『Goodnight Might』

Senya reentered the common room, Thexan in tow.

"What happened?" She was quick to see that the two were still in the room. They hadn't been dragged away or put down by the Emperor who she once saw as her lover.

She had heard the laughter from her bedroom, while the words were too muffled to make out.

Vaylin's smile faded and she turned her head to look towards her mother, suddenly donning a blank expression on her face. "Nothing much happened, he said I can stay as long as Ento is with me." Her lips twitched and her fingers fidgeted, she was trying not to show her excitement.

Senya's gaze moved solely towards the boy. Was the Emperor pairing to the two together? Considering their ages, it was starting to feel like an arranged marriage. She didn't exactly know how she felt about it, but Senya could clearly see that Vaylin enjoyed the idea... The girl was probably relishing in it, as the mother could see right through her exterior facade.

She was sure that Valkorion would definitely not let them leave now, and was likely on higher alert. Cupping her chin in her hand, she looked over towards Thexan.

Thexan's attention however remained on his sister. He could sense, and see her excitement, especially in her eyes. It seemed she really liked Ento, probably more than she let on.

"Thexan, go check on your brother," Senya sent that son of hers back to the master bedroom before turning her sights back on the two young teens. She then walked over to the them and swiftly wrapped her arms around their shoulders, pulling them into a hug.

It was like she was hugging two stiff bags of potatoes.

Vaylin was resisting an urge to give this embrace a response of her own design.

Ento on the other hand didn't really know how to respond. He was being hugged by a stranger, a woman who had let her daughter suffer for so long at the hands of her father.

When she straightened herself out and placed her hands on their shoulders now, she looked over their faces. "What else did he say?"

"He offered to allow Vaylin to kill the man who had ritualistically tortured and marked her up with tattoos," Ento looked to her with a tilt of his head, "But then retracted it."

Senya raised a brow at the fact that Ento spoke of this rather than Vaylin. Though when she looked to Vaylin, she seemed to be looking towards the hallway, eager to leave her presence.

"Then he offered a place for me in his Empire... He didn't say all that much," Ento turned his head to look towards the blast door entrance of the suite. He was definitely curious as to what this supposed Immortal Emperor was planning.

Soon enough Senya's troop shuttle returned to the apartment and landed on the dock.

Zera departed with two of the Knights and entered the home.

"Knight-Captain!" She called before narrowing her eyes on the scorched floor and debris laying about the entrance. The woman's gaze moved to boy and Vaylin, then towards the leader of her troop, the person she was devoted the most to. "What happened here...?" Her voice was low.

"I threw a lightsaber at the Emperor," Ento said smugly.

The Knight just stared at the boy for a few seconds before looking down to the pieces which littered the ground at her feet. "You're... You're kidding me right? You threw one of your 'glorified' grenades at our Emperor...?" Zera was rather surprised the boy was still alive.

Senya let out a sigh and shook her head, "The Emperor has made arrangements for these two. It seems we are not leaving, Zera, it's unlikely we could even if we wanted to."

Zera nodded her head at the woman's words. If the Emperor had made plans for these two, it was unlikely that he would let them just up and walk away.

At the same time, Senya was curious. Her lover had become cold and distant since the boys were born, even following the birth of their youngest daughter. Why was he suddenly so interested?

The true answer to this was simple, and something she was ignorant of. The Immortal Emperor, the supposed Demon Savior of the Zakuul people, was in fact deathly afraid of death itself. If having Ento here altered the visions of the Scions by just a little, that meant destiny could change, and he had the answer to control his children.

At least that is what the Emperor seemed to believe.

Vaylin pulled Ento along by the arm, away from her mother and the other woman, down the hall. She glanced back towards him with a smile across her lips, revealing her pearly whites. There was a spring in every step she made.

"Vaylin wait!" Senya called out after her to no avail.

A faint smile formed over his own lips as she dragged him into her room, one which she hadn't occupied in months. She closed the door and waved her hand over the locking mechanism, jamming it.

"Why'd you bring me in here?" Ento looked over the room.

His eyes danced over the bed, covered by a black and gold quilted comforter, before looking over bookshelves pertaining to combat and force abilities. There were stuffed animals, some he didn't even recognize and some that were galactically mythological, littering the shelves and even the bed itself.

The room was cozy and a bit spacey. It followed the same uniform scheme as the common room with the black floor, wooden furnishings and chrome trim on the walls and dividing the windows.

His gaze returned to her as he heard the ruffling of her cloak, before it dropped the ground.

"Can you remove these?" Vaylin was almost topless, except for a white tube top with gold trim. She was gesturing towards the tribalistic tattoos which littered her torso and arms.

Ento's eyes took in the details which surrounded her what appeared to be rather soft skin. Tattoos were made of scarring and ink, something that the force could be used to repair.

"Meditate with me," were the only words which he shared with her.

That was when the door lurched, before it's electronic lock beeped, indicating a jam.

"Vaylin! Open the door this instant!" Senya palmed the door.

Ento looked to the door for just an instant, but that was only until Vaylin took his arm. His eyes immediately moved back to her as she pulled him toward the four foot tall bed, climbing up and dragging along him with her.

Once situated on the bed, they kicked their boots to the floor and crossed their legs.

Facing him, she smirked, her blue eyes tracing over his as they sat a less than a foot apart.

Ento reached out his hands towards her, "Place your hands in mine. This is going to be just like when I used the force on your head... So you will feel some discomfort."

Vaylin nodded, her upper lip slight overlapping the lower, she didn't even hesitate to place her hands in his. She closed her eyes just then, feeling his hands grasp around hers.

Senya on the other side of the door continued to call for her daughter. However a few minutes went by and she began to feel her presence fade, until she couldn't feel it any longer.

"What... Vaylin! Are you still in there?" There was no response to her quiry.

Her eyes traced over the door, her fingers drumming on the lightsaber at her hip frantically. This daughter of her's was in a room alone with a boy who she claimed to have known for five months. It didn't seem all that believable, especially since Thexan didn't recognize him.

Reaching out with the force, she unjammed the door and it slid into the wall's pocket. When she stepped into the room, she glanced down at her foot which was on her tunic. Panic immediately shot through her mind, widening her eyes, she immediately looked to the bed.

Her panic immediately subsided as it was replaced by awe.

The tribal ink tattoos that littered Vaylin's once pure skin was evaporating from her arms and the scars they left behind followed suit. Seamlessly, the tattoos on her torso and the rest of her body began to disappear.

Senya's eyes looked over their hands which were grasping at one another. Her gaze moving down towards Vaylin's leg, which was moving excitedly, until it went limp.

She could sense the discomfort of what they were doing, the tingling sensation of pins and needles and the heaviness that followed. However, Senya felt as if even more of her daughter was being changed, and she wasn't wrong.

Even as he completed what she had asked for, Ento continued doing what he wanted. Enhancing Vaylin's mind above that of a their species normal capacity with an almost natural form of hypercognition. Not only that, but the things he did to her, he started doing to himself as well.

Zera entered the room and stared at the sight, both adults were becoming curious of this technique and how it was being used on such a scale.

Then, Vaylin's eyes opened and tried to narrow in on Ento, their presence was becoming visible once more in the force. She swayed slightly from the tingling sensation that filled her senses.

"Thank--" The Zakuul Princess's eyes flickered over to her mother in the doorway, "HEY!" She flung her hand in her mother's general direction.

"Oh!" Senya and Zera immediately stepped back out of the room as a 'stampede' of stuffed animals came flying at her and slammed her hand on the electronic button to close the door. This was followed by several impacts against the door.

Ento's eyes fluttered open, as turned his head slightly, to look towards the door due to hearing it hiss shut. "What just happened..." The sight of several dozen stuffed animals pressed to the door made him raise a brow.

"A disturbance in the force," Vaylin curled her lips inward as she gave a response.

"I... I'm pretty sure that's not how it works..." Ento looked back towards Vaylin.

"Thank you," Vaylin smiled to him softly, grasping at his hands that were still holding onto hers.

Returning the smile, Ento moved to lay on his side at the foot of the bed, groaning slightly.

"Tired?" The girl gave a light laugh, but as she leaned forward, she practically fell on top of him.

As they persisted, the two of them began laughing at one another, it was hard for either of them to move after all the exhaustion from his changes. Within the next several minutes, the two of them were sleeping soundly, Vaylin using the side of Ento's torso as a pillow.

Senya opened the door again when silence overtook the hall.

Thexan and Arcann peered into the room, from the corners of the door frame, seeing the two of them asleep. All they could see from the corners of the frame was her blonde hair.

Arcann crossed his arms seeing her sleeping so soundly. "I can't believe she threw me across the room..." His eyes narrowed on the two of them.

Thexan snickered at his twin brother. "I mean, he also put you unconscious..."

"Don't remind me... My head hurts." Arcann face palmed, "It feels like he squeezed my brain."

Senya raised a brow and looked to her son. Ento had squeezed Arcann's brain? That was definitely one way to knock someone out efficiently, but if done too strongly it could've killed him, or worse permanently disabled him.

Ento was definitely not a regular thirteen year old boy. That ruthlessness, the power he wielded and the knowledge that supported it, the very idea of him was far from natural.

Thexan turned to his brother, "You said that you saw Life from Death?"

"Right..." Lowering his hand from his face, Arcann looked to his brother. "He was like an infant in some sort of massive transparent cylinder filled with blue liquid, surrounded by corpses on a stormy world.... There were weird voices, millions if not trillions of them."

While they didn't know what Valkorion had done in the past, there had only been mere millions on the planet of Nathema when the Immortal Emperor devoured all life on it. The numbers presented by Arcann may be much larger in that regard, but it was unlikely Ento had devoured a world for he hadn't been corrupted.