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A young man stood above a fallen Darth Zannah. Although the young man looked nothing like it he was the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Bane. Through the use of the skill essence transfer he was able to obtain a new body that was younger, healthier and more agile than his old one. His apprentice though strong couldn't match him on an even battle ground and was destroyed by him. He found this outcome neither positive nor negative, his apprentice was weak and unworthy to be the Sith Master but all the time spent training her was irrelevant to a master of essence transfer. He had a new apprentice prepared who had far more potential, Darth Cognus.

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The precognitive Darth Cognus stood above a fallen man, another new form of her master Darth Bane breathing hard from both exertion and fear. This was the first time in decades that she went into a situation blind. In the early years of her training she found her foresight, her third eye, going dim and eventually decided that the dark side of the force was not inclined to such skills and was blinding her greatest strength. To preserve her greatest skill, for her own benefit and for the future of the sith she took all of the uncertainty that had infected her and placed it upon the confrontation that had just occurred and the events surrounding it. Without her greatest strength it was a terrifying battle, but all sith learn early on how to make fear into anger and anger into power. She felt the dark side pulse and writhe inside her body and wondered if her anger had pushed her to new heights of power or if the dark side was recognizing her as the master. Irrelevant she decided, she was the master of the dark side and she had an apprentice to train.

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Many years later the Iktotchi stood before her apprentice in a final confrontation. Her apprentice, Darth Millennial, was a elderly human with three eyes. His greatest strength like his master's was the ability to see the future. Unlike her natural Iktotchi attributes however, his was the conventional power of foresight granted to all force users with the patients to hone it. However both master and apprentice had grown envious of the advantages of the others methods over the years which came to each of their minds at this final point in their confrontation. They both charged at each other and when in contact enacted exactly the same plan. The large amount of dark energies in the air and in the scarred landscape blinded both their foresight of anything conscious so neither imagined the other would try to use transfer essence at that particulate moment. Both of their bodies burned to ash and the two did battle as pure energy and pure intellect. The struggle ended gradually before the cloud of energy resolved into a form resembling a force ghost though slightly more nebulous. The form appeared to be a male Iktotchi with three eyes. Despite the gender difference it was Darth Cognus who won the battle and took form there, although currently lacking a body. He frowned as half a dozen methods for achieving corporal form flew through his mind thanks to his improved future sight.

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Light sabers clashed many centuries later as the sith master Darth Tenebrous fought his apprentice Darth Plagueis for the title of master. It was a difficult battle for both parties as Tenebrous the Bith fought with the science of his kind and his own fury behind his blade and Plagueis the Muun fought with his kinds ambition and his own wisdom that he would come to be known by. Tenebrous favored form four for its aggression and strength while Plagueis favored form two for the control it afforded him. Like all sith were taught though they used combinations of all forms to battle each other creating a complicated and intense battle that few Jedi could even fallow with declining combat prowess. Darth Plagueis knew he had to change this battle as they were mostly waiting for the other to make a mistake which he most likely would before his inherently methodological master. Plagueis changed to his combinations that mostly used form seven a form mostly forgotten to the Jedi but the sith remember. Even with that knowledge however form seven is still very difficult to master, a challenge that called to Plagueis to master. Darth Tenebrous quickly started focusing on form six a more moderate form before as the pressure rose focusing more on form three an entirely defensive form. As the outcome of the battle became more and more certain Tenebrous desperately moved into his apprentices guard and was bisected at the waist in the process. That didn't matter to the sith however as he used essence transfer on his apprentice. Tenebrous fought with fury and fear while Plagueis fought methodologically with contempt.

As the new master forced his predecessor from his mind deep in the force he observed the spiritual death of his predecessor in fascination.

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Darth Plagueis awoke with a gasp at the burning sensation in his throght to find his apprentice Darth Sidious above him with his light saber active. As his master suffered Sidious just grinned at him a moment before turning and walking away. Traitors to Darth Bane's rule of two has not been uncommon in the last thousand years but none had succeeded so far. None would succeeded to day either.

"Cowered" emitted ominously not from Plagueis ruined throght but form his entire lanky body.

Sidious spun on his feet and stared at his master stunned for a moment before his expression changed to fury "This is the way it is meant to be sith striking from the shadows with cunning and hatred not entertaining antiquated rules that simply restrict us with notions of honor!"

"That is true but the Jedi entertaining their natural setting of peace have grown ever weaker while the sith warring with their own nature have grown even stronger" said Plagueis almost proud of his apprentice for being so in tune with the desires of the dark side. He still needed to die however.

Darth Plagueis launched a bolt of pure dark side energy at his apprentice, focusing such power almost killed him in his injury state but he survived. Sidious' force shield blocked the attack but it was designed to attack his spirit not his body. Although he halted the momentum of the attack he still felt the energies calmly settle into his body and impeded his ability to use the force. With an echoing and terrible scream he charged his master with his light saber. Darth Sidious focused on form four, and a variant developed by the Jedi Yoda over many centuries, focusing on acrobatic movements. Plagueis however since taking on an apprentice had developed a few tricks of his own. When Sidious almost struck his master Plagueis' body would take on the consistency of mist and the blade would harmlessly pass through and other times he would display a mastery of Tutaminis making odd portions of his body impenetrable to energy attacks like those of light sabers. When it became obvious that the battle could not be won by him Sidious attempted to flee. He jumped out the window.

Using the force to slow his fall Sidious landed roughly at the bottom of the cliff that the sith facility was built on. He than turned and ran. The cliff wall behind him exploded and expelled a dozen alchemically created monsters resembling heads with vicious teeth attached to hands that it used to propel its self forwards at high speeds easily able to pursue the human. As he ran from sight Plagueis looked into the future using the techniques of his predecessors to discover the identity of his new apprentice.