The memories of Cipion's old life informed him intimately of the energies wielded by the khalai. How they welled up deep within you, in a place you could feel but never find. How all you needed to do was call it, and the maelstrom of energy poured out of you like a raging river, kept from tearing through your being only by the sheer force will shared with you through the comforting warmth of the khala. The energies of the khalai could be tempered, steered and bent into shape by this will, the energy within any of them twisted into devastating weapons of war, or used to heal flesh and sinew of wounded comrades. It is nothing if not raw potential, and the Khalai great craftsmen who turn it into anything they can dream of.

He hadn't been prepared for how different the Void was.

Once your eyes are opened to it, the Void can be felt everywhere- Always just out of reach, just out of view, like a shadow skulking around the edges of your consciousness. To use the energies of the Void was to invite that creeping presence into every fibre of your being, to pluck it from those dark recesses and draw it as a cloak around your body, letting its power seep deep into your bones (Or, circuitry). In theory, it had seemed easy to simply grab what you desired and pull, but then again, perhaps it would be that easy if the Void didn't pull back.

Those Nerazim masters who worked to channel their energies into Void Rays were known as Void Lenses, a title Cipion now realised must have been coined by the Khalai, as it was too much a misnomer for the Nerazim to have come up with it. The Void could never truly be focused, nor channeled, only corralled and directed. The Void was wild, alive and vengeful- a beast that needed to be brought to submission and constantly held there, lest it consumed you. To touch the void is to feel something cold and impossibly empty, and to use it tugs at the corners of your very soul.

In the end, while the wild and violent nature of the Void was Cipion's greatest challenge to mastering it, it was also his greatest advantage. A machine mind unbound to any single body could make mistakes no protoss born of flesh could withstand, push boundaries that would otherwise need decades of preparation to consider straining and focus with a force of will only a Nerazim master could manifest. Had it not been for the great difficulty it took for technology to access the void, perhaps he could have done much greater things. Instead, progress had been slow, yet steady and in many ways non-linear.

Now, as he stood upon the apex of his training- at the shadowed entrance to the great, nameless gorge Khashilar had chosen to be the location of his sacred Shadow Walk- Cipion could do little else but hope the persistence had been enough.

Khashilar slipped from the darkness to emerge next to his pupil, placing a hand on Cipion's mechanical shoulder. His eyes betraying no hint of emotion, he simply whispered "It is time" and once again melted into shadow of the gorge.

When his training first began, Cipion had often wondered why his master spoke so rarely, and why each word he was given had sounded strained. He had suspected prejudice initially, there were no shortage of protoss who held disdain for their purifier brethren, but he had quickly realized the issue the first time Khashilar slipped, and called him Iaanu. Cipion had ignored it then, and his master had been content to pretend it had never been said. Each subsequent slip was dealt with in the same manner, ignored and struck from the record. As were the forlorn looks of longing, with eyes full of pain, given when his master thought he was distracted with something else. But they had not been forgotten.

Truthfully, Cipion did not consider himself to be the being that he shared his memories with. The Daelaam had no place for protoss like that anymore, even if he had seen fit to hold that identity. Iaanu had lived a full life, a life turned bitter to be sure, but a full one which Cipion didn't see it fit to claim it as his own. The protoss in his memories- the one who grew rotten, who scoured the edges of the protoss empire for Nerazim pirates in vain hope to find someone long lost to him, who gained rank and accolade by spilling the blood of his kin and becoming so famed as have his mind scanned and be inducted into the ranks of the protoss' greatest warriors. Who had died of old age alone and longing over a century ago- that protoss was no more. Now, there was only Cipion.

He understood the poetic nature of it, of course, to be shaped by both sides of such tragedy- but he had chosen a new path for himself and would not be beholden to the ghost who's memories he shared, nor to the protoss hounded by the ghosts of the past.

To that end, Cipion stood at the edge of the gorge's shadows and paused. There was none of Aiur's signature growth here, the lack of light ensured it, just bare rock jutting out of the cragged walls. He stared at it, just for a moment, as the tactical data web supplied him with detailed geological information about the area and ran countless simulations on how to best cross the gorge unharmed. It would be easier than usual, no Nerazim but his master had accepted the invitation to participate in this Shadow Walk- to test him. Still, as aged and withered as Khashilar was, his mastery of the void and intimate knowledge of Cipion's mind, as only his mentor could have, would make him a worthy foe.

Satisfied in his plan of attack, Cipion took a step forward and disappeared into the blackness. His orange eyes glowed dimly even through the veil of shadows, as if two fireflies were locked in an eternal waltz, but dimmer still was the green glow slinking around in the corner of his vision, the telltale sign of a warp scythe zipping just out of range of Cipion's peripheral. Then came the first strike.

Cipion saw it coming a moment too late, his advanced processing no match for the sheer skill of his mentor, and was rewarded a deep shoulder gash for the mistake. The force of the strike knocked him to the ground, sending his mechanical body into a roll to avoid meeting the rock head-on.

The next strike came from the right only seconds later, Cipion leapt back up to his feet from his prone form and this time only received only a shallow cut to the side of his cheek for the quick reaction, managing to get several large bounds away from his master before feeling the distinct ripples in the void that denoted a shadow stride- a blink.

Now closer to the light at the end of the gorge than to where he had started, Cipion's tactical processors whirred into overdrive until he simply disregarded their suggestions and bolted for the end, discarding his cloak of shadows and diverting as much power as he could spare to the leg servos that carried him towards his freedom, his future. He barely had time to raise an arm before Khashilar's blade struck again, and it was in return severed cleanly off. Later, Cipion would think that perhaps doing such damage had stunned his master, perhaps only breifly, because the kick he threw out in retribution should never have landed as it did. Instead, Khashilar was thrown aside and collided with a jutting rock, producing surprised grunt and then the sickening sound of shattering bone. Cipion continued running, unwilling to break the sacred rules of the Shadow Walk. Combat continued until the Shadow Hunters bowed out, the apprentice fell, or the apprentice reached the end of their Shadow Walk.

Cipion managed to get seven paces from the end of the shadows before his master appeared before him, Khashilar's shadow cloak slipping from his body and returning to the darkness that surrounded them. He simply stood there in his tattered robes, hunched with one arm clutching his chest, blocking the path. Blocking Cipion's graduation into a full Shadow Hunter.

"We are done. Strike me down and take what you desire." Hoarse and weak, Khashilar's voice echoed in his pupil's mind.

Instead, Cipion slowly walked to his master and stared into the ancient protoss' eyes, orange and green glows gently mixing in the space between them. Resigned weariness to determined resolve.

Gently, he whispered "You are forgiven".

As his eyes gave a brief flash of surprise, Khashilar collapsed to his knees, holding his free arm to the rugged ground in support. Cipion would later wonder if it was from his injuries, or from emotion. In the end, he decided it didn't matter.

Striding past his mentor's fallen form, Cipion took a step out of the darkness and into the light. There was little difference between this end of the gorge and where he had started, but it felt completely different. Cipion had become a Shadow Hunter, a true Dark Templar.

He had expected Khashilar to speak his proudness, to greet his pupil now as an equal, but such validation never arrived. As he stumbled back into the shadows of the gorge, Cipion was met only with the crumpled, lifeless form of his master. His eyes, still framed by sagging wrinkles, no longer glowed their emerald green but in it's place they looked as Cipion had never before seen them- at peace.

Khashilar would be buried there, in the shadow of that nameless gorge, his soul returned to the void and flesh returned to Aiur. His passing was mourned by few, only the pupils he raised, and his resting place received only a small silver plaque to signify his presence there. Cipion would never return there after his shadow walk, and his thoughts would wander back to it only rarely, and briefly. He felt no guilt, he had done nothing wrong according to Daelaam customs, but a small part of him, deep within his memories caused a pang of sadness whenever the thought of his master wormed into his mind.

For his part, Cipion would think little of his master. Khashilar was the past, and Cipion was the future. He was not Iaanu, nor Khashilar, although they had shaped him. There was nothing to be gained through being weighed down by the ghosts of history, his memories and his master had taught him this above all else. He was Cipion, and he would be the future.