DARTH MAUL VS. SUPERMAN
EPISODE IV
Superman launched himself into the air in a desperate maneuver. Not fast enough. His body was instantly sent crashing to the canyon below, brought down by concussion missiles fired from the belly of Darth Maul's flagship, the dreaded Sith Interceptor. His impact created a spiderlike fission, threatening to separate the Man of Steel's appendages from his immensely powerful form. Before Superman could catch his breath, a stilted mechanical Droideka, now joined by a twin counterpart, simultaneously ceased their tumbling form of transport, flanking him from perpendicular angles. The mechanizations propped themselves up on stabilizing, metallic leg supports, their gun shackled arms acquiring the Man of Steel at his greatest moment of weakness.
Superman's eyes glowed a scarlet red as he readied his piercing, laser-like gaze…
Electricity crackled through the air as the Droidekas generated impenetrable shield bubbles around their steely hides. Their robotic arms gathered power, sending coursing bolts of high intensity laser blasts at the Kryptonian.
Each blast glanced off of the Man of Steel's arms and torso, as he spun defensively. The laser fire sent the Man of Steel hurtling backwards, leaving scorched marks on his tattered Kryptonian uniform. Superman knew better than to hope the Droidekas would stop their attack; he couldn't wait or hope for his body, now spinning head over heels, to settle for him to gather his senses. Still, try as he might, his body was haphazardly flung through the air like a rag doll, making it impossible for the Man of Steel to orient himself. Somewhere, the Sith Lord was calculating a way to exploit Superman's defensive posture.
No sooner had the thought graced Kal-El's mind, did the starburst barrage cease. A split second later, the Man of Steel heard the telltale whine of the Sith's swoop bike. Kal-El spun, lancing the air with twin pillars of crimson heat erupting from his alien pupils, scorching the air around Darth Maul. The Sith ignited a single blade from his dual staffed lightsaber, barely deflecting the twin optical blasts away from his face.
The Sith Lord flung himself off the swoop bike, hoping an immediate counterattack would bring a quick end to the battle. However, Superman had waited for the Sith to land on his feet, providing him with a stationary target before exposing Maul to the radiance of a white hot blast from his eyes.
Darth Maul ignited the second blade of his weapon, withstanding Superman's heat vision with a high arcing lightsaber slash. The Sith's defensive upcut inadvertently deflected the twin streams of white hot blast beams directly into the ground beneath him. The soil underneath the Sith Lord cracked once before exploding under the intense strain of the Man of Steel's attack. Only by utilizing his mastery of the Force and his own supreme control over his Dathomirian musculature was Maul able to contour his pliable form to absorb the shock of the deathly explosion and hurl himself away from a deadly encounter with the stronger Man of Steel.
The Sith landed forcefully on his knees a great distance way, shattering the dry soil of the foreign world with his impact. The Man of Steel followed the Sith with a burst of speed, taking into the air in an linear dash at Darth Maul in an attempt to careen full force into the shrouded figure.
The Sith acknowledged the Man of Steel's learning capacity; the super being now understood that his true adversary was not the automations that Maul sent to flank the meta-powered being. No, Superman's true foe was the Sith Lord, and with his attack on Darth Maul, shunning the turbo laser blasts from the droids, launching himself with two outstretched fists aimed squarely at the Sith's eyes; the Kryptonian was attacking the brain that controlled the body of the battle.
Darth Maul's Jedi prescience could not provide forewarning of the Kryptonian's violent outburst of power, leaving him to marvel at the raw strength of the creature. Maul regretfully admitted that this Kryptonian, though undisciplined and unskilled, possessed a raw energy that basic Sith biology could not defeat in a singular manner.
The Man of Steel's clenched fists brushed against Maul's torso as the Sith twisted and spun, avoiding the Kryptonian's blitzkrieg offensive. Superman's gambit appeared to have missed his quarry, and as Kal-El, stopped his forward momentum, skidding to a halt. The Last Son of Krypton wondered if he could ever land a solid blow on this whirling dervish.
If I could just get one solid shot on him. Just one. But how?
Before Superman could continue the line of thought, the Sith rushed towards the Kryptonian with Force assisted speed, surprising Clark. Maul twirled both blades of his dual wielded lightsaber swinging wildly at the Kryptonian, hoping for a quick decapitating blow. The Man of Steel deflected the angled attack with his bare hands, ducking underneath the red swirl of light that threatened to separate his head from his body. Once again his hands felt the sizzling sensation of the glowing crimson plasma of the lightsaber on his exposed skin, howling in agony with the effort.
The Man of Steel was in a realm beyond pain or fatigue, his body ravaged by the red sun and the unrelenting attack by the Sith since his mysterious arrival on this cursed planet. But it was at this moment that, with each swing of Darth Maul's weapon, allowed Kal-El a glimpse of the desperation in the Sith's demeanor. Maul's arrogant grimace now revealed pain mixed with the creature's traditional snarl of hatred; Kal-El realized that his rapid, plunging slashes masked a growing sense of pain.
The Sith creature continued his battle against Kal-El, but his movements lacked the precision of his earlier tactics, and his attack with his laser weapon fell wider of their intended mark. With a quick glance of his enhanced vision, Superman peered into Darth Maul's alien physiology; through the pulsating view of unknown, alien viscera, Superman recognized a tear of what appeared to be muscle on fractured bone structure near the torso. Kal-El smiled grimly for a moment; his hyper powered attack must have connected with the Sith for a brief moment, but it was just enough to damage the seemingly untouchable beast.
Maul aware of the Kryptonian's intrusive view of his internal injuries, struck even harder, ignoring the blinding pain created by the Man of Steel's glancing blow. Maul's anger reached a peak as he let out a primal scream; Sith sorcery poured out of his gloved right hand. Lightning burned his fingertips as jagged blasts of red energy exploded and crackled towards the Man of Steel.
Kal-El dodged the most forceful of the lightning bolts, but was not unmarred; he felt stray strands of Sith energy strike his Kryptonian form. A burning sensation graced the left side of his body, but not before the Man of Steel dropped to the ground. Maul slowly walked towards the Man of Steel, screaming as the he continued his lightning assault on the Kryptonian, eager to burn Kal-El into a charred husk. Superman screamed, having enough presence of mind to resist the agonizing pain and keep moving. He bent his knees, and summoned all the energy he could from his muscles before launching himself once more at the Sith.
Darth Maul, body wracked with pain, with vision obscured by the smoke emanating of his own burned flesh, was caught flatfooted as Superman's flew towards him. Darth Maul felt the iron clad grip of the Man of Steel as he wrenched the Sith's hand backwards, nearly breaking it, redirecting the Sith sorcery blasting from Maul's pulsating hand into the Sith's opposite shoulder. Darth Maul's screamed in anguish as his left shoulder burst into flames. The red skin underneath his black robes instantly blackened and burned. Like a wounded animal, Maul channeled all of his Force abilities to propel himself far into the air, escaping the grasp of his Kryptonian enemy.
The Sith gestured quickly with the fingertips on his left hand. Immediately, two levitating probe droids initiated an attack run on the Kryptonian hoping to draw the Man of Steel's ire. However, the Man of Steel felt the tide of the battle turning in his favor; Superman quickly leapt at one of the metallic pests, grabbing it with a quick sweep of his hand, wrestling the aerial machines from flight in his firm grip. The drones, working from previous computations of the Man of Steel's strength threshold, underestimated his abilities. His fingertips easily sunk into the droid's outer shell, crushing a thin exterior metallic plate before Superman smashed his opposite fist elbow deep into the heart of the machine.
The remaining aerial drone fired ceaselessly at Superman as if defending a wounded colleague. The Man of Steel realized that he had to resume his attack on the leader of these metallic foes, the dark lord himself, Darth Maul. Focusing his vision on the pursuing drone, he fired a laser thin line of heat from his eyes into the heart of the drone, watching the automation glow before exploding into a shower of sparks.
Darth Maul watched from a distance, though he knew with the Kryptonian's power of flight, he was far from escape. Ashes floated in the air, stemming from his charred but usable right hand. However, Maul's left shoulder and arm, blasted by the dark lord's own Sith lightning powers, hung to his side. The Sith Lord's options were now limited, and therefore more focused; either Maul fought the Kryptonian and defeated him by killing the fool, or he would perish himself. There was no such thing as surrender for the Sith.
The remains of Maul's aerial drone flew towards him. Maul deflected the hurled projectile with a Force push just long enough to avoid the impact. Spinning in place, he saw a blur of motion, knowing that the accursed Man of Steel was speeding towards him. A Droideka rolled to a stop in front of the Kal-El, readily defending its master, though not quick enough to engage its forcefield.
Superman rammed the Droideka, lifting if off the ground, before sheering off its turbo laser emplacements, slamming the droid with a hard toss towards the ground. The Droideka exploded, spewing smoke and flames, and then died an explosive death.
Maul's small squad of Super Battle Droids made their way to the battle, firing concentrated volleys of long range laser bolts from their wrist gauntlets at the Man of Steel. Without ceasing his flight pattern, Superman peered through the smoke with his enhanced vision, seeing the Super Battle Droids through the hail of smoke and debris before blasting them with a burst of his super heated vision. Unlike his advesaries, the Super Battle Droids did not demonstrate the Man of Steel's accuracy; Kal-El drew a finely cut line through the mechanizations, scorching the automations roughly in half.
Kal-El took a quick mental count of all the attackers had faced so far since his appearance planet side; it appeared that most of Darth Maul's "troops" were incapacitated or destroyed. Soon, it will be just me and that being. Speeding towards where he last saw Maul, Superman realized he had a decision to make. A creature of this extraordinary evil would not succumb to imprisonment; Kal-El had already faced an adversary of similar sensibility in the war mongering General Zod, the meeting ending in fatality. Would the Man of Steel be required to murder once more, he wondered, preparing himself for that eventuality.
Every fiber of his being cried out in psychic agony; his Kryptonian sense of morals combined with values derived from the Kents, recounted his murder of the brutal despot General Zod. He had sensed during the battle of Metropolis that to defeat Zod was to destroy him, for as long as both Kryptonians drew a collective breath, Zod would be hunting Kal-El in a blood pact made before the Man of Steel was born.
Clark was conflicted as he neared Darth Maul, knowing that killing this creature would keep his world safe, mirroring the situation with the General. Letting the Sith exist was akin to living in perpetual fear; this night beast could rise again and plague Clark Kent with his evil, corrosive touch.
The Sith Lord waved his ruined hand at large chunk of impacted stone jarred loose from the battle, using the Force to send it careening towards the Krytonian's face, lashing out at Superman. Kal-El smashed the debris with quick strikes, the blurs of his hands disintegrating the objects into fragments and mist. Superman expected the Sith to use his pattern of distraction and attack to launch a counteroffensive with another series of swings and slashes from his deadly crimson lightsaber, but mysteriously, the Sith did not meet the Man of Steel in direct affront.
Darth Maul continued to launch projectiles with his control of the Force from a distance, gradually building his Force powers around his own horned figured before expelling a powerful blast at his adversary. The Man of Steel startled by the impact of the attack, escaped it nevertheless, maneuvering past a seemingly endless storm of dirt and grit until the very air surrounding him became a hurricane of the foreign planet's soot like particulates. With a last burst of speed, Superman flung himself through the Sith's telekinetic attack readying himself for the final battle between the two beings.
However, as the Man of Steel landed and the granite dust settled, the glowing blade of Maul's lightsaber was nowhere to be found. Nor was the demonic faced alien in attendance. Superman knew the Sith's troops were thinned to the point where he did not have enough to form a proper flanking maneuver, that he simply didn't have the manpower to ambush him from all sides once more; the successful tactic Darth Maul had conducted at the onset of their battle could not be repeated.
Glancing around him, through the ravaged landscape, the Man of Steel searched for the former hunter that was now the elusive prey. He avoided thoughts on the inevitable outcome should he defeat the Sith Lord.
Clark vaguely saw the fleeting image of the shadow hunter, Darth Maul, some distance away, his physically perfect gait minutely marred by the injuries he sustained in battling the Man of Steel. The Sith leapt on his swoop bike and without a glance behind him, powered the vehicle fully, dashing away from Superman in a cloud of dust. The Man of Steel debated whether to allow the Sith Lord to escape knowing that to do so was to invite the inevitability of retaliation.
However, a growing buzz gathered in volume directly above the Man of Steel. He peered upwards only to see cascading beams of light blast destroy the ground beneath him. A volley of concussion missiles soared into Superman's chest, exploding with devastating effect.
Suddenly, Clark realized the reason behind the desperation involved in the Sith's attack. Utilizing his superior vision, Clark spotted the Sith Lord's starcraft idling many miles above him, at the edge of the atmosphere, slowly progressing straight towards the Man of Steel in a vertical dive. The Sith Interceptor, Maul's only vessel for escape from this barren planet, had been placed on a collision course towards the Man of Steel. The constant barrage of firepower kept Clark at bay just long enough for the Sith Interceptor to engage lightspeed. In a blink of an eye, even faster than Kal-El could react, the entire ship crashed into the Man of Steel, plunging him into the ground before exploding in a titanic explosion that rocked the entire planet. Before the impact, a single thought coursed through Kal-El's mind: This sad creature that would sacrifice his own freedom from this cursed world to satisfy a blind fit of purely destructive rage.
Then, thoughts for the Man of Steel abruptly ceased, lost in the maelstrom of the ensuing explosion.
The destructive fury of Darth Maul's specialized spacecraft, its engines set on an overwrought, hyperdrive setting, turned the impacted portion of the planet into a bright sun for a millisecond. The force of the explosion cascaded outwards in jarring waves of heat and light, enveloping Darth Maul's swoop bike, picking him up in the air and throwing him far from the point of impact. His Force abilities enabled Maul the power to sustain his life force upon being slammed into the coarse ground. As he was blown mercilessly across the rocky landscape, he quickly wondered if the impact of his ship against this wasteland would destroy the planet itself.
The fires of the explosion burned brightly as the skies were adrift with an artificial night, clouding the air as shimmering flakes of metallic debris drifted along the winds of a destroyed eco-system. Soon, after what seemed like a millennia of being raked against the planet's surface, the figure of the Sith Lord succumbed to stillness.
A finger moved. Then another…
Darth Maul stood carefully, his body devastated on multiple fronts; from his battle with the Kryptonian to the self-sacrificing destruction of his ship on its suicidal crash into the Man of Steel. Maul's battle utilized rudimentary skills at martial tactics, yet this Man of Steel adapted, understood, and nearly killed the Dathomirian. And though Darth Maul could feel the planet's seismic tremble, this Man of Steel was surely dispatched to death's hellish embrace, forever vanquished from this mortal coil, at great cost to the Sith Lord.
The dark skies of this shattered planet would not clear for some time, and Darth Maul understood that his attack left him with a victory that was tentative at best. The ground shook once more, and it occurred to the Sith that his endgame not only defeated his foe, but himself; the quakes along the cracked ground beneath him spread in intensity.
Pained, the Sith turned to face the fires of his former spacecraft now only a spot on a gloomy, grey horizon. The yellow eyes of the Sith watched for weighted, timeless moments that seemed like hours. There was no movement save the shadows cast by the ashen fire.
No being emerged from the gaping, impacted hole, the damage so complete and total, that even from this distance, Maul could see that part of the ground was rendered crystalline by the intense heat. Still, the Sith held his lightsaber at the ready, seeing this Kryptonian figure defy death on multiple occasions the Sith would take every precaution against the super powered being.
The wind howled, swirling clouds of debris, but other than the distant noise of the devastation wrought by Maul's lightspeed gambit, the air lacked the distinct sound of the living.
And all on this planet may know death now, Maul said aloud, for I am the destroyer of this realm, the champion amongst all challengers whose reward is the same as those of the lowliest of statures; death.
The Sith Lord knelt, his scarred face eying the darkness above, searching for a respite from the damage he had wrought in his desperation to succeed against his seemingly immortal foe, knowing that he cast aside the longevity of his own life in doing so. And with thoughts of an eternity stranded on an island lost amongst the stars, the creature known as Darth Maul eyed his lightsaber, his fingers readying themselves amongst the ignition switch, the hilt of the weapon held in an inward position, pressed against his chest.
There was no sorrow, no fear in the twin, yellow pupils of his cursed Sith eyes. Only the knowledge that his end would be by his own hand, that no being in the universe had bested him in battle, and even amongst the ravages of a decimated, dying planet, his spirit of hatred, glowering with a pure, intense evil, would know its liberation from his corporal form, again, by his own hand.
Maul readied himself for extinction, knowing there would soon be nothing else as the ground surrounding him shook ever more violently.
I have defeated my greatest foe, the Sith Lord said aloud, the flames of hell crackling through the planet's exacerbated, distended surface. The fires drew closer, and the heat of a million suns cast an eerie glow to his red, tattooed skin. He put down his lightsaber. Death was near; he need not help it.
I have defeated him, this man of superior strength, who was not match for a true Sith Lord, said Darth Maul as he watched doomsday envelope the land around him.
I have won, he said, his eyes lost, staring inwardly. I have won, the Sith repeated in a lower tone before collapsing to his knees, dropping his lightsaber to the ground.
"And now," the Sith said as a layer of ground erupted into the air on a tidal wave of flames, "I shall be given my just reward…"
END OF EPISODE IV