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Video; un: darkness

[The video starts off with Maul smiling which everyone who has been in Trench for more than a few months will realize is never a good sign. Fortunately, he's not here to terrorize everyone, just be a troll and gadfly to his mate.]

Hello everyone. Since I'm sure he'd never tell you himself, I'm here to inform you that Reaper has just turned sixty. That's right, he's officially OLD. There's nothing for him but going downhill now, becoming more decrepit and decaying and plodding along until he just drops dead one day or I mercifully smother him with a pillow. [He's still got that wicked grin on his face but he's managed not to laugh so far.] I suggest you all send him birthday wishes, preferably from a safe distance away or over the Omni since otherwise there is a very good chance he'll try to blow a hole through you with one of his shotguns.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go stay one step ahead of him so he can't find me and do the same. [He can't contain himself any longer and there's a cackle of delight as he turns the video off.]

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Reaper... the youngster I'd met in Flesh Falls back in dear Julia's nightmare? I believe we passed through the door together, though rebirth and other events have scrambled the recall.

[A hint of a mischievous lilt, or what passes for one.] I truly thought he was younger than I. [With a hint of 'go ahead and try figuring out how old I am'.]

[A closed-mouthed clearing of the throat and now more straightforward.] Well, if he's listening to this: congratulations on completing another cycle around the sun, old man.

Hmmmmm..... [Maul tilts his head curiously as he looks at Wesker. He falls into one of those in the 'sort of human but not really' category Maul has in his head that Reaper himself also falls into. He is now clearly trying to figure out how old Wesker is.]

Fifty-two? [He finally asks.]

[An amused smirk that broadens into a small grin.] You're close. Chronologically, I recently turned forty-nine by Earth standards. Physically, I stopped aging at thirty-eight when I stopped being human, though even then, I was in such top form, there were twenty year old humans who couldn't keep up with me.

[Maul digests this, nodding slowly.]

So did you just....decide to stop being human or did you get experimented on like someone else I know?

[Seriously, did all the 'sort-of humans' in Maul's life come about because some mad scientist had a desire for creating unkillable people?]

Both. [He says this with a likely irritatingly mysterious little smirk.]

[A beat in which he resumes his usual impassive state, then he elaborates.] But that brief statement requires an explanation. I was taken at a young age, and reprogrammed mentally and emotionally through rigorous training before I was reprogrammed physically and more specifically, genetically via mutagenic viral strains. I went from a mere human, albeit one with a mind and body honed to peak condition through discipline and study, to something stronger and swifter and more resilient. The past which I endured can't be changed. All the better to embrace what I became.

Rest assured, the one who broke me in order to rebuild me paid for whatever crimes he committed. [A dangerous if pleased note in his voice.]

That all sounds awfully familiar...

[It was as if someone had combined what had happened to Maul in his past and what had happened to Reaper with the result being Wesker. Reprogrammed mentally and emotionally was a good way to describe what Maul had gone through as a child and Maul already knew Reaper had been experimented on, partially leaving him in the strange state Maul knew him as.]

I am glad you were able to gain revenge upon your tormentor.

[His voice is sincere. Maul knows he will never gain revenge on Sidious but at least he can take satisfaction in the tales that his friends tell him.]

Your own experience, or another's, if I might ask?

[He's curious, but he knows enough not to pry too hard. These things require care.]

[A dangerous smirk flickers across his handsome features before his impassivity returns.]

The old man, for all his attempts at becoming something beyond human himself, was close to death and willing to face his own mortality. I merely pushed him across the threshold. I may have done him a mercy he didn't merit, for what he rendered to me and twelve other test subjects that I know of.

I was broken down by my master over many years. While no genetic tampering happened with me, I was turned into the perfect weapon nonetheless, one without thoughts of his own or the will to question his master. Though your talk of being experimented on and your genetic code being altered does remind me of my lover quite a bit. Reaper has had some experience which such a thing happening in his background.

[He doesn't elaborate, knowing that tale is for Reaper himself to tell to people he's comfortable with knowing.]

That is the one thing I think my master fears above all else: death. He knows that he cannot escape it forever and his obsession with avoiding it will likely spell his doom at the very end.

But you managed to break loose from the mental shackles, or was that an effect of awakening in dear Julia's dream? [He mentions 'dear Julia' with a hint of a sarcastic drawl, but it's muted compared to how he would have sounded in Deerington.]

I wondered that about Reaper, in the times we'd met, if he was simply a different species of person, or if he is an enhanced human. We crossed paths in the Flesh Falls sinkhole, where I was fond of going to work off some aggression as well as to collect samples. [A wry smirk] There were things down there which came from my world of origin as well, ergo, the place felt like him. Also... he and I walked through the door into this world, when Deerington summoned me back after I left it for a time.

[A thoughtful pause and a slow nod.]

Death is, after all, the great equalizer, that which everyone fears and everyone is assured of experiencing, even those of us who are difficult to put down. [A shadow of a wry smirk, which quickly fades.] All those who grasp at power fear death the most, since it's the one thing which has power over them. You probably know that better than I do.

That was a very slow process that happened over the thirteen years that happened after I was cut in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi. It gave me enough time to overcome the brainwashing my master had put me through.

[Of course, while he may have gotten his personality back and broken out of the mindset of simply being a weapon, the damage was already to his mind. Maul had been forged into a psychopath and there was no changing that.]

You'll need to ask him about his past. I'm not one to discuss it since it belongs to him and not me. But it is rather fascinating what happened to him.

[That was one of the few things Maul had been curious about during their courtship and he'd asked Reaper about what had turned him into the undead human being he was today.]

Indeed I do. There wasn't much my old master taught me that was worth knowing but he did manage to succeed with me where his own mind failed. Death isn't something I fear any longer.

[His own fears, save for that of lightning, are intangibles. Things like his master's wrath, failing his friends, never succeeding in this path of redemption he was striding down.]

I suppose, as painful as that passage must have been, it proved a well-disguised blessing. I'd only spoken briefly with Obi-Wan, in Deerington, but I got the distinct sense he was trying to get inside my head, and that is one place I guard with every fiber of my being. [There's a hint of 'please tell me I was mistaken'.]

I have a feeling I may have some kinship with Reaper, if circumstances will allow us to have a deep conversation. I'd be willing to share more of my own path with him.

[A dry smirk.] Nor do I. Death tried to claim me on more than on occasion, and it has no hold on us here. It may not be something to be taken lightly, for those who matter to us and whom we may leave behind to watch and wonder. But it is no more to be feared than the snows of winter.

That doesn't sound like him. And I know Obi-Wan very well.

[The Jedi might protest that to the contrary but it was true. The two of them knew very much how the other thought. Their intense relationship as enemies and now something closer to friends had that effect.]

Please do so. He can always use more friends even if he thinks he doesn't need them.

[Having some friends closer to his own age would be good too. Much as Maul likes that he protects the Disaster House, they're all kids there, and don't provide quite the same interactions those who had experienced a little more of life would have.]

Very well said. You always have a much better way with words than I do. You say what I try to but never quite succeed in doing.

[Maul often feels all he ever does is say the very wrong thing even when he's not trying to.]

Hmm. I may have misread him: we spoke when I'd come off a particularly dark moment in Sodder's nightmare, and I was likely still adjusting.

[A light, darkly affectionate chuckle in his throat.]

I'm tempted, on that note of confidence, to offer to pen some sermons for you, if you should so request that.

Edited 2022-06-13 05:49 (UTC)

He is not a saint but he is a good man. I know we were all put through trying times while in that dreamscape, so it might have affected him as well.

[Maul grins a little.]

I would be appreciative and I am sure my followers would as well if you could pen such words as I long to be able to speak.

So long as he is aware of his own flaws: nothing makes me feel more 'tired and wicked' - to quote a lady author from my world of origin - than a good person who can't see their own shadows within.

[He bows his head.]

It would be an honor. Tell me what you wish to expound upon, and I will pen something fitting.

Yes, he has that ability well. And any attempt on my part to bring those shadows to the surface has failed miserably.

[The closest he's ever felt is the anger in Kenobi after Maul had killed Qui-Gon and Satine, but even then it had not been enough to make him succumb to darkness.]

Hmmmm, something about the benefits of power and what it can bring a person who has it.

[...............This will only end well for both of them of course.]

Given enough time, this strange place might make him value having a shadowed side. This isn't always a good place for good people.

[A dangerous but pleased smirk.]

A subject I've meditated on frequently. I'd be honored to write some of them down and mold them into a proper sermon.

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Video; un: darkness

[Video][UN:A_Wesker013]

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[CW: Fictional pathogens mentioned]

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