Another bout of writer's block, another sudden inspiration to help break through it. This is a pure star wars experimental story. Spraked by some of the debates and observations we've been having about ROTS. See what you think.
Shadows in Light
Chapter 1: Forced Perspectives
The droids were not expecting him. He almost laughed as he landed in their midst and his blue lightsaber lit up like a flash of lightning with a hungry hum. He spun his blade quickly without slowing as he moved forward in a surge of Force impelled motion.
The Neimodian battledroids emitted electronic squeals as they were bisected in neat smoking chunks. Their metallic parts clattered loudly to the floor while he swung his blade up in a high guard position, deflecting a volley of blaster fire in the process.
“Well, you can tell your masters I’m here.” He announced to the pair of super battledroids that stood in his path, their blaster arms extended towards the young Jedi Knight.
“They don’t need to tell us anything.” The black robed figure growled.
The young Jedi Knight cautious for the first time pivoted seamlessly into a low guard stance, eyes drifting up the length of the new comer. The black robed figure strode between the superbattledroids and snapped his fingers.
The droids obediently stood down, arms at their sides and slowly walked backwards out of the chamber. The rumble of artificial thunder punctuated their departure and earth drifted down into the chamber from the ceiling.
“Do you hear that? That is the sound of your defeat. Did you really think you stood a chance against the Republic?”
The hooded figure chuckled darkly and shook his head. A long lightsaber hilt slid down into his hands and he casually brought it up into attack position.
“That’s the problem with you Jedi. You forget you’re still not the Republic, not yet anyway.”
“I am so tired of the lies, of the innuendoes you and your Separatist cronies have been insinuating since you decided to hatch this little plot. Did you forget that we dueled over Naboo. I know you are behind all of this.”
The cloaked figure smiled and the white of his teeth flashed beneath the hood.
“As I recall you and your master faired rather poorly against me then, what makes you think you will do any better now?” the dark robed figure noted grimly as he rolled his shoulders and the black robes slid away revealing a lean trim well muscled body. The face was a grotesque tattoo work and crimson skin.
“You escaped me once Darth Maul, you’re not escaping me again.” The young Jedi snapped as he slowly advanced.
“You were a sniveling padawan when we last fought and all I’ve been hearing since then is the exploits of Obi Wan Kenobi. Well imagine that, advancing over the corpse of your old master like that. You should be thanking me, Kenobi.” Maul ignited one end of his staff lightsaber. “In fact you should be on your knees thanking me, Jedi.” The second half of his staff weapon ignited and Maul spun his weapon so the hum of his blades sung loudly like a chorus.
“Qui Gon Jinn’s death will be answered today Maul.” Obi Wan replied coolly.
“Careful Obi Wan. He means to goad you.” A cool calm voice interrupted the ominous hum of Maul’s spinning blades. “Anger and aggression are the twin allies of the dark side and he means for you to call on them now.”
Maul’s darted to the left and watched the robed figure step into the room, green lightsaber ignited and the unmistakable sound of falling battledroids clattering behind him. The chamber shook more insistently from a near direct hit of some awesome weapon above them. More packed dirt trickled down between the armored plates that ran along the ceiling of the room.
“So, where the apprentice goes can the master be far behind?” Maul sneered.
“Obi Wan is never alone as long as I’m alive.” The Jedi Master replied calmly as he swept his blade in front of him in a slow figure eight.
“Trust me, old man, I intend to put an end to your meddling in our affairs. And for the record, I am not alone either.”
An older man leapt down from an unseen gantry way above them. He ignited his crimson lightsaber in mid leap and landed with an elegant sweep of his weapon.
“Count Dooku.” The Jedi Master sighed softly, a deep disappointment clearly evident in his voice.
“Master Palpatine. I told you we would meet again.” Dooku smiled politely. “When I left you I was merely another of the Lost Twenty, now I am so much more.”
“Walking the Dark Path only makes you less of what you could have been old friend and master. Out of all the Jedi why did it have to be you?”
“Perhaps because out of all the Jedi I was the only one brave enough to see the folly of the Order. They embraced you as the Chosen One. They say you will end the Sith and bring balance to the Force. I think they are wrong.” Dooku said coldly as he circled closer to Jedi Master Palpatine. “I think you are old, Palpatine. I think you are past your prime and you have not come any closer to ending the Sith.” Dooku lifted his saber in a salute to his old padawan. “I think you will die today.”
Palpatine smiled sadly as he dropped his robes in a flourish of movement completely belying his age.
“The master and apprentice are in the same room with me today, Dooku. I think today is the day I fulfill the prophecy.” Palpatine exploded forward in a spinning attack, his body jackknifing towards Dooku, green saber flashing forward like a lightning stroke of emerald light.
Dooku’s eyes widened and he was barely able to deflect the attack. Their sabers clashed and hummed upon contact.
Maul spun his saber around one last time.
“Now where were we, whelp? That’s right, back on Theed you had your master distracting me. There’s no Jedi Master to save you now.”
“Jedi Master or not, I am ending your career today scum. The Force is with me.” Obi Wan spun into a sudden strike to Maul’s midsection. The aggressive Sith Lord blocked it with a wide sweep of his blade and drove Obi Wan’s blade down into the ground ready to bring the other end around towards Obi Wan’s face but the Jedi Knight’s elbow planted itself firmly in Maul’s throat.
The Sith Lord stumbled backwards and spun his blades in a warding gesture as Obi Wan stalked after him like a big cat sensing the weakness and confusion in the Sith Lord.
“Realizing finally that you are facing a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as an ally?” Obi Wan taunted. He brought his saber down in an overhead strike that batted away a quick jab to his face and forced Maul back several more steps. “I almost feel sorry for you.” Obi Wan finished and launched a series of quick sweeping strikes, keeping Maul’s staff weapon rooted in the center robbing him of the reach advantage.
As the fight unfolded the chambers dimmed slightly as another weapons strike rumbled overhead and a pylon of durasteel came crashing down behind them. The sounds of alarm and scrambling separatists became louder and more desperate.
The Separatists Armies on Geonosis had met the Clone Armadas of the Jedi Order and were found lacking. Now all they could do was run.
The scream of the engines finally died down as the thick clouds of dust and debris kicked up by the oversized motor pods of the racers swept past the winner’s circle and revealed the victor of the Mos Eisley Annual Grand Sweeps.
But the crowds were certainly not silent. Despite the heat of the noon day sun they were out in droves now ready to see their champion - The greatest pod racer that had ever lived.
The pod racing champion stood in the center of the winner’s circle, dirty and grime cakes on his face, helmet raised up resting on the back of his head and goggles hanging haphazardly off his neck he was an elegant and tall figure, sandy blonde hair bleached by the sun and filthy with lubricants and sand.
The roar of the crowds was like a tonic for him. He held up his hands in jubilation as the trophy was pressed into his arms. Someone kissed him, another groped him, and he laughed as his eyes met the love of his life.
She stood, one hand on her hip the other holding a hydrospanner which she waved in a welcoming gesture to him. Her smile was as bright and beautiful as the first time he spied her in the stands in Mos Espa. She had traveled all the way from Mos Eisley to see the greatest pod racing champion Tatooine had ever seen.
“You keep building them Beru and I’ll keep winning these pod races!” He exclaimed happily as he brushed aside the admiring throngs at the finish line and swept up the small petite woman in his arms and kissed her passionately.
Beru returned the kiss hungrily.
They parted and looked in each other’s eyes.
“You keep wrecking them hot shot and I WILL have to keep building them.” Beru laughed and wiped some grime off of Anakin’s cheek.
“I work my machines hard.” Anakin winked.
“Hmm…” Beru chuckled naughtily. “Someone is aching for something else I think.”
Anakin drew her closer to him.
“It’s what I look forward to more than the victory lap.” He snorted.
“Skywalker!”
Anakin frowned. Beru rolled her eyes.
“Greedo.” Beru and Anakin sighed as they turned simultaneously to face the Rodian as he caustically bulled his way through the crowd.
“Jabba wants you at his celebration tonight.”
“Damnit Greedo, don’t I make enough for his bloated—” Anakin began hotly.
“Watch your mouth boy. You may be the hottest pod racer in the Outer Rim but Jabba can make you Bantha poodoo with a word.”
“What are you now, Greedo? Like a runner or a messenger boy?” Beru teased.
Greedo spat something in Huttesse.
“Careful Greedo, I beat you enough times in Mos Espa, I wouldn’t want to do a repeat performance on you head with this hyrdospanner.” Anakin said darkly and slipped the hydrospanner from Beru’s hand. He began tapping the hydrospanner in his open palm meaningfully. The human was fully a head taller than the Rodian.
“Jabba fronts your money and expects his best racer to come when called.” Greedo countered sourly.
Anakin began to say something when Beru placed a calm restraining hand on his chest. Anakin’s temper was a sight to behold sometimes. Now however was not the time.
“You tell his illustrious Jabba that we’ll be happy to attend.” She said sweetly.
Greedo nodded and his snout twitched.
“What is it?” Anakin asked sensing the Rodian was holding something back.
“Jabba’s been talking about bringing the pod racing to the Core worlds. Corellia perhaps even Coruscant they’re hungry for new sports.” Greedo relayed, jealously dripping from each word.
“Coruscant?” Anakin’s eyes lit up. Beru frowned and subconsciously clutched Anakin’s shoulder. Whenever anyone spoke of the core Anakin was drawn like a moth to the flame. He would forget about anyone or anything else. She would never forget her mother’s disapproving words when she found out her daughter loved the pod racing champion.
“You’ll lose that boy if he ever leaves Tatooine. Mark my words, Beru. Look in his eyes and tell me if he belongs here. Owen Lars belongs on Tatooine. That boy Skywalker is meant for greater things.” Beru remembered her bitter anger at those words.
“So he deserves better than me, mama?!”
“You’re not listening Beru. Anakin Skywalker will only bring you pain.”
Anakin absently glanced down at Beru.
“You heard hon? Coruscant.” Anakin exclaimed with barely concealed excitement. His eyes were already a billion miles away.
“Yeah, I heard.” Beru replied softly. She peered over his shoulder. “Looks like there’s a storm coming in.”
Anakin saw the darkening sky and the wall of dark billowing sand approaching.
“Get the stuff under cover. I’ll pick up the gear and our winnings.”
“No detours Anakin. Just pick up the gear and winnings meet me at the hangar bay.” Beru chastised.
“Yes ma’am.” Anakin said with a wink and faux bow as he started to back away.
“You’ll pay for that tonight,” Beru laughed and wagged her finger at him as he quickly departed. She waited until he was out of sight and Greedo was gone before letting out a string of obscenities and slamming her tools in her box. She bit back a weak sob and quickly began guiding the droids to break down the racing pod and pit stop.
“Coruscant.” She whispered mournfully.
Anakin smiled to himself as he imagined what the crowds on Corsucant would be like. Maybe he would even see Jedi. He flipped the purse filled with credits in his hand as he moved deftly through the streets clogged with sand and grime. The storm broke over Mos Eisely quicker than anyone expected. Despite his happiness from the hard won victory he felt ill at ease.
He knew enough to not ignore those feelings. Something was happening around him and he didn’t understand what it could be. The storm moved around him like a things alive for a moment, the wind whipping up and the sand spilling about like fingers of some taloned hand.
A figure moved out of the shadows behind him.
He heard a deep rhythmic mechanical breathing. Anakin whirled quickly and drew his blaster.
The Figure held up a warding hand and stood still.
Anakin paused as the storm eased down around both of them.
The figure was tall and skeletally thin. It wore long flowing inky black robes and wore a face mask respirator. The figure was leaning heavily on a bleached bone white staff.
“Who are you?” Anakin asked sharply.
The figure held up a hand, its wrist was pale as silver and wispy thin, fingers with long glassy fingernails unfurled like a spider coming alive.
“Anakin Skywalker?” The voice was deep and resonated like it was coming from the bottom of a well. The deep rhythmic breathing continued like an obscene rasp that interrupted his words giving him an odd off kilter sing song lilt when he spoke.
“Who wants to know?” Anakin glanced around them. The storm had almost completely died between the pair but seemed to increase around them as if forming a wall or barrier to anyone else that might approach.
“Don’t you know it’s foolish to be out in a storm like this?”
“Son of Shmee Skywalker?”
Anakin paused, there was something oddly familiar about this person, as if a figment of some half remembered dream.
“Do you know your father?”
“That’s none of your business.” Anakin spat. He could dimly hear the taunts of the other children in Mos Espa so long ago.
“I…am your father Anakin Skywalker.”
“Oh, that’s a damned lie.” Anakin replied hotly and raised his blaster. “Now get your decrepit hide out of here.”
The figure hissed angrily and the blaster leapt out of Anakin’s grasp and landed in the open palm of the skeletal man. He closed his fist and the blaster crumpled into a ball which he contemptuously dropped to the sandy ground.
“How did you—”
“Closer Skywalker.” The figure hissed and beckoned with his spindly fingers. Anakin was yanked off his feet and floated a meter off the ground before the mystery man. At least Anakin thought he was a man.
The long spidery fingers gripped Anakin’s cheeks and jaw moving his head back and forth as the empty black lenses of the full face mask focused on Anakin’s features. He felt like a prize Bantha being inspected.
“What the hell are you! You’re not my father.”
“I recognize my handiwork Skywalker. Perfect and beautiful you are. I see a hint of me in the eyes and mouth but the rest is your mother.”
“Don’t talk about her.”
“She was but a vessel sweet Anakin. You are the true prize. The Force made flesh.” He said the last portion with an almost erotic joy.
“The Force?”
“It is time you know the full breadth of your heritage Anakin Skywalker. Are you ready for my truth?”
Anakin struggled valiantly against the invisible grip on his body.
“You are the product of my powers Anakin Skywalker. The end result of an ages old secret to life and its creation. Many have searched, all have failed but me.”
“What the hell are you?!” Anakin shouted and jerked his entire body backwards willing himself with all his might to break free. Suddenly he was free, the grip broken he landed awkwardly on his back.
The black gaunt man seemed to be laughing with pleasure as he stamped his bone white cane that upon closer inspection resembled the spinal column of some beast into the sand like applause.
“Good…good, your powers are intact, sleeping and waiting to be awakened. You passed your first test Anakin. I am so proud of you, child.”
“I grow tired of asking you this---”
“Patience. That is something we will have to work on, child. My name is Darth Plagueus and I am here to bring you unlimited power if you will have it.”
“Darth Plagueus? You’re no Jedi.”
Plagueus laughed throatily.
“That is an obscene joke indeed child. The Jedi are the reason why I am here. They have taken my beautiful Sith and made them into a tool for their eventual rise to power.”
“That’s not right. The Jedi are good.” Anakin protested.
“Good, my child, can be seen from many point of views. I will teach you the tale of Darth Plagueus the wise and the Jedi Master that came to him in secret searching for power and in the end stole away his apprentice and his secrets leaving him for dead on a forsaken moon of Bogden.”
Anakin was dumbfounded as the gaunt man extended his hand and Anakin was effortlessly lifted to his feet.
“But now you will offer me shelter and food and we will discuss your future.”
“My future is on Coruscant.” Anakin countered as the gaunt man motioned for Anakin to walk beside him.
Plagueus seemed to smile under his full face mask.
“Indeed it is Anakin. As a Sith Lord more powerful than any this pathetic Galaxy has ever seen. You will be my answer to the Jedi treachery. You will be my instrument and you will know such wonders. I have boy in this dying body the knowledge to make you a god among giants.”
Anakin frowned.
It sounded appealing. It sounded special. It also sounded dangerous. There was a rumbling in his heart.
“What do I have to do?” Anakin asked wearily.
Darth Plagueus looked upon his work and saw that it was good. He placed a skeletal hand on the boy’s shoulder and gripped it warmly.
“You just have to be great Anakin Skywalker. You will be the Force made flesh and the vengeance of the Sith.”
“I’m no one’s slave, Plagueus!” Anakin roared and shoved the gaunt thing back – though he wasn’t quite sure he did touch him, it felt more like the wind picked up around him and shoved the obscene thing away from him – and he fled into the storm, stumbling madly through the gritty sand that billowed though him.
He needed to get away, he needed time to think. His mother. This thing. The Sith. The Jedi. What was he to believe? For some reason tears were welling in his eyes as he fought his way through the raging storm. Somehow this was not supposed to be.
Darth Plagueus watched the boy as he fled to precisely where he needed him to go. He smiled to himself but was suddenly wracked by a series of increasingly violent hacking coughs and even the respirator seemed to lose its mechanical rhythm for a moment. He leaned heavily on the cane and willed his rage and anger into a tight ball in the center of his body.
His body responded as it always did. His flesh was a slave to his will and as such it lived when he wanted it to live and it would die when it was time for him to die.
Anakin Skywalker was the first step in the eventual release of his flesh. The boy needed to be trained and trained hard. The Jedi were relentless and when the Fallen One discovered what he was doing he knew whom he would send to end the threat of Dark Plagueus.
This only made the ancient Sith Lord laugh as he slowly walked after Anakin.
The Chosen One. Jedi Master Palpatine. Second only to Yoda in wisdom and strength in the Force. Save that the Order had made a very critical error. The Chosen One they were grooming was never theirs to begin with. They had stolen his apprentice and so now he stole theirs. It mattered not that Palpatine could never be his again, so indoctrinated and loved by the light side that he was. It mattered not that he would not live long enough to see the Jedi Order fall.
What mattered was revenge for what the Fallen One had done to him and his precious Sith legacy. And he would make them pay for it. Every single one of them. But first there was Anakin. And the boy needed so much training.
“The droid army is retreating Master Yoda.” The Clone Commander reported emotionlessly.
“Excellent commander. Order all craft to pursue and set up a perimeter around the planet. Nothing must be allowed to escape.” Yoda ordered wearily. The battle had been long and vicious. The Separatists had not expected them and the Republic landed the first thousand legions without much resistance. By then the battle was already over.
But the Separatists refused to see that and began the fighting that had now reduced 2/3’s of Geonosis into a smoldering ruin. Hundreds of thousands of droid troops littered the surface of this particular battlefield.
The Separatist were fleeing like vermin before the might of the Republic armadas.
He could sense the duel raging somewhere in the catacomb below. Master Palpatine’s cold calm demeanor shone like a bright blue light in his consciousness as he drove the hot light of Dooku backwards with each attack. The dancing flickering light of Obi Wan Kenobi by his new Master’s side swept in and out against the furnace of Darth Maul’s fury.
There was no doubt of the outcome of that conflict. How could there be? It had been decided on Coruscant before the fleet left to defend the Republic from certain doom at the hands of the Separatists. It had been decided the moment the war was needed after Sifo Dyas acted outside the plan and commissioned the Clone Army. Frankly it was decided back on Bogden when the Sith Lord gave up all his secrets and the location of the new Sith heir.
Unfortunately the fact that the entirety of their struggles had been carefully orchestrated since that time would not sit well with many in the Order. So he moved them like pawns on the chess board content that his guiding wisdom would be enough. Knowing that what he was doing was essentially right.
Some like Qui Gon Jinn needed to be silenced and that was a sad and regrettable fact. Jinn would have been a perfect messenger. But he had shown his untrustworthiness when he proclaimed that the Chosen One had been born on some far out world because of a dream he had one day.
Yoda smirked.
A dream. The old master was hinging the fate of the Order on a dream, an errant wisp of biochemical lunacy. Jinn lost the right to live when he began believing in a dream instead of Yoda’s plan.
Just as Yoda directed on Theed so he would direct now. Who was to win who was to lose. He wiped the slate clean with Jinn and his allies that day. Obi Wan had proven very salvageable. Now he was fast becoming the greatest knight in the Order and that of course served his will as well.
But like Theed this duel needed to have an outcome.
The old Jedi Master gently rubbed his chin as a AT-TE rumbled past him firing its rail cannon at retreating Separatist forces. A Trade Federation Core ship was swarmed by LAATs and Jedi fighters as it struggled valiantly but vainly into the clouds above.
Now the matter of whom should fall. The Master or the apprentice.
Yoda smiled coldly.
All was proceeding as he had foreseen.
Shadows in Light
Moderator: LadyTevar
Shadows in Light
Wherever you go, there you are.
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This updated sig brought to you by JME2
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Darth Fanboy
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Like so many of Stravo's other fics do I sit back and do a content-lacking "First Post! OMG!"
I'll be watching this fic with great interest, I'll be straightforward honest with my opinion and say that it has the potential to be really amazing, but for myself personally when an author takes Star Wars in a completely different direction (Mirror universe, alternate timeline, etc...) it has to be done just right or I lose interest. So far i'd say Stravo's succeeding.
I'll be watching this fic with great interest, I'll be straightforward honest with my opinion and say that it has the potential to be really amazing, but for myself personally when an author takes Star Wars in a completely different direction (Mirror universe, alternate timeline, etc...) it has to be done just right or I lose interest. So far i'd say Stravo's succeeding.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little."
-George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting."
-Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
-George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting."
-Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
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Crazedwraith
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Shroom Man 777
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Please Jeebus, please let there be a next chapter!
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN!
Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people
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No the idea and execution were all interesting, but it's just this 'writer's block' thing ... you know, for me and that other story, you know.Stravo wrote:I take that as a "that sucked ass Stravo please try again."?Crown wrote:...
Indeed.Stravo wrote:
Η ζωή, η ζωή εδω τελειώνει!
"Science is one cold-hearted bitch with a 14" strap-on" - Masuka 'Dexter'
"Angela is not the woman you think she is Gabriel, she's done terrible things"
"So have I, and I'm going to do them all to you." - Sylar to Arthur 'Heroes'
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2000AD
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So wait.
Palpatines the good guy, Maul lived, Dooku is still a bad guy and Yoda is the Don Corleone of the Jedi ("Qui Gon, he needed t be silenced").
I think my brain has blown a fuse somewhere.
Palpatines the good guy, Maul lived, Dooku is still a bad guy and Yoda is the Don Corleone of the Jedi ("Qui Gon, he needed t be silenced").
I think my brain has blown a fuse somewhere.
Ph34r teh eyebrow!!11!Writers Guild Sluggite Pawn of Chaos WYGIWYGAINGW so now i have to put ACPATHNTDWATGODW in my sig EBC-Honorary Geordie
Hammerman! Hammer!
Hammerman! Hammer!
This is interesting. I'd like to see it continue.
...but not at the expense of delaying SC
...but not at the expense of delaying SC
"I want to mow down a bunch of motherfuckers with absurdly large weapons and relative impunity - preferably in and around a skyscraper. Then I want to fight a grim battle against the unlikely duo of the Terminator and Robocop. The last level should involve (but not be limited to) multiple robo-Hitlers and a gorillasaurus rex."--Uraniun235 on his ideal FPS game
"The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the Force."--Darth Vader
"The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the Force."--Darth Vader
Not only of the Jedi2000AD wrote:So wait.
Palpatines the good guy, Maul lived, Dooku is still a bad guy and Yoda is the Don Corleone of the Jedi ("Qui Gon, he needed t be silenced").
I think my brain has blown a fuse somewhere.
Η ζωή, η ζωή εδω τελειώνει!
"Science is one cold-hearted bitch with a 14" strap-on" - Masuka 'Dexter'
"Angela is not the woman you think she is Gabriel, she's done terrible things"
"So have I, and I'm going to do them all to you." - Sylar to Arthur 'Heroes'
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Spice Runner
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Setesh
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This is.........weird.....good weird, but still weird.
"Nobody ever inferred from the multiple infirmities of Windows that Bill Gates was infinitely benevolent, omniscient, and able to fix everything. " Argument against god's perfection.
My Snow's art portfolio.
My Snow's art portfolio.
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Mopeyennuui
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Special thanks to GR for providing me with a helpful chart that I have attached to the end of this chapter to provide a guide to those reading the duel. As a therapy for writer's block this has helped me more than most.
Chapter 2: The Master and the Apprentice
Palpatine was one with the Force. He moved where it told him to move, blocked when it whispered for him to, felt the presence of his foe moving through the Force wrapped in shadows and rage and it comforted him in the light. He was the Chosen One. He could not fail. He was the Force made flesh.
Dooku expertly and agilely parried and danced around the intense Jedi Master. His fury gave him speed and strength. Before turning to the dark side there were days when he felt every one of his 80 years. Now as he clashed against Palpatine’s green blade and grunted with effort as he pushed the Jedi Master away, twirled his blade backwards and delivered a low sweeping strike at Palpatine’s legs, he felt 20 years younger.
His body moved as he did when he was a younger man, his strength greater, limbs more supple. Gone were the aching joints and slowed reactions. Dimmed vision of age was replaced with an intense clarity.
While wrapped in his rage and the mighty dark side it was as if he truly lived between the passing seconds of time. Everything was so much shaper and in focus, so real. His life flowed smoothly and time paused for his causal review.
He could see the minute details of Palpatine’s frayed Jedi Cloak as it passed in his sight draped over a fallen durasteel pylon. He smelled Palpatine’s sharp sweat as his blade clashed down on Dooku’s and roughly snapped it backwards as if he were swatting away Caldocian bloat flies and heard Palpatine’s controlled breathing, shallow and even like a machine without the barest hint of exertion as he sidestepped the follow through kick and drove his foot down on Dooku’s ankle in an attempt to hobble him while simultaneously bringing his emerald blade around for a decapitating strike.
As alive as Dooku’s senses were at this moment he could also hear his own breathing. Labored and heavy as he fought past the tendrils of Force that Palpatine effortlessly erected in Dooku’s path.
Dooku’s anger fueled his strength as he flipped over them but his eyes narrowed in alarm as Palpatine joined him in his flip and in midair brought his emerald saber in for a series of rapid jabs into Dooku’s midsection forcing the older Sith Lord to expend more precious energy in correcting his tumbling flight while parrying the jabs with his saber.
Palpatine landed elegantly on an overturned computer module and swept his saber before him in a snapping motion denying Dooku a landing anywhere close to him as he brought the Force up into his legs fro another explosive acrobatic attack.
Dooku landed hard on one leg, almost lost his footing but brutally kept his place as he righted himself and brought his blade up to the shoulder and held it out in a stabbing position at the Jedi Master.
Dooku felt the sweat begin to trickle down the back of his neck. He was getting winded. Dooku may have been fighting like a man twenty years younger but Palpatine was fighting like a man half his 60 years. His face was lit up like a young Jedi Knight taking his first deep forays into the Force.
Dooku hid his growing sense of alarm with a cold smile.
“You fight well my old Padawan. Only Qui Gon Jin ever came close to matching me in saber technique.”
“Qui Gon was a good friend and would feel the same shame that fills my breast now. You were the one that taught me the ways of the Force. You taught me about honor, compassion, humility and service to the Force. You taught me about loyalty and most important of all you were my harshest critic. You never allowed my destiny to get in the way of my training.”
Dooku welcomed the brief respite. He needed to catch his breath. Somewhere above them Obi Wan and Maul were fighting fiercely. They fought wordlessly for now but Dooku could sense Obi Wan’s excitement. Maul was playing frazzled and weak in the hopes that the Jedi Knight would grow over confident, arrogant.
Dooku was not certain the Sith Lord was playing the right tact for this duel.
More importantly the younger more powerful Maul should be the one facing the Chosen One and not him.
“Perhaps I never let you use that excuse because I never believed in the prophecy either my old padawan. Yoda has a way of relying on things that no one else can see. For instance surely you have heard of his Plan?”
Palpatine said nothing. He could feel the fear and apprehension in his old Master. Dooku was near the point of exhaustion. Palpatine felt warmed up and ready for more. But he needed to find out more. Dooku’s arrogance would not let him shut up. Besides, the old man needed time to catch his breath and the only thing he had to buy the time was to speak to Palpatine. Let him try and unravel the truth in the lies.
“The Shining Path as he called it. Only a select few masters are ever told of this plan. Yoda guides the order using it as a roadmap and when he assassinated Qui Gon Jin for interfering in his precious plan I knew that there was no other way to turn but the Sith.”
Palpatine frowned. Despite his outrage at the statement there was no anger. There was only the Force.
“Yoda…assassinated Qui Gon Jin?” he asked incredulously.
“Of course he did.” Dooku replied without hesitation.
“And I suppose he wore red war paints and Sith tattoos and grew a meter and half taller because your apprentice Darth Maul was the one that slew Qui Gon on Naboo.” Palpatine replied sardonically.
“Apprentice?” Dooku sneered.
Palpatine’s eyes narrowed.
“So you are no longer the master then?” Palpatine’s eyes leapt up to see Obi Wan and Maul clashing with each other, their blades whirling in mad dances. Alarm spread across his face at the horrifying realization that he had sent his padawan to face the Lord of the Sith alone.
“Master enough to know how to defeat you.” Dooku snapped and his left fist snapped up, fingers splayed outward and a bolt of coruscating bright blue lightning sprang forth hungrily seeking Palpatine.
The Jedi Master brought his saber up in a mid guard position, caught the leading edge of the lightning as he wrapped himself in a protective bubble of the force, letting the Sith lightning collect along the length of his humming green blade. Palpatine cleared his mind of doubts and surprise, certain that the dark side attack could not touch him and his certainty and confidence was like a mantle on him and he flung the dark side attack back at the Sith lord with a snap of his wrist.
The lightsaber blade dipped forward and the lightning collecting along the blade eagerly spat forth searching for a new victim. Dooku’s eyes widened and he quickly raised his hand from a forward facing fingers pointed in Palpatine’s direction into an open palmed warding gesture.
The lightning skipped off his hand and struck the ceiling above them in an explosion that caused both Force users to flinch and squint their eyes. The ceiling rumbled and threatened to come down.
“Your words are poison, Count. This battle must draw to a close now. You know by now I am sworn and destined to destroy you.” Palpatine said calmly as he stepped forward, saber drawn up into a high guard position over his head.
Dooku swept his own saber up and nodded.
“The only destiny involved in this conflict is your own final fate. At the point of my saber!” Dooku snapped and drove into the Jedi master with a sweeping series of cuts and feints.
Palpatine did not fall back, instead he drove forward, slapping away the strikes with languid counterstrokes of his own. His eyes were intent on Dooku and he waited out the older man’s attacks. The moment he felt the assault falter for even a moment he suddenly launched an assault of his own.
Palpatine leapt up, corkscrewed down into a strike at Dooku, swept in low, danced underneath the crimson blade then swept up again in another long series of scattered strikes along the defenses of the Sith Lord.
Dooku smiled grimly putting his best war face on but inside there was panic. He had heard of this phenomenon from the Jedi Master. Under Dooku’s tutelage Palpatine had become a renown master of Dooku’s own form but he also embraced the tenets of Shien with all its power and strength. When Palpatine ascended knighthood only Dooku could match him in Makashi but he was also a renown master of Shien and was starting to delve into Ataru as he and Qui Gon Jin quickly became friends and partners.
By the time Palpatine ascended to Master after training the young Jedi Knight Kit Fisto he had mastered Ataru and was starting his studies into Soresu. Learning and teaching alongside his new padawan Obi Wan Kenobi after the debacle on Naboo both Jedi were now considered formidable masters of the art of defense that Soresu provided.
It was not that Palpatine was a master of more than one form. It was not that he was so potent in the Force that Dooku wondered if perhaps Palpatine’s ranking behind Yoda in raw power was incorrect. It was not even that Dooku was so easily driven to the defensive.
What alarmed Dooku was that the rumors were true about Palpatine. He could seamlessly move between the forms as one changes pace when walking. It was almost subconscious at this point for the Jedi Master as he battered away Dooku’s counter attack with a burst of Soresu defensive strokes then wove into a taunting series of Makashi feints and jabs and spun his next attack effortlessly into a completely unrelated strike pattern from Shien.
There was no hesitation, no change in stance or moment to collect his breath or thoughts. Each movement of his blade blurred into the next form. Many said that this was impossible. It had been done between two forms but Palpatine was moving up and down the forms at will, and then it got worse as Dooku was driven back through a series of interlocked columns of resin and metal. Palpatine was mixing moves WITHIN the forms.
Dooku recognized the spin and speed of a Makashi counterattack but it contained the explosive energy of Shien that was delivered in an acrobatic spinning motion jealously guarded by Ataru masters that ended with a amateurish and thus taunting en guard Shii-Cho stroke that brought them to the center of the room.
“You’ve lost.” Palpatine decided as he watched his old Master closely. He could feel the old man’s fear like a cancer spreading through the Sith’s being eating away at his confidence and thus his power.
“It must be difficult to remain angry when you fear for your life Sith.” Palpatine laughed bitterly but his attention was drawn to the duel paralleling their own above them. He could sense Maul building his rage and anger, fueling it with the taunts that Obi Wan was delivering with each stroke of his blade. The moment was coming when Maul would cease to be the bewildered duelist and would dismantle the young Jedi’s defenses.
Palpatine could not allow it. He would not fail Qui Gon as he did on Naboo. He would not lose his closest friend’s padawan. Not after all that they had endured.
“Your thoughts betray you, my old padawan. You wish to save your friend, don’t you? Well, in order to save him you must pass through me.” Dooku smiled coldly and swept his blade inward in a welcoming gesture.
“Defend yourself.” Palpatine spat and lunged forward.
Dooku caught the end of Palpatine’s blade and pushed forward past him and whipped his saber round the opposite direction in an attempt to swipe his blade along Palpatine’s back. Palpatine flipped backwards, one foot catching Dooku on the chin and sending him tumbling backwards.
The older man managed to land on one hand and braced himself to launch another attack when Palpatine landed almost on top of him. He brought his blade down hard on Dooku’s and sent the older man further backwards.
“You remember your mirror drills master?” Palpatine asked pressing his momentum by stalking towards Dooku who was still trying to find his footing again. Palpatine spun his emerald blade in tight concentric circles.
“Time to practice them again, drillmaster. Let us see how much I’ve learned since you last taught me the saber.” Palpatine sprung forward and swung his blade in a tight spinning stab towards Dooku’s midsection. Dooku managed to catch the blade an inch before it would have buried itself in his gut. He swiped it aside and began a series of counter strokes clearing his mind of the fear and confusion.
“Mirror drills? I will show you the folly of your arrogance Palpatine.” Dooku replied tightly through gritted teeth.
Dooku was now deep in his Makashi movements. His limbs were in motion as his mind opened itself to his rage and the focus that was the dark side. He spun his blade in faster and wider arcs, Palpatine followed his movements, their blades constantly darting back and forth and clashing with each other in loud electronic hisses and spits.
The purpose of the mirror drills was simple. The Master would have the padawan match him move for move with the saber. As the padawan’s skill grew where he could match his master perfectly the speed of the drills were increased.
“Faster.” Palpatine urged as his green blade hummed louder. The blade’s movement intensified. Dooku spun his own blade in perfect unison with the Jedi Master’s.
“Faster.” Palpatine said coldly as his blade became a near solid beam of light all along the circles of movement. Dooku felt the sweat on his brow and his rage was slowly eaten away by his fear. The Jedi Master was fast. Faster than he had ever been as his padawan. Dooku was no longer able to keep up physically with the higher levels of the Makashi art and was starting to rely on his precognition, opening himself up more and more to the Force and letting it guide his blade as the Jedi Master now moved faster than could possibly be physically mirrored.
And thus the point of mirror drills was to finally give the padawan ease at allowing the Force to control his actions and trust in it to guide them.
“Faster.” Palpatine ordered tersely as his blade was now a single hum of motion and light. Dooku leaned in forward pouring his strength into this final test. If he turned away now and tried to break this clash Palpatine would strike him down. The only way out of this was to finish the drill and defeat Palpatine. There was no turning back now and he trusted to the Force to guide him through the drill, his crimson blade touching Palpatine’s green blade searching for a gap in the veritable wall of Palpatine’s defenses.
“Faster.” Palpatine stated grimly as his blade burned intensely and Dooku now lost all sense of where his arms and hands were as his blade merged with Palpatine’s into a kaleidoscope of color. Dooku felt his power faltering as the reservoir of strength faded under the continuous use.
Then Palpatine smiled.
“Faster.”
“Impossible.” Dooku exclaimed in outrage and horror as Palpatine indeed moved faster. The moment of doubt was all Palpatine needed and his emerald blade hissed aggressively as it slipped over the crimson Sith blade and neatly severed Dooku’s hands at the wrists.
Dooku did not scream in pain or anger. Instead he stared dumbly down at his own smoking wrists, the flesh neatly cauterized by the lightsaber blade. He slowly stumbled backwards. Dooku’s saber leapt up into Palpatine’s free hand which he casually clipped to the belt.
Palpatine strode past Dooku intent on the duel going on above him. As he passed Dooku he flicked his blade along the backs of Dooku’s knees hamstringing the Sith Lord. Dooku grunted in pain as he fell to his knees and stared down at his hands.
“How is this possible?” Dooku muttered.
Palpatine spied Maul as he was very nearly decapitated by an errant swing of Obi Wan’s blade. Palpatine felt the coiled strength in the Sith Lord as he prepared to strike.
“Obi Wan!” Palpatine shouted in alarm and gathered his strength to leap.
Obi Wan stalked around the stumbling Sith ready to end the killer’s life when he felt the sudden urge in dark side energy around him. Obi Wan barely had time to bring up his saber when Maul swung his blade up and around high while extending his free hand in a closed fist towards Obi Wan as if punching him.
Obi Wan grunted in surprise and pain as the air around him rushed backwards and an invisible fist crashed into his ribs and catapulted him off his feet. Obi Wan had enough presence of mind to allow the Force to carry him away and land on his feet in a crouch.
His eyes however betrayed the shock he felt as the dark side surged around him like a monsoon. Maul smiled triumphantly and motioned with his free hand again with a casual flick of his wrist. Crates and debris from the failing support structure around them swirled towards Obi Wan as if caught in a tornado.
Obi Wan whirled his saber around him as he danced through the debris, trusting in the Force as it guided him through the murderous fusillade of broken metal and wreckage. Maul stalked right into the twirling Jedi Knight and delivered a crushing backhand to Obi Wan’s face, stopping him short and allowing Maul to slam his foot down into the side of Obi Wan’s knee.
Obi Wan felt his knee give, the cartilage and bone crunched under the Sith Lord’s Force enhanced blow. Obi Wan cried out in pain but immediately slipped into a pain control mantra as he brought his light saber around and caught the crimson blade meant to take off his head.
Maul and Obi Wan faced each other as each one fought against the other blade to blade. Maul was smiling like a predator about to bring down its prey.
“I knew I was facing a fully trained Jedi Knight with the pathetic light side as an ally, Kenobi but now you are facing the Lord of the Sith.” Maul sneered. “And you have been found lacking, Jedi.” Maul snarled as he broke the locked sabers and stabbed one end of his saber directly at Obi Wan’s face.
Obi Wan swept his saber barely catching the attack but Maul did not stop there. He viciously turned his staff saber inward with the opposite end catching Obi Wan’s shoulder.
Obi Wan cried out in pain as the flesh on his left shoulder was seared deeply by the crimson blade. He lost his footing and grip on his saber.
Maul held out his hand and Obi Wan was suddenly caught like a fly in amber. The air coalesced around him like water and he desperately fought through it trying to call the light side to him but the pain and surprise was too much for him.
Maul swept one end of his blade up in a lightning fast strike neatly severing Obi Wan’s right arm at the bicep.
The Jedi threw back his head and screamed as Maul contemptuously kicked him in the midsection sending him tumbling backwards into the floor. Obi Wan sprawled out and moaned clutching his smoking stump.
Maul twirled his staff weapon with a triumphant snap and stalked towards Obi Wan.
“It took me a few years Obi Wan but now I’m finishing the job I started on Naboo.”
Obi Wan groaned and tried to focus on Maul but the Sith lord was filling his mind with doubts and fears, his connection to the light was lost in shadows and smoke and he felt very much alone.
“No Obi Wan. Never alone.” Palpatine replied gently in his mind.
The Jedi Master landed catlike behind Maul. Maul paused and smiled cruelly.
“I see you need yet another master to distract me, getting to be a nasty habit – boy.”
Palpatine twirled his saber over his head and extended his free hand outward in an open palmed gesture.
“Can you feel it Lord of the Sith? The prophecy is about to be fulfilled.”
Maul whirled around in a low crouch and flung his staff outward at the Jedi Master. The whirling staff turned into a crimson scythe as it arced towards Palpatine. Palpatine leapt straight up allowing the scythe top burn past his feet only to feel the Force harden around him like steel and before he could resist the sudden attack a volley of indigo lightning lashed through and around him.
Palpatine screamed in pain but held his hands forward, green saber falling from his grip and tumbling down, bouncing off the walkway and spinning out of view to the level below. Palpatine caught the lightning on his hands and used the Force to contain the lightning within his grip. He landed in a low crouch and closed his hands around the last ergs of lightning as the torrent ceased. The lightning quickly collapsed into a wild spinning ball. Palpatine concentrated harder and the light side quickly doused the pent up rage and fury like a cool river.
The lightning vanished but Palpatine was breathing hard from the effort and smoke rose from his Jedi tunic.
Maul chuckled darkly as he called his staff weapon back to him. The scything crimson blade slashed back towards him and Palpatine was crouching directly in its path. The Jedi Master took a deep breath and pirouetted past the swiftly swinging blade which landed snugly in Maul’s hands.
“You look a little tired old man.” Maul sneered. “Its time to test the prophecy of the Chosen One. I will break you like I broke your apprentice.” Maul vowed and advanced on Palpatine.
“Hmm…a prisoner the Chosen One seeks.” Yoda mused softly. The sounds of battle were quickly retreating from his command post. The Clone armies were routing the last of the Separatists forces.
“That can’t happen.” Mace Windu concluded as he silently stepped up onto the platform.
The diminutive Jedi Master nodded to the new comer.
“If allowed to probe too deeply, dangerous the Chosen One may become. Interfere in our plans he cannot.”
“But if he is the Chosen One…”
“Invaluable to the Plan he is but he is fulfilling the prophecy because we are allowing him to.” Yoda pointed out.
Mace nodded. The Jedi master had brought him into the plan as soon as he ascended to the Council. Too long Yoda had been working alone and without a powerful right hand to assist him. Mace Windu had all the qualities that Yoda sought for in his Hand. Mace was powerful, independent and most importantly of all willing to do anything to assure the ascendancy of the Jedi Order.
Yoda had peered through the future strands of fate and discovered disturbing trends and revelations. Master Windu considered himself fortunate that he found himself in this situation, able to help bring the Order to a place it had never dared approach. Ultimate power in the Republic. Some among the Order would demand to know at what cost. Mace did not care. They had already lost any semblance of normalcy and family. The only family he had were his brothers in arms and like any family there needed to be a head, a leader and that leader was Yoda.
Too many of his fellow Jedi were weak and willing to allow the Will of the Force to guide them and if that meant allowing the Order to fall Mace was certain that there were some who would accept that fate.
But Mace Windu never accepted defeat. Never could bring himself to believe that the Force would betray them. After all the most telling argument of all against blind devotion to the will of the Force was Yoda’s Shining Path. If the Force truly meant for them to fall then why reveal the way out of that trap? Why let Yoda see that fate and plan how to escape fate’s trap?
No, this was not a test of faith. This was a test of wills and Mace Windu’s will was as unyielding as neutronium. There could be no turning back now. The Shining Path was a long dark and lonely road but at the end there was the promise of eternal peace and prosperity for the Order and the Republic.
“The Supreme Chancellor has requested an update on our progress.”
“Victory we bring to the Republic.”
Mace nodded sagely.
“I always felt that it was an error in letting that child ascend to the post of Supreme Chancellor. Vallorum always proved so…pliable.” Mace noted calmly.
Yoda eyed his Hand with a studious gaze. Mace Windu was always mindful of what needed to be done but he was not a surgeon in his grace. Windu liked his pawns easy to maneuver and control. If Windu could directly control all of them like puppets he would. He was a fine assistant and confidant but the Shining Path would falter if left to his devices. He was too blunt an instrument for the plotting but invaluable when it came time for the execution.
“Prove her worth Supreme Chancellor Amidala will when the time is right.”
“As always I have faith in you and the Plan.” Mace replied bowing his head respectfully. “Do we allow Palpatine to complete his destiny?”
Yoda shook his head emphatically.
“The Chosen One will complete his destiny and fulfill the prophecy at the moment the Shining Path is complete. No more, no less.”
“It will be a shame to lose him.”
Yoda frowned.
“All prophecies a martyr must have. No different this one is.”
“And your decision?”
Yoda closed his eyes for a moment and peered past the veil of time and space. The decisions he made now would reverberate throughout eternity. Careful was his way. Controlled chaos would bring him what he needed. The emphasis was on the control and not the chaos.
“The Lord of the Sith we still need. The Apprentice, my old padawan, must fall.” Yoda concluded.
Anakin broke through another wall of sand and for a moment the air cleared for him, did not choke him and blind him with stinging grit.
He was no where he recognized.
How the hell did he stumble out of Mos Espa? He was no tourist. He lived all his life on Tatooine and sand storms as dangerous as they always were could not have reduced him to a blind stumbling idiot.
“This is bad.” Anakin concluded as he felt the sandy ground beneath his boots. The hard packed earth indicating that he was even on the plain of Mos Espa could not be felt. He had somehow stumbled off into the wastes.
“This is very bad.”
Suddenly the storm kicked up again and seemed to push him forward, deeper into the wastes. He stumbled forward and tried to maintain his bearings. He used all his senses to try and navigate this storm meanwhile he tried his comlink again.
Nothing. Static.
He slapped the comlink back on his belt in disgust.
A very quiet voice whispered that he was going to die out here.
“nonsense.” He spat as he moved purposefully forward. There was no use fighting the storm now. He could only hope it would pass him shortly and he could make sense of some of the landmarks.
He walked for a long time, the moan of the storm and the stinging grit on his skin that seemed to be scouring him were his only companions. He tried to focus on the discomfort and not the thoughts that were coming unbidden to his mind. Thoughts of Sith lords, Jedi and power.
There was no denying the rush he felt when he broke out of Plagueis’ grip. The jolt of excitement at the promise of even more power. It had promised him so much and on top of that confirmed what he always knew.
Anakin Skywalker was special.
What was that?
His eyes caught it again, long looming shapes breaking through the near monotonous clouds of dust and sand.
Rock. There was safety in rock.
Anakin rushed forward, trying to breath through the thick clouds as he made his way to the rock outcroppings. He stopped short for a moment as he suddenly felt that he was being watched.
The storm moaned louder now and the wind hammered down on his back and head, something hard skipped off his shoulder and drew blood from his cheek. Anakin surged forward to find the shelter he desperately needed.
Anakin reached the rock and slid past several tight spots as he climbed for the center of the shelter of stone. The storm seemed to die down the moment he reached the caves that were carved out of the rock.
He fell onto his back and took several deep breaths. Things were moving so fast. He was used to speed and excitement of racing but this was somehow different.
The storm moaned through the rocks as it passed over him and he could hear nothing else save for his own breathing. He closed his eyes and thought of his sweet Beru.
“Beru’s going to kill me.” He muttered.
Soft mechanical rhythmic breathing suddenly broke into his reverie.
Anakin scrambled to his feet. The dark shape of Darth Plagueis stood at the end of the cave. It was as if he had been waiting for him the whole time. But Anakin didn’t see him when he stumbled into the cave.
“How did you ---”
Darth Plagueis held out his hand and in it was a small cylindrical metal handle.
“What is that?” Anakin peered closer at the object, hesitantly taking a step closer to the Sith lord. “Is that a laser sword?”
“A lightsaber. The weapon of a Jedi Knight and of their Sith counterparts.”
Anakin looked from the full face respirator mask back down to the offered lightsaber.
“What do you want me to do with that?”
“Defend yourself.” Plagueis replied in his odd deep bass sing song voice as he dropped the saber at Anakin’s feet and stepped back into the shadows.
“What the hell do you mean defend myself?” Anakin asked angrily as he tried to follow the Sith lord into the deep shadows of the cave but then he heard it. Deep and haunting out on the wind of the dying storm.
The call froze his blood. He stopped short and slowly turned his head willing that the call was far off in the distance.
The call came closer, much closer and he could hear it scrambling out on the rocks below. His hand dropped to his blaster but there was nothing there. Plagueis had effortlessly crushed it back in Mos Espa. The call was louder now and echoed off the walls of his cave and he heard its breath.
Anakin scooped the saber up off the ground and turned quickly.
The Krayt Dragon’s head slowly peered into the entrance of the cave and it took a deep breath again. It was smelling the air. Smelling him. Fresh meat on the sands. The most formidable predator of the wastes hauled its body up and now filled the entrance of the cave, jaw slowly opening and closing as if imagining eating him.
“Plagueis! A little help damnit!” Anakin called back into the shadows.
“Defend yourself Anakin Skywalker. A Sith lord that cannot defend himself is not worthy of the title.”
“I don’t know how to use this thing!” Anakin shouted back as he fumbled along the controls on the hilt. Suddenly a crimson blade sprang forth from the hilt in a loud snap hiss. The Dragon paused as it sensed the sudden change in its intended prey.
Anakin held the saber up in front of him and noted how the blade hummed so hypnotically in the air.
“The Force will help you in this conflict.”
“I don’t feel anything Plagueis! This thing is going to eat me alive!” Anakin exclaimed in growing frustration and anger as the dragon slid in deeper into the cave.
“You can feel your anger can’t you?” Plagueis asked. “Use it. Let it guide you and make you powerful.”
“Right now I am scared out of my mind damnit!”
Plagueis smiled coldly.
“You can use fear too Anakin. Fear is a powerful defender of the Sith. Tap into them. Call to them like lovers and they will come to you.”
The dragon reared up now to strike and Anakin raised his saber in response. He could feel the air still around him as if the cave itself were holding its breath in anticipation of what was to come.
“If you’re my father help me!!” Anakin pleaded one last time.
Plagueis said nothing for a moment, as if Anakin’s response was not at all what he expected.
“I am helping you – child.” Plagueis whispered. “You are the Force made Flesh. Nothing can defeat you. You need to believe that and be furious at those that do not realize it, Anakin.”
The dragon attacked and Darth Plagueis watched intently as the boy finally opened himself to his rage.
Shii-Cho- 1
Makashi- 2 (Dooku)
Soresu- 3 (Obi-Wan)
Ataru- 4 (Yoda, Qui Gon)
Shien- 5 (Anakin)
Niman- 6
Juyo-7
Vaapad- Mace
Chapter 2: The Master and the Apprentice
Palpatine was one with the Force. He moved where it told him to move, blocked when it whispered for him to, felt the presence of his foe moving through the Force wrapped in shadows and rage and it comforted him in the light. He was the Chosen One. He could not fail. He was the Force made flesh.
Dooku expertly and agilely parried and danced around the intense Jedi Master. His fury gave him speed and strength. Before turning to the dark side there were days when he felt every one of his 80 years. Now as he clashed against Palpatine’s green blade and grunted with effort as he pushed the Jedi Master away, twirled his blade backwards and delivered a low sweeping strike at Palpatine’s legs, he felt 20 years younger.
His body moved as he did when he was a younger man, his strength greater, limbs more supple. Gone were the aching joints and slowed reactions. Dimmed vision of age was replaced with an intense clarity.
While wrapped in his rage and the mighty dark side it was as if he truly lived between the passing seconds of time. Everything was so much shaper and in focus, so real. His life flowed smoothly and time paused for his causal review.
He could see the minute details of Palpatine’s frayed Jedi Cloak as it passed in his sight draped over a fallen durasteel pylon. He smelled Palpatine’s sharp sweat as his blade clashed down on Dooku’s and roughly snapped it backwards as if he were swatting away Caldocian bloat flies and heard Palpatine’s controlled breathing, shallow and even like a machine without the barest hint of exertion as he sidestepped the follow through kick and drove his foot down on Dooku’s ankle in an attempt to hobble him while simultaneously bringing his emerald blade around for a decapitating strike.
As alive as Dooku’s senses were at this moment he could also hear his own breathing. Labored and heavy as he fought past the tendrils of Force that Palpatine effortlessly erected in Dooku’s path.
Dooku’s anger fueled his strength as he flipped over them but his eyes narrowed in alarm as Palpatine joined him in his flip and in midair brought his emerald saber in for a series of rapid jabs into Dooku’s midsection forcing the older Sith Lord to expend more precious energy in correcting his tumbling flight while parrying the jabs with his saber.
Palpatine landed elegantly on an overturned computer module and swept his saber before him in a snapping motion denying Dooku a landing anywhere close to him as he brought the Force up into his legs fro another explosive acrobatic attack.
Dooku landed hard on one leg, almost lost his footing but brutally kept his place as he righted himself and brought his blade up to the shoulder and held it out in a stabbing position at the Jedi Master.
Dooku felt the sweat begin to trickle down the back of his neck. He was getting winded. Dooku may have been fighting like a man twenty years younger but Palpatine was fighting like a man half his 60 years. His face was lit up like a young Jedi Knight taking his first deep forays into the Force.
Dooku hid his growing sense of alarm with a cold smile.
“You fight well my old Padawan. Only Qui Gon Jin ever came close to matching me in saber technique.”
“Qui Gon was a good friend and would feel the same shame that fills my breast now. You were the one that taught me the ways of the Force. You taught me about honor, compassion, humility and service to the Force. You taught me about loyalty and most important of all you were my harshest critic. You never allowed my destiny to get in the way of my training.”
Dooku welcomed the brief respite. He needed to catch his breath. Somewhere above them Obi Wan and Maul were fighting fiercely. They fought wordlessly for now but Dooku could sense Obi Wan’s excitement. Maul was playing frazzled and weak in the hopes that the Jedi Knight would grow over confident, arrogant.
Dooku was not certain the Sith Lord was playing the right tact for this duel.
More importantly the younger more powerful Maul should be the one facing the Chosen One and not him.
“Perhaps I never let you use that excuse because I never believed in the prophecy either my old padawan. Yoda has a way of relying on things that no one else can see. For instance surely you have heard of his Plan?”
Palpatine said nothing. He could feel the fear and apprehension in his old Master. Dooku was near the point of exhaustion. Palpatine felt warmed up and ready for more. But he needed to find out more. Dooku’s arrogance would not let him shut up. Besides, the old man needed time to catch his breath and the only thing he had to buy the time was to speak to Palpatine. Let him try and unravel the truth in the lies.
“The Shining Path as he called it. Only a select few masters are ever told of this plan. Yoda guides the order using it as a roadmap and when he assassinated Qui Gon Jin for interfering in his precious plan I knew that there was no other way to turn but the Sith.”
Palpatine frowned. Despite his outrage at the statement there was no anger. There was only the Force.
“Yoda…assassinated Qui Gon Jin?” he asked incredulously.
“Of course he did.” Dooku replied without hesitation.
“And I suppose he wore red war paints and Sith tattoos and grew a meter and half taller because your apprentice Darth Maul was the one that slew Qui Gon on Naboo.” Palpatine replied sardonically.
“Apprentice?” Dooku sneered.
Palpatine’s eyes narrowed.
“So you are no longer the master then?” Palpatine’s eyes leapt up to see Obi Wan and Maul clashing with each other, their blades whirling in mad dances. Alarm spread across his face at the horrifying realization that he had sent his padawan to face the Lord of the Sith alone.
“Master enough to know how to defeat you.” Dooku snapped and his left fist snapped up, fingers splayed outward and a bolt of coruscating bright blue lightning sprang forth hungrily seeking Palpatine.
The Jedi Master brought his saber up in a mid guard position, caught the leading edge of the lightning as he wrapped himself in a protective bubble of the force, letting the Sith lightning collect along the length of his humming green blade. Palpatine cleared his mind of doubts and surprise, certain that the dark side attack could not touch him and his certainty and confidence was like a mantle on him and he flung the dark side attack back at the Sith lord with a snap of his wrist.
The lightsaber blade dipped forward and the lightning collecting along the blade eagerly spat forth searching for a new victim. Dooku’s eyes widened and he quickly raised his hand from a forward facing fingers pointed in Palpatine’s direction into an open palmed warding gesture.
The lightning skipped off his hand and struck the ceiling above them in an explosion that caused both Force users to flinch and squint their eyes. The ceiling rumbled and threatened to come down.
“Your words are poison, Count. This battle must draw to a close now. You know by now I am sworn and destined to destroy you.” Palpatine said calmly as he stepped forward, saber drawn up into a high guard position over his head.
Dooku swept his own saber up and nodded.
“The only destiny involved in this conflict is your own final fate. At the point of my saber!” Dooku snapped and drove into the Jedi master with a sweeping series of cuts and feints.
Palpatine did not fall back, instead he drove forward, slapping away the strikes with languid counterstrokes of his own. His eyes were intent on Dooku and he waited out the older man’s attacks. The moment he felt the assault falter for even a moment he suddenly launched an assault of his own.
Palpatine leapt up, corkscrewed down into a strike at Dooku, swept in low, danced underneath the crimson blade then swept up again in another long series of scattered strikes along the defenses of the Sith Lord.
Dooku smiled grimly putting his best war face on but inside there was panic. He had heard of this phenomenon from the Jedi Master. Under Dooku’s tutelage Palpatine had become a renown master of Dooku’s own form but he also embraced the tenets of Shien with all its power and strength. When Palpatine ascended knighthood only Dooku could match him in Makashi but he was also a renown master of Shien and was starting to delve into Ataru as he and Qui Gon Jin quickly became friends and partners.
By the time Palpatine ascended to Master after training the young Jedi Knight Kit Fisto he had mastered Ataru and was starting his studies into Soresu. Learning and teaching alongside his new padawan Obi Wan Kenobi after the debacle on Naboo both Jedi were now considered formidable masters of the art of defense that Soresu provided.
It was not that Palpatine was a master of more than one form. It was not that he was so potent in the Force that Dooku wondered if perhaps Palpatine’s ranking behind Yoda in raw power was incorrect. It was not even that Dooku was so easily driven to the defensive.
What alarmed Dooku was that the rumors were true about Palpatine. He could seamlessly move between the forms as one changes pace when walking. It was almost subconscious at this point for the Jedi Master as he battered away Dooku’s counter attack with a burst of Soresu defensive strokes then wove into a taunting series of Makashi feints and jabs and spun his next attack effortlessly into a completely unrelated strike pattern from Shien.
There was no hesitation, no change in stance or moment to collect his breath or thoughts. Each movement of his blade blurred into the next form. Many said that this was impossible. It had been done between two forms but Palpatine was moving up and down the forms at will, and then it got worse as Dooku was driven back through a series of interlocked columns of resin and metal. Palpatine was mixing moves WITHIN the forms.
Dooku recognized the spin and speed of a Makashi counterattack but it contained the explosive energy of Shien that was delivered in an acrobatic spinning motion jealously guarded by Ataru masters that ended with a amateurish and thus taunting en guard Shii-Cho stroke that brought them to the center of the room.
“You’ve lost.” Palpatine decided as he watched his old Master closely. He could feel the old man’s fear like a cancer spreading through the Sith’s being eating away at his confidence and thus his power.
“It must be difficult to remain angry when you fear for your life Sith.” Palpatine laughed bitterly but his attention was drawn to the duel paralleling their own above them. He could sense Maul building his rage and anger, fueling it with the taunts that Obi Wan was delivering with each stroke of his blade. The moment was coming when Maul would cease to be the bewildered duelist and would dismantle the young Jedi’s defenses.
Palpatine could not allow it. He would not fail Qui Gon as he did on Naboo. He would not lose his closest friend’s padawan. Not after all that they had endured.
“Your thoughts betray you, my old padawan. You wish to save your friend, don’t you? Well, in order to save him you must pass through me.” Dooku smiled coldly and swept his blade inward in a welcoming gesture.
“Defend yourself.” Palpatine spat and lunged forward.
Dooku caught the end of Palpatine’s blade and pushed forward past him and whipped his saber round the opposite direction in an attempt to swipe his blade along Palpatine’s back. Palpatine flipped backwards, one foot catching Dooku on the chin and sending him tumbling backwards.
The older man managed to land on one hand and braced himself to launch another attack when Palpatine landed almost on top of him. He brought his blade down hard on Dooku’s and sent the older man further backwards.
“You remember your mirror drills master?” Palpatine asked pressing his momentum by stalking towards Dooku who was still trying to find his footing again. Palpatine spun his emerald blade in tight concentric circles.
“Time to practice them again, drillmaster. Let us see how much I’ve learned since you last taught me the saber.” Palpatine sprung forward and swung his blade in a tight spinning stab towards Dooku’s midsection. Dooku managed to catch the blade an inch before it would have buried itself in his gut. He swiped it aside and began a series of counter strokes clearing his mind of the fear and confusion.
“Mirror drills? I will show you the folly of your arrogance Palpatine.” Dooku replied tightly through gritted teeth.
Dooku was now deep in his Makashi movements. His limbs were in motion as his mind opened itself to his rage and the focus that was the dark side. He spun his blade in faster and wider arcs, Palpatine followed his movements, their blades constantly darting back and forth and clashing with each other in loud electronic hisses and spits.
The purpose of the mirror drills was simple. The Master would have the padawan match him move for move with the saber. As the padawan’s skill grew where he could match his master perfectly the speed of the drills were increased.
“Faster.” Palpatine urged as his green blade hummed louder. The blade’s movement intensified. Dooku spun his own blade in perfect unison with the Jedi Master’s.
“Faster.” Palpatine said coldly as his blade became a near solid beam of light all along the circles of movement. Dooku felt the sweat on his brow and his rage was slowly eaten away by his fear. The Jedi Master was fast. Faster than he had ever been as his padawan. Dooku was no longer able to keep up physically with the higher levels of the Makashi art and was starting to rely on his precognition, opening himself up more and more to the Force and letting it guide his blade as the Jedi Master now moved faster than could possibly be physically mirrored.
And thus the point of mirror drills was to finally give the padawan ease at allowing the Force to control his actions and trust in it to guide them.
“Faster.” Palpatine ordered tersely as his blade was now a single hum of motion and light. Dooku leaned in forward pouring his strength into this final test. If he turned away now and tried to break this clash Palpatine would strike him down. The only way out of this was to finish the drill and defeat Palpatine. There was no turning back now and he trusted to the Force to guide him through the drill, his crimson blade touching Palpatine’s green blade searching for a gap in the veritable wall of Palpatine’s defenses.
“Faster.” Palpatine stated grimly as his blade burned intensely and Dooku now lost all sense of where his arms and hands were as his blade merged with Palpatine’s into a kaleidoscope of color. Dooku felt his power faltering as the reservoir of strength faded under the continuous use.
Then Palpatine smiled.
“Faster.”
“Impossible.” Dooku exclaimed in outrage and horror as Palpatine indeed moved faster. The moment of doubt was all Palpatine needed and his emerald blade hissed aggressively as it slipped over the crimson Sith blade and neatly severed Dooku’s hands at the wrists.
Dooku did not scream in pain or anger. Instead he stared dumbly down at his own smoking wrists, the flesh neatly cauterized by the lightsaber blade. He slowly stumbled backwards. Dooku’s saber leapt up into Palpatine’s free hand which he casually clipped to the belt.
Palpatine strode past Dooku intent on the duel going on above him. As he passed Dooku he flicked his blade along the backs of Dooku’s knees hamstringing the Sith Lord. Dooku grunted in pain as he fell to his knees and stared down at his hands.
“How is this possible?” Dooku muttered.
Palpatine spied Maul as he was very nearly decapitated by an errant swing of Obi Wan’s blade. Palpatine felt the coiled strength in the Sith Lord as he prepared to strike.
“Obi Wan!” Palpatine shouted in alarm and gathered his strength to leap.
Obi Wan stalked around the stumbling Sith ready to end the killer’s life when he felt the sudden urge in dark side energy around him. Obi Wan barely had time to bring up his saber when Maul swung his blade up and around high while extending his free hand in a closed fist towards Obi Wan as if punching him.
Obi Wan grunted in surprise and pain as the air around him rushed backwards and an invisible fist crashed into his ribs and catapulted him off his feet. Obi Wan had enough presence of mind to allow the Force to carry him away and land on his feet in a crouch.
His eyes however betrayed the shock he felt as the dark side surged around him like a monsoon. Maul smiled triumphantly and motioned with his free hand again with a casual flick of his wrist. Crates and debris from the failing support structure around them swirled towards Obi Wan as if caught in a tornado.
Obi Wan whirled his saber around him as he danced through the debris, trusting in the Force as it guided him through the murderous fusillade of broken metal and wreckage. Maul stalked right into the twirling Jedi Knight and delivered a crushing backhand to Obi Wan’s face, stopping him short and allowing Maul to slam his foot down into the side of Obi Wan’s knee.
Obi Wan felt his knee give, the cartilage and bone crunched under the Sith Lord’s Force enhanced blow. Obi Wan cried out in pain but immediately slipped into a pain control mantra as he brought his light saber around and caught the crimson blade meant to take off his head.
Maul and Obi Wan faced each other as each one fought against the other blade to blade. Maul was smiling like a predator about to bring down its prey.
“I knew I was facing a fully trained Jedi Knight with the pathetic light side as an ally, Kenobi but now you are facing the Lord of the Sith.” Maul sneered. “And you have been found lacking, Jedi.” Maul snarled as he broke the locked sabers and stabbed one end of his saber directly at Obi Wan’s face.
Obi Wan swept his saber barely catching the attack but Maul did not stop there. He viciously turned his staff saber inward with the opposite end catching Obi Wan’s shoulder.
Obi Wan cried out in pain as the flesh on his left shoulder was seared deeply by the crimson blade. He lost his footing and grip on his saber.
Maul held out his hand and Obi Wan was suddenly caught like a fly in amber. The air coalesced around him like water and he desperately fought through it trying to call the light side to him but the pain and surprise was too much for him.
Maul swept one end of his blade up in a lightning fast strike neatly severing Obi Wan’s right arm at the bicep.
The Jedi threw back his head and screamed as Maul contemptuously kicked him in the midsection sending him tumbling backwards into the floor. Obi Wan sprawled out and moaned clutching his smoking stump.
Maul twirled his staff weapon with a triumphant snap and stalked towards Obi Wan.
“It took me a few years Obi Wan but now I’m finishing the job I started on Naboo.”
Obi Wan groaned and tried to focus on Maul but the Sith lord was filling his mind with doubts and fears, his connection to the light was lost in shadows and smoke and he felt very much alone.
“No Obi Wan. Never alone.” Palpatine replied gently in his mind.
The Jedi Master landed catlike behind Maul. Maul paused and smiled cruelly.
“I see you need yet another master to distract me, getting to be a nasty habit – boy.”
Palpatine twirled his saber over his head and extended his free hand outward in an open palmed gesture.
“Can you feel it Lord of the Sith? The prophecy is about to be fulfilled.”
Maul whirled around in a low crouch and flung his staff outward at the Jedi Master. The whirling staff turned into a crimson scythe as it arced towards Palpatine. Palpatine leapt straight up allowing the scythe top burn past his feet only to feel the Force harden around him like steel and before he could resist the sudden attack a volley of indigo lightning lashed through and around him.
Palpatine screamed in pain but held his hands forward, green saber falling from his grip and tumbling down, bouncing off the walkway and spinning out of view to the level below. Palpatine caught the lightning on his hands and used the Force to contain the lightning within his grip. He landed in a low crouch and closed his hands around the last ergs of lightning as the torrent ceased. The lightning quickly collapsed into a wild spinning ball. Palpatine concentrated harder and the light side quickly doused the pent up rage and fury like a cool river.
The lightning vanished but Palpatine was breathing hard from the effort and smoke rose from his Jedi tunic.
Maul chuckled darkly as he called his staff weapon back to him. The scything crimson blade slashed back towards him and Palpatine was crouching directly in its path. The Jedi Master took a deep breath and pirouetted past the swiftly swinging blade which landed snugly in Maul’s hands.
“You look a little tired old man.” Maul sneered. “Its time to test the prophecy of the Chosen One. I will break you like I broke your apprentice.” Maul vowed and advanced on Palpatine.
“Hmm…a prisoner the Chosen One seeks.” Yoda mused softly. The sounds of battle were quickly retreating from his command post. The Clone armies were routing the last of the Separatists forces.
“That can’t happen.” Mace Windu concluded as he silently stepped up onto the platform.
The diminutive Jedi Master nodded to the new comer.
“If allowed to probe too deeply, dangerous the Chosen One may become. Interfere in our plans he cannot.”
“But if he is the Chosen One…”
“Invaluable to the Plan he is but he is fulfilling the prophecy because we are allowing him to.” Yoda pointed out.
Mace nodded. The Jedi master had brought him into the plan as soon as he ascended to the Council. Too long Yoda had been working alone and without a powerful right hand to assist him. Mace Windu had all the qualities that Yoda sought for in his Hand. Mace was powerful, independent and most importantly of all willing to do anything to assure the ascendancy of the Jedi Order.
Yoda had peered through the future strands of fate and discovered disturbing trends and revelations. Master Windu considered himself fortunate that he found himself in this situation, able to help bring the Order to a place it had never dared approach. Ultimate power in the Republic. Some among the Order would demand to know at what cost. Mace did not care. They had already lost any semblance of normalcy and family. The only family he had were his brothers in arms and like any family there needed to be a head, a leader and that leader was Yoda.
Too many of his fellow Jedi were weak and willing to allow the Will of the Force to guide them and if that meant allowing the Order to fall Mace was certain that there were some who would accept that fate.
But Mace Windu never accepted defeat. Never could bring himself to believe that the Force would betray them. After all the most telling argument of all against blind devotion to the will of the Force was Yoda’s Shining Path. If the Force truly meant for them to fall then why reveal the way out of that trap? Why let Yoda see that fate and plan how to escape fate’s trap?
No, this was not a test of faith. This was a test of wills and Mace Windu’s will was as unyielding as neutronium. There could be no turning back now. The Shining Path was a long dark and lonely road but at the end there was the promise of eternal peace and prosperity for the Order and the Republic.
“The Supreme Chancellor has requested an update on our progress.”
“Victory we bring to the Republic.”
Mace nodded sagely.
“I always felt that it was an error in letting that child ascend to the post of Supreme Chancellor. Vallorum always proved so…pliable.” Mace noted calmly.
Yoda eyed his Hand with a studious gaze. Mace Windu was always mindful of what needed to be done but he was not a surgeon in his grace. Windu liked his pawns easy to maneuver and control. If Windu could directly control all of them like puppets he would. He was a fine assistant and confidant but the Shining Path would falter if left to his devices. He was too blunt an instrument for the plotting but invaluable when it came time for the execution.
“Prove her worth Supreme Chancellor Amidala will when the time is right.”
“As always I have faith in you and the Plan.” Mace replied bowing his head respectfully. “Do we allow Palpatine to complete his destiny?”
Yoda shook his head emphatically.
“The Chosen One will complete his destiny and fulfill the prophecy at the moment the Shining Path is complete. No more, no less.”
“It will be a shame to lose him.”
Yoda frowned.
“All prophecies a martyr must have. No different this one is.”
“And your decision?”
Yoda closed his eyes for a moment and peered past the veil of time and space. The decisions he made now would reverberate throughout eternity. Careful was his way. Controlled chaos would bring him what he needed. The emphasis was on the control and not the chaos.
“The Lord of the Sith we still need. The Apprentice, my old padawan, must fall.” Yoda concluded.
Anakin broke through another wall of sand and for a moment the air cleared for him, did not choke him and blind him with stinging grit.
He was no where he recognized.
How the hell did he stumble out of Mos Espa? He was no tourist. He lived all his life on Tatooine and sand storms as dangerous as they always were could not have reduced him to a blind stumbling idiot.
“This is bad.” Anakin concluded as he felt the sandy ground beneath his boots. The hard packed earth indicating that he was even on the plain of Mos Espa could not be felt. He had somehow stumbled off into the wastes.
“This is very bad.”
Suddenly the storm kicked up again and seemed to push him forward, deeper into the wastes. He stumbled forward and tried to maintain his bearings. He used all his senses to try and navigate this storm meanwhile he tried his comlink again.
Nothing. Static.
He slapped the comlink back on his belt in disgust.
A very quiet voice whispered that he was going to die out here.
“nonsense.” He spat as he moved purposefully forward. There was no use fighting the storm now. He could only hope it would pass him shortly and he could make sense of some of the landmarks.
He walked for a long time, the moan of the storm and the stinging grit on his skin that seemed to be scouring him were his only companions. He tried to focus on the discomfort and not the thoughts that were coming unbidden to his mind. Thoughts of Sith lords, Jedi and power.
There was no denying the rush he felt when he broke out of Plagueis’ grip. The jolt of excitement at the promise of even more power. It had promised him so much and on top of that confirmed what he always knew.
Anakin Skywalker was special.
What was that?
His eyes caught it again, long looming shapes breaking through the near monotonous clouds of dust and sand.
Rock. There was safety in rock.
Anakin rushed forward, trying to breath through the thick clouds as he made his way to the rock outcroppings. He stopped short for a moment as he suddenly felt that he was being watched.
The storm moaned louder now and the wind hammered down on his back and head, something hard skipped off his shoulder and drew blood from his cheek. Anakin surged forward to find the shelter he desperately needed.
Anakin reached the rock and slid past several tight spots as he climbed for the center of the shelter of stone. The storm seemed to die down the moment he reached the caves that were carved out of the rock.
He fell onto his back and took several deep breaths. Things were moving so fast. He was used to speed and excitement of racing but this was somehow different.
The storm moaned through the rocks as it passed over him and he could hear nothing else save for his own breathing. He closed his eyes and thought of his sweet Beru.
“Beru’s going to kill me.” He muttered.
Soft mechanical rhythmic breathing suddenly broke into his reverie.
Anakin scrambled to his feet. The dark shape of Darth Plagueis stood at the end of the cave. It was as if he had been waiting for him the whole time. But Anakin didn’t see him when he stumbled into the cave.
“How did you ---”
Darth Plagueis held out his hand and in it was a small cylindrical metal handle.
“What is that?” Anakin peered closer at the object, hesitantly taking a step closer to the Sith lord. “Is that a laser sword?”
“A lightsaber. The weapon of a Jedi Knight and of their Sith counterparts.”
Anakin looked from the full face respirator mask back down to the offered lightsaber.
“What do you want me to do with that?”
“Defend yourself.” Plagueis replied in his odd deep bass sing song voice as he dropped the saber at Anakin’s feet and stepped back into the shadows.
“What the hell do you mean defend myself?” Anakin asked angrily as he tried to follow the Sith lord into the deep shadows of the cave but then he heard it. Deep and haunting out on the wind of the dying storm.
The call froze his blood. He stopped short and slowly turned his head willing that the call was far off in the distance.
The call came closer, much closer and he could hear it scrambling out on the rocks below. His hand dropped to his blaster but there was nothing there. Plagueis had effortlessly crushed it back in Mos Espa. The call was louder now and echoed off the walls of his cave and he heard its breath.
Anakin scooped the saber up off the ground and turned quickly.
The Krayt Dragon’s head slowly peered into the entrance of the cave and it took a deep breath again. It was smelling the air. Smelling him. Fresh meat on the sands. The most formidable predator of the wastes hauled its body up and now filled the entrance of the cave, jaw slowly opening and closing as if imagining eating him.
“Plagueis! A little help damnit!” Anakin called back into the shadows.
“Defend yourself Anakin Skywalker. A Sith lord that cannot defend himself is not worthy of the title.”
“I don’t know how to use this thing!” Anakin shouted back as he fumbled along the controls on the hilt. Suddenly a crimson blade sprang forth from the hilt in a loud snap hiss. The Dragon paused as it sensed the sudden change in its intended prey.
Anakin held the saber up in front of him and noted how the blade hummed so hypnotically in the air.
“The Force will help you in this conflict.”
“I don’t feel anything Plagueis! This thing is going to eat me alive!” Anakin exclaimed in growing frustration and anger as the dragon slid in deeper into the cave.
“You can feel your anger can’t you?” Plagueis asked. “Use it. Let it guide you and make you powerful.”
“Right now I am scared out of my mind damnit!”
Plagueis smiled coldly.
“You can use fear too Anakin. Fear is a powerful defender of the Sith. Tap into them. Call to them like lovers and they will come to you.”
The dragon reared up now to strike and Anakin raised his saber in response. He could feel the air still around him as if the cave itself were holding its breath in anticipation of what was to come.
“If you’re my father help me!!” Anakin pleaded one last time.
Plagueis said nothing for a moment, as if Anakin’s response was not at all what he expected.
“I am helping you – child.” Plagueis whispered. “You are the Force made Flesh. Nothing can defeat you. You need to believe that and be furious at those that do not realize it, Anakin.”
The dragon attacked and Darth Plagueis watched intently as the boy finally opened himself to his rage.
Shii-Cho- 1
Makashi- 2 (Dooku)
Soresu- 3 (Obi-Wan)
Ataru- 4 (Yoda, Qui Gon)
Shien- 5 (Anakin)
Niman- 6
Juyo-7
Vaapad- Mace
Last edited by Stravo on 2005-06-02 01:04pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Shroom Man 777
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FIRST POST!
Wow. Wow! This is really good! Poor Dooku. Though I certainly hope that Anakin would end up alright. Stravo, we need more!
Wow. Wow! This is really good! Poor Dooku. Though I certainly hope that Anakin would end up alright. Stravo, we need more!
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN!
Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people
- PeZookShroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic
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Crazedwraith
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Excellant, Amidala is chancellor, eh? I'm just wondering how the events of TPM played out if they never met Anakin...
Also the time frame puzzles me, the Grand Army and Anakin seems to indicate is Episode II -ish but why is Obi Wan still an Apprentice?
Further more I fell Palpy beign Dookus aprentice is a bit of a stretch. Palpy should be a similar age or older than Dooku certinaly not young enough to be an apprentice to him.
Also the time frame puzzles me, the Grand Army and Anakin seems to indicate is Episode II -ish but why is Obi Wan still an Apprentice?
Further more I fell Palpy beign Dookus aprentice is a bit of a stretch. Palpy should be a similar age or older than Dooku certinaly not young enough to be an apprentice to him.
Obi Wan is a Jedi Knight. Yoda needs to make sure Obi Wan is salvageable after the Qui Gon debacle so he paired him up with Palpatine in a sort of probationary knight period.Crazedwraith wrote:Excellant, Amidala is chancellor, eh? I'm just wondering how the events of TPM played out if they never met Anakin...
Also the time frame puzzles me, the Grand Army and Anakin seems to indicate is Episode II -ish but why is Obi Wan still an Apprentice?
Dooku is 80 yo at this point. Palpatine is 60. It will be pointed out that Palpy's padawanship was very short. Also Qui Gon was in his late 50's IIRC and Dooku had been his master as well so the age disparity seems to leave room or older masters having been trained by masters only 20 years their senior. I guess Dooku is just a really good teacher.Crazedwraith wrote: Further more I fell Palpy beign Dookus aprentice is a bit of a stretch. Palpy should be a similar age or older than Dooku certinaly not young enough to be an apprentice to him.
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Peregrin Toker
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Very unique take on the prequel trilogies. At first I thought it was a "conspiracy theory" version of the prequels, but it later appears that it indeed is an alternate timeline.
I have a question though - is Darth Plagueis supposed to be a Kaminoan? (the long, silver fingers and tall, skeletally thin body, the constant implication that he's not human not to mention the description of his mask as having large black eyes...) Or is he just an awkwardly lanky human?
I have a question though - is Darth Plagueis supposed to be a Kaminoan? (the long, silver fingers and tall, skeletally thin body, the constant implication that he's not human not to mention the description of his mask as having large black eyes...) Or is he just an awkwardly lanky human?
"Hi there, would you like to have a cookie?"
"No, actually I would HATE to have a cookie, you vapid waste of inedible flesh!"
"No, actually I would HATE to have a cookie, you vapid waste of inedible flesh!"
Plagueis as I envisioned him from his brief description in the movies is a very lean and lanky human. His body is ravaged by both time and the fight he had with Yoda on a moon of Bogden and right now imagine it as a skeletal gaunt person who is just holding on by force of will alone.Peregrin Toker wrote:Very unique take on the prequel trilogies. At first I thought it was a "conspiracy theory" version of the prequels, but it later appears that it indeed is an alternate timeline.
I have a question though - is Darth Plagueis supposed to be a Kaminoan? (the long, silver fingers and tall, skeletally thin body, the constant implication that he's not human not to mention the description of his mask as having large black eyes...) Or is he just an awkwardly lanky human?
I view him as sort of this wizardly kind of guy that hangs out in laboratories and the like trying to find the secret of life. He was not a fighter like Maul Dooku or even Palpatine. He's a thinker and a schemer.
There will be more on Plagueis as the story progresses but I didn't mean to imply that he was not human, just that his body has been so ravaged and decayed that its hard to view him as human in Anakin's POV.
An intersting question I pose to my more EU centric friends is whether there has been an alien Sith Lord (aside from the Sith themselves) or is the human bias in Palpatine's Empire strictly his own prejudices and not something endemic to the Sith Lords as a human only organization?
Wherever you go, there you are.
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This is all intriguing stuff, Stravo, and whilst I'm anxious for more of the story-that-shall-not-be-named-but-is-bloody-long, this is also interesting. I did find myself slightly disappointed to find out that the figure in the storm was Plageuis, I hoped briefly that it might have been something akin to the dark cave on Dagobah and that the young Anakin was getting a glimpse of one possible future. But it looks good and interesting, carry on sir.
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