsaber, she burned a hole in her suit at the base of her spine and gingerly pulled out the long fleshy appendage from the hole to reveal a prehensile tail imbued with a Tuk'ata-like barbed spiked on the end. The growing light of day revealed more and more. Her tail was scaly and a dark maroon, making her suddenly look at her hands. The were also reddish in hue, but not scaly. The bony claws on the tips of her fingers matched the dark hooves on her feet.

The apprentice looked around again, spotting the factory reservoir before sprinting off in the direction of the polluted water. The altered sith ran and bounded in great strides and with the alacrity of a bipedal raptor before spreading her large wings wide in the pure joy of running and became airborne, gliding over the mud banks and out over the misty steaming water. When she tried to flap her wings to climb higher, she lost control and crashed into the lake.

She appeared moments later sputtering, and pulling her hair out of her face again. She stood up in the shallows and peered down at the water to take a look at the rippling reflections that stared back at her. She stared a good long while before shrugging at herself and then giggling as she walked back to the shore, splashing water over herself and her wings as she went.
"Feel. Goood." Tyna spoke haltingly in basic as she washed the goopy residue from her feathers with the foul water. The words felt awkward in her mouth like she wasn't used to the size and shape of her teeth or tongue. She walked up the slippery bank with unnatural grace, leaving hoof marks behind her in the mud. She smiled up at Starkiller with the innocence of a child living fully in the moment. No weight of any mission hung from her shoulders. She ruffled and shook her dripping wings while squeezing the water from her thick head of hair like an animal in harmony with her natural surroundings-- like any other creature born of the deep woods.

Yet, for all the smiles and giggles, Tyna had not taken her eyes off Starkiller or the line of tall grass at the clearing. Nor had she clipped the lightsaber to her belt, to be at ease. Despite the sparkle, a part of her golden eyes remained dead and soulless like a Praxux shark sizing up prey.

Inside the Sith apprentice's skull, the mists of the dark side were still thick in her mind. She convalesced as if in a dream, barely aware of her surroundings. The fever of her plague-induced nightmare had broken but the changed sith still toiled to put her mind back in order. The illness had consumed her body's internal stores of fat and energy and had started consuming itself to continue to fuel the process. In the meantime, she was instinctually famished and craving to gorge herself on flesh.

"Food?" Tyna asked as she pointed at the piles of cremating bodies in the blue bonfire of the misty early morning light. She licked her lips... and then her unnaturally long tongue licked her gaunt cheeks at the thought of food, suddenly feeling very hungry; starving, in fact.

With the sudden materialization of fresher meat in the form of the hapless blind Shyrack, Commodore Starkiller attracted the whole of the sith apprentice's attention.  Darth Tyna's transformed animal eyes blinked with a clear inner membrane giving her the impression of an unblinking stare,- before blinking in the normal fashion with outer eyelids. "Foooel. Leseves." She imperfectly parroted Starkiller's words, speaking clumsily.  Despite this, the Oracle's rudimentary communications conveyed she had the ability to speak and understand.  "Stahr Kell-er.  Giff."   She spoke slowly as if trying to compensate for the new shape of her tongue to force her mouth to make the right sounds.  

Tyna moved towards the wardroid with the visage of death's head with no hesitation, appearing to recognize Starkiller in his new cloak.  She accepted the mortally wounded prey from him, still flopping and struggling in its death throes.  Gripping the struggling animal in her arms, she bit its neck as crimson fluid poured over her face and clothes.  To hasten its end, her twitching tail whipped around and buried its spike into the creature.  In moments, Shyrack shuddered and tensed, going rigid as if rigor mortis had been accelerated.  Tyna let the animal drop to the ground, crouched beside it.  She used her new claws to scratch and tear through the tough leathry hide on the abdomen of the Shyrack, digging for the heart and liver.  Behind her, the tip of her tail calmly oscillated as if this was not the first time she had disemboweled something with her bare hands.  "Hahrt!" Tyna jerked a thick and bloody organ from the animals thoracic cavity, holding the heart up for Starkiller to see before taking massive bites out of the solid muscle.

She ate squatting over the carcass in the blue light of the pile of burning meat, not particularly bothered by the putrid smell of decaying burning bodies.  Tyna made use of her new claws and teeth to shred chunks of meat.  Her clawed hands were quite suitable for the task, and her teeth were sharp enough to dig into muscle to separate hunks of raw muscle from the surrounding tissue.  Blood from the bird-like animal smeared over Tyna's jumpsuit, glistening in the firelight.

As Tyna ate, several golden butterflies fluttered by to land on her face, head and shoulders.  Tyna stared at them, smiling, before puffing a mouthful of meat-breath at them.  The insects, attracted by the scent of death, flocked around her mouth, as if kissing her, eager to dip their carnivorous proboscises into the flesh on her lips and face.   More butterflies flocked to her and the Shyrack corpse, their shiny wings tickling her face until she laid back on the ground, giggling.  She was aware of herself, and Starkiller, and the sky, and the wind and the grasses; the crackling of the fire and the fizzing hiss of melting fat dripping in the blue flames.  Under her back, she felt the fabric of her jumpsuit and her tail in the fertile dirt of the hollow.  She was in the embrace of Grandfather Pzob and content, for the time being.  She sat back up and resumed eating, as the butterflies crawled over her cleaning the blood and guts on her face and hands.



Tyna blinked with a mouth full of food, "Wemememebew?   Tyna seemed to want to talk but simply could not be bothered to stop eating, and spoke with her mouth full. It didn't help that her ability to talk was affected by the physical changes to her body.  "YOo, Stawkirrew."  She continued mumbling and talking, after a fashion, while she ate.  Some words stuck out such as the names of the high lords:  "Hahfuck... Dlahgus, Kaaaaahn, Mohtahly... Bahkah."  Nearly all of what she said was incomprehensible, though listeners would be filled with fear and dread, the same as when Hannites stared too long at the dead language carved in the walls of the Black Temple.  Other words may also have stuck out to the wardroid in no particular order, "Fwend," "Tuckatah," "spiidels," "netti," "mishun," "Eyeh," and "Pahlpahteen."  

Tyna's golden eyes dilated as she thought... chewing. She reached a bloody hand for another handful of flesh and grabbed a bone. She looked down, seeing that she had basically stripped the carcass to the bones. With a snort, she ripped a limb bone off the skeleton, and after carefully positioning her hands, strained until she broke the bone in two. With an animal grace, Tyna held the bone up to her lips before using her long tongue to suck the marrow out. She continued the process with all of the Shyrack's long bones, until she was content that she had consumed all of the nourishment that the kill contained, and that her body could hold. The golden butterflies continued crawling over her face, cleaning her up, doing no harm to the skin of the superior predator.

Finished eating, she made the sign of the Eye on her forehead, in a gesture of thanks to Starkiller with hands clasped.  She wrinkled her nose, sniffing, looking to the tall grasses at the edge of the hollow where they sat.

>>>>>> Meanwhile, In Tyna's mind:

Tyna was hard at work arranging the colored pieces of a shattered stain glass window on smooth cut flagstones. Around her, mists and smoke obscured her view of the cathedral of her mind, but she knew the gothic high arched ceiling was there even if she couldn't see it.  The stain glass pieces and windows represented collections of her memories, many currently smashed. She had already reassembled the stained glass windows of memories from her childhood and training with her master, Lord Havok, and was working diligently on the window of Starkiller.  "I'll put you back together, no matter how many times it takes!" She had completed the core of glass around his metallic face in the form of a skull with ruby eyes.  She was vaguely aware that he was "outside," waiting patiently for her to join him.  She wanted to go meet him, she just had to finish this first...

"Well, well.  We leave her alone for a day and she completely wrecks the place."  The voice blew in on a breeze. 
Tyna jolted at the voice. "Who's there?"  Tyna called out to the mists of her own mind, as she continued working trying not to waste a second to restore her friend.  
"You know who we are."
Dammit. Tyna's heart sank as she recognized the voices. "Oh. You three."  Tyna had hoped that she had somehow forced them to leave and been alone. 
"Oh silly child. You've never been alone. I've always been there."  "Your mind was already starting to come apart when we left."  The mists parted to reveal three middle aged women who approached and stood over Tyna. "And don't worry about our stain glass window, we put ours back together. It really is exceptional, I call it, Akron, Fillia and Saris.  What a triumphant image..."  The speaker wore a reddish tunic with a staff, the second wore a similar blue tunic. The third appeared to be a dark jedi in nondescript dark robes. The two colorful women were witches, of a sect or origin that Tyna did not recognize, but would guess, by default, to be Dathomiri.  The third reminded Tyna of ceremonial robes she and Darth Havok wore at the Black Temple.  

"Since when do you have names?"  It was bad enough that they had something approaching corporeal form in her mind right now. Will this shit show ever stop? "Just what I need, my voices have names now. And I though you were just figments my own imagination, that I created to torture myself." She made a mental note to try and find and destroy the window the red witch described... if she had time.
"We've always had names, dear. We're far more real than imagination. Spirits, technically." The dark jedi spoke. "Fifteen years, and you never once thought to ask for our names. The blue witch chidded. "I take exception to that. We never tortured you. Well, at least not that often. There always was a point to the pain." The red witch clearly did not appreciate the extent that the voices affected Tyna. "We did what we had to, to get you to listen to us." The trio responded with a barrage of chatter. "Some of it was, unfortunately, necessary." 

"Spirits?  As in, dead people?" Tyna rolled her eyes. "So I'm being haunted." Tyna continued piecing the glass window together. "Awfully large lies today. And any how, I thought I banished you."
"That was then, and this is now."  "We show up, and now you just want to get rid of us?"  "You could at least hear what we have to say."
"I have been forced to listen to you all constantly."  As early as she could remember. If it hadn't been for the concoctions that Havok mixed up for her, she'd never have had any peace from them.  "I would appreciate it, if you left me alone."  Tyna rearranged several pieces of colored glass on the floor, that she hoped were now in the correct positions. "As you can see, I am busy and don't have time to listen to your lies."
"Your medicine is gone. Lost in the factory." "And Darth Havok is not here to make more." "You can't afford to ignore us, my dear. Not anymore..."  
"I don't have to listen. You can't make me do anything.  My master told me so."
"You're wrong on that point, child."  "You're weak right now.  Weaker than you've ever been before. Weak enough for our plans..."
"So what? What's the worst that you can do? Kill me?  You're just voices.  If I die, you disappear."
"How petulant. We'll start by taking control of this wonderous cathedral..."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Meanwhile in the real world:

Suddenly, Tyna's demeanor changed.  She looked around at her surroundings sneering and squinting.  She appeared annoyed at the butterflies on her face and she angrily swatted at them, catching one and tearing off its golden wings. "Filthy bugs." Her voice sounded more alto and mature. She climbed to her feet grunting like an old woman, stretching her arms and legs while talking to herself. "Ah, to be in a body again... yes I know I am sharing, sister, just let me have a minute."  The difficulty speaking was entirely gone and Tyna was now acting uncharacteristically, in ways that disrespected the creations of Pzob, and her harmony with the planet leading up to this moment.  Tyna fixed her eyes on Starkiller.  "Ah yes, the droid..."  The witchy voice was dripping with scorn, "What to do with you."  She pursed her lips thinking. "I could always just order you to..." 

Tyna's body jolted as if shocked by a stun charge, and spoke with a second voice, "Dohntah. hurt. mah. FWEND!"  This voice matched Starkiller's recordings of Tyna's speech, post-transformation, with 100% certainty.  Tyna slapped her own face angrily. 

"Sisters, she's leaking through! Do your jobs!" The mature alto voice was back and Tyna smiled dismissively at Starkiller before turning and walking in the direction of the nearest hill.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Meanwhile, In Tyna's mind:

"Step aside." 
"No.  You can't have him."  Tyna now believed that these apparitions were ghosts.  She stood between the witches and the pieces of stained glass. The witches meant to destroy them, and with it the mosaic that created Tyna's memories of Starkiller. 
"You'll be more powerful because of it." The dark jedi offered. 
"Stand aside, or be destroyed along with him." The witch in red threatened. "It would be a shame for us to permanently take this beautiful cathedral from you." She motioned upwards to the grand edifice representing Tyna's body. 
"Fuck YOU! I will destroy YOU!"  Tyna was angry and struggled for a come-back; angry enough that her arms were trembling; angry enough to fight a losing battle with 3 to 1 odds for spite's sake.
"You can't seriously think you'll win." Fillia scoffed. 
"Why must you hold to him to tightly? He's only a droid- a collection of data on circuits and processors.  Join us! We can be powerful allies!"
"Allies? You're liars! You're trying to make me betray another friend for nothing but empty promises! You've done it before and you're doing it again now!"
"We'll crush you. Join us or, we'll destroy you." Arkon was tapping her staff impatiently, as if she was just going through the motions of inviting Tyna, without believing she would comply.  
"Like all the other times you've crushed me and destroyed me?  Then you'll have to destroy me." Tyna wasn't taking the threat seriously either. 
"Well, Sisters, we tried but she wouldn't see reason." Fillia, in blue, contorted her fingers into a semantic symbol and started chanting a spell she could quickly weave, creating a glowing ball of purple crackling energy.


"NO, that wasn't the deal."  The dark jedi dissented firmly. "Tyna remains unharmed."
"Saris, it's too late to be having second thoughts. Fillia has begun the ritual."
"No. Not this way." The dark jedi Saris broke ranks to cross from the witches to stand by Tyna. "Find another way. My help has always been conditioned on Tyna remaining unharmed."  With an aggressive chop of her hand, the dark jedi appeared to use a force power that unbalanced the energy ball and broke Fillia's focus to interrupt her spell. 
"Saris! You, you fool!"  Akron spat. "To interfere! To dictate to us!" She sputtered in rage. "After what we did for you! Our, our plans! We are so close!" Akron tried to persuade Saris to backdown with reference to some ultimate goal to which Tyna was not privy.  "Let it go!"
"You know what's wrong with you, sister? You're too sentimental.  Just like Tyna.  You always had a soft spot for-"  Fillia's grating voice was thick with judgment even as Saris interrupted her.
"Speak of it further, and we become eternal enemies."  The dark jedi Saris spoke matter-of-factly and drew her lightsaber. "My secrets are not yours to divulge. My condition stands: Tyna shall not be harmed."
"What the hell is going on?" Tyna appeared to have an ally in the showdown with the witches, but since Tyna was also still pissed at all of them, she did not welcome the help.
"Hush little Oracle. Darth Excrussis is about to do what she does best, my dear..." Kill things, like witches. 
Now the dark jedi Saris was referring to herself by a sith name Darth Excrussis, and telling her to be quiet. "Hush? YOU shut up!  I don't need your help!" She reached for her lightsaber, (that was missing) and slapped her thigh to draw Guts, the sith blaster.  She pointed it at Akron. "Make my day!" 

"We will destroy you two." Akron, in red, rolled up her sleeves and twirled her staff to wind the mists around her like a cloak.  
"I wouldn't be so sure.  You know my past.  I am his most dangerous weapon. I am the bane of seers. Even a prophet of the dark side could not foresee his doom at my hands.  You've seen my memories of killing Lord Nobra. Two of you would be no different. I could kill you both myself."
"You wouldn't survive it this time." 
"Neither will you!" Saris laughed. "But she will." Saris inclined her head, motioning to Tyna. "All I ever wanted was Havok's Blessing: Adrasteia.  So what's it going to be? Shall we meet my Uncle Mortale in Chaos today?"  Her eyes were wild with excitement, crazed and ready for a battle of total obliteration; inviting her sisters without fear.

>>>>>> Meanwhile in the real world:

"She's fighting too hard for me to give it orders to self-destruct.  No matter."  Tyna grunted in Akron's voice and turned her attention to the technology on her techno-gauntlet  "There has to be someplace where I can get a signal on this thing."  Akron/Tyna was glued to Tyna's wrist datapad display.  She walked clumsily on her hooves, and further as if she was unaware that she had wings and a tail; both hung limply down her back and dragged in the dirt behind her. ID-10 dutifully followed after her and was promptly told to "Buzz off, droid." She continued talking to herself. "The galaxy will remember Ackron again."  She paused to cover her ears as if someone was screeching at her. "Yes of course, and Fillia.  Who will we reach?  I don't know. Darth Havok had some ships in orbit, right?  We'll call them.  Someone has to be listening for Tyna's signal, right?"   She lifted her left arm high, waving it around, trying to get better reception, seemingly ignorant of why the First Order considered the Deep Woods a no-fly zone and navigational hazard. 

Tyna had told Starkiller the first day, that the First Order wouldn't fly here, and that the area was plagued with interference and anomalous readings that messed with navigation, communications, and other sensitive flight instruments.

>>>>>>>Meanwhile, In Tyna's mind:

Tyna still stood protecting the manifestation of her memories of Starkiller, uncertain what was going on in front of her.  The Dark Jedi Saris, had turned on her sisters with a lightsaber, laughing like a maniac, apparently protecting Tyna... or just being nuts.  

Fillia looked uncertain, her eyes passing to Akron and back to Saris, and back to the red sister.  Akron's face was sour, carved in stone, thinking, weighing options. "We have control sister, there is no need for violence, for the time being."  She eyed Tyna, once again crouched beside the pieces of glass on the floor working as fast as she could.  "We still have time, Fillia."  Akron finally backed down. "Fine Saris.  We'll do things your way, for now."

"What the hell? Havok's blessing? Adrasteia? Care to explain any of that?" 
"You're welcome. Feel free to thank me, and mention me to Havok." She winked at Tyna as she rejoined her sisters. 
"How do you know Havok?"
"A long time ago, I rescued myself from a slave market, while he watched."
"That doesn't answer anything."
"Neither did Havok."  The dark jedi was playing coy. "Don't... forget... about your friend." Saris motioned to the glass on the flagstones at Tyna's feet.

As if the whole exchange was forgotten, Tyna once again crouched beside the pieces of glass on the floor working as fast as she could to put her memories back together.  She couldn't be certain of how long the uneasy peace might last.

>>>>>Meanwhile in the real world:

"It's my turn!" Tyna's voice changed again to a shrill grating voice. The sith apprentice whirled to awkwardly walk back towards Starkiller. "Its like walking in heels on the beach.-  You, there! Star... slayer.  Serve us.  Call us a shuttle or something. We should head back to..."  She waved her hand as her voice trailed off.  Tyna was staggering as if she was drunk. She threw out her hands, using the force to help steady herself. "This IS harder than it looks." Fillia was even worse at walking in Tyna's body than Ackron was. "OH, You think you can do better? I doubt it, Saris. Here have a go." 

Tyna suddenly straightened up and stretched her arms high.  "AAAAAH! YES!"  Her wings spread wide and her tail gave a crack as Saris whipped it through the air.  "Ooo, delightful!"  She inspected the barbed tip, to see a drop of venom forming at the barb. "Diabolical."  Tyna's new voice had a sultry undertone to it; a tone that could make even ship schematics sound sensual. She folded her wings and wiggled her hips seductively. "To be young again." She ran her hands through her long dark hair and then slapped her own butt, pleased at how firm it was. "Dreams do come true." She inhaled deeply, as if eating the air.  "We really are back on Pzob!" She sniffed the air again. "Yesss. That's the smell of the Ballz facility."  She turned to see the polluted lake.  "It's a pity we're in the wilderness and there's no one around to buy us a drink." She whirled and eyed Starkiller. "You must be the Starkiller unit that Tyna is so attached to."


Tyna started slowly dancing, swaying her hips; not because she expected it would do anything for the towering droid of mass destruction, but because it had been so long since she had the pleasure of dance.  "I think I might remember you.  We all heard about how you nuked Inquisitor Kryptman.  I laughed so hard!"  Tyna rolled her shoulder, peeking over it at the droid.  "We may have been the Counsel of the Eye, or New Order of the Eye back then.  I don't know how much time has passed, maybe it's the old order now."

"If you haven't been wiped, you might remember me?" She pointed at herself, seemingly oblivious that she was speaking from Tyna's new body.  "Saris. I was Darth Excrussis most of the time. I was Havok's apprentice long before Tyna came along. I also killed his old master." Saris gave a flirty smile and arched her back to stick out her small chest as she explained, "I caused the rift between Havok and Nobra. Nobra couldn't break me, and so he declared me unfit to be trained, so he ordered Havok to kill me." Her tone was pouty as if to say, "oops!" Saris lifted a finger to her lips as if she was telling a secret. "Havok secretly disobeyed and to spite Nobra, broke me, trained me, and used me to kill him." Saris ran her claws down her clothes to rest on Tyna's utility belt. "I was very good. I thought I was the equal of any sith lord, but Havok disagreed." As an afterthought, she drew Tyna's training lightsaber and twirled it between her fingers. "You feel... familiar." She spoke to the blade and stopped dancing to heft it. "That weight." She inspected it further and peeled off the plain leather binding wrapped around the weapon to reveal a more ornate hilt.  "HA! My lightsaber!" She caressed the pommel. "How amusing that Havok wrapped you up in leather and gave you to Tyna." She laughed while talking to her sword. "You were buried with me, so SOMEBODY's been grave-robbing again. Tsk Tsk."

Saris looked up at Starkiller with a smile. "Tyna really likes you.  She wants to remember you." Tyna's golden eyes, through Saris' expression, turned cold and narrowed at the wardroid.  "She's literally letting us have the run of the place," Saris motioned up and down to her body, "and ignoring US," She pointed to herself with her thumb, "to try and put every memory, every little detail of YOU and your time together back in place."  Saris frowned. "I don't approve of her self-sacrifice; it's embarrassing for a sith."  Saris spoke like a mother, disapproving of her daughter's choices.

"But then again, she's the oracle." Tyna walked over to the pile of blessed spiked plates that had, until recently, armored Starkiller's chassis.  "What do we know?"  She lifted various plates and pressed them against various parts of her body as if trying them on for size.  

Tyna began shedding her jumpsuit, before she froze up and fell over.  "You're fighting me on this?" She seemed to be talking to an unheard third party, while she pointed out problems with the imperial assault jumpsuit. "It's torn and ugly! I'm just... How do you-? ... Fine. We wait until we have something else."  Tyna was able to move again and stood up.  "Tyna doesn't want to get rid of the jumpsuit until she has something else besides her underclothes to wear."  Tyna/Saris picked up a spiked plate.  "I'm partial to your armor but she isn't, says its too big for her-- too thick and bulky for her acrobatic fighting style. I mean that's true-- it would need to be modified to fit me.  Akron and Fillia might have the skill to modify it," Tyna/Saris rolled her eyes.  "but they are angry at me at the moment. I guess I get to wear Tyna's frumpy jumpsuit for a while longer." Nevermind that Starkiller's armor did not belong to Saris.

"Oh, and Tyna wants you to know that she is in here," She tapped her forehead under the horns sprouting from her hair like a tiara, "she can see and hear everything, and she'll be back with you as soon as she is done." She paused, not wanting to convey the rest, but then relented. "And she is ordering you to disregard any command from us to self-destruct."  Saris shook her head. "I don't get it.  Why won't she let us self-destruct you?" The question was likely rhetorical, or... Saris did not understand Tyna's concept of friendship.

"YES! The OATH!" Darth Tyna fell to her knees before the great war droid, bathed in the other-worldly light of the mystical lantern. The mutated sith apprentice continued speaking in the sultry voice of Lord Havok's former apprentice, Darth Excrussis. "I swore to speak true prophecy to the High Lords and to the children of the Eye!"  She held out her arms wide.  "Search me, Uncle! Search your tender niece Excrussis with your eye of judgment! I prophecy that you shall find no sin in me! Now see that my heart is true to the Eye!" Tyna, possessed by the spirit of Lady Excrussis, submitted to the searching ultra-marine light of the soul lantern, throwing her head back to expose her throat. "I shall not fear, for I am pure before thee, Lord Mortale!" She braced herself, hoping for the best but potentially expecting the worst. The light appeared to have no effect on the mutated sith, possessed by Darth Havok's apprentice of yester-year. Excrussis chuckled in relief, and then opened her eyes to laugh more fully and openly before continuing with more seriousness. "My oaths are intact. I will aid your Holy Mission."

The sith leaned forward in an eerie smile and crawled toward the haunting blue lantern as the zombie funeral pyre behind Starkiller shot hundred-foot flames. "Firelight, by firelight!"

>>>>>>meanwhile, in Darth Tyna's mind:

The Oracle, Darth Tyna, was still diligently working on the glass mosaic of beautiful Starkiller memories and making progress with the puzzle.  Her efforts were aided by the the light from the sacred soul lantern which shown through the windows into the great cathedral of Tyna's mind, highlighting memories with a shimmering glow.  The blue light coalesced into a pillar behind Darth Tyna. She worked twice as fast now. "By Firelight, by firelight." Tyna murmured as she worked.

Darth Excrussis nodded, approving of Tyna's rhyme:
"Firelight, by firelight. 
Watch the sparks grow in height; 
Burning skys and smoking kites; 
witches howl; the flames indict.
By firelight, by firelight."

The blue light also drove back the smoke and shadows that filled the place. The weird sisters, Akron and Fillia, retreated from its rays, screeching at Saris.
"What happens if it touches us?" Fillia asked Akron, concerned.  "Can you feel the heat? Hot! Hot!"
"Yes! Don't stare at it! Look away from the light!" Akron didn't take her eyes off Saris as she pulled her sister backwards. "Saris! What is this lamp? Why are you still crawling us towards it? What is the meaning of this?!" Akron and Fillia were aware that Saris, controlling Tyna's body, was still crawling towards the lantern and staring at its flame, allowing the power of the light to infiltrate through Tyna's eyes; the windows of her soul.

"Not 'Saris,' its Darth Excrussis again." Darth Excrussis paused a moment to savor the feeling of power of the moment. "There is power in this light that only Lord Mortale can comprehend. Not even Havok, in the world of the living, knows its true powers." She shrugged coyly, enjoying their ignorance. "I don't know its power. I only repeat what the Hannites who worshiped it as a holy relic said. Their truth is that the light is a taste of Mortale's judgment that sorts the true believers from the false souls. Bless them, the Hannites occasionally exaggerate."
It was true that she didn't know the soul lantern's true power. The rumors might be just the Hannites fetishizing the equivalent of Lord Mortale's toenail clippings in a glass jar, but with a High Lord, one never knew. Excrussis preferred to believe the superstition about the relic and be safe; the witches' reaction to the light only made her feel more confident that it was true.

"Then we face the power of a High Lord." Akron clenched her teeth, not comforted by Excrussis' answer. "A sliver of any High Lord's soul is no toy, and the Lord of Death's is potent."

Excrussis advanced as the light pushed the Dathomiri witches back from Tyna, suddenly angry. "All those years that you mocked me for binding myself to Havok and the High Lords! And NOW you admit their power? You made my life hell, just as we make Tyna's HELL!"

"Sister, you overreact! Our cajoling to you was harmless! We knew our words would not stop you!" The red witch waved her hand, dismissive of the long history of haunting Excrussis. "When you died, we pulled your soul from the void, but was it not you, that tried to reach out to Tyna first? We merely followed your lead."
"And it was you that called out to Tyna in her mind, at first." Fillia tutted, keeping a warry eye on the blue light. "We followed your example."
"I was trying to influence her life for the better!" Excrussis did not like her actions with Tyna equated to how Akron and Fillia had treated Excrussis.  Akron, Fillia, and a host of other voices haunted Excrussis' mind while she was among the living as Havok's apprentice.
"Of Course! And just like the volcanic sand that irritated a Rishi clammet and created the galaxy pearl, our voices were meant to spur YOU on to greater things!" Akron justified the witches' torture of Excrussis.
"I regret leading you to Tyna." 
"What is done is done. You must forgive us and see the bigger picture. Youth. Immortality..."
"You OWE us, sister. Oaths or not, you are also one of us. We rescued your spirit, now be a good girl..."

>>>>>>>>>>>> Meanwhile, in the real world:

Tyna, possessed by Excrussis, stopped her crawl and looked away from the lantern held by the Butcher of Pzob.  Her long dark hair slipped forward to shield her face and eyes from the light. "Without further delay, I will serve in Lady Tyna's stead on this mission, until she commands me to stand aside. This I swear to her."  Excrussis could feel, through the currents flowing in the dirt under her palms, that the Commodore-droid had Pzob's favor. The revelation surprised her. Regardless of her thoughts about the droid back when he was Lord Bacca's war-dog, he had somehow grown to be something more than just circuits and software. "My, you are something special."

Excrussis stood up and smeared the dust of Pzob on her forehead in the design of a rancor. A blessing of agression.  Her hand brushed her horns and she felt her forehead in awe.  "Horns!" Her tail wagged in vain delight. "I need a mirror!" her eyes seemed to say.  Her golden eyes were excited and bright, reminiscent of when Tyna first told Starkiller that they would be friends.
"We are ready when you are."