Chapter 2. The Return of Darth Zannah

The flight to Dxun was short as the moon had a close orbit to Onderan. It was so close that two shared atmospheres and it was easy to fly up from the surface of Onderan to Dxun on the back of a Draxel without air supply. When Zannah crossed over she past the old Mandelorian outpost which had been abandoned many years ago. She landed her ship five miles from the fortress tomb. Using force speed Zannah ran through the jungle and stood in a tree observing the massive tomb.

Zannah used her Sith sorcery to drive the servants and guards crazy. They started attacking each other and killing one another. Several Droids were attacked as well as the guards and servants saw them as the hideous monsters of their nightmares and tormented mind. Pariah was in her mediation room when she felt the disturbance in the force. She tried countering the strange magic but was unable to. An hour passed and all was quiet. The lights flickered on and off as Pariah walked through the now lifeless fortress. She made her way to the throne room where a black haired woman sat on her master's throne.

"Who are you?" Pariah asked uncoiling her lightwhip.

"I am Darth Zannah…The true lord of the Sith."

"Darth Zannah is dead!"

"Foolish girl! Darth Cognus underestimated me…A lesson I drove home time and time again…Yet she believes I am dead and she the rightful Lord of the Sith…"

Pariah points her hand at a pillar and rips it up from the floor, "Then I shall finish what my master started!" She hurled the pillar at Zannah who laughed as it flew towards her.

The pillar stopped in midair and exploded into thousands of pieces. Then Zannah leapt from the throne across the marble floor to where Pariah was standing. As she flew through the air Pariah cracks her whip, but Zannah bats the attack to the side. Zannah wraps her fingers around the Twi'Lek's throat hoisting her into the air and breaks her neck. Then she decapitates Pariah and walks back to the throne. She sits down with the severed head on the arm rest of the throne.

Unknown World

When Darth Pariah died Darth Cognus had just landed her ship on the Rakata world. She was half way down the ramp when she felt her apprentice die. She closed her eyes and felt a familiar but unknown presence at the fortress. Cognus walks back up the ramp and starts her ship.

Dxun Fortress

Zannah spent most of her time searching for the Sith holocrons and the archives, but was unable to find them. She had only explored 30% of the fortress and its additions when she felt Darth Cognus enter the atmosphere of the planet. She immediately went to the throne room to wait.

When Darth Cognus entered the throne room she paused at the sight of the woman on her throne. As she drew closer her anger arose at the severed head on the armrest as the woman drummed her fingers on the skull.

"Welcome back Lord Cognus…"

"I should have known…Zannah!"

Zannah jumped up, "Its Lord Zannah to you…Bow before your master!"

"I defeated you once I can do so again…"

Zannah shakes her head, "I told you time and time again Cognus…To not underestimate me…You did not head my warning…"

"Perhaps…But this time I am going to kill you and will stick…"

"We shall see…"

Zannah threw out her hands surprising Cognus with a lightening attack. Cognus was quick to ignite both blades, but the force of the attack slid her across the floor all the way to the door. She quickly suppressed Zannah's lightening attack with her special gift. The lightening fizzled down to electricity then to sparks from her hand.

"No matter you can't block all my powers…" Zannah said creating her most powerful Sith spell. The tendrils whipped across the floor towards Cognus. She couldn't block two sith techniques as Zannah was too powerful. So Cognus grabs the ceiling of the throne room and brings it down.

Zannah was much more powerful than she was when they last fought. Cognus was going to have to outsmart her and the only way to do that was to lead Zannah to a place in the fortress she could turn the odds in her favor. She closed herself off in the force and ran up the hallway.

Zannah stood with one arm up holding the tons of debris back from crushing her. With a glance Zannah punches a hole into the wall and drops the debris when she is in the hall. Then she searches for Darth Cognus and finds her in the lower levels of the fortress. Zannah runs to the turbo-lift and goes down to the underbelly of the tomb fortress. Smoke arises up from the river of lava flowing beneath the tomb of Freedan Nadd. As Zannah exits the door that leads across a bridge a lightsaber is thrown at her from the left. Then Cognus screams leaping at her swinging her second blade. A deep scratch is left on the wall followed by a shower of sparks. Zannah ignites her double blade and backs Cognus down the walkway. Neither women could unleash their powerful force attacks on each other, because the bridge would collapse and kill them both. Cognus does a backwards cartwheel summoning her other sword.

She leaps at Zannah now armed with both swords. Zannah pins her left sword and raises the left side of her sword to block the other. Then she twists her double blade and surprises Cognus with two sabers. Zannah swings across severing Cognus' hand at the wrist. She bellows in pain as she backs away.

"It is over and you have lost…Don't make me destroy you…" Zannah says walking forward.

Cognus gathers her power causing Zannah to stop. "I would rather die than bow to you again…" She leaps over the side of the rail. Zannah runs forward and looks over just as Cognus vanishes below the smoke line of the lava. Her force aura is gone as arcs of lightening rise up from the lava.

"Weak fool!" Zannah says under her breath.

"MISTRESS!" A droid screams as Cognus hits the hover sled back first. She lays their and closes her eyes. Her planned had worked but she did not count on losing her hand. As Cognus fell she unleashed a wave of force lightening to complete the illusion that she had died. "I shall get you to safety mistress…"

Her eyes pop open and she kicks the droid into the lava and closes her eyes again to rest. After an hour Cognus stirs she can feel Darth Zannah in the fortress searching for the archives. Cognus smiles as she had hidden the holocrons and Sith scrolls five years ago. Zannah would never find them, she almost wished she could gloat. She stood up and took the sled back the dock and took the turbo-lift up to the armory beneath the fortress. Then she took another lift to the fifth floor where her secret lab was.

The droids in the lab repaired her hand and then she quickly built two new lightsabers. As she lost both falling over the rail. Then Cognus took a few darts loaded with Syntax. The same stuff she used to subdue Darth Bane. Zannah was on the top floor searching the pyramid floor by floor. There was too much dark energy in the fortress to locate any secret rooms through the force so Zannah was reduced to checking every wall up close. As she exited the last room Zannah was tackled from the side and stabbed in the shoulder. Both women wrestled across the floor kicking and punching each other.

Cognus finally head butted Zannah and stabbed her again. Zannah roared trying to shock Cognus, but Cognus was blocking her force lightening. She switches to her sith sorcery, but Cognus switches again and suppresses that technique. Every time Zannah tries a new power Cognus releases that last and concentrates on the new one. Zannah sneers and does two powers at the sametime force wave and sith sorcery. Cognus suppresses the sorcery as the floor and walls are shattered in the force wave attack. At such a close range anyone else would have died, but Cognus was a Sith Lord who wrapped herself in a cocoon of force energy and absorbed what her shell could not handle. They fell through the floor to the next level igniting their lightsabers.

Zannah takes apart her blade and fights twin blade style Juyo form VII. Cognus joins her in form VII as well. It is an all-out brawl as the women try to dominate each other. Once again Zannah disarms Cognus, but her reflexes are too slow as the senflax takes effect. Cognus finishes her with a force punch to the chest and all goes black.

"Wh…wh…wher…e…am…mi…"

"Sh!" Cognus says standing over Zannah. "It will be over soon…"

Zannah gathers her strength, but nothing happens in fact as she gathers the force her body grows weaker. "What did you do to me…BITCH!"

Cognus walks around the table Zannah is strapped to, "The Senflax would not have worked that is why I laced it with another poison…One more powerful…I invented myself…Never thought I would use though…I call it the force binder…I created it from my own DNA and my ability to suppress the force…"

"You cheated!" Those words hurt, but Cognus was not above doing whatever she had to do to keep her throne. "In a straight up fight you were no match for me…So you used poison…You betrayed the fundamental values of the rule of two! You don't deserve the title Lord of the Sith…"

When Cognus spoke she raised her voice, "A Sith Lord does whatever he or she can to hold on to the throne…and at the same time an apprentice does everything he or she can to rip from the master…Those are your words not mine…I defeated you and now you wine like a child who lost her favorite toy to a sister…"

"Then release me and let us continue…"

"NO! You should have stayed away…You killed my apprentice…took my hand and ruined my fortress…No Zannah this time I will make sure you die…"

Cognus waves her hand and the droid brings forth a monkey lizard, "What is that?"

"A Kowakian monkey lizard and the new home for your mind…"

Zannah went berserk, "You sick twisted bitch! You dirty schutta! I'm going to rip you into small pieces…"

As she used more colorful creative words Cognus began the force essence ritual after severing her arm. Cognus forces Zannah's mind into the body of the monkey lizard in its cage. The lizard goes berserk banging against the cage shaking the bars and crying out in rage. Zannah carries the monkey lizard with her everywhere she goes, but it refuses to eat. Eventually it starves to death and dies. Cognus returns to the temple of two to bury the remains of her apprentice Darth Pariah who despite her short time of study is given a place of honor among Bane's order of two. Then Cognus adds the remains of her former master's new severed arm and lightsaber to the sarcophagus. Then Cognus goes on a journey in search of a new apprentice. As the years pass Cognus gets older and older so she flies to her home world to choose a suitable body for her mind. After winning the girl's trust Cognus transfers her mind to the new body. She is young and fresh, Cognus has many years before her, but where will she find an apprentice.