I streaked through the pitch blackness of space in a sleek Republic Belbullab-22 starfighter, gifted politely by the treacherous Trandoshan fleet boss from his personal collection. Due to my lackluster piloting skills, I had requested an astromech droid with a blank memory chip, the annoying little beeps it made sufficed at least as confirmation it heard me as we dashed through the emptiness of the dark expanse. I felt myself glaring toward it through the paneled interior. "....You better not crash into anything." I let my normally hidden thoughts slip out to my new companion.
We were homing in on the tracking beacon of this Jedi Zinn's ship placed after De'busk's 'Final warning' to her. Apparently, Her crusade against corruption had found her an enemy in the slimy reptile...Today, her meddling would end permanently, I would see to that personally.--A simple favor for our continued ventures. I looked at a clock near my sleek new ship's dashboard....3 hours away from sweet old Cognus--I had better do this right or all this extra fun I'd been having would only end up with me singed to ebony bone.
The dome-shaped head of the droid beeped as I entered a rough patch trail of asteroid belts. "Damnit! Why would you spit me out here?!" My vodered voice came through loud enough to echo off the glass. A small green radar blip indicated Zinn’s aging craft ahead weaving between the massive drifting rocks. "Must have had to drop out of hyperdrive to get through...perfect." The dark silver little bot only made a strange whirring noise in reaction.
"Let's see what you can do..." I said switching the safety off on the starfighter's tri-canon, unleashing a barrage of crimson laser fire at Zinn's rear shields as I quickly closed in. Her intercepter spiraled leftward before it returned fire, emerald bolts glancing off my spherical cockpit viewport as the alarms screeched at incoming projectiles. "Fucking droid! Keep it steady!" The only response it had was a loud screech before more warning lights came to life.
The bulky ship barrel rolled to strafe her flank, as she suddenly quickly veered toward a looming iron-gray asteroid the size of a mountain. Zinn was leading me deeper into the field's cluttered heart, most likely assuming she could outpace me with the much more agile ship. At the last instant, Zinn pulled up, skimming the unyielding rocky surface of the large heavenly body.
I smiled darkly under my mask realizing I had nothing to fear with this new little pilot bot handling the chase. I watched as my controls worked on their own to follow at breakneck speeds, I hadn't been in a spaceship since Cognus adopted me--the freedom of near open space was something I yearned for in quiet times...the screams of the ship's alarms quickly placed me back in the moment as we barely skid through two colliding boulders twice the size of my bulky ship.
My red-patched robo-pirate's piloting skills were tested to their limits navigating the treacherous maze of stone, each new obstacle emerging only seconds before near impact. Zinn led us through corkscrewing canyons sliced into nickel-iron, the Force granted me brief snatches of foresight saving my craft where we would have met oblivion--Only minor adjustments in truth, I found myself wildly caught off guard by the atromech's ace piloting abilities.
Fed up with Zinn's games though, I targeted the cluster of sensor arrays on her engines and fired a condemning barrage of laser volleys just as she banked left toward another set of tightly packed asteroids. Zinn spiraled as the arrays erupted in blue flame but somehow kept her battered craft flying until it collided in the center of a rubble field between towering asteroids. She had nowhere left to flee, I touched down nearby and popped the cockpit of my ship. "WEEEEEEIIIIOOOO." Ignoring the horrid noise of the little gray bot was not easy.
Gorgeous black cape flowing rearwards in the absence of gravity's anchor, I propelled myself through space towards her wreck. Zinn was already outside hurridly welding hull patches with sparking torch when I landed softly mere paces away, the same shoto golden lightsaber thrumming ominously. Zinn's goggled eyes went broad at my visage creeping closer toward her wreck. I drank in her sudden fear that rippled in the force.
"I'm surprised to see another Kel Dor....Much less so to see the reptile has made his move so quickly," she growled through a compact antiox mask affixed to her slightly wounded face. With a blitz, I dashed forward trying to use her confusion to my advantage. Zinn was much slower than Cognus but still able to counter my savage strikes with ease, her saber pike matching my weapon's gold pigment. I understood this to mean she was well-balanced in the force--Finally an actual test of my training was within reach!
Zinn's yellow polearm met my shoto with a crackling hiss that sent sparks cascading into the dusty plane, the unstable plasma blades pushing against each other with momentous force. Sweat beaded on my forehead ridges from the searing heat as I pushed with all my rage, attempting to overpower the Jedi's defenses despite the polearm's clear advantage with leverage.
We disengaged then quickly exchanged a flurry of glancing blows, the vacuum lending our motions a weightless fluidity punctuated with optic flare each clash that left scathing marks in the astroid we stood on. Rocks pulverized to dust from the sheer force of our lightsaber slashes, debris swirling around us in the zero-gravity battleground from the building force power roiling between us.
Zinn arced her pike in a blindingly swift storm, forcing me to dodge backward on my heels just to stay in motion. Zinn's Form 1 style paired with her polearm made my shoto look like a small plaything in a baby's small clutches. She battered away 3 hand-strikes before I switched to Niman to allow for more capability. I pulled the small rocky body underfoot using the Force while Zinn balanced her movements with the polearm beneath her, maintaining distance enough to soak in my combat prowess without damage. "You are no Jedi!" she rattled off with a small fleck of anger in her voice.
I feinted left, then spun with the momentum to bring my shoto saber across in a vicious horizontal strike. Zinn reacted with preternatural speed, her long blade whipping up to stop mine inches from her skull. The crossed sabers cast our faces in an eerie yellow glow as we glared into each other's eyes, locked in a contest of wills that I refused to give any ground in. "Sloppy, you could be so much better..." The older Kel Dor almost said with pity in her electronic voice.
Unleashing a feral scream, I rained fierce overhead smashes down towards Zinn once more, each blow making her stagger backward from the sheer intensity and disadvantage of her much longer weapon in close combat. She managed to deflect them all with mere milliseconds of reaction time, yet her arms started quivering from absorbing the punishment of my relentless assault and well-timed grabs of her polearm with my free hand. I could feel the Jedi veteran's life force finally begin to be tapped by my dark powers.
Zinn took advantage of my aggression and satisfaction to hurl me back with a powerful concussive blast. I was sent helplessly careening until I crashed through writhen spires of a basalt asteroid cluster at about a hundred feet distance away. Dazed mildly, shreds of my black robes flitted away as I reoriented myself to perceive Zinn pitching a hailstorm of iron-nickel boulders to entomb me. With a deep thrumming of the field, I funneled acrid hate through the Force, flattening the bombardment mid-flight to shimmering granulate pebbles in an instant.
"I will show you better!" I said, Then propelled myself back to strike like a smoldering mortar shell, the vacuum's endless reach as my zero-G accelerant. As we engaged in another bout of saber clashes. I could feel the tinge of ionized particles with each parry and riposte colliding with my skin. Zinn fought with cold discipline, her economical moves unruffled even as I hacked and slashed at her defenses with reckless abandon, putting my entire hatred into every strike that purposely left myself open.
The old Jedi Knight met each brutal chop and thrust with zen-like calm, sidestepping with infuriating grace until a slipping foothold left an opening. "No..." She croaked out fearfully. I turned the blade backward attempting to slash her midsection with all my might. Zinn had baited me into a plunge that she used to smash the top of my head with the end of the pole after catching her footing with the end of the saber stick-end.
...A few short zero-gravity rolls masked my blistering pain in darkness. My hands came out catching my silver armor with the force to stabilize myself--Cognus' acrobatic disciplines were going to be paramount in this battle. I kept pressing with irritation but could not penetrate her staunch meditative defense rooted in ancient Form I tranquility techniques at all...
We battled across the asteroid shoals, my opportunity for an instant killing stroke frustratingly elusive as she gracefully led us farther and farther from the ship's glowing lights. The small red Bot yodeled some random nonsensical stream of noise distracting me for a moment.
Zinn's weapon slashed upward in a concise movement, sheering off the lower black left horn of my hanging facial tusk and carving a molten gash up my face in an instant. Recoiling more from outraged vanity than pain, my shoto only grazed her leading shoulder as we broke apart. Dust particles began to kick up more profoundly, making the field take on more of a misty atmosphere than I had expected in space that concealed the outright fury I now felt. "I WILL not miss next time." The Jedi nearly spat at me now, feeling emboldened by her strike on me while not even reacting to the minor injury she received.
I gripped my own charred flesh and vitriolic anger surged that this simple Jedi had mared my fearsome visage. "You will pray you hadn't," I flared back to her with my lightsaber still held backward. Zinn clearly discerned my frothing outrage and dismay at her lingering survival. "Your talents are undeniable but wrath fractures any design obscureing the clear path ahead." She settled into a high guard, composed as ever in a solid stance that was without blemish. "I remain ready to end this destructive duel at any moment yet do not wish to kill you..."
Her arrogance boiled my blood! I would make this 'stoic' Jedi understand her precious ways were meaningless against the true, unbridled power of the dark side's full potency or I become nothing more than a carcass among the stars. "I will drain you of all that you are!" I roared, feeling the force contort around me like a black vortex of disdain.
Zinn backpedaled rapidly, leaping across the uneven crags and jutting rock formations as I pursued in a frenzied bloodlust that shook the ground. She bounded from perch to precarious perch, but I was always mere seconds behind, my lightsaber's golden blade hungrily licking at her heels to no avail.
To the Jedi, this must have seemed easier than a sustained battle mixed with her now waning energy reserves. When she landed hard on a small, rotating asteroid chunk, I seized my brief opportunity. Extending one clawed hand, I wrenched the space rock upwards with brutal telekinetic force. Spears of metal and rock erupted around Zinn's ankles, binding her in a grip that arrested her momentum.
Her eyes went wide as I closed the distance in two immense force-augmented strides, boots thundering down mere feet away. "Your reckoning--!" I raised my saber high for the killing strike, In a surprising burst of agility, Zinn twisted and dropped into a flexed sidebend of her body. Narrowly avoiding my blade's deadly vertical arc.
As she slipped between my legs after breaking the hold with her own force power, her pike flashed out in a blinding streak -- swerving cleanly through my right ankle without hesitation. White-hot agony lanced up from the searing stump as I staggered, nerves screaming in horrid disbelief.
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How...?! My vaunted dark side energy congealed into a protective cocoon, sealing the grievous wound that was already cauterized. I could feel it already draining my reserves at an unsustainable rate that would now need to be ripped from every last cell of this Jedi. Zinn bounced back to her feet behind me, face etched in grim determination despite her own weariness. "Enough of this! Surrender now and be spared!" The tone in her voice was dignified yet resigned.
I answered her plea with a small blast of force lightning, wrath overriding any rationality as I tried to funnel my body's pain into her flesh. Jagged tendrils of violet energy spat from my outstretched fingertips, hungrily seeking the Jedi's epidermis. Zinn whirled her saber in a shimmering circular motion, creating a defensive barrier that scattered the searing plasma volley in harmless offshoots. "So be it..." she intoned.
Using the last of my ebbing strength, I drew upon the dark forces again, hurtling myself towards the woman in a ballistic, lightning-augmented leap. My blade trailed behind like a golden comet's tail as the distance rapidly closed between us.
The Jedi was already in motion. Twisting with almost cruel quickness, Zinn angled her blade and deftly caught my wild overhand blow - then keeping the immense momentum from my charge, shunted it in a perfectly timed redirect. Like a child's practice drone, I was launched spinning wildly off in a new vector by the gentle redirection of her parry.
I twisted and flailed helplessly for what seemed an eternity, propelled towards the jagged maw of a towering iron asteroid at puke-inducing speeds. I tried to contain my trajectory with desperate force pushes, but they merely slapped ineffectively against the relentless cosmic path of my flight. With a thunderous, shattering impact, my body slammed into the immense rocky mass - instantly crumpling like an insect splattered against a starship's transparent Durasteel canopy.
I felt the darkness close in around the edges of my consciousness as the raging inferno of my shattered form was swallowed into the yawning void of oblivion...My training had numbed my body to pain yet the sheer screaming agony I was in made me truly understand what the words meant, white-hot pain shot through like shards of glass racing through my nervous system to a bloody finish line.
I heard the hissing fade as Zinn deactivated her polearm, her ethereal presence scanning for any flicker of life amidst the vacuum's eerie silence. Through sheer beskar focus, I channeled the searing agony ravaging my body into an impenetrable shroud of dark side energy, using pure hatred to telekinetically drag my battered form upright like a mangled puppet of my own design.
Battered yet undeterred, I floated grimly over the crater my impact had torn into the asteroid, hate alone sustaining my will to exist as black edges began forming over my vision. Zinn summoned my discarded lightsaber to her grasp without noticing me, seemingly considering our duel concluded. I sat waiting for the full might of the last of my power to swell within my palms.
"Hello, Master Doa. I--" she began, but I drowned out her words with a torrent of sizzling force lightning with one hand and pointed whips of life drain with the other. Arcing tendrils of gray plasma erupted from my twitching outstretched fingers, mercilessly lathering Zinn's body with an agonizing voltage that sapped her vitality, unlike the last time she blocked it.
Her form convulsed violently, wreathed in crackling energy, until the relentless onslaught whipped her smoldering husk into the hungry maw of a nearby asteroid's shadowed crevice. due to the lack of gravity. I dragged myself forward, landing hard on my solitary remaining foot beside Zinn's extinguished presence in the force.
I pondered absorbing her ebbing life essence further but decided it brought no satisfaction, only a hollow sense of failure. The cauterized stump of my severed foot blazed with raw pang...the permanent reminder of my botched mission, carved into my very flesh. "Your lifeless body will be my prize, my master will be pleased." My tenuous control faltered as I collapsed backward, the silence broken only by my ragged gasps.
The inky billions of stars glittered all around, cruelly yet beautifully in their indifference to my predicament. Zinn's saber had not just taken my foot --it had shorn off my last remaining face tusk, leaving a scorched furrow up my cheek that throbbed in time with my heart's rapid pulse.
I'd fucked up utterly, deviating from Cognus' plan's precise execution for my own merit. There would be severe consequences I realized now, harsh "lessons" to remind me that weakness would never be tolerated no doubt. My sanctioned autonomy had been a mistake, one I risked paying for with unimaginable suffering if I didn't at least show why I had gone off on my own path.
Summoning what little remained of my strength, I floated back towards my ship as the crimson-trimmed astromech droid swiveled its domed head curiously toward Zinn's corpse. An electronic trill that could almost be mistaken for pity issued from its vocabulator. My glare bored into its photoreceptors as it took in my mangled state. "What's the matter, you think you could do better?" I rasped, fury simmering beneath the pain.
The small R unit bot turned its head in its custom bay of the Belbullab and whistled in an oddly smug pattern. "Weeeeo" The low vibrational tone almost seemed patronizing as if it really did truly pity me...I swore that no being would ever exceed my power again as it appraised my new wounds and missing body part in the small lights of the vessel.
"Do you want to match me? Get the fucking ship ready to leave!" I hissed at the shiny silver and red bot before it popped open the entrance to my starship, I stuffed Zinn into a small compartment behind the cockpit before taking off with my boon.
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My custom starfighter skated gorgeously from hyperspace over Dantooine though it had suffered minor damage. As I descended the loading ramp to our hidden temple sanctuary, a familiar ominous boil in the Force greeted me from the hidden Sith temple's shifting stone entrance. Cognus stormed from the shadows of the dark cavern entrance, yellow piercing eyes ablaze with irritation. She must have sensed the end of Zinn well beforehand, I popped the glass to my ship and floated myself and my prize in silence before bowing to Cognus. "I retrieved the Kyber, Master--"
She gestured angrily at my now scarred face. "You reveal us overtly to defeat some meaningless Jedi...and by the looks of your ship you have been in league with the Trandoshan as well!" I shuddered under her verbal assault, quickly further bowing my head in penance. "I misjudged severely..." My voice was shaded by my anger as my body still pulsed where my foot once was.
Cognus pressed on without falter at my response. "Now Jedi will flock here seeking this hidden threat, jeopardizing all I have crafted--You are a vain idiot..." Her clawed hand shot forth, locking my throat in a crushing Force grip as she lifted my body off the cold stone floor and into the freezing Dantooine wind currents with rumbling fury. "Why do you make me do this to you?" Cognus said with a lowered tone. "Why not do as I have instructed?" She howled on nearly as loud as the wind.
I grasped desperately at my own collapsing windpipe to no avail as darkness engulfed my vision for the 3rd time in 1 day. Just before consciousness faded, she hurled me backward to crumple in a heap of Beskar armor and squirming failure. "You backwater space tramp." Cognus towered above my broken form, features twisted in disgust at my very continued existence. " Have you learned nothing?! You are lucky that Jedi didn't take your useless life." My multiplying failures compounded before her cutting diatribe.
I tried to remedy it by offering myself willingly. "What punishment could match such insolence?" My mind tried to not imagine the hours of torture it was going to watch my body receive before her voice cut through my thoughts. "No...imploring will not spare your thick skull this time, cur." Cognus sneered, reading my mind. "You will travel with me to eliminate the evidence of your stupidity...then we will deal with your penalty." Mustering what rags of dignity remained as I stumbled to my foot, I silently followed my incensed Master to an inner sanctum we rarely used, trying to mask my injury with a slight floating gate.
It was the same chamber Cognus had used to infuse ancient artifacts' magic into binding spells...The inner workings of magic were like second nature to my decrepit master that still baffled my simmering mind. My anxiety mounted wondering what she planned to do as I glided myself weakly down the steps next to the bodies of both my master and Zinn, descending much more effortlessly through the force than I could manage.
She did not speak a word till Zinn's carcass was resting gently on one of the most bloodstained slabs I'd ever seen. I knew not to ask any questions but I couldn't help but muse over what dark ritual she would perform on the woman.
Cognus began chanting in a tongue that I could not understand before dark purple symbols flashed to life all around us, my understanding was that she would be doing a similar rebirth ritual she had performed on me so many years ago...Yet how if Zinn did not draw breath?
I watched carefully as Cognus began to speak in her normal voice. "Oh my love, what horrors you faced dearest..." Cognus stroked Zinn's icy tusks gently before turning to me with strange warmth, her other hand swirled with dark green magics.
"This is why we hide in solitude. The galaxy breeds such brutality." I stared in bewilderment as she manipulated the dead Jedi's body, Zinn spasmed as she wailed behind unfreezing skin. All the colors ceased into a strange warm glow that permeated the cave.
What sick fucking game was this?! Cognus extended her glowing palm, weaving a lurid vapor over Zinn's remains as red energy began to swirl between the three of us before disappearing. Before my eyes, her burn wounds knitted together, an orange hue returned to lifeless features yet leaving her arms deeply scarred.
Why had Cognus left her slightly maimed? My taut nerves now jumped in alarm at Zinn finally coming back to the Force's tangle...Cognus was a gifted healer! Zinn convulsed further as I contained my confusion, coughing painfully before she stared wide-eyed between us. "Where?! How?!" The Jedi seemed to not recognize me nor understand she was in a very dark place...my master's absolute command over broken minds was awe-inspiring, truly.
Cognus shushed her with unfamiliar tenderness brimming in her voice. "There now, love...a Republic fleet ambushed you on our way home from a trade run to the people, they nearly killed both me and your sweet son. Isn't that right Filo?" She gestured gently to me, Zinn's gaze following with trust blooming. "F..Filo? That rabid dog De'busk will pay!" The Kel Dor put her hand out to me while wincing from her wounded arm, I felt disgusted at the idea of touching another person not for violence yet placed her hand in mine. "Yes...mother." I barely let loose before feining sadness as I turned away from her battered form.
Cognus smiled, rubbing her shoulders sweetly. "Yes dearest...you saved us. We are safe for now--But you must rest." My gut twisted in dismay and confusion as she worked whatever dark sorcery on his memory that was unseen. I could scarcely fathom Cognus's true intentions in making up such a strange story. "Filo dear, help me get her to the ship's medical bay." Still baffled by her false familiarity, I wordlessly took Zinn's arm as she fell back into a deep sleep, Cognus led our charade to the back of her luxury starship without another word to me.
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The shuttle set down in the fortified southern Mandalorian camp De'busk had mentioned as potential allies I could find useful, kicking up ruddy dust in the Dantooine atmosphere. Cognus turned to Zinn, her eyes full of contrived worry after we had brought her back from under the medical droids tools. "My love, I fear the commander may have tracked us here after the ambush. You must ensure these warriors are prepared to fend off any further attacks as we now know no one can be trusted outside the Rim." Zinn's brow furrowed beneath her respiration mask.
"But you...and Filo...his injury..." She glanced at my severed foot with clear concern, if she wasn't my master's puppet I would have crushed her skull with my bare hands for what she did to me. "Do not trouble yourself," Cognus said soothingly before I could speak, taking Zinn's hand.
"I will take Filo and go somewhere safe to allow his wound to mend properly. You know how much this fighting upsets him..." She shot me a pointed look. "We wouldn't want him to be discovered by the order anyways, right my love?" Cognus brushed the Kel Dor off masterfully.
I bowed my head meekly, trying to project a persona of weakling aversion to combat suiting this newly created identity. Mercifully, Zinn seemed to accept the ruse without question. "Very well," she said with clear reluctance of abandoning her fake family. "But you must send word once you've found a secure refuge. And promise me you'll both remain hidden until I can retrieve you myself." Zinn looked deeply into my eyes. "I will make the Republic pay for what they've done." She said with a fire burning in her chest.
Cognus pulled Zinn into an intimate embrace, whispering assurances I could not hear. Over Zinn's shoulder, her eyes bored into me - scorching daggers of pure menace. I shrank back, understanding the unspoken threat behind that frigid glare. "When the time is right all will be revealed to you, go now and help these people become a bastion of hope against tyranny." After several soul-searching moments, Zinn exited the shuttle with a sullen wave. Her saberpike strapped to her back, almost like a reminder of my failure.
Her role in this intricately woven deception was now cemented as the ramp closed behind the rogue Jedi knight. Cognus watched her disembark with undisguised smugness. "Soon, my confused Jedi toy, you shall serve a much greater purpose than you can currently fathom," she purred darkly into the quiet ship bay. She turned a predatory gaze on me once more.
"And as for you...our work has only just begun." The old woman said before leaving to set the ship's next course. I shudder to think what was in store for me.