Darth Maul: Rising #2

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Darth Maul: Rising #2

Life at the Orsis Academy is a constant lesson in restraint. Every decision has to be made with the utmost tact, otherwise disaster would be inevitable.

It is a training school where beings from as young as five go to hone their combat skills, among other attributes. A wide variety of species, hailing from an equally variable number of cultures attend. Some hope to become the next great bounty hunter of their time, others merely pursuing a career in the security industry, working for a private contractor to look after the welfare of some corrupt politician with a dearly held seat on the Galactic Senate.

My reason for being there is of far greater gravity, however, for I am to shape the future. This makes me different, as does my command of the Force. I can achieve preternatural feats that other, inferior beings, could not even begin to imagine, and for this reason I am feared. Had my Master not come to a mutually beneficial arrangement with the head instructor - Trezza - my Force sensitivity would have prevented me from attending.

So I am here. Taking part in a sparring match with two other students. One, older. A tall, colossus of a Weequay with skin as thick as leather. What he lacks in finesse, he makes up for in sheer, primal drive. The other is younger than me - slimmer, too. He is the antithesis of his larger counterpart. A cagey fighter, this Human is, not afraid to bend certain moral boundaries and codes of honour that other fighters feel compelled to follow.

If I had it my way, I would have cut their throats out with such haste they would have been hard pressed to adequately register my blows. But alas, the powers of the Force are not welcome here, and I am to take part in their tedious contests, restraining my full potential. I often wonder why my connection to the Dark Side is squandered, but it is not my decision to make. Instead of bolstering my resolve through the energies of the Force, I must rely on my own natural prowess.

Fortunately I am not lacking in this criteria, either, which is what prevents me from losing my two front teeth from a stiff riposte sent my way by the Human, wielding a metal vibrostaff. I take hold of his weapon, yank him close, and prepare a blow that will render him unconscious. That is until I find myself jerking to the side in order to avoid connection with a savage sword swing unleashed by the Weequay.

Angling off, I send out a Teras Kasi side-kick to his bulging ribcage - which, at it's full power, would have folded most opponents in half. Instead, the Weequay is staggered, off balance. I lunge forward, directing a palm strike to his lower jaw, and as I connect I find myself swept over. A leg sweep, from the Human's staff. The momentum from my trip sends me barrelling through the leathery behemoth. Such clumsiness agitates me profusely. They have reduced me to this.

Returning to my ready stance, the Human taunts me.

"Come now, Maul. I always catch you with that sweep. I thought you were a fast learner."

I say nothing. Even contemplating a retort could be considered superfluous. In combat, the only exchange that matters is the one our bodies participate in. While he speaks, I strategize.

The Weequay returns to his feet, positioning himself alongside his partner. A formidable combination, but I can use it to my advantage. Their size is their weakness.

Returning again to the motions of combat, the Weequay, naturally, strides towards me, angling up for a downward slash designed to send even portions of body to every end of the academy. His more cunning partner takes a subtle approach, preparing to flank me while I am preoccupied with my primary threat.

So I break their rhythm. A sudden dash to my left interrupts the flow of the Weequay's first strike. While he repositions himself for another, I continue to gradually circle towards the Human. Forcing the engagement I want. Making them fight my fight. The Human backs away for a moment, still trying to occupy a more advantageous position. I bare my teeth and glare straight through him. He answers my challenge.

Twirling his staff for increased acceleration, he begins to press forward. At that moment, I turn and spit in the face of my other opponent. The Human is almost stunned by this unorthodox tactic. The Weequay has no time to be anything other than enraged, as he brings his massive blade around in a one-handed arc. Forgetful of his surroundings, he comes within centimetres of beheading the Human, who narrowly ducks his slash. This is the opening I created. Propelling myself into an explosive roll, I come up under the Weequay's blade, driving a double-palm strike up through my legs, directed towards the lower chin of the Human. His neck snaps back, his legs struggling to find purchase on the very ground beneath him. He is stunned, disarmed, out of the picture. For this moment.

With his staff in my hands, the playing field is levelled for the first time. My skill against the physical might of the remaining adversary.

It is no contest.

I jut forward, goading him to slash at me again. He obliges me. Slamming the metal vibrostaff vertically to the ground, I use the momentum to bring myself into the air, using both of my arms to swing along the staff. As I take to the air and meet my heels with his jaw, his sword uselessly clatters against my staff. Riding the momentum from my strike, I land over him, assuming the dominant position. I bring the fingers of my right hand together in a narrow grouping, ready to finish the contest with a single, devastating strike to the trachea. I bring my strike down, and then stop within an inch of his skin.

"Kill!"

This is the sound a combatant hears during a sparring match when they have effectively defeated their opponent. The Weequay is dead to rights. However, the Human is not, as I find out almost immediately after hearing Trezza's confirmation. Slamming a knee across my temple as I begin to stand up, the Human takes advantage of my short-lived victory and sends me tumbling across the floor. Before I can recover he is on me again, with great, opportunistic ferocity, raining down vicious punches and elbows that are only partially blocked by my forearm guard. I burst out with my legs, hurling him off me, giving me room to breath.

I stand, across from my opponent, and then a realization dawns on me. I'm bleeding. From my nose. From my mouth. From a gaping gash across the side of my head. Nobody has made me bleed during my time at Orsis. Nobody but him. And he knows it. He smiles an ugly smile at me, his large broken teeth chipping away at my rapidly deteriorating wall of self control.

"Pathetic," the Human said.

What?

Pathetic. Hopeless. Maybe you will not become Sith after all. Maybe-

Crack.

For less than a second I left the physical realm as I know it, too engulfed in a storm of pure anger and hatred to tell it apart from my own psyche. I find myself standing over the Human's rapidly twitching body, face ruined. Blood droplets fall from my knuckles down to the ground, joining the dried up blood already residing within the crevices of the ferrocrete flooring.

At no time are you permitted to augment yourself with the Force, Maul. Breeching the terms of this agreement will result in the most severe punishment.

Of this, I am promptly reminded, as a jagged bolt of electrical energy surges throughout my body, attacking every nerve on it's way.

Trezza.

The Falleen battle instructor, surely observing my contest from afar, had a device injected into my wrist upon arrival to the academy. A way of reminding me that I am just like everyone else here, or else. The students believe it to be a hereditary weakness, an involuntary spasm - one they take great pleasure in exploiting. I am paralysed.

The durasteel gates recede and two medical droids hover into the arena, checking for permanent damage. Shifting in and out of consciousness, I look up to the viewing platform. Trezza is there, standing alongside a tall Weequay; the father of my nemesis, a stout Rodian; the human's benefactor, and a short human in black hooded robes; the one who dictates my every move.

I have disappointed my Master. Not only that, I have installed doubt in my instructor, demonstrating a lack of restraint. Perhaps worst of all, I have left myself... uneasy. Not scared, but not entirely certain of what is to come. Not a position I enjoy being in.

I will take whatever punishment I am due without contention, whether it be a session in the climate-controlled torture room, - where my Master will expose me to extreme temperatures - starvation for an extensive period of time, or perhaps just a simple infliction of lightsaber burns across my body. Then, I will continue with my training. I will fail again, be punished again, and grow stronger at every stage. Such is the way of my training. Such is the way of my life.

"You are not entitled to experience pleasure, Maul," my Master would tell me.

"You are not here to enjoy yourself. You are here to become something.. extraordinary, and only through extraordinary ordeals may you achieve this. You may not be like other, inferior beings, but that does not permit you to work any less hard than they do. You must work harder, endure more, and fight with more ferocity than any who should hope to oppose you. For if you wish to become Sith, you must be able to set aside primal desires such as comfort and safety and step into a world of suffering and excruciating pain.

"When the day comes that you realize it is your fate to live in this world, then, and only then, will you be comfortable. Only then will you be safe. Only then will suffering and pain be replaced by something far more useful..."

For there is no pain, where strength lies.

@i_like_swords: Nice Read, even though I find Maul boring and uninteresting I did enjoy this.

@ostyo: If you enjoyed it despite disliking Maul I must be doing something right :P Thanks dude, glad you liked it.

Excellent.

I don't like Maul very much, at least not as much as many other Sith: Traya, Scourge, Malgus, Bane, Plagueis, Dooku or Caedus. Still, as much as Maul's character doesn't get me, you've done a great job in actually immersing into his person. What I always love the most about any story is natural and real characters that have complex thoughts and "3D" personality, and you actually managed to get that here despite the fact that Maul obviously doesn't have any deep personality if you ask me, at least not matching those more complex characters (with Kreia, my most beloved character ever, on top).

I don't like 1st-person narration much, as it actually usually simplifies things and sells everything to easily, but it works here. Mainly because it doesn't add more than needed, and it's a huge advantage. There is little to happen in both parts, as both are pretty short and they might not represent how you would do it in a longer text, but so far it's good. Everything occuring here has a good "rhythm", everything progresses in a linear speed, and it's good, as it keeps the story consistent and allows a viewer to get into the atmosphere faster. But there is perhaps one thing that annoys me - the sparring ends too quickly, and there's too much of Maul's final thoughts and memories at the end. The balance is simply disrupted here - it would be better as an ending to a longer sparring session, or if you simply added more "content" occuring after it. It could be gradually going down, with every other next event being simply described in shorter words, gradually simplified and tied down to that "summary" from Maul's thoughts. I mean, it obviously ties perfectly to the event there, but the story breaks into Maul's thoughts too fast. It disrupts the flow and could have been potentially handled better, developing into it more gradually. Or, if you would prefer it to stay that way - the action before should be faster, have more tension, and more dramatic ending before swiftly switching to Maul's breakdown. It would flow very well, because you could actually heavily feel the reason for this "switch" as a reader. Even if the reader immerses himself into the character, he still needs to feel those things by himself!

But in the end, there's not much more that I could add save for some grammar mistakes, but I'm not the one to point them, as I lack confidence in my English to start breaking them down.

You really got into Maul's character here and you can really feel his line of thinking and go deep into that. With larger story allowing you to present higher emotional impacts you would really do a great job here, but right now, there's too little content to say about it in a way other than "potential", which is obviously awesome. I could tell you could be a great roleplayer in playing "live" since you can really feel the character's thoughts. :P

Nice way of mixing the narration with reminders of the instructions, with "quotes" from Palpatine, with different memories. It adds a lot to the atmosphere, and you write in a way that allows you do it without losing the flow of the narration, it just suits it and adds more tension.

Overall, it could develop into a very awesome story :)

@jkbart: Firstly, thanks for the kind words.

But there is perhaps one thing that annoys me - the sparring ends too quickly, and there's too much of Maul's final thoughts and memories at the end. The balance is simply disrupted here - it would be better as an ending to a longer sparring session, or if you simply added more "content" occuring after it. It could be gradually going down, with every other next event being simply described in shorter words, gradually simplified and tied down to that "summary" from Maul's thoughts. I mean, it obviously ties perfectly to the event there, but the story breaks into Maul's thoughts too fast. It disrupts the flow and could have been potentially handled better, developing into it more gradually. Or, if you would prefer it to stay that way - the action before should be faster, have more tension, and more dramatic ending before swiftly switching to Maul's breakdown. It would flow very well, because you could actually heavily feel the reason for this "switch" as a reader. Even if the reader immerses himself into the character, he still needs to feel those things by himself!

My thought process at the time was that I didn't want this to end up being too long, likely why I cut some content I could have expounded on much more. I am kicking myself now that I didn't simply create a longer, more brutal fighting scene. I think putting more substance into the physical happenings of the world could have been more important to this issue than Maul's reactions and thoughts to them, and his relationship with Sidious, which really should be more of a background element. So, good criticism here. I think I'll make a revised version of this issue.

You really got into Maul's character here and you can really feel his line of thinking and go deep into that. With larger story allowing you to present higher emotional impacts you would really do a great job here, but right now, there's too little content to say about it in a way other than "potential", which is obviously awesome. I could tell you could be a great roleplayer in playing "live" since you can really feel the character's thoughts. :P

Hmm, yeah. I agree, I think for now I should put more into content, less into Maul's inner self. Then, when sh*t really starts hitting the fan, I'll bring more of Maul out, in a more powerful manner.

Overall, it could develop into a very awesome story :)

Thanks, bro. I really appreciate it. Your advice is going to help me quite a lot, I think. :D

@jkbart: The bolded text is my new addition, let me know what you think. :P

@i_like_swords: Now it has much, much more tension. It is very visible that the fight is hard, brutal, and intensive, and it breaks down fast - and therefore the transition of narration goes very well with the vibe. And, also, everything suits capabilities of different warriors seen in SW, and suits Maul too. 1st person narrative is actually very good and useful here, as the text flows perfectly, and yet, it adds a comprehensive second "layer" to the screen. Good job! :D

@jkbart: Thanks a lot man!

Nice characterization. A mixture of The Wrath of Darth Maul and Lockdown in a similar format as The Episode I Journal? Interesting.

@shootingnova:

Yeah, the setting of Wrath is my inspiration for this story, and you'll see how Lockdown ties in even more closely later on. And yeah, I really enjoyed first person Maul in Journal.

@i_like_swords: I'm wondering if I should write some stuff eventually.

Very good "too engulfed in a storm of pure anger and hatred"

Let me know when 3 is up please

@4donkeyjohnson: I really appreciate the bumping and ongoing interest buddy. Expect a tag when part 3 is up.

@i_like_swords: He better not be the only one getting a tag when Part 3 comes...

@thevivas: Oh of course not.

I'm tagging everyone apart from you. ^-^