Captain Sirus Tribune fought his way through the poultry resistance that stood in his way, the big things were over. The tree keeping him and his, now belated, squad inside that Throne-forsaken loop was down, their Men of Iron tanks were crushed, his brothers were dead and unable to tell a soul of his true intentions, and now all Sirus needed to do was kill the rest of the Abominable Intelligences and mercenaries guarding Maul. A task he did well, and one he took all the pleasure he could in doing so.

Things seemed to go by in a flash, Maul obviously didn't have much left but he threw whatever he could in a vain attempt to stop him. It all failed, miserably. The most Maul's remaining forces could do is scuff his already damaged plate, a few Commando Droid vibro-blades managing to nick his armor, a wrong he made sure was met with the most brutal of retribution.

By the time he made his way to the entrance of the so-called "Nightsister Lair," his armor was caked from boot to gauntlet with streaked blood and corrosive oil, a symbol of the untold carnage he had wrought. The marine looked around, spying for any sign of imperfection that would hint at the hidden entrance to this place. He found it soon after, the barest sign of an artificial crack giving it away. Unhooking one of his many Krak grenades from his belt, Sirus pulled the pin and lobbed the thing right at the false mountain-side wall, the metal-enforced rock blowing away in a cloud of dust and sparks as it detonated on contact.

The fallen Captain made his way inside the desolate chamber, eldrich energies thrumming and mysterious pools of green deathly liquid lighting the space. Inside and around the chamber were massive pillar-like towers made out of the very mountain this place was carved out of, these same towers sat atop islands within the green liquid. The space was massive, far larger than Sirus had expected. But he didn't have time to gawk over this rudimentary feat of Xenos architecture, he was after one man, and one man only. A man Sirus soon spotted as he looked over at the central island.

"Maul…" Sirus whispered to himself as he began to make his way over to the island, the Dark Lord of the Sith meeting him in turn, the Zabrak man standing up and turning to face the blood-soaked fallen angel. The Xenos man ignited his twin-bladed crimson saber as Sirus drew close. Sirus stopped when he reached the 8-meter mark. As he did so, he placed the tip of his massive power sword to the ground, holding the hilt like the butt of a cane.

"Come closer, Imperial, and I will rip your head from your body and feed it to the dogs! Leave now and I will guarantee you a quick, painless death." Maul yelled towards the encroaching space marine, his voice being carried far and wide by the acoustics of the ancient ancestral chamber.

Sirus chuckled at this, seemingly amused by the threat. "Oh come on, I doubt you could even tickle me… But, in all seriousness, I think you should lower your weapon. I don't seek to kill you. Anyways, it's a real pleasure to meet you Maul, you can call me Sirus if you'd like." The mountain of blue and orange replied in almost perfect Galactic Basic, Maul simply met the gesture with a cold, empty stare of his yellow-orange eyes.

"I know what you want. Don't even pretend I don't know, Space Marine. I heard what you did to Almec, what you tried to do to that damn coward Kryze. And you expect me to, what, forget that any of that happened?" Maul replied plainly, the Zabrak was almost shocked by the absolute brazenness of this Astarte. "I will kill you, you have a choice here as to how painful it will be. Turn around, and it will be fast."

All Sirus could seem to reply with was another course chuckle. "Oh please… We both know you aren't cut out to fight well, anyone right now. That stunt you pulled with the time loop? I don't know what you did there, but it must have worn you down to the bone. I've dealt with enough Psykers before to know that your mind is like any other kind of muscle. It weakens and fails under sustained stress. Your trick with that tree certainly threw me off, but in the end, it just worked to serve me."

Maul hated this. He knew Sirus was right. His plan on exerting his will through the living Chun'de Allaya worked, the minute he heard word of these Astartes entering the system he connected himself to the radiant Force energies of this planet and bent the ancestral Force Conduit to his will. With the Chun'de Allaya under his command, he could bend space-time itself and turn his poultry forces into a near-endless army that would wear these super-humans to the bone, killing them before they could even get close. But for all his planning, for all of his expertise in the inner workings of his homeworld, it failed at killing this one, lone-standing Astarte. Worse yet, he fell into the same trap many of his kind had fallen into before, the same trap he himself had fallen into countless times, he miscalculated. He was overconfident, and now this overconfidence was going to get him killed. Or so he believed.

"Well, Xenos, are you just going to stand there and look at me, or are you going to hear me out?" Sirus blurted out, the silent chamber echoing in response.

"What do I have to hear? What do you have to tell me?"

"Simple. It's more of a request than anything else. I want you to take that anti-light power sword you've been hanging onto, and get yourself back to Mandalore." Sirus said, a smile creeping its way underneath his helmet.

Maul stood silent for a minute. He was stunned. Why, why would this outsider, this imperial conqueror want him back on Mandalore? Why would he want him to lead them? This, none of this made any damn sense at all. All he could do is stare at the Astarte, all he could do is watch this beast of a man.

"Oh there's more too, I want you to, when the time comes, use whatever clout you have left with those warrior people and join me. I'm going to be honest Maul, I like you, you're probably the only likable thing here in this galactic disk. I want you to join me. It could be weeks, it could be months, but you will know that time when it comes. Knowing who you are and your, predilections, towards the true nature of the Warp, I feel you will know."

The Zabrak scoffed at this. "Mandalore is dead. It was dead before your kind even got here. But I will have no part in putting it inside its grave, especially not by the side of a petty xenophobic tyrant and his dystopic regime. From everything I have learned about your kind, Sirus, I hate you. Your liking towards me is only a mark of shame." Maul replied, anger rising in his voice.

Sirus didn't even pretend to take what Maul said just then seriously. The chamber echoed as he cackled his horrific, jackal-like laugh again. Maul somewhat expected this, he was clearly mad, but what he said next was by far the worst thing he could have heard here.

"You think I'm fighting for the Imperium? Well, I might be technically now, but I have goals of my own. People of my own to bring here. I might be now, but not for much longer. I want a fight, a real war one this galaxy has failed to give me. Mandalore might give me what I need for a while, at first I thought that was all I needed, but I'm thinking far longer ahead you see. It took me a while to realize this, the connection I gained with, well let's just call them fellow brothers who have seen the way certainly helped me. The only people who can give me a satisfying fight are my former brothers and sisters, my once beloved Imperium." Sirus said, barely able to contain his laughter.

This was the first time he had ever told a soul of his true feelings, his true motivations behind this all. All the planning, all the schemes and politicking and dark puppeteering, all coming to this. The betrayal he would bring upon those he claimed to care for, those he was sworn to protect, the darkness he would bring here, and the screams and cries of the weak, all of it, made him feel alive.

Maul took a step back as he felt it. He didn't notice it before, he didn't know how or why he couldn't sense it before, but as this man began to laugh again, this monster, this demon, he felt IT. This man, clearly wasn't Force-sensitive himself, he would have known if he was the moment he entered this chamber. But this power, this sense of dread that fell over him as the Astarte finally finished his fit, it was like nothing he had ever felt before.

Attached to his soul, peering down upon him with the gaze of unknowable and incalculable star beasts were the eyes of 4, things. He couldn't describe them, he couldn't even focus on them for all but a few seconds, but their eyes were like pits of dread, pits of hate and malice darker than even the heart of the Dark Side of the Force itself. He felt their aetheric grasping limbs tug on him, he knew the limbs that tugged were all but the tiniest of particles of what these things really were, flecks of dead skin brushed off cosmically powerful dark gods. And they toyed with him, they pierced his mind and reached for his deepest desires and worst fears, and they tempted him.

Maul saw visions of war, himself a peerless warrior in combat finding nothing but triumph over the weak. He saw visions of death and plague, himself a messenger of its embracing decay. He saw visions of excess, pleasure without limit or moral, himself a prince of wine and mate. And finally, he saw visions of change, himself a lord among lords, a king of the Force to rule all he saw. All would come if he chose to serve them.

He wanted to bow, to take a knee to these unknowable demon gods, but he couldn't, he would never serve another master again no matter how powerful. No matter how they tempted him. He grabbed the sides of his skull and screamed with the Force itself.

"Get out of my head!" A wave of aetheric nothing washed over the chamber, forcing Sirus back a few steps, his sword still planted into the stone ground. As the wave subsided, all Sirus could do is shake his head.

"I will never serve you, nor whatever powers you serve! I will die before I become a slave again, I will lay down my life so that I can live free!" Maul screamed at the space marine, his vision slowly returning to normal as the void eyes of those, things, left to let the Astarte do the rest.

"You're stronger than I thought… Things can't ever be easy now can it…" Sirus sighed. "Listen, I know who you are and what you have gone through, Maul. I know the one thing that has followed you throughout your life. It's been loss. You've lost your legs, you've lost your family, you've lost your brother. You are afraid to lose anything ever again. Don't mistake this as kindness or pity, this is weakness, and it's a weakness I am more than willing to exploit."

Sirus slowly pulled a long, beeping device from his waist, an Auspex Scanner. One he took off of the dead Aiolos's body. "You might not care about your own life anymore, but what you do care about is what little you have left. I'd like to think this planet is something you'd rather hate to lose."

Maul shook his head, half in frustration and half in shock. "You're bluffing. If you are saying what I think you are, you are bluffing. There is no way you have a planet-cracking weapon, even on that monster of a ship you have in orbit."

Sirus shook his head slowly in response. "Am I?"

A moment of silence passed as Sirus made contact with the Dagger of Eclipse, his Vox grills crackling to life as he put the transmission through his helmet speakers. A few moments passed before a female voice answered the hail, speaking in the Imperial language Maul had learned fully only a few weeks ago.

"Captain Sirus, this is ship-captain Sabissena, what is your status? You went dark for hours down there."

"Ship-captain, ready the Cyclonic Torpedo. We have been undone here, I am all that remains. I fear I will be unable to make it to safety, but this mission is too important! Set ready to launch on my count. I am transmitting coordinates for the strike now." Sirus said, his voice turning from one of annoyed disappointment to a fake, mortal danger and urgency on a dime. Maul simply looked on as he did this, the obvious tricks of a sociopath unable to surprise him anymore.

"This is just a bluff, don't think for a second that I haven't seen this type of manipulation before Astarte." Maul replied, swinging his twin-bladed saber around into a combat stance.

Sirus simply peered over at Maul in response, letting off of his push-to-talk right as he noticed Maul begin to speak before the woman on the other end of the signal replied.

"I… Yes, my lord. I believe the torpedo is primed and ready in its chamber."

"Good. Make sure when I am gone, that Acamar takes my place. Again, on my count." Sirus replied a fake, almost convincing tinge of guilt and sadness within his voice. As he finished, he looked back over at Maul, eyes of pure malice concealed under his helm. "You call this a bluff, Maul? I know planet-cracking weapons are a rarity for this, disgustingly weak place you call home, but rest assured. I am ready to die here if I can't get what I want. I have no reason to live otherwise." Sirus's voice changed from his fake tone to the genuine, almost gitty voice of a madman.

Maul felt it then, a disturbance deep in the Force, the planet itself was calling out to him, begging him to relent, to let up. Maul wouldn't, he couldn't have it. "Do your worst, scum." He replied solemnly, a deep undercurrent of reservation within his voice.

"Very well." Sirus replied before pressing his helm's push-to-talk. "Fire in 3…"

Maul felt it again, it was louder this time, more guttural, more feral. An entire biosphere begging to this lone man, screaming for mercy and salvation. Hundreds of thousands of living beings screamed as they were tortured, not physically, but psychically as those things that assaulted him before attacked them in turn.

But it was worse. This time it wasn't the shards that attacked them, it wasn't those minuscule particles of their true beings wrapping themselves around their prey, it was so much worse than that. They didn't tempt them, there was no use in tempting them, they instead showed them their future. Their home, their mother split apart by a single ancient and cataclysmic weapon turning her into nothing but a barren, dead rock. He felt the Force ache and pain as if massive arms and hands grabbed onto its ripples and creases, ready to pull it apart and suck the world they stood upon into a realm of nothingness.

Maul tried to resist it. He knew he needed to resist this, these demon-god things wanted him to relent, they wanted him to bow his head. But it just, didn't, stop.

"2…"

The beings seemed to partially turn their attention back towards Maul as Sirus continued. One of the many metaphorical limbs of damnation wrapping themselves tight around Dathomir beginning to wrap itself around Maul as well. It was so much stronger than those specks, those minuscule parts of giants he was attacked by before. They fed him visions again, not ones of temptation, but ones of damnation. The same every lifeform on this screaming world saw.

After the dust cleared on the dead Mother Dathomir, after the skies blackened and all life was dead, a gaping maw opened. Like a hole into madness, like a singularity of chaos itself, it opened and swallowed the dead world whole. Dathomir quaked, it heaved and spasmed as it was turned into something it wasn't. Something it should never be. The dead life seemed to revive, hundreds of thousands of living beings spasming back to life as they were possessed by eldrich fire and damnation, turning into beasts they were never meant to be. At first, they screamed for life, they screamed for salvation as the weapon fell, but now they screamed for death. Maul screamed, he grabbed his head and let out everything his lungs had left. Sirus smiled.

"STOP!" Maul forced out of his lungs, the limbs of damnation letting go of its prey, Dathomir seemed to calm again, the heaving gasping world letting out a long deep breath. "Don't, don't do it… For the love of all, don't…" Maul literally fell to his knees then, lightsaber tumbling out of his hand, his eyes filling with bloody tears and his mind scarred with the images he was forced to gaze upon. He couldn't do this, he couldn't let this happen. These things, these gods, they forced him to his knees faster than even Palpatine could. Compared to them, Palpatine was nothing, a speck of dirt on the boot of a colossus.

"Sabissena, cancel the launch. I believe I have found a way out of this." Sirus replied plainly. "Good job. You made the correct choice." Maul tumbled onto his side as Sirus spoke, his breathing heavy as his eyes fixed on the space marine meters away from him.

"I'll see you soon, Maul."