"Come again?" said Obi-Wan, no longer hiding his complete confusion.
Perhaps he had died and this was some alternate universe playing out in front of him, or he was still asleep, his exertion to Nawe taking the same part of his mind with him and he would wake up in the dingy cell he had been expecting, allowed to wallow in his misery. He even shook his head just to make sure he was awake.
Maul was enjoying himself immensely as the waves of emotion swept out of the Jedi, his mental shields straining to cope with the sith's words.
/Perfect, the man is teetering on the edge and so very soon will be mine to command!/
"I trust you to make the right decision in this, because you have sensed it. The living force of this place. It's where you were when I came in, you were enveloped in its flow. That's why you didn't detect my presence here."
Obi-Wan was uncomfortable with the sith so close to him physically and mentally, but despite that, the man had a point. The living force was in everything here.
"You're a man who inspires loyalty, Obi-Wan Kenobi."
"Don't you dare use my name!" Kenobi spat instinctively, surprised at his own spike of hate at the sith naming him. Even Yoda had refrained from addressing him so intimately. The last person to speak his name to him had been Qui-Gon and now the very man who had struck the fatal blow to his beloved master was talking to him as if they were brothers.
He suddenly found himself on the floor, on top of the tattooed fiend, his hands tightening around the dark lord's throat. His hate was overwhelming his body and taking control. The sith's red eyes were flaming, not with surprise or anger, but delight! Kenobi instantly released him and sat back, shaken by his emotional explosion, his head clasped in his hands.
The sith was chuckling quietly to himself as he saw Kenobi shaking on the floor next to him. This was going to be easier than he thought.
"Impressive," he said still remaining unerringly calm through the whole thing. Kenobi marveled agt his restraint as he tried desperately to regain control over his body that was boiling to squeeze the life from the sith. For Qui-Gon, for Nawe, he could feel it whispering to him, but he partitioned the internal voice from the rest of his psyche and brought his breathing under control.
"So, what do I call you to prevent asphyxiation?" asked Maul still sitting on the floor at Kenobi's level.
"Don't call me anything, bury me in a cell somewhere , throw away the key and forget I even exist! Or, better yet, take me to the edge of this island and toss me over the side. I'm sure I'll make a resounding and fatal splash."
"How are you supposed to lead my army from the bottom of the ocean?" asked Maul as if talking to a small child.
Kenobi couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had just tried to kill the man and he still expected Kenobi to work for him.
"You are completely insane!" yelled Kenobi, his emotions of anger, fear and frustration rising again in turmoil, threatening to lash out have him lose control again.
Maul raised his hands to calm the distressed Jedi.
"Think about it, for a moment. Think about the opportunity I'm giving you here. You command the army as you see fit. You felt it when you scanned the island. They are all innocents under my influence. Think of what they could achieved guided by you."
"What are you saying? That I would have autonomy over them? Why would you do that? None of this makes any sense."
"As I have said already, you inspire loyalty and you do it not through fear, as I have been trained to do, but through faith and mutual trust. And that insipid false conviction that there is a moral good in everyone, buried deep in some, but it's there if you can find it. Well, this is your chance to find mine. Command my army and be witness to my benevolence."
Kenobi didn't like the sound of that.
"Just what would I be commanding this army to do, exactly?" he asked skeptically.
"A simple enough task. Protect the Republic from it's enemies. All it's enemies," he said darkly.
"To place you as Supreme Chancellor, I suppose?"
"Not at first, there are some obstacles to overcome first, but eventually that would be the goal. And why not? Do you honestly believe the Republic even functions as a democracy anymore?"
Maul had a point, but Kenobi was not going to admit anything to the red and black tattooed fiend.
"What you are talking about is tyranny, nothing more. Let's not try to cover it up."
Maul merely shrugged his shoulders, thoroughly enjoying himself in this confrontation. Kenobi had gone from trying to kill him to engaging in conversation to the killing attempt again, which had shown Maul that Kenobi's physical strength was not something to be underestimated. Now he was actually listening to Maul's plans. Fascinating!
"I refuse," said Kenobi flatly, thinking of wiping that grin off Maul's face with a table leg, but breathing through the rise in hate again, allowing it to wash through him and out into the force. If he didn't know better, he'd say that the storm outside had just gained ferocity as the large rain drops lashed down the dome.
"Be reasonable," said Maul as calmly as he could, his true self becoming irritated with this unusual approach to Kenobi.
/Why don't you just break his legs or bust his ribs or something,/ it cooed to him, /at least you'd feel better./ Although tempting, that would destroy everything he had just worked so hard to build and there would be plenty of time to teach the Jedi how a sith punished insubordination once he was on board.
"I've studied your tactics and you have the uncanny ability of achieving your goals with the least casualties on either side, a goal desired by any general, surely."
"I'm no general," came Kenobi's short reply.
"Not yet, but with training in the field you could be the greatest general that ever lived, remembered down the ages not as the failed Jedi, but as the great General, the savior of the Republic."
"It wouldn't be a Republic any more, remember?"
"From a certain point of view. Now shall we inspect your troops?"