Hello! Please enjoy the first book of our series! Please leave a review and favorite our story! And May the Fourth be with you!

Disclaimer: We DON'T OWN Star Wars or Lucasfilm. We are just huge fans of the universe and the characters that live in them. also these are mostly our own original characters and planets, but we do visit and reference canon locations.

Anyway, enjoy!

Prologue

In the dark of night the sabers clashed, a brilliant blue furiously holding its own against two red sabers in the stone ruins of a long forgotten and ancient temple. The huge monoliths towered over the combatants as they fought in a circular dias in the middle of the great monuments, almost like a stage. To the untrained eye it looked like an elaborate dance, but to those with knowledge of such things the blue blade was subtly being toyed with by one saber that stayed reserved and efficient, only moving to parry and block as needed with occasional pinpoint attacks, while the other red blade attacked with animal ferocity. The blue fought brilliantly, a masters blade, but he faced an enemy that he was not prepared for. Above, in the night's sky, the stars were blotted out as if an ill omen, the sharp angular blades of a star destroyer's twin prongs casting a vicious shadow over the scene.

In one blow the battle ended, the blue blade's owner crying out in pain as the reserved red blade parried a slash and followed through with a deep cut to the back of the Jedi's calf. The master tried to stay upright but faltered, the two Sith circled, one with a restrained smile, the other with unabashed glee. The latter thrust their saber through the master's left shoulder, relishing the cry of pain the master gave as the red saber burned through his bone and sinew while he fell to the stone floor.

"Enough." The deadly quiet Sith said, her voice low and dangerous. "He wanted to interrogate this one."

"Ah, but he only needs to be able to talk Cien." The other said through a grin, raising his saber to deliver another grievous injury.

"He is defeated, Kopesh. Leave your play thing alone-" Cien cut short as a hulking shadow appeared out of the gloom of night, stalking towards the three combatants. The two Sith immediately turned to the figure and genuflected to the ground, the fallen master still gasping in pain between them.

"My Lord." They both said in near unison, Kopesh just slightly faster than Cien which elicited a sly glance of annoyance towards her fellow Acolyte.

The figure ignored them as he strode to the scene of the fallen Jedi, stopping as he towered above the agonised victim and spoke in a deep, amplified voice that echoed through the ruins like death itself. "So you are what passes for a Jedi master in this age; pitiful."

The Master looked up at the figure, and through the pain one might see a glimpse of confusion, and then understanding. It was a helmeted figure, clad in a full black suit and a cape that fell behind him. The Sith examined him in return from behind a terrifying mask, as if the Jedi were an insect. But this mask was not the one he had seen glimpses of in the holovid stories of fallen Jedi. Inquisitors then, sent by Palpatine and his dark apprentice, but not the apprentice himself. "I would have thought Vader would come to take me, but he just sent his inquisitor hunting dogs. I'm almost insulted." He spat out with all the defiance he could muster.

For a moment the dark figure simply towered over him, and then began to laugh with a low rumble that slowly built up to malicious, howling guffaw that echoed through the ruin. As the outburst subsided he spoke in a deep voice "You think me the servant of that… child that presumes to call himself a Dark Lord of the Sith?" With a small gesture of his hand, he used the Force to pick up the battered Jedi, who let loose a cry of pain.

Kopesh noted with some amusement that the fallen master appeared to hang as if suspended only by the shoulder he had maimed, like a great invisible vice clamped down and held him aloft.

"It doesn't matter." The Jedi gasped through a cloud of pain. "The Sith will fail as they always do. The Jedi Order will be reborn."

"Ahhh.." The Lord said with a satisfied rumble. "There it is, the pathetic courage of yet another Jedi master fallen before me. I would have thought the breaking of your order might have humbled you but even now you cling to it like a mother's blanket. I care not for your order. Nor for you." The Lord continued, pulling the Jedi a little closer through the air. "I only care about the artifact you protect here."

The Jedi looked at the Sith Lord with a surprise that evidenced through the grimacing of pain. "What... artifact?"

The Lord only looked back at him for a moment, the armored helmet and dark slits of the eyes hiding any semblance of the being inside, but somehow evoking a sense of genuine puzzlement. Then he rumbled another malicious laugh in the face of his tormented prisoner, at the humor of the realization.

"You don't even know of this place, this temple." The Lord said. "You hide here like a cowering dog, a Jedi, Master of a broken order defeated by a fool and his crippled servant, and you don't even know what lies before you. No wonder the fool defeated you all so easily." Through his tirade the vice on the masters shoulder gripped ever harder, eliciting cries of pain. "Your order was pathetic in my time but even more so now. You are not even worthy of the title of Jedi, let alone Master, that is a title reserved for more worthy opponents." With a sickening crunch of shoulder and collar bone, the Master screamed as the Lord drove his point home in a most cruel way. "At least you may serve some useful purpose to me."

Bright white electric arcs raced from the Dark Lord's outstretched hand to the Master's heart, enveloping the Jedi's body in a horrendous storm of red lightning. The Master felt it cascade through him. Every nerve alight with electric fire. Every muscle fiber stretched and contracted at the same time until it felt like his bones should break and his tissue tore as his body tried to rip itself apart.

With a twist of the Dark Lord's fingers, the sensation took on a new dimension. The torturous lightening withdrew into the Jedi's body and changed into something else, something far more excruciating and horrifying. This was more than just an electric surge of Sith lightning trying to kill him, he could feel his life drain from him, as if every cell was being burst and its energies were being torn away from him. Every moment stretched into an infinity unto itself as his essence was torn from his body. He screamed with inhuman sounds of agonizing pain as the energy tore into his floating body and then, with a final thunder, a blood red arc of lightning shot back to the Sith's gloved hand. The Master's smoking, drained body fell lifeless to the ground as the Dark Lord savored the moment, curling his fist as he felt the stolen energy from the former Master empower him.

"This temple is ancient, even in our time, even to me." He said after a moment, in a low rumble more to himself than to his two Acolytes, who wisely continued to kneel before their Lord, listening to his words but not daring to speak. "It was built to protect something the Jedi wanted hidden, even most Sith feared its power. Now it shall finally be mine."

He lashed out with the Force at the stones around him. Each stone weighed hundreds of tons, hard granite that had stood for millenia forming circle upon circle precisely around them which had served as an arena for the now finished duel. They instantly exploded into a storm of stone, showering the area in a deadly hail storm but warded away from the Lord and his Acolytes. As the last fragments fell to the ground the Sith Lord reached out with the Force and felt a slight disturbance. It flew from a distant corner of the rubble and into the Dark Lord's hand. He regarded the fragment for a moment. The Acolytes could feel a seething anger building in their Lord and kept their heads cowed.

He said nothing, his moment of triumph ruined by clever adversaries dead for centuries, if not millennia. They had dismantled it and scattered it across the galaxy, but this intact fragment proved they had not destroyed it, too precious to them it was. No matter, he had the time to find the pieces. All of them. He would win in the end.

After a long moment of uncomfortable silence, Cien worked up the courage to ask the question that both acolytes wondered but only one dared voice; "What is it, Lord Dracul? What have we found?"

REVIEW!