KEYNOTE: I have read the EU book, Darth Plagueis by James Luceno and what exists here is some of the things I imagine Plagueis would have tried to come up with if Sidious hadn't killed him.

Keynote II: Yes, the phrases are real and I got translations off the internet.

Chapter 35 - One Sith, Two Sith

Sidious was infuriated, as was typical of the last few years of his life and career.

Nothing had been going well for him since he tried claiming Rey as his daughter, only to discover that the girl who shared his genetics, had a father who apparently sold his kin into slavery, yet wasn't him.

He sighed as he placed down his datapad.

It was official, his homeworld of Naboo had finalized its leaving of the Republic, electing the young girl Apailana as the Prime Minister and re-electing Padme Amidala as the Queen of Naboo.

Which left Sidious with the awkward position of having to apply for citizenship on Coruscant to remain High Chancellor of the Republic.

This wouldn't have happened if Kenobi hadn't been at Amidala's damn wedding. Now he was down a pawn and his homeworld had been ripped from his reach.

"Things not going to plan, Sidious?" Plagueis mocked.

Sidious said nothing. Maul had gone completely rogue, word had finally come of the new Gray Order he instituted and the Jedi Order was supporting the branch group on Dathomir and had managed to ally itself with Mother Talzin.

The witch who hated Sidious, but as she had been contained to her small sphere of influence, hadn't previously been a problem.

"Admit defeat, my Apprentice."

Sidious looked up at the Muun, "You are doing no better, you have done nothing for this last decade aside from laughing to yourself as our plans fall to pieces, sometimes with your assistance."

Like taking me out of the game to torture me for your amusement.

Plagueis smiled, "Is that what you think? Yet I stand before you healed of all old injury, my lungs and throat better than new, and there you sit, age eating away at you as you refuse to study my methods."

"By refusing to study under you, you mean that I refuse to let you experiment on me," Sidious snarled back.

He would never allow himself to be put under his Master's 'mercies' again, he would rather die in truth first.

The Muun's smile grew, his inhuman face making him look grotesque, unfinished, like a child's attempt at forming a person. "I have discovered immortality and I have broken Count Dooku, effectively stopping the Jedi from removing themselves from Coruscant."

Sidious narrowed his gaze, "You are the one who killed his sister?"

Plagueis waved to a shadow, and Sidious fought and succeeded in restraining his reaction to the Mandalorian who stepped from the shadows. Sidious hadn't been aware of the bounty hunter in his own office.

"Remove your helm, Jango," Plagueis commanded.

"But Master-"

"Now, Mando, I gave you power, do not delude yourself into thinking I cannot take it away. What I make, I can easily unmake."

Jango Fett sighed, lifting his helmet and revealing the face shared by two hundred thousand clones, and eyes that gleamed with the inner light of a Sith Lord.

"Impossible," Sidious said, rising to his feet, "You aren't a Force sensitive. Cloning wouldn't have worked on you otherwise."

"As I've told you in the past," Plagueis drawled, "the Force is not a religious entity, it is a thing that reacts with the physical world and thus must abide by physical restrictions. The Force can be manipulated at the cellular level." He gestured to his abomination, "As I have proven."

A worried thought came to Sidious then, had Plagueis found a way to make himself more powerful? Had he increased his own midichlorian count?

As if reading his thoughts, Plagueis smirked at him, "Are you ready to join me in my labs yet, Apprentice?"

"Is he sane?" Sidious countered, when what he was really asking was if Jango was Plagueis's new Apprentice.

Plagueis shook his head in answer but said out loud, "Sane enough to do what he's told."

Jango glared at Plagueis with yellow eyes rimmed in red.

"How powerful is he?" Sidious asked.

"Powerful enough to best the Count," Jango countered.

Sidious sneered, "You did not best Dooku. The rumour is that he doesn't even remember what happened to him."

"Had I been firing with a blaster, he would have been dead."

"Then why didn't you?" Sidious challenged.

"Because breaking him was to our purposes," Plagueis said. "And Jango is powerful enough that he could best your disappointment as an apprentice."

Sidious let himself smile, "Then let him prove it."

Jango raised a brow, "I will expect payment."

Sidious rolled his own eyes, "Name your price, but I want Maul dead in two nights."

Jango put his helm back on, "He will be dead in one."

Rey felt sweat drip down her back and Maul snarled at her, the humming of their saberstaffs filling the space between them.

Circling each other, the dance began again as their blades clashed, the Force flowing around them and through them. It felt as if they were riding a tide.

Obi-Wan's Form was such that their feet felt as if they hardly ever touched the ground.

They had been going like this for hours, something she was eternally grateful for because boredom had sunk its teeth into her life.

She had been so worried about Master Dooku, but he was recovering now. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka were off on missions while Master Jinn became more involved with the Council and Senate.

Master Jinn had unofficially officially become a Council member, filling vacant spots Grievous had left them along with Fay and Shaak Ti.

She couldn't tell if Master Jinn was upset about his promotion or not. He would deny that he was a member even if he was 'consulted' for each meeting, but as the Council tried to prepare the Order to move, there was more for the Council to do than just debate.

The thing Rey hadn't foreseen was how busy he would be and how few missions they would be assigned.

Months on Coruscant, even with Maul being here, even with Master Yoda charging her with running more and more training sessions with the younglings, still felt like house arrest.

"You seem pissed," Maul noted as she ducked and spun away from his strikes.

"I'm sick of the Temple," she said, pressing forward, "I feel like the stones are crying out to me. I can't stand the Council room, it's so…" he flipped backwards, and she admired his shirtless chest. Since they had started to share a bed, he had begun to spar shirtless, having noticed that she had noticed.

She was pretty sure he had done it first as a way to distract her, but staring at his chest in a fight was actually a good way to help her predict his movements.

"Loud," she finished.

"Maybe the Force is trying to tell you something," he offered.

"The last time the Temple tried to tell me something, I had a vision of nearly being beaten to death."

"Which led the Jedi to discover that it is built on a Sith Shrine."

"What do you think about that, by the way? You study both the Darkness and the Light, do you think it is wrong of us, wrong of me to try to avoid the Dark?"

He was quiet for a long time, only the swishing of blades between them, and then he said, "I was born surrounded by a world and practitioners drenched in the Darkness. It is who our people are, there are exceptions, like my twin, Feral, who are still drawn to the Light, but most are like Asajj, even trained in the Light they are drawn to the Dark. I am training my brothers in both, to teach them to handle the complete aspects of the Force, to not divide it."

She flattened herself to the ground, before his foot could come up to snap in her face. Rolling to her feet, she turned off one end of her staff to stab at his thigh.

He bared his teeth as he just barely managed to avoid the blow. Their blades clashing in his living room, the furniture safely pressed against the wall.

Maul went on, "But my people are Dathomirians. I have watched your Jedi, humans in particular, seem easily swayed by the misdirections of the Dark. The Jedi are one people of many, and perhaps many individuals could handle walking the line between the aspects of the Force with proper guidance. Like your Windu and Mor, or like your Grandmaster, Yoda, but of your Order it is only Asajj I could name who is not a Master and has dabbled in both and come out reasonably whole."

"And she is a Dathomirian."

He nodded, "Yes. So I agree with you, that for your people, who are many species, many backgrounds, that raising them in the Light is perhaps for the best, at least in their formative years."

Something she hadn't even known was bothering her eased in her chest.

"Where were you raised?" she asked.

"I was kidnapped when I was young and raised on the volcanic planet of Mustafar, primarily by droids."

She stopped.

Expecting it, he reversed his attack and turned off his dual bladed saber.

"What?" she asked, horrified for him.

He stared at her with wary eyes and said, "I was kidnapped from my mother before the age where she would have given me to the Nightbrothers."

"By who?" she asked.

"Sheev Palpatine."

She stared at him, "My father? But why? What possible reason could he have-"

"He needed an apprentice. He raised me in the ways of the Sith."

She shook her head, "The Sith? You're a Sith?"

"I could have been. But it's why he sent me after you. I was meant to woe you to the Darkness and you would have replaced me as his apprentice."

Rey shook her head, "I would never-"

"I know."

"So Sheev really is a Sith Lord then? And that's how he became Emperor in the future I'm from."

"He was going to start a war between the clones and the droids, the Jedi was meant to be caught in the middle, picked off slowly before being exterminated completely."

"The Clone Wars. Did you want that?"

"When I first met you, Rey, I wanted nothing more than to rip your throat out."

"What changed?"

"The Force began to speak to me, and I began to listen. Your father, Darth Sidious taught me that the Jedi killed Force sensitives that did not join them. He raised me to believe that if ever they travelled to Dathomir that they would slaughter my people on principle."

"They would never-"

"I know that now. But Sidious convinced me by forcing visions on me. He made me breathe in the ashes of Sith warriors of ancient days when the Sith and Jedi had the numbers to truly wage war against each other. I experienced every saber strike, every death and wound and loss of the Sith as if it was my own. I died a thousand deaths and I learned to hate the Jedi."

She frowned, "But if they were at war then…"

"Wasn't the same being done to the ancient Jedi? Of course, but I was young and Sidious was the only person I had to believe in. The Sith lost that fight, and I was raised to believe that I would be a part of the grand revenge of the Sith. That I would play a hand in bringing the Sith back and the galaxy into order."

"At the cost of the destruction of the Jedi."

"That was my goal, yes."

"And what is your goal now?" she asked, thinking over what a bastard her father was. She had thought that selling his own daughter into slavery had been the worst of his crimes, or perhaps being the brutal dictator of a galaxy.

But no, this was far worse than anything she could have imagined.

"My goal is to lead my people to their potential," he raised a hand to her cheek and when she did not flinch away from him, he stroked her skin, "my goal is to keep you safe from the monster who sired you and raised me. I will cut his head off and scatter his ashes on the trash in the streets."

"We could arrest him," she offered, "reveal his crimes to the galaxy."

He pressed his forehead to hers, "There is blood on my hands too, little Jedi. But even if you could prove anything, being a Sith isn't illegal. If we want him gone, we must end him."

"Obi-Wan won't approve," she said, "But Master Jinn might."

"We could take him together, you and I."

"What was it like to be raised by him?"

"Rathtars," he said in a rumbling voice, as he put a hand to her hip.

"Rathtars?" she asked, pushing him back a bit.

"He had me hunting rathtars to prove myself to him," Maul said, as he pulled her flush against him.

"You're a dangerous male," she said against his lips a moment before he caught hers with a purr.

That sound hummed down her spine in delicious tingles as she splayed her hands on his bare neck, her extinguished staff a cold line between as her hands explored his back, as he kissed her.

Maul tensed, and she let herself relax as he brought them to the ground.

They rolled apart from each other, reigniting their sabers as they spotted a Mandalorian soldier standing on Maul's window sill, some sort of large barreled blaster in his hand.

But Rey hadn't heard or seen a shot fired. She scanned the floor looking for what they had so barely managed to avoid.

"I hate to interrupt, but I'll let you get back to it, little Jedi, once he's dead."

Maul snarled at him, and Rey let the Force rise inside of her.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I am Death Watch, and he is a mistake."

"He's my mate," she snapped.

The Mandalorian sighed, "I suppose that means you aren't leaving?"

"Not hardly," she said. "Tell us your name?" Something was wrong with his aura. He was a Dark Sider, but there was something not right about it. As if he had dipped himself in metaphysical black paint rather than fallen to the Dark.

"Jango Fett, your deaths," he said reaching for a saber at his side. The kyber came to life, a black blade laced with white light.

"Maul?" she asked, unsure of what this was.

"The Mandalorians had a Jedi in the Order once, he made that, the Dark Saber, and it was passed down within a fringe group of radicals."

"There is nothing fringe about us, Zabrak. We are the rightful rulers of Mandalore. I am the Mandalorian."

"And yet here you are," Maul said, "Doing Sidious's dirty work."

Jango flourished his saber, "And yet here you are, Darth Si-"

Rey launched herself at the intruder. It caught him so off guard he slipped off the rim of the sill.

She hesitated, leaning over the edge only to be pulled back by Maul as Jango rocketed upward.

Jet pack.

Great.

Rey called energy to herself, and fired a blast of electricity one handed at the flying banthabutt.

He held the saber like a competent warrior, he didn't hold it like he was prepared to use a sword while flying.

But he was truly Force sensitive, and even by her standards, he had remarkable reflexes as he dropped in time to avoid the lightning.

Maul was leaping in the air to meet him and Jango Jetpack soared off toward the Dark District that Maul's apartment was on the edges of.

It was called the Dark Distract now because so many of the Republic systems had pulled out of the Senate that entire buildings which had been owned by government officials had been sold and bought up that they stood unlit and unused as plans for reconstruction were being dealt with.

Rey wasn't sure if Jango was leading them into a trap or if the hunter had just become the hunted.

Soon enough, her feet were landing on steel beams as they raced over buildings stuck in static disrepair as they waited to be torn down and remade.

The traffic had been diverted away from this area so that the light of the Coruscanti moons was the light they saw by in the chill night.

She and Maul stopped, going back to back as they lost visual on Jango. She could still feel the darkling Mando near them but he had enough training in the Force to muddle his exact signature.

That was worrisome.

How much training did this guy have? Had her father trained him like he had trained Maul?

Was he a rathtar hunter too?

Jango landed in front of her from a higher beam, his Dark Saber meeting hers with a spark of light.

"Interesting weapon you have there," he said, voice malicious and not short of breath as he pressed forward.

Maul backed up behind her. They didn't have a taste for how skilled or powerful Jango was yet and Maul didn't risk flipping over them both to get behind Jango.

"If I didn't know better," Jango continued, "I would say it was of Mandalorian make."

"Where have you been living over the last decade?" she asked mockingly, "On Dagobah? I am Padawan Rey Palpatine, and my weapon was forged by Master Maas in Beskar."

She felt the ripple of his surprise in the Force, and he stuck out a hand to catch the middle of her staff, "A weapon you are undeserving of, Jedi."

She smiled, "Ori'buyce, kih'kovid."

Again, she felt his shock as the Mandalorian words spilled easily over her tongue.

Tolkien had really stressed the importance of their language to her, and the others had really impressed upon her the importance of delivering a good insult.

Ori'buyce, kih'kovid, translated to, 'all helmet, no head.'

Whatever he thought of her calling him an idiot in his own tongue was lost as she sent a pulse of electricity through her grip.

The fun thing about electrocution was that while the electricity ran through you, you couldn't move.

She had the skill to absorb the excess energy into the Force, Jango wasn't so lucky.

Maul flipped over them then, but as he brought one end of his saber blade down, Jango threw himself forward, breaking Rey's concentration and sending them both tumbling off the beam.

She caught herself, sitting hard on another beam and wrapping her legs around it before letting herself slip so she could land on both feet on the beam below. She crouched before Jango, ready for anything.

"Shabuir," he said casually, as if testing what she knew.

Bitch.

Smiling, she said lightly back, "Sheb'urcyin."

Butt-kisser.

He raised his arm at her, firing Whistling Birds at her.

This dude had to be loaded if he could afford to make those.

But she talked enough with Maas to recognize them the moment they whistled out from his gauntlet.

It was nothing for her to catch them in the Force and send them exploding back in Jango's face.

But when the little explosions cleared, he was gone and Maul dropped back behind her to cover her blind spot.

They looked down into the chasm of the gutted building gaping below them. She could see nothing but dark shadows and Maul made no motion that he spotted their aggressor either.

She sighed loudly, calling out, "Kaysh mirsh'kyramud."

Loosely translated to, he is boring me senseless, literally translating to, he is a brain assassin.

Another whistling came up from beneath them, and they jumped, going higher, to try and draw Jango out as the whistling birds collapsed a few of the supporting walls.

The sound of falling debris echoed as they leapt to a more stable building.

Sure enough, Jango followed them on his jetpack.

"Mir'sheb," he greeted her.

Smart ass.

And shot a flamethrower in her face.

Rey had started her career a mechanic and wasn't as caught off guard by backfiring exhaust as many might have been.

In a single movement, she extinguished her saber as she dropped it while stepping backwards off the beam. Catching the rim with her hands she swung herself into the air, catching hold of Jango's booted feet.

He directed the flames toward her, but Maul had grabbed her fallen staff and used it like a pike, so he held one end and thus was able to extend the reach of the saber to catch the nozzle of the flamethrower as Jango tilted it down.

An explosion burst above her and she let go, Maul leapt down to catch her, and they landed lightly as Jango went careening down in a ball of fire.

Too bad she knew his armour was likely enough to save him from the flames as he clumsily tried to hold on the beams he was pinging off of as he fell.

He finally managed as Rey and Maul were hopping down to finish him off.

Jango rose, to his feet, his limbs trembling as he held out the Dark Saber.

Maul and Rey ignited their own, the blue and red casting strange shadows in the empty skeleton of a building.

"You've never fought another Force Sensitive, have you?" she asked as they stalked forward.

Flinging off his helmet as he tried to catch his breath past his smoldering armour, he gritted out, "Only the best in the galaxy."

She was struck by his Sith eyes, a mirror of how Maul's had been when she first met him, but she simperred at the deranged fool nonetheless, "Kaysh mirsh solus." Jango wouldn't know that Maul couldn't understand her.

His brain cell is lonely.

Jango roared as he charged them with Form VII.

And he was…

Masterful.

Rey and Maul had been practising for hours before this so they were both warmed up and a bit wore down.

But that shouldn't have been a problem. Only a Master Jedi of exceptional note should have been able to stand up against them working together.

Yet Jango held his own.

Which was fine. Even if they had been practising for hours, she and Maul were both trained for endurance, and Shono-Mii was a waiting game.

As Jango pressed his attack more and more violently, he was slowly losing.

And he realized it.

He pressed a call button, before using a smoke bomb.

She and Maul jumped down a level, away from the toxic smoke.

Rey went to the edge of the platform and shouted at the speeder bike zipping away, "Hut'uun!"

Maul crossed his arms, still delightfully shirtless, and gave her a look as she pulled the sweat damp strands of her hair back from her face.

She flushed, "It translates to coward."

He rolled his amber eyes at her.

Rey glanced back at the city lights, the wind blowing at their backs, and she couldn't help but think that a Mandalorian warrior made into a Sith assassin was a worrisome combination.

AN: What has Plagueis been doing over the years? Science experiments and villainy. Thoughts, reactions, or feedback, pretty, pretty please?