Chapter Y: Wrecked Revenge
Grandmaster Yoda entered the Chancellor's office, throwing the guards aside and into the wall with barely a glance. "I hear a new apprentice, you have. Emperor, or should I call you Darth Sidious," he greeted Palpatine. "Master Yoda, you survived." Palpatine returned with a mocking smile. "Surprised?", rebutted Yoda. Palpatine's smile only grew, as he replied. "Not as surprised as you're about to become, Jedi," he sneered. Approaching from behind him, a large figure became visible, as if it had been there all the time, and was just now becoming clearer. Yoda's brow furrowed, and he barely stopped himself from stepping back. "With them you are, and after claim to hate the Sith, you did." Beldorion silently slithered from behind Sidious, until he was at his side. "I told you the Order needed to change, but I was, after all, wrong." A cruel smile distended his face. "It needed to fall, and today it will, forever." He ignited his lightsaber, colored a cruel red unlike the green Yoda remembered, as he continued talking. "It will fall, and the Republic will fall with it." As Beldorion finished his ominous statement, a deep vibration seemed to shake the room, both physical and somehow echoing into Yoda's mind and spirit, causing the space in the room to shift somehow. Palpatine himself looked around, bewildered, and just as he processed his ally's words, a metal spike exited his face, Beldorion's betrayal blindsiding him.
Yoda couldn't stop himself now, and took a step back, confused. "Your apprentice he was? Your master then? Destroy the Republic you say?" Beldorion leisurely crawled towards the center of the room, discarding Sidious' corpse with a tail flick. "He was the last Banite, after he killed his Master, Hego Damask. From Bane's line? The one you thought was ended centuries ago? I think we may have talked about this before," he mused, as he stalked ever closer. Yoda frowned, recalling endless discussions about the threat of the Sith, decades ago. "Mistaken I was, and suffer for it we have, but too much to attack the Republic it is. Stopping the clones, stop their plan it will, the Order might be saved still." Beldorion shook his head, almost seeming regretful. "Too late for that, old friend. Unlike the dearly departed Sheev, I didn't plan for a coup d'etat, a simple change of regime." He paused, and seemed to consider his words before continuing with a pleased expression. "I planned for an encore of a magnificent piece of history, which I call it the Disaster, take two." Horror filled Yoda, speculations running through his mind at frantic speed, memories of the devastation caused by the Emergences replaying on his mind's eye. "What did you do? Impossible it is," then, as horrified realization filled him he spoke in a low voice, "that disturbance, it was you that caused it, it was hyperspace then... But why? No one would dare, not even the darkest Sith."
Beldorion lost his smile. "It is as I said before, old frog. I told you I would never become a Sith, and I kept that promise. They were too weak, too stupid, and too selfish. An Empire where they ruled Eternal? The Force is change, life, evolution. It would fall just like the Republic did." He gestured towards the Senate room. "Look at their corruption, their ineptitude, their stagnation," his tone conveyed particular disgust for that sin, Yoda mused, which made sense since he was ever the proponent for change. "But you won't need to look at it anymore. Or be able to." He charged almost fast enough to behead Yoda before he blocked, but the strength behind the strike was still enough to send the tiny Master flying. Dropping his saber to float at his side, Beldorion quickly moved his arms in a fluid circular motion, before pointing one hand towards Yoda. "Catch." He said as a lightning bolt erupted from his two extended fingers, striking Yoda on the side even as he twisted to try and avoid it.
The Hutt recovered his floating saber, then approached his fallen opponent, seemingly in no hurry, while Yoda's body convulsed once, before he took a coughing breath and started to rise. Beldorion took his time, letting Yoda regain his breath, before throwing a desk at him with the Force with a negligent gesture. Having had time enough to recover, Yoda leapt high above it before pushing off from the ceiling and diving at the Dark sider with a powerful slash, which was blocked, its momentum absorbed by the Hutt. Before his foe could retaliate, Yoda used his opponent's forward force to push off and somersault back, avoiding a retaliatory saber strike as he twisted back. As he landed, he began circling Beldorion, looking for a weakness to exploit, any rust that might have developed in his skill since their last encounter.
"It is already over Yoda, Hyperspace is closed now. An interdiction of five thousand years, every planet forced to fend for itself, working only with sublight drives lest their ships become lost." Beldorion charged Yoda again, forgoing his saber to strike with his naked fists at the smaller alien, who dodge what he could, parrying what he could not. It came as little surprise that his green saber found no purchase on Beldorion's fists, and instead recoiled as if hit by another saber, the strikes shaking himnto the bone. "Imbued your own fists at last, did you? Stop yourself from gloating you could not, useless when a saber you have." His scolding was interrupted when Beldorion's tail, its tip covered by a metal mace with a spike hit him on the opposite side of his lightning burn, sending him flying again. "Ah, but it makes for a fine distraction, doesn't it? No no, don't tell me, I can see that it did," Beldorion mocked. This time Yoda remained spry enough to avoid crashing into the wall, and instead turned his body to hit it feet first, and turned his bounce into a flip forward, landing on the floor pained but mostly unharmed. Hit him I have not, and some ribs that broke for sure, Obi-Wan better be winning at least, he lamented. Taking the initiative for once, he ran in a zigzag, accelerating then bouncing from the wall once, twice, attempting a blitzing strike against his foe. Put on the back foot (so to speak), Beldorion parried most strikes with his blade, taking some burns when Yoda overwhelmed him for a moment.
"I've already taken all the scrolls, the data, the books and artifacts from Ossus, even the ones at Ahch-To, while I planted planet busters at Korriban, Dromund Kaas, and all Sith havens I could find," Beldorion revealed, undaunted. He took a breath before shifting into the stance of Form VII, making Yoda frown. "And don't think you can beat me in speed now, when you could not before, you stupid frog." His charge was blinding fast, as both enhanced their speed with the Force to their limit. A furious exchange followed, strikes too fast to see exchanged... with murderous intent on both sides, dueling Masters knowing a mistake would doom them. A mistimed parry by Beldorion seemed to prove such a mistake, and he attacked his neck, aiming to decapitate the Hutt. He realized it was too easy when his saber smashed into Beldorion's tail mace. "Useless, stupid fossil. Useless, useless, USELESS!" He struck with increasing fury, each blow accompanied by an assertion. "They're dead, Yoda! And it was you who killed them!" As blow after blow on him, Yoda felt shaken, uncentered. A variation of Force shout on his voice? No, feel it I would. Regular guilt it is. He banished his mental gloom to the backburner, just in time to dodge a tail swipe by jumping over it. "The Sith would have failed, but you were complacent, you gave the Order up to them."
Eventually, Beldorion's reach and strength overwhelmed Yoda, and he was disarmed, then grabbed by the neck and carried into a wall, where Beldorion embedded him into the plaster with a strike. Never one to resist a good monologue, he continued his harangue. "You lead the order for centuries, but you were as shortsighted as any human. They can be forgiven, but you?" He spat on Yoda's face, then left him there, buried on the wall. "And only you will know I did it
Beldorion shook his head, dismissive, then turned to walk into the far wall, where he gestured. The wall seemed to shimmer before it was replaced by a non descript room, that looked to be part of a different building. "Both Orders are dead, as are most Jedi, as are all Banites. Whoever survives will have to rebuild from nothing, but will become stronger, grow into a new direction, a hundred different directions. Afterwards, they will meet as strangers, when and if they rediscover space travel. Perhaps my disciples will meet them as well." He continued moving to his exit, but paused when he heard Yoda speak weakly. "...wait. Planets will starve, fall to savagery. The death of trillions, quadrillions, would come. Do not take this path, I beg."
"It is taken already, Grandmaster. The Forge worked tirelessly for me, and without Sidious and his Separatists even noticing. The hyperlanes are closed, and the last planet buster is here. Under the Temple." He began crawling again and crossed into the new room, before turning to look at Yoda. "Coruscant has been a symbol for many long years, a crutch even. Now the Galaxy will learn to live without it. Change was needed, and change has come, whether you like it or not. Now you have one hour to search the Temple, and save it and Coruscant. My last kindness." He closed his eyes and gestured again. The room he was in and all its contents became hazy, the image of the Chancellor's wall replacing them. "Just so you know, clone troopers were instructed to target local governments everywhere, to destroy them as extensively as possible, but you'll find out the details later." The space fold closed, and Yoda found himself alone, the guards having fled in the confusion.
Dreaming I must be, some nightmare in the Force. He thought, dazed. Sidious dead? At his hands? Never seen in a hundred years and he returns for this, dramatic as always he was. He began walking out, pained, the situation becoming clearer with every step. Horrible it is, but true it seems. Trapped in Coruscant I would be even if the bomb I neutralize. He grimly ignited his lightsaber as he heard the rhytmic footsteps of approaching clone troopers. First things first, to try and to the Temple make it, I must. Even the Jedi Grandmaster could be brought down by the elite soldiers, after all. And then however many years the Force will grant me, to leave and contact others. He breathed in, winced as his ribs protested, then prepared to keep fighting.
It really came as a surprise when the Temple, and the planet, blew up 20 minutes later, just as Yoda entered.
Author's note:
Not all Dark siders are Sith, and the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Words to die by, Palps.