Chapter Eleven

After arriving on Ruusan and suffering a sleepless night, Kycina decided enough was enough. It was time Savage knew the truth of who he was in exchange for telling her the truth of what Maul had once been but no longer was. This was the time where she told him about his father and about how he had been a kind and gentle creature unless provoked by an insult to Kycina herself. It was time for Savage to know how lowly he was in comparison to his father and to his brother.

She found him standing by a tree and she could tell he had just finished urinating next to it. That was when she stepped away from the boulder she slept on and called out to him. "Savage, you and I need to speak right now about how you've been acting towards me and your brother both on the way here and before," Kycina said. "Oh great, I'm in for a scolding like you could do anything to change who I am and who Maul is," Savage replied jokingly.

"Nothing is funny about what you did on the ship nor is any of the disrespect you show your brother (and me) very funny. Your brother trained you to become the warrior you are and this is how you repay his help?" Kycina asked. "No, this is how I fight against the weakening of the resolve he once had by your hand," Savage answered. "What resolve and how am I weakening it?" Kycina inquired.

"Do you not recall when I told you about Maul's will for revenge against the Jedi? Do you not recall how I told about how I found him raving mad with anger and hatred born out of the Dark Side?" Savage replied. "You disgrace everything your father was with your despicable actions, Savage Opress!" Kycina shouted. "Do you really think I care how my father is affected by this so long as he is dead and his memory is the only thing affected by me?" Savage asked quietly.

"I know you do because your father raised you and Feral for nearly three years after I was torn away from you by himself. Your father was one of if not the finest warrior in the village when he was alive but he also had the kindest heart besides Maul's father. You have inherited your father's combat prowess but none of his heart," Kycina told him. "Whatever heart my father had and passed on to me was stripped of me when I met Mother Talzin then served under Count Dooku, the rest died with Feral when I killed him with my own bare hand," Savage said, his face turning grim.

"That is no reason to be this heinous around me and your brother. I demand an apology for how you tried to use the truth against us and tried to make me turn toward you more," Kycina ordered. "Sometimes the truth hurts mother and you haven't exactly been fair to me as I recall," he said. "I am sorry for that Savage but Maul is special because I gave him away to save his life whilst you and Feral were torn screaming and crying from my arms shortly before I was banished," she replied.

"So you cared about what happened to him more than you did Feral and I?" he asked, frustrated. "I care for you all equally, I wondered if any of you were still alive! That was the reason I created the dolls: to reprieve myself of the madness that would eventually consume me simply because I feared for your lives and wondered if I would ever see you again!" she answered, nearly screaming every word. "Yet now that you have seen us again, you don't like what I've become," he stated.

"I don't like what Mother Talzin is trying to make you into. But I guess I was right in my earlier assumption that you are lost to me thanks to her influence over you," she told him grimly. Then she walked away, her heart broken at what her youngest living son had become and knowing that her suspicions of him being lost were now confirmed to her and to him. "By the way mother, you might want to ask your favorite son what he vowed would happen to our enemies once we had a powerful army at our command," Savage called out to her.

"I will do that and no doubt Maul will tell me the truth. There is no greater regret I have in my life than giving away Maul at the price of having you and Feral taken from me to live as Talzin's Nightbrother slaves whilst I was banished on Felucia," Kycina said. Then she walked off, wondering how much longer she was going to tolerate Savage and if losing him again would also mean losing Maul again also. "Savage… I am so sorry for what I've done to you now and then," she said before disappearing out of his sight.

While she walked away, Savage thought about what he had said to her and what she had said to him. Then via a green mist, Mother Talzin appeared behind him and asked when the army would be unleashed. "The cave is not more than a day's walk away from here. If all goes well, we'll have that army rolling forth to crush the Republic and the CIS by tomorrow night," Savage answered.

"Good, good, faster than I had originally anticipated. You have been the finest of all my servants Savage, do not let your mother's false love for you blind you to the ultimate goal in this universe: to rule it all," Talzin said to him. "Believe me Mother, I'm more concerned for my brother than I am for my mother," Savage told her. "Perhaps his usefulness is coming to its end," she said.

"I don't understand, he has been my mentor since you cured him of his madness back on Dathomir. Why would I betray him now?" he asked. "I only needed Maul to train you to become as powerful as you are. Besides, did he not tell you that in the Sith Code, the apprentice must eventually betray the Master in order to keep the Order strong and maintain its strength?" she replied.

Savage admitted Maul had told him that the way of the Sith did decree that to occur and asked her if Maul's time was near. "His resolve is weakening, something like betrayal within his own inner circle will definitely renew it for a new goal. Yes he still has no love for Kenobi or the Jedi but have you sensed the vengeance you felt when you first met him?" Talzin inquired. "No I don't and he blames it on growing a respect for the Jedi he never had before," Savage replied without hesitation.

"The Jedi are our enemies no matter what your brother may have to say about them. He may have grown to respect them and perhaps they have grown to respect him but have they ever come to respect you or have they always feared you as a dangerous, unbalanced monster?" she asked. All of this made perfect sense to Savage, increasing his delight in the idea of betraying his brother and putting him in his place. It definitely would help him gain revenge in the most honorable sense of the word for what Kycina had helped him become.

"When am I to turn the tables on my brother and dispose of him in the name of our cause?" he asked. "Wait until I command you to, which will be most likely after I have you consummate your bond with Ventress and if he fails to kill Count Dooku," she answered. "And what is it about Dooku that you hate so much?" he inquired innocently. "Dooku was a Jedi when he chose to help me and it was because of him that I was forced to give Ventress up in order to save our clan.

"Though she has now found her way back to the Nightsisters, Dooku did delay my plans for her by many years. Perhaps it worked better out that way now that I have you and her included in the plans for my ultimate goal in the universe. But then, perhaps not, who knows how it will turn out but the Force?" she explained. "Then I will wait for you to give the word to turn my blade on him, I will gladly do it if it means keeping the Sith Order strong," he vowed to his mistress.

"Just remember Savage, you may be doing it to Maul now but if you survive and he dies you will have to find a new apprentice. In time, that apprentice will also turn the tables on you in order to preserve the strength of the Sith just as you are doing now," she warned. "It doesn't matter, so long as I emerge the strongest carrier of the Sith line and not him," he replied. Then she disappeared in the same green mist she had used to appear to him here on Ruusan, a place strong with the energy of fallen Sith Lords.

"Maul, can you and I speak privately?" Kycina asked. "Yes mother, what I can help you with?" he answered. "Savage says that before we met, you lived only for revenge against the Jedi. If that's true, why the sudden change in your attitude towards them?" she asked.

"Mother, when Ophelia died all I could think about was how the Jedi Code had forbidden her from acting on her love and how she was forced to follow it to the very letter until she could sacrifice her life to show me her love. When I had the chance to go after Kenobi and his Master Qui-Gon, I took it without hesitation though my revenge didn't start there; it started with an old warrior named Darius Othone. His death made it so that if I asked to join the Order, I might as well be signing my own death-wish due to his prestige amongst them.

"At first, I treated Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan the same way I had treated Darius: quarry that needed eliminating due to their pestilence in my master's plans. I even went so far as to be absolutely disappointed when Qui-Gon was eventually gutted by my hand near a shaft leading to a reactor pit. At first, when I dueled with his apprentice, I had mocked him by saying that I hoped he was a better match than his master due to being disappointed in the old man. But Kenobi proved the better of the two of us when he used my ego and his Jedi ways to slice me in half, my lower half being lost forever to the reactor," he began.

When Kycina said nothing, he continued. "For more than a decade, I was consumed by Dark Side-fueled rage and a maddening obsession with his death while living on Lotho Minor on little more than scrap food. When Savage brought me back to Dathomir and had my mind healed, my resolve was as strong for revenge as it had been when I was an insane freak of nature. But since then, I have come not to hate Obi-Wan but admire his skill and his ability to spare me even when I brought up his master's death at my hand.

"Obi-Wan was indeed a Jedi who was willing to make any sacrifice to complete a mission. But he would never resort to murder and if I am to honor his legacy, neither can I. Yes I still feel a desire for revenge but not for him so much as my former master. I learned that if I were to feel revenge, it shouldn't be for the man who took my legs from me.

"Instead, it should be for the man who had trained me to only feed on the fear and hate within myself and others to survive until the completion of a mission. Because in the end, he disposed of me when he thought me dead just as everyone else did," he concluded. "Maul, you have already come a long way from what you once were and being that I am your mother I will always be proud of you son," Kycina said. "Thank you mother," he told her before going off into meditation for two hours; she followed his example as did Savage.

"Dooku, my fleet is in position. What do we do now that we're here?" Obi-Wan asked. "Now we sit and wait for the arrival of this fleet assuming it exists at all," Dooku answered via a hologram on Kenobi's ship. "This is going to work very well indeed," Obi-Wan stated.

"Patience Jedi, if Maul comes he will bring no ordinary fleet: he will be arriving with the remnant of the Brotherhood of Darkness from a thousand years ago. To counter their Lord's ability in Battle Meditation, I have brought Master Sora Bulq," Dooku replied. "And who is their lord, might I ask?" Obi-Wan asked, curious to know about the Brotherhood's dark power. "His name is Skere Kaan, an ex-Jedi like myself who founded the Brotherhood as a means of uniting the wielders of the Dark Side under a single banner against the common enemy that was the Jedi," Dooku explained.

"And what is Battle Meditation?" Obi-Wan inquired. "A dark power meant not to be trifled with and wielded by few. You should be afraid of it's potential as I am," Dooku said then he disconnected his transmission.