It is hard to describe exactly what is going through a human being’s mind during combat. There are many possible reasons for why this is. Mostly probably because the ones stupid and curious enough to ask that question aren’t the ones fighting and the ones doing the fighting are too busy trying to forget the fighting to answer. That was what Zarko liked to believe, anyway.

He also liked to believe that during combat, a human being’s rational mind temporarily shut down and let its less advanced, more instinctual side take over. Mostly because the rational mind was the part of a human being that would likely freak out and get the human being in question killed during a fight, and the less advanced, more instinctual side was the part of a human being that was damn good at fighting.

So it can easily be forgiven that Zarko did not register the question Silus asked as he asked it, right after he asked it, while he was lunging, and as he was preparing to strike. He was too busy keeping his rational mind from getting him killed.

Zarko’s body jerked backward into a sideways posture, his right hand stretching back even farther as if winding up. Force energy built up within his hand, built up quickly. He didn’t have much time. Swinging his hand back around, he jerked it to a stop in front of him, arm outstretched, palm facing the advancing Jedi. Tendrils of dark Force burst from his hand.

Such attacks were mostly used offensively, in order to inflict pain and damage upon the enemy’s body itself, but Zarko was most definitely rushed for time. The force of the energy attack was enough to keep Silus’s lightsaber at bay, preventing him from cutting down through Zarko’s arm and into his head. He struggled to channel the form of Force magick, but the build up had been too rushed, the strain was too great, and slowly but surely Silus’s lightsaber began to gain grown. He had to act.

Zarko dove out of the way, holding the energy for as long as he could before he had to let go. It was close; much too close. Especially for the one who was supposed to be in control of the battle. He hadn’t expected a Jedi to make such an offensive move. Somewhere Zarko remembered hearing it was in their Code not to strike first. But, he realized, he should’ve expected such things from preachers of false ideals.

In the end, he made it. The saber singed the heel of his shoes, but he made it. Leveling out into a roll, Zarko leapt to his feet, lightsaber in hand, swirling around to parry the Jedi’s next attack. Their lightsabers clashed…and held.

Zarko finally had time to think.

Finally had time to come to terms with what Silus had said.

“How long have you been hearing voices?”

How long have you been hearing voices.

How long…

Hearing voices.

How long have I been hearing voices? Zarko asked himself. He still had not fully realized what that meant, coming from the mouth of a man he had only just met, How long?

He didn’t know. He honestly didn’t know.

And then it hit him.

HE KNOWS! the thought itself was so loud it gave Zarko a headache as he thought it, HE KNOWS! How?!

[FONT=Garamond]Never mind how! Kill him! Kill! KILL![/FONT]

“NO!” Zarko screamed out loud, unable to distinguish the difference between the outside world and the inside of his mind anymore.

With a heave not proportional to his physical capabilities, Zarko broke the saber clash and stumbled backward, falling to his knees. His lightsaber lay forgotten, deactivated on the ground somewhere. He crawled. For the first time in his life since he had not yet learned how to walk, Zarko crawled. And he was a child. Once more, he was a child. Innocent. He was innocent.

And the situation he was in all-too-suddenly came back to him, and the peril he faced became clearer than it had ever been before. Behind him was a man he had mistaken for a Jedi. The anger. The red lightsaber. The…offensiveness. He had made a mistake. He had erred.

He had to fix it.

He had to kill Silus.

Slowly, but surely, he climbed back to his feet. There was a sudden boom in the background, and he winced until he realized it was thunder. Lightening followed. It began to rain. The clear day; the care free day; the day during which he had spoken so carelessly to Silus about philosophers and excitement five minutes ago was gone. It was night. It was night in Zarko’s world. The real time be damned, it didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t know or care what time of day it was. It was night in his mind.

Before Silus could react, the forgotten lightsaber was recalled to him. This was no longer a fight. This was combat.

Zarko lunged.

Silus's lightsaber hovered slowly through the air, traveling through the air like it was held down by the weight of the world. This was not because of any special occasion that required such a metaphor; instants did not become forever, time didn't slow down. No, this was because the bastard had thrown up some bit of the Force to try to defend himself.

Teeth gritted with the effort, Silus forced his lightsaber through. The red blade burned hotly through the air, slow one instant and speeding by Zarko the next like the slow snowball beginnings of an avalanche. The dark jedi rolled, came back up... their sabers clashed, the once peaceful calm of the forest becoming the hissing storm common to lightsaber duels.

Silus stared into the Dark Jedi's face. So he could fight with a lightsaber. That was good, in a way. At least he hadn't attacked an unarmed opponent. Of course the ability to fry anything with the Force couldn't necessarily be considered unarmed, but most Force users - even the Masters - needed a bit of concentration for the more complex abilities. Silus wasn't going to give the Dark Jedi time enough for that.

The two remained silent, the lightsabers crackling between them. Silus watched Zarko, not for any sign of a counterattack but for something else. And then he began to see the signs.

The unease. The man's eyes, his forehead. Every little twitch was a sign that a slight push in the right place could chance the course of any battle. "How long have you been hearing voices" Silus had said. And now he smiled as he watched the comment cement itself into Zarko's mind, pushing the other occupents and knocking over the furniture.

Zarko recoiled, his lightsaber breaking away from Silus and crashing to the ground. Silus followed calmly behind the Dark Jedi, his own saber held to the side of him. Sometimes, it was better to surprise your opponent. If he was lucky, he could win this fight without actually having to kill anyone.

And then it began to rain.




Their lightsabers contacted again. So much for a peaceful end.

The two had been fighting for... minutes? Hours? Time didn't exist; every slash, every lunge was a lifetime. As soon as you began thinking, as soon as your mind went through the "how" and "why" was when your opponent brought his weapon past your defences and into the soft, squishy centre that wasn't meant to be seen on the outside.

Silus had to remain calm. No thinking, no emotions. Just calmly let his insticts take over. He was happy to; his insticts happened to be very good at what they do.

The Jedi's slash was parried and Silus ducked under the counterstroke. He could imagine the humm of the lightsaber as it burned hotly over him. He came up quickly with another attack of his own and the lightsabers clashed again.

Perhaps something was required, this time.

"I'm sorry about attacking you," Silus said. The sabers broke off and became a blur, coming into contact several times. Both combatants suffered from cuts and burns where their defence had not quite been fast enough. The sabers locked again.

"I have this problem with being threatened, you see," lunge, parry, slash. "I guess I broke a few tenets, there. People have this vision of what a Jedi is supposed to be, so I probably should have acted differently, eh?" Slice, roll, counterattack. "But then again tenets don't heal large holes in your chest."

Upwards slash, strike at the head. Feint to the left and lunge at the chest.

"So I am sorry," Silus said as their lightsabers contacted once more. "I really am. And now, being a Jedi, I'm going to warn you. Turn away from the dark side, blah blah. If you persist, I might have to kill you," Silus parried, "But being the great Jedi that I am, I'm going to do so politely."

There were a million things flashing through Zarko’s mind as Silus spoke; a million responses, a million retorts, a million threats. Some part of him, a part of him that was growing stronger by the second, recognized the latter to be planted there by the sort of…tumor…the cancer that had bided its time in the darkness of his mind until today.

Their lightsabers clashed, and yet Zarko could tell that neither of them was concentrating all that hard on the fight at hand. This was the beginning stages of the fight, he realized. Silus was still feeling him out, testing his emotional responses for weakness. He was baiting him. Or at least that’s what Zarko’s, admittedly, extremely paranoid brain led him to believe.

His eventual response surprised them both. Or at least, it surprised Zarko; quite considerably.

He laughed.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you it was impolite to speak during a lightsaber duel?” Zarko asked, a smile spreading across his face, “No? Neither did mine, I suppose.”

Slash, slash, parry, jab, parry, counter, slash.

“And don’t worry about it,” Zarko’s face seemed warm, calming, cheerful. But his eyes…there was most definitely something wrong with the eyes. Not wrong…per say…but something…not right, “I assume its just left over from the ol’ Sith days.”

Slash, slash, counter, slash, jab.

“What, you’re the only one who can read people?” Zarko asked him, giving another laugh, “I imagine they were entertaining for you. You know; the looting and pillaging, slaughtering innocents. Yo ho me buckos, the loot is fine this eve! I imagine you must have thought yourself very dashing.”

The duel began to heat up, and Zarko found himself paying more attention to keeping his foe’s lightsaber at bay than studying the expression on his face. Whether Zarko had struck a nerve or Silus just wanted to shut him up, he didn’t care. The conversation seemed to affect Silus on some level, whether it be deeply emotional or just an annoyance.

“What, just because we’ve both heard the same voice all of the sudden means you know me? You understand me?” Zarko asked, chortling, “I may be a lot of things, Mr. Silus, but I’m not an executioner. I’m not a Sith. I’m not that weak.”

As the duel carried on, Zarko felt the beginnings of panic creeping up on him. This was most definitely not how he had intended things to happen. The anomaly that had presented himself in the form of this Sith turned Jedi was one…equation, that he could not quite solve. He couldn’t exploit him. He couldn’t manipulate him. And Zarko was damn well sure that Silus would not give him enough time to fire off a catastrophic enough spell to end the fight quickly.

It was supposed to be simple. Lure the Jedi into the forest. Play with him for a little while. Exploit his emotions and destroy whatever flawed sort of philosophy he had on life, the universe, and everything, and eventually kill the man, or woman, off using a variety of different techniques that until then would have been not properly…‘field tested’, so to speak.

There was also the issue of the Jedi Order in the nearby city, and no one around to serve as Zarko’s hostage in case the Jedi got the brilliant idea of calling for help. The Dark Jedi supposed he could attempt to intercept any Force communications and snatch them right out of the sky, a tricky little spell he had learned in one of his more valuable books. Unfortunately, it required him to concentrate rather intensely on the Force around him and even then, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to pull it off. It hadn’t exactly been ‘field tested’ either.

Using the Force to enhance a skid to the side, Zarko narrowly avoided a saber strike that would have cleaved him in half. Blast this Jedi! Couldn’t he give him a few moments to collect his thoughts? Apparently not. The saber duel was getting more intense by the second. Zarko had, for the time being, stopped his taunting, giving Silus the opportunity to completely focus on severing any limbs he might be able to from his Dark Jedi foe’s body.

“You need to stop taking things so seriously,” Zarko said aloud, as much to himself as to Silus, “You’re trying way too hard, and it shows.”

It was bullshit. Zarko was definitely bluffing on that one. Silus was, he had to admit, extremely good with the lightsaber, and the Dark Jedi realized he had literally been putting his life in very great danger by thinking about things other than avoiding the wrong end of the red lightsaber Silus held in his hands.

But it was not something he could help. He needed a way out. His experiment had gone horribly wrong, and Zarko saw no way of being able to salvage it. Salvage it, what was he thinking? The thought of getting away with his life was looking less and less promising by the moment. He had no real way of gaining much distance from Silus, and without distance his immense arsenal of Force spells was completely useless. He himself was pretty good with the saber, but he hadn’t devoted his life to it, the way he had with his vocabulary of dark abilities.

[FONT=Garamond]There is a way to save the experiment,[/FONT] the voice came once more, [FONT=Garamond]A way to not only escape with your life, but test one of your most powerful spells.[/FONT]

I thought I told you to go the hell away, Zarko snapped back.

[FONT=Garamond]You know I can’t do that,[/FONT] the voice replied, [FONT=Garamond]Just as you know, deep down, that I hold what could be the only way out.[/FONT]

I hate you, I just want you to know that, Zarko hissed, What’s this idea of yours?

As the voice that didn’t exist explained its master plan, a devilish little smirk began to grow out of the corner of Zarko’s lips.

“What, you’re the only one who can read people?” Zarko asked him, giving another laugh, “I imagine they were entertaining for you. You know; the looting and pillaging, slaughtering innocents. Yo ho me buckos, the loot is fine this eve! I imagine you must have thought yourself very dashing.”

Silus's lightsaber spun up to meet Zarko's, glowing blades clashing while the two exchanged blows.

Was the Dark Jedi trying to anger him? By bringing up his past? There were things all the alcohol in the galaxy wouldn't let him forget. In spite of, or because of, Silus's own emotional defences, he felt the long wave of regret and shame he associated with the Sith Order. So many deeds... all of them he would take back, if he could.

The Dark Jedi wanted him angry? Wanted it enough that he would dig more into Silus's own head to do so? Fine. Then Silus would get angry.

The Jedi Knight let the emotion rise up inside him, fed it his regret, his shame, and as it was perched to take over, Silus took it and made it a weapon. All his anger, all his emotion, Silus took and sent it back at the Dark Jedi in front of him. Their lightsabers became a blur as Silus forced the attack, beating Zarko back.

This wasn't supposed to happen, dammit! He was supposed to be drunk and staring at some gutter, not fighting some weak-minded fool that wanted to test his own abilities! Dark fucking Jedi indeed!

Their lightsabers clashed one final time and with sheer force of will more than anything, Silus knocked the lightsaber from the Dark Jedi's hands. Silus brought the blade back, about to strike Zarko down without a moment's thought.

This proved to be a mistake.

Silus felt it more than anything, and knew it was too late. Perhaps he hadn't fought hard enough and had allowed Zarko enough time to prepare. Or wasn't paying enough attention. There were a thousand reasons.

The only thing Silus was damn certain of, he was having a bad day.

Oh, shi-

And then the world as the Jedi knew it exploded.

Losing his lightsaber had been a ploy, although Zarko conceded that if he had allowed for the duel to continue on for much longer it likely would have happened anyway, only he would not have been so prepared for it. He had not anticipated his words would cut Silus so deeply, and so the ferocity with which the ‘Jedi’ attacked without hesitation was very unnerving.

It was close.

Unfortunately, the spell he had in mind was much too complex to be preformed in the middle of a lightsaber duel, but Zarko had ways of giving himself more time. Ways that required far less amounts of concentration. As Silus came in, Zarko dropped to his knees as if in a plea for mercy, and his had smacked hard, palm down, against the ground, as if to steady his balance.

Channeling the built of Force energy through his arm and into his hand, he muttered a few key words, and the ground directly underneath Silus exploded. Not literally, of course. But a rather large chunk of it literally blew from its natural spot on the ground, sending the Jedi far up into the air and then crashing down, a victim of gravity, on the other side of the clearing.

Immediately, Zarko began chanting. He had stunned the man, possibly knocked him unconscious briefly, but he was no fool. Silus was very strong, both in his mind and body. It would not take him long to recover from his little trip up into the sky. Already Zarko sensed the Jedi beginning to stir. Shutting that and everything else, he focused completely on the spell at hand.

Apart from building up the necessary Force energy required to manipulate the ground in such a way, Zarko had also searched his mind for the proper incantations. Now, as he raced against time and Silus’s recovery, the words appeared in his mind as if the very book he had originally learned them in was hovering right before him.

Luckily, Silus proved to be very slow to recover from the attack. His recuperation likely would have been quicker if Zarko had come rushing in, lightsaber in hand, swinging away. But the Jedi likely sensed no immediate threat in the area. Zarko, standing there with his eyes closed and muttering words under his breath likely didn’t present much of an imminent danger to his senses.

He would have shaken his head if he could have afforded enough attention away from what he was doing. Very disappointing. Very disappointing indeed. Zarko had expected much better from Silus, although he realized that if it was him that had gone on that ride, he wouldn’t have been quick to get up, even if Silus had charged in.

There! The gateway in his mind had been opened, the spell was nearly complete. All he had to do was to pick someone; some unlucky soul. Who should it be? A serial killer? A scared and confused little child? He wasn’t sure what would occupy Silus for longer, or, more importantly, what would be most entertaining.

[FONT=Book Antiqua]That one…there,[/FONT] a voice inside him whispered. It was not the voice that he had heard so commonly before. It seemed familiar. Hadn’t he heard it…?

It didn’t matter. And he supposed the one the voice had pointed out in his mind was just as good as any other. Reaching in with his inner hand, he plucked the soul from the swirling vortex and with a few more incantations, abruptly shot him at Silus…mentally, of course. To the casual viewer, nothing had happened. But to Zarko, and Silus, if he had regained enough of his senses, there was a very beautiful and very terrifying explosion of blue aura.

Shrugging, Zarko moved to make his escape, but paused and reconsidered. Turning, and with a few quick words, he placed a two more quick spells on Silus. Just in case he didn’t notice at first what Zarko had done to him or completely ignored it. Either possibility wasn’t very likely, but Zarko decided he better make sure.

Both spells were very temporary pain spells. The first one he placed would give Silus the biggest headache he had ever experienced, drinker or not. The second one, and the one that Zarko believed would be far more effective, was placed in the…lower regions. It would feel as if someone had kicked him in the genitals and not taken their foot away.

Neither spell would last for very long, but they would be effective long enough for Zarko to make his getaway. Speaking of which…

The Dark Jedi, using the Force to increase his speed considerably, sped away from the clearing in which he had met and fought Silus, and did not look back. He hoped to make it to the spaceport before the rain let up. It would wash most of his footprints away. This was definitely the last day he would be spending on Naboo.

A shame, he thought to himself, It really was quite beautiful.

Meanwhile…

“Son of a bitch!” were the first words that spewed from his mouth, “What the hell was that?”

Looking around, his confusion deepened considerably.

“Naboo? What the frell am I doing here?” the man said aloud to himself. He looked up, “Is this one of those things you feel it necessary I see or something? I mean, come on, I can’t really do anything about…well, anything anymore, now can I?”

There was no response. He had not expected any. The man shrugged and looked more deeply at his surroundings. He was in a clearing, for some reason. Part of the ground had been torn up, but other than that, everything was normal. Oh, and there was a man on the ground. Hmm…that wasn’t a commonplace in the forests of Naboo. Or was it? He had been out of it for a while.

No no, things might have changed in his absence, but he highly doubted men laying clearings in the middle of nowhere had turned into a perfectly acceptable or highly stylish thing. Was he dead? When he thought about it, the man realized he didn’t really care much. There were so many people dying in so many places every second, the idea of death had kind of become a moot concept to him.

He looked down, checking to see if there was anything else he had missed, and that’s when things got very weird for him. The first thing was his body was blue. It was completely blue, and glowing. It was also translucent. It was kind of pretty, when he thought about it. The second thing was, he had a body.

The late Zark Ekan began to scream.

Silus pushed himself slowly from the ground, unceremoniously spitting blood out of his mouth.

"Shut... up," he breathed to the screaming man. The endless shrieking didn't help his head pains.

Damn Dark Jedi doesn't mind playing rough, Silus thought while reaching out through the Force. With a little effort, the pains in his groin soon disappeared. The ones in his head merely faded; his headache wasn't all some Force trick. Farking bastard.

With a grunt and more effort than he showed, the Jedi managed to pull himself to his feet. He wobbled like some children's toy, looking like he was ready to topple any moment but somehow managing to stay upright. Of course, not many toys mumbled a long string of curses while wiping blood from its mouth.

Zarko was gone. No doubt he had managed to escape while Silus was incapacitated; another great highlight of this already glorious day. And there was something else, too. Something on the edge of his vision....

So Silus had let himself to be dragged into the centre of the forest and
allow the Dark Jedi to get some Sith spell off on him? Silus felt he was lucky to even have his insides still, well, inside!

Someone is screaming, a voice managed to say in the back of his head. In all the chaos, he'd remained ignorant of that. Sometimes it was easy to ignore the obvious.

"Shut up," Silus said again and returned to his own thoughts.

He couldn't have gotten far, no matter how fast he was traveling. And he's going to need to get off this planet. Maybe if I...

Someone is screaming, the voice said again. Silus stopped. Slowly, he turned his head toward the ghostly figure standing in the clearing.

Oh, fark...

"Who the hell are you?" Silus asked. Whoever it was, it wasn't familiar. Silus was fairly certain he didn't know any blue whispy people. "And what are you doing here?"