( Unified Year 1937 )
A bag of groceries in hand, Tanya paused at the crosswalk as she watched the traffic lights change from yellow to red. There wasn't even a second between arriving at this scene, and recognising where she was. This was the Gulf Coast of the Unified States, the state of Tehas. Beautiful, sunny, and booming ever since the end of the Great War.
It hadn't been hard for Tanya to escape the lengthy postwar trials based on the simple argument she was a child, and never anything but a helpless conscript under other men's thumbs. Moving to the Unified States had been the obvious choice, rather than risk getting caught in some kind of repeat of the Weimar Republic. Tanya read the news often, and it didn't seem like post war Germania had fared very well after having its Kaiser deposed and a Republic instituted at the end of a bayonet.
These days, Tanya was working for an engineering firm, putting herself through university while participating in research, designing and improving computation orbs for mages. Despite everything, a bright future awaited her. The workload was hard, but it wouldn't be too long until she finally had the life of peace and prosperity that she'd dreamed of since childhood.
Except she knew that wouldn't be the case. Tanya turned around, putting her back to the road and looking across the sidewalk at what she knew was coming. A familiar face, seen only a few times in battlefield situations, mouth twisted up in a hateful sneer as she pointed a small revolver at Tanya. This wasn't how it happened in real life; Tanya had been crossing a sidewalk when she was shot in the back, but in this vision she was able to turn and look upon her murderer.
Mary looked gaunt, haggard, and her once pretty features had been ruined by a broken nose and a handful of missing teeth. How did she get here? How far had she traveled to find Tanya? How had she tracked her down? Tanya didn't know, maybe the Force didn't either, but here Mary was in this stupid vision, finally ready to sate her obsession for revenge.
Grimacing and rolling her eyes, Tanya grunted with pain as she was shot and fell onto her back. She lay there bleeding out, glaring up at the fading sky.
"So that's it then?" She demanded. "You expect me to overcome my hate for the woman that killed me? Is that it?"
There was no answer.
"Fear, then anger, and now hate? You expect me to forgive her? The problem is I never hated her. She was pathetic, self-destructive, a secondary cause. Nothing but a puppet of Being X. I don't hate Mary, I promise. Can we finally move on from these worthless visions?"
Again there was no answer. Tanya sat up, looking around at the crowd of spectators who'd formed around her, many looking shocked and horrified, as they were all frozen in place. Beyond them, Mary was frozen as she exalted triumphantly, throwing both hands up in the air even as she was being wrestled to the ground by a pair of bystanders.
"Pathetic." A voice replied, a familiar, grinding, alien voice. Tanya turned, to see one of the onlookers had spoken, his lips moving even as the rest of him was frozen in place. "You're still nothing but a selfish murderer in the end. Even as you face justice for your actions, you think my servant requires your forgiveness."
"Being X!" Tanya snarled. "It's about time you showed your…" She trailed off. "Oh, that's clever. You almost had me going there, Temple. For a moment I believed that might be the real Being X."
"Oh, blasphemous wretch." The fake Being X snarled, now from the mouth of a woman, covering her eyes and nearly fainting from the blood. "What do you think this Temple is? A god in its own right? It was never anything but a channel for the Force."
"No, I don't believe you." Tanya replied. "This is just a vision. The only thing in here that's real is me."
"That's just another way to proclaim yourself a god." Being X answered, speaking now from the mouth of a passing taxi driver. "You really don't think much at all about things that don't concern you. The Force, an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being, that guides all living things? That's just another word for God, another one of my many names. Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, Sol Invictus, or Deus. The list goes on, and on. I am, that I am, and what you name me is irrelevant. You're here in my Temple, dedicated to me."
"Liar." Tanya answered. "You were never a god. You're just the devil, here to torment me."
"Call me what you like, it means the same thing. I'm here to extract my due from you. How did Palpatine take control of the Senate? I gave him the power he needed. Why did your father decide to get married so late in life? Because I planted the idea in his head. Why would Maul target your family? Because I fanned the flames of revenge in his heart."
"How dare you!" Tanya snarled, grimacing at the pain her bullet wound caused. With agonising slowness, she forced herself to her feet, ignoring the hot fluid seeping down the front of her shirt. She pointed her finger at him, accusing.
"You sent the assassin! Not me! You shot me in the back! Not Mary. You pushed me in front of a train! You started a World War! You're going to start a Galactic War? WHY?! Because I won't pretend to owe you reverence?!"
Suddenly Mary herself surged forward, effortlessly breaking free of the men holding her in place, her eyes glowing gold. With unnatural strength she seized Tanya's throat, and lifted her into the air, screaming in that eldritch voice, "You will bow down and worship me, even if it takes a million lifetimes, and countless loved ones. You will break! I have an eternity to torment you!"
"No you don't." Tanya laughed, wincing at the pain as her body was jostled. "The first time we met, all it took was a moment of criticism for you to lose patience with me. You don't have an eternity, you have until you give up."
Being X's puppet froze.
"You won't defeat me, because at your heart, you're weak. Soft. You can't accept hardship, or face even a hint of pushback. You just whine and whine about how the universe is unfair, without even an ounce of the willpower it would take to change yourself, to fix the situation you created. All that power, but it's still not enough, right?" Tanya chuckled.
Stunned, Being X dropped her. "Shut up!" Mary's face snarled. "Don't talk to your creator like that!"
"You're not my creator!" Tanya laughed. "You never could be! You're not god! I said it the first time I met you, I wasn't fooled. A real god, one who could have made the universe billions of years ago, painstakingly placing every atom and molecule, defining every one of the countless parameters of the laws of physics, who watched over it all, carefully nudging it hear and there, to finally give birth to mankind from the seed of apes? That could never be you. You are, and always have been nothing but a liar, trying to take credit for the work of your betters. If god exists, he could never be a lying parasite like you."
Finally, Tanya looked the stunned puppet in the face. "You're not worthy of my hatred. I will handle the threat that you represent, dismiss you from my mind, then move on."
...
29 BBY
Tan'ya opened her eyes, looking around to find herself standing in the doorframe she'd just passed through a moment ago. She felt hungry, like hours had passed instead of seconds.
Sitting cross legged before her, Asajj also opened her eyes, looking up to see her new Padawan return. "You did it!" Standing up slowly, Asajj winced and grabbed her stomach. "How long did it take? I'm starving."
"I don't know." Tan'ya replied, reaching for holocom, but finding something else in her pocket. When she took it out, sitting in her hands was a golden gem the size of a walnut.
...
"Master, I've found her where you said she'd be, but…"
"But what?"
"She's not… doing well."
That was an understatement. The Undercity orphan was living in a filthy alleyway, with duracrete slugs crawling over the walls and stone mites growing from every crack. Conduit worms had completely encased the nearby wiring, parasitically feeding off the areas of electricity, and draining the overhead bulb that should have illuminated the alleyway of its power. The foul smell of the breeding insects had the acolyte glad he was wearing a breathing mask, for what little protection it offered.
This far into the Undercity, the air was hazy with fumes. Normally plasma gas would burn without leaving a scent, but a bad fuel line could mix in all kinds of other stuff, leaving everything down here choked with poisonous smoke.
The orphan girl seemed to recognise that at least somewhat. The rag she had wrapped around her face smelled of urine, and her decrepit little hideout was littered with food scraps she'd managed to steal. For a bed she'd managed to drag away a shipping pallet to keep her off the ground, and line it with a collection of missing clothes. She was filthy, and her breath whistled in her lungs from obvious damage.
"She's not in great condition, Master." The acolyte said. "Are you sure she's the one you want?"
"Yes. She has a potential that no one else has seen." There was a pause, then the Master added, "Show her to me."
The patrolmen leaned closer, taking the orphan into the radius of his glowing holocom. Its blue light reflected off her large, pale eyes, as she fearfully huddled deeper into the alley's corner.
"Are you hurt, little one?" The Master asked.
"You shouldn't help." The girl whimpered, eyes falling to the floor. "There's something wrong with me. I didn't mean to kill them, but… I was so scared, and angry." She swallowed once, raising her eyes to look at the Master. "I'm a monster."
The Master's eyes seemed to gleam brighter. "What's your name, little one?"
She looked stunned by the question. It took a long time for her to answer, as though until that moment she hadn't spoken with anyone since the minute her parents died. "...Mary." She swallowed, then answered. "My name is Mary."
"....Goooood."
...
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