The Eighth Deadly Sin

“Annika, they’re Sith.”

The white-haired girl sighed at Priire. “I know! I’ve fought them too. But... I think they could be turned to the light side. We’d just have to work on it. We helped Bakeru, didn’t we?”

“She was a pawn. These are Sith.” Priire’s angry green eyes were trying to tell Annika something. “Sith. Sith. Sith.”

“Are we going to move past that word anytime soon?”

He may have been her boyfriend, but that didn’t spare Kousotsu much of Priire’s wrath. “Sorry!”

Annika sighed. “But inside, they’re good people like us. Deep inside, maybe.”

Priire shook her head, scattering blonde braids around her head like Medusa’s coils. “Have you ever looked into Ariel’s eyes.” It wasn’t that much of a question. It was a statement of deep pain. Priire closed her eyes and tilted her head up very slightly. Annika could see lines of pain etched into Priire face almost as well as she could see the faint scar on the other girl’s chin. Suddenly Priire opened her eyes and focused her intense gaze on Annika’s eyes... almost as if she was probing the white-haired Princess’s very soul. “I have,” Priire said very softly. “And the only place I’ve seen eyes with such purity of evil was... a long time ago...” Her voice trailed off.

With very little talent in the Force, Annika had to work to pick up on most of Koumi’s words. The thought that Priire didn’t — or couldn’t — speak burned into her mind like a sudden torch in the dead of night. In my mirror... The pain that Priire was feeling broke Annika’s heart. She hated to see anyone, especially such a good friend, in pain, but the girl knew she was right. Annika knew that the Sailor Sith could be saved from their campaign of darkness. After all, Priire herself had been saved from the darkness she had shrouded herself with. Annika decided to find out how. Perhaps that would give her some clue.

“Tell me why, again?” Ippin asked as Annika bugged her for information. When the white-haired girl shook her head, Ippin sighed. “Well... I don’t know the whole story because Priire doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Annika nodded.

“Before we were senshi, Priire and I were best friends. We’d tell each other secrets. The first one she ever told me was about her starfighter — the Black Fire Talon. At the time I didn’t understand what she meant when she told me the hawkbat with talent hides her talons. I didn’t really understand that she was the Hawkbat.

“Later, I was on a run, carrying corusca gems to Hoth, and from nowhere this enormous ship appeared. It was as if it had been created out of the blackest part of space. Except for the nose. That was red, as if it had been dipped in blood.”

Annika shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself.

“It stopped me dead in space. Tractor beam, I think. When the captain of the ship contacted me, it was the Hawkbat. Cold green eyes like nothing I’ve ever seen or ever want to see again stared at me from behind a dark mask. The Hawkbat had on her normal array of weapons, and I was terrified. To tell you the truth, I hadn’t believed Priire. And looking at the eyes behind that mask... if it was her, it had to have been another personality. Another side of her. This woman I knew would have slit my throat for even one of my gems.

“She looked at me like she was calculating how long it would take to kill me. If it wasn’t Priire, I knew I’d be dead. Suddenly, she spoke. ‘It would be advisable for you to leave this area at once.’ The voice was as inhuman as the ice in comets. Deep, throaty, seductive, murderous... it was everything dark wrapped up into one sentence.

“I left. That they didn’t follow me and rob me of my goods — a fortune — meant that it had to have been Priire behind those eyes and that mask. I was terrified. But not of her. Somehow... Priire kept the Hawkbat inside of her and only welcomed her out whenever Priire needed her. I don’t know how she did it. But if it had gone on much longer my sister would have been a true Dark Sailor... a Sith.”

Pale as the story went on, Annika stammered a question. “But we could have saved her from that, I bet.”

Ippin shook her head. “I don’t think we could have. You didn’t see the eyes I looked at. You didn’t feel the darkness like I did.”

Apparently, peering into the eyes of evil was something that gave a person an indicator of their redeemably. Annika decided to look into it later.

With a big smile, Annika walked up to Kumoko. “Hey, Kumo-chan. Who was that Jedi that you guys traveled with before?”

“Is this about that fight you and Priire had?” Kumo-chan asked, swallowing the last of her cookie.

“It... it wasn’t a fight - it was a friendly disagreement.” Annika tried to smile.

Kumo-chan lifted an eyebrow. “Annika, if it got any more ‘friendly,’ Priire was going to take your head off.”

“Well...”

A laugh came from Kumoko. “His name was Rensei Tensei. I think he teaches ‘saber fighting now. Far away from the Room Behind the Waterfall.” There was humor in that last sentence that Annika didn’t understand. She shrugged and went off to find the man.

A bright lightsaber widened the holes in the opponent’s defense. It was as if the wielder of the weapon and the weapon were one being; striking out at their opponent and carving him up. Annika watched, thrilled.

“Touché,” the master said, lightly tapping the saber against his student’s chest. It hadn’t been an easy fight for either of them. The student excused himself and Annika caught the man’s attention. “Master Rensei?”

“Yes?” he asked, blue eyes looking at her.

Annika looked confused. “You helped the Sailor Jedi once, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Until they knew their way around, yes. I’ll admit while I was glad to leave, I wasn’t too sure about leaving the girls alone. It’s a little ironic that you make your home in the Jedi Temple now,” he laughed.

“Huh?”

The man smiled. “One of the Sailors and I didn’t exactly hit it off.”

“Priire. She has that effect on some people.”

Rensei began to gather up the training probes and things littered about the room. Annika helped him. “Our difference was in her past. And her present.”

“The fact that she was the Hawkbat and didn’t tell anyone?”

He shrugged. “Mostly. I left soon after she’d come back to the senshi. They bonded together in such a way that I knew my help wasn’t needed anymore.”

Annika looked at him carefully. “Why do you think that she quit the Red Haze?”

A frown marred Rensei’s face for a moment as he thought. “As much as it might have been the catalyst, it wasn’t because the redhead had begged her so much. Personally, I think it was that Priire couldn’t reconcile the evil she had been to the good she needed to be doing. If Priire had been a more shallow woman — or a more cruel one — then she would still be the Hawkbat.”

“Do you think that everyone can be saved from darkness?”

He shook his head. “No. There are some people whom the darkness has claimed completely. But appearances can be deceiving. For a while, I thought Priire was one of those people.” He paused. “Why do you want to know?”

Annika looked down. “No... no reason in particular.”

“Be careful. You’re dancing with darkness.”

The princess thought about his words as she walked out. She felt a little bit like a detective, searching for a clue in her latest case. Annika giggled. Her “case” was more serious than her pretending let her know.

Immune to the slighter nudges of the Force, Annika didn’t pick up on the premonition that would have forewarned her of the way she would affect the future. And, in a way, the past.

“The Sith are attacking. Again.” Lys didn’t sound too excited.

It was typical of some of the older senshi. The Sith would appear, then a few attacks later, they’d disappear through their boltholes. Most of the senshi were getting tired of the little bouts that the Sith started. The senshi couldn’t win a decisive victory over them. They could defeat the big things that came their way, but the Sailor Sith were out of their reach.

“I’ll go!” Annika volunteered.

Priire had looked up from the manual she’d been reading at the mention of trouble. The green-eyed Sailor frowned. “I’ll help.”

“For Love and Peace, I am the sailor suited pretty soldier, Sailor Bakura! And in the name of Bakura, I'll punish you!”

“Starbred Senshi of stone, defense, and redemption, I’m the Dark Sailor, Sailor Asteroid! I’ll punish you for the stars I guard!”

“I’m the Senshi of beauty and wisdom, Sailor Yavin, Guardian of the Dimensional Gates! Prepare to be punished!”

The three Sailor struck poses and glared at the Sith. Bakura held up her hands. “Peace and Love... Shock!”

Eimin ducked the attack and fired back with her black lightning. Asteroid and Yavin combined their attacks to drive her back. Neither noticed as Sailor Bakura slipped a little closer to Ayameru.

Corusca dust flew through the air at Ayameru. The Alpha Sith had noticed Bakura slipping closer and decided to take advantage of it. The evil woman grabbed the white-haired Princess’s neck and lifted her up. Bakura screamed and tried to pull the tightening fingers from around her neck. Just before she began to black out, Ayameru glared into the girl’s clear blue eyes. If she’d had the breath, Sailor Bakura would have screamed again from sheer terror. Looking in to those red and black orbs was like looking in to the pits of evil darkness.

Suddenly, the two were knocked off their feet. Asteroid had tackled Ayameru, bringing the Sith to the ground. “Let’s finish this!” the Dark Sailor yelled, aiming her blaster at the Sith’s head.

Ayameru growled deeply and escaped — with Eimin — through a bolthole.

Yavin frowned at the escapees and shook her staff at them. As she did, the Sailor of Time noticed that the orb of her staff was glowing oddly. She shrugged. “Are you okay, Bakura?” the redhead asked.

Deeply shaken by what she’d seen in Ayameru’s eyes, Annika pondered the events as she sipped on her chocolate shake. The girl swished her straw around in her drink and stared at the swirls it made. It was one of the scariest things that had ever happened to her. Just thinking about dying in the grip of such purity of evil made her shiver. Her thoughts had turned first to Obi-Wan, then to her children. Future children. She’d wondered if they would fade out of existence when she died...

Luckily, Priire’s body slam had knocked the Sith off guard and off balance, releasing the evil’s grip on her neck. Now Annika understood Ippin’s terror. How could Priire, the girl who had just saved Annika’s life, have exhibited that degree of evilness? Once in a while, Priire’s temper would flare up, that was scary enough. Especially when someone did something to one of the senshi. It was like Priire felt responsible for them.

Priire knew evil, Annika was sure. Not only had the girl been the Hawkbat, but she’d also been captured by the Sailor Sith and tortured. That would have given her plenty of time to witness the evil that was the Sailor Sith. Annika was afraid. Afraid that all of her experiences had made Priire so disillusioned with the Sith that she’d forgotten they were people too. Admittedly, no one knew much of the everyday life of the Sith, but they couldn’t be that much different. They probably loved, lost, dreamed, shopped, ate, played games... Ariel seemed to be an exception. She was the one who had tortured Priire so badly. She was the ringleader of the Sith. She was the only one of the four who really seemed to deserve to be killed.

The white-haired woman shook her head, making the pink ribbons in her hair flutter. No. If she started thing that any of the Sith deserved to die, she’d loose her purpose.

In her heart, Annika was broken for Kendra, sad for Emi, full of pity for Geri, having mercy with fear for Ariel, and distressed for Priire.

Priire?

That was an odd association. Priire wasn’t evil. Misguided, maybe, but not evil. Priire didn’t need saving. She was already on the path of light. The Sailor Sith on the other hand... they needed saving, and Annika had decided that she was the lady to do it.

If she could stop being afraid.

Annika didn’t understand, Priire decided on her back under her latest acquisition, the Black Fire Legendmaker. The Legendmaker was getting Priire’s trademark black fire hull. The blonde pilot was mainly doing it to relieve her distress.

The Princess wanted to save everyone. That was all good and well in theory, but in practice, some people were casualties of the fight. Some people were lost to darkness while others were saved to light.

Not that it was determined from birth, mind you. Beings could be destined to be light, but Priire didn’t think they could be destined to be light. She believed that they chose. And if a being chose to go to heck in a hand basket, who was she to stop them?

The girl grumbled to herself and etched a delicate flame on the belly of the ship. You couldn’t save people who were already dead, she argued. And that’s what the dark ones were. Dead.

Yes, she’d been one of the darkest, but not completely. She’d still had some of her humanity. And Priire had chosen to be in the darkness, and she’d chosen to come out of it. The Sith would never chose to give up their dark power. Never.

Annika didn’t understand. The Sith need to be killed. The Sailor Jedi were to protect the galaxy, not save all the fools that lived in it. Annika was going to get very hurt if she persisted in attempting to save the un-saveable. Priire knew she’d have to either stop her or protect her. Stopping a Bakuran Princess on a mission was daunting, so Priire would protect her from the woman’s own foolishness.

“Geri-chan?” Emi purred. “What the-” she cursed in Rodian “-are you doing?”

“Making a list and checking it twice...” Geri sang. “Gonna find out how to be not nice!”

Emi frowned. “What?”

The other Sith flipped her long hair; it was out of the ponytail that she usually had it in, over her shoulder. “I’m making a list of all the baddest people I could think of. Seeeeee?” She held the list out for inspection. Emi took it from her.

“The Hawkbat, yeah. Darth Vader. Who’s that?”

Geri didn’t answer.

“Wayland. He’s crazy. Eminem? Well... you could make a case for it. But Jimmy Buffet? Who is he, anyway?”

A huge grin split Geri face. Literally. After she’d gotten herself back together, she began singing. “I’ve got a bank of bad habits in the corner of my soul! The wrong thing is the right thing, and then you loooooose control!”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not singing that right.”

Geri stuck her tongue out at the other Sith. “So?”

A few minutes later, Geri was folding her list into an origami cat and Emi was staring at the ceiling. “Ger?”

“Huh?”

“Have you ever wondered what the Sailor Jedi do? I mean, when they’re not fighting.”

Geri cocked her head to one side and it fell off. As her head was rolling around on the floor she said, “Sometimes.”

Emi flipped over on her belly. “I mean, just the other day I was shopping for some banthaskin boots, and I saw the girl who’s Sailor Asteroid. She had some fruit in her hand and looked like she really didn’t feel like fighting me. It was really weird because she leaned over to me and said, ‘I’m not up for a big fight.’”

A frown crossed Geri’s face as it grew legs and walked back to the rest of her body. “So what happened?”

“I told her that I’d fight her no matter what. She shrugged and said that she didn’t really want to make a scene. Then she hit me so hard that I blacked out.”

Geri giggled. “Serves you right.”

A frown creased Emi’s face. “But... maybe they’re getting tired too. Tired of always fighting.”

There was a new voice in the mix suddenly. “Tired of fighting to eradicate the plague that the Senshi have brought to the galaxy? I’m disappointed in you. And you want to be the Alpha Sith? Pitiful, Emi,” Ariel snarled. “You’re not worthy to be called Sith, much less Sailor Sith.”

“You’re going to tell 'em that you’ve never felt like there wasn’t any point in fighting a war we couldn’t win?” Emi snapped back. “Nothing’s changed since we first started. Nothing! We’re no closer to ruling the galaxy now than ever.”

“We,” Ariel spat, “do not rule the galaxy. Our Queen does. Her influence is...”

Suddenly Geri spoke up. Her voice was more sane than the other two Sith had heard from her in a long time. “Who cares? We won’t ever get to share in the power. We’ll just be slaves to whoever.”

Ariel frowned at both of them. “You don’t understand, do you. You don’t understand that our only goal is to eradicate the Senshi and put our queen in power!”

The frown on Emi’s face made it plain that she didn’t understand. The only thing that Emi understood was that she was getting tired of always losing to the Senshi.

One raised eyebrow showed Priire’s confusion. “I don’t have anything pink.”

Annika smiled. “That’s okay. I just want to look.”

Priire shook her head. “Well... if you see anything in my closet or my drawers you really want to borrow, then ask first. Coru has dibs on the red dragon shirt.”

With a nod, Annika walked toward the wing that held, among others, Priire’s room. The princess realized she’d never been in Priire’s room. On the way to Priire’s room, Annika wondered what it would be like. Would there be pictures of ships and models? Or maybe she’d have it done with furniture like ejection chairs, control panels, and ship’s doors.

Annika imagined everything from crystal treasures to a secret obsession with N*aboo. She even described some of things that she imagined to herself. She supposed that if anyone had seen her they’d have thought she was crazy. However much she imagined, nothing could prepare her for reality.

As she pulled open the old fashioned door - how quaint! - Annika gasped in surprise. From chest level up the room was bedecked with candles. Small ones that flickered softly as the faint breeze from the open door stirred the air. The room seemed to have a domed ceiling and hard floor, but Annika wasn’t sure in the darkness. Betting on Priire’s love for technology, Annika spoke. “Lights, please.”

From the four corners of the main room four lights spread a warm glow akin to the candles. They gave just enough light to see around the room. What Annika saw made her grin again. The bottom of the wall was a midnight blue the faded into black as it reached where the candles were. The top of the domed ceiling was black and painted with tiny stars.

“Someone,” Annika said out loud, “takes this ‘Guardian of the Stars’ thing a little too seriously.”

The double bed in the room had a black spread on it that accented the dark wood headboard. Carved into the headboard was a stylized Seijoutai flower with long stems that curved around a stylized crescent moon on one side and a star on the other. It was beautiful... and cute, because of the purple bantha that stared back at Annika with fluffy eyes. She giggled again.

As she walked on the hard floor to the walk-in closet, Annika stared at the woven rugs that were various shades of blue and black. “It’s all so very pretty!” she told the stuffed bantha. It didn’t reply, to her disappointment.

Annika laughed again when she opened the closet. Almost every piece of clothing Priire owned was black. “She really needs to go shopping and get some color in her closet.” Annika blushed as she realized that almost everything in her closet was pink.

Pushing that thought out of her head, Annika looked for the thing she wanted. It wasn’t, as she’d told Priire, to borrow a shirt, but Annika was looking for a mask. The Hawkbat’s mask.

The red dragon shirt was draped on a huge chair that took up one corner of the room. Annika felt a pang of jealousy. That was a cool shirt. It had a red dragon on the front and red flames on the sleeves. Shaking her head, Annika rummaged carefully through Priire’s drawers. Not finding anything more interesting than twenty-four different kinds of knives, Annika sat on the edge of the bed and thought. If she were a person trying to hide something from all of her friends - and herself - where would she hide it?

Slapping herself in the head, Annika realized where the mask would be. Grabbing the large picture of Kousotsu and Priire at the beach, Annika turned it around. Prying the cardboard off the back, she looked. There it was. The mask that made Priire the Hawkbat. Any pair of black pants and black shirt would work for the outfit... it was the mask that made the difference. Somehow, Annika wanted to be able to look at the mask and know what to do.

She still didn’t know. Staring into the empty sockets of the blue-black mask, Annika tried to imagine green eyes possessed with a cool evil filling it. Sadly, Annika put the mask back.

“She has nightmares, ya know.”

Annika jumped halfway out of her skin before realizing the source of the voice was Solai, Priire’s cat. “What?” the white-haired girl asked.

“I saw ya lookin’ at Priire’s mask,” Solai grinned as Annika tried to hide the picture. “Whatever ya thinkin’ of doing with it, don’t.”

“What?” she asked again. “I was just... looking.”

Solai put his paws on Annika’s legs and stared up at her, suddenly very serious. “Does this have anything to do with that fight you had with her, beautiful?”

The Bakuran princess looked down. She was getting a little annoyed at all the references to that fight. “We were just talking. About the Sith.” Then in a explosion of emotion, Annika exclaimed, “She doesn’t think they can be saved!”

Not saying anything for a moment, Solai stared at Annika. Something in the cat’s gaze told her that he was close to agreeing with Priire. Just as Annika was getting ready to accuse him of being intolerant through her tears, the gray tabby spoke. “She has nightmares.”

He didn’t let Annika say anything as he paused. “Nightmares about the things she’s done. Sometimes Priire’ll wake up in the middle o’ the night with a half-choked scream on her lips. Ya know how everyone says Priire never cries? Well... it’s almost true. The little lady almost never cries.”

Annika braved a question. “Almost?”

The feline shook his head. “Baby, if you coulda heard some of the things she’s got going on in the messed up lil’ head o’ hers... you’d cry too.” Solai paused. “It ain’t purdy. More than anything, she wants them to go away. But somehow... somehow that lady sees the dreams as the price she’s gotta pay for what all she’s done to people. Annika, it’s awful. And it ain’t something you want to go sticking your pretty little head into. Evil on the scale you’re dancin’ with is like to getcha worse than dead.”

Still looking determined, she shook her head. “I know they cane be saved. There has to be a way. Priire’s not evil any more...”

“Listen, beautiful, it just ain’t possible fer some people. Priire it was. And that’s cause while most of her loved being a cold-blooded killer-” Annika shuddered “-there was some part of her that knew what she was doing was wrong. And that’s what pulled her back from the edge. I’d say there ain’t no way that those Sith have that kind of protection inside of them, but then I’da said it about the Hawkbat, too.” The cat put his nose right at Annika’s face to drive his point in. “Leave it be, princess. Rid the galaxy of evil. Don’t just let it lie dormant inside of a ‘redeemed’ Sith.”

Turning sharply, the cat launched himself off of Annika’s lap and out of the half-opened door.

Annika felt a hot rush of tears, but refused to let them break through. Looking up at the candle studded “sky,” she cleared her throat. “I guess... I guess I better find a shirt.”

“Annika... you have to understand that some things can’t be done.”

“There are people who can’t be saved. It just can’t be done.”

“You’re not getting on the carnival ride. Not in your present state.”

“She’s evil. Nothing but evil.”

“Mom... you can’t do that. It can’t be done. Not in this lifetime.”

“Annika! You are a princess. Don’t play in the mud.”

“Have you ever looked into the eyes of evil? You don’t know what you’re up against.”

“They can’t be saved...”

Annika sat straight up in bed, gasping for breath. That dream was terrifying. Everyone who’d ever told her she couldn’t do something had been there. From her mother telling her she couldn’t go play because she hadn’t cleaned her room, up to her most recent memories of everyone saying the Sith couldn’t be saved. She was pretty sure there were even some future references in there because as far as she knew she wasn’t pregnant yet.

The princess trembled as a cold draft wafted over her body. That was when she realized she was still dreaming.

She was in a bedroom with a balcony that overlooked a moonlit waterfall. Standing on the balcony, with her hair blowing in the wind, was the most beautiful woman Annika had ever seen. “Annika. Senshi of Love. Follow your heart.”

Annika looked at the beautiful woman. “Who are you? And how do I know what to do?”

“Priire. Senshi of Redemption. You’ll need her help.”

“But she won’t help me! She thinks it’s impossible!”

The beautiful woman smile sadly. “It is impossible.”

Annika started to protest, but the woman stopped her. “It is impossible for all to be saved at this time. There may come a time when you can save the rest of them. But only if Love and Redemption work as one. Follow your heart, Annika.”

“But...” Annika said, realizing she was awake. She shook her head, trying to get the vision of the woman out of it.

“Are you okay?”

Annika looked up — then down — in surprise. “Melesse?”