MOTF Book I: BOTE Chapter 7

Felucia had once been a beautiful planet. Now it was ravaged by the war, a ruined husk compared to what it once was. The Jedi and Sith continued to struggle however, hoping to claim the planet for it’s strategic value given its proximity to trade and hyperspace routes. Not that either of these things meant anything to Malvot, who was on a cliff observing the battlefield below.

Malvot was here for different reasons. The native felucians that inhabited the far side of the planet. Devastated by war, it would not take much to convert these natives to the dark side. Felucia was also home to some unique and rare herbs, such as Nysillin, a very rare and potent healing herb. Such herbs would serve her alchemical studies and experiments well. Both of these things of course would only happen if the Sith managed to win this battle, and so far they weren’t making much progress.

The Sith warriors were drastically outnumbered by the Triumvirate’s forces. Slazer’s so called warriors were being either sliced or cut down by the jedi and their soldiers. Good, Malvot thought. Maybe then she would have an easier time convincing the rest of the council and Odious to place Felucia under her command and not Slazer’s. To do that though, Malvot would have to find a way to dispatch the Triumvirate’s forces.

Malvot noticed a tank on the battlefield take aim in her direction. She smiled as it fired its cannon at her. The blast flew towards the top of the cliff and tore through an illusion standing where Malvot had been only seconds before. Malvot, laughing, merely pointed her staff at the tank and lifted it into the air. With her free hand she unleashed a barrage of lightning into the tank before hurling it back into the battlefield, taking out a large group of Triumvirate soldiers in the resulting explosion.

Amidst the chaos, Malvot noticed two blades. One green and one blue, both held by a burly Kel Dor Jedi Master. Malvot recognized the master as Boon Kagar, one of the former apprentices of Jedi Blademaster Anoye Ilu. As such he was considered to be one of the Jedi’s finest swordsman. Malvot smiled with anticipation. This would be another good opportunity for her to demonstrate the superiority of sorcery to dueling capabilities, and by association help her establish herself as Slazer’s superior. The Jedi started to stride in her direction and Malvot was ready.

She took two steps forwards and leaped off of the cliff. As she fell she wrapped the dark side of the force around her body. A few seconds and fifteen meters later she hit the ground twenty feat away from Master Kagar, and the Kel Dor began to charge. Malvot rose up from her crouching position, unfazed by the several meters she had just fallen, and extended her staff in front of her. A concentrated bolt of lightning sprung forth from the tip of the staff and flew straight towards the Jedi. Master Kagar crossed his blades and stopped dead in his traps, catching the bolt at the point of intersection before flicking both blades in either direction, deflecting the lightning away from his body.

Malvot with a stunned look on her face extended her free hand and unleashed a barrage of violet lightning against the Kel Dor. Kagar twirled his blades around his body, catching the forks of lightning in the air before they reached him. As the Jedi deflected the lightning, he began to slowly walk towards his assailant.

Malvot broke off the barrage, and pointed her staff at the ground beneath Kagar’s feat, but Kagar was too quick and immediately resumed his charge just as two whispy tendrils of dark energy carved through the space he had occupied a moment ago.

As the Kel Dor reached Malvot’s position, she extended her hand, and the hilt of the Kel Dor’s green blade began to glow with heat. Kagar grimaced behind his mask and cast one of his blades aside before taking up the other in two hands.

Finally, when Kagar came within a meter of Malvot’s body he lifted his lightsaber up and brought the sapphire blade down towards the sorceress with all of his might. Before the blow however, Malvot struck her staff into the ground and a wall of lightning sprung forth and intercepted the Jedi’s blade. The area was instantly bathed in blue and violet light as the Jedi tried to break Malvot’s defense.

After a few seconds, Malvot raised her staff and hurled the Jedi to the ground with a powerful blast of telekinetic force. Malvot did not let up however. She pointed the tip of her staff at the Kel Dor and grinned with delight as his body writhed and convulsed. Finally, unable to withstand her spell any more, the Jedi’s blood burst out of his veins, dousing the area in a red mist.

Malvot looked up from the mutilated blood-soaked corpse crumpled to the ground in front of her and came face to face with a good portion of the Triumvirate’s army. Her little skirmish must have attracted their attention.

As the front lines raised their weapons and began to open fire on her, Malvot surrounded herself with a field of dark energy that siphoned the energy of the blaster bolts away before they even reached her. She then drew the field back inside of herself, absorbing the collected energy into her body, and amplifying it. A second later she unleashed the gathered energy into a powerful force wave that sent the Triumvirate’s army into disarray.

Before the soldiers could regain their composure, Malvot lifted her staff into the air. The staff crackled with energy as lightning swirled around it. She then pointed her staff at a group of soldiers, and suddenly they were enveloped in a vortex of purple lightning that rained down on them from the sky and reduced them to charred corpses.

Malvot slowly swept her staff from the left too the right, and wherever it pointed, the malevolent storm of lightning followed, indiscriminately killing both Jedi and Sith as it carved a path of devastation through the Triumvirate’s forces. She did not let up. She would not let up until they were all dead.

Finally Malvot withdrew her staff as hundreds of soldiers laid dead at her feat. With Malvot pressing from one end and the Sith Army pressing from the other end, the Triumvirate’s forces collapsed, and any who were lucky enough to have evaded Malvot’s storm were soon enveloped in a rain of blaster bolts. But the fight was far from over.
Suddenly a large shadow eclipsed the area, and as Malvot looked up the grin of triumph left her face. Above the Sith forces was a Triumvirate dreadnaught determined to wipe them off the face of the planet.

As the dreadnaught opened fire, the ground was set ablaze with turbolaser rounds and missiles. The Sith forces were sent into complete panic and disarray as the behemoth rained fire from above. The loyalty of a soldier, Malvot thought with a wry grin. Further proof that it takes more than strength of arms, even when wielded by a Sith, to overcome the Jedi. This war could only be won by Sith who truly understood the intricacies and the magnitude of the force.

The landscape was quickly consumed in a flurry of flames and death. Soldiers fell dead around Malvot even as their corpses were consumed by smoldering heat. Malvot was unharmed however. As soon as the first turbolaser charge had hit the ground, she had been ready. With the power of the force on her side, she dispelled the flames long before they reached her.

Malvot glared at the metal beast that loomed above her. It was time.

Each Sith sorcerer had their own specializations be it illusions, overt destruction, ritual or spiritual domination. Malvot had some talent in all of these, but they were not her forte. She was the first to discover how to summon and unleash the energies of the cosmos. This was done through the usage of a few hand gestures.

With the simplicity and the few number of these hand gestures, harnessing cosmic energy was a deceptively challenging task. One had to be intimately familiar with the gestures they used to summon the cosmic energy. One also needed to be a practiced hand at touching such power to move on to the more advanced levels. But most importantly of all, one needed to be deeply immersed in the dark side.

When utilized it manifested itself as a red blazing substance somewhat akin to plasma in form. When channeled into a blast, it burns away the very matter of the target until not even ash is left, before dispersing itself back along the far reaches of the galaxy.

As the trailblazer of this ability, none wielded it before Malvot, and none who she has taught it to have been capable of moving past the third or forth of these gestures. She seemed to hold a natural affinity for such power, being intimate with it to the extent to which lovers are intimate in bed.

With the dreadnaught overhead, Malvot set her staff aside and brought her hands in front of her chest in preparation for the hand gestures. First she clasped her hands together to where her thumb, index finger and middle finger were all pointed up, and her other fingers clasped around the other hand. She felt her presence extend across the vast reaches of space into the cosmos. She could feel the heat of such energy.

She then brought her fingers that were extended upward, down until all of her fingers were clasping each other, and as she did this she could feel some of the cosmic energy converging around her body.

Next she split her hands apart, held both arms horizontally in front of her chest and pressed her hands together to where the fingertips of each hand were touching the palm of the other. With this motion, the cosmic energy that had gathered around her now pressed up against her body. She could feel the cosmic heat, and it enthralled her.

Malvot then slid her hands across one another before wrapping her fingertips around each other. She felt the cosmic energy enter her body as it began to heat up her body. Such a sensation was painful to some, but to Malvot, it was pleasurable and left her wanting more, so she transitioned into the fifth gesture.

Malvot separated her hands once again and brought them back together in a resonating clap. With this clap, she felt the heat of the cosmos collide with her own inner fire, the heat permeating her body mind and soul. By this point she was bordering on the verge ecstasy.

She split her hands apart again for the sixth and final gesture. She turned her palms outward and closed all of her fingers except for her index and middle fingers, leaving them fully extended, before crossing the extended fingers into an X in front of her chest. By this point the cosmic energy was swelling up inside of her. She was experiencing transcendence. It was almost as if she were the apex of the cosmos.

With her fingers crossed into an X, her eyes slipped back into focus as she glared at the behemoth above her. Her glare quickly transformed into a cruel sneer as she extended her arms out towards the vessel, with her fingers still crossed, and released the energy.

Traveling through the point at which her fingers intersected, the cosmic energy and its heat became condensed and focused into a large beam that flew from her fingertips into the dreadnaught above her. The blast tore through the bottom of the ship, wreaking havoc all across the hull, obliterating everything and everyone it touched, until finally it reached and incinerated the reactor of the ship itself. The resulting explosion tore the ship in half and debris was flung all across the landscape.

To protect herself, Malvot crouched down and drew the force into a protective bubble around herself until the ship was completely destroyed and dispersed across the battlefield.

Malvot slowly stood up shuddering from the magnitude of such an exertion, her body suddenly feeling cold in the absence of such glorious heat. As she rose she felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over her and realized her body was drenched in cold sweat.

She then turned to her left and noticed her staff suspended in thin air, almost as if it was waiting to return to its master’s hand in which case it would very soon be obliged. Malvot extended her left hand out and called her staff back into it.

Malvot then hoisted the staff above her head where she held it up triumphantly for a few seconds. Then she jabbed the bottom of the staff into the ground with a loud boom that resonated across the entire planet. It was a signal; this world was hers now.

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Amoye Ilu felt it long before the holo-message came through; an agony that spread across his body and through his very soul. It began as a tremor beneath his skin, and then he felt hot, as if his very blood was boiling beneath his flesh. It lasted a few seconds, then Ilu felt a sharp pain in his heart for a split second, and then he felt nothing. He felt a void, a hollow emptiness, the loss of a presence he had grown accustomed to in the past couple decades.

The holomessage came in an hour later, with a confirmation of what Ilu already knew to be true, and an order.

“Greetings Master Ilu,” said the holo-image of the Grand Master, Monguku. Monguku appeared in the holo as an elderly man, clad in the brown and white robes of the Jedi. Appearances could be deceiving however. He may have looked elderly, but one could not tell from his appearance that he had lived and served as the Grand Master for centuries, giving him experience and wisdom far beyond the age his physical appearance seemed to convey.

Yet despite his age, the venerable Grand Master was still a force to be reckoned with in combat. His power with the force was legendary, and his talents with a blade surpassed those of every other Jedi Order, with the sole exception of Amoye Ilu himself. Yet though none of the other Jedi were a match for Amoye’s supreme skills as a duelist, Amoye knew that he would not stand a chance against Master Monguku if the two were to ever engage each other in an all-out confrontation.

The Grand Master’s voice radiated confidence, power, peace, and hope, even through the holotransmission. But there was one thing present in his voice this time that stood out beyond those things; sorrow and pity. “It pains me to inform you that Felucia has been overrun by the Sith.” Monguku paused for a brief second before speaking his next few words. “I am sorry my friend, but Kagar perished in the battle,” Monguku said solemnly.

Ilu had already known what had happened, but hearing it from the Grand Master of the Jedi Order made the pain of his loss return.

“The Sith will use Felucia’s resources to retake Zygerria, and we do not have the means to defend it against a Sith attack. Supreme Commander Shapris is requesting we salvage what we can from this victory, and ordering the prisoner to be brought back to Corruscant for interrogation and trial. And I, not as the Grand Master, but as your friend, am requesting that you return to the Jedi Temple as well. After losing so many Jedi today, along with Felucia, the thought of losing you would be unbearable.”

Amoye Ilu pondered the Grand Masters words as he flew en route back to Corruscant. With the Zygerian King locked in the cargo hold and the ship on a hyperspace route, Amoye Ilu sat on the floor of his ship meditating, thinking about his loss. There is no death, there is the force.

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“What do you mean you are overseeing the Sith takeover of this planet?!!” Darth Malvot cried out, making no attempts to conceal her rage.

The man who stood before her was Captain Carthage, leader of the Dark Lord’s personal guard on Korriban. He rarely left Korriban, but when he did, it was to oversee business on Odious’s behalf, and to antagonize and irritate as many people as possible along the way.

“I am merely here to oversee that every bit of nysillin on this planet gets brought back to the Dark Lord on Korriban. After we are done here you can have your little planet, along with its primitive inhabitants that so greatly interest you, but the sillum returns to Odious,” the Captain of the Guard said in a mocking tone.

“That sillum is very important to my experiments in a way that your mind can’t even begin to comprehend!” Malvot screamed furiously at this pitiful man who wasn’t even capable of touching the force.

“Darth Odious is the Dark Lord of the Sith, and he has concerns and desires that are far more important than your little chemistry projects,” Captain Carthage mocked.

Unable to contain the mounting fury inside of her, Darth Malvot thrust the tip of her staff towards Captain Carthage’s neck and hoisted him into the air with the power of the force.

“You know nothing of the power of the Dark Side!” Malvot screamed while Captain Carthage gasped for breath, as an invisible hand squeezed at his throat. “I just conquered an entire planet and brought down a Triumvirate dreadnaught on my own, and you’re trying to tell me that I don’t have every right to experiment with an herb that grows on this planet?!!”

“I’m just following orders,” Captain Carthage gasped. “If you have a problem with this, I suggest you voice all of your complaints to our Dark Lord and Master, Darth Odious.”

The captain of the guard dropped to the ground, catching himself on his hands and knees. Malvot had released this servant as her rage slowly subsided, eclipsed by the shadow of fear and doubt. This order came from Darth Odious, the Dark Lord of the Sith. Every Sith knew to avoid crossing him for fear of his power.

Despite Malvot’s mastery of the Dark Side, despite her ancient knowledge and skill in Sith sorcery, despite what ever amulets and alchemical creations she could get her hands on, even she knew that he could kill her without even drawing his blade. Darth Odious was the most powerful Sith Lord, perhaps the most powerful being in the Galaxy, and she knew she was no match for him even with all of the power she could muster.

“I’m glad this could come to a reasonable resolution. Do females of your species experience their ‘time of the month’? Or is that just humans?” Carthage mocked.

“You think dancing to Odious’s whim gives you the right to gloat and mock everyone before you? You think it gives you power?!! You are nothing more than Odious’s whore!”

“No more than you are,” the Captain retorted, still smirking with a twinge of amusement in his eye.

Infuriated with his latest remark, she met the smug smirk of the captain with a cold glare of hate. “Know this Captain! The fact that you have somehow earned Odious’s favor is the only reason you are still sane. The moment you fall out of Odious’s favor, anyone who cares about you will pity you for what you will face at my hand,” Malvot hissed. It was a loosely veiled threat, but an effective one that seemed to wipe the smug grin off of the Captain’s face.

Carthage was nothing more than a puny insect protected by a god. Due to the unchallenged will of Darth Odious, Carthage was just out of the reach every Sith in the Galaxy, and he used his special protection as an excuse to mock and infuriate these sith beyond all reason and measure. This left over one hundred Sith who wished nothing more than to kill him, make him suffer, splatter his blood all over the deserts of Korriban, and Malvot was one of those people.

A pathetic worm like this could not hold the favor of a Dark Lord forever, and Malvot swore to herself long ago that when his special protection faltered, she would be the first person to cross paths with him, and there she would teach him everything about power, about pain, about agony, and about death.

For now I have others to subjugate and bend to my will, Malvot thought as she walked into the forests of Felucia, but mark my words Carthage, one day, I won’t just kill you, I will make you beg for death!