Control and mastery of one’s self…

[Darth Timoris]

Teräs Käsi, or “steel hands” in Basic, was an unarmed combat discipline created solely to fight with Jedi. That alone was a good reason to learn it for Melori.

The martial art enabled a user to develop extreme speed, and an aptitude for anticipating strikes, most notably shown by clone assassins. In addition to this, it taught how to close your mind to Jedi and Sith, thus protecting yourself from mental based attacks.

But most of all Teräs Käsi also had a developed set of fighting skills, and Nine Edicts. Some lightsaber duelists used Teräs Käsi techniques in combat, most notably Darth Maul – which is why Melori was now standing in the middle of an empty training arena.

For her Master had been able to perform Sith magic on an old trinket that had once contained the ancient Sith Lord’s memories. It was an amulet she now wore around her neck – albeit it was simply a piece of jewellery now. But the ritual performed on Ambria had implanted certain memories in her head. Memories she could access in her bid to learn the martial art in a fraction of the time it would take someone typically.

As ever, when Melori wanted something, she wanted it now and would not wait ten years to develop the ability. So she closed her eyes and tapped into what were essentially shared memories. In her mid she knew how to perform all of the moves. Except her body did not and she needed to build up the muscle memory to be able to perform the manoeuvres.

 

[Darth Timoris]

The first step was to perform each of the moves – slowly at first before picking up pace. So she cycled through them.

Aryx Slash, Charging Wampa, Dancing Dragonsnake, Death Weave, Förräderi, Gorax Smash, Gronda Stomp, Gundark Slap, Leaping Veermok, Nexu Grin, Rancor Rising, Riding Bantha, Screaming Squill, Shenbit Bonecrusher Blow, Slashing Wampa, Sleeping Krayt, Spitting Rawl, Steel Hands and Striking Sarlacc.

One by one she worked on them. Minutes turned into hours and hours passed until dusk fell. Exhausted and drenched in sweat, she pushed on until fatigue claimed her.

The entire process had to occur without any use of the Force, so she finally succumbed to sleep and curled up in the middle of the arena and slept soundly. With her Master away exploring ruins in no doubt various remote parts of the galaxy, she had free time. But to Melori, free time meant an opportunity to train – not to rest.

 

[Darth Timoris]

She awoke, stiff and tired but she knew that the next challenge might come in similar circumstances. Training in imperfect conditions only made you stronger. She remembered that from one of the memories.

So she ran around the duelling arena to loosen up and then did her usual dancing stretches. Taking a drink of water, she placed the bottle down and closed her eyes.
Tapping into the memories, she pulled one out. As it played in her head, so she acted it out in real life – her eyes still firmly shut.

‘She activated the panel, and it slid closed. The blinking lights of the city narrowed to a slit, then disappeared. She had to focus her mind. The Jedi are out there. She will meet them someday, and soon. She cannot bring the moment closer by wishing for it.

She feels some fatigue and hunger. That means she should undertake her most difficult training of the day. She pushes her body whenever she can. This she learned from her Master - Sidious. Events do not wait until you are well rested. You must be able to fight at the peak of your control even when you lack sleep and food.

It was time to activate the assassin droids.

Assassin droids are a necessary part of training. They are programmed to fight to the death. Blasters are built into their chests and hands. Their accuracy is perfect. A miscalculation on her part could be lethal.

She activates three droids and powers up her double-bladed lightsaber. She is outnumbered, but assassin droids can't move as quickly as she can. They cannot jump, and their flexibility isn't as finely tuned.

Their weaponry makes up for that.

They track her easily in the empty room, their sensor lights flashing. She met the first barrage and deflects it with her lightsaber, spinning it in a blur of motion while she tracks the next blaster fire and here she can feel the power of the dark side. Aggression fuels it. The darkness throbs furiously, beating in her muscles, making her merciless and effective.

This is what she loves: the feel of the Dark-side of the Force pulsing, growing, until the air crackles with the charge. It is the charge of blood and pain and anger. She controls it. She manipulates it. It only makes her stronger.

The assassin droids are programmed to use complicated fighting strategies. They try a flanking manoeuvre, but she leaps over them, the dark side fuelling every muscle, and come at them from behind. She destroys the first droid as the second and third turn and fire.

She is already a millimetre away, escaping the fire and twisting to deliver a cleaving blow to the second droid. It topples, its sensor lights still flashing. She buries the other end of her lightsaber in its control panel. It lets out a screech of protest that sounds almost human. Smoke rises and she breathes it in. It is the smell of the Jedi Temple burning. The pleasure of destruction builds making her blood pound.

The third droid swivels. Instead of coming at her directly, it wheels to the right. She feels a start of surprise. It is a new manoeuvre. The droids are continually reprogrammed.

The manoeuvre and the surprise please her. She does a backward somersault as blaster fire pings over her head. Challenge. That is a cornerstone of Sith training. Lord Sidious keeps her off balance.

The blaster fire is close, closer than she likes. She can feel the heat on the sleeve of her tunic. She smells singed material. The assassin droid has suddenly flipped sideways and fired from the chest. She’s been distracted.

Anger rises in her, which is good. The darkness crests and roars. She twists in the air, her lightsaber twirling, revolving. Its balance is perfect in her hand. She strikes one hard blow to the left flank of the droid. She feels the power of the move reverberate all the way to her shoulder. It gratifies her. The other blow to the right follows a fraction of an instant later, so close that an observer would not be able to tell which blow came first. They would only see the armless droid wobble, its internal balance mechanism destroyed.

It is an easy job to slice off its head. The droid crashes to the floor, now a useless heap of smoking metal. She kicks it out of her way with a smile, her lightsaber held loosely in her fingers. One day she will see a Jedi at her feet just like that.’

She opened her eyes. The marks on the ground indicate the dance she’d performed in performing the manoeuvres. She takes a drink and does it all again. And again. And again.

Until she had this perfected she would not move on to the next memory.

 

[Darth Timoris]

Once she was able to perform the manoeuvres without reference to her shared memories, Melori moved on. There was time for a second before night fell – so she munched on a nutrient bar and closed her eyes.

‘The duelling droids were programmed to kill.

There were four of them, top-of-the-line, all armed in different ways: one with a steel rapier, one with a heavy cudgel, the third with a short length of chain, and the last with a pair of double-edged hatchet fighting blades as long and wide as a human's forearm. They had been programmed with the skills of a dozen martial arts masters, and their reflexes were calibrated just a hair faster than human optimum. Durasteel chassis were blaster-resistant. They had come factory-equipped with behavioural inhibitors that prevented them from delivering a death blow once their opponent had been beaten, but these inhibitors had been nullified by their new owner. A mistake against one would be fatal.

She did not make mistakes.

The Sith Acolyte stood in the middle of the training chamber as the four droids circled her. Her breathing was calm, her heartbeat even and slow. She was aware of her body's reactions to the danger-aware and in control.

Two of the droids – Rapier and Chain, she silently named them – were within her field of vision. The other two – Cudgel and Hatchet – were not, being behind her. It did not matter; through her awareness of the Force she could sense their movements as plainly as if she had eyes in the back of her head.

She raised her own weapon, the double-bladed lightsaber, and triggered the power control. Twin lances of pure energy boiled forth, hissing and crackling in crimson loops that began and ended at the two flux apertures on either end of the device. Unless one was in perfect attunement with it, the weapon could be as deadly to the user as to the opponent.

Rapier lunged at full extension, its metal knee joint bent almost to the floor. The needle point flickered toward her heart, almost too fast to see.

The dark side blossomed in her, the power of it resonating in her like black lightning, augmenting her years of training, guiding her reactions. Time seemed to slow, to stretch.

It would have been easy to chop the blade itself in half, as few metals could resist the frictionless edge of a lightsaber. But there was no challenge to that. She spun toward the point, twisted around the outside, and snapped her hands horizontally at chest level. The left blade of the lightsaber sheared through Rapier's sword arm. Both arm and weapon clattered to the floor.

She dropped to her left knee as, from directly behind her, Cudgel's full swing whistled over her head, barely missing her dorsal horn. Without looking, guided by the vibrations of the Force, she thrust backwards with the right blade, then forward with the left-one, two! – skewering both Cudgel and Rapier in their abdominal compartments. Sparks spewed from shorted circuitry, and lubricating fluid sprayed in a reddish oily mist.

Using the momentum of the forward thrust, she dived over the collapsing droid before her, flowing smoothly into a shoulder roll. she came up twirling her lightsaber overhead, then stepped down solidly into the Teräs Käsi wide stance called Riding Bantha. Even as she did the movement, part of her was monitoring her body's state. Her breathing was slow and even, her pulse elevated by no more than two or three beats per minute from its resting rate.

Two down, two to go.

Chain charged, its weapon whirling over its head like the propeller of a gyrocraft. The heavy links lashed toward her. She spun on her right foot and shot her left leg out in a powerful side kick, slamming her boot into the droid's armoured chest, stopping it cold. She dropped into a squat, spun the lightsaber like a scythe, and sickled the droid cleanly at the knees. Lower legs gone, it collapsed as she again twisted herself and her weapon, flowing into the form known as Rancor Rising. She brought the right blade up between Chain's mechanical thighs, hard, using her leg muscles to augment the strike as she pushed up from the squat to a standing position.

The force of her strike bisected Chain from its crotch right through the top of its head. There was a hard metallic screech as the droid came apart in two halves. Its feet and lower legs hit the floor slightly before the upper halves landed atop them.

The acrid smell of burned lubricating fluid and circuitry washed over her. What was, seconds ago, a functional piece of high-tech equipment was now a barely recognizable pile of scrap metal.

Three down, one to go.

Hatchet moved to her left, whirling its razor-edged blades in defensive movements –high, low, left, right, a blinding pattern of edged death waiting to blind the unwary and cut her down.

She allowed herself a twitch of her lips. She pressed the lightsaber's controls. The humming died as the energy beams blinked out. She bent, keeping her eyes on the droid as she put the weapon on the floor and shoved it away with her boot.

She settled herself into a low defensive stance, angled toward the droid at forty-five degrees, left foot forward. She watched the flickering arabesque of death as Hatchet edged toward her. A droid like this knew no fear; but she knew that to put her weapon down and face a live opponent barehanded would certainly terrify anybody brighter than a duelling droid. Fear was as potent a weapon as a lightsaber or a blaster.

The dark side raged inside her, sought to blind her with hatred, but she held it at bay. She held one open hand high, by her ear, the other by her hip, then reversed the positions, watching. Waiting.

Hatchet stole forward another half step, crossing and re-crossing the blades, looking for an opening.

She gave the droid what it was looking for. She moved her left arm wide, away from her body, exposing her side to a thrust or a cut.

Hatchet saw the opening and moved in, fast, very fast, snapping one of the blades out to cut while bringing the other blade over for backup.

She dropped, hooked her left foot around the back of the droid's ankle, and pulled as she kicked hard at the droid's thigh with the other foot.

The droid fell backwards, unable to maintain its balance, and hit the floor. She sprang up, did a front flip, and came down with both boot heels driving into the droid's head. The metal skull crunched and collapsed inward. Lights flashed and the hard-shell photoreceptors shattered.

She dived again, rolled up in a half twist into the Forraderi stance, ready to spring in any direction.

But there was no need – these four were done. It would take a technician days to repair Hatchet, Cudgel, and Rapier. Chain was beyond repair useful only for parts.

She exhaled, relaxed her stance, and nodded. Her heart rate had accelerated perhaps five beats above normal at most. There was the faintest sheen of perspiration on her forehead; otherwise her skin was dry. Perhaps sixty seconds had elapsed from start to finish. She frowned slightly. Not her personal best, by any means. It was one thing to face and defeat droids. Jedi were a different matter.

She would have to do better.

She picked up her lightsaber, hung it from her belt. Then, her muscles warmed up now, she went to practice her fighting exercises. Over and over she repeated the drills, muscles working from more memory than conscious effort.’

It was a memory repeated over and over until she could barely stand. For the second night in a row, she curled up in a ball and slept soundly – although unsurprisingly her dreams were of fighting droids – and occasionally Jedi.

 

[Darth Timoris]

Melori awoke and grabbed one of the few remaining nutrient bars and ate is as she also drank copious amounts of water. She’d need to replenish her stocks today.

She rolled her neck, these were not ideal sleeping conditions but she was a Sith, not a princess. Happy she was able to perform the previous two routines comfortably now, she set off on her circular run and then did her stretches before dipping into a new memory.

‘The Twi'lek Jedi's leap, guided by the Force, landed the Jedi squarely behind her on the rear engine housing of the T- shaped bike. The action took her by surprise; she had not expected such a courageous, if foolhardy, deed.

Unexpected as the move was, however, she was still able to block the slash of the other's lightsaber with her own energy blade. She quickly activated the speeder's autopilot, then twisted around in the saddle, thrusting her weapon at the Jedi's chest. The Jedi blocked the blow and countered with another.

She knew the battle could not continue this way. The speeder bike's autopilot was not sophisticated enough to chart a safe course at high speed through the torturous windings of the surface streets. So she grabbed the handlebar and jerked the speeder toward a docking platform on a nearby building, about thirty meters above the street. They shot by the skycar, which had slowed after the Jedi left it, and rose toward the shelf. As the ledge came within range of the autopilot's sensors, the speeder slowed, then settled down to a landing on the extruded slab of ferrocrete.

The Sith and the Jedi leapt from the speeder bike onto the platform to continue their battle. The docking ledge was only about ten meters by fifteen, barely enough room to manoeuvre in. She knew she had to dispatch the Jedi quickly, so she pressed the attack viciously, blocking and thrusting, the twin radiant blades spinning a web of light about him.

The Jedi was obviously also a master of the Teräs Käsi fighting arts, as well, judging by the smooth way she parried and counterattacked. Still, within the first few moments of the engagement, Melori knew that she was the superior fighter. She could tell that the Jedi knew it, too, but she also knew that it didn't matter. The Jedi was committed to stopping the Sith, even if it meant giving her own life to do so.

She bared her teeth. She doubled her efforts, pressing the attack hard, hammering away at the Twi'lek's defences. The Jedi gave ground, but she was still unable to slash through her guard.

Then she heard something: the distinctive sound of the skycar's damaged engine. She let her awareness expand on the ripples of the Force, and what she sensed brought a dark smile of satisfaction to her face.

The skycar was returning.

She had seen the grim realization in the eyes of her foe: the knowledge that the Twi'lek could not defeat her adversary. Once defeat was conceded in the mind, its reality was inevitable. It was only a matter of time.

She pressed her attack to an even higher intensity, driving the Jedi back toward her speeder bike, intending to pin her between the dual-bladed lightsaber and the bike. With her movements thus constricted, it would be mere moments before the Twi'lek's tentacled head was separated from her neck.

She twirled her twin blades in an overhand arc, but the Jedi caught the strike on her weapon's yellow length of plasma, deflecting the first blade, then sparking on the second to twist it past.

So she changed direction, stabbing forward in the form known as Striking Sarlacc to pierce her heart. But the Jedi wasn't there, having back-flipped to land in a defensive posture.
She bared his teeth at the Jedi. For a Padawan, she was a worthy opponent. No Jedi Master lived within the Force more fully than she did at this moment. But she was going to kill her. She knew it, and so did the Padawan.

The Sith Acolyte launched a simultaneous attack, using the Force to throw a rusty power-wrench at the Jedi as she launched herself forward, lightsaber dancing a variant of a Teräs Käsi Death Weave.

Her movement was precise, her control of the Force that of a musician playing an intricate solo. Her eyes were hypnotic, their golden hue an eerie counterpart to the blood-red circling of the irises. But they did not prevent the Jedi from deflecting her strikes as again she moved within range, her twin blades spinning so fast they seemed to merge into a crimson shield.

There was a sizzle as the Jedi’s blade intersected her own, a flash of sparks as they separated. The Jedi slashed backhand, feeling a weakness in her defence.
But it was a trap, carefully laid, and she spun a ruby shaft to intersect, as she dived forward, striking left-right-left in a series of attacks that left her opponent winded, even assisted as she was by the Force.

The end was inevitable and it came there and then.’

 

[Darth Timoris]

She finished the intricate moves in her mind and was aware that she was also becoming familiar with wielding a double-bladed saber and a Form she was not aware of. Once this was over, she would go to the datapad her sister gave her and find out about both. As much as she loved the second Form, this felt good.

Gathering more refreshments and sleeping in her bed for once, she woke early and ate a hearty breakfast before going on a long run. Returning to the arena, she tapped into the next memory and performed her solitary routine.

‘Wham!

The first punch came at her sideways, spinning her upper body around with the sheer force of the impact and driving her back a half step before she fully recovered her equilibrium. Somewhere under her feet, the alloy plates of the cell's floor seemed to shiver and quake, threatening to give way.

She spat out a tooth and wiped away the blood.

The creature in front of her was a walking trophy case of previous kills. Two and a half meters high, its massive shoulders and upper torso encased in jagged plates of primitive armor that clearly had once served as the jawbone and carapace of a much larger predator, it seemed to occupy an entire corner of the prison cell.

She stared at the thing. The grey slope of its face was a surgeon's nightmare of ritualistic scars, organic rings, loops, and fibrous hooks, with bluish sacks pulsating beneath its eyes, all of it siphoning down and inward toward a gaping, razor-toothed mouth. Even its arms seemed to have been plucked from two different organisms. The right hand was a blunt-knuckled fist, the left an elongated spider-fingered claw. Together they formed a mallet and blade, one made for pounding, the other for slashing. It was the right that had come careening out of nowhere just seconds before, slamming her backward and knocking out one of her teeth.

The thing reached down and picked up her incisor from the floor of the cell. Straightening up, it shoved the tooth into an empty space in its own mouth, twisting it until it lodged in place. Then it grinned at her as if asking how she liked the sight of one of her teeth in its mouth.

She gazed back at it.

And then the rage came.

And the rage was good.

The uniform they'd given her was a standard orange jumpsuit whose heavy fabric cut off movement in most directions. She heard its seams ripping as she sprang at her opponent, closing the half-meter gap between them in less than a second. The thing responded exactly as she'd hoped, lunging up eagerly to meet her advance. Its mismatched arms pin-wheeled wildly before it, swinging and clawing through the stale gray air of the cell, its voice screeching at her in a guttural, choking language she'd never heard before.

Let those be your dying words, she thought. Right here. Today.

Close enough now that she could smell the corpse-stink pouring off it like rotten meat, she fell into a reflexive series of Teräs Käsi moves. Both hands shot out and grabbed the creature by its throat, hoisting it up over her head and squeezing until she felt the deep tendons of its neck beginning to give and weaken in her grip. There was a wet, muffled click from somewhere inside the thing's chest and a sudden glut of warm, thick, sticky fluid began spurting up from its throat.

Blood.

Jet black.

The sight of it gave her no satisfaction, only the vaguely annoying realization that it never should have taken her this long to turn the battle to her advantage. Still, ending her opponent's life quickly would restore a certain necessary balance to the encounter – if not honuor, at least vindication. She tightened her grip, and the screaming sound got louder, becoming a broken, birdlike squawk. More blood leapt up, inky black and viscous, and started pouring from its mouth and eye sockets.

Enough.

Executing a perfectly balanced spin, she swung the creature around and slammed it to the floor with a sharp clang, connecting hard enough that she felt the steel plates reverberate under her feet. The thing's head drooped on its broken neck, lolling sideways to expose the throbbing vessels beneath its gray flesh.

Only now did she allow himself to exhale. As anticipated, she hadn't needed her lightsaber staff or the Force to dispatch this waste of flesh – not that either was really an option. Staring down into the thing's face, she raised her foot and planted her heel in the exposed throat, ready to pulverize the trachea, or whatever the thing used for an airway, with one decisive stomp. For an instant she met its sagging, inarticulate eyes.

Now, she instructed the thing, which seemed to be realizing that it was destined to finish out the final pathetic seconds of its life here in nameless obscurity. Die.

All at once, with blinding speed, the creature yanked loose and burst upright, reaching behind its back to produce what appeared to be a long bow staff. As the staff blurred toward her, she realized that the weapon, which he'd first taken to be a piece of wood or some kind of biomechanical hybrid, was actually a living organism – a serpent whose head lashed out at lightning velocity, latching onto her face, slashing at her eyes.

She recoiled, but it was too late. With a jolt, her vision was gone, burying her in instant darkness. This was the second time in as many seconds that the thing had caught her off guard, and now she knew why: the creature was somehow cut off from the Force, utterly detached from the deep field of heightened sensitivity from which she was constantly drawing information about her surroundings. The intuitive sensory abilities that she took for granted in any normal battle were simply not there.

An acidic heaviness took hold of her optic nerves like a slow drip, seeping in, sinking deep, and she realized that she could already feel the poison taking control, spreading out in concentric layers of numbness through the muscle and tissue of her face.

Now the thing's shrieking laughter was everywhere. Willful. Triumphant.

She straightened. The voice in her head was her own, an austere evocation of her own training. But the cadence was unmistakably her Master's - an echo of pitiless instruction, hours, days, years of unyielding pain and discipline. Sidious was never far from her. The evocation of the Sith Lord's presence here snapped her back instantly into the moment with total clarity.

Reaching up through blindness, she took hold of the serpent, grappling with its fully extended length. Somewhere in the void she could feel the rippling leathery sinew of the staff looping around her neck, felt the hundreds of small muscles twisting and constricting over her windpipe, pinching off her airway like a living noose. The next few seconds would be crucial.

She flexed, bent her head, and jerked it forward, but the thing would not release. It kept encircling her, looping round and round, defying every attempt to take hold of it.

She willed himself to be absolutely still, a study in perfect rigidity, allowing the serpent, in its moment of fatal overconfidence, to draw tighter still, stretching itself until she sensed its head coming back around in front of her once more. Still she waited. Above it all she could smell her opponent's fetid stench, could feel the claws of her opponent raking her skin, twisting into her face, gouging for purchase. It shrieked at her, and this time the cry was pure victory, what might even have been laughter. Starved, insane. A warrior with nothing to lose.

You are no warrior, she thought. You know nothing of the Dark-side.

The moment had come. she grasped the head of the serpent-staff, seizing its blunt nose and fanged mouth. Her fingers took hold of its distended upper part, twisting, wrenching, until she tore the serpent's head off its body with a moist and meaty pop.

The results were instantaneous. With a twitching galvanic shudder, the snake loosened and fell slack, the coils already beginning to slide from her neck, and she allowed herself a single, unobstructed breath before finishing her work here.

The attacker had already responded to the death of her weapon with a howl of cheated rage. Her no longer heard it. Primal as it was, it was still only emotion, a cry of weakness no more instructive or relevant than the pain she'd willed away moments earlier. She had no more use for it now than she ever did.

She did, however, take advantage of her opponent's scream just long enough to reach into its open mouth, feeling the moist warmth of its breath on her hand as she retrieved her tooth, plucking it from the thing's gums. Holding the mouth agape, she crammed the serpent's severed head inside, then clamped the gray lips tight to keep the snake's head from falling out. She ripped three of the larger piercings from the thing's right arm and jammed them upward through the lips, bending them back into barbed hooks and fastening the mouth shut with the serpent's head still trapped inside. With her hands flattened against those lips, Her could feel the head twitching around inside the mouth, sinking its fangs in reflexively, squirting out venom while her attacker jerked and spasmed and tried in vain to scream.

End it.

Still sightless, now holding her opponent at arm's length, she inclined her own head down. She thrust forward, driving her horns into the thing's sagging eyes, feeling them crushed to jelly against her scalp.

The spasms stopped, and she stepped back, releasing the body, allowing it to collapse at her feet.

 

[Darth Timoris]

Melori continued the repetition – never becoming bored – for with every passing minute, her understanding of the theory became ingrained at a more practical level. Each day was like a year’s worth of training. And now she wanted to really test herself. So she searched for the most gruelling memory. One where the Force was not used. And she found the perfect one.

‘Through the wall, she heard it.

A low, bronchial growl.

She closed her eyes and listened. Whatever was on the other side of that hatch sounded bigger and hungrier than the creature she’d fought earlier. The growl had a sonorous, barrel-chested timbre that shook the air itself. She caught herself stretching out with her feelings and forced herself to withdraw, her Master's voice burning in her ears from their final meeting on Coruscant.

If at any point you reveal your true identity as a Sith Lord, Sidious had told her, the entire mission will be worthless, do you understand? You must not ever use the Force, no matter what the circumstances or all will be lost. Do you grasp the magnitude of responsibility with which you are being trusted?

She did. All too well.

Sh1e continued to hold absolutely still, listening, attuned to this moment. When the growl came again, it had risen in volume and intensity and was now a thick snarl of fury. Metal chains clanked, rattling audibly, and something slammed against the wall with a sudden, deafening crash that shook the very bulkhead in front of her. There was another bellow, even louder than before, that she could feel in the hollow of her chest. The thing on the other side of the wall could smell her now, she was sure of it. It wouldn't be long now.

The blinking lights went solid red.

And the hatch opened.

She remained motionless for a long moment, looking at it.

The wampa was in chains, bolted to the floor of its cell with heavy Nylasteel manacles around its legs, wrists, and throat. It stood almost three meters tall, its thick fur matted with filth, grease, and blood. One of its horns had snapped off midshaft, creating a jagged ocher-colored dagger that curled only halfway around the right side of its head. Across its chest and abdomen, great swaths and patches of its white pelt had been ripped away to expose a puckered landscape of scar tissue-no doubt the results of previous battles. Its lips wrinkled back to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth, and spittle flew as it unleashed a bellow of hungry, frustrated rage and jerked at its restraints.

She stood her ground and gave herself a few seconds to evaluate the space where they would be fighting – the height of the ceiling, the diameter of the chamber - before turning back to stare the thing straight in its yellow, semi-sentient eyes.

Come, then.

As if hearing her thoughts, the wampa leaned down, gathering its strength, and at that moment the manacles fell away. She never heard them hit the floor.

The thing came at her.

She leapt upward, dodging the initial attack – but the creature's massive arm swung around as it passed, its claws raking her back, ripping through flesh to gouge deep into the muscle along her spine. She felt her breath sucked from her lungs. A cruel, hot spike-even now she refused to think of it as pain took hold of that entire side of her body, settling deep inside her nerve endings. The sudden smell of her own blood, sharp and coppery, filled the cell.

Ducking low and then jumping for the ceiling, she felt hot liquid splashing down her leg, streaking the floor beneath her feet. She skidded, colliding with the wall in front of him. Was the cell actually smaller than it had been a moment ago? Had they already changed the shape of it around her?

Maul took a breath and centred herself. Things were happening too quickly. She needed to slow it down. But the wampa was already lunging again, its long, apelike arms swinging, claws carving shadow, smashing her back into the curved steel wall as its jaws snapped inches away from her face. Maul slid down through the pool of her own blood, rolled free, and sprang up behind the thing faster that it could turn. Cocking back one arm, she tensed her shoulder and snapped her elbow into the base of the creature's skull, putting every ounce of upper body strength into a blow that should have shattered its neck.

Nothing. It was like launching an elbow strike against solid stone covered with a layer of thick fur. Now the creature rounded on her again, arms upraised, towering to fill what felt like the entire cell. This time when it roared, the noise was more like a scream-a broken, phlegmy, bronchial shriek – as if the beast itself were somehow being tortured into attacking him. A flicker of realization passed through her mind.

Something's wrong with it. It's not-

The wampa's claw shot forward, slashing diagonally across her face.

The moment of clarity vanished in the hot rush of her own anger. She lowered her head, tightening up her core, hearing a new growl rising up – her own growl this time, emanating from the most deep and primal pit of her being. She opened herself to it, the deep venom of wrath taking control, fast and sleek and powerful. It would not be long now. Dismissing the bright slash of heat across her cheek and the bridge of her nose as she had dismissed the odd shimmer of insight that had immediately preceded it, she fell into a low crouch, letting the wampa come at her again.

Its next move would be its last.

She sprang straight upward into it, driving her horned head into the thing's lower jaw, pulverizing its mandible and slamming needle-sharp bone fragments into its cranial vault. She could actually feel the joints and fissures shattering inside the wampa's skull and knew intuitively that she’d dealt it a killing blow.

But when she looked up again, the thing was on its feet and advancing toward her, howling and keening, a blind colossus. The head-butt had left its face a caved-in mass of blood and exposed bone. Somewhere within the cauldron of her anger, she felt a wave of disbelief.

How was it still fighting?

In defiance of all logic, it launched itself at her, all claws and teeth, a mass of unwavering death. Planting her feet against the wall behind her, she grabbed the thing by its remaining horn and put every ounce of her strength into twisting its head to the side. She wrenched the thing's head away from him, and realized at the last second that she couldn't hold it back. Whatever was inside the wampa was far more durable than she’d initially expected.

The thing lunged again, sinking its teeth into her shoulder, hitting crucial nerve bundles. All the strength disappeared from her hand and wrist, her body turning traitor at the worst possible moment. Her arms fell slack and she stumbled backward, staring up at her adversary. Darkness like she’d never known before was swarming through her peripheral vision, thick and pulsating, tightening with every second. For the first time the impossible occurred to her – the prospect that she might actually lose.

She lifted her head, wiped the blood from her eyes. She would have to dig deep into her Teräs Käsi training to overcome it.

Look at it, a voice spoke from deep inside her – not the voice of Sidious but an instinct of self-preservation that far predated her service to her Master. Do you not see?

She looked. Something was wrong with the wampa – something deeply, profoundly wrong that went beyond genetically predisposed violence and a history of predatory killing. And just that quickly, she knew how to end it.

Summoning whatever remained of her strength, she fired herself at the beast with blinding speed. Hooking her hands into claws, she plunged them through its fur, ripping into the soft tissue of its torso. The wampa screeched and wailed. She barely heard it. Shoving her hands deeper, she sank both arms in up to the elbow, beneath its rib cage and into its thoracic cavity, groping until she found what she was looking for - the slick, pulsating mass of its heart.

She grabbed it, laced her fingers together, and squeezed.

The wampa's heart burst between her fingers like a dense and fibrous flower. At once the thing tumbled backward with a kind of graceless, shambling sprawl, slumping against the wall with a low moan, as if released from bondage beyond any chains or shackles. It gave a final braying cough, shuddered once, and fell still.

She licked the blood from her teeth and spat. She stumbled back, tried to catch herself, and failed. Fatigue was already taking hold, a dense and miserable web that made the simplest motions difficult. The blood she’d lost was not so easily countered. The darkness was coming again, and this time she knew that she wouldn't be able to hold it off.

The last thing she saw was the cell around her shifting and beginning to rise.

Then blackness.’

 

[Darth Timoris]

Two more days passed and only by the end of it did Melori feel she could replicate the moves without accessing her memories – their memories – his memories.

Her days had a pattern – it started with a run, continued with her ballet practice and then she cycled through velocities she’d created to incorporate all of the Teräs Käsi moves. One set were simply the martial art manoeuvres, one incorporated Makashi and the third used the Form she was yet to learn formally but instinctively was able to replicate.

And the day ended in the same fashion, only in reverse. She was running on the minimum amount of sleep and nutrition – but her wiry physique was able to adapt and she learned the valuable lesson of pushing herself when circumstances were not in her favour. To train when she was mentally and physically exhausted and to raise her pain threshold.

Finally she believed she was ready for ‘that’ memory. To understand where he went wrong – what she could have done if she were him. But first, she needed to live the experience as it happened.

‘The battle began in the hangar. She activated her double-ended lightsaber, a weapon she fashioned herself under Darth Sidious’ supervision. In her hands this weapon was flawless.

She made the Jedi run. They had to use everything they knew and more to meet her skill. They went at her, two on one, and they could not defeat her. No doubt she used her formidable Dark-powers to blunt their use of the Force.

Qui-Gon Jinn took the lead. A powerful warrior, he surprised me with his stamina. At one point Qui-Gon scored a hit and I fell several levels. But by the time the Jedi jumped down to engage me again, I had gained my feet and fought back with not one bit of energy displaced.

At last the battle reached a hallway of deadly laser walls. The force fields separated the Jedi from me, and from each other. They had to wait until the walls retracted before engaging in the next stage of the battle.

I do not know if it was luck or skill that set the stage for the final confrontation. Did I succeed in separating the Jedi, or did I take advantage of a situation I found myself in? Either way, I performed well.

Now I was one-on-one with Qui-Gon Jinn. A frustrated Obi-Wan was trapped behind the energy walls. It was a source of satisfaction for me to meet Qui-Gon again. I felt shame at my failure on Tatooine. Here was vindication and pleasure for me, a sweet triumph. I always did receive a peculiar joy from battle.

The duel escalated to a ferocity that taxed my powers but I was under control at all times.

I remember my Master’s words – do not neglect old tricks, apprentice. They work.

The battle with Qui-Gon ended with a simple move, a trick: Using the hilt of a lightsaber to knock my opponent under the chin. I usually disdained such blunt manoeuvres. I am an elegant fighter. Precise. But when I saw my opening, I remembered the lesson.

A blow to Qui-Gon's chin left him dazed.

Push your advantage always.

My lightsaber whirled, and ran Qui-Gon Jinn through. The Jedi Master fell.

Obi-Wan's screamed. The arrogance of the Jedi order infuriates me. How I love to deflate them. How much delicious pleasure I got from that moment, when the apprentice saw the Master fall.

The defeat of such an opponent should have cooled my mind, sharpened my focus. But instead. I met my undoing: the young Obi-Wan Kenobi. I knew the apprentice would attack with great savagery on behalf of her Master. I was prepared for that.

But I underestimated Obi-Wan's control. At first, I was winning. The defeat of Obi-Wan was in my grasp. I knocked him into the melting pit. Obi-Wan hung by a small nozzle that protruded from the sheer wall. It was an easy job to dislodge his grip, knock him thousands of meters down into the pit, and end the life of another nuisance of a Jedi.

Instead, I gloated. I contemptuously kicked Obi-Wan's lightsaber into the pit. I paced in front of the stricken Jedi, snarling. I wanted to savour the moment. Against all of my teaching, I hesitated in order to revel in my triumph.

The battle is not over until your opponent is dead.

How often had that been drilled that into me?

Obi-Wan called on the Force. He leaped from the pit, Qui-Gon's lightsaber flying to his hand. I did not have enough time to parry the blow.

I made mistakes of impatience and temper. In the end, I had been too hungry for victory. I had failed to expect the resilience of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I allowed my feeling of triumph to distract me. I was the better warrior but I lost the fight.’

 

[Darth Timoris]

Melori spent the whole day reviewing the fight. It was a textbook lesson in how to fight multiple opponents and the benefit of surprise too. Valuable lessons she locked away for safe-keeping.

But she also learned about Maul's arrogance. She's read about it before and how, once he returned from this defeat he'd learned his lesson. Melori had no desire to run around on six mechanical legs and so decided this was a lesson she'd have to take on board now.

Confidence is one thing. Arrogance is quite another.

For three days she chose not to access any memories. She simply worked on the Teräs Käsi moves, firstly ensuring she had perfect form and then putting sequences together, learning how to use them naturally and without accessing her 'memories.'

Finally she felt ready to face droids of her own. And her love for odd numbers meant she'd start with three. Not equipped with deadly weapons but able to dish out burns, stuns and significant bruising. Although if she made a hash of it, a random blow could kill her. But she was confident that would not happen.

Not arrogant...confident.

 

[Darth Timoris]

Droids were all well and good but they lacked the spontaneity of people. And she knew that to truly ingrain the learning she needed to face real opposition.

So she headed back to Iridonia. She knew the way and she knew exactly who she would be looking for.

Swoop gangs were swoop gangs the galaxy over. Puffed up womp rats that make a big noise and scatter at the first sign of resistance. Except most swoop gangs weren’t composed of Mandalorians.

As Melori disembarked her ship, she could see how a casual observer would see the dust and debris as signs that this area was derelict and abandoned. But the clear lane created for bikes to ride around was the first clue. The lack of vermin was another – someone was clearly keeping their numbers down.

And the faint aroma of swoop bike exhaust fumes was the clincher. And presence of swoop bikes meant races and of course criminal activities. And the latter meant some meek folk to prey on. But now the meek shall have a saviour. For it was hunters she came to hunt.

Unlike her last time here, she was dressed in all black. Her saber was left on her ship and she was determined not to use the Force.

As before she heard them before she saw them, turning a corner she came across something of a town square, where men in a variety of Mandalorian armour were parading up and down, women of a variety of species fawning over them and one figure – covered in what approximated to shiny new armour – sat on what could only be described as a throne, made out of swoop bike parts.

As she entered the square, all eyes turned to her. “Jedi ain’t welcome here,” one of the men called. "Hey that's the girl from before," another shouted.

“Good,” Melori said, “That saves time on introductions. Now we fight..."