Title: "How Darth Malak Got His Metal Groove"

Summary: An entry to Trillian4210's Fanfic Challenge, 'Malak and his Amazing Removable Chin!' I attempt to explain how Darth Malak lost his jaw and how he received his high tech chin guard. Originally, I was going to go with the serious route, but then something happened to me a few months ago and I thought comedy might be a better idea.

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Darth Malak cowered in his seat as his master, Darth Revan, circled around him like a firaxan shark would a tasty morsel. He'd faced numerous challenges in his life, even before he turned to the dark side with Revan: he'd served in the Mandalorian Wars, fought in the fields of combat where sometimes he would be the last one standing, even traveled from one end of the galaxy to the next searching for the legendary Star Maps.

This, however…this last task would truly test his mettle as a Sith.

Revan, seeing the look of dread on her apprentice's face, rolled her eyes. "Oh, will you get over it, Malak, it's only a checkup!"

Malak relaxed slightly, blowing a breath noisily through his mouth. He glanced around at the medical wing of the Star Forge. "Easy for you to say, Revan, I've never had my teeth checked out."

"Exactly, and who's been complaining lately about toothaches?" Revan replied acidly.

"I like my sweets, so what?" Malak countered. "We're Sith, for Force's sake. When I joined you, there was no talk of having good dental hygiene in the fine print."

Revan's eyes flashed. "I won't have an apprentice whose teeth look like Darth Maul's."

Malak blinked in bemusement. "Umm…isn't he like…four thousand years in our future?"

"Who's the master in this little team?" Revan asked menacingly.

"Okay, okay!" Malak said, bringing both hands up in a show of supplication. Bitch, he thought. "So, did you find someone or something in this Rakatan monstrosity who can get this exam over with?"

Revan smiled nastily. "Funny you should ask." She touched a button on her belt and the doors opened, allowing an almost two-meter tall humanoid robot to walk in. It gleamed newness from its red armor down to its glowing crimson eyes. It looked from Revan to Malak and back.

"Resigned Query: Master, do I really need to put my newly made titanium hyperalloy digits into this meatbag's slimy, mucus filled orifice? This is almost an affront to the entire HK line."

"Meatbag?" Malak asked in a low, deadly voice.

Revan shrugged. "Must be a glitch somewhere in its programming. I added a few special modifications myself to the original design."

Malak looked the droid up and down. "What exactly does 'HK' stand for?"

The droid's head swiveled from Malak to Revan, who kept her face as straight as possible. When it looked back at Malak it said, "Clarification: HK stands for…er…'Halitosis Killer' in the present context."

"Uh-huh," Malak said in some disbelief. "And what makes you capable of performing the checkup on me?"

"Statement: I have extremely detailed files on human anatomy: skeletal structure, nervous system, muscle types, pressure points, the body's sensitivity to heat, cold, pressure, electrical discharge, lasers…flamethrowers…"

"And this is supposed to make you a better at dentist?" Malak asked with rising alarm.

"Wistful Statement: Among other things."

Before Malak could voice any more of his concerns, Revan pushed another button on her belt. Thick bands appeared around his legs, arms and mid-torso, holding him in place in the chair. Two more bands appeared, one wrapped around his head to pull it flush with the headrest and the other to pull his jaw down. Then, the chair slowly straightened and leaned back to allow greater access to his mouth.

Revan actually assisted a little by running a quick scan of her apprentice's teeth. Her dark eyebrows rose a bit and she showed the results to HK-47, who actually tsked.

"Observation: Ooh, impacted wisdom teeth – all four to be exact. They will all have to come out."

Malak's widened a bit as HK reached into a tray of medical tools and pulling out a pair of what looked like pliers. He wriggled his jaw a little out of the band so as to speak.

"Waitaminute! Wha – what about a local anesthetic?"

"Admonishing Query: Anesthetic? What is that?" HK asked as he clicked the pliers in his hand. Malak's eyes snapped to his master.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Mmm…yep!" Revan replied sweetly. She then said in mock seriousness, "Remember, my apprentice: 'There is no pain where there is strength.'

"Cute," Malak mumbled. His mouth snapped open as the band tightened again on his jaw.

HK leaned in and began. The top wisdom teeth came out with hardly any trouble. The droid sounded disappointed when he said as such, although Malak's hands flexed and squeezed with each pull. The bottom two were more of a challenge. The right tooth took a little more muscle than usual, but eventually it came out with a snapping of enamel. The last one proved the hardest. Try as he might, HK couldn't get it out. Sweat covered Malak's brow with each attempt, but still he did not cry out.

"Rhetorical Query: You think you've won, have you?" HK muttered. He touched a stud on his chest cavity and a small compartment opened up. He extracted a small putty-like substance, which he affixed around the tooth. He then unspooled a small wire, attached it to the putty and backed away.

"Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?" Revan demanded, watching as a frightened Malak's eyes bulged as he looked at the wire running from inside his mouth to HK.

Proudly, HK said, "Statement: There is no problem that cannot be solved with a generous application of high explosives."

"Uh…try something else," Revan commanded.

"Grudging Statement: Oh, very well, Master," HK grumbled. The wire and explosive were put away, much to Malak's relief. Glancing back at the trove of tools at his disposal, HK found a long metal rod with a concave indentation on one end. He placed it on the far side of the tooth so that the rod pointed in his direction. He tapped on a few times to test the strength of the tooth. Nothing happened. He then banged on it three times, each time, sending Malak's face to turn and slam onto HK's upper metal torso. Malak moaned and groaned, now in confused pain. Several times HK drew one powerful arm back and kept hitting the rod.

"Exasperated Query: Why-Won't-This-Tooth-Come-Out?" Each word punctuated with a hit, each hit punctuated with Malak smashing his face into HK's carapace. Utterly disoriented and with a track of bloody drool running down his chin, Malak lost focus of his surroundings and felt the beginnings of a migraine coming on.

At wit's end, HK bunched up his fist, threw it back as far as it would go and hammered it down.

CRRRR-AAA-CCKKKK!

Malak's eyes crossed, fluttered, and – to his extreme annoyance – closed as he fainted. The last thing he heard was HK saying:

"Statement: Uh-oh."

oOoOo

Light and shadows dreamily appeared before Malak's eyes as he slowly regained consciousness. He blinked several times until he could barely make out the ghostly image of Revan in front of him.

"Malak," she asked, as if from far away, "can you hear me?"

Slowly, painfully, he nodded his head. Strangely, everything from his nose down to his chin had no feeling whatsoever. Revan must've given me something for the pain, he thought groggily.

"How…how long – " Malak cut himself short. His voice, even in his shocked state, sounded…off. It sounded flat, hollow, almost metallic. "What happened?" he asked.

The droid came into view. "Statement: It put up a valiant fight, Master, but the last tooth finally bowed down to my superior strength." HK sounded extremely pleased with itself.

Malak asked, "How long was I out for? Is everything all right? What's wrong with my voice?"

Everything finally came into focus and Malak saw HK and Revan looking down at him. His master looked mildly surprised about something and kept staring at his face.

"You were out for several hours," Revan said. "As to what happened? Well…let's just say HK was a bit overzealous in his work."

Confused, Malak brought a hand up to where his chin normally would be and found only smooth metal. Fully awake now, he sat upright and brought both hands up to feel some kind of metal apparatus completely covering what used to be his chin.

"What…the hell is this? What have you done to me?" Malak demanded of HK.

The droid gave the equivalent of a shrug. "Statement: Let us just say that while before you were once a complete and utter meatbag…you're now slightly less of one."

Revan looked faintly embarrassed, though her eyes glinted mischievously. "That tooth was dug in their pretty well. Unfortunately, HK pushed so hard that – " she tried hard not to laugh. " – he cracked your jaw and it popped out."

Malak's eyes widened and he ran to a mirror. A metal prosthetic device wrapped around the area where his jaw used to be. Even with it on, he could feel the skin around the area of the wound had been closed up. He still had feeling on his skin and felt something square and metallic sitting right above where his Adam's apple used to be.

"What is this thing?" he demanded, his hand to his throat.

"Statement: It is a vocabulator, a piece of Rakatan technology we were able to find in the Star Forge's databanks," HK replied. "It operates by giving off a synthesized version of your voice. Unfortunately, the electronics are extremely sensitive. Therefore, in order to avoid exposure to your meatbag juices, it was necessary to seal your throat."

Malak whirled on the other two.

"How the hell am I supposed to eat?" he asked incredulously, his synthetic voice oddly resonating.

"Through your nose?"

"Suggestion: Use of a very thin straw?"

"Oh, very funny you two, ha-ha!" Malak exclaimed feeling around his head for where the prosthesis ended and where his skin started.

"Think of it this way, Malak," Revan said. "You definitely look more fearsome."

Malak's eyes glared daggers at his master, idly wondering if he had enough rage to rise and slay her right then and there. He then paused and looked back at the mirror. For long moments he just stared at himself, moving his head this way and that. He started to pose, moving his cape from one shoulder to the next, widening and narrowing his eyes imperiously – searching for the right 'look' that would certainly send fear into the hearts of mortal beings. He even flexed his muscles in different poses here and there to check out his whole repertoire.

"Hmm, maybe you're right," he said. "Sion and Nihilus have always been on my case about not looking badass enough. I thought the tattoos might help, but people started calling them racing stripes behind my back." He perked up a bit. "Hey, this might even help me finally get that date with Yuthura Ban I've always wanted." Nodding to himself one last time in the mirror, he walked with a spring in his step out the door.

Revan and HK looked at one another with mild amusement.

"Well," Revan slowly said, "that's one way to get rid of his bad breath."

"Statement: I have already learned a great deal from you, master, and I am anxious to learn more of lying, betrayal, and new ways to harm meatbags. The very fact that you would sink to such depths to remove that meatbag's bad breath makes my behavior core sing with anticipation. Heartfelt Request: Never, ever change, master."

Revan smiled warmly.

"HK, I think this the start of a beautiful friendship."

-FIN-

Post A/N's: First off, yes, part of what happened above did, in fact, happen to me (not the losing of my jaw, of course). I went to a dentist to get my wisdom teeth removed and was given several shots of Novocain. The bottom ones came out without a hitch. It was the top ones that had the dentist jamming so hard on my teeth that I actually kept hitting her chest. Although I didn't get a concussion, I did get very embarrassed, though the dentist didn't seem to take notice since she was so focused on my teeth. After all was said and done, the Novocain spread and my entire lower jaw just felt numb. So, for a while, I could say, wholeheartedly, I knew what Malak felt like.