The sun of Serenno painted Count Dooku's private chambers in shades of amber and shadow. He sat motionless in his meditation chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin, eyes closed. To any observer, he might have been carved from stone—a statue of aristocratic contemplation frozen in time.
He'd been like this for nearly three days.
The Battle of Sulust echoed through his thoughts, a puzzle with pieces that refused to align. The Avengers. Their unexpected interference. The way they'd torn through Separatist forces with powers that defied traditional Force understanding. And Asajj—
His apprentice. His weapon. Left to die aboard a Republic flagship.
His master's orders had been explicit. She has outlived her usefulness. Eliminate her.
Dooku had obeyed, as he always did. Sent the clones, orchestrated the trap, ensured no escape route. But some small, rebellious part of him—the part that remembered being Jedi, that remembered compassion—had allowed for one variable.
The explosion. The chaos. The possibility of survival.
If Asajj lived, she lived. If she died, the deed was done.
Either way, his hands remained clean.
The sun touched the horizon. Serenno's sky bled crimson. Dooku's eyes opened, and a smile ghosted across his lips—bitter, self-mocking.
"Found you, my apprentice," he murmured to the empty room.
The Force whispered her location across the stars. Dathomir. Her homeworld. Clever. Predictable. And ultimately, irrelevant.
Let her lick her wounds. Let her plot revenge. When the time came, she would serve one final purpose.
Darth Sidious always planned three moves ahead.
Dooku rose smoothly, his cape settling around his shoulders like a shroud, and walked toward the window. Behind him, his meditation chamber sat silent, holding secrets that would never see light.
On Dathomir, Asajj Ventress discovered that peace was far more unsettling than war.
She woke each morning without alarms, without missions, without the constant pressure of Dooku's expectations weighing on her chest like durasteel. The absence of structure left her adrift. For days, she wandered the village, uncertain what to do with hands that weren't gripping lightsabers or her mind when it wasn't calculating kill vectors.
The galaxy thought her dead. The Separatists believed the mission accomplished. For the first time since childhood—since before Ky Narec, before slavery, before everything—no one was hunting her.
The sensation was profoundly wrong.
She'd lived her entire adult life moving from one crisis to the next, one battle to the next execution. Stillness felt like drowning in slow motion. Her muscles, trained for constant readiness, twitched at phantom threats. Her mind conjured enemies from shadows.
But there were no enemies here. Just Nightsisters going about their rituals, children playing among twisted trees, and the endless red dust of her homeworld settling over everything like a blanket.
It should have been comforting.
It felt like suffocation.
To combat the restlessness, Asajj began asking about her mother. The need surprised her—she'd spent decades burying that particular wound beneath layers of rage and pragmatism. But now, with time to think, the questions surfaced like bodies from shallow graves.
Why had Ilsigi given her up? Why Asajj specifically, and not another child? What threat had been so terrible that abandoning an infant was preferable to keeping her?
The Nightsisters offered sympathy but few answers. Mother Talzin spoke of dangerous times, of forces that threatened the clan, of choices made to preserve the future. But details remained maddeningly vague, lost to decades and the protective silence of women who'd learned to keep their secrets close.
Asajj had one clear memory of her mother. Just one—a woman's face, beautiful and fierce, smiling down with infinite love. Then hands pulling them apart. A ship's ramp rising. Darkness.
After that, only the slave master's calloused grip and the chains.
The injustice of it burned. But who could she blame? Ilsigi was dead. The threat that forced her exile was long gone or forgotten. All that remained was Asajj, alone with her resentment and nowhere to direct it.
So she trained instead.
June—the Nightsister who'd become something like a friend to Wanda—agreed to spar with her. The first session lasted exactly three minutes before Asajj collapsed, gasping, muscles screaming. Her body, still healing from the injuries sustained on the Republic flagship, couldn't sustain the intensity she demanded of it.
"You need to rest," June said flatly, standing over her without offering a hand up.
"I need to be ready." Asajj pushed herself upright, ignoring the way her vision swam. "Dooku will—"
"Dooku will wait." June's yellow eyes held no sympathy. "Rush your recovery and you'll be useless when it matters. Is that what you want?"
No. It wasn't.
But sitting idle while her body slowly knitted itself back together felt like admitting weakness. Like surrendering. And Asajj Ventress had never surrendered in her life.
Still, after the third time she collapsed during training, pride gave way to pragmatism. She forced herself to rest. To heal properly. To accept that her body needed time even if her mind raged against the delay.
There was one other motivation for behaving herself.
The Scarlet Witch still had her second lightsaber.
And Asajj wanted it back.
The thought of that woman possessing her weapon made Asajj's blood boil. Every time she caught sight of Wanda in the village, rage simmered fresh beneath her skin. This outsider—this Avenger—walked Dathomir like she belonged here. The Nightsisters treated her with respect, even deference. Mother Talzin spoke of her as though she were clan.
It was obscene.
Worse, Asajj couldn't do anything about it without risking permanent exile or death. The Nightsisters had made their position clear: Wanda Maximoff was under their protection. To attack her was to attack the clan itself.
So Asajj seethed in silence and waited for an opportunity that might never come.
She was contemplating this particular frustration when screams and laughter shattered the afternoon quiet.
Not distress—joy. Children's voices, bright and unrestrained.
Asajj turned, frowning, and spotted the source.
In a clearing fifty meters away, Wanda stood with Merlin and Illyana. The three of them formed a small circle, and as Asajj watched, scarlet energy bloomed from Wanda's hands. Not violently—gently, like flowers unfurling. The magic wrapped around the girls, lifting them a few inches off the ground.
They squealed with delight.
Wanda smiled, and the expression transformed her face. Gone was the cold, dangerous woman who'd disarmed Asajj with contemptuous ease. This was someone else—warm, maternal, utterly focused on the children in her care.
Asajj moved closer, keeping to the shadows of the twisted trees. Close enough to observe, not close enough to intrude.
Wanda was teaching them. Asajj recognized the exercises—basic Force meditation techniques, adapted somehow for Wanda's unique power. The girls sat cross-legged, eyes closed, small hands extended. Scarlet light flickered around their fingers—faint, unstable, but unmistakably present.
"Feel it," Wanda murmured. "Not with your mind. Not with your body. With something deeper. The chaos is always there, waiting. You just have to reach out and touch it."
"It's scary," Merlin whispered.
"I know." Wanda knelt between them, placed gentle hands on their shoulders. "But I'm right here. I won't let anything happen to you. Trust yourself. Trust me."
The girls' magic steadied. Brightened. Wanda's smile widened.
Something uncomfortable twisted in Asajj's chest. She couldn't name it—didn't want to name it—but watching this stranger teach her cousin made her feel...
Left out.
Which was ridiculous. She didn't want to be part of their little family. She was Sith, dark side, beyond such sentimentality.
But the lie rang hollow even in her own mind.
"Are you going to keep staring, or do you have something to say?"
Wanda's voice cut through Asajj's thoughts like a vibroblade. The witch hadn't turned, hadn't even opened her eyes, but somehow she'd sensed Asajj's presence.
Merlin and Illyana stopped their exercises, turned to look. Their expressions held curiosity and a hint of nervousness—like children caught between feuding parents.
Asajj stepped out of the shadows, refusing to be cowed. "Why does Mother Talzin allow you to teach them?"
"Because I have permission." Wanda's tone suggested the answer should be obvious.
She stood smoothly, stroking both girls' heads in a gesture that was clearly habit. They leaned into the touch, smiling up at their guardian with open adoration.
The uncomfortable feeling in Asajj's chest intensified.
"You're teaching them the Force," Asajj said. Not a question. An accusation.
"Among other things." Wanda's red eyes met Asajj's without flinching. "My power. Nightsister techniques. They're learning to synthesize it all into something uniquely theirs. Something beyond the Force alone."
"Do you even understand what you're doing?" Asajj took a step closer, hands clenching. "The Force isn't some toy to experiment with. It requires discipline. Training. Respect."
"And I'm not providing that?" Wanda's eyebrow arched. "Interesting theory. Tell me, how's your relationship with the Force working out? Still drowning in the dark side? Still letting your rage make all your decisions?"
The barb struck home. Asajj's jaw clenched. "At least I understand it."
"Do you?" Wanda tilted her head, and the gesture was predatory. "Because from where I'm standing, you understand suffering. You understand anger. But the Force itself? The balance between light and dark? I don't think you've understood that since Ky Narec died."
Hearing her master's name from this woman's lips ignited fury. "Don't you dare—"
"I saw your memories, remember?" Wanda's voice stayed calm, which somehow made it worse. "I know what he taught you. I know what you've become. And I know which version he'd be proud of."
The words landed like physical blows. Asajj wanted to lunge, to attack, to make this insufferable witch pay for the presumption. But Illyana and Merlin were watching, and attacking Wanda meant attacking them, and—
And she couldn't do it.
Damn it.
"My clan follows the dark side," Asajj said instead, forcing her voice steady. "Has for generations. Your light-side philosophy won't work here."
Wanda's expression softened slightly. "I'm not teaching them the light side. I'm teaching them balance. Control. How to touch the darkness without letting it consume them." She glanced at the girls. "They have me. Always. I watch. I guide. I pull them back if they go too far."
"And if you fail?"
"Then I'll do what any mother would do." Wanda's eyes blazed brighter. "I'll tear apart whatever hurt them and rebuild the world from scratch if necessary."
The absolute conviction in her voice left no room for doubt. This wasn't bravado. It was fact.
Asajj found she had no response to that.
The silence stretched. Wanda seemed to lose patience with the conversation. She turned back to the girls, dismissing Asajj entirely, and resumed the lesson.
Asajj stood there a moment longer, feeling foolish and unnecessary. Then she retreated, pride stinging, to the dwelling Mother Talzin had assigned her.
Her second lightsaber had to be here somewhere. Wanda wouldn't keep it on her person—too risky, too provocative. So it would be stored with the witch's belongings.
Asajj searched methodically. Wanda's dwelling was spartan—a sleeping mat, some basic supplies, a few personal items. And there, resting on a carved stone shelf—
Two lightsabers.
Her curved hilt, instantly recognizable. And beside it, a longer weapon. Double-bladed. The metal was darker, ancient-looking. And along the hilt, carved in precise Sith script—
Asajj froze.
She knew this writing style. Had seen it before in Dooku's archives, in the forbidden texts he'd allowed her to study. This wasn't just any Sith weapon.
Her hands reached out, almost against her will. Lifted the double-bladed saber. The metal felt warm beneath her fingers, thrumming with residual dark side energy.
She turned it slowly, reading the inscription. Her eyes widened. Her breath caught.
This lightsaber—this specific weapon—belonged to—
The implications crashed over her like a tidal wave.
No.
No.
It couldn't be.
But the writing didn't lie. And Asajj Ventress, former apprentice to Count Dooku, trained in Sith lore and dark side history, knew exactly whose weapon she held.
The question was: how in the blazing hells had Wanda Maximoff acquired it?