Savage-Time Chapter 32

[Boz Pity, Orbit of the Planet]

Darth Maul

Maul had to admit that he was impressed with the continued survival of his apprentices, he was betting that at least one of them would die and it was a nice surprise to be wrong because that meant that Maul was a far better Master than he thought.

The Jedi had separated and only one of them was chasing his would-be Sith, the other two were far away from them not far enough to be unable to catch up but far enough that Maul could intercept them.

The Dark Side sang in his ear as he thought of killing the two Jedi, he would contact their temple and show off the bodies to Obi-Wan so he could see the fate that awaited him on Felucia. Maul trusted his brother but he wasn’t so trusting that he wouldn’t check up on the preparations of the trap, he was impressed with the deviousness of his brother but his plan would only work if everything aligned as he wished.

Maul had learned the hard way that things are never as simple as they appear.

Phantom pain and itchiness came to his mind from legs he no longer had, the sudden sensation made him angry and left him with no other option but to growl out his displeasure, the droids around him backed off their sense of self-preservation making an appearance. The machines had not been as bad as he feared even if he agreed with his brother that having them be a little smarter would be more pleasing.

Maul felt his body pulse and the veins in his arms bulged on his skin as the signs of abstinence caught up with him. Drinking those vials of darkness had perhaps been a rash decision but Maul had recovered his strength and his experiments with his clothes and lightsaber had born great results.

Maul ignited his blade and the red color of spilled blood was offset by an almost pulsing darkness that came from the base of the blade, the crystal he had bled had been bathed in the liquid darkness his brother had found and it had changed the crystal as well as the lightsaber itself, Maul no longer had to fear any enemy attempting to take it off his hands with the Force, no Jedi would be able to wield his blade but Sidious might be able to call upon it if he unleashed his full power.

As dark as Maul’s aura was, as steeped in darkness as his body was, Maul knew that his former Master had even more darkness to him than Maul or even Savage. It was maddening! Maul had been taken from his mother, he had been tortured for years, he had killed hundreds just to please his former Master and yet Maul’s power couldn’t compare to Sidious’s. Maul suspected that there was something more to his former Master than was credible as even the welp that was Skywalker had suffered more than Sidious who had been born to rich parents and hardly lacked anything in his long life.

Maul shook his head, envy was unbecoming of a Sith, if Maul wanted something he would take it, that was the path he would walk and one day Maul would be whole again even if he had to make a brand new set of legs himself.

“Warmaster” one of the droids approached him with a holo map in his hands “We’ve moved the troops as instructed the Jedi will never reach the others!” the cheerful disposition of the droids, whenever they accomplished an order, would’ve been endearing to anyone else but Maul only saw it as a waste of processing power.

Savage liked their attitude though and for some reason found them funny.

“Perfect” Maul turned off his lightsaber and started walking away but not without leaving further instructions “Contain the two remaining Jedi in that position, launch a large-scale attack on the enemy base with the vulture droids I don’t care if you leave the fleet without a single one of them but their position must be turned to rubble, we will receive reinforcement soon so we only need to hold off any probing attacks”

“Roger!Roger!”

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Maul was making his arrival as grand as possible, not for vanity’s sake but in an effort to make his defeat at the hands of Obi-Wan be nothing but a footnote in Maul’s story. The interceptor he traveled with was not the same as the one he had so many years ago, it was a broken thing or rather a work in progress, Savage had said it was an overly dramatic gesture but Maul liked the symbolism.

Maul moved to the back of the ship and stood just shy of the ramp that would lead outside as the ship moved into position in front of the Jedi that were dealing with the last of the droid forces on the ground. The ramp lowered itself revealing his form to the Jedi. Maul let go of his restraint and of the leash he had over his power and the bright day was not the same after that. The sunny day felt darker than it was before and the air turned colder.

“Jedi” Maul said the word slowly as if he was tasting it before jumping down a few meters away from them with his lightsaber ignited the double blades glowing ominously as he twirled it in his hand.

“Darth Maul I presume,” the older one remarked as he observed Maul “I have to admit that you’re brother is far more intimidating”

If he hadn’t mastered his wrath then Maul would have lashed out and fallen into the Jedi’s trap but he had learned from his mistakes “That’s because of his stature but believe me…”

Maul’s eyes flashed with all the malice he could muster “I’m the one you should fear”

Not wasting any time the Zabrak advanced against Kota while Quinlan moved aside from Maul’s charge, the younger Jedi started circling maul intent on finding an opening but Maul wouldn’t let him attack so easily.

Maul’s first strike was easily blocked by the aging Jedi but he could see that Kota wasn’t as strong as he would like to appear, Maul easily pushed him back driving him away from Quinlan who had no other option but to follow at a distance as he evaded the occasional Force Push thrown his way.

More blows were exchanged and Maul had to admit to being impressed by the skill of Kota however Maul was far more accustomed to fighting other warriors, his mechanical legs lashed out and managed to hit Kota in the stomach the blow sent the Jedi a fair distance away and drove the air out of his lungs.

Without looking behind Maul blocked a strike coming from Quinlan and then in a show of acrobatic skill Maul jumped backward so he could land face-to-face with Quinlan.

“You’re ever so predictable Jedi, your weakness shows and today I will remind your pitiful order of their proper place in the world” behind Quinlan Kota standing up.

“Save your words Sith, there is no one here you can poison with them” Kota called out as he took his place beside Quinlan, interestingly the younger Jedi felt a flash of guilt at the words of Kota.

“Is that so? Then perhaps you can tell me why I can feel such curiosity from Quinlan Vos” the name was spoken as if it was a mockery and the aforementioned Jedi did a probing attack in response but the smidgen of truth had taken the attention of Kota.

Rahm Kota turned towards his fellow Jedi waiting for an explanation and Maul drew some delight from the annoyance that manifested itself in the Jedi “The children, did they really choose their path?”

It was a fair question, Maul had not chosen this path, not initially at least, it wasn’t until he was confronted with a vision of his life as a Jedi that he finally chose what he would do.

“They did, there were three of them when I went for them. Forgotten, angryand alone” on some level Maul could emphasize with them but there was a great difference in the circumstances of his revival and the induction of his apprentices to the Brotherhood of Darkness “they wanted power to never suffer what they did again, they wanted freedom and I granted it to them”

“The only thing you did was offer them new chains! There is no freedom in the Dark Side of the Force, only a painful end!” Kota lashed out again but the anger he felt at Maul’s words had unbalanced his strike and it was trivial for Maul to redirect it.

The fighting continued Maul danced between their strikes as he lashed out with his own, the fight was starting to remind Maul of his battle at Naboo but there was a great difference.

This time Maul wasn’t being consumed by his pride.

The flow of battle changed as he started to pressure Quinlan, Maul pushed him back and separated him from Kota, with relentless attacks that were barely blocked the Warmaster advanced, his blade danced in intricate patterns that didn’t have a set rhythm leaving cuts along the arms of his enemy, sand, and rock were pulled from the ground and were thrown into the faces of his opponents.

Once he would’ve sneered at such tactics but defeat had robbed left Maul bereft of shame. There was no sense in fighting honorably just to lose in the end. Their deadly dance ended in another stalemate as Maul was reluctantly forced to back off as an increasingly irate Kota did his best to use the Force to push Maul into one of the crevices that dotted the landscape.

“You dishonorable scum! Sith are nothing but evil!” Kota was taking things far too personally but this could be a teaching moment for the Jedi and either of them would make great additions to the Brotherhood.

“That is a mistake, allow me to enlighten you to the only real truth of the galaxy” Maul drew on all the power he could, he drew upon the boundless ocean of hate that lived beneath his chest as he thought of the one that had robbed him of years of his life “The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. The Force is beyond scope or true understanding, and the only real thing any Force-sensitive can do is try to master as much of it as possible”

Quinlan Vos seemed receptive to his message “You’re saying that reasons matter even when the actions are questionable”

“Yes! Power for power’s sake is nothing but a fool’s errand and peace as Jedi desire is nothing short of death. I’m looking for a new path mired in darkness that can give me what I want”

“And what do you want?”

That was the question wasn’t it, what did Maul want beyond power, beyond a restored body, and beyond ruling the galaxy? In truth, there was only one answer something that he didn’t want to admit to himself but that he couldn’t deny, something that was not usually desired by a Sith Lord.

“I want to be happy” the response stunned both Jedi, even Kota was severely taken aback by Maul’s response but what else could be the answer? Maul’s life had been nothing more than a series of unfortunate events one after the other, a life that had even taken his true name.

Maul was owed everything.

And if the Force wouldn’t give it to him then he would take it.

So absorbed was he in his thoughts that Maul barely registered the surprise in the Jedi.

“You-You’re telling the truth?!” Kota looked as if everything he knew about the Force had just been turned on its head and Quinlan looked as if he finally understood something.

“The children wanted something too, what are they looking for?” Maul saw no harm in answering, in fact, he thought that if things moved correctly then he could add Quinlan Vos to the ranks of the Sith but he would’ve to let them live.

In the end, it was a small price to pay for another combatant.

“The girl wanted to be brave so she could rise beyond the fear that had plagued her for so long and the boy wanted freedom” it was a small very noticeable thing but Maul saw the moment the light wavered inside Quinlan and he knew that his words hadn’t been wasted.

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Author note: so this was a Maul chapter in which I wanted to show the true difference between canon Maul and this one. Maul is a character with a set goal that never changes after he is brought back by Savage, he wants revenge, even in his last moments he calls for vengeance but the Maul in my story through his interaction with Savage learned the folly of the Sith which is losing themselves to a singular objective and I thought of what Maul is at his core.

Maul is a person that looks for happiness, he wants revenge because it will make him happy, he wants to kill the Sith because they took his brother from him(who made him happy), and avenging him would make him happy, he mourns the loss of his childhood and his name when he meets Ezra because it was his chance to be happy.

Here Maul doesn't need to care about vengeance as his brother is helping him with that, his ambitions are not being oppressed by a galaxy-wide empire and his legacy is being written, giving him the chance to truly think about what he wants but as he's never had happiness he doesn't know what it is and looks for it as if it were an object which is a very Dark Side way to look at it.