|
Post by YodaBreaker on Jun 5, 2006 13:00:52 GMT -5
Your Welcome Yoda Breaker. But thank you YodaBreaker, it must take a long time to write these stories, because its like you are resurrecting Star Wars, since there isn't alot of that coming out. 1 MC for you! Thank you much; if you enjoy my fan fiction, there's a lot of other Star Wars fan fiction at Fanfiction.net; I'm sure you'd enjoy much of it! Yep, the events of the extended flashback I've just finished with would have happened in the months following EpI. Dooku dumped Sifo-Dyas's nearly lifeless body in the Dagobah swamp at the end of this extended flashback and now, a year and a half later, is going back to fish him out - or "take care" of him.
|
|
awesomejedi
40 Point Warrior
????#???? ?????????????????????????? ?
Posts: 807
|
Post by awesomejedi on Jun 5, 2006 20:18:57 GMT -5
Thanks for the page!
|
|
|
Post by YodaBreaker on Jun 11, 2006 17:20:22 GMT -5
And now, the 11th installment:
Sifo-Dyas may as well have had a leash attached to him as he was shuttled off to Kamino, one of the worlds that Dooku had taken care to delete from the Jedi Archives during his researches. He wanted to keep the location of the accomplished cloners based there a secret to ensure that the clone army was not activated before Dooku had enough time to organize the military might of his Separatist movement.
When they arrived at Kamino, Dooku stayed in the thingypit of the transport and bade Sifo-Dyas to order the clone army himself, taking the specifications of the Battle Orders with him. Over short distances, Dooku's conduit into Sifo-Dyas's mind remained as strong now as if his hand were touching the Jedi Master's forehead. As if on a child's marionette strings, Sifo-Dyas exited the transport and braved the Kamino rainstorms to enter the luminescent white halls of Tipoca City, datapad concealed under his robes. Sifo-Dyas wished he could do something to alert the Kaminoans that this order was false, that it must not be taken. However, every time he had so much as a stirring in his mind about acting contrary to Dooku's wishes, about taking matters into his own hands, the fears and the horrors flooded his mind once more.
Slowly, he was being conditioned to do only Dooku's bidding. To think as Dooku thought. To abandon any spark of individuality, lest his mind be battered with terrifying visions.
Much like the clones would have their independence genetically tamped down. The process of placing the order was surprisingly easy. After introducing himself falsely as a current ranking member of the Jedi Council, all that was needed was the security deposit provided by Darth Sidious, a selection of military training routines that Dooku had previously vetted, and a copy of the special Battle Orders that would ultimately make these clones Palpatine's, rather than the Republic's.
Sifo-Dyas wept inside through each step of the cloning order.
When the Kaminoans asked who the template for the clones would be, Sifo-Dyas demurred for a moment. This would be the last step. The last opportunity to stop this madness from coming to pass. The final stand he would make against the dark plans of the Sith.
As he moved to speak the words There will be no template! Destroy this order and everything associated with it!, he fell abruptly to his face on the floor. He could almost see Dooku's arched eyebrow in his mind as the staggering percepts of death and destruction, the acrid smell of burning flesh, the feeling of his very skin melting off whole and his nerves screaming out over every part of his body, all combined to fell him. The nearest Kaminoan bent down over him and asked if all was well. Once Sifo-Dyas's thoughts had been properly reconditioned, he stood and waved off the ministrations of his host, fobbing his collapse off as a result of intense sleep deprivation.
Which could have been entirely true. He had not slept since Dooku dragged him away from the museum. Yet another means the Sith used to ensure his compliance.
Sifo-Dyas told the Kaminoans that the clone template would be delivered later and would be recognized by carrying with him a copy of the training routines and Battle Orders to be used. The Kaminoans agreed and smiled at Sifo-Dyas as he traipsed back to the transport.
And to his ostensible death.
Sifo-Dyas slumped in the co-pilot's seat, utterly drenched from the windswept rains. Dooku no longer bothered with the restraints. He knew that Sifo-Dyas was now a broken man. A shell of the Jedi Master he used to be.
Ready for death. Aching for it.
But knowing it was not yet to come.
No mercy for his tortured mind yet.
That would have to wait until Dooku set the ship down on Kohlma, the burial moon of the planet Bogden – and home to the vicious Bando Gora cult. Prior to their journey to Kamino, Dooku had hired two of the last Mandalorian bounty hunters – Jango Fett and Montross – who had a strong mutual enmity. Their bounty was to be Komari Vosa, Dooku's former Padawan who left the order because of her growing infatuation with Dooku. She left Coruscant with four other Jedi to destroy the Bando Gora cult, but they instead destroyed her, torturing her to the point of madness and guiding her fall to the dark side of the Force. She assumed leadership of the cult by killing the two Jedi who survived the initial assaults of the Bando Gora, thus proving her devotion to the cult and to the evil its members sought to spread throughout the galaxy.
Dooku landed the transport surreptitiously at the base of the crag that housed the multi-domed monastic headquarters of the cult to await the arrival of the bounty hunters. Knowing how the Bando Gora despised any Jedi, this position would also be a fine staging point for Sifo-Dyas meet his apparent end. Dooku bade Sifo-Dyas out of the ship and toward the monastery, using him as bait to test the defenses of the cult before the Mandalorians arrived. Dooku wondered aloud what it was that impelled them to visit worlds in the midst of violent rainstorms.
Unable to release the volleys of tears he wished, Sifo-Dyas dryly thought that the fierce rainfalls compensated admirably for his shortcomings.
This last thought of Sifo-Dyas's formed a morsel of doubt in Dooku's own mind. It was as if Sifo-Dyas were still somehow able to break through the barrier Dooku had erected around him and contact the Force. Could it be that his puppet still had the capacity to reason for himself, no matter how viciously Dooku tried to stamp it out?
As Dooku wrestled with himself, Sifo-Dyas trudged up the crag toward the monastery with a fierce combination of dread, determination, and relief. At last, he would know respite from the myriad torments Dooku had forced on him over the past weeks. When Sifo-Dyas spied the main door to the monastery, he crouched down and skulked his way toward the summit of the crag. For the first time in weeks, he felt as if Dooku was allowing him a modicum of independent thought. Lest he dwell on that notion too long and risk punishment, Sifo-Dyas buried it deep within himself, under the layers of hurt and pain to which Dooku had subjected him.
But Sifo-Dyas's perception was not in error. The poisoned morsel had been metabolized in Dooku's psyche, distracting him and making his conduit into Sifo-Dyas's mind more tenuous.
For Dooku was forced to confront the depths of his depravity now, as never before. Previously, he could dismiss his maltreatment of the one man within the Jedi Order he could have still called friend as necessary for the greater good of the galaxy's denizens. The old, decadent, and corrupt Republic had to be swept away before a new, stronger, and pristine government could be installed. Dooku rationalized his abuse of Sifo-Dyas as necessary to bring that about by the only means possible. What was one man's current life and liberty when measured against the future security and safety of the entire galaxy?
Yet Dooku had disgusted himself with his conduct. He had betrayed the Order he had called home for decades. Devastated his friend's mind utterly. Violated his very thoughts. Forced him to engage in duplicity on a grand scale. And now, sentenced him to near-death in an assault that no man – not even Darth Sidious himself – could hope to escape. The litany of Dooku's sins paraded before him, mocking him. And as Dooku watched Sifo-Dyas's ascent from the thingypit of the transport, their mockery grew all the louder.
But were these thoughts worthy of a Sith Lord? Dooku's utter dominion over his friend, combined with his plans to create a new government to usurp the old Republic had drawn currents in the Force to him, suggesting a Sith name to him, even before it was bestowed on him by his master. Tyranus, the Force seemed to whisper to him. It was that name he used to lure the bounty hunters into this most dangerous of hunts. It was that name he now echoed into Sifo-Dyas's mind as the identity of his controller. It was that name he was destined to assume as soon as the clone army began gestating in Kamino's watery womb.
Thus did the nascent Darth Tyranus endeavor to discard the last shreds of Dooku's noble Jedi dignity in favor of the manipulative machinations of the Sith. Finally, as Sifo-Dyas reached the stone footbridge in front of the main door of the monastery, Tyranus drove a mental saber through the very heart and spirit of Dooku. His eyes shut one last time as anything resembling a Jedi. But in his death throes, the persona of Dooku did a curious thing. Before those eyes reopened with Sith vision, as a final act of – mercy? compassion? friendship? – Dooku released his conduit into Sifo-Dyas's mind with a parting thought of Goodbye, old friend.
Instantaneously, despite weeks of sleep deprivation and sensory overload, and aided by a sudden dump of adrenalin, Sifo-Dyas's sensorium achieved razor clarity. As the Bando Gora advance guard charged him, his lightsaber snapped into his hand and activated. With the first killing stroke, tears streamed freely from both eyes – one for himself, and one for the friend who was now truly dead.
|
|
Ben Kenobi
40 Point Warrior
????????? ?
Posts: 931
|
Post by Ben Kenobi on Jun 11, 2006 17:57:13 GMT -5
Great job, YodaBreaker! Very, very good.
|
|
|
Post by YodaBreaker on Jun 18, 2006 19:32:13 GMT -5
Thanks, Ben Kenobi! I'm glad you continue to enjoy the story. And now, for the twelfth installment. This will likely be the last installment for a couple of weeks, as I really have to get my dissertation done - the defense date is fast approaching!
The pools of rain on the ground of Kohlma were tainted with blood, cauterized flesh bits, and salt water.
Sifo-Dyas had fought bravely against the onslaught of the Bando Gora, who concealed their faces behind horned skull masks to heighten the fear that they inspired in all those who faced them.
All but Sifo-Dyas. For him, their appearance was as that of a thousand wraiths, beckoning him to be one with the Force. They symbolized a liberation from the never-ending stream of horrors that his life had become.
He had only hoped that Dooku held out long enough to let him die at their hands, rather than having the Tyranus Dooku had become saving his broken body for some sinister future purpose.
Sifo-Dyas's hopes were not to be realized that day.
He had managed to cut down three members of the Bando Gora cult without having to block a single blaster shot. However, the death cries of the advance guard brought a horde of cultists streaming from the monastery. Immediately, Sifo-Dyas adopted a Shien stance to permit him to send his adversaries' blaster bolts back toward their bodies. He managed to fell four more attackers this way before the sheer number of blaster bolts overwhelmed him.
A bolt blazed a hole in the tunic atop his left shoulder, causing him to jerk around. As he spun, he caught the sight of another throng of cultists surging down from the domed parapets of the monastery. His smoldering shoulder was soon extinguished by the torrential rains, and he recognized the futility of his position.
But he was even more bewildered by the apparent free choice he had in how to deal with that futility. For the first time in weeks, he was conscious of the several possibilities of action before him. Each of them – running away from the cultists to force them to track him down, charging impetuously into the midst of the Bando Gora stronghold, using the Force to confuse their weak minds temporarily – all seemed to have his ruin as their inevitable outcome. Nevertheless, he noticed he was free to choose the method of his undoing.
Sifo-Dyas smiled wryly, appreciating Dooku's final gift to him more than he could express.
He elected to stand his ground, to let the Bando Gora come to him. Knowing a retreat would be fruitless, he decided to compel his attackers to take the territory from him. He would die as a warrior – or at least, appear to do so.
The blasters stopped for a few tense moments as the Bando Gora repositioned themselves inside the monastery, regrouping for a new kind of assault. Their red and blue eyes glowed menacingly as they all stared at him, wondering what sort of bizarre attack he was planning.
For Sifo-Dyas had deactivated his lightsaber, held it in front of him, closed his eyes, and bowed his head slightly. He called upon the Living Force in a standing meditative stance, asking it for guidance. He communed with it and supplicated it for courage and bravery.
At the first depression of a blaster trigger, Sifo-Dyas's lightsaber snapped to life again, nearly singing the cowl of his cloak. A volley of blaster shots burst toward him, targeted at all parts of his body. The Force sped his Shien blocks greatly, allowing him to return most of the shots to their originators. Over ten blasters and bodies clattered to the floor – even Sifo-Dyas's heightened Jedi hearing could not determine precisely how many – in return for a single shot passing through his right thigh.
Normally, he would have at least slumped at the impact of the blaster round, but the Force kept him erect. He deactivated his lightsaber, returned to his meditative stance, and dared the Bando Gora to try again.
They accepted the dare.
This time, Sifo-Dyas's lightsaber snapped to life just in time to windmill around violently, deflecting the flurry of blasts more effectively but wildly into the Bando Gora's monastic lair. Still, he had the pleasure of seeing a bolt crack through the skull mask of one of the frontline soldiers, who dropped along with five other cult members.
Abruptly, the wave of firing stopped again. Gutteral, confused grunts emanated from the shadows of the monastery. Apparently, no one had ever put up such a fight against them. They were impressed with Sifo-Dyas's martial skills. Especially because he could deactivate his weapon between blaster salvos and meditate. They respected him now. They would give him a warrior's death.
He stood in the rain in Shien stance, keeping his lightsaber activated now. The raindrops hissed softly along the length of the blade as the Jedi Master and the Bando Gora warriors stared each other down in a show of mutual respect.
Until the shrill voice of Komari Vosa bellowed for the Bando Gora to open fire without ceasing.
Blaster bolts bit through the fabric of Sifo-Dyas's cloak now, driving him backward. But rather than smugly stride ahead, the Bando Gora stayed in place, continuing their assault from their initial positions, despite Komari Vosa's demands for them to move forward. For Sifo-Dyas shifted into a Soresu style of combat, even more protective than the Shien style he had adopted previously, though it now deflected the blaster bolts aimlessly away from both him and his attackers.
If they would let him go out with honor, he would ensure that their lives would be spared, his deadly point having been made.
Finally, the blaster rounds found purchase in his vital systems. One bolt rent straight through his right forearm. Another tore though the left lower quadrant of his chest. Yet another penetrated his solar plexus. A final one ripped through the right side of his neck.
When the last bolt knocked Sifo-Dyas on his back, still clutching his lightsaber, the blasters fell silent, though an errant round pierced his left knee on his way down. Komari Vosa angrily ordered the Bando Gora to bring his body into the monastery. The cultists turned around and all pointed their blasters at their leader. Their feral silence communicated that this warrior's body would be allowed to be reclaimed by the elements in the best Bando Gora tradition. Disgusted, Komari Vosa stormed to the cellar of the hideout, knowing her influence was only so strong with those savages.
Thus, no one was around when Tyranus ventured out of the transport to retrieve Sifo-Dyas's inert frame. He cradled Sifo-Dyas's body in his arms on the way down the crag, and he laid the body inside a medical stasis chamber. Its slowing of Sifo-Dyas's metabolism, combined with the Jedi healing trance that Sifo-Dyas had likely started reflexively when his body was torn into by the blasters, would save him.
Sifo-Dyas slept through Tyranus leaving the transport again once the Mandalorians had arrived. He slept through Tyranus murdering Komari Vosa after Jango Fett successfully subdued her. He slept through Tyranus and Fett making a deal for Fett to serve as the clone template back on Kamino as long as his fees were paid – and he was allowed an unaltered clone for himself. He slept through Tyranus delivering Fett to the Kaminoans, though Fett's parting words to his motionless body of Always a pleasure to meet a Jedi – followed by Fett spitting on his defenseless face – entered his dreams.
He slept through Tyranus unceremoniously dumping his body in a swamp on Dagobah, then taking off in the last flight that transport would ever provide, splattering Sifo-Dyas's body with mud from the engine wash.
And now, a year and a half later, Lord Tyranus descended his black, sinister, dagger-like Sith Interceptor in that same bog on Dagobah, the Force having guided him back to the exact spot he left the Jedi Master.
He wondered if Sifo-Dyas would still be sleeping there.
|
|
awesomejedi
40 Point Warrior
????#???? ?????????????????????????? ?
Posts: 807
|
Post by awesomejedi on Jun 19, 2006 0:11:50 GMT -5
Very Awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!!! MC
|
|
Ben Kenobi
40 Point Warrior
????????? ?
Posts: 931
|
Post by Ben Kenobi on Jun 19, 2006 7:48:29 GMT -5
Very, very good, YodaBreaker! I look forward to seeing the next one!
|
|
|
Post by Phoenix on Jun 21, 2006 13:20:58 GMT -5
I was about six chapters behind but caught up today at lunch. Wow!!! And poor Master Sifo Dyas.......
very nice tight story and great imaginary. Look forward to the next chapter but work on the dissertation!
|
|
|
Post by YodaBreaker on Jun 25, 2006 16:56:39 GMT -5
Thank you so much awesomejedi, Ben Kenobi, and Phoenix I'm glad that the story seems tight, Phoenix; I've been doing my best to keep it continue at a nice clip. Indeed, Sifo-Dyas has been quite mistreated by his old "friend," which I've yet to explore fully. Because I was able to get the results done on my dissertation, here's the thirteenth installment:
The Sith Interceptor's landing gear extended with a violent hiss into the murky waters of Dagobah, stirring the bog and its denizens for a minute or two as the ship eased itself onto its watery surroundings. The landing ramp splashed down into the bog, despite its being gently lowered into the turbid waters. At the top of the ramp, the man now known as Darth Tyranus to all but his Master back on Coruscant grimaced as he surveyed the dismal scene before him. Before his eyes, a couple of reptilian bat-winged creatures beat their powerful wings lazily through the thick haze permeating the entire planet's lower atmosphere. Spottily along the bog's perimeter, the forms of trees that appeared as tangles of white bark and branches with no leaves rose up as long as was visible through the considerable fog. Along the limbs of those trees scurried lizards approximately a meter long, their round and rotating eyes, gracefully pointed snouts, and gently arched bodies a stark contrast to the ungainly stretches and whorls of the trees' limbs. As Tyranus peered out of the hold of the ship, he noted that all of those lizards' eyes were rotated toward him. Lumbering on the ground were squat, two-meter long lizards with stout legs, flat bodies, rounded snouts, and forked tongues that shot out in pursuit of the multitude of crawling insects in the mud. Occasionally wrapping themselves around the lumbering lizards' legs were red, black, and yellow snakes, slithering their way toward prey that the ground lizards were too slow or unobservant to snare for themselves. In the distance, the broad dorsal crest of a monster at least ten meters long broke the surface of the bog as it rolled surprisingly gracefully through the waters. All the while, Tyranus strained to take in the myriad sights while vainly endeavoring with a wrinkled nose to filter out the myriad stenches of the plethora of lifeforms in various stages of decomposition. On Coruscant, the dead and dying were kept tucked away in the bowels of the planet, their pungent aromas sequestered safely away from the nostrils of the more refined inhabitants. On this hinterland planet, though, life and death formed a fetid soup that constantly assaulted the olfaction of all who dared intrude in it. Nauseated by the odor, Tyranus withdrew into the ship's hold and stretched out with the Force to make sense of the life around him. Immediately, he felt a thousand open minds working as one, each node of the mind coming from the lizards who were each peering at him from the trunks and limbs of the gnarled trees. He could almost feel their minds processing his presence, exchanging information and percepts through the Force, joining their limited brains together to create a processing network far superior to any other non-sentient creature Tyranus had ever encountered. Quickly, Tyranus felt the attention of that reptilian hive mind being directed toward the bog – more precisely, to the long, broad form undulating within it. Tyranus felt the creature under the murky waters probing all minds around – including his own – with the Force, using it to elicit instinctual terror in its quarry. Presumably, these Force strikes immobilized the monster's prey with fear summoned from eons of evolutionary engrams. The monster was strong with the dark side of the Force, though it practiced a far less sophisticated and effective form of it than Tyranus used. Then again, what could one really expect from an alien non-sentient? Quickly, each node of the reptilian mind cried out in a shared agony. Instantly, each lizard's position was revealed in scintillating flashes of fright that rippled through the Force and back to the archaic mind of the bog creature. A single lizard fell from his tree perch to the edge of the bog fifty meters from the front of the Sith Interceptor, apparently stunned by the wave of induced emotion. Tyranus arched an eyebrow even as he cringed inwardly at an ancient, unformed, and unbidden memory of utter terror. With surprising grace, the bog creature's large, dark green, pointed head lashed out of the water and grasped the fallen lizard in its mouth. However, the bog creature then coiled its meters-long neck around the lizard and dragged it under the water, rather than simply devouring the lizard in its considerable mouth with viciously pointed fangs. Tyranus followed the lizard's mind underwater, feeling pangs of asphyxiation spreading through it until it finally fell silent. Tyranus felt a new respect for the bog creature, appreciating the way in which it utterly dominated its prey and forced the lizard to submit to its will. This would be a powerful pet for a Sith lord, indeed. But soon, the bog creature was in turn silently threatened by what appeared to be a giant bag of protoplasm inching up on it from behind. Silently, the dorsal crest of the bog creature was enveloped by the protoplasmic slug's incredible girth. Tyranus could see the struggling form of the bog creature through the translucent skin of the sea slug; the bog creature refused to go quietly into the sea slug's digestive juices. Tyranus again appreciated the bog creature's unwillingness to succumb to its inevitable fate, to struggle against death until the last possible moment. What Tyranus could not see was the way in which the bog creature fought inside the sea slug's all-encompassing stomach. As the bog creature's eyes and ears slammed shut tightly to prevent them from being eaten away, the claws on its two-meter long arms combined with its needle-like fangs to rip apart the sea slug's three digestive membranes, each multiple centimeters thick. Soon, the sea slug's digestive juices spilled out into its body cavity, then into the waters of the bog as the bog creature burst out of the sea slug, shredding it viciously with savage flailing of its claws and jaws. Soon, all that remained of the sea slug was a transparent, tattered epidermis that floated on the surface of the bog, under which the dorsal crest of the bog creature poked as it slithered under the water's surface. Tyranus's respect for the bog creature grew another hearty measure as he saw the erstwhile prey become the predator once more. It would be difficult for Sith alchemy to create a more perfect animal, he mused. Tyranus also noticed that his nostrils had adapted to the planet's stench in the minutes it took him to observe the microcosm of the wildlife's cycle of life and death. He stepped further down the landing ramp, allowing his eyes to take in additional details of the planet's ecology: the small arachnids that spun ultra-fine webs whose strands could cut small animals to ribbons, the small amphibians in the bog and on its banks that killed with poisoned bites, and the meters-tall, bulbous, white, eight-legged vertical creatures that ambled around awkwardly. Finally, his boots made contact with semi-solid ground, which was hidden underneath centimeters of turbid water. He strode toward the nearest bank of the bog, and then ignited his crimson lightsaber. With a terrific, projecting baritone, he bellowed, “Master Sifo-Dyas! I have come for you once more!”
|
|
Ben Kenobi
40 Point Warrior
????????? ?
Posts: 931
|
Post by Ben Kenobi on Jun 25, 2006 17:23:20 GMT -5
Great! Wonderful descriptions.
|
|
|
Post by YodaBreaker on Jul 18, 2006 22:54:22 GMT -5
I thank you all for your patience with me as I endeavored to finish my dissertation before writing further updates. Ben Kenobi, I'm particularly glad you liked my descriptions; tell me if this part of the story's descriptions might need work. And now, after what is likely an interminable wait, the fourteenth installment:
Darth Tyranus's boots sloshed across the sodden ground of the bog, water spraying up with each step. His saber's crimson blade crackled intermittently as drops of condensation fell onto it from the trees or the very air itself. As he sought his quarry, his measured pace meshed itself into the deliberate but deadly cadence of life in the swamp world.
Almost imperceptibly, a bright and shimmering point appeared in the mist. Softly it crackled as it lengthened into a bar of blue light, approaching Tyranus's position slowly. Tyranus regarded the blue bar of light and the features it revealed carefully. A man with long, black, matted hair, with an accompanying scraggly black beard, slightly longer around his mouth and caked with grime drew closer. The man's ripped and tattered cloak was coated with twigs, leaves, and dirt; both it and the clothes underneath it sported singed holes. Finally, the man stopped five meters away from Tyranus.
At last, Master Sifo-Dyas had revealed himself.
“You came back for me. How touching.” The bedraggled Jedi Master's sarcasm surprised Tyranus.
“Indeed. You appear to have healed well.” Tyranus's dry response failed to elicit any detectable response from Sifo-Dyas.
“No thanks to you. You could have at least left me with a medkit, a change of clothes – even a ration bar!”
“Ah, but that would have taken the fun out of it, wouldn't it?” Tyranus's blade whirled around in a menacing flourish.
Sifo-Dyas ignored the older man's taunts. “Instead, you left me for dead. You didn't even have the decency to finish the job; instead, you left me for any one of these creatures to eat me alive.”
“It would seem that they failed, then.”
“No. You failed. You couldn't bring yourself to kill me before because you had a modicum of Jedi morality left in you. And the Chancellor still hasn't driven it from you fully. You still can't murder someone you called friend.”
Tyranus simply sneered at Sifo-Dyas. “You will soon know how incorrect you are about that foolish assumption.”
As soon as Tyranus hissed those last words, he used the Force to speed toward Sifo-Dyas, crimson blade extended as a lance. However, Sifo-Dyas read the direction of Tyranus's charge and leaped deftly out of the way, twisting in the air and landing five meters away from Tyranus.
“Such tired tricks. I would have expected better from a Sith Lord.” Sifo-Dyas glared defiantly at Tyranus, his voice hardened by a year and a half of privation.
Tyranus's eyebrow arched. He was not accustomed to being spoken to in such a disdainful manner from anyone, let alone his former puppet. Without uttering a word, he advanced slowly on Sifo-Dyas's position, his lightsaber whirling through the fog in brilliant, precise Makashi arcs.
Sifo-Dyas sneered at Tyranus's plodding progress, watching the rhythmic flight of his blade intently. The moment Tyranus drew within striking range, Sifo-Dyas jutted his blue blade abruptly out and down, catching Tyranus off guard and driving the Sith's crimson blade toward the marshy ground. “You always ensnared yourself in patterned movements, Dooku...or should I call you Tyranus, that silly name you let echo around in my head?”
As the Jedi Master's blade streaked up toward Tyranus's chest, the Sith jumped backward abruptly and beat his lightsaber roughly against his opponent's, sending the blue blade careening away from his torso. Sparks arced through the air as the water vapor between them turned to ionized plasma and ozone.
Tyranus exhaled quickly before speaking again. “Apparently, your time in this...miasma...has not completely diminished your skills with a lightsaber. Nevertheless, I sense great fear in you, my old friend.” Tyranus punctuated that ironical last word with a determined thrust at Sifo-Dyas's seemingly unprotected belly.
But the Jedi Master was ready for the Sith's attempt at a killing stab, barely flicking his wrist to bring his blue shaft of light across his body, neatly parrying the glowing crimson column. “All too predictable, Tyranus. The fear you sense is your own – your technique has grown stale, complacen...”
Before Sifo-Dyas could finish his sentence, Tyranus brought his lightsaber to bear again with a preternaturally accelerated swoop at the other man's neck. The Jedi Master simply ducked, locking his blade against his former friend's before sweeping his foot behind Tyranus's ankles, sending the Sith Lord crashing down, back first, into the slimy ground.
Instead of bringing his saber down for a crushing blow to press his ostensible advantage, Sifo-Dyas leaped backward into the top branches of a white tree, five meters above the ground. He deactivated his lightsaber, held it in front of him, closed his eyes, and bowed his head slightly. He used the Force to assume a standing meditative stance, perceiving Tyranus's slow rise from the marsh as ripples in the web of the Force surrounding the entire planet.
Sodden earth alternately clung to and dripped from the Sith Lord's cape as he drew up to his full height. He wore an indignant expression at the disregard – and disrespect – his opponent was displaying toward him. He snarled, “You are unwise to lower your defenses!” as he tossed his saber viciously at Sifo-Dyas's legs, intending to cut his support out from under him.
Rather than cutting the Jedi Master off at the knees, however, Tyranus's blade cut uselessly through the tree limb from which Sifo-Dyas seemingly levitated the instant the saber was thrown. The Jedi Master effortlessly positioned himself on a branch of similar height on the opposite side of the tree, still meditating, still with his eyes closed tightly.
You'll have to be less obvious than that, the almost aerial Jedi bored into his sinister counterpart's mind. Besides, the trees don't appreciate being violated like that. For your own sake, don't do that again.
Enraged, Tyranus retrieved his saber's hilt from the mire and cleaned it with the inner surface of his cape. With an evil glint in his eye, he activated the lightsaber and brutally cut through half of the trunk of the tree, threatening to destabilize the entire organism and send Sifo-Dyas thudding back to ground.
But the tree's voluminous, sticky sap quickly broke through the cauterization of the wound, gluing the edges together immediately. And even more curiously, a landspeeder-sized, eight-legged, vertically oriented, bulbous root detached from the tree, blinking a ring of mud-encrusted eyes near the bottom of the root for the first time at Tyranus. Slowly he stepped back as the root peeled away from its parent tree, pincers suspended half a meter off the ground starting to grind back and forth. I warned you, Sifo-Dyas grimly imparted to the Sith Lord's mind.
|
|
Ben Kenobi
40 Point Warrior
????????? ?
Posts: 931
|
Post by Ben Kenobi on Jul 19, 2006 8:09:06 GMT -5
I'm no expert, but I think the descriptions are incredible, YodaBreaker.
I love Sifo-Dias's sarcasm!
|
|
awesomejedi
40 Point Warrior
????#???? ?????????????????????????? ?
Posts: 807
|
Post by awesomejedi on Jul 31, 2006 17:13:49 GMT -5
Im sorry Im late respondin but the last few installments are AMAZING!
|
|
|
Post by starwarsman on Sept 30, 2006 10:49:29 GMT -5
is this story going to be finished? i hope we can see the ending!
|
|
|
Post by YodaBreaker on Oct 2, 2006 20:48:30 GMT -5
Yes, it will be finished, as soon as I get my lab put together - though that may be another month or so
|
|