"Now, now, general. We must giver the girl her ultimatum before the violence begins." The white-haired man said, gesturing for the droid to postpone his attack. The droid complied but remained at the ready like a patient blood hound. Arya studied the pair closely. Somehow, she had seen them somewhere before, and then it hit her. Count Dooku and General Grievous. During her training, Maul made her study the identities of some of the most prominent high-ranking officials, military leaders, Sith, and Jedi in the galaxy. The two that stood before her now were the face of Sideous's operation while he pulled their strings from the shadows.
"Dooku and Grievous. Maul has told me plenty about you two. You're Sideous's lapdogs. What do you have that could possibly keep me from defending myself?" Arya asked.
"Your master, Maul." Dooku said. A small level of annoyance registered in his voice at being called a lapdog.
Arya paused for a moment, and then thought it through. There was no way Maul could be with them. She had left him in the Jedi Temple and it would be nearly impossible for anyone to get him out. Even she hadn't accomplished that.
"You think I will fall for your tricks?" Arya said defiantly. "Maul was left in the Jedi Temple. There's no way he could have gotten out."
"Then you grossly underestimate Sideous's abilities, girl. And that is a dangerous thing to do." Dooku sneered. "But even still, see for yourself." Dooku held out his hand and above his palm Arya saw a holographic projection of Maul appear. He looked as if he was suspended by restraints.
"How do I know that you aren't just showing me false images?" Arya asked, her voice masking the worry she felt.
Dooku sighed and rubbed his temples. Then he brought the communicator he was wearing on his wrist up to his mouth. "Wake the prisoner up." He commanded.
"Yes master." The metallic voice of a droid replied through the tinny speakers of the communicator.
Arya watched as a medic droid came into the projection and approached Maul. It stuck a syringe into his neck and administered something. Immediately Maul jolted awake. As soon as that happened, Arya could feel his presence faintly in the direction of Dooku's ship in orbit. She watched a groggy Maul try to get his bearings on his surroundings. Before he could focus however, the medical droid injected him with another syringe, causing him to pass out again. Mauls presence disappeared. Arya tried to remain calm, but she saw that her face had already betrayed her.
Dooku grinned wickedly.
"As I was saying, we have your master. So, the ultimatum is simple. Come with us, or we kill him." Dooku said in a voice that was so matter of fact it was as if he had just told Arya the weather.
"What's to stop me from killing you both and going up there to get him?" Arya said, barely keeping the panic from her voice.
Dooku and Grievous both chuckled at that, the latter was a muffled, wet croaking.
"If you can manage to kill us both. Then your master will already be dead." Dooku let the words hang in the air.
"How?" Arya asked skeptically.
"Simple. There is a device connected to my heart. The device is linked to a beacon on my ship. If my heart stops beating for any length of time, then the beacon will activate, and my ship will incinerate your precious master. The tutelage of my master has taught me to anticipate any angle and prepare for any situation. I knew if Sideous had sent both myself and General Grevious that you must be particularly dangerous, so I had to take extra measures to ensure your compliance." Dooku said. His smugness caused a current of anger to flow through Arya.
"There's one flaw in your plan." She said.
"And what would that be?" Dooku asked.
"I don't really care if you kill Maul." She replied.
Dooku's face showed genuine surprise for the first time as Arya lunged at him and Grievous without warning.
"You fool!" Dooku shouted at her as he jumped out of the way. His ability to sense danger with the force was the only thing that kept her from killing him then and there. Grievous, being able to calculate movements and react within nanoseconds, managed to dodge her attack as well.
Arya skidded past Dooku and Grievous and slid to a stop with her back to them. A cloud of dust rushed past her, caught in the gust of her quick moments.
"So, you have chosen death." Dooku said getting into his fighting stance. Grievous's top two arms started swinging their lightsabers in circles so quickly it looked like two disks of light were hovering above him.
"I guess so." Arya said entering her own stance as her two assailants advanced.
Before they reached her position, Dooku used the force to grab some large wooden tables sitting on the far side of the room and threw them at her. Arya caught them and threw them at Grievous who lacked force abilities to block them. Even still, he managed to cut the tables into pieces while still advancing, but it slowed his pace a little.
Dooku reached her first and swung his blade in a graceful arc aimed directly at her neck. She spun and brought her own lightsaber blade up to meet his. The hissing and crackling that issued forth was ear-splitting as Dooku and Arya pressed their blades together, backing their physical efforts with the force. The blades were at a deadlock when Dooku hit Arya square in the chest with a kick.
Arya summersaulted backwards but managed to land on her feet, sliding a good distance away. She felt Grievous's presence and rolled between his legs as all four of his lightsabers struck the ground where she had just been milliseconds before.
Without looking back at the General, she sprinted towards Dooku to try and put as much space between her two attackers as she could. She swung several times at him, but he managed to dodge them all without having to block them with his lightsaber.
"You're spry for an old man." She said to him as he backflipped towards Grievous.
"The dark side of the force has many rejuvenating qualities" He said with a sneer.
This time Grievous sprinted forward to attack, all four blades humming in unison. Arya let her mind feel for the timing of the attacks. Four blades were too many to block, but with her pre-cognition-like senses, she knew she could block certain blows, and dodge others. If was as if the water-dancing that Serio Forel taught her back in King's Landing was combined with the lightsaber techniques Maul had taught her.
Just as Dooku caught up to them, Arya managed to sever one of the arms from Grievous causing the lightsaber in that particular hand to retract its blade and clatter to the ground. The droid yelled in anger, but Arya had a feeling he couldn't actually feel what she had just done to him, he was just angry. She sprinted away so as not to be cornered by both assailants, and as she did so she reached behind her and used the force to quickly pull the lightsaber from Grievous's severed arm into her off hand.
Spinning around, Arya activated her new lightsaber and waited for her attackers to get to her location. Thoughts processed in her mind at a rapid pace as she planned her next moves. The moment they reached her, Arya blocked Grevious's attacks and placed her hand in the center of his chest letting forth a strong force push that sent the General soaring into the back wall of the chamber. The time Arya had used to focus on Grievous was too much for Dooku not to take advantage of as he used this window to score a strike on Arya's shoulder. She screamed in pain and jumped up, pushing off of Dooku's chest with her feet and shooting herself towards Grievous's location. Dooku was sent tumbling in the other direction.
While Dooku recovered on the other side of the chamber, Arya knew that she needed to make the time she had one on one against Grievous count. Only having one opponent for a small window of time allowed Arya to be much more calculated in her attacks. She blocked the blows he sent her way, and when he lifted his three remaining arms in unison to strike with all three blades at once, Arya found the opening she had been looking for. In the blink of an eye she swung both of her blades up, one on each side of Grievous's body severing his remaining three arms. The droid howled in rage as Arya swung again and severed its legs from the main portion of its body.
Arya spun to see Dooku watching her with curious and calculated expression on his face, but he was no longer advancing. She looked back down at the droid body of Grievous, and back at Dooku.
"I was told I need to draw a balance between light and dark, but the more that people try and kill me, the farther into the darkness I fall." Arya yelled at him. She looked back down at the helpless body of Grievous, her intent written across her face.
"Wait, no!" the droid croaked.
Without hesitating, Arya drove one saber into the chest of Grievous, and the other into his face right between the eyes. The droid's chest glowed orange for a moment and then burst into a fiery wreck. Arya pulled both lightsabers out of the deceased General and turned back to Dooku.
"I can feel the hate radiate from you like hot coals. It is no wonder my master wants you as an ally." Dooku started pacing back and forth, lightsaber still activated. "But if I manage to deliver you to Sideous, then surely he will dispose of me. Such is the rule of two."
Even though Dooku was addressing Arya, it felt to her as if he was talking to himself.
"So, there is only one option." Dooku continued. "I kill you and prove to Sideous that I am a worthy apprentice. If I can manage to destroy you, my ability will no longer be in doubt."
While Dooku was distracted having a debate with himself, Arya took the opportunity to inch herself closer to the chamber exit. She had thought it over and decided that if she wanted to see Maul alive again, she needed to somehow get up to Dooku's ship before Dooku could and rescue Maul herself. She knew Dooku wouldn't kill Maul on the off chance that he could still use him as leverage against her which was likely, because once he noticed her trying to rescue Maul, he would know that she never intended on letting him die.
The only problem was getting up to Dooku's ship without getting shot out of the sky. Maul had mentioned that his ship had some of the most advanced stealth technology, so maybe she could at least get close to the ship without being spotted. Her chances were slim, but a chance was all she needed. The only problem now was getting out of the cave and giving herself a head start so she could beat Dooku to his own ship.
Dooku turned to face Arya, apparently making up his mind from the self-debate he had been having. "So be it." He growled.
Arya reached for the pack of holocrons that sat on the other side of the chamber and pulled them to her. As soon as she had hold of the pack, she turned and ran out of chamber entrance. She looked behind and saw Dooku sprinting after her. Halfway through the entrance cave, Arya hit the wall of the cave with an intense force blast and the cave behind her collapsed in.
Hopefully that will stall him long enough she thought, knowing full well that the collapsed cave was nothing more than a minor inconvenience to someone with the powers Dooku possessed.
Making her way through the woods as fast as she could run, Arya eventually saw Maul's ship through the trees along with a transport vessel that must have been what Dooku arrived on. There were a few droids posted in the area, but a strong force push made quick work of anything that got in her way.
She entered Maul's ship, which after the last day and a half had never felt more like home to her. Striding to the front of the ship she threw herself in the pilot's chair as she looked over the controls.
"Show me the ships in orbit." She commanded.
Maul's ship quickly projected a hologram of two impressively massive ships hovering next to one another. One was quite ornate; the other was lifeless and metallic.
"Take me to that ship, but do not let us be detected." Arya pointed to the ornate one.
"Confirmed." The ship system replied.
Arya heard the engines come to life and felt the now familiar feeling of vertigo as the ship rose through the planet's atmosphere. She prayed to any gods that would listen that the stealth technology would hide the ship long enough. The seconds leaving the atmosphere and approaching Dooku's ship were uneventful, and as they got closer Arya marveled at the size of Dooku's and Grievous's ships. Maul's ship was large, but it was dwarfed in comparison to the two before her now.
As the Maul's ship headed for the docking bay on Dooku's ship, alarms began to sound all over the control board.
"What is happening!?" Arya yelled to the ship.
"The ship we are attempting to dock with is locking its weapons systems on us, and another ship has just left the atmosphere and is following our ship's trajectory."
"Fuck." Arya muttered. Dooku had gotten free from the cave quicker than she had hoped.
"Can you evade the ship's attacks?" she asked.
"Uncertain." The ship replied.
"Fine. Just get us onto that ship as fast as you can." Arya said.
"Secure your harness and brace for aggressive maneuvering." The ship responded. Arya did as she was told.
Suddenly she felt herself get pushed back into the pilots chair harder than she had ever felt before. The pressures put on her body from the maneuvers the ship was making in order to evade Dooku's ship's attacks were starting to make her feel sick. She closed her eyes and tried not to vomit. She just had to trust that the ship would make the necessary moves to get them into Dooku's ship alive.
Eventually, the pressures on her body eased and she opened her eyes. Through the front window of Maul's ship, she could see that she was sitting in the hanger bay of Dooku's ship.
"Good job." She managed through heavy breaths, hoping that she would never have to do that again.
Standing up , she first focused on her legs not collapsing underneath her, and once she was certain she could stand on her own, she focused her memory and tied to remember where she had felt Maul's force signature in the brief moments Dooku had revealed his presence to her. Eventually, she had it. Checking that she had Needle, Baleria's Breath, and the second lightsaber she had gotten from Grievous, she exited the ship.
Reaching the bottom of the ships ramp, Arya activated Balerian's Breath, expecting to be greeted by a host of hostile droids, but instead, there was a single droid in the hanger. It walked up to her, but before it could speak, she cut it in two. She turned back to get a glimpse from out of the hanger doors and found she could see Dooku's transport ship heading quickly toward the hanger she was in. So, she turned and ran in direction Maul should be.
Passing corridor after corridor, Arya made her way through the maze that was Dooku's ship. If she had to guess, the ship she was currently on was larger than any of the castles in the Seven Kingdoms. She was praying she would be able to find Maul before Dooku got to him.
Arya quickened her pace. Any unfortunate droid that happened upon her was dealt with quickly and decisively. She passed through a large set of double doors and knew she had to be close.
She eventually came to a sinister looking set of doors at the end of the long corridor. She tried to pass through them, but they wouldn't open.
"Seven Hells." Arya said. She looked at Balerian's Breath in her hand and jammed it into the door, cutting a hole big enough for her to pass through. It went slower than she hoped, but eventually she had cut a full circle. She used the force to throw the circular piece of door through the hole and followed after.
There was Maul.
He was hanging unconscious from his arms which were suspended by restraints that looked as though they were held in place by some sort of energy beam. His mechanical legs were missing, and there was a large cannon-type weapon that protruded from the wall of the chamber and was aimed directly at his chest. This was most likely the cannon that was set to trigger if Maul's heart stopped.
A large number of combat droids were circled around Maul, but when Arya made her entrance, they all turned to face her. Arya wasted no time as she cut through them. She almost reached Maul when she heard the low gravelly voice of Dooku at the chamber's entrance.
"So, you don't care if I kill Maul?" His tone was sarcastic, and his face wore an angry wicked grin. "Oh, I am going to savor killing you."
With a lightsaber humming in each hand, Arya charged at the Sith Lord. Dooku did not bother lifting up his lightsaber to block her blows, instead he lifted his empty off hand. Right before Arya reached Dooku, a torrent of force lightning surged from his fingertips and pulsed through her, sending her limp body hurtling past him and crashing into the chamber wall. Her lightsabers retracted and clattered to the ground on either side of her.
Now that hurt Arya thought as she lay on the ground, smoke rising from her small frame. She could feel Dooku approaching slowly from behind her as she struggled to her feet. Before she got up, she took Needle out of its sheath and laid it on the ground, the beginnings of a plan were forming in her mind. Spinning around she extended both arms out to her sides and pulled her lightsabers back into her hands. She activated them and walked towards Dooku.
"I've killed many with force lightning." He said nonchalantly. "I even used it to torture your master and those he held most dear. It's only fitting I get to kill another person he cares about."
Dooku raised his hand and let loose another round of lightning.
This time Arya caught the lighting with one of her blades and step by step continued walking slowly forward. When she was close enough, she jumped over Dooku and landed behind him, breaking his chain of lightning. She swung both blades, hoping to get lucky, but Dooku spun unnaturally fast and caught Arya's blades with his own. The knowledge she had gained from her studies began to come back to her and she remembered reading that Dooku was one of the most accomplished and dangerous men with a lightsaber in the entire galaxy.
Dooku hit her with a quick force blast sending her skidding back a few meters and then redoubled his efforts with lighting. Once again Arya caught it with one of her lightsabers and began advancing. As she got closer, she raised her other blade to strike but Dooku's other hand started to throw lightning as well, and Arya needed to use her second lightsaber to block it.
"No wonder my master wants you. You are cunning and strong." Dooku growled through his exertion. "Unfortunately, you will not live to see him again."
With that, Dooku summoned all of his energy and unleashed a torrent of force lightning stronger than any Arya had ever seen. She still managed to catch the majority of it with her lightsabers, but stray bolts were shooting off and hitting her, causing her to stop advancing and scream from the searing pain.
"Sideous would have made you one of the most powerful Sith. He would have taught you the secrets of immortality. But now you will die a fool." Dooku's vile laugh mixed with Arya's screams as the whole cacophony of sound echoed through the chamber.
Suddenly, just as it happened in the Jedi Temple with Sideous, the pain from the lighting began to subside, and Arya watched as a blue shimmering shield of force energy started to cover her entire body. It was something she didn't understand when it happened before, and she didn't understand it still. Suddenly, Arya's whole world went dark.
FIN
She opened her eyes and found that she was still in the chamber, but it was dimly lit and instead of Dooku torturing her, the Prime Jedi floated in front of her and was examining her curiously.
"What happened? Where am I?" Arya asked. Once again, she wasn't actually speaking the words. The communication between her and the Prime Jedi happened telepathically.
You are still in the chamber on the dark force user's ship. He is still trying to kill you with force lightning. What is happening now is in your mind. The Prime Jedi continued to look at her.
Arya looked down and saw her entire body was shimmering with a silver-blue glow.
What is happening to me? She asked.
I am using the force to shield you. The amount of lighting your body was sustaining was reaching lethal levels. The Prime Jedi said.
What? Why? Arya had trouble wrapping her head around what was happening.
Because I believe you have the strength to bring true balance to the force. You just need more time. The Prime Jedi said. But every time I shield you, our connection dwindles. I do not believe I will be able to save you like this again.
"What do I need to do?" Arya asked.
Finish this fight. Your conscious will guide you the rest of the way. You will be coming back to reality momentarily. Be ready.
Arya watched as the Prime Jedi and the dream world began to melt away.
FIN
Dooku began to notice what was happening, and his smug expression turned to one of confusion and horror. The effort he was putting into his force lighting should have killed the girl already. This was something he hadn't seen before.
"You're right about one thing." Arya said through gritted teeth as she began walking towards Dooku, again continuing to block Dooku's force lightning with her lightsabers. "I'm not as strong as you. I'm stronger. You and your master may know things about the force that I don't yet, but I'm something different." She gestured with a nod to her shimmering body covered in force energy. "I don't think Sideous sent you here to collect me. I think he sent you here to test my strength. The only pity is that I wasn't able to kill Sideous before he escaped. That's a mistake I won't make again."
Arya dropped her focus from everything except Needle, which was still laying on the ground behind Dooku where she had left it.
"And you're wrong. No one is immortal." Arya said as she looked into Dooku's eyes and smiled. "Valar Morghulis."
Using the force, Arya pulled needle towards her position as hard and fast as she could. Unfortunately for Dooku, he was standing between Arya and Needle. The Sith Lord's face froze in a look of pure shock as the point of Needle went through the back of his head and emerged from his forehead, showering Arya's face with crimson droplets.
In an instant, the force lightning stopped and Dooku crumpled to the ground. Arya could sense Dooku's pulse fading quickly and needed to act fast to keep the cannon on the wall from disintegrating Maul.
Thump, Thump. Thump, Thump. Thump…
The barrel on the cannon-type weapon pointed at Maul began to glow orange and a humming noise issued forth getting louder and louder. Arya jumped up and clung to her master as she used Balerian's Breath to carefully cut the restraints around his wrists. The noise from the cannon was deafening, as she managed to cut the second restraint. Arya and Maul plummeted to the floor below as an orange energy beam shot from the cannon, missing them both by inches and ripping a large hole in the far wall of the chamber.
Arya used the force to slow her and Maul's descent. Eventually, they landed gently on the ground.
"Got you." She said.
