Part 1: Twin Suns

1 BBY.

Tatooine.

Dusk.

Old rivals, silent and staring. Humming blue and crimson. Cold desert winds.

After all these years, Maul had found Kenobi. And all it took was the weak willed Ezra Bridger. The powerful young Jedi had since fled into the dark dunes, but Maul cared not anymore of him and his potential. He had found Kenobi. And that was all that mattered.

But why would Kenobi be here? A man of his delusion should be fighting against The Empire and the Sith overlords like the fool he was. Could Kenobi truly be so desperate to save his own life he would hide in the desert like a womp-rat?

No. Kenobi was too idealistic by half. He had to be here for some reason. A mission worthy of him, in both importance and principle. Maul had to know.

"Protecting something?" Maul tried, eyes sharpening.

Hard silence. He had gotten close.

"Protecting...someone?"

Kenobi's reaction proved him true.

The old fool adjusted from a simple neutral form into his classic defensive stance, two fingers outstretched. Maul prepared for an attack.

Eyes reading each other and feet shifting in the sand, they waited for each other to make the first move. Kenobi looked Maul up and down, adjusting into a familiar stance.

Maul knew it from somewhere, somewhere far gone. A dark time.

Naboo. Where Kenobi had stolen his destiny from him.

Maul realized the rest all at once. Qui-Gon Jin. Kenobi's pathetic master who he killed all those years ago. Maul would have laughed if he didn't want to give the game up. Kenobi knew full well what he was doing, this was more than just nostalgia.

At first, Maul felt the urge to strike at him as he did his master back then. To drive the hilt of his lightsaber into Kenobi's old and withered face, and to impale him in turn. His rage, his lust for blood and vengeance, his hate for Kenobi almost consumed him to fall into Kenobi's trap.

But Maul knew better now.

Maul lunged to Kenobi, seemingly falling into his trap. Two strikes with their lightsabers, an explosion of blue and red, and Maul went to smash his hilt into Kenobi's chin, Kenobi swinging down his lightsaber as he knew he would...

...And Maul twisted his lightsaber at the last moment, shifting it in his hands, using one of his blades to swat away Kenobi's lightsaber, making the old fool stumble. Using the opposite blade, Maul used Kenobi's staggered opening to do what he had wanted to do for thirty years, and drove his lightsaber blade deep into Kenobi's chest.

A quick inward gasp. Eyes lock.

Kenobi's face is painted with surprise and shock, Maul's with joy.

Then a heartbeat passes.

Their expressions change. The glee leaves Maul's expression, shifting into confusion. Kenobi features shift down.

The lightsaber slips from Kenobi's fingers. Maul turns his own blades off.

Falling into the sand, Kenobi oozes his life out as Maul stands triumphant above him.

"Is he The Chosen One?" Maul asked downwards.

Kenobi is silent, his face painted with failure.

"He is, then." Maul affirmed to himself, proud.

"Maul." Kenobi said, hand outstretched in vain. "We are not... what happened to us. I know this path was not your choosing."

Kenobi was cut off. "You have no idea of what you speak." Maul deflected.

"Maul... Please. Leave the boy." Kenobi was sincere. "You have gained...what you desired." Kenobi shivered the words out.

"I will train him into the most powerful Sith the galaxy has ever known. Goodbye, Kenobi." Maul glared down at him, a twisted smile on his face.

"I...pity...you." Kenobi said with his last breath.

And with that, the triumph in Maul's heart turned to bitter ash in his throat. For a moment, Maul looked over his old rival's dying body with a tinge of loss. But it passed as soon as it came. A heartbeat passed, and what was once Kenobi disappeared, and all that remained was his tattered old robe.

Maul was taken aback, stepping back a foot, looking around him, before letting his hatred bring comfort back to him.

"Jedi trick." Maul spat in contempt.

He had waited three decades for this ever since Kenobi took everything from him on Naboo. Ever since his life was taken from him, Maul stumbled throughout the galaxy to carve new meaning and purpose for himself.

Kinship, with Savage and his Night Mother, power with Mandalore and Crimson Dawn, to regain his place as Sith to stand against Sidious with Tano and Bridger. But all of this, like everything in his life, was stolen from him.

Everything gone, the only purpose that had left him alive was to kill Kenobi. Or to be killed by him. To give him the death that should've been his on Naboo, to save him from those decades of suffering and failure.

And now Kenobi was gone.

Maul felt empty. But only for a moment.

The fires of ambition and purpose finally reignited. He had not only completed his true goal, but Maul's true purpose unfolded before him as a result.

Once he had foresaken the Sith and his title of Darth, scorning a lifetime of failure. But it was all a test, he needed to rid himself of the shackles of the Sith to find himself closer than he had ever been to becoming the Dark Lord he was always meant to become.

He should have known, distracted by all those meaningless plots and lives for years. All Maul had to do was listen to The Force, to channel The Dark Side and let It guide him: let the hate guide him towards his true desire, his true purpose: and it did, and now his reward revealed itself, finally, in the end.

The Chosen One.

Maul would take the Jedi's mythical idol and corrupt and train him into the greatest Sith Lord the galaxy has ever known, and reclaim the destiny that long awaited him.

How shortsighted, how blind and foolish he had been: to have gone to the ancient Sith Temple on Malachor and gaze into the holocrons and to think that he was brought here just for simple, cathartic vengeance?

Now that Kenobi was gone, Maul could bask in the silence, and let The Force guide him. Maul could sense him, feel him. The energy. The power.

So after Maul took Kenobi's lightsaber as a trophy, he let the power guide him across the dunes, getting stronger and stronger, and he could barely contain his excitement. A hovel in the sand, some small obscure moisture farm.

The Chosen One was close.

Shrouded in darkness, Maul lumbered through the homestead. He could hear the mumbles of conversation in the next room.

Maul fingers wrapped tighter and tighter around his lightsaber.

In the next room, the light was on. He studied the trio, hunger in his eyes.

Some desolate farmer man and woman, eating with an older boy. Seventeen, eighteen, it made no matter. Not just a boy, the boy. The family was laughing, smiling. They had no idea what would come upon them.

Maul stepped out of the shadows, hard yellow eyes meeting their's, horned head casting a menacing silhouette. A crimson demon.

The joy dropped from their faces, the woman grabbing the boy, and the man standing upright, guarding the boy.

"Get behind me." The farmer said coldly.

"For all the good it will do you." Maul teased.

"Uncle Owen, who is he?" The boy cried out.

"Old Ben warned us this day may come, just stay calm. He'll be here soon."

Maul laughed cruelly, before holding out his hand, displaying Kenobi's lightsaber.

"I am afraid," Maul said with amusement in his voice, "This is all that is left of Kenobi."

The farmer went silent and pale for a moment, before his final moments.

"Beru, take him and run, now!" The farmer snapped, the woman grabbing the boy.

In a flash, the farmer lunged with his fists at Maul in a surprisingly valiant, albeit futile, attempt to stop Maul.

A swing of his lightsaber, flash of crimson, a woman's scream, another swing. Silence.

The farmers were dead.

"Uncle Owen! Aunt Beru!"

Falling before them, crying, Maul could feel the suffering, the anger, the hate, the fear bubble up in the boy all in once, and poured out, The Force pushing Maul savagely back. But nothing more.

The boy looked down at his hands, surprised at his own strength, and so was Maul. He had known the boy would be powerful, but that had taken him unaware from one so...simple looking.

Turning off his lightsaber, Maul laughed bitterly to himself, walking towards the boy. "Good. Good."

This boy truly was powerful in The Force.

Taking his chance, the boy turned and sprinted out from the homestead, stumbling over himself and nearly falling as Maul meticulously followed him.

Maul followed him out of the homestead and back onto the sands, before the boy fell into a dune outright. Maul tired of the chase.

"There is no escape." Maul warned.

Covered in sand, the boy looked up, eyes raw and red from tears. "Aren't you going to kill me too?"

"That would not be in either of our interests." Maul replied.

"...Why?" The boy asked, a mix of disbelief and fear on his face.

"For you are destined to join me." Maul said, as if that spoke for itself.

"I'll never join you." He spat out bitterly.

Maul smiled, spreading his hands. "Unfortunately for you, there is no one else to turn to."

He grabbed the boy's chin, harshly jerking his head left and right to inspect him. The setting twin suns shone golden light across his face.

Fair skin. Blue eyes. Blonde locks of hair.

"What is your name, boy?"

The boy stared defiantly at him, Maul bared his teeth at him and tightened his grip, pulling his head upwards.

He had fire in him, covered and coated by all that fear.

"What is your name?" Maul growled.

After a moment of silence, the boy looked down and finally responded.

"Luke." He said. "Luke Skywalker."