Saga - PT Showdown on Dathomir

Title: Showdown on Dathomir
Author: The Shadow Emperor (adapted from a script by Jeremy Barlow)
Timeframe: Near the end of the Clone Wars
Characters: Maul, Count Dooku, Rook Kast, Brother Viscus, Mother Talzin, General Grievous, Darth Sidious
Genre: Action
Summary: Maul returns to Dathomir with Dooku as his prisoner, intending to sacrifice him to resurrect Mother Talzin.
Notes: The reason behind this story's creation was simple: we know that parts of the Son of Dathomir screenplay had to be cut in order to fit the comic's adaption. I've transferred much of the story to prose form and added elements of my own to make what I believe is a more satisfying conclusion to Maul's story in TCW. I consider it finished so any comments, criticism or feedback is welcome.

The red-hued atmosphere of Dathomir loomed ahead of the lone Death Watch transport as it dropped out of hyperspace. Painted crimson and jet black to match its owner, the ship made a landing at a ramshackle settlement nestled on the tallest peak of a snowy mountain range.
Once home to a clan of Force-sensitive witches known as the Nightsisters, Dathomir’s only remaining sentient life forms were their servants, the Zabrak Nightbrothers. Clothed in ragged tunics, three of these tattooed warriors stood awaiting the oncoming vessel, armed with energy staffs and prepared to escort the prisoner to his final destination. Maul emerged first, his yellow eyes glowing as he descended down the exit ramp. Count Dooku followed closely behind, held at gunpoint by the armor-clad Mandalorian warrior named Rook Kast.
“Brother Viscus. I bring you the spoils of war,” announced Maul. “Have the preparations been made?”
The lead Nightbrother, a fierce orange-skinned Dathomirian with a crown of broken horns, nodded. “We are ready to proceed.” He turned to Count Dooku, who refused to meet his gaze. Prideful even in defeat. “You’ll find this to be quite a different experience than before, Count.” Dooku scowled but did not respond.
The party made their way up the slide of a slope and into a temple a distance away from the landing pad. Entering the building, Dooku found himself beholding a vast tomb. It was sparsely-decorated, and the only feature of note was the plain monolith standing in the very center of the chamber. Dooku watched with interest as Maul approached the grey stone. “We are at the heart of Mother Talzin’s power now,” explained Viscus as he observed the proceedings. “And you are about to answer for your crimes against the Nightsisters.”
Maul knelt before the stone in reverence, something that surprised even Dooku. Placing his palm on the cold surface, Maul began whispering. “Great Mother, hear our prayer. Diviner of truth, deliverer of justice. Reveal yourself.”Green mist, the telltale sign of Nightsister magick, emerged from the monolith as the image of Mother Talzin shimmered into existence. The mist surrounded Dooku who reacted with horror as he felt the dark presence envelop him. “My son is right, Count—it is time to eliminate everything that gives Sidious power. Beginning with you,” echoed the commanding voice of Talzin from the spirit realm.
Dooku flinched with pain as Talzin’s spirit entered his body and overrode his will. “Do you feel that, Count? Mother draws your very life force from your withered bones,” gloated Maul over Dooku’s writhing, twitching form. “Draining you will give her all she needs to fully take form.”
He understood now. Mother Talzin was a leech, siphoning off energy from other living beings to empower herself and extend her lifespan beyond its natural limits.
And he was the sacrifice.
Dooku’s eyes rolled back in his head and he screamed as the Living Force itself was extracted from his body in waves. He felt his bones crack, muscles atrophy and breath weaken as the shaman’s spirit overrode his own. He heard the voice of Brother Viscus taunting him. “It won’t be long now. He won’t survive this.”
Maul nodded his agreement. “Good.”
“Mother will be whole soon, but the process could weaken her. I’ll make sure her chambers are ready.” Viscus and the guards departed, leaving Dooku alone at the mercy of two beings who desired nothing but his total destruction.
Maul knelt by Dooku and grinned at the sight of his hated enemy’s limbs contorting in agony. “As a Sith, you understand deception. Witches don’t die so easily.” Maul rose to his feet, clenching Dooku’s own lightsaber in his hand, a trophy. “Mother sacrificed much of her own form to resurrect me. This is why you’ve been unable to detect her.
“For her, a complete and permanent return to the physical realm requires great sacrifice.” Maul continued to watch the green mist rise above Dooku’s levitating body. “We will succeed where you and your master have failed. Through your blood a new power will rise from the roots of Dathomir!”
Suddenly an explosive force ripped through the wall, causing Maul to hold up his arms instinctively to protect himself from the flying debris. The imposing cyborg General Grievous appeared in the opening, clutching two lit lightsabers. “Blood is about to spill, all right—yours.”
The black blade of Maul’s Darksaber ignited and he stood at the ready. “You’re too late, General. Our plans are in motion and cannot be stopped.”
“No matter how many times you fail, you never learn this lesson, Maul,” retorted another individual. Clad in a brown robe, his face concealed by his hood, the familiar silhouette of Darth Sidious stepped into the chamber. Maul’s teeth clenched at the sight of his former master. “There is only one plan—one great design which shall govern the universe. Mine.”
“So, the great deceiver comes to rescue his pawn,” taunted Maul.
“I come to end this farce once and for all.” Sidious’ own lightsaber was ignited, its blood red blade humming.
Maul smirked. “You come to your doom, old man.” He gestured to Dooku, who was rising up from his torment. His lightsaber flew to his hand and he turned to gaze at Sidious, his eyes glowing bright green as veins pulsed on his face. “Mother Talzin lives—and your apprentice is under her full control!”
“Now, Sidious, you will pay for your betrayal,” said the voices of Dooku and Talzin in unison.
Nothing more needed to be said. The four combatants leaped into action, the black blade of Maul’s Darksaber clashing with the stolen blue and green Jedi lightsabers of Grievous, and the two red blades of Sidious and his mind-controlled apprentice. Maul harnessed his anger and lunged at his enemy, narrowly missing the general and singing his cape. Grievous retailed with blows of his own, unnaturally spinning his arms in broad motions to put Maul on the defensive. Behind them, Sidious and Dooku’s blades locked repeatedly giving off burst after burst of sparks.
“You control Dooku’s body, but you possess none of his skill,” uttered Sidious, swinging his weapon with enough force to knock Dooku’s clean out of his grip. “Release my apprentice, haggard witch!” A torrent of blue lightning erupted from his gnarled hands, crackling around Dooku as his voice and Talzin’s screeched in pain.
Maul and Grievous’ own duel came to a pause as both turned their attention to the sight unfolding in front of them. Sidious continued to bombard Dooku with ever-increasing amounts of raw lightning; the Count doubled over under the onslaught. “EEE-Enough!” hollered Talzin, her voice separating from that of the sacrificial victim. Tendrils of green mist sprouted from his every pore and coalesced in a storm in the middle of the room. In the midst of this pure rush of power a figure took shape, tall and imposing, garbed in a set of spiked red robes with a pair of creased folds billowing behind e her. Grey eyes opened to the feeling of fresh air once again.
“I am whole! I am returned!” proclaimed Mother Talzin triumphantly.
Sidious remained unbroken. “You are about to die.”
The two circled one another. Sidious’ blade still held aloft, Talzin held up her arms, channeling her powers. A pair of swords were conjured from the ether, the hilt of one resembling the face of a demon, while the other was smooth and sleek and bore not one, but two fiery green blades. Maul caught the latter and paused just briefly to admire the gift before lunging at the surprised Grievous, shoving him through the opening in the wall with a Force push. Clutching his double-bladed magick sword, Maul leapt after his enemy and out of the room, leaving Sidious and Talzin alone with the quivering body of Dooku, who was coming to.
“How long I have waited for this,” crooned Talzin. “Your shortsightedness and treachery shall cost you dearly. You will rue the day you crossed my sisterhood.”
“Your Nightsisters are destroyed, your son and his ilk will soon be dead, and your own rush to oblivion has nearly reached its end,” responded Sidious.
Talzin laughed, an eery, uncharacteristically high-pitched sound. “You have not defeated us. The spiritual energy of my sisters gives me the power to destroy you. We traded wisdom once, yes...but you never knew all of my secrets. True strength comes from unity, not the selfishness of the Sith.”
“Such naïvety. You were foolish to believe I would ever make a desperate, wretched creature like yourself my apprentice.”
Dooku crawled across the floor and snatched his lightsaber. Despite his weakened state he still had a job to do. Before Talzin could react he jumped to his feet and followed Maul and Grievous to the fight below. Separatist dropships were arriving, deploying hundreds of battle droids upon the Nightbrother settlement. Maul’s shuttle took off and soared away to a safe distance.
Darth Sidious and Mother Talzin were now alone as the sounds of battle echoed in the distance. The Nightsister matriarch roared with fury as she flew toward her hated rival, their blades clashing bursts of plasma and magical energy. Talzin whirled around and struck with a finesse belying her reputation as a pure magick user, but Sidious was quicker and had the benefit of Force-imbued reflexes. He parried, thrusted, and caught his enemy off-guard with a feint, striking her weapon from her hands. It clattered uselessly to the ground.
Talzin began summoning raw spirit ichor once again, this time sending them out in ribbons that that formed into several hooded women holding daggers and bows, the ghosts of Talzin’s coven: Karis, Naa’leth, Luce, Talia, and others. Sidious growled, backing up defensively and protecting himself from a sudden barrage of sword thrusts and arrows from several very angry Nightsisters.
In the village below, battle droids fired at will upon the Nightbrothers as explosions from Hyena droid bombers tore through buildings and left them little more than smoldering piles of rubble. Panicked men rose from their activities and grabbed their weapons, but for many of them it was too late. Hearing the battle from the temple, Brother Viscus and his troops rushed to aid their brothers, cleaving through the endless herds of battle droids as the shots of blaster fire rang out around them.
Amidst this carnage, Maul dueled both Count Dooku and General Grievous simultaneously. Wielding his double-bladed sword as he had before on Naboo thirteen years ago, the former Sith Lord fought with the ferocity of a man with nothing left to lose. Indeed, the death of his brother and his subsequent imprisonment and torture had granted him a certain tranquility even in the face of certain defeat. Something that, he realized as he ducked beneath the whirling arms of Grievous, could very well result in his demise as anger was the only way to fully harness the Dark Side. His indifference to physical injuries left him weaker overall, so he redirected his anger into non-physical pains instead; Kenobi cutting him in half, his abandonment on Lotho Minor, Savage’s dead body...
Dooku’s weariness from losing much of his life force had taken a toll as well, leaving the Count at a severe disadvantage against his foe as he paused momentarily to catch his breath. Grievous was incredibly strong, but he could not defeat Maul alone especially if his ally were to be more a hindrance than a help. He had to find another way.
Dun Möch. Of course.
“Look around you,” boasted Dooku, gesturing around at the bodies of Nightbrothers and burnt wreckage as the battle droids slowly overwhelmed the men of Dathomir. “This village is lost. Talzin is no match for my master. There is nothing you can do.”
Maul snarled, sending drops of spittle from his lips as he locked blades with Grievous. A Hyena bomb whizzed by overhead, scorching the ground nearby. “Your words mean nothing. Sidious will perish and my people will endure.”
“Your people are mere barbarians. We have unlimited legions of droids at our disposal and it is we who control the fate of the Galaxy,” said Dooku, fuming internally at his obvious lack of success.
“What a shame it will be, then, when you three are dead and both the Republic and Separatists suddenly find themselves leaderless, allowing Mother to fill the power void.” Maul grinned nastily and knocked Grievous off guard with an uppercut and kicked him to the ground with a powerful cybernetic leg.
Dooku blasted Maul with a storm of Force lightning before he had the chance to finish off the cyborg general, sending the Zabrak reeling backwards with surprise. “You still have much to learn regarding the Dark Side,” he said, reigniting his lightsaber.
In the crypt overlooking the doomed village, Sidious retaliated against the transparent Nightsisters by bombarding them with an electric Force blast of his own. The energies cancelled out and the spirits dissipated harmlessly. “Your illusions are pathetic.” Sidious’ hand clawed at the air as if choking an invisible opponent. Talzin clutched at her neck and gasped for air as she was lifted aloft by the Sith Lord’s telekinetic grip.
Her son immediately sensed what was going on and his bloodshot eyes widened. Shoving aside Dooku and ignoring Grievous, Maul made a beeline for the temple, cutting through the battle droids that dared get in his way. The corpse of Brother Viscus laid in his path, his electrostaff broken in half and his torso peppered with dozens of blaster wounds.
But Talzin was not finished yet. Her body began dematerializing into wisps of spirit ichor, freeing her from the choke. This only served to infuriate Sidious further.
“You will not flee from me this time, vile witch!” spat Sidious, tapping into the Force and directing it at Talzin’s presence before she disappeared completely, tugging at her as she attempted to vanish into the spirit realm. Caught between the pull of the Force and the spiritual plane, Talzin had little recourse but to allow herself to reform before the opposing forces destroyed her altogether. Sidious cackled gleefully as she did so, and hurled the shaman into her own gravestone, shattering it into pieces. Drawing his lightsaber, Sidious stepped forward and prepared to land the killing blow.
Another Force push, this time not from Sidious, slammed into the Sith Lord and sent him sprawling into the wall. He used the Force to cushion the impact and was standing again in seconds. Maul pulled his mother back to her feet and stood alongside her as she dusted herself off and glared at the man she despised.
Chaotic tendrils of Force lightning and focused beams of magick lightning collided with a bang, bathing the chamber in blue and green light. Sidious and Talzin’s eyes were narrowed as both sought to overwhelm the other. Their powers were equally matched initially, colliding at the midpoint, but slowly Sidious’ power began to push closer and closer toward Talzin.
“Mother! Take my strength!” pleaded Maul, grabbing Talzin by the shoulder. She grunted but did not offer a reply, not daring to break her concentration. Maul could only watch with growing horror as Grievous and Dooku returned through the opening in the wall and the latter joined his master’s attack. Now Talzin’s strategy turned purely defensive, summoning a protection bubble to absorb the twin streams of lightning thrown her way. “Fight, Mother! Fight!” shouted Maul, his voice nearly drowned out by the fierce crackle of electricity.
The Mandalorian vessel appeared by the hole now, extending its boarding ramp. Two of Maul’s lieutenants awaited their leader. “Lord Maul! Dathomir has fallen!” called Rook Kast. “We must retreat!”
Talzin turned slightly toward the Zabrak who continued to hold her shoulder. “Go, my son,” she whispered.
“We can escape together!” cried Maul, desperation creeping into his voice.
“Not this time. If I lower my defenses, you will die,” replied Talzin. Despite the circumstances Maul was surprised to see a look of genuine calmness on her face. She pulled one arm away from maintaining her shield and sent a bolt of magick toward her son, knocking him out of the room and onto the boarding ramp of his ship.
“Mother!” shouted Maul helplessly, watching Grievous step forward.
Both of the Mandalorians were forced to restrain the Sith Lord from jumping back into the fray. “We have to run, Lord Maul! If you die, everything is lost!” pleaded the other warrior.
“Let go of me!” screamed Maul, completely unhinged.
Talzin was now on her knees, still fighting to keep her protection bubble up. Unfortunately while it provided adequate defense from energy attacks, it could do nothing to prevent physical ones. Grievous stepped through the magical shield with no difficulty.
“It’s time.” Grievous drew his weapons.
“Mother—NO!”
Talzin let out one last, guttural hiss of pain as two plasma blades impaled her through the heart. She heard Maul’s last, frantic cries of rage and sadness as she joined her fallen sisters in Dathomir’s spirit realm and died knowing her child was safe from her hated enemy. The ship rocketed into the sky and away from the death and destruction below.
Mother Talzin’s body collapsed to the floor, reams of green mist pouring from rapidly-dissolving flesh. Sidious, Dooku, and Grievous all watched, each with varying levels of interest, as the clan mother of the Nightsisters was torn asunder, her muscles, tendons, and veins evaporating into nothingness. In a matter of seconds nothing remained but her torn, crumpled robes and a charred skeleton staring blankly at the ceiling.
It was Sidious who broke the stunned silence. “That witch never learned. There are those with power, and those who dream of power. Her existence was nothing but a dream.”
Dooku fell to his knees, partly out of exhaustion but also out of fear. “Forgive me, my lord. Maul has once again slipped through my grasp.”
“No, Count—everything is proceeding as foreseen.” Both Dooku and Grievous looked at their master. “This was a difficult piece to maneuver, but now it is in place. Maul’s future has been erased...”
Hands behind his back, Darth Sidious walked over to the opening and beheld the sight of the Nightbrothers’ village, the last remaining settlement on Dathomir, burn under a sunset sky. Dooku and Grievous took their places at his side. “...While ours is more certain than it has ever been.”

 

Pretty cool wee story. Awesome action and an interesting take on Maul in TCW. Felt like the dialogue was a bit melodramatic in places but no more than in the source material itself! Sometimes the action was a bit hard to follow with so much going on but overall a very enjoyable read!

 

Well, most of it came directly from the source material. I did try to tone it down a little bit in places, though. Thanks for the feedback!