1A/N: OKAY, I AM SERIOUSLY PISSED OFF!!! All of this freaking time spent hatching my ingenious ideas for Darth Maul, and his mysterious past, and family, and all that crap, and I GO TO THE STAR WARS WEBSITE AND FIND OUT THAT HE IS A WHAT?! A ZABRAK!!!! WHAT THE HELL IS A ZABRAK, AND WHERE THE HELL IS IRDONIA FOR CRIPE'S SAKE?!?! BECAUSE I SURE AS HELL DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING ABOUT A ZABRAK IN PTM!!! Huff Oh well. I don't give a damn. I'm just going to continue on with my obviously INFERIOR imaginative plot, and SCREW GEORGE LUCAS!!! SCREW YOU AND YOUR BLOODY PLANS FOR WORLD DOMINATION!!!
Er... did I say that out loud?
Chapter Seventeen
Kalaskein...
Blackness...
Kalaskein...
A voice...
Kalaskein...
Was he dead...?
Kalaskein...
Blurs... hazes...
Wake, Kalaskein...
A heavy shape... blackness...
Awaken...
He woke. There was nothing. Darkness.
"Who is here?" He said, stunned that his voice was in use again.
I am.
"Who is he that names himself 'I Am'?" He questioned in a silky, gruff voice. His own voice.
He who is all which has been, and will be is called I Am. The strange voice replied.
Darth Maul, in realization, flung himself to his knees, only to realize that he was unable to move. He could not ascertain his place against this wonder that was speaking to him, and instead closed his eyes in recognition, stating the name, "Shiloh..."
You have been broken, doer of evil.
He said nothing.
Sentenced, and persecuted as an evil, wretched creature should...
"To deem thee as the greater good..." He replied in a small voice. Not his voice.
No. You are unworthy. You are a sinner, and you have broken what edict I placed upon you at the moment of your birth. You have defiled it. You have suffocated it in your evil, and broken its pact with your soul. You do not deserve this.
Maul lowered his head in humiliated shame. "I have... I do not deserve such wonderful gifts if I may be swayed so easily by a promise of power... I deserve to be thrown into the deepest recesses of hell..." He paused, waiting.
Kalaskein, though much of this was not yours to decide, you still continued to bask in its wicked rewards, and you ignored the commands I gave you. The power was not yours to hold. It was not something that could be squandered at ease, and yet you still did.
"I am not worthy of this... I am not worthy of life..." He said, and his body fell to the nonexistent floor.
You are broken, doer of evil. And you accept this. You are worthy of this love, and you will be remembered in Paradise.
"Shiloh..." He choked, a tight knot forming in his throat, "I don't deserve life... I don't deserve your love..."
Suddenly, a cool wind brushed his face, and his head was lifted by an unseen force.
You are broken, Kalaskein, and it is the humility in your heart that has accepted this. You are more than deserving of my love. There are great blessings in store for you, my son, and I will guide you to reap their utmost rewards.
"Oh God..." He shuddered, barely able to release the words, "My father, my father, my father..." He chanted in a half-conscious mantra. He felt the strange, once dry well of emotion surge forth, and the onslaught frightened him slightly. He choked, and gasped as a black tear fell from the corner of his eye, and traced its way down his cheek in a sort of runic pattern.
Suddenly, it was as if everything had dissipated. He breathed in, and it felt as though an immeasurable burden had been lifted from his shoulders, like a dead man had been removed from his back. Life surged into his soul, and he could not help but cry even harder; for joy that it might last forever, and fear that it might disappear as quickly as it had come. He lifted his head to the empty sky, and wept to the heavens in triumph, his lips curving into an unfamiliar smile.
He was free! He was no longer evil!
He was no longer a Sith.
The moment that thought hit him, he was overcome by a wave of exhaustion so intense it almost hurt. Wait... it did hurt. It hurt a lot. Why was he in pain? Ahh... Dizziness overtook his head, and everything fogged over.
No, no... not this... not this again...
"Ngh... No... NO... NOOOO-"
Maul's eyes shot open, and his back arched in such a way that his spine should have snapped in half. He fell back immediately, met with the hazed, confusing images of people standing over him. He rasped painfully, eagerly gasping as though he had not breathed in ages.
"Marieeee..." He managed to ground out before something fell over his mouth, and he lost consciousness.
When Maul awoke next, the experience was much less painful. The lights were out, and his body no longer screamed, but a dull ache invaded his limbs. There was a soft snoring beside him, and, with great difficulty, he managed to turn his heavily bandaged neck toward the source of the noise.
Anamaria lay sprawled over a couch. Her hair was a mess, her skin was pale, and there were dark rings beneath her eyes. He stared at her for several minutes, watching her small breastbone move up and down to the rhythm of her breathing. He could really do nothing else.
What happened...? Where was he? Why could he remember nothing?
A soft whirr shot by his ear, and the noise startled him. Maul turned again, this time facing the window, and saw what could only be categorized as city lights shining through the thin drapes. Then that meant... he was in a hospital... alive.
On Coruscant.
With Jedi.
A wave of intense fear washed over him, and his senses rocketed tenfold. He needed to leave... not because he was afraid of imprisonment, but for the safety of the girl laying not eight feet away from him.
Testing his fingers, the Sith found that they were numb, and sluggish, slow to appease his wishes. With difficulty, he managed to move his hands behind his back, and immediately hissed in pain, for the movement had caused muscle spasms in his still-healing tissue. Raphael must have cut deeper than he'd thought...
Slowly, much more slowly than the Sith had preferred, he pushed himself up into a half-siting position, and stopped, his face caught in a grimace of intense pain. What a treacherous body he had been cursed with! Sweat beaded his gaunt face, trickling annoyingly down his neck, and back, and the heat he had felt in the spaceship was returning. A this rate, he would be tried and executed before he even managed to get his feet on the ground.
Something slowly clicked in Maul's considerably dulled mind, and he felt his skin prickle with the presence of a powerful entity.
Yoda.
Now his mind was on red alert. The Sith's heart began racing with adrenaline, and he rapidly looked around the room for any sort of escape route. Only the window lay within his view.
Anamria snorted softly, and turned on her side.
Maul hurriedly sat up, grunting slightly in pain as his torn stomach was disturbed by the movement. His eyes were wide with fear, and his heavy limbs trembled as he forced them to move against their will. The leg that had been broken back on Gattaca was thickly wrapped up to his thigh, and he was unable to move it but a few inches.
The Sith stood with every ounce of strength he could muster, driven by an ungodly amount of willpower, his face scrunched up in pain and concentration. The moment he was standing on his own, he would have collapsed beneath his own weight had it not been for the conveniently placed balustrade near the edge of his cot. Standing very awkwardly, he gasped, panting in exhaustion, and angrily chastised himself for being so weak.
The force was growing stronger by the moment, and Maul hurriedly swallowed back the bile threatening to spew forth from his empty stomach. Sucking in a breath, he pushed himself from the balustrade, and fell against the wall with a small cry of pain. Afraid that he had awoken Anamaria by the noise, the injured warrior quickly glanced over his shoulder to find that the girl was, indeed, still asleep; snoring away her woes and worries.
Maul ran his swollen tongue across his dry, chapped lips, and, assured that Anamaria was not going to wake up, he began to inch his way across the wall, leaning heavily against its comfortably cool support. The going was slow; he had to take small steps, as the pain in his leg was so acute that he could barely place two pounds upon it without holding back a scream. Thankfully, the window was not that far from his small, white bed, and he was there in less than a minute.
Oh no. Oh no...
Looking outside, Maul was horrified to discover that he was exactly one-hundred-and-fifty stories above the small line of ground below him, where the tiny dots he could only assume were people moved about on the minuscule street. Speeders, and pods rushed by his soundproof window, moving much too fast to even dream about catching a lift from one.
Frustrated, angry, and scared, the Sith lifted a bandaged hand, and slammed his balled-up fist into the glass, pressing his burning forehead against the cool pane. It gave him no relief.
"Judge us so quickly you must not, Sith."
Maul didn't even attempt to turn around. He could hear the soft tap, tap, tap of Yoda's cane as he stepped into the hospital room, and felt the nine-hundred-year-old force that surrounded him. His yellow eyes closed, and he waited patiently for the guards to enter and seize him.
"Impatient I have been to see you finally, Darth Kalaskein." The small alien continued, "Much pondering I have done since the first hearing of your visit, hm. Much pondering, indeed."
Maul glued his eyes to the floor.
"No need to be angry there is. Come here only to talk I have, Darth Kalaskein, hm."
A/N: Ha! There you go! Two installments instead of one! I understand that the bit at the beginning was a little unexpected, with Darth Maul believing in God and everything, but I can assure you that his change from secondary evil to good will be extended into several chapters. He's forgotten about the meeting with the 'voice' already, but there will be others around him to refresh his memory, including a VERY happy Anamaria, who will tell us exactly how he survived that little escapade in the spaceship. A lot more drama will ensue as the order eventually finds out about their newest guest, and Mace Windu takes Obi-Wan's place as 'hater of the week'! Geez, I really feel like my chapters are coming out crappier and crappier every time... Oh well. Send me your feedback!