March, 4012 ABY Executor-Class Super Star Destroyer, Sovereign Throne
Two years of fire and shadow have carved me into something unrecognizable.
The scarred reflection staring back at me isn't mine, yet I carry it like a shackle around my soul.
Ash clings to every breath. Memories drift like smoke through the corners of my mind: Kaelrah's voice. The Sisters' final screams. A rusted sword, heavier than guilt, still gripped in my hand.
I tell myself the boy I was is gone, buried beneath the darkness. But the truth is in the silence, when no one is watching, I still hear him whisper.
Sometimes, in the dead of night, I catch glimpses of how I once was.
But tonight was different, it isn't who I used to be.
It's Alexander. His cruel smirk etched into flame.
The fire surrounds me, and I wonder, just for a moment, if I've become him.
Outside my window, TIE Advanced x1s scream past. The Malevolence drifts in the distance, haloed by Exegol's blue haze.
I reflect in the cold corridors of this Super Star Destroyer, stretching endlessly. As the engines hum beneath the floor, swallowing every trace of warmth. Shadows cling to every corner. The air tastes like burning coolant and rusted metal. Lifeless. Suffocating.
Dark Troopers march past. Their faces blank, unreadable. Prisoners in their own armor.
I stand alone in my quarters. The walls, bare, silent, and cold, the haunting memories surround me.
The door hisses open. Two Dark Troopers enter.
"Prepare yourself," one says. "The Master wishes to see you."
I nod.
Swallow the bitter lump rising in my throat.
There is no going back.
Each step I take echoes like a countdown.
I am no longer the boy who fights for hope; I am a prisoner in my own world.
The blast doors seal behind me. The cold air locks.
The throne room rises before me like a cathedral carved from shadow and steel. Red lights pulse across the walls like phantoms of war.
The Pale Father stands motionless. A silhouette framed by swirling holograms of wars, systems, and death.
He does not turn. He doesn't need to.
I feel his eyes on me. Merciless. Unblinking.
The weight of years, of choices made, presses against my chest.
"Lorenzo," he says, voice low and cold. "You have walked through fire and shadow to reach this place."
I swallow hard. My throat tightens.
"And yet… I feel I have lost more than I've gained."
A flicker in his voice. Amusement? Disdain?
"Loss is the crucible of power. Without it, you remain weak."
My fists clench. My scars throb.
"Power bought with pain carries a cost."
He steps forward. His cloak trails behind him like smoke.
"Power is not about morality. It is a tool. It demands only obedience."
"The it burns under hope. But with defiance it thrives."
He smiles beneath his obsidian mask.
He holds out a saberstaff.
"This belonged to a warrior unlike any other. A shadow that haunted both Jedi and Sith. The saber of Darth Maul."
His voice shifts, reverent and cold.
"Son of Dathomir. Creature of pain. Forged in rage. His legacy is blood and fear. But his fury consumed him. His path, shattered."
My hand trembles as I reach for it. The moment I touch the hilt, a flash of maul life pulses through my memories: rage, the fire, the death, I felt it all.
I fall to one knee, gasping under its weight.
"Now, this saber passes to you," the Pale Father says. "You carry his darkness, and fulfill his legacy and carve a new path from the ashes of his failure."
The saber hums in my grip. Heavy with history. Hungry for blood.
I meet his gaze.
And in that moment, I know.
This is not his victory.
The fire inside me is fragile. It flickers beneath layers of silence and steel.
No one sees it.
But it still burns.
And the battle for my soul has only just begun.