Nix sat quietly within the Force. All around her, the living flow of the Force grew calm and undisturbed as Nix dwelled on the glimpses she’d seen of the past.

Of the deaths of Rassi’s parents.

Kodo had died in terror. He’d felt the Force being wrenched around the woman he loved most in the galaxy and twisted into a noose he wasn’t strong enough to pull her free of. He’d given everything he had in the vain struggle to spare her the agony they were both being subjected too.

Lipa had died in despair. She’d survived Kodo only by a moment. Only long enough to feel every instant of his death, to feel his desperation and to know that they were going to lose everything. She’d fought on evenknowing it was hopeless, holding out for a miracle even as the man she loved was extinguished forever.

For each of them their last thought had been the same though. 

It had been a prayer.

Their daughter would be raised by the people who were murdering them. To an uncaring galaxy they’d sent their last, unreasonable hope out in a call that someone, literally anyone else, would care for her.

Not avenge them. Not destroy the cancerous culture that had destroyed them. 

All they’d wanted was that Rassi would be protected.

And loved.

Nix was quiet.

No.

She was silent.

For a trio of heartbeats she sat in perfect silence. Unmoving. A void within the Force as she withdrew inside herself.

“Uh, are you okay?” Rassi asked, backing away from where Nix sat as still as a pillar.

Breath.

In.

Out.

“No,” Nix said at last.

What unfurled from her was a bloom of purity.

Rage screamed.

That was to provide a warning Nix saw.

This was not the time for warnings.

She was beyond offering a warning.

She was beyond rage.

Dolon had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

He’d given her the sensitivity to see past his obfuscations.

Or.

No.

She’d always had that sensitivity.

He wasn’t that subtle. If she hadn’t been drugged she would have seen it sooner. If she’d wanted to.

Pinpointing where he was though?

Feeling his life pulsing in the Force?

He couldn’t have imagined she’d be capable of that.

He was too well hidden.

Too used to being supreme in his manipulation of the Force.

Nix saw more.

No Jedi or Sith had come the Silent Enclave within the lifetime of anyone currently in it.

But the Jedi had been such a useful boogeyman for Dolon and those who came before him. The Primuses used that the fear of the Jedi, of every other Force tradition, to keep generations corralled to the their wills.

And those who saw past the lies? Or who even simply dared to hope for another life than the ones they’d been consigned to?

Dolon thought of himself as a gardener. Trimming the unruly was both a responsibility and a pleasure.

Nix wasn’t consciously aware that her eyes had become shining gold ringed with crimson malice.

She didn’t feel the earrings she wore flare to their maximum setting before sputtering out and falling from her ears.

She’d come seeking a new understanding of the Force. She’d hoped to learn more of its secrets, and in that silence she did.

“NO!” 

Nix hadn’t moved. Hadn’t begun to do anything. Wasn’t an instant away from grasping the flame of Primus’ Dolon’s life and extinguishing it.

She wasn’t about to turn his corpse into a Dark Side nexus by tearing the life he carried apart using the life of the Force around him.

She wasn’t because Ravas was standing before her, shining with a light Nix had never seen within her, and blocking Nix from her quarry.

“Do not do this,” Ravas said, speaking with the voice of the centuries she carried in life and death.

“I have to,” Nix said, unwilling to accept a universe where Primus Dolon existed when Rassi’s parents did not. “There must be balance.”

“Yes,” Ravas said. “Balance. You will not find balance in your own destruction.”

Nix felt her own anger at last and lashed against Ravas, trying to push the meddling ghost away before Dolon escaped.

Ravas was unmovable though.

Nix wailed and hammered harder at her but the blows but were met with only a gentle embrace.

“There are many ways to fall to the Dark Side,” Ravas said, holding onto Nix as tears that should have belonged to Rassi fell from Nix’s eyes. “I won’t let this be yours.”

It took a long moment for Nix to let go of the embrace.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last, shame replacing rage.

“I don’t understand?” Rassi asked. “What…who is she?”

Ravas wasn’t visible. Nix knew she was there because of their closeness in the Force. Rassi knew she was there because Rassi was, it seemed, disturbingly observant with the Force.

Nix wiped the tears from her eyes and focused on gaining some distance from her emotions.

“This is my friend,” Nix said. “Ravas this is Rassi, she would like to leave here.”

“A pleasure to meet you Rassi Savos and that seems wise,” Ravas said. “Everyone in this encampment is aware of you at the moment.”

“Oh no. Oh no no no,” Rassi said, going so quiet in the Force that she wasn’t merely hidden, she was functionally invisible. “They’re going to expunge you. They won’t wait. They’ll do it now.”

Nix chuckled at that, and all of the darkness she felt ran through that chuckle.

“Let them try,” she said, her eyes glittering with crimson rage.

“He will use the children for support,” Ravas said and Nix felt her rage curdle. 

She understood the “Expunging” rite the Silent Enclave practiced now, having witnessed it from within the echoes of Kodo and Lipa’s deaths. It could be performed by a single individual, provided they were more practiced with manipulating the Force than their victim was. That wasn’t how any Primus worked though due to the risks involved in the rite.

Twisting the Force into a tool of death was the most deeply corruptive action Nix could imagine, and one that the Force did not naturally acquiesce to. The simplest problem was that if the victim resisted successfully, the malformation the caster had crafted would rebound on them and obliterate their life force instead. Nix was supremely confident that she could (and would) inflict such retribution on Primus Dolon the instant he attempted to expunge her.

As Ravas said though he would not come for her alone.

Apart from being fearful of Nix’s strength (which he clearly was not sufficiently aware of), there was the problem that the Expunging Rite warped the caster no matter what effect it had on its victim. 

Prior to her vision, Nix would have sworn than directly destroying a life with the Force (as opposed to using an indirect means such as crushing someone’s throat or broiling them with lightning – it was fine distinction to be sure) would also destroy the Force users life as well. There simply didn’t seem to be a means by which the caster would avoid the black hole of death they had created, since they would need to be connected with the victim on an inescapable level.

Which was why the Primuses ganged up on their victims. 

With a group of Force users to draw on, the caster of the rite was capable of using their combined strength to crush the victim and could rely on their supporters to pull them back before they experienced the consequences of their deed.

And Dolon preferred to use children for his support.

Because they would still believe in him with all their hearts.

Because they hadn’t yet grown accustomed to suppressing their relationship with the Force to a completely passive state.

Because they were the most replaceable if anything went wrong. After all if the victim did resist and someone needed to suffer a death to see that the expunging went through to completion, well then the Xah had clearly called a little Saint back to its embrace. The Primus was much too important to be lost to that duty after all.

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Rassi said.

“I saw your past,” Nix said. “And I learned some things that have left me not at my best. Ravas is helping me, but at the moment I am in a very dangerous mood.”

“Can I start shooting yet Mom?” Goldie asked and Nix was tempted, so very tempted, to give the order to glass the entire settlement.

“No. If you attack a citizen settlement, the local patrols will shoot you down,” Nix said.

“Who’s that?” Rassi asked.

“Goldie. She’s how we’ll get out of here without using the Force.” Nix tapped the earbud she was still wearing to indicate how she was talking with someone who wasn’t present. “Or, I guess using the Force doesn’t matter anymore.” Nix could sense the commotion throughout the enclave. At least two groups of adults were converging on her cell, while Dolon gathered together the young supporters he needed for the rite.

Curiously, Honored Jolu was not with neither Dolon nor the groups who were approaching to kill Nix in a more traditional manner.

“What’s happening there?” Goldie asked.

“I’ll explain everything later. We need to move now,” Nix said, reaching out a hand to Rassi.

“Wait, like, right now?” Rassi asked. “I need to get my stuff first.”

“I’m sorry, there’s no time for that,” Nix said.

“My friend! We need to take Solna too!” Rassi said, looking around frantically as though her friend might already be at hand.

“I can distract the killers they’re sending,” Ravas said. “Go.”

For a blessed change, when Nix reached out to the Force for guidance it was clear as crystal.

She needed to get Rassi away from the enclave.

And Rassi needed Solna. 

The Force didn’t seem to have a problem with the Silent Enclaves general existence but it was finally being vocal, as only an inaudible cosmic presence could be, that Nix needed to rescue not one but two kids. And herself.

She nodded to Ravas.

“Don’t do anything dangerous. Kelda will kill me and send my ghost to find you if you do.”

Ravas laughed at that and vanished, which could have been comforting if Nix hadn’t known Ravas for over a year.

“Where’s Solna at? Can you sense her?” Nix asked.

“Of course! I always know where she is,” Rassi said as she jumped down into the open hatch in the cell’s bathroom.

Nix followed, allowing herself a moment smile at the sudden disruption and chaos both of the groups who were closing on her experienced.

Ravas wasn’t using any Dark Side techniques, but even a former-Jedi Padawan could play merry havoc against people who were sensitive to the Force but inexperienced in manipulating it.

That observation gave her an idea.

She grabbed Rassi’s arm as they ran down one of the basement hallways so she wouldn’t lose track of her.

“I need a second. Dolon’s thinks he’s going to try the Expunging Rite but I think he needs to worry about some other things.”

“Like what?”

Nix’s heightened sensitivity to the Force showed her exactly what she was looking for, which led, a moment later, to an explosion that rocked the building they were in.

“No fair!” Goldie said.

“What did you do?” Rassi asked, looking perplexed.

“Dolon was setting up for the rite in one of the actual buildings rather than his tent. A building which had a generator in it. Generators, in case you’re curious, are shockingly fragile beasts if you know which parts to break. So now Primus Dolon can worry about the burning building that’s collapsing on him rather than trying to become an even greater abomination than he already is. Oh, and for what it’s worth, he was alone in the building, so no one else is there to help him. His panic really shouldn’t feel this good, but oh stars it does.”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” a man said from behind Nix. “Perhaps you’ll be amenable to undoing the damage you’ve caused, unlike your wife was.”

Nix turned, trying to draw her lightsaber only to remember that she didn’t have it with her.

Which was bad, because if there was ever someone who deserved to be hit with a lightsaber, it was Darsus Klex.