via
http://ift.tt/2DU3Y62@kettish keeps poking me for Venge & Mara Jade fic
@deadcatwithaflamethrower you stirred some stuff last night with the snippets
“What do you think of my little pet project, my Apprentice?” Sidious asks, hated voice creeping like smoke across the ice-cold floor. “It was very difficult, you know. Who could have predicted Rhen’s would turn out to be so troublesome.”
The words don’t quite register. Venge stares at the holoimage, pure hatred curling like smoke in his lungs, in his mouth, his throat, stinging at his eyes and deafening him even to that voice.
“Well, my dear General? I may never have you, but this one is mine.”
Later, he thinks Sidious might have realised he’d gravely misstepped. Venge almost remembers that bond pulsing in Sidious’s vain attempt to throttle and stamp out a rising tide of his fury, but the attempt was too little, and far too late.
Venge is also not entirely sure what he did. Something destructive. Much of it was a blur, and the only thing he remembers with anything resembling clarity is the rage, grief, and desolation poured into the ruin of what was once his home. The carpets were red like rivers of iron-based blood, the walls were black and smooth, shining like Sidious’s lair. By the time Venge is through with it, there isn’t a brick of Imperial Center still lying in its place.
Venge comes back—painfully—to himself, feeling rather like he’d gone another few rounds of electrocution. Channeling that much raw power leaves him feeling like the top of his head’s peeled off, and his teeth are humming still. It feels like a damn spice trip without the instant allergic reaction—skin crawling, burning, and paper-thin, all of him hyperaware of the brush of air, of every sound, every hint of movement.
It’s distantly amusing to consider that Imperial building codes are barely up to par with Republic ones. Or maybe Imperial Center was built in a hurry.
Still. Venge is surrounded by wreckage that looks like the result of aerial bombardment. No building codes could withstand that.
He’s standing in the middle of a smoking slagheap, and there is a child in front of him, watching him with large, curious eyes, not even the least bit frightened.
One to call my own. The words float and twist in his mind, like everything else Sidious had ever touched. Sure enough, there it is. A bond, tethering this child to her Master—more slavemaster than teacher, but she wouldn’t know that at all, would she?
Emperor’s Hand, Venge thinks, and wonders why this four- or five-year-old red-haired child hasn’t run off, or maybe shot him with that blaster she hasn’t got hidden in her boot.
Venge hesitates, then crouches down to her eye-level.
She’s still. Not. Running.
“Hello there,” he says softly. Venge isn’t sure what moves him to do it, but he reaches out with one hand, palm up, and holds his breath.
He leaves the smoking ruin with the child in his arms, walks out into the incongruously brilliant Coruscant sunlight, and right into Vader, standing on the steps in an eerie mirror to the March on the Temple. The black suit that holds together what is left of his brother is completely still, and silent but for its breathing. A lightsaber lies in Vader’s hand, at the ready, but it is unlit. Venge stops, hesitates. The thought of leaving his brother behind, even like this, scrapes across raw and painful memories like sanded paper. Leaving him—it’s impossible.
But Venge stands between two impossible choices, and it won’t be long before the Emperor takes another body.
“Either come with me, or don’t get in my way,” Venge growls.
Vader stands silent and stock-still, and every ticking second drags longer. With a disgusted scoff, Venge shakes his head and steps forward, then again, again, and another time, until he walks past the sentinel of the Emperor’s slave, and keeps walking.
The laboured breathing of the suit does not grow any more distant, however, and heavy footfalls follow him down the many steps. Venge doesn’t quite believe it, until—
“I have a ship,” Vader says.
“Really.” Venge hadn’t given any thought to how he was going to leave here with this child in his arms. Not without stealing, or a hell of a lot of property damage. No way Venge was dragging Dex into this, either. The Besalisk was too valuable an ally.
Venge threw a sideways glance at Vader as the massive, hulking black shape drew even with him. It was impossible to read the damn suit. But Anakin was in there, somewhere, and…
“Lead the way.”
…call it a tentative part 1?
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