The Force Wills - Chapter 127

The Inquisitor was grabbed by the Force Wave and propelled backward with bone crushing speed.

Her surprise lasted for a mere moment and she showed her training; slowing down, bleeding the momentum away, getting her body into an ideal position.

Her feet landed perpendicular on the support pillar, the residual kinetic energy denting it somewhat but not snapping it in two.

I was rather grateful for that.

My enemy at least had enough self-preservation and foresight to be mindful of the consequences, staving off the possibility of my blunder bringing down the roof of garbage down on us.

Really Tano, a Force Wave inside a cave that had been hollowed out of a mountain of garbage? I remonstrated myself.

I only took solace that I dared anyone else to not react the same way when someone had yanked the appearance of my old academy friend and classmate right out of my head, wearing it in an illusion-mask over her body, just to make me hesitate for that fatal moment.

Trying to convince me that Andan Alde of all people had fallen into Palpatine’s web and the Dark Side?

I also recognized this power she was using, one which was an invasive variation of the Mind Trick which she had combined with Dun Möch. It was something she was particularly talented in, if she could still apply it right through my own mental defenses.

The inquisitor wearing Andan’s face pushed off the pillar with cat-like grace, surged forward and promptly vanished from sight.

‘Asajj!' I warned urgently.

Thankfully the Nightsister had not been idle, laying an immediate illusion over Maul’s unconscious form, turning him invisible and using the ichor to create ‘duplicates’ and throw them away from her.

Her own yellow blades burst to life and intercepted a flight of five thin, void black throwing daggers that had come out of seemingly nowhere.

The inquisitor didn’t let that failure or the Nightsister illusionary powers discourage her. 

She appeared again, this time wearing the illusionary mask of Ky Narec, Asajj’s old Jedi Master, already in mid-swing with her red blade seeking nightsister’s neck.

Asajj blocked the attack cold, pushing the red blade out of the way with her left and lunging forward with her right.

The inquisitor dodged in a flowing acrobatic form that reminded me of a bastardized Ataru, a Force Jump the instant her foot touched ground let her float backward as if she had taken lessons from Chinese Wu-xia and vanished again.

I blurred through the air, launching myself straight at the spot where I judged her landing through echosense.

In practice, I’d never thought the dull constant hum from the lit lightsaber, radiating sound outward and bouncing it off objects everywhere in my environment would actually come in handy. It was a mundane physical sense and therefore could be fooled by a sufficiently skilled Force User.

I therefore didn’t rely on it.

Yet now… my opponent played right into its strength and the one weakness of her prolific skill in Force based stealth techniques. I’d like to meet the person who could keep up the Force Cloak, Mind Illusions and a strong enough TK shield to dampen their sonic signature in the environment as well.

The inquisitor ignited her blade again in defense, intercepting my dual red blade Falling Avalanche and was nearly blown off her feet by my simultaneous Force Push.

She managed just enough of her own counter Push to only be put on the backfoot and her Cloak fell again.

I almost rolled my eyes as she wore the appearance of Gahyic, my sullustan friend in the Explorer Corps.

Instead I twirled my left blade into an attack on her knees.

It was intercepted by the emergence of a second blade from underneath the stylized hilt of the inquisitor’s weapon, as it became the dual-bladed saber staff. It didn’t have that ridiculous circular crossguard, so there would be no ‘flying’ or ‘floating’ inquisitor bullshit, thank you very much. Any youngling learning saber theory in the academy would tell you that a lightsaber blade had no aerodynamic wing properties to create lift, no matter how fast you spun it.

The inquisitor slashed upward with the saberstaff, trying to wrench my left blade up and out of position for the other end to attack my chest.

A quick block with my right blade stopped any such notion, whilst my right leg surged forward in a blur.

My boot connected with her stomach in a kick that would have Leonidas nodding at me seriously in approval.

The follow up Force Push through my foot sent her flying.

I had felt the meaty impact and the sound of air leaving her lungs, yet she still had enough control through the pain to vanish again in mid-air, her lit lightsaber being the only lingering trace of her and that too vanished as she extinguished it.

Far from letting up on the pressure, I threw my left blade after her, controlling it into a rapid sawing spin that threatened to bisect her from head to groin.

Asajj followed suit, sending her blade to intersect where mine would be.

The inquisitor split her saber staff into dual blades with a twist and batted away both attacks, before she flipped around and landed on her feet.

Her cloak fell just as her hand whipped out and more thin daggers shot towards me and one of the illusionary unconscious Mauls lying on the floor.

I reached out with the Force, ripping away her Control over the projectiles coming my way, ignoring the fact that now she had donned the form of Anakin with the corrupted yellow eyes of a fallen Jedi, wearing the dark outfit from when he had fought Obi-Wan on Mustafar, that I knew was from my own nightmares.

No, those were actually her true eyes and she was just trying to unnerve me again.

I clenched a fist and the daggers were crushed into harmless spheres of metal, dripping a lethal poison that reeked of Sith alchemy. Doubtless her master’s work.

“You fight the inevitable, Ahsoka,” said the Inquisitor, her reproduction of Anakin’s voice was flawless.

“Your attempts at Dun Möch is wasted effort,” I retorted and blurred into Force Speed, my lunging blades seeking to impale her head and chest.

She dodged, but straight into the slashing yellow blades of Asajj, who had used my obvious attack as a distraction.

They were entangled in a ‘hashtag’ blade lock, pushing hard on each other’s guard for a moment, but my own attack on the fake ‘Anakin’’s exposed back caused her to suddenly yield in the contest, then flow around Asajj’s blades.

However, my own attack was a complete feint and I burst into a bounding jump from the Ataru form, giving Asajj the room to shoot forward with Force Speed and avoid the rather embarrassing situation of being redirected into each other.

Finally, the inquisitor was forced into a conventional fight by my blades blurring into rapid slashes for her head and stomach.

She blocked and blocked, managing a riposte, which I just dodged before laying into her again with rapid slashes, varying the attack angle and alignment randomly.

Her face twisted into a hateful sneer, but I caught the glint of desperation in those yellow eyes.

I could tell immediately from the way our blades were clashing, her technique, her level of precognition, that I was fighting someone who had been taught in the Jedi Temple. She had been in the classes of Master Cin Drallig, the Order’s Battlemaster, and no amount of subsequent instruction by Palpatine or his other Sith lackeys such as Sly Moore could erase that legacy. However, it was also clear that her time as an inquisitor had an impact - she was too used to the quick kill from ambush thanks to her Force Cloak.

The Force began subtly rippling out from her in a way that she hoped I wouldn’t notice.

I drove my blades to her left, attacking her neck and leg.

She abruptly retreated to make some space, keeping up her guard and trying to bat the reverse sides of my blades badly out of position to open my own guard.

A quick twirl of my blades caused her to strike to hit nothing but air and instead gave me an opening instead.

“HA!”

My Control bludgeoned through her passive defenses as I suddenly channeled a substantial portion of Force strength from the flow I had currently going.

She rose into the air in my telekinetic grip and I got to see the disturbing sight of Anakin’s face contorted and gasping in pain.

Her strength in the Dark Side surged, her fear, desperation and pain pulling in more of it.

She fought back trying to push off my telekinetic grip.

Then she tried her true gambit.

From across the cave, her earlier discarded throwing knives that had been aimed at the illusionary Maul rose into the air and shot straight for my back with enough speed that it might as well have come from a slugthrower.

I was ready for it.

My body fell back, TK reached out from my back latching onto the ground, pulling me with enough speed downward that my dodge was just barely successful.

I felt the whispering passage of the knives across my face as they shot forward and continued on past my legs.

Now my focus was split three ways - stopping my body from hurting itself on the compacted garbage floor, keeping hold of the inquisitor and finally pushing my Control onto the knives - not to stop them, but actually speed them up.

She barely had a moment to actually react in time, but in this she had the advantage.

Her own knives stopped mere centimeters from her stomach.

I landed on my back with a thump and focused on the Control tug-of-war fully, pushing on the knives.

The knives started vibrating as we both poured more and more strength and will into the fight.

The blade of a yellow lightsaber burst out of the inquisitor’s chest and she gaped, her breath hitching badly as she tried to pull air into her lungs but found it impossible.

Asajj appeared behind the inquisitor, wisps of green ichor trailing off her body as she emerged from her own form of invisibility.

I suddenly found myself winning the TK war over the knives. They shot forward, all four embedding themselves into the inquisitor.

Between eye blinks I was no longer seeing the form of Anakin, instead a short female figure with a severe short haircut, dressed in black in a style of outfit that seemed almost formally militaristic, but was flexible enough to fight in. Her most notable feature was the solid black veil that was strapped over her eyes.

Asajj pulled her blade out and I finally let the inquisitor drop into an awkward heap on the floor.

I got up and had barely taken a step when I felt the death in the Force.

All of the Dark Side that the inquisitor had been holding onto dispersed, the awful stain vanishing into the background miasma that was so prevalent on the planet. 

Kneeling next to the body, I carefully fiddled with the veil and the strap that kept it on.

“Careful,” Asajj warned. “That’d be the one place I’d booby trap if I was her.”

She was correct of course and the probability line indicated a small injector mechanism that was primed to deliver a lethal toxin to anyone who just tried to simply unlatch the strap.

I retreated my fingers carefully and used the Force to pull off the veil.

Only to reveal nothing beneath… there were no eyes and only vestigial eye sockets.

“A miraluka?” Asajj asked.

“Yes, much is explained,” I sighed. “All miraluka are Force Sensitive and if there is one race in this galaxy that has an affinity for mindwalking…”

I trailed off as I realized that she had even fooled me into seeing and believing that the corrupted eyes of the Sith were actually her own.

My lightsaber hummed through the air and I buried the blade through the inquisitor’s forehead, before pulling it out and a single swipe severed the head completely.

Asajj raised an eyebrow at me as I deactivated and holstered my weapons. “I’m not yet skilled at making ‘zombies’, Tano.”

“It’s not that,” I rolled my eyes at her attempt at a joke, even as I was heartened by the fact she was openly showing some sense of humor. “Palpatine has inherited a mantle of knowledge from the Sith, especially from his own former master, which gives him a measure of control over life and death. We can’t let this inquisitor’s body fall back into his hands.”

“Then we burn it.”

“Eventually, but I first need to take enough samples to determine her actual identity. How’s Maul?”

“Sleeping, he was not harmed in the fight.”

“Would it be better to move him back to the ship for healing?”

She nodded, “This was his place of torment and the Dark Side will make anything we try to do in that respect much more difficult.”

“Then let’s get this done.”

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Given that we had no guide anymore, it was the journey of a few very careful hours to retrace our steps through the junk landscape.

It was slowed naturally by us having to carry the massive slumbering form of Maul and the miraluka’s remains via the Force. Then if that wasn’t bad enough, we had to contend with a renewed bout of wind and acid rain.

I could sense the surviving junkers watching us, hidden in secret dugouts in the landscape, their emotions a storm of conflict to match the natural one over our heads. They were seething in anger at our actions in killing so many of them, but self-preservation, seeing us carrying the clearly defeated Horned One and another dead stranger was keeping them at bay.

Actually getting Maul inside the Omen was another minor challenge. He was simply too big with the droid prosthetic to fit inside the ventral elevator. He would fit through the rear embarkation ramp, but there was no way I was opening my ship up to the atmosphere of this foul planet. Asajj expediently solved the problem by slashing the prosthetic in half, yet she also insisted that we bring that sliced off piece into the ship as well.

“You’ll see,” was her only explanation. “Besides, we want to leave as little evidence as possible here.”

That left me with the concern about the junker’s memories possibly being taken by Palpatine or one of his other unseen inquisitors. Yet I needn’t have worried about it as I explored that probability line. The junkers were so alien in mind and adaptive that actually trying to make sense of mindwalking them was a futile endeavor.

We carried Maul towards the ichor vat on the troop deck and laid him in front of it.

I left Asajj with her preparations and brought out a body bag from the Omen’s stores and sealed the inquisitor’s remains inside.

Taking a blood sample to the computer, I referenced the DNA against my own copy of the Jedi Archives. I didn’t have the entire archive, but I had a hefty chunk that I had secretly copied and stored on multiple disguised CSO servers across the core worlds. It was a process that was still ongoing and would be finished with another nine months of work.

In case the worst should happen, there would be no loss of all that history and knowledge.     

I knew the Jedi Order had preserved off-site backups of the Archives in secret locations across the galaxy but the future Emperor would be very thorough in scouring those locations. The unfettered access and resources he enjoyed after Order 66 would allow him to piece together a lot, despite Yoda and Obi-Wan sabotaging as much of the Archives as possible in the limited time they had.

Soon, Fulcrum would have a full copy of the Archives and…

The computer chimed that a match had been found.

I slumped into the pilot’s chair and brought up the file.

“Padawan Elyse Varn,” I said aloud and read pretty much what I expected.

She had passed through the academy about five years before Anakin, attaining the rank of padawan and had seemed promising in most respects. Yet she had seen no master approach her to continue her journey to knighthood. The file noted that at some point as an initiate she had ‘expressed a disturbing fascination with the Dark Side’. That it was even mentioned on her file usually meant that it was bad enough for the teachers to make a permanent record of it. This had become a blotch that would continue to haunt her for the rest of her time in the academy and as a padawan.

Eventually, when a year had passed with no master in the Order coming forward, she had been consigned to what was the unspoken worst fate for any padawan - the Agricorps.

It was a simple fact of life and temperament that not everyone was suited to the life of a Jedi Knight, that was why there were the four service branches of Jedi Order; the Agricultural, Medical, Educational and Exploration Corps.

Assignment to the Agricorps was essentially becoming the hybrid of a farmer and botanist, researching how the Force could be used to improve yields, quality and so on. To those who truly felt the calling of that service, it was a wonderfully rewarding life. The problem was that it had gained an unfortunate reputation as the dumping grounds for ‘failed’ Jedi. In some respects, that was true. No system was perfect and with the variety of an entire galaxy of people, it was inevitable that some would fall through the cracks and consider the Agricorps as ‘punishment’ for not ‘measuring up’.

I swiped a finger through the holoscreen, reading more of her short career on the agri world of Tanaab.

It ended with her ‘presumed death’ at the hands of a pirate raid on the farm she had been working at.

Her bloodstained lightsaber and torn robes in the modest home she had been living in on the farm was all the evidence that had been recovered.

The farm itself had burned down in the raid, with the farmer and his family only surviving thanks to the ‘sacrifice’ of Padawan Varn.

I slapped the holo away in disgust.

It would be interesting to go over the records of the last twenty to thirty years of the Agricorps and see the number of dead or mysteriously missing Jedi from the numerous worlds that they administered.

It was an investigation for another time, however.

‘Tano, I’m ready to begin.’

‘Be right there.’

I put the ship’s computer on standby and climbed down into the troop deck.

Asajj had taken to further cutting up Maul’s prosthetic so she could actually lay him down properly on his back. At this point there was barely anything left of the spider-droid, except for the front two legs and the crude main attachment point that joined Maul’s body to it. She was kneeling in a seiza pose near his head, with the ichor vat immediately to her left and within reach.

“Do you need me to do anything?”

She opened her eyes, staring at me with the most open expression I’d ever seen. Asajj was usually a closed book, burning with barely veiled hostility to anyone around her. This was different - she wasn’t nervous, but clearly the enormity of the task ahead was falling on her shoulders. The possibility of failure was there and given the potential importance of Maul to the survival of her people…

“I understand from Master Kina Ha, that you are well versed in the Jedi arts of Healing with the Force.”

I nodded.

“Then I will… be grateful for your assistance in keeping Maul stable through this process. Do what you must to keep him alive, just in case.”

I smiled at her knowingly and she gave me a brief scowl in response, gesturing towards the prone form of Maul. 

I crossed my legs as I sat down at the zabrak’s side and carefully placed my hands on his chest and stomach.

From a clinical medical perspective, Maul was an utter mess. In anyone else, they would’ve died long ago from cross-species diseases and disorders. This was usually the result when you consumed wholly alien species including the bits that were usually not on the dinner menu, like eyes, brains and other organs that held the specialist cells that were perfectly fine in their element, but ingest them and they turned hostile, poisonous or utterly indigestible. Cross-species gastronomy was a huge complex field in the galaxy.

The only reason Maul was alive was because he essentially used what the Sith of old called, Dark Transfer.

When Maul ate, he didn’t kill his victim at first, he pulled on their life force to empower and super charge his own healing through the Force. The problem was, no amount of ‘healing’ could compensate for the lack of certain essential minerals and nutrients. It was like building on top of a slowly eroding foundation.

His physicality and strength was actually quite compromised. It was only Dark Side empowerment that allowed him to not just be a fleshy abomination atop his prosthetic, whose bones would break with the slightest bump. That empowerment had also slowly corrupted his form, which was why he had overly pronounced horns in addition to the classic yellow eyes.

“The only thing keeping him alive is the Dark Side. I’m going to need to begin an infusion directly into his bloodstream.”

Asajj nodded in understanding, “Do it, what of the bond with his former master?”

I focused carefully, looking through the Force. “It’s there, hanging by the thinnest threads. At most it can only tell Sidious that Maul’s alive and transmit some extreme emotions.”

“I will begin healing his mind, pulling away the madness. At the same time you will sever that bond.”

I saw what she had in mind. “Let me get the infusion and we can begin.”

Infusions were just a variation of an IV bag with a ‘future’ twist. It didn’t use something as ‘primitive’ as a needle to pierce skin to get at veins. Instead it essentially bypassed the skin barrier with an energetic resonance that allowed the supplemental fluids directly into the body. With that attached to Maul’s arm, I turned my senses to his spirit and focused on the withered connection he still had with Palpatine.

“Ready,” I nodded.

Asajj rubbed her hands together and breathed in deep, except she didn’t pull in air.

Gaseous ichor emerged from the vat and was pulled into her nose and mouth.

She did this five times and reached with her right hand towards Maul’s head.

Somehow, that hand was both solid and yet not, trailing a ghostly afterimage tinged in green.

She grasped at the air above Maul’s forehead and pulled her hand back.

An awful vanta black miasma became visible suddenly in her grasp or it was more accurate to say that the miasma wasn’t letting any normal light reflect off it. It was absolutely vile and I wanted to hurl just looking at it.

Maul gave a low keening scream and his entire body trashed, twitched and undulated under my hands. His spirit didn’t feel pain in a conventional sense, but it was seriously disturbed as Asajj performed the ichor empowered psycho-surgery. It was twanging the bond with Palpatine like an out of tune guitar…

In that moment, my own will, shaped into a figurative blade, came down on the weak bond.

Maul sprained his own back as his entire body went briefly into a painful spasm. Such was the pain that he didn’t even have the energy to let out more than a weak scream.

“The bond is gone,” I confirmed, wincing at the backlash that battered my own being.

Asajj reached down again and pulled another clump of madness from Maul, then repeated the process once more. Each time, he thrashed, whined and whimpered as more of the awful miasma was removed.

I had to admit, with all my senses open to the process it was utterly fascinating to watch and there weren’t words in Basic to express some of what I saw.

Asajj began twirling and moving her hands as if she was cradling an invisible ball and the entire ichor vat glowed bright green before a steady stream of it was coaxed into her hands.

Eventually, she held a gaseous ichor construct that almost looked like a dodecahedron.

For a full minute her hands moved around it, further refining the structure, making adjustments that I only had the vaguest of notions about from my own ‘training’ through the memories of Mother Talzin.

Finally, she pushed the ichor construct towards Maul, where it completely unfolded on him.

I rapidly pulled my hands away, knowing that this entire restoration balanced on the edge of a knife.

Maul gasped and his entire body visibly relaxed for the first time as he was enveloped in a visible aura of ichor, that sent out a connection to the vat as well.

Asajj closed her eyes, frowning with concentration and when she opened them again they were utterly clouded with bright green ichor that glowed like energetic green plasma. Her hands grasped at the air and made a summoning gesture towards the cut wreckage of the droid prosthetic.

I had the distinct impression that Asajj was not the only mind at work here and…

Of course, Talzin was here as well. Using the ichor vat and her connection to Asajj to manifest herself in the Nightsister version of Remote Projection.

In the meantime, the wreckage of the rusty old droid prosthetic had begun to glow green and literally liquified. The remnants of the prosthetic attached to Maul’s lower body also became fluid and the two green liquid masses came together and began to take an entirely new form.

At first it was just a huge mass of green, then separated into two distinct long cylinders.

Asajj’s hands became like an eagle-claw and she grit her teeth, pulling back.

The green mass swelled briefly before I heard the distinct tang of metal and Maul’s entire body shuddered. It then changed even more, gaining texture, becoming distinctly orange and molten. It was as if I was watching metal gain organic properties.

It both grew and was molded.

Then the residual mass was shorn off by the ichor turning itself into an ethereal lathing machine.

Maul screamed in pain and with horror I realized that Asajj and Talzin hadn’t just forged dead metal. The only words I could give it was living biometal. 

Before my eyes, two sleek reverse-jointed legs attached to metallic hips emerged from the mass. The residual material flayed off the new legs became black, turning into nothing more than harmless dust that fell to the floor. The interface point between the biometal and his living flash was covered with a smooth flexible sheathe and armor.

His body writhed and I had to throw up a minor TK shield around my montrals to spare them the shrill scream as I sensed the ichor work on his internal organs and blood, cleansing them of impurities and even working on repairing the DNA from accumulated radiation damage.

The long horns on his head were shorn off with a flash of ichor and shorter new ones grew before my eyes.

His skin was filled in as the atrophied muscle and bone was repaired and strengthened to a level that he had during his duel with Obi-Wan. The dull red of his natural skin color bloomed into a more healthy shade underneath his extensive tattoos.

Asajj waved her hands and the ethereal ichor retreated from all over Maul’s body, before she made a harsh throwing gesture towards the vat.

Finally, Maul’s screaming stopped, his restored body relaxing into a mere slumber on the troop deck’s floor.

A quick check on the infusion bottle, showed that the feeding tube had been pulled off in Maul’s thrashing but it was completely empty. Talzin and Asajj had made use of every drop of the IV nutrient to gain more energy for the healing restoration. 

Through the Force, it was also clear that Maul was still firmly drawing from the Dark Side. Yet, whilst he was under my Prescient Shroud his presence was obscured entirely. He couldn’t leave my general proximity until he properly reined in his own presence and effect on the Force.

Now the problem was Maul himself.

Asajj blinked and her eyes returned to normal, Talzin’s presence retreating somewhat but still hovering over us.

I put my hand on Maul’s muscular chest, firmly ignoring how it felt and fell into the medical detachment of a Healer.

“This is naturally amazing work, but he will need to eat like a hutt for the next week to support the changes you’ve made.” They had also repaired his digestive system extensively, threading it into the biometal hips. Maul could actually use the Refresher properly again. I did not want to think about what he had to do before this. I also made further adjustments of my own, tweaking a few dathomiri hormone producing organs that had been strained and would lead to long-term problems if left unattended. 

Ichor flowed out of the vat and coalesced, before Talzin herself manifested a visible presence, standing right behind Asajj.

“He must be woken,” Talzin declared.

“I trust you’ll intervene should he decide to murder both of us and go on a galactic campaign of revenge?” I asked wryly.

Mother Tazlin chuckled and it felt like my spine wanted to climb out of my back as my montrals heard her echo-laugh. She reached down to Maul and her huge hand rested on her son’s forehead.

“Arise Maul, reborn son of Dathomir.”

I pulled my hand back to my lap quickly and fought the screaming urge to get up.

Amazingly, the probability line showed that only if I presented myself as a threat, Maul would immediately take it as such. The fight that followed was enough to totally wreck the Omen and while I could defeat him, the cost was unfathomably large as Maul was practically exposed to every strong Force-User of note in the galaxy.

Now I had to sit still in a meditative pose as one of the most dangerous and deadly beings in the galaxy woke up in front of me.

His eyes opened, glowing with the yellow of corruption, but the sclera of his eyes were barely bloodshot and I immediately saw that the spark of cunning intelligence and wits was there. 

Those eyes naturally found me first and I met them with no fear or apprehension.

“Welcome back to the land of the rational, Maul.”

His eyes narrowed and quicker than a striking snake his right hand tried to grab a hold of my face.

I slammed down a pin point kinetic reversal and his hand bounced away from me.

“Peace, my son,” Talzin said in a tone that brooked no disobedience.

He sat up and glared at her, gazing at Asajj for a moment before grudgingly nodding. “Mother,” he acknowledged with a growl and tried to sit up, only to gaze in amazement as he felt his new biometallic legs responding naturally to him.

Despite being digitigrade he had no problems moving them and his new feet were a combination of flat heel and four wicked sharp toes that would allow for traction and grip on any surface. The toes flexed individually in sequence as Maul tested them.

He pushed off the floor with his hands in a quick acrobatic movement, and got his new legs under him, standing to his new imposing height of just over two meters.

“It’s been… so long, my path… so dark. Darker than I ever dreamed it could be,” he said, his low voice resonating pleasantly in my montrals. He turned and nearly fell right on top of me, but just managed to retain enough balance to take a step back, getting used to how his new gait would function. “Yet never, did I imagine it would lead me to a Nightsister and a Jedi, working together and my actual mother…”  

He stepped towards Talzin and passed his hand through her ethereal form with a look of wonder.

“You remember now what happened, at last,” Talzin said, her face twisting in anger. “Sidious, he offered to make me his right hand, but instead, he stole you. Using one of our own nightbrothers, he lured you away and orchestrated that which you suffered in the months following.”

Maul closed his eyes and nodded. “Yes… yessss,” he hissed. “I was so young, but that didn’t matter. I was beaten and starved, living off scraps, all at the bidding of him. To become his perfect weapon and then he even robbed me of those memories, until all I knew was that I belonged to him. I knew nothing of Dathomir, of the Nightsisters, of you!”

“Then I became the ultimate instrument of his will. I killed many and in the moment of triumph, when at last I would step into the light to challenge the old enemy… I- I- was defeated. I fell and fell, for so long, cut in half…” He stroked the area of his abdomen where Obi-Wan’s blade had passed through, now armored with biometal. “My hatred kept my spirit intact, even though my body was not. Then… on this world, after fighting for survival against many of these junkers, one of them found me when I was at my lowest, hanging on by the faintest thread. He saw in me the spirit of survival that they so prized and respected me for it. He was the one who fashioned the scrap prosthetic you found me with and wired me into it directly, in the clumsy manner of his kind. But I was not one of them, my spirit was willing, but my body and mind broke under the strain, turning me into the rabid animal you found me as.

“Discarded, left to rot on this world with the rest of the junk. Sidious knew I was alive, yet did nothing. My punishment for the failure on Naboo.” Maul frowned and looked around the interior of the Troop deck, before closing his eyes briefly. “The Force… it’s out of balance and you, Jedi, you’re concealing me somehow.”

“The galaxy is at war, Maul,” I explained. “Your former master’s plan has come to fruition. The Confederation of Independent Systems and the Republic, fighting each other with droid and clone. A veil of conflict to distract from the war’s true purpose. As for me shielding you… I’m protecting you from Sidious’ foresight, not to mention quite a few of the more sensitive Jedi in the galaxy, until you can regain your own skill.”

Maul took in my words and I got to witness the sheer strangeness of a darkly amused look on that fearsome face and almost a smile. I could even sense he wanted to outright laugh, but was holding it back. “You, a Jedi, hiding me from your own kind?”

I looked up, meeting his fearsome eyes easily as he towered over me. “Maul, you of all people should know how far Sidious’ intelligence extends, even to the very heart of the Jedi Order. Revealing you to the Jedi is as good as handing you on a platter over to your former master.”

“Fascinating,” Maul breathed. “Could it be that the galaxy has finally produced a Jedi who isn’t blinded?”

“That is certainly one way of looking at it, I suppose.”

“You carry a WESTAR blaster, two lightsabers with synthetic kyber… no, three and this ship… Could it be that you are Mandalorian too?”

Let it not be said that Maul wasn’t perceptive or lacked intelligence, when his anger and rage wasn’t clouding it.

I nodded, “Ahsoka Tano, Manda’lor of Clan Vizsla, Jedi Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. The Nightsister on your right is Asajj Ventress, the former apprentice of the man who replaced you at Sidious’ side.”

Maul took that in and stared at Asajj for a moment. “Tell me sister, who now sits next to the most powerful being in this galaxy?”

“Count Dooku,” she hissed, unable to keep the anger out of her voice.

“Hmmm, you speak with the voice of betrayal, sister. Your strength tells me all I need to know about what happened. It is the way of the Sith.”

Maul turned away from us and stared into the ichor vat for a few moments. He raised a hand to touch it but pulled back as if it was threatening to burn him.

“Why do this?” he asked mildly.

“Why ask a question you already know the answer to?” I retorted. 

Maul began outright laughing.

It was a low, cruel sound so in contrast with his general way of speaking.

“You want what I knew of Sidious,” he said eventually, his face twisted into an equally cruel smirk. 

“Yes. He will have enacted many plans and changes since your exile here. Much of what you will have to say will no longer be relevant, but he cannot change everything. He planned for your death, just as much as he planned for your possible survival. Also understand that he would’ve had you killed anyway. He needed a leader for the independence movement who would answer to him and you are many things, Maul, but wealthy and charismatic you are not.”

“You speak well of your enemy. You speak from experience and knowledge. You know his mind… How are you still alive?” His eyes now showed a slight hint of apprehension as he stared at me wearily.

I stood and still had to look up into his face. “That you can make up your own mind about, Maul. You know the Rule of Two. Sidious adheres to it only when it suits him and should he learn of your true survival, that he has been truly deceived, then you’re dead… and shortly after we will follow.”

“And you think he can be defeated? Despite everything?” Maul asked, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the question.

“Yes,” I shrugged.

His gaze turned to the implacable Talzin and the defiant Asajj before looking down at his own hands and artificial legs.

“You are insane to think it’s possible.”

I couldn’t help my own mouth twitching with amusement, hearing those words from someone who was insane barely ten minutes ago.

“Possibly, but the alternative is worse. Sidious is well on his way to the launch of his New Order, but that is just the beginning. He wants to conquer all life in this galaxy, bind it to his will. The Force itself, his alone to command and bestow upon whom he considers useful, whom he will discard and dispose of afterwards. This has become not a battle of light and dark, Sith and Jedi. Those are narrow considerations, artificial constructs and chains that we have bound ourselves in. There’s more to this galaxy and universe than just that.”

Maul blinked his eyes in astonishment as he heard my words, unable to believe a Jedi could speak them.

“Right now, I see your desire for revenge, against all who wronged you; Sidious and Kenobi. Yes, don’t think I'm ignorant of the latter. The moment you no longer need me to shield you, you plan to incapacitate both me and Asajj. Stranding us on the closest habitable world whilst you take my ship to begin your quest. You will travel to Raydonia. Taking a village hostage, contacting the Jedi Temple to lure Obi-Wan Kenobi to come. Yet all you will achieve is to alert Sidious as to your survival and yet another defeat at Kenobi’s hands. He is a battle hardened Jedi Master and you are still far from a 100%...”

“Enough!” Maul shrieked, beginning to pace in agitation. “You speak with foresight… I can sense it as I sensed it from him. It’s no wonder you are his enemy. What-  what do you want from me?”

“The Sith say through power and victory your chains are broken. That certainly speaks to a truth, from a certain point of view, but not the only one. Chains can also be broken by choice, Maul. The will to act on that choice. Right now, your revenge is a chain that is binding you. I want you to break it and cast it off. Choose another path.”

Maul’s presence flared with anger, his power swelled as he instinctively gathered it from the Dark Side.

Asajj also stood and backed off slightly, whilst Talzin waited patiently, gazing at her son’s inner struggle.

“Realize this, Maul, something that the Sith could never bring themselves to truly admit. The Dark Side itself is the greatest chain of all.”

He faintly stepped back, glaring at his own hands, then at me, Asajj and Talzin.

The Dark Side grew stronger and stronger in him, greedily trying to hold on.

“I must… I must have it! My revenge. There can be no other way!”

“That way is only death! The end. To be used by Sidious again as he plans around you, using you as a pawn in the great game of dejarik he has made of this galaxy.”

“I- I- No! It won’t happen that way! I know-”

“That will not matter. He will use you as the very tool that will destroy Dathomir, your mother and all the Nightsisters. After which he will come after me and the disaster to come after that will leave him alone, completely free to mold the galaxy to his liking.”

“No! No!” He rushed over to a bulkhead and slammed his fists against it, causing a severe dent as he used a Force Push in concert with the punch.

“Choose Maul. Here and now! Be a pawn, a slave to be led to death… or choose life!”

He sneered and glared at me with gritted teeth, the Dark Side rising and the Omen’s hull began creaking…

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A/N: Sorry Maul, the Force and the galaxy literally can't afford the time for you to shrug off those chains of yours. Enjoy the weekend and stay awesome everyone!