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This wasn't the way he'd planned for things to go.
As Darth Malak, Dark Lord of the Sith, stumbled against the side of a stasis chamber and slumped to his knees, it was the only thought that ran through his mind. As sharp as the pain that burned through his entire body was, even more biting was the lingering frustration that somehow, some way…Revan had managed to do it.
By all reasonable lines of thought, Malak had the advantage over his former master, and then some. He had the Star Forge on his side, a seemingly neverending armada of ships, years of intense training in the dark side, and an apprentice who'd throw herself in front of a rampaging bantha to ensure that his will was carried out. And yet, it was all slipping away from him, passing with the blood that flowed freely from the massive gash across his side. He had a hand to it, trying futilely to stem the blood loss, but it didn't matter. Death, at this point, was inevitable, and perhaps it would be best if he could simply resign himself to his fate.
After all, he'd accomplished his task. Darth Revan may have killed him, may have destroyed his empire, but Malak had personally ensured that the cost was the steepest one possible. Revan himself, his black robes drenched in a dull claret, was on the floor a few meters away, coughing up a puddle of the blood that was choking his lungs. For at that critical moment when he'd opened Malak's body with a slash of his lightsaber, Revan had turned his entire torso to the left with the strike, leaving himself just as open. Malak knew it was coming; he'd seen Revan do it countless times, in training back at the academy, in combat against the Mandalorians, while striking down the Jedi. Revan had always given himself a blind side.
Even the Jedi Council couldn't erase that. Or anything else, it seemed; the man who'd stormed his Star Forge with admirable skill was a far cry from the confused, pitiful wreck he'd cornered on the Leviathan weeks ago. It seemed his master had indeed returned from the verge of fading into obscurity within his own mind. His resiliency had been above and beyond anything Malak had ever dreamed of.
"It was a brilliant plan anyway," came a cough from his left. Malak turned, though the act only opened him up wider, and rested his back against the stasis chamber. Revan had given up on trying to prop himself up, and was now lying prone, one hand to his ruptured chest and his face turned towards his apprentice. "Had fortune been a bit more on your side, you would have destroyed both myself and the Jedi, and that would've been the end of it."
"You've reached the end of your path anyway," spat the Sith lord, his voice shaky and somewhat distorted due to the damage Revan's force lightning had inflicted on his vocal modulator. "Spare your pity for someone who needs it."
Revan scoffed, which came up as a guttural, choked sound. "Please. You've never had my pity, nor will you ever. No, my young apprentice, you have only my pride. You did admirably, and it was only the hand of fate that doomed you to the same end as mine." He coughed again; it was evident that his lungs wouldn't hold out much longer.
Somehow, his master's words warmed something inside Darth Malak. He hated the man, certainly, but there had always been (and still was) a certain camaraderie that existed between the two. They both knew the process by which Sith apprentices succeeded their masters. And so in a sense, that was the best compliment he could remember Revan giving him.
His lips moved wordlessly for a second, as he forced down the pain and rising bile in his stomach. Finally, he managed a bitter chuckle. "Evidently, it was still not enough."
"The blame is mine, I suppose," came the answer. "I wonder now, in retrospect, if I could have taught you more effectively, and perhaps we wouldn't both have had to come to this. Mistress Traya had said I didn't yet have the patience to take on apprentices."
"Or to attack without leaving a blind side, I see," quipped the Dark Lord with the slightest of acid-tinged smirks touching his eyes. If he had a mouth, his lips would've curled into a wry smile.
Next to him, Revan sighed. "I'm allowed my shortcomings, aren't I? You always were the better duelist, I'll concede that. Had you learned to hold an iron grip on the Force and twist it to your will as well as you wield a lightsaber, you might've come out of this in better shape."
"Musing on what could have been will not save either of us, Revan. The Dark Lord of the Sith is dying, as is the one who would succeed him, and now the throne will be vacant." That particularly rankled with him; to go down in history as the Dark Lord who left his title barren and unfilled.
"No," replied Revan, "there will be another. There is always another, history tells us."
"Perhaps Bastila could've done it," Malak thought out loud. It was getting dark now, and his wounds no longer stung so much as ached, with a dull, faraway sensation that told him his body was shutting down. "Such a shame about her..."
"She lives," answered his master drowsily. "I told her to wait in the antechamber and use her Battle Meditation to drive back the Republic ships--"
He paused, and the same revelation sank into both of them. If Bastila was powering the Star Forge's fleet, the Sith would assuredly win this battle, and with both Malak and Revan dead…
"So this is the future of our order." Malak groaned, and not just at the spreading coldness in his limbs. "Bastila Shan, Dark Lady of the Sith. Well done, Lord Malak." Even dying, his voice carried a static-laden touch of self-deriding sarcasm.
"No wonder she came to me down on the Rakata world and pledged her allegiance," mused Revan. "Playing both sides against each other. Yes, Malak, I'd say you created something neither of us were prepared for."
"Dispatched by my…our? Yes, our apprentice," said Malak. "How appropriate a way for a Sith to go. She succeeded where I failed."
"It seems," answered Revan, "that I was not the only one with a blind side in this."
Silence reigned in the Star Forge's chamber for several seconds. How long it was, Malak didn't know, until he felt a chuckle pushing from the back of his throat. It was an eerie sound, guttural and blood-choked, amidst the overbearing quiet around them, until Revan joined him, allowing a measure of hoarse, cynical mirth to escape his ruined body.
The Dark Lords of the Sith spent their last few moments alive that way, laughing at the whims of destiny before death took them. How ironic that, in their effort to bring about each other's end, they had not foreseen machinations such as these.
Such were the ways of the Sith. One could not afford a blind side.
End