499. Manipulation of Emotion - Raezyr

Raezyr's head was spinning. One second he and Trychon were walking back toward the village, the next they were lying face down in the mud. His entire body was tingling, his muscles spasming, and it felt like his whole back was on fire. For a moment he thought they must have been struck by lightning, but the lack thunder told him otherwise.

He pushed himself up to his hands and knees, and tried to shake the disorientation from his head. Looking over at Trychon, he noticed faint traces of electrical sparks flickering and dissipating over his brother's body.

That was when it hit him again, sending him back down into the mud. He heard himself yelling as every muscle in his body seized. The burning pain coursed through him like waves, wracking his being.

Suddenly it was gone again, and he forced himself to roll over. He tried to call on his Force disciplines, summoning the Dark Side to siphon off the pain, but it was so hard to concentrate as the remnant of the electrical impulses blocked clear thought from his mind.

From somewhere he heard laughter and it sounded dark and vindictive. He looked up to see where it was coming from and made out the shape of a figure wrapped in a dark cloak, it's arms stretched toward him, fingers splayed out.

Electricity shot forth from the specter's fingertips and enveloped Raezyr and Trychon, and the pain coursed through their bodies once again. Raezyr could hear Trychon crying out, and he clenched his teeth to keep from doing the same, but his effort was in vain.

Blackness threatened to swallow him, and he fought it back with everything he had. When the waves subsided again, he noticed his lightsaber laying int he mud next to him. Slowly, he forced his arm to move, to reach for his weapon, to somehow protect himself, but a boot kicked the weapon away from him and into the bushes.

The black cloaked figure bent down next to him and ripped his helmet off. "Good," said the voice from the shadow inside the cowl. It was familiar, and Raezyr knew that he should recognize it, but the memory was just out of his pain fogged mind's reach.

"I am glad you are not dead yet," the voice continued. "I want you both to suffer for a long time. You defied me, and mocked me, and plotted your petty little revenge on me. I endured it as long as I needed you, but now you know the true power of the Dark Side."

The figure was rummaging through Raezyr's pouch and as he did, the hood of the cloak slid back just enough to show Darth Vikon's visage. Raezyr tried to speak, to curse the man, but electrical currents still flowed through his body, blocking the control of his functions, and all that issued from his mouth were garbled noises which resembled those of an animal, rather than speech.

Vikon laughed contemptuously as he removed the amulets from Raezyr's pouch, and then moved over and took the others from Trychon. Raezyr could see his brother's eyes rolling around in his head, but knew Trychon was still conscious and just as helpless as he was.

Vikon stood up just as some of Raezyr's functions were returning to his control. Raezyr had just enough time to embrace the Dark Side when Vikon lashed out again.

For a moment, his grip on the Force abated the lightning's effects, but it wasn't enough, and once the Force was gone, the electricity burned through him unchecked.

"How pathetic you are. You really started to believe the lies and the prophecies that I wrote about you, didn't you?" Vikon laughed. "I made you, and now I will break you.

"I'm not going to kill you either," Vikon said as he unleashed another round of the Force lightning. "I am going to bring you to the brink of death, and then leave you here to die slowly, knowing you two slaughtered the only beings on this world who could help you."

Time and time again the lightning came. Over and over for what seemed an eternity, and the only thought that either of the two Sith students had was the wish for death to come.

Eventually, the darkness they had tried so desperately to fight back engulfed them, and everything became nothing.