"I never thought I would wish a villain would monologue."
No doubt there was a very good reason why I was able to shake off a suspected traumatic brain injury in record time. Perhaps it was the relative lack of prior TBIs that left me less susceptible. Or perhaps my brain was simply so smooth that any attempted damage just slid right off. Heck, with how weird this galaxy was, there was a decent chance there was some mystical mumbo-jumbo to explain it.
Point is, I was mostly conscious by the time I was lifted off the ground facing my allies.
It was… mostly reassuring. Natia and her pair of allies had their weapons drawn and leveled. At first glance, that crimson cylinder was leveled squarely at me. At second glance, at a spot just to my right. At a third glance, taken through the Force, I noticed a rather prominent person hovering… just behind me to my right.
Perfect.
Before I had a chance to deliver a pithy quip – 'how good of you to join us,' or perhaps even 'just as planned' – that strange presence began to speak.
"Apprentice Loa, many thanks for your cooperation," the voice cold, calmly modulated, and more than a bit static-laced. As though it were coming out of a speaker. That meant the presence behind me was helmed, or simply holding a speaker with which to broadcast this message. No, it had to be the former. Using a Force-user to deliver a message in an ambush was an easy way to invite scorn and disloyalty from a subordinate. "This could not have been done without you."
In an instant, my stomach dropped. Had- had I been betrayed? Had Natia been betrayed? That did not seem possible; she had been raised among the Sith, had she not? Natia had gone through proper training, had organized her own web allies. She should have been able to spot an infiltrator.
Right?
I mean, the words felt true enough, but that did not preclude misdirection.
But with an opening statement like that, I had to say something, if only to weaken the blow.
"Hphlgn…" Unfortunately, although my mind had mostly recovered from the attack, my body clearly had other ideas. Or my tongue had, at least. That was rather concerning, actually; If there was any part of my body I could trust to operate without the use of my brain, it was my tongue.
"Rest assured, your turn will come, Lord Nestor," the mysterious Sith spoke, his tone still icy cold. "But it is everyone else here who deserves my attention so much more. Apprentices Loa, Natia, and Bybon. You may leave. The Jedi may not."
None of the apprentices lowered their weapons, though Natia did speak.
"Though clearly imbecilic, Lord Nestor is my ally," Natia said. "I cannot just leave him to die."
"Don't be absurd," I managed to choke out. "If that were his goal, he'd have killed me when he grabbed me. If he lets you leave and kills me now, he'll be known as the Sith who just had to gloat. Is that really the kind of reputation you want someone in the Sphere of Intelligence to have?"
"… honestly, how does a man like you wander blindly into a trap but see through my intentions in a heartbeat?" the Mystery Sith asked. The way he phrased it made it clear that the question had been rhetorical. "Still, the offer stands. You three leave, the Jedi dies, and Nestor? Well, you'll see later."
Oh, I did not like that.
"You think you've found something worse than death to do to him?" the Little Jedi asked. "Or is this your way of telling him to stop misbehaving?"
"Rest assured, Jedi, I have my ways." The Sith's tones were anything but reassuring. "Apprentices, I cannot help but notice you have not yet started moving."
Loa was the first to move. Walking at a sedate pace, the tallest Sith woman I had ever met by that point slowly made her out. There was a sense of… guilt? Something about her seemed off, an inward negativity that her posture and gait emphasized.
Idly, I noted she stuck to the outer walls. The buff apprentice, or Bybon as he was apparently called, paused for a heartbeat before following after her.
Natia, to her credit, waited until her allies had left.
"You swear he will not die?" she asked.
"You say that as if it were a mercy," the unknown Sith said. "Rest assured, Nestor shall not die before I release him."
"Please note that he has said nothing about torture," I pointed out, my voice cheerful. "Corpses don't scream, after all. Takes all the fun out it."
"Hm. Capable of picking out what wasn't said but incapable of spotting a trap as he charges blindly into it," the mystery attacker mused. "Is he always this selectively dense?"
"You learn to deal with it," the Little Jedi deadpanned.
"I will take your word for it," he assured her. "Much like how I assume Apprentice Natia will be taking the chance to leave?"
The words hung in the air for a moment. My ally's gaze flickered between the Little Jedi, the Sith who was holding me up using the Force, and me. No doubt she was trying to decide if she trusted us to handle the Sith.
Or if she wanted to watch me get my highly justified comeuppance for taking advantage of her. To be fair though, she should have known better than to think I wasn't going to make use of that alliance she had thought she was forcing me to accept.
"Fine," she eventually said. "I will be waiting outside. Let me know when you finish up here."
Without another word, she strode out. Not a single glance to the side, not a look back, not any kind of doubt in her body language. Quite impressive.
"It's nice when people believe in you," I commented.
"It's nice when people believe you," Mystery Sith corrected. "Minder, have your men concentrate on guarding the entrance. We don't want further interruptions."
"Of course, my lord." The aging man who had greeted us rose from behind his desk and moved into the first large hall, muttering into a commlink all the while. Part of me was confused why the Sith had ordered the three of us to be left all but alone, until I realized he had ensured that whatever came next would not be interrupted. Anything that dared interrupt us would have to go through an entire outpost's worth of troops first.
"Congratulations on ridding yourself of witnesses," the Little Jedi remarked. "I take it this is the part where you explain your master plan?"
"You misunderstand me, Jedi," the Sith said, and I really did not like the tone he was taking. Behind me, I could hear cloth rustling and shifting. "This is no grand plot hinging on a web of thousands of little decisions. This is not a scheme to destroy a planet. This is the simple removal of a threat."
"You flatter me."
"Removal of a threat and keeping someone alive sound like mutually exclusive goals," she pointed out, not paying me any attention. "Going to explain it?"
"I could," the Sith allowed. Before he did, however, something behind me gave a mechanical click and a hiss, and I felt something land on my back. No, not one thing. Several things. Four, five, six at the very least. I could feel things scurry up and down my back, tracking a senseless pattern until one of them reached my collar.
An instant later, something rough brushed against my neck before rushing down the back of my shirt. My first instinct was to swat at it, but an invisible force held my limbs in place. No, I realized. Not force, but the Force. The Sith behind me was keeping me immobile while some strange creatures skittered all over me.
The thing beneath my collar paused once it reached my left shoulder, only to scamper across to my chest. There was a deep stinging sensation on my left pectoral, but that was swiftly overshadowed by another cluster of limbs moving past my collar.
I think.
Any sense of touch beyond that point was overshadowed by a surge of new sensations. The lights became brighter, almost blindingly so even through the dark fabric of my mask. All across my body, I could feel sweat start to bead on my skin and promptly soak into my outfit. In my ears, I could hear my heartbeat hammer away as though I had just finished a set of suicides.
But despite all that?
I wanted to flatten the face of the jackass who had decided to ambush me.
I wanted to tear out his jawbone and beat him with it. Turn his hair into rope. Turn his hide into a pair of gloves. Render the far from his body and use it to make soap. Reduce him to a red smear upon the wall, unrecognizable except to a DNA test!
Muted, as though in the distance and muffled by bells, I heard some muttered words before something cold hit my face. The floor, I realized belated. The mystery Sith had let me fall as the Little Jedi had flung herself across the room. On the edge of my vision, I saw a cone of red ignite as our ambusher brought his own weapon into play to defend against the greater threat to his health.
That meant he let me fall.
Oh, this was a quick reversal.
Moving quickly, I rolled away before pushing myself up to a seated position. From there, I did not even need the Force to strengthen my limbs as I rose smoothly to my feet, lightsaber in hand. Unlit, of course, but I was more than ready to jump in.
No, scratch that, I was itching to jump in there, to hack and slash and rip and tear and make him pay-
Except… I did not need to. The Little Jedi had matters well in hand. Blades blue and red met over and over again, with the wielder of the red – the Mystery Sith – being driven back at a remarkable pace. Towards the entrance.
Where he had stationed his backup.
Clever.
Unfortunately, I had cunningly countered that stratagem by bringing the fun-sized bigger stick.
Now that I was no longer held up in front of the Mystery Sith, I could finally get a look at him. Not much of a look, mind you; he was in the middle of a fight, and the constant movement combined with whatever garbage was flooding my system pushed a lot of those nonessential details in one eye and out some other hole.
All I got was a giant in Sith robes with massive pauldrons and a frankly idiotic mask with a mouthpiece that looked like a stylized tongue. Like I said, idiotic. Oh, and a red lightsaber. Can't forget about the lightsaber.
The Little Jedi certainly hadn't; she was busy showing the Mystery Sith the folly of attacking a Jedi who specialized in killing Sith.
… and something was gone. A light extinguished; a flame snuffed out. Someone had died, and the resounding thud of a large body hitting the floor made it obvious who it was. Well, that and the fact that I had mostly been paying attention.
The two unequal halves of a body that used to belong to the Mystery Sith were still twitching, though the Little Jedi was making quick work of ensuring that he would be staying down. The fancy robes had been scorched by the lightsaber, and the metal mask now bore an angry orange-white mark where a blow had carved through eyes and nose.
Man, it was a good thing she was on my side. A shame she had denied me my revenge, my chance to tear out teeth, pulverize bones, liquefy organs, to show him what happens if you dared to stand against me.
"-le Sith!" the familiar tones of the Little Jedi tore me back to the present. Well, mostly familiar. There was a bit more warmth than usual. Of course, she had just killed another Sith, as the new lightsaber on her belt could attest. Man, it was a good thing she was on my side. "That's right, positive thoughts. Let's get that voice of yours under control."
Had I been talking?
"Did it get louder?" I asked, fidgeting my still-unlit lightsaber.
"There's a pattern to it," she admitted. "Perhaps I'll tell you about it later. For now, let's see if your allies were as good as their word."
"And if the troops are still there," I muttered, but stalked off towards the only entrance and exit to this place. The only one that I could remember seeing, that it.
"Rest assured, if your allies have not taken care of them, I will gladly allow your debt towards me to deepen."
Yeah, not a chance.
I wanted in on this.
...
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