Author Note.
The third part of my Sith Gothic series. I decided to have some fun with a somewhat evil SI for a change. I don't know if this story will last long as I do have others I'm working on and I don't have any sort of plan for this story as I just wanted to be able to write an evil character in a fictional setting that I enjoy
While centred around the live-action Gotham series I'll borrow elements, places and characters from other DC shows. This way I can introduce characters, places and technologies that aren't in the Gotham show to this story to help keep things interesting.
Also, I'd like to take a moment to thank those who have and are still supporting me over on patron. While the extra bit of income is very nice it matters more to me to know that people enjoy my writings and I'm glad they take the time to show it.
Sith Gothic 3 - Gotham
Peace is a lie. There is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
The Sith Code
Part 1
The Ebon Hawk. Wild Space.
Aside from the droid known to me simply as T3 which was the recreation of an older model of droid that I'd travelled with many years ago, the only moving thing on the freighter was me and while the ship wasn't exactly a large vessel I was used to it containing more people than just myself and a noisy robot. The Ebon Hawk just didn't feel right without some colourful characters taking up space and in my experience having them around came in handy at times.
In times past I worked with the Jedi, and mostly against other Sith for reasons of my own, and sure those times had all been thrilling in their own way, however, I no longer needed others and I'd forgotten more about The Force than many other Dark Lords would ever know. Still, it would be nice to have others in my life, I'd been alone for a while.
I'd not worked as part of a team for many years, many more than I cared to remember, as I'd been wandering the galaxy on my lonesome, keeping off the radar of the Jedi as I did whatever it was I wanted to with my life. I'd discovered that if you didn't wield a red lightsaber and try to take over planets that the Jedi were easy enough to avoid. After all, the galaxy was a big place and it was easy to get lost in the crowds.
Most Sith only ever went after power for the sake of power, as such very few of us took the time to simply enjoy our lives. I did as there was so much to see and do in this galaxy that I could have kept exploring it for centuries and thanks to my knowledge of The Force I could do just that. As such I no longer involved myself in galactic affairs.
Pleasure seeking hadn't been the only thing I'd gotten up to since I'd been involved in many of the events that made up the Knights of the Old Republic era. I'd never done anything as dull as settling down to raise a family and working a normal job, rather I had found many thrilling ways to earn credits such as exploring uncharted worlds, prospecting for valuable minerals at the edge of known space, mercenary work and bounty hunting.
Since I was able to prevent my ageing by stealing life energy from others I'd become somewhat immortal and that tended to draw attention as such I had to reinvent myself every so often, and I did so about once a decade. These days I was a hyperspace explorer out on the edge of known space, and because of my Force abilities, I could see into the future which made it much safer for me to try out untested Hyperspace routes. I'd learned how about this from navigators who'd served the Chiss fleet by guiding ships treacherous hyperspace routes of the Unknown Regions.
During my wanderings, I'd come across some old hyperspace routes that led to unknown systems at the galaxy's edge where star systems were far apart and out here I'd found a sort of wormhole. A hyperspace wormhole to be precise, which was a tunnel in hyperspace itself that connected two realspace locations to one another. Though a rare sight, they were sometimes able to be used as a shortcut, allowing for faster than normal travel before they collapsed. Not that this one seemed likely to collapse any time soon.
What made this wormhole different, aside from its stability, was the sheer distance between the two points of realspace it connected. While one end of the wormhole could be found here in Wild Space the other lead to the Solar System, again to be precise the endpoint was located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars, somewhere in the asteroid belt.
Since I'd been guided to this system via the use of The Force it didn't surprise me too much that I'd found this wormhole, and I assume it had something to do with how I'd gotten to this galaxy all those years ago. It also might explain how humanity as a species ended in a galaxy far, far away. Some greater power was behind all of this.
Back when I'd been travelling with Revan, and her friends, as she'd worked to track down the Starforge I'd come across records that might explain how humans ended up in this galaxy far, far away and so long ago. At some point in the future, there would be a mass exodus from Earth, something would happen that would make it so the planet could no longer support life. It wasn't a sudden event as new worlds were prepared for people to settle.
A massive colony fleet meant for an important world somehow got lost. It encountered what was suspected to be a temporal and spatial anomaly, perhaps something like this wormhole, and ended up in another galaxy. This colony fleet did its job colonising worlds within the galactic core of the Star Wars Galaxy.
The wormhole was clearly an offer for me to return to Earth for further adventures, and perhaps a chance to obtain some real power in a place that contained no Jedi to stop me. I had confirmed that the habitable planet on the end of the wormhole was Earth as the probe droid I'd fired did its job and picked up loads of radio signals. Nothing on subspace, but plenty of other evidence of advanced civilization.
As for those radio signals T3 had no trouble turning them into something I could listen to, and once the little bot did that it wasn't much work for me to figure out that while this was the right period of time this world was not my version of Earth. Not when the big news story coming out one of the major cities in North America reported the news that Thomas and Martha Wayne had been gunned down in an ally in Gotham.
After hours spent listening to radio channels and then patching in TV signals I found no mention of any Superman or Justice League, so I figured that this planet was some sort of DC universe, and maybe not one of those with any of the major players in it. At least for now.
Certainly, it was worth a closer look, and since I had my own ship, one I could call for a pickup if the world proved not to be to my liking, then I figured that spending a few years on this mudball might be a good use of my time. Even a decade wasn't such a big deal when your life span had the potential to span at least a few centuries.
A Sith Lord with my power and experience could easily come to dominate anyone or anything he wished on such a primitive planet. Perhaps I'd enter the world of big business, or become a crime lord, I had no taste for politics, I was no Palpatine, but there were plenty of other paths to power, and I fancied a change of pace.
With that in mind, I decided to go through the wormhole now, not knowing how long it would remain open, and my ship had plenty of supplies as charting new and forgotten hyperspace routes could mean leaving the known galaxy for months at a time, as such I already possessed everything I required in order to start over somewhere.
It was time for a new adventure, for a new kind of life.
(Line Break)
Streets. Gotham.
Not so long ago I'd landed the Ebon Hawk near the edge of the city of Gotham, having been drawn to this city due it sheer dark side presence, before ordering my T3 droid to take the ship and park somewhere else in the solar system until I needed a pickup. The ship wouldn't get back here any time soon, so hopefully, I'd be able to avoid trouble for a while.
The locals would pick the Hawk up on their scanners, they had satellites and other means of detecting what went through their airspace, but they had nothing that could follow the ship where it was going, at least not any time soon and anyone outside of certain government branches who did see the ship wouldn't be believed if they reported it despite the fact that alien life was real and people with spacecraft did visit the planet I was living proof of the later.
Even if some MIB types did come here looking for an alien they wouldn't look twice at me as I blended in quite well since I'd dressed for this visit. My ship had plenty of cubbyholes filled with useful stuff, including lots of styles of clothes as well as weapons, credit chips, ration packs, useful tools, sets of ID and so on. A lot of that stuff wouldn't do me much good here and now as the natives of this wouldn't trade Republic credit chips for American dollars, but I would make do and simply take what I wanted.
For now, the city interested me far more than money or even finding a place to stay, mostly because I checked in to a nice enough hotel using Mind Tricks, that wouldn't keep a roof over my head for long as I wasn't actually paying for anything, but I only needed enough time to get a feel for the city, and to figure out what sort of DC verse this was.
As I walked down the street of this city, which seemed to be some version of the infamous Gotham, although that didn't narrow it down much, I easily obtained money, that I'd now decided to start acquiring, I did this by purposely going towards where I could sense danger so that I could mug some muggers. I even took down most of a street gang, alas none of them had much in the way of cash if they did they wouldn't have been reduced to performing such petty crimes.
While making my way back to the hotel, someone bumped into me and since this was Gotham I checked my pockets, as it turned out my money was gone. That person, a kid had just robbed me. Whoever he was, he had balls. Stealing from someone like me was not a very wise thing to do. It was a few seconds later when I realised this was wrong. The pickpocket was a girl and a young one at that. I found her in an alley and she was counting through my cash. She was quick, but it didn't compare to someone who had Force granted super speed.
After taking my wallet back and lifting the girl by the ankle up into the air, so that I could shake her so as to find more things she'd stolen, I decided to question the young girl and found that she seemed rather calm about the whole thing.
"I live in Gotham," she said after I'd asked her why she wasn't screaming for help "This isn't the weirdest thing I've seen recently and no one is stupid enough to come to help me even if I did scream. Not in this part of town".
This was I figured out who this person was. She had to be mini Catwoman and once I understood that it was easy to figure out which version of the DC universe that I was in.
"If you're in this for food, I can treat you to dinner" I offered the kid "I have a little business you can help me with, and I'll pay you for your time".
At this point she was still hanging upside down, she had her arms crossed, but other than that she seemed relaxed. It was mostly an act. She was far more nervous than she seemed. She couldn't hide that from me.
"Depends on where we're going for dinner, and what this business is," she said "I'm Kat by the way"
I gave the matter some thought. Selina Kyle could be useful for to me as while the series had only just begun, if her age was what I thought it to be, in the future, there would be people and items of interest to me in this city, and having someone to help me find those things could be handy. Plus I sensed that she had the Force. She wouldn't want much in reply. Food, clothing, money, and perhaps ways to defend herself. I'd pay now and consider it an investment for the future. She might even be apprentice material if she had the courage to become a Sith.
"Are there any good places to eat around here?" I asked her "I'm new to the city".
I gently let the girl down to the ground.
"First of all, who the fuck are you?" Selina asked me.
This was a fair question. If rudely put.
"My name is Gothic," I told her, dropping the titles "and like I already told you I'm new this city, I've got cash, more than you grabbed, and I would like some information".
To my surprise, she didn't run away. Not that she would have gotten far if I chose to chase her.
"Are you going to try touching me?" Kat then asked.
I felt a little disgusted by the mere idea. Not because of the immorality of such an act, such things didn't concern me, but because she had nothing worth touching and besides she might have some use to me in the future, as such mistreating her in any way would be counterproductive to my own goals and that did matter.
"Of course not, you're like 12 years old," I said.
She took that personally.
"I'm 13" she corrected.
At that age the extra year made all the difference.
"So, dinner?" I asked "Ladies choice".
To further assure here I offered to go somewhere very public and then let her leave before I did so she didn't have to worry about me trying to snatch her.
"I could eat," Selina said with a grin, "I know just the place too".
As she led me out of the ally, she started asking questions.
"So how'd you get me up in the air?" she wondered
Now it was my turn to grin.
"I have The Force" I admitted.
That made her laugh, and then she suddenly stopped.
"Oh wow, you're serious," she said, "Are you like mental?".
If she needed proof I'd be able to provide it to her, it wasn't as if he could report me the Jedi Order and no one else would believe her.
(Line Break)
Streets. Gotham.
After meeting young Catwoman I'd come to understand which version of the DC verse I was in. This Gotham was the setting for the show of the same name, and I was here early. But it was more than that since the news reported that a ship called the Queen's Gambit that came Starling city had gotten lost at sea with both Oliver Queen who might be the Green Arrow in the future, believed to be dead along with his father. In five years or so if I heard any reports of a hooded crime fighter than I'd start to wonder if the Arrow-verse was a part of all this.
If this world was somehow a fusion of Gotham and the Arrow-verse, which I had some recollections of thanks to memory-enhancing techniques employed by Force-users, then this meant The Flash would be a thing within the next decade. So he and many other meta-humans who'd pop up in the next ten years could be a problem.
The only person around right now who could be a real threat to me would be Ra's al Ghul as if I recalled correctly he was pretty much a Sith Lord himself. Much like me, he'd been around for more years than a human should have and could see the future depending on which version I'd be dealing with. He also had an army of ninjas, and in a confrontation between us, something like that could skip the scales between us.
I also might be able to kill him and take his powers for myself or find other ways to increase my abilities using what this word had to offer. The Force was a powerful ally, but even if the greatest of Sith Lords would be in big trouble if they pissed off a Kryptonian and there might one or more of those aliens living here on Earth ready to step into the role of hero in the future.
Thankfully I had time to prepare for whatever the future might hold, and Gotham was an easy place to prosper in if you were strong enough. It was a seething mess of people and dark side power, the corruption of the city came from a source of dark side energy that I could help to grow until this place rivalled the Kass City back on Dromund Kaas.
This was my plan for this city, to make it my bastion of dark power and to rule it, not a mayor, as I had no desire to rule openly, rather I would be the king of its criminal underbelly while maintaining a more pleasant public image, and from there I could expand my influence all over the globe both in ways illegal and legal so that I could guide this world in a direction that suited me. Before I could become a major shaper of the future of this planet I needed cash and lots of it. In the city of Gotham, only the wealthy mattered as without riches you were nobody and once you had money you could buy political power or anything else you wanted.
I also needed money so as to properly insert myself into this world. I could set myself with a past by influencing the minds of a few people back in my homeland of the United Kingdom so that they would swear that they had always known me, and thanks to my T3 droid I could easily place records into this world's crude planetary datanet, what they called the Internet, but I would need the best-forged IDs that money could buy and that required money.
To that end, I'd set myself up in a rather fancy apartment once I'd done away with its last owner. Jason Skolimski, also known as The Ogre, or the Don Juan Killer, he had been one of the most dangerous serial killers in Gotham City. A brutal and charismatic man, he'd been responsible for dozens of women's deaths. However, since he'd promised to murder the family of any cop who tries to investigate him that meant law enforcement had left him alone.
Jason's standard tactic would involve finding and seduce a young, pretty woman, before taking her back to his apartment (custom made to be both sound and escape-proof much to my delight) and begin their relationship. The moment they tried to leave him, even if only to go home for a time before returning, he would reveal his true colours and imprison them while hoping they would turn out to be the love of his life. He would force them to play along as a submissive doting partner to him then when they stepped out of line or disappointed him then he would decide they were not meant to be. In which case he would take them to his torture chamber, where he would brutally mutilate them before finally killing them. He then would dump the body, allowing with a hand-drawn picture of a broken heart.
I wouldn't have even bothered killing the sadistic twit if not for having not sensed the distress of his latest victim from the hotel I'd been staying at, his apartment had been across the street from my hotel room so it had been simple enough to track him down. I'd destroyed the most recent memories of his latest victim, letting her wander off in a haze, and then I'd dealt with the body of the serial killer.
This had given me a secure base to work from, and since people went missing in Gotham all the time I didn't think anyone would come to his apartment asking about him any time soon and his torture chamber became a secure vault where I could keep things best not seen by the locals. A simply bit of Sith magic, a sort of illusion, would keep the vault from being noticed, and the apartment was comfortable enough once I'd made it my own.
Since I didn't want anyone to notice that Jason Skolimski was dead I couldn't go around spending his money without some trickery. As such, I'd dominated the mind of his accountant, a process which involved altering someone's personality so as to ensure their loyalties. This process took some time and could be lethal to the person whose mind you were altering so I didn't do it too often and doing such things to whole groups of people was beyond my skill so I'd never been able to use this talent of mine to create armies. After doing that I'd let the accountant get on with things, such as making the right donations and paying the bills I was all good to go. Jason had no real friends and anyone curious about him would be told that he'd gone travelling.
What mattered to me at this time was that I had a secure location to work from and a city ready to be exploited. I'd dressed up in a set of black robes and durasteel armour along with a helmet that looked far cruder on the outside than it did on the inside what with its HUD, air filter and voice changer. That last feature would help to keep me in disguise as I didn't want my face to be linked to any criminal activity.
The armour I wore was bullet-proof, even the underlayer had been made from materials far in advanced of what the locals could ever hope to manufacture, so I would be safe from small arms fire and knives, the kind of weapons most thugs carried, and anything that could threaten me in a fight by defeating my armour I would just have to avoid getting hit by, and that's not so hard when you can react to danger before it happens.
This was something a group of gangbangers who were hanging out in what looked to be a motorcycle repair shop would soon find out as I'd decided to destroy them so as to steal any cash that they kept at their hideout. I'd checked out their base while listening to them talk so I knew this gang dealt in stolen parts and they stripped down stolen bikes before rebuilding them before selling them onto someone else.
They were also a motorcycle gang so they were not a nice bunch of people and I'd handled plenty of swoop gangs before, and they were basically the same as Earth-based biker gangs only with more advanced technology. Not that blasters and swoop bikes would have helped them much when I decided to kill them.
I appeared behind one of the bikers and drove my sword into his chest before any of the natives of this world even knew that anything unexpected was happening. I'd dropped down on them from above since I'd entered their base via the skylight. It might seem odd to use a sword given my large collection of lightsabers, some taken as trophies as well as weapons of my own creation, I had good reasons for using a sword.
When it came to lightsabers I never used a red blade, as that just screamed Sith Lord to anyone paying attention, and while back in the Star Wars galaxy my actions if looked into by anyone with knowledge of Force Users wouldn't paint me as a normal Jedi anyone hunting me would assume that I was only a mere Dark Jedi and not a Dark Lord of the Sith, and these are two different kinds of things to hunt.
Here and now I wouldn't use such as weapon for a few reasons. The biggest reason is the Star Wars movies existed here and even people who don't much about the franchise will know a lightsaber when they saw one. Another reason was that no one on this world had blasters and I was unlikely to come across anyone wearing advanced armour so a sabre wasn't really necessary, and would draw attention that I didn't wish for. There were other reasons, such as me using a sword would confuse the cops, and make people think I was more primitive in terms of technology than was actually the case. Also by using a sword, there was less chance of Star Wars technology ending up in the wrong hands, those being the hands of anyone who wasn't me.
Not that this sword was that like anything used on this world in anything other than appearance. Sith swords were constructed through various metallurgical and arcane means, transmuting base metals into an alchemical alloy that possessed an unusual affinity for dark side energies. The rare metallic compounds used in its construction could result in blades heavier than they seemed.
Because of this, my sword required both great strength of body as well as a strong connection to the Force, if you wanted to successfully wield the weapon and to make it as dangerous as a lightsaber. In fact, the alchemical alterations down to the weapon allowed my Sith sword to block incoming lightsaber attacks, as well as deflect blaster bolts in much the same way a lightsaber did, just not as effectively as a sabre could because of the sword's weight. Not that this was a concern in this world as no other than I had any lightsabers.
Wounds caused by this blade bleed more than others and inflicted a lot of pain on the poor sods who got stabbed by them, and the metals involved in the creation of this weapon were much more durable than mere steel so by using it and my Force powers I could block a bullet or even redirect if I got the angle just right. This was something the biker gang had the displeasure of finding out for themselves when I span the blade and two of the thugs ended up shooting each other despite standing next to other and both aiming at me.
"Motherfucker!" one of them shouted.
By calling heavily upon The Force, the dark side of which greatly empowered me in this city, I was able to leap into the air and get behind the two still remaining bikers. One of them lost an arm and almost got sliced in two before I brought my weapon to disarm the guy who I guessed to be the leader. I did this by removing his gun holding hand.
Since the wound was not cauterised he wouldn't be alive for much longer so I did what I needed to do fast, and this was to enter his mind and take any knowledge he had on other criminal enterprises around the city before his mind died along with his body. I'd done this so many times before that it amazed me that I could make sense of anything inside my own head, but even for a Sith Lord, I'd never exactly been normal.
(Line Break)
Wayne Enterprises. Gotham.
My intent was still to rule this city from the shadows, but my plans were progressing nicely and I already had some ideas on who I could use a public face of my rule so there was no need to rush with that part of my plans. I had my base of operations and the little Catwoman had proven to be a good source of information about the criminal underworld, and she offered it in exchange for a small cut of my profits. She was more than willing to sell out her fellow crooks if it meant she could advance, that was very Sith of her.
This pleased me as her desire for wealth and lack of care for anyone she didn't consider a friend made her easy to manipulate. She'd make a fine apprentice and since I had no reason to stay on this world for more than a matter of years by the time she was ready to face me, as a Sith will always desire to overthrow their master, I could simply leave the planet, or perhaps I'd train her to be a Sith more like me and this would lead to her going her own way without having to step over my corpse in order to take that path
That was the future, in the present I'd other plans. Since I'd been able to buy some good fake ID I'd also been able to lay a false trail which would lead anyone to Gotham, a place a lot of people ended up in, and now this world knew me as a young genius called Tony Stark because I'd not been able to resist using a Marvel character's name while in a DC world.
Not that the name really mattered because what did matter was the thing I'd 'invented' which was a very basic power cell. Power cells were a component found in many weapons, droids, starships, space stations, and other devices and technology that made use of electric currents over in the Star Wars galaxy. They were typically installed in devices that were required to be small and portable. The power cell (or multiple cells, in some devices) provided the necessary voltage for the circuits to function. Most power cells contained concentrated amounts of gases that, when heated, formed plasma. In small blasters, power cells were used to create blaster bolts that were not nearly as powerful as blasters using a combination of magazines containing gases that after being heated would change into plasma so the power cells I'd provide to this world could be used to make crude energy weapons, but that would take years and I was prepared to face such weapons. I'd built a clunky version of such a power cell which could be made smaller and more effective by Wayne Enterprises now that I'd sold them to right to the invention.
"Would you like a drink Mr Stark?" asked a pretty woman who staffed a desk.
I ordered some kaff and that got me a strange look. I had to remember to always use Earth terms.
"Coffee, please. Cream and sugar," I said.
Once the lady had nodded and left I got busy looking over the file that I'd been sent that clearly had been designed to entice people into investing in or joining Wayne Enterprises by telling the reader all about the company's very bright future. Not only were the plans for the new asylum which would have the old one torn down, but it was also being coupled with a new housing project backed by the mayor. If my memories of the show could be trusted then it was really Falcone's housing development plan that I'd already started hearing about.
Not long after my coffee arrived some important guy in an expensive suit came over along with a younger man who didn't seem as comfortable here as the other.
"Mr Stark there's someone I'd like to introduce to you," the man I knew to be Mr Bunderslaw said, "This is Lucius Fox, one of our junior executives and the current head of the Gotham branch of Applied Sciences. He'll be your main contact within the company".
He looked different than the actor I'd seen the show, that or my memory didn't match up with the reality because of how much I'd seen and done during my long life. Not that physical looks mattered much to me.
"Nice to meet you, Mr Fox," I greeted.
I shook Lucius' hand.
"The pleasure is mine, Mr Stark," Lucius Fox said, sounding as if he actually meant his words "Your plasma power cell is just what Applied Sciences has been looking for. We're very excited to see what it can do".
I knew that this man would be a player in this city in the years to come, even it was mostly in a support role, and so befriending him to some extent wouldn't be such a bad idea and as soon as I was left with him I got down to business.
"About that, I'm looking for a proper job," I told Mr Fox "but I don't want to be tied to a desk so perhaps a consultant role of some kind".
Mr Fox didn't look disappointed or surprised by my words.
"I can imagine that you'd rather be working on your next project than be stuck in a meeting," said Lucius "and you are not the first patent holder we've taken on a part-time consultant. We will need you to come to Applied Sciences for a few meetings, to get to know everyone in my department and to explain to use the power cell, maybe help out with a few prototypes, but I can delegate the paperwork to someone else and we have a good legal team. What's important now as that we settle on terms so that there are no hard feelings later".
Just handing over the blueprints and the right to the invention wasn't enough I wanted a share of the future profits and a contract that would keep me getting shares of future models based on my technology.
"I've cleared my afternoon so that we can sit down and I can explain exactly what WayneEnterprises wants from you and what we can offer in return" Mr Fox informed me "I find it best to discuss these matters face to face so why don't we head to my office".
This afternoon I figured would be dull, but also very productive.