SLASH FIC: [Stargate: Atlantis] Ascension (1/2) (NC-17)
The universe in which this fic is set borrows elements of the Star Wars lore (see the disclaimer and the information contained in the additional notes). The characters portrayed here are, by their nature, dark. Whilst there are mentions of minor character deaths, this isn't a death fic.
Title: Ascension
Author: Soraya
Rating: Adults Only (NC-17)
Genre: Slash, First Time, AU
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Disclaimer: Not mine, Lucas owns everything Star Wars and Wright and Cooper own Stargate Atlantis etc.
Warnings: Male/Male sexual activity, dark themes with strong suggestions of violence
Summary: Sometimes, it takes Two to ascend
Part One
"Two there should be, no more and no less:
One to embody the power, the other to crave it."
'The Rule of Two' by the Sith Lord Darth Bane
Taken from the Star Wars novel 'Darth Bane: Path of Destruction' by Drew Karpyshyn
---
Only Two there are: a Master and an Apprentice.
It is the Sith way and our greatest strength,
For true power cannot be shared among the many,
And true power may only be wielded by the few.
Yet in this strength also lies our greatest folly
And the reason why the Sith have always failed.
For until the Two become more, the scourge of Light
Shall continue to tarnish the purity of our Darkness.
An excerpt from 'The Ascension Prophecies'
by the Learned Lord Revenant
***
His earliest memories were of the crèche. Like all potentials, he was cut from his mother's womb with only her dying screams to guide him into the waiting hands of the Brotherhood: they, who became the architects of his growth from that point forward. The questions he put to them were the natural curiosities of any child: who was he, where was he from, and why was he here? The answers from the Learneds were more cryptic than revealing: his name was J'hon; he was a potential; and like the other Acolytes before him, he existed purely to ascend.
They told him that his birth mother was a carrier shell: a nothing and nothing to concern himself about. Then, after he'd pressed them for more, they took him to the training salle where they beat him until he understood never to question again and until the earth beneath him was red with his life's blood.
On that day, J'hon drew that blanketing feeling of hatred around him and he covered his heart with it, letting it strengthen him from the inside out. Its darkness sustained him through the shattering of bone, and it was there for him singing soothing melodies of revenge when the only carers he knew left him broken on the ground to find his own way home.
***
It took him almost a day to crawl back to his cot, several more to heal the wounds gained by such naïveté. But when he was finally strong enough, J'hon killed two lords of learning, one for each of the legs they'd broken. He left their mutilated bodies hanging from the arches to the Temple of Ages, and once word of the assassinations had spread through the Academy, he rushed out with the rest of the Acolytes to admire the beauty of the carnage he'd wrought.
Little did he know that this simple act of vengeance would herald a new dawn of dissent among the Sith. Or that those of their brethren, who longed for a return to the old ways, would set ancient schemes in motion while the rest of the Council argued over who was responsible and what was the motive.
There, standing in the shade of those severed limbs, J'hon was just one of many gazing up at the Learneds, dreaming of a time when he would raze them all to dust and build a new order on the bones of their deceit.
***
The way of the crèche was one of alliances not friendships. From the earliest cycles of life, Acolytes were taught that all relationships were the product of strategy, so that even the youngest were adept at weighing the usefulness of those around them. J'hon took those lessons with him into his Path of Apprenticeship at the Academy.
Under the guidance of his blademasters, he continued to excel in the field of aerials and stealth tactics, honing himself into a warrior with few equals among his peers. Where he surpassed them all, however, was in sheer cunning, of which he had enough to know that any goal of True Ascension would require more than just the dark arts of politics and combat.
It was this foresight that led him to train in secret under the Dark Master Niele, and it was Master Niele, who first showed him the most forbidden of all the ancient texts.
***
The reason J'hon chose Niele was that Niele was a survivor from the final Purges of Unification. A mere foundling at the time, those brethren, who had over-run his sect, had deemed him a potential worthy of rehabilitation. Which was how he and others like him survived into adulthood, and how those of arcane doctrine came to occupy positions of influence throughout the Order. Niele's views on secular training, while radical, weren't considered a threat to the natural order of things. But perhaps where Niele was most dangerous, and where the Brotherhood neglected to quell his dissent, was in his tenet that in order to understand the future, first one had to study the past.
Gradually and with considerable encouragement from this Dark Master, J'hon began to question the efficacy of the Council. With Niele for a tutor, he reviewed the Code in its original forms, studying the teachings of such Learned Lords as Ektorian Gore and Nol Revenant. What lay there was a revelation to a mind starving for answers, and only through promises of more was Niele able to secure service to his cause.
Theirs became an alliance of mutual use. Niele provided him with clues to his origins and to the origins of the Sith; in return, he identified those that might be swayed from among the lower ranks. Yet in the same way that the Brotherhood had overlooked one of their own, so too did he encourage Niele to underestimate him. He never let Niele see past the easy darkness of his exterior to the convert's zeal beneath. For where Niele was a master of understatement, he was even more adept in the shielding of his innermost thoughts.
In their many conversations, only once did he allude to the possibility of sedition. "This doesn't make any sense," he said one evening after skimming through the latest Dark Edict from the Council.
"Ah, yes, the eternal dichotomy of our struggle!" Niele shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed on their Sabacc game. "You know, you would think by now they would have figured out that Kaan's philosophy of 'Rule by the Strong' conflicts with Bane's 'Rule of Two'."
"Yeah! Of course, since neither one ended in True Ascension, their idea is for us to try both at the same time!"
"Clever, huh?"
J'hon answered that with a grunt. That said, this new series of edicts left him seething with frustration. Because after several cycles reading the forbidden texts, he could almost see the parallels between ancient prophecy and the direction in which the Order was heading. What disturbed him most were the koans of Revenant, which seemed to suggest that Light would prevail if they couldn't harness the Dark side effectively.
"Do they even have a plan?" he asked a few minutes later, trying to make it seem like an afterthought. "The failures of the First Republic show that our current strength in numbers will probably end in us destroying ourselves. The Second only proves that power in the hands of Two leads to longer rule, but there the Two would be vulnerable to a well-placed attack. How are they going to use this to destroy the Light once and for all?"
Niele just shrugged his shoulders. "My guess is it'll probably be something with a bang," he said lightly, though his eyes were down the whole time.
Which J'hon knew was a stalling tactic of Niele's when he'd either run out of answers or when he was holding something back.
"Anyway," Niele went on. "I'm sure the Council will send more edicts once they're ready."
J'hon responded with the wry smile that was expected of him, and he let the topic drop even though he was far from satisfied. In his heart, he was convinced now that the corruption of Sith ideals perpetrated by the Brotherhood would lead to all their downfalls.
This belief ultimately led him to rebel in subtle ways against the edicts of the Council. And because he hated the idea of being destined to lose, he also started searching for ways to change the future in his favour.
***
It wasn't until the eve of his ascent into adulthood that ancient schemes set in motion began to gather pace.
The first rumblings of change came with the Council's struggle to marry the opposing philosophies of Bane and Kaan. Like any marriage, it had its share of challenges. But perhaps sensing the tendrils of a new breed of unrest within the Order, the Brotherhood sought to curb any budding signs of rebellion before they could take root. New alliances were forged; vanities were pandered to with the award of spurious titles and promotions; and those, who could not accept these reforms were quietly lost in space.
Out of the culling rose a newer, more traditional breed of Dark Lord. Some, like the newly promoted Niele, were no longer content to consolidate power from the shadows. They stepped to the fore, taking their followers with them; and since one of Niele's first acts as a Dark Lord was to formalize their affiliation, J'hon rose to the rank of Apprentice to a Dark Lord with minimal intrigue on his part.
When he entered his final cycles at the Academy, in line with this new status, the Brotherhood assigned a young Acolyte to serve him as technosage. This wasn't unusual by any means, since potentials often worked alongside members of the Sages Guild. Only, his master had been watching the Guild for some time. So his master saw to it that the Brotherhood's original choice of Kavan Agh got spaced on the way to the Academy.
In the end, J'hon got paired with the young M'Ro'dneeth Kay: arguably the most gifted of all the technosages the Guild had to offer.
***
In the way of all true Sith bonds, it was hate at first sight.
J'hon's initial impression was that M'Ro'dneeth Kay was one of those mouthy, opinionated, lab soft technosages, who had clearly never seen the inside of a training salle. After M'Ro'dneeth kicked things off by announcing: "You should probably call me Ro'dnee if you ever expect me to answer you," he then proceeded to lay two data pads down on his assigned work-station, saying, "These are sensitive, so do not touch them," very slowly and very loudly. As though no one else on the planet spoke Galactic Standard!
Now, watching the way he stomped around the trainee labs, criticizing everything in sight, J'hon could barely control the urge to strangle him. "You don't look much like a Sith," he said once Ro'dnee finally stopped for breath.
"Excuse me?"
"You know exactly what I mean," J'hon told him, sensing he was on to something here. And when Ro'dnee made another one of those outraged sounds, he notched that insult down as one to use again and again. Obviously, the topic of appearance was a very sore point. Hell, even a blind Ruusanian bat could see that Ro'dnee was cursed with the golden hair and blue eyes, which so favoured the Light-siders. "I'm just amazed the Brotherhood didn't space you at birth for looking the way you do," J'hon sneered, thinking he would take care of that oversight soon.
Ro'dnee promptly responded with a sneer of his own. "Well, we can't all be classically dark like you," he muttered, sounding very resentful about it. "Anyway, my hair will get darker the older and stronger I get. That's quite common, or so I'm told."
"Really?" J'hon drawled.
"Yes, really," Ro'dnee snapped at him, practically huffing with irritation. "Have you even heard of the Acolyte Mantha Cart?"
At which point J'hon made an irritated sound of his own.
"She has a colouring very similar to mine," Ro'dnee went on, even though he clearly wasn't interested in listening to any stories about Ro'dnee's past or his great alliances. "I can't believe you've never heard of her; everyone has," Ro'dnee told him, his face going soft and dreamy all of a sudden. "She's possibly the greatest Acolyte in the whole galaxy!"
J'hon raised an eyebrow.
Which made Ro'dnee back-track very quickly with: "Well, apart from me of course!" And before J'hon could come up with a reply to that, Ro'dnee added: "But she's incredibly cunning, brilliant actually. I wanted to work with her, you know. Together we would have made a formidable alliance. Only, somehow I got stuck with you instead."
J'hon gave Ro'dnee a menacing look. Which Ro'dnee didn't seem to notice, because Ro'dnee was suddenly very busy staring at him accusingly.
"You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"No," J'hon answered in as bored a tone as he could dredge up.
"Oh!" Ro'dnee's shoulders slumped. "I mean, it's just-" and then Ro'dnee sighed, looking incredibly disappointed. "I've been trying to find a way to change my assignment, but it doesn't look like there is one."
J'hon chose to stick with the bored theme from there on. "That's too bad, huh," he murmured, adding a mild shrug for effect. Inside, though, he was seething with rage. He couldn't believe this Light-spawn *nobody* thought that he was the one having to settle for second best because someone else had more potential than him-an Apprentice to a Dark Lord! It took every ounce of control he had to hide the anger behind his usual mask of indifference. "So," he said, his voice only marginally harsher. "Are we going to spend all day talking about hair?"
"Of course not!" Ro'dnee grimaced. "Here, you can use this in your Infiltrator!" And, still grimacing, Ro'dnee took what looked like a standard data crystal out of his pocket and then floated it over to him. "It's a star-nav system," Ro'dnee explained when he just stared at it blankly. "It's calibrated for all the star charts in the sector, and it will automatically chart any new systems you travel to."
"You're kidding!" J'hon plucked the crystal out of the air so he could take a closer look at it. "This thing is capable of auto-charting?"
Ro'dnee perked up considerably. "Please, this is only the basic model," he said, waving his hand in what J'hon assumed was a sign that there was more to come. "I'm working on a way to add long range scanners, so you can use it to track other ships in the system."
"Cool," J'hon admitted, impressed in spite of himself.
"Yes, yes, 'cool' is what I do," Ro'dnee told him, puffing his chest out a little.
From that gesture, J'hon worked out that Ro'dnee's true weakness was his pride. He decided to exploit it, starting off by asking questions about the star-nav crystal, which, of course, Ro'dnee was very happy to answer at length, before moving on to Ro'dnee's other inventions then onto his life at the Sages Guild. And, as Ro'dnee talked and talked about himself, J'hon watched and listened, learning and plotting and making plans of his own.
***
A few days later, news started filtering through the Academy that the Acolyte Mantha Cart had been destroyed in a freak plasma explosion, which had vaporized her to the atomic level. Since there was no discernible link between J'hon and Mantha Cart, or indeed between their respective masters, J'hon remained entirely free from suspicion. Which meant he was free to arrange a number of additional seemingly random unexplained accidents for Mantha Cart's master, her technosage, her healer and her favoured sparring partner.
When he attempted to destroy Ro'dnee, however, things didn't go quite as smoothly.
He set the trap in Ro'dnee's lab, where the carefully timed data pad malfunction was supposed to set off an explosive charge, which was then supposed to vaporize everything in sight, Ro'dnee included. Instead of doing that, the explosion swept Ro'dnee off his feet, carried him back and then slammed him into the wall behind, bringing a hail of debris down around him.
Fortunately for J'hon, he'd decided to lurk in the shadows to watch the action. He didn't normally do that as part of the job. Only, somewhere along the way, destroying Ro'dnee had become a personal thing, and he'd wanted to witness Ro'dnee's final moments live and up close. So, when this particular 'accident' failed to deliver the expected results, he was there to rectify that at once, leaping over to Ro'dnee and bringing his sabre down in the perfect strike to sever head from shoulders.
Only his sabre stopped harmlessly inches from Ro'dnee's throat.
It took him a moment to figure out that there was some sort of barrier in the way. An energy field, which seemed to cover Ro'dnee from head to toe and which threw up a flurry of green sparks whenever his sabre slammed against it. Still he kept pushing, baring his teeth from the strain, trying to strike that killing blow while Ro'dnee just sat there staring up at him, looking almost bewildered by what was going on. Until Ro'dnee apparently caught up as well and then started trying to scramble away from him, wide-eyed and reeking of terror.
"Whoa, not so fast," J'hon growled, reaching out this time with his hand, trying to grab Ro'dnee by the throat.
Except that field got in the way again, and this time the energy sparking off its surface hit him directly.
"Son of a bitch!" Pulling back at once, J'hon had to shake his fingers to get the numbness out of them. Ro'dnee was still half on his back, still trying to scramble away. So J'hon stepped between Ro'dnee and the door, effectively blocking the only escape route, leaving Ro'dnee with no other option but to crawl to the corner and sit there with his hands up, literally cowering for his life.
"Okay, tell me how the hell you're doing that," J'hon demanded, stalking over and shoving his sabre right in Ro'dnee's face. At which point Ro'dnee just sort of opened and closed his mouth, apparently lost for words. "Come on, Ro'dnee," J'hon sneered, tapping him lightly on the head with it. "Spit it out; I haven't got all day!"
Eventually, Ro'dnee managed to stutter: "I-It's my p-personal shield," looking like even that had taken a lot of nerve. "I built it myself. Because, you know, you can never have too much protection. And this is a new planet for me, with a new lab and new people, so I've been wearing it just in case."
"Huh!" J'hon nodded, vaguely impressed all over again. "Good call, by the way!"
"You think?" Ro'dnee screamed at him.
Just for that, J'hon took another swing at Ro'dnee's head. The frankly terrified expression on Ro'dnee's face when he did that made him feel a bit better, even though it didn't get him quite the result he wanted. As expected, the shield threw up another flurry of sparks, leaving Ro'dnee safe underneath it.
Not entirely sure what to do next, J'hon powered down his sabre. Then, once the full enormity of the situation hit, he backed up a little, giving himself some room to breathe. He'd never been in this kind of position before: coming face to face with a target and not being able to finish the job.
It was weird, embarrassing even.
Not that Ro'dnee seemed to care, deep as he was in his own personal crisis of: "Look, you don't have to do this! I'm an outstanding technosage, the best in the Order. Really, ask anyone; they'll tell you!" But the strangest thing was that while Ro'dnee kept babbling on and on at him, Ro'dnee also kept giving him these betrayed looks, like his feelings were hurt or something.
It all made him extremely uncomfortable.
In the end, because he just had to get out there, J'hon forced himself to accept that somehow he'd lost this round. Still he wasn't the type to leave without a show of strength. So he smiled with as much menace as he could and he whispered, "Catch you later, Ro'dnee," before striding out of the lab, pretty confident at the very least that he'd left Ro'dnee suitably cowed on the floor behind him.
***
The problem with failure, J'hon discovered, after so many cycles of not failing, was that it shook the foundations of his confidence and left him feeling confused, depressed and a little concerned.
He wasn't sure what bothered him the most: that he'd lost his once spotless record of assassinations, or that he'd lost it to a technosage after successfully managing to destroy Learneds, Dark Lords and Light-side masters during his career. On the way back to his quarters, he spent a lot of time thinking about that, reviewing where he'd gone wrong and how this had happened in the first place. And by the time he'd reached his door, he'd also started thinking about what this was going to mean for him and his future as a potential in the Order.
The problem with failure, J'hon realized, was that it highlighted weakness of character and weakness of form, and there was no place for any kind of weakness among the Sith. As uncomfortable as it was to admit, he was making mistakes. Somewhere along the way, he'd grown complacent, it seemed, perhaps even lazy, so used to the high of success that he was expecting to achieve it with no effort at all.
His biggest mistake was that he'd underestimated Ro'dnee. And really he of all people should have known better. After all, his array of kills was more or less a guide to everyone, who had underestimated him. But he'd allowed Ro'dnee's battle-soft exterior to blind him to the cunning mind, which lay beneath, and he'd failed to treat Ro'dnee's ambush with the respect it deserved.
He swore never to make that kind of mistake again.
***
As luck would have it, when J'hon opened his door, he noticed a sequence of blue lights flashing on the control panel. He barely had enough time to leap out of the way before the air around him exploded with sound and his ceiling caved in on him.
***
Stumbling from the remains of his quarters, J'hon came up with a list of potential suspects. And the real irony there was that it was a very short list indeed, because up till then he'd been so good about taking out the competition. Still it was obvious now that he'd overlooked someone; he just couldn't figure out who it was or why that person had chosen to move against him at this point in time.
Whoever it was, they were going to pay, he raged inwardly as he shook the dust off himself. He was going to make them regret the day they'd ever dared to challenge him.
Before that, though, he knew he needed to keep a low profile, to regroup and maybe take some more time to mull things over after the horrendous day he'd had. So he staggered off as fast as he could since he also knew that he had to leave in case his would-be assassin had any other surprises planned. But as he went round the corner, keeping a low profile also went right out of the window because he came across possibly the last person he'd expected to meet.
"Oh!" Ro'dnee flinched, looking almost comically disappointed to see him.
"Yeah," J'hon muttered, echoing the sentiment. "Hey, so we've both had someone try to take us out today. What are the odds, huh?"
He kept posturing, trying not to appear too shaken, well aware that Ro'dnee was watching him from the other end of the hallway. And even though Ro'dnee still wore that same wide-eyed look of terror, he put it down to their previous encounter, and that Ro'dnee was bound to be a little skittish around people. Understandably so, given the recent attempt on his life.
Something J'hon found remarkably easy to relate to right then.
"You know, it's weird," he said, shaking his head. "The only people, who normally show up at an ambush, are the target and the assassin. Hell, if I didn't know better, I would think you were the one, who just tried to destroy me."
Ro'dnee suddenly seemed to find something very interesting on the ground to study.
And J'hon had one of those Force-enhanced revelations, which left him reeling with the shock of having his universe turned upside down. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he said under his breath. Because that was insane; the idea alone was so ridiculous he was struggling to get the words out. "No way would a technosage have the balls for that," he managed to sputter in the end.
Ro'dnee's chin went up a little at the insult. Now there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that Ro'dnee was his would-be assassin.
"You tried to destroy me?"
"Why not?" And Ro'dnee's chin went up even higher. "Where does it say that, just because I'm a technosage, I can't try too? Hmm?"
J'hon honestly didn't know what to say to that.
"You potentials think you're the only Acolytes with ambition," Ro'dnee went on, clearly on a roll now. "You're all the same. We help you and what do we get: nothing but attempted murder! Well, I'm not ending up like Ridek with my eyeballs hanging round Acolyte Weer's neck: let me tell you that!"
J'hon was about to go over there to emulate Weer's style when he realized Ro'dnee was still wearing that personal shield of his. It shimmered green in the light, mocking him in much the same way that Ro'dnee continued to mock him by berating every one of the Order's potentials.
In the end, the only thing he could do was to hold up both hands to stop the tirade. "Okay, Ro'dnee, fine," he snarled. "You want to go up against a potential, then be my guest! But don't think that shield of yours will stop me forever."
He watched Ro'dnee open his mouth again, saw those blue eyes narrow a fraction. And because he didn't want to get into a verbal pissing contest which, frankly, he wasn't sure he would win, he said: "Look, my place is a bit of a mess right now. So unless you want me moving in with you, I need to find somewhere else to live!"
After that, J'hon stalked off, so angry he could barely think straight. Once again, he'd underestimated Ro'dnee, only this time he'd nearly been destroyed as a result. Right then, no amount of posturing could convince him that this wasn't a serious weakness on his part.
***
Later, after J'hon had calmed down and the shock of failure wasn't so fresh, he started thinking rationally about what had happened. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized just how compromising a position Ro'dnee had put him in. If the story ever got out that a mere technosage had almost succeeded in destroying him, he was going to spend the rest of what would undoubtedly be a very short life fielding attacks from any and everyone.
The only sensible option he could see, under the circumstances, was to cover his tracks. Unless somehow he managed to destroy Ro'dnee before Ro'dnee had a chance to talk. Still with Ro'dnee's personal shield in place, a quick kill seemed very unlikely. So J'hon decided that the best way to handle the situation was to throw everyone around him off the scent by giving them something else to focus on.
He started by eliminating Mars Somnir, which was a bonus more than anything. As one of his first blademasters, Somnir had taken great pleasure in humiliating him during his early cycles on the Path. So J'hon took equal pleasure in breaking into Somnir's quarters that night and then crushing the life from his throat. Next, he swapped one of the crystals in Somnir's door panel with one from his own door, thus providing some hastily manufactured though nonetheless incontrovertible proof that Mars Somnir had been behind the attempt on his life.
From there, it was easy enough to convince his own master that this was all part of the Dark Lord Ha'Mund's move against him. Not that his master needed much convincing, though. With Somnir as Ha'Mund's Shadow Hand elect, and with Niele eager to take over Ha'Mund's command of the Council's security teams, he knew Niele was looking for any excuse to wipe Ha'Mund out.
By the end of week, Ha'Mund was gone and Niele was on the rise. And although J'hon was still a bit disturbed that he'd been forced down this path, he congratulated himself for accomplishing several things. Not the least of which were: averting a personal crisis of confidence with some good, hard kills; and, cementing his alliance with his master by helping his master move one step closer to the Council. Most importantly, though, he'd managed to deflect any rumour that Ro'dnee had come close to taking him out. Which, in turn, bought him more time to come up with a way to deal with Ro'dnee once and for all.
***
Despite the successful cover up, J'hon couldn't shake the sense of unease caused by failing in the first place.
Working with Ro'dnee was a constant reminder of it. Although there were definite perks to having a technosage of his own. Sometimes, when Ro'dnee huffed at him before presenting him with some innovative new tool, J'hon couldn't decide if he was annoyed or relieved that he hadn't managed to kill Ro'dnee. And soon he started to question whether there was some other, sub-conscious reason for that failure beyond sheer bad planning.
So, as a matter of principle, J'hon stepped up the number of attempts he made on Ro'dnee's life.
He stuck to explosives initially. Until he realized Ro'dnee was using him to test shield modifications when he caught Ro'dnee one day taking power readings during an ambush. After that, he switched to Force manipulation and illusion. Which weren't exactly his areas of preference, but which were nonetheless time-honoured classics. Some attempts were more serious than others were; most were decidedly unsuccessful. But the one constant in all of them was that Ro'dnee seemed to find new ways to retaliate. Ways, which in turn frustrated him and brought out that grudging sense of admiration he always seemed to get around Ro'dnee.
Ironically, the closest he ever came to success was by accident.
It happened in Ro'dnee's lab. He was lounging by Ro'dnee's work station trying to be annoying or to just generally get in the way while Ro'dnee was trying equally hard to ignore him. After several minutes of this, J'hon brought out his sabre, which he'd damaged disembowelling a shape-shifting Ugor on Paradise 12. It turned out that Ro'dnee's physiology was severely averse to Ugorian spore-gruel. Which was all this particular Ugor ate apparently. It also turned out that Ugorian spore scent molecules were small enough to permeate Ro'dnee's shield.
As the spores filled the air, J'hon sat there watching the pale shade of blue spread across Ro'dnee's face. He was so mesmerized by all the gasping Ro'dnee was doing that he forgot to seize the opportunity to strike Ro'dnee down when Ro'dnee dropped his shield to administer his anti-reagent. By the time he realized what was going on, Ro'dnee already had his shield back up and Ro'dnee was glaring at him whilst also still struggling to breathe.
"Oh, that's just great," Ro'dnee wheezed in between gasps and coughs. "So, you're on to poison now?"
Alarmingly enough, J'hon heard himself say: "I didn't know you would react like that," before he bit his lip, trying not to seem defensive. Though he was and extremely so. Which made no sense to him at all since he'd been trying to kill Ro'dnee for months now.
"Huh!" Ro'dnee frowned at him, looking quite pensive all of a sudden and significantly less upset. "Well, in that case, I suppose I should thank-you for exposing a weakness in my shield," he admitted rather grudgingly. "Which I'll be fixing right now," he added very quickly. "So don't even think about trying to poison me again!"
"Fine," J'hon told him. He still felt rather defensive about the whole thing, and because he didn't want to end up saying something incredibly stupid, he manufactured an excuse to leave as soon as he could.
***
End of Part One
Continued in Part Two
Title: Ascension
Author: Soraya
Rating: Adults Only (NC-17)
Genre: Slash, First Time, AU
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Disclaimer: Not mine, Lucas owns everything Star Wars and Wright and Cooper own Stargate Atlantis etc.
Warnings: Male/Male sexual activity, dark themes with strong suggestions of violence
Summary: Sometimes, it takes Two to ascend
Part One
"Two there should be, no more and no less:
One to embody the power, the other to crave it."
'The Rule of Two' by the Sith Lord Darth Bane
Taken from the Star Wars novel 'Darth Bane: Path of Destruction' by Drew Karpyshyn
---
Only Two there are: a Master and an Apprentice.
It is the Sith way and our greatest strength,
For true power cannot be shared among the many,
And true power may only be wielded by the few.
Yet in this strength also lies our greatest folly
And the reason why the Sith have always failed.
For until the Two become more, the scourge of Light
Shall continue to tarnish the purity of our Darkness.
An excerpt from 'The Ascension Prophecies'
by the Learned Lord Revenant
***
His earliest memories were of the crèche. Like all potentials, he was cut from his mother's womb with only her dying screams to guide him into the waiting hands of the Brotherhood: they, who became the architects of his growth from that point forward. The questions he put to them were the natural curiosities of any child: who was he, where was he from, and why was he here? The answers from the Learneds were more cryptic than revealing: his name was J'hon; he was a potential; and like the other Acolytes before him, he existed purely to ascend.
They told him that his birth mother was a carrier shell: a nothing and nothing to concern himself about. Then, after he'd pressed them for more, they took him to the training salle where they beat him until he understood never to question again and until the earth beneath him was red with his life's blood.
On that day, J'hon drew that blanketing feeling of hatred around him and he covered his heart with it, letting it strengthen him from the inside out. Its darkness sustained him through the shattering of bone, and it was there for him singing soothing melodies of revenge when the only carers he knew left him broken on the ground to find his own way home.
***
It took him almost a day to crawl back to his cot, several more to heal the wounds gained by such naïveté. But when he was finally strong enough, J'hon killed two lords of learning, one for each of the legs they'd broken. He left their mutilated bodies hanging from the arches to the Temple of Ages, and once word of the assassinations had spread through the Academy, he rushed out with the rest of the Acolytes to admire the beauty of the carnage he'd wrought.
Little did he know that this simple act of vengeance would herald a new dawn of dissent among the Sith. Or that those of their brethren, who longed for a return to the old ways, would set ancient schemes in motion while the rest of the Council argued over who was responsible and what was the motive.
There, standing in the shade of those severed limbs, J'hon was just one of many gazing up at the Learneds, dreaming of a time when he would raze them all to dust and build a new order on the bones of their deceit.
***
The way of the crèche was one of alliances not friendships. From the earliest cycles of life, Acolytes were taught that all relationships were the product of strategy, so that even the youngest were adept at weighing the usefulness of those around them. J'hon took those lessons with him into his Path of Apprenticeship at the Academy.
Under the guidance of his blademasters, he continued to excel in the field of aerials and stealth tactics, honing himself into a warrior with few equals among his peers. Where he surpassed them all, however, was in sheer cunning, of which he had enough to know that any goal of True Ascension would require more than just the dark arts of politics and combat.
It was this foresight that led him to train in secret under the Dark Master Niele, and it was Master Niele, who first showed him the most forbidden of all the ancient texts.
***
The reason J'hon chose Niele was that Niele was a survivor from the final Purges of Unification. A mere foundling at the time, those brethren, who had over-run his sect, had deemed him a potential worthy of rehabilitation. Which was how he and others like him survived into adulthood, and how those of arcane doctrine came to occupy positions of influence throughout the Order. Niele's views on secular training, while radical, weren't considered a threat to the natural order of things. But perhaps where Niele was most dangerous, and where the Brotherhood neglected to quell his dissent, was in his tenet that in order to understand the future, first one had to study the past.
Gradually and with considerable encouragement from this Dark Master, J'hon began to question the efficacy of the Council. With Niele for a tutor, he reviewed the Code in its original forms, studying the teachings of such Learned Lords as Ektorian Gore and Nol Revenant. What lay there was a revelation to a mind starving for answers, and only through promises of more was Niele able to secure service to his cause.
Theirs became an alliance of mutual use. Niele provided him with clues to his origins and to the origins of the Sith; in return, he identified those that might be swayed from among the lower ranks. Yet in the same way that the Brotherhood had overlooked one of their own, so too did he encourage Niele to underestimate him. He never let Niele see past the easy darkness of his exterior to the convert's zeal beneath. For where Niele was a master of understatement, he was even more adept in the shielding of his innermost thoughts.
In their many conversations, only once did he allude to the possibility of sedition. "This doesn't make any sense," he said one evening after skimming through the latest Dark Edict from the Council.
"Ah, yes, the eternal dichotomy of our struggle!" Niele shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed on their Sabacc game. "You know, you would think by now they would have figured out that Kaan's philosophy of 'Rule by the Strong' conflicts with Bane's 'Rule of Two'."
"Yeah! Of course, since neither one ended in True Ascension, their idea is for us to try both at the same time!"
"Clever, huh?"
J'hon answered that with a grunt. That said, this new series of edicts left him seething with frustration. Because after several cycles reading the forbidden texts, he could almost see the parallels between ancient prophecy and the direction in which the Order was heading. What disturbed him most were the koans of Revenant, which seemed to suggest that Light would prevail if they couldn't harness the Dark side effectively.
"Do they even have a plan?" he asked a few minutes later, trying to make it seem like an afterthought. "The failures of the First Republic show that our current strength in numbers will probably end in us destroying ourselves. The Second only proves that power in the hands of Two leads to longer rule, but there the Two would be vulnerable to a well-placed attack. How are they going to use this to destroy the Light once and for all?"
Niele just shrugged his shoulders. "My guess is it'll probably be something with a bang," he said lightly, though his eyes were down the whole time.
Which J'hon knew was a stalling tactic of Niele's when he'd either run out of answers or when he was holding something back.
"Anyway," Niele went on. "I'm sure the Council will send more edicts once they're ready."
J'hon responded with the wry smile that was expected of him, and he let the topic drop even though he was far from satisfied. In his heart, he was convinced now that the corruption of Sith ideals perpetrated by the Brotherhood would lead to all their downfalls.
This belief ultimately led him to rebel in subtle ways against the edicts of the Council. And because he hated the idea of being destined to lose, he also started searching for ways to change the future in his favour.
***
It wasn't until the eve of his ascent into adulthood that ancient schemes set in motion began to gather pace.
The first rumblings of change came with the Council's struggle to marry the opposing philosophies of Bane and Kaan. Like any marriage, it had its share of challenges. But perhaps sensing the tendrils of a new breed of unrest within the Order, the Brotherhood sought to curb any budding signs of rebellion before they could take root. New alliances were forged; vanities were pandered to with the award of spurious titles and promotions; and those, who could not accept these reforms were quietly lost in space.
Out of the culling rose a newer, more traditional breed of Dark Lord. Some, like the newly promoted Niele, were no longer content to consolidate power from the shadows. They stepped to the fore, taking their followers with them; and since one of Niele's first acts as a Dark Lord was to formalize their affiliation, J'hon rose to the rank of Apprentice to a Dark Lord with minimal intrigue on his part.
When he entered his final cycles at the Academy, in line with this new status, the Brotherhood assigned a young Acolyte to serve him as technosage. This wasn't unusual by any means, since potentials often worked alongside members of the Sages Guild. Only, his master had been watching the Guild for some time. So his master saw to it that the Brotherhood's original choice of Kavan Agh got spaced on the way to the Academy.
In the end, J'hon got paired with the young M'Ro'dneeth Kay: arguably the most gifted of all the technosages the Guild had to offer.
***
In the way of all true Sith bonds, it was hate at first sight.
J'hon's initial impression was that M'Ro'dneeth Kay was one of those mouthy, opinionated, lab soft technosages, who had clearly never seen the inside of a training salle. After M'Ro'dneeth kicked things off by announcing: "You should probably call me Ro'dnee if you ever expect me to answer you," he then proceeded to lay two data pads down on his assigned work-station, saying, "These are sensitive, so do not touch them," very slowly and very loudly. As though no one else on the planet spoke Galactic Standard!
Now, watching the way he stomped around the trainee labs, criticizing everything in sight, J'hon could barely control the urge to strangle him. "You don't look much like a Sith," he said once Ro'dnee finally stopped for breath.
"Excuse me?"
"You know exactly what I mean," J'hon told him, sensing he was on to something here. And when Ro'dnee made another one of those outraged sounds, he notched that insult down as one to use again and again. Obviously, the topic of appearance was a very sore point. Hell, even a blind Ruusanian bat could see that Ro'dnee was cursed with the golden hair and blue eyes, which so favoured the Light-siders. "I'm just amazed the Brotherhood didn't space you at birth for looking the way you do," J'hon sneered, thinking he would take care of that oversight soon.
Ro'dnee promptly responded with a sneer of his own. "Well, we can't all be classically dark like you," he muttered, sounding very resentful about it. "Anyway, my hair will get darker the older and stronger I get. That's quite common, or so I'm told."
"Really?" J'hon drawled.
"Yes, really," Ro'dnee snapped at him, practically huffing with irritation. "Have you even heard of the Acolyte Mantha Cart?"
At which point J'hon made an irritated sound of his own.
"She has a colouring very similar to mine," Ro'dnee went on, even though he clearly wasn't interested in listening to any stories about Ro'dnee's past or his great alliances. "I can't believe you've never heard of her; everyone has," Ro'dnee told him, his face going soft and dreamy all of a sudden. "She's possibly the greatest Acolyte in the whole galaxy!"
J'hon raised an eyebrow.
Which made Ro'dnee back-track very quickly with: "Well, apart from me of course!" And before J'hon could come up with a reply to that, Ro'dnee added: "But she's incredibly cunning, brilliant actually. I wanted to work with her, you know. Together we would have made a formidable alliance. Only, somehow I got stuck with you instead."
J'hon gave Ro'dnee a menacing look. Which Ro'dnee didn't seem to notice, because Ro'dnee was suddenly very busy staring at him accusingly.
"You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"No," J'hon answered in as bored a tone as he could dredge up.
"Oh!" Ro'dnee's shoulders slumped. "I mean, it's just-" and then Ro'dnee sighed, looking incredibly disappointed. "I've been trying to find a way to change my assignment, but it doesn't look like there is one."
J'hon chose to stick with the bored theme from there on. "That's too bad, huh," he murmured, adding a mild shrug for effect. Inside, though, he was seething with rage. He couldn't believe this Light-spawn *nobody* thought that he was the one having to settle for second best because someone else had more potential than him-an Apprentice to a Dark Lord! It took every ounce of control he had to hide the anger behind his usual mask of indifference. "So," he said, his voice only marginally harsher. "Are we going to spend all day talking about hair?"
"Of course not!" Ro'dnee grimaced. "Here, you can use this in your Infiltrator!" And, still grimacing, Ro'dnee took what looked like a standard data crystal out of his pocket and then floated it over to him. "It's a star-nav system," Ro'dnee explained when he just stared at it blankly. "It's calibrated for all the star charts in the sector, and it will automatically chart any new systems you travel to."
"You're kidding!" J'hon plucked the crystal out of the air so he could take a closer look at it. "This thing is capable of auto-charting?"
Ro'dnee perked up considerably. "Please, this is only the basic model," he said, waving his hand in what J'hon assumed was a sign that there was more to come. "I'm working on a way to add long range scanners, so you can use it to track other ships in the system."
"Cool," J'hon admitted, impressed in spite of himself.
"Yes, yes, 'cool' is what I do," Ro'dnee told him, puffing his chest out a little.
From that gesture, J'hon worked out that Ro'dnee's true weakness was his pride. He decided to exploit it, starting off by asking questions about the star-nav crystal, which, of course, Ro'dnee was very happy to answer at length, before moving on to Ro'dnee's other inventions then onto his life at the Sages Guild. And, as Ro'dnee talked and talked about himself, J'hon watched and listened, learning and plotting and making plans of his own.
***
A few days later, news started filtering through the Academy that the Acolyte Mantha Cart had been destroyed in a freak plasma explosion, which had vaporized her to the atomic level. Since there was no discernible link between J'hon and Mantha Cart, or indeed between their respective masters, J'hon remained entirely free from suspicion. Which meant he was free to arrange a number of additional seemingly random unexplained accidents for Mantha Cart's master, her technosage, her healer and her favoured sparring partner.
When he attempted to destroy Ro'dnee, however, things didn't go quite as smoothly.
He set the trap in Ro'dnee's lab, where the carefully timed data pad malfunction was supposed to set off an explosive charge, which was then supposed to vaporize everything in sight, Ro'dnee included. Instead of doing that, the explosion swept Ro'dnee off his feet, carried him back and then slammed him into the wall behind, bringing a hail of debris down around him.
Fortunately for J'hon, he'd decided to lurk in the shadows to watch the action. He didn't normally do that as part of the job. Only, somewhere along the way, destroying Ro'dnee had become a personal thing, and he'd wanted to witness Ro'dnee's final moments live and up close. So, when this particular 'accident' failed to deliver the expected results, he was there to rectify that at once, leaping over to Ro'dnee and bringing his sabre down in the perfect strike to sever head from shoulders.
Only his sabre stopped harmlessly inches from Ro'dnee's throat.
It took him a moment to figure out that there was some sort of barrier in the way. An energy field, which seemed to cover Ro'dnee from head to toe and which threw up a flurry of green sparks whenever his sabre slammed against it. Still he kept pushing, baring his teeth from the strain, trying to strike that killing blow while Ro'dnee just sat there staring up at him, looking almost bewildered by what was going on. Until Ro'dnee apparently caught up as well and then started trying to scramble away from him, wide-eyed and reeking of terror.
"Whoa, not so fast," J'hon growled, reaching out this time with his hand, trying to grab Ro'dnee by the throat.
Except that field got in the way again, and this time the energy sparking off its surface hit him directly.
"Son of a bitch!" Pulling back at once, J'hon had to shake his fingers to get the numbness out of them. Ro'dnee was still half on his back, still trying to scramble away. So J'hon stepped between Ro'dnee and the door, effectively blocking the only escape route, leaving Ro'dnee with no other option but to crawl to the corner and sit there with his hands up, literally cowering for his life.
"Okay, tell me how the hell you're doing that," J'hon demanded, stalking over and shoving his sabre right in Ro'dnee's face. At which point Ro'dnee just sort of opened and closed his mouth, apparently lost for words. "Come on, Ro'dnee," J'hon sneered, tapping him lightly on the head with it. "Spit it out; I haven't got all day!"
Eventually, Ro'dnee managed to stutter: "I-It's my p-personal shield," looking like even that had taken a lot of nerve. "I built it myself. Because, you know, you can never have too much protection. And this is a new planet for me, with a new lab and new people, so I've been wearing it just in case."
"Huh!" J'hon nodded, vaguely impressed all over again. "Good call, by the way!"
"You think?" Ro'dnee screamed at him.
Just for that, J'hon took another swing at Ro'dnee's head. The frankly terrified expression on Ro'dnee's face when he did that made him feel a bit better, even though it didn't get him quite the result he wanted. As expected, the shield threw up another flurry of sparks, leaving Ro'dnee safe underneath it.
Not entirely sure what to do next, J'hon powered down his sabre. Then, once the full enormity of the situation hit, he backed up a little, giving himself some room to breathe. He'd never been in this kind of position before: coming face to face with a target and not being able to finish the job.
It was weird, embarrassing even.
Not that Ro'dnee seemed to care, deep as he was in his own personal crisis of: "Look, you don't have to do this! I'm an outstanding technosage, the best in the Order. Really, ask anyone; they'll tell you!" But the strangest thing was that while Ro'dnee kept babbling on and on at him, Ro'dnee also kept giving him these betrayed looks, like his feelings were hurt or something.
It all made him extremely uncomfortable.
In the end, because he just had to get out there, J'hon forced himself to accept that somehow he'd lost this round. Still he wasn't the type to leave without a show of strength. So he smiled with as much menace as he could and he whispered, "Catch you later, Ro'dnee," before striding out of the lab, pretty confident at the very least that he'd left Ro'dnee suitably cowed on the floor behind him.
***
The problem with failure, J'hon discovered, after so many cycles of not failing, was that it shook the foundations of his confidence and left him feeling confused, depressed and a little concerned.
He wasn't sure what bothered him the most: that he'd lost his once spotless record of assassinations, or that he'd lost it to a technosage after successfully managing to destroy Learneds, Dark Lords and Light-side masters during his career. On the way back to his quarters, he spent a lot of time thinking about that, reviewing where he'd gone wrong and how this had happened in the first place. And by the time he'd reached his door, he'd also started thinking about what this was going to mean for him and his future as a potential in the Order.
The problem with failure, J'hon realized, was that it highlighted weakness of character and weakness of form, and there was no place for any kind of weakness among the Sith. As uncomfortable as it was to admit, he was making mistakes. Somewhere along the way, he'd grown complacent, it seemed, perhaps even lazy, so used to the high of success that he was expecting to achieve it with no effort at all.
His biggest mistake was that he'd underestimated Ro'dnee. And really he of all people should have known better. After all, his array of kills was more or less a guide to everyone, who had underestimated him. But he'd allowed Ro'dnee's battle-soft exterior to blind him to the cunning mind, which lay beneath, and he'd failed to treat Ro'dnee's ambush with the respect it deserved.
He swore never to make that kind of mistake again.
***
As luck would have it, when J'hon opened his door, he noticed a sequence of blue lights flashing on the control panel. He barely had enough time to leap out of the way before the air around him exploded with sound and his ceiling caved in on him.
***
Stumbling from the remains of his quarters, J'hon came up with a list of potential suspects. And the real irony there was that it was a very short list indeed, because up till then he'd been so good about taking out the competition. Still it was obvious now that he'd overlooked someone; he just couldn't figure out who it was or why that person had chosen to move against him at this point in time.
Whoever it was, they were going to pay, he raged inwardly as he shook the dust off himself. He was going to make them regret the day they'd ever dared to challenge him.
Before that, though, he knew he needed to keep a low profile, to regroup and maybe take some more time to mull things over after the horrendous day he'd had. So he staggered off as fast as he could since he also knew that he had to leave in case his would-be assassin had any other surprises planned. But as he went round the corner, keeping a low profile also went right out of the window because he came across possibly the last person he'd expected to meet.
"Oh!" Ro'dnee flinched, looking almost comically disappointed to see him.
"Yeah," J'hon muttered, echoing the sentiment. "Hey, so we've both had someone try to take us out today. What are the odds, huh?"
He kept posturing, trying not to appear too shaken, well aware that Ro'dnee was watching him from the other end of the hallway. And even though Ro'dnee still wore that same wide-eyed look of terror, he put it down to their previous encounter, and that Ro'dnee was bound to be a little skittish around people. Understandably so, given the recent attempt on his life.
Something J'hon found remarkably easy to relate to right then.
"You know, it's weird," he said, shaking his head. "The only people, who normally show up at an ambush, are the target and the assassin. Hell, if I didn't know better, I would think you were the one, who just tried to destroy me."
Ro'dnee suddenly seemed to find something very interesting on the ground to study.
And J'hon had one of those Force-enhanced revelations, which left him reeling with the shock of having his universe turned upside down. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he said under his breath. Because that was insane; the idea alone was so ridiculous he was struggling to get the words out. "No way would a technosage have the balls for that," he managed to sputter in the end.
Ro'dnee's chin went up a little at the insult. Now there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that Ro'dnee was his would-be assassin.
"You tried to destroy me?"
"Why not?" And Ro'dnee's chin went up even higher. "Where does it say that, just because I'm a technosage, I can't try too? Hmm?"
J'hon honestly didn't know what to say to that.
"You potentials think you're the only Acolytes with ambition," Ro'dnee went on, clearly on a roll now. "You're all the same. We help you and what do we get: nothing but attempted murder! Well, I'm not ending up like Ridek with my eyeballs hanging round Acolyte Weer's neck: let me tell you that!"
J'hon was about to go over there to emulate Weer's style when he realized Ro'dnee was still wearing that personal shield of his. It shimmered green in the light, mocking him in much the same way that Ro'dnee continued to mock him by berating every one of the Order's potentials.
In the end, the only thing he could do was to hold up both hands to stop the tirade. "Okay, Ro'dnee, fine," he snarled. "You want to go up against a potential, then be my guest! But don't think that shield of yours will stop me forever."
He watched Ro'dnee open his mouth again, saw those blue eyes narrow a fraction. And because he didn't want to get into a verbal pissing contest which, frankly, he wasn't sure he would win, he said: "Look, my place is a bit of a mess right now. So unless you want me moving in with you, I need to find somewhere else to live!"
After that, J'hon stalked off, so angry he could barely think straight. Once again, he'd underestimated Ro'dnee, only this time he'd nearly been destroyed as a result. Right then, no amount of posturing could convince him that this wasn't a serious weakness on his part.
***
Later, after J'hon had calmed down and the shock of failure wasn't so fresh, he started thinking rationally about what had happened. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized just how compromising a position Ro'dnee had put him in. If the story ever got out that a mere technosage had almost succeeded in destroying him, he was going to spend the rest of what would undoubtedly be a very short life fielding attacks from any and everyone.
The only sensible option he could see, under the circumstances, was to cover his tracks. Unless somehow he managed to destroy Ro'dnee before Ro'dnee had a chance to talk. Still with Ro'dnee's personal shield in place, a quick kill seemed very unlikely. So J'hon decided that the best way to handle the situation was to throw everyone around him off the scent by giving them something else to focus on.
He started by eliminating Mars Somnir, which was a bonus more than anything. As one of his first blademasters, Somnir had taken great pleasure in humiliating him during his early cycles on the Path. So J'hon took equal pleasure in breaking into Somnir's quarters that night and then crushing the life from his throat. Next, he swapped one of the crystals in Somnir's door panel with one from his own door, thus providing some hastily manufactured though nonetheless incontrovertible proof that Mars Somnir had been behind the attempt on his life.
From there, it was easy enough to convince his own master that this was all part of the Dark Lord Ha'Mund's move against him. Not that his master needed much convincing, though. With Somnir as Ha'Mund's Shadow Hand elect, and with Niele eager to take over Ha'Mund's command of the Council's security teams, he knew Niele was looking for any excuse to wipe Ha'Mund out.
By the end of week, Ha'Mund was gone and Niele was on the rise. And although J'hon was still a bit disturbed that he'd been forced down this path, he congratulated himself for accomplishing several things. Not the least of which were: averting a personal crisis of confidence with some good, hard kills; and, cementing his alliance with his master by helping his master move one step closer to the Council. Most importantly, though, he'd managed to deflect any rumour that Ro'dnee had come close to taking him out. Which, in turn, bought him more time to come up with a way to deal with Ro'dnee once and for all.
***
Despite the successful cover up, J'hon couldn't shake the sense of unease caused by failing in the first place.
Working with Ro'dnee was a constant reminder of it. Although there were definite perks to having a technosage of his own. Sometimes, when Ro'dnee huffed at him before presenting him with some innovative new tool, J'hon couldn't decide if he was annoyed or relieved that he hadn't managed to kill Ro'dnee. And soon he started to question whether there was some other, sub-conscious reason for that failure beyond sheer bad planning.
So, as a matter of principle, J'hon stepped up the number of attempts he made on Ro'dnee's life.
He stuck to explosives initially. Until he realized Ro'dnee was using him to test shield modifications when he caught Ro'dnee one day taking power readings during an ambush. After that, he switched to Force manipulation and illusion. Which weren't exactly his areas of preference, but which were nonetheless time-honoured classics. Some attempts were more serious than others were; most were decidedly unsuccessful. But the one constant in all of them was that Ro'dnee seemed to find new ways to retaliate. Ways, which in turn frustrated him and brought out that grudging sense of admiration he always seemed to get around Ro'dnee.
Ironically, the closest he ever came to success was by accident.
It happened in Ro'dnee's lab. He was lounging by Ro'dnee's work station trying to be annoying or to just generally get in the way while Ro'dnee was trying equally hard to ignore him. After several minutes of this, J'hon brought out his sabre, which he'd damaged disembowelling a shape-shifting Ugor on Paradise 12. It turned out that Ro'dnee's physiology was severely averse to Ugorian spore-gruel. Which was all this particular Ugor ate apparently. It also turned out that Ugorian spore scent molecules were small enough to permeate Ro'dnee's shield.
As the spores filled the air, J'hon sat there watching the pale shade of blue spread across Ro'dnee's face. He was so mesmerized by all the gasping Ro'dnee was doing that he forgot to seize the opportunity to strike Ro'dnee down when Ro'dnee dropped his shield to administer his anti-reagent. By the time he realized what was going on, Ro'dnee already had his shield back up and Ro'dnee was glaring at him whilst also still struggling to breathe.
"Oh, that's just great," Ro'dnee wheezed in between gasps and coughs. "So, you're on to poison now?"
Alarmingly enough, J'hon heard himself say: "I didn't know you would react like that," before he bit his lip, trying not to seem defensive. Though he was and extremely so. Which made no sense to him at all since he'd been trying to kill Ro'dnee for months now.
"Huh!" Ro'dnee frowned at him, looking quite pensive all of a sudden and significantly less upset. "Well, in that case, I suppose I should thank-you for exposing a weakness in my shield," he admitted rather grudgingly. "Which I'll be fixing right now," he added very quickly. "So don't even think about trying to poison me again!"
"Fine," J'hon told him. He still felt rather defensive about the whole thing, and because he didn't want to end up saying something incredibly stupid, he manufactured an excuse to leave as soon as he could.
***
End of Part One
Continued in Part Two