The day was mild, festive. Kuat’s sun was high in the sky over the palace grounds, if any of the Sith or Imperial officials present felt the least bit drained by the blistering sunlight, none of them dared show it while in the Emperor’s company. Shadow sat on a dais along a back stone wall of the garden square. A small presentation from mystics of Dathomir was underway and he was growing bored with the ceaseless grandeur, he was craving something that mere performers could not give him. The stagnation of his blood seemed to glue him to his throne, how he longed to be out and about, enjoying “his” day in a manner of his choosing. He would kill whoever planned such a spectacle. The gates to the palace had been opened to a more general population than any other day of the year – for today marked the twentieth anniversary of Shadow’s reign.
A rancor had just entered the garden square when Shadow let out an exaggerated yawn. His attendants shifted uncomfortably on their heels. Sith officials from all Orders, walks of life, and disciplines were present. It was unlike the Emperor to display boredom, for the universe was full of intrigues. He stood to his feet, the music stopped, all heads bowed immediately. “When you have seen one rancor lit on fire, you have seen them all, I shall rejoin you at the feast tonight.” His personal guard and servants were beckoned by his chief of staff to follow the Emperor, but Shadow held a hand. “Your punishment for condoning this spectacle is to sit through it. I am a grown man, I need no handler today.”
Shadow exited the garden. He strode through the corridors of the palace, where officials, Force-sensitive or not, seemed to feel his presence in the back of their minds. Bowing, scraping, and offering their well-wishes, Shadow made his way to the interior of the palace, to the beautifully designed central chamber. Niches along the wall featured different samplings of food and drink from around the galaxy – his galaxy. He had been to more planets than any of his predecessors, and yet he felt a certain kinship to Kuat, his home.
His entry into the central corridor alone caused most of the heads to bow, and then immediately turn to their neighbors to speculate what had happened to the Emperor’s entourage. A cloaked figure rushed to Shadow, but no one sprung to action to defend the Sith ruler. They recognized the characteristics of the Grand Vizier. Supreme Prophet Praxeum, one of the Emperor’s most loyal attendants, spoke: “Emperor, it is unwise for you to wander alone. Thousands of people are in the palace today…”
“I survived my twenty years before taking the throne, I’ve survived another twenty sitting on it, and now I feel like stretching my legs,” Shadow offered. The music continued, the people began to return to their business. Praxeum led Shadow into the crowd, closely monitoring potential threats to the Emperor’s safety. “Tell me, Praxeum,” Shadow commanded imperiously, “do you still find such displays to your liking?
The Supreme Prophet’s eyes sparkled for a moment before cautiously answering, “Why?”
Shadow smiled, almost absently, he spoke softly, forcing his longtime ally to crane ever closer. “I would trade it all, bet it all on a friendly wager. Supreme Prophet, do you fancy being Emperor?” He did not give time for Praxeum to answer before he Force Pushed the Supreme Prophet into the crowd. Shouting now, Shadow threw a large golden decoration of a Krayt Dragon into the scattering crowd, which was held in midair by Praxeum. Letting out another ear-splitting scream that caused all the light fixtures to explode, throwing the massive room into extreme darkness, Shadow said “Then I’ll bet you can’t take it from me.”
[Reminder: Please hold conversations/discuss commentary in the Duel Invitation thread of Saga Discussion]
Supreme Prophet Praxeum
The crumbling debris falling from the dragon decoration Praxeum held above the crowd splintered on the cold marble floor. Praxeum considered hurtling the large statue at the large Force presence of the Emperor in the veil of darkness in the room, but Praxeum knew Shadow wielded far too great power in the Dark Side to allow Praxeum to sense him so easily. There was no telling where Shadow was. Rather, Praxeum slammed the Krayt into the floor, shattering the decoration completely and creating a tremor in the central corridor. Praxeum had used his power in the Force to brace himself for the inevitable rumbling of the room, giving him a moment to quickly move before the Emperor could recover.
Praxeum knew it wouldn’t be enough time to form any type of attack, but it allowed him a step ahead, which is what one had to remain to be when challenged by the Emperor. Praxeum also knew that the happenings in the central corridor would force out the Royal Guardsmen to Praxeum, another challenge for him. By the time he has established all of this issues, he could hear the distant voices of men calling to save the Emperor. He knew he had to separate himself and the Emperor from the crowd and the Emperor‘s protectors.
Inside, he began to build his power. The deepest corners of his body feel saturated by dark power, his every pore filled with it. Then, he outreached both his hands in the pitch black of the room and unleashed an awesome show of power from around him. He knew it would not affect the Emperor himself, he was too powerful for it to, but he waited to hear the affects on his loyal followers.
Suddenly, the hall became filled with a sense of foreboding. Then the sudden stillness was cut by a shrill scream in the air. Then it was accompanied by another, and then another, until the hall itself seemed to be filled with horror and fear. He could hear the crowd running from the Supreme Prophet, even heard what seemed to be screams of pain as people fell to the deranged crowd of Sith.
A hue of dark blue cut through the dark veil of the corridor as Praxeum ignited his lightsaber. Aside from his white Prophet robes, the rest of the room remained dark, and Praxeum had yet to hear a sound from the Emperor. Yet, he could feel the Force calling to him, and he quickly swung his light saber out into the wild darkness.
Emperor Shadow
Small in the Force, Shadow was leaping from fixture to fixture, avoiding the faintest possibility that his opponent would find him in the dark. Lightsabers firmly lodged in their holsters of his sleeves, the Emperor made graceful, effortless lunges onto statues of Sith from olden days. He would have to remember to commission a new Krayt Dragon. The central corridor, the size of a very large, very private landing platform, was alive only with the shrieks of his fallen guard, guests and the whooshing of Praxeum’s lightsaber. Shadow held his fist aloft, he crushed the throats of the countless guests. Sensing puzzlement from the Supreme Prophet, Shadow let his voice fill his opponents head: “I will not kill them. I am merely removing distractions. They will recover. A little sleep, a little bacta…”
Shadow dove. Praxeum had thrown his blade very near the previous location of Shadow’s right leg. “Lucky guess,” the Emperor mused. But it was not a guess. Praxeum had detected him somehow. Charging, Praxeum’s blue blade cast a sinister glow as he came closer. Taking a deep breath, Shadow calmly stepped out of the way of the Supreme Prophet’s advances. Whirling himself about, Shadow leapt upward, but Praxeum did not follow. A lucky guess, Shadow again decided.
Had it not been for the immediate stream of lightning that threatened to singe his robes, Shadow may have remained with his original hypothesis. However, something was not right. No Force-sensitive could pick up on the location of another when they were so small in the Force… Unless… The solution hit Shadow harder than the chunk of Krayt Dragon that he sent flying into Praxeum: a homing device. His most trusted Dark Lord had bugged him. He could not decide to somehow promote him or kill him.
Letting out another deep breath in the still darkness, Shadow surrounded himself in a cold air he blew from his mouth. The temperature around him plummeted. A small pop, and Praxeum’s blade stopped whirling for a fraction of a second as his transmitter went dead. “That’s right, Darth,” Shadow let his voice again slip into his rival’s head, “You had a one up on the Emperor. For a moment only.”
Shadow dove from his perch ten meters above the marble floor when Praxeum, rooted to the ground, spun around, wildly projecting lightning from his fingertips. Too late to muffle the sound of his fall, Praxeum seized his chance to attack. Drawing closer, within mere meters now, Praxeum spun his blade to maximum length in an attempt to force the Emperor to draw his own lightsaber. But Shadow refused, he conjured a cloud of moisture with his fingertips, felt the pulse of the Force surrounding him, and sent frozen shards at his opponent. The distraction was enough to ensure Shadow could pass without fear of detection, so Praxeum decapitated a statue of Darth Malak instead.
The Emperor smiled, a futile gesture in pitch black, but he smiled all the same. He rooted himself atop a hanging chandelier in the center of the sacred space. Sending lightning from his fingertips, the candles inside the chandelier lit, throwing the Emperor into pitch relief. “Come on!” he screamed.
Supreme Prophet Praxeum
With this new source of light, the moment Praxeum eyes locked onto his Emperor, a stream of lightning flew from his fingers. The Emperor, rather then block with his own lightsaber, moved an open palm to it, sending it flying across the room and to the doom of a statue of Lord Scourge. Rather then send another wave of lightning, Praxeum clipped his lightsaber back to his belt, and while doing so, began to move the floor. The marble pieces underneath the Emperor suddenly went soaring into the air, sending him quite high, but he was easily able to crumble the marble before he was crushed on the ceiling and float down.
Rathen then move to attack, Praxeum felt out through the Force, and grabbed two of the largest resplendent statues in the room, one of Emperor Palpatine and one of a Sando aqua monster that seemed to be swimming on the ceiling. He ripped them from where they stood and slammed them to the ground so that when the Emperor’s feet touched the ground, Praxeum slammed the two statues together, right where the Emperor should be.
Praxeum allowed himself a slight smile when he looked at the crushed statues. Not because of he saw the Emperor’s limp body fall from the rubble, but because he saw that were the Emperor stood, he had blow giant holes into the statutes, leaving him the middle of the crash but unharmed.
Then, Praxeum unclipped his light saber once again and ran at the Emperor, igniting it when he was only three strides away.
Emperor Shadow
Shadow’s ears were ringing. The wind tunnel he created to puncture the statues had taken a minor toll on his physical senses, but he had always been one to rely more heavily on the Force anyway. He saw Praxeum charging, even felt the anger pouring like sweat from his body, and so he stood his ground. Not drawing a blade, not conjuring some defense through the Force, Shadow stood, firmly fixed to the spot. As he drew closer, Praxeum lost his momentum, he eventually stopped a hair ’s breadth from the Emperor. The central chamber, now pitch black again, suddenly lit up with white hot pain. “You hesitated, little Prophet,” Shadow jeered. “You did not have the courage to kill me,” the pain in Praxeum’s head must have been growing, Shadow was making himself huge in the Force, causing excruciating pain in his opponent. His very presence was causing the marble floor and great stone walls to vibrate, he could only imagine what it was doing to a living being’s skull.
He had leapt to the side. Praxeum was blindly swinging his blade this way and that, Shadow did not even need the Force to avoid his attacks, he was stumbling like a bantha. “I know it hurts, I know,” and yet Shadow let himself become smaller in the Force, causing the pain to subside. Shadow felt Praxeum rushing aid to his head, his lightsaber held aloft. Shadow let himself close enough to jab him three times in the back of the skull. Praxeum doubled over, and Shadow laughed, utterly amused before hurling himself upward toward the domed ceiling. All around the Supreme Prophet, Shadow threw gigantic spikes that had once been light fixtures. Praxeum, now in a cage of sorts, easily sliced through the makeshift bars with his blade.
Gathering his wits about him, Shadow let himself sit, utterly certain his presence could no longer be detected in the Force. He let a great power well inside him before unleashing it in the general downward direction of the central chamber. Force Illusion, Shadow decided, was an appropriate next step. Shadow projected a thousand images in Praxeum’s mind with the addition of a well-lit chamber so the effect would be complete. Smashball players, his parents at his birth, the moment he ran from the Jedi Order, his apprentice’s betrayal, his own knighting. A gauntlet of emotions poured into the Force as Shadow changed his projections. Each one attacked Praxeum, each one a different kind of emotional charge. Shadow knew Praxeum’s inner drive, he exploited it for all it was worth. He turned Praxeum’s ambitions upside down as he projected terrible images of his Church going up in flames.
To his great surprise, Shadow felt the rocking of the chamber. Praxeum was gaining a foothold in the Force that Shadow had not sensed before, a kind of shatterpoint… He would have to remember this newest trick of the Force Praxeum had kept up his sleeve. Shadow’s control over the visions waned, and darkness returned to the chamber. Shadow let out a laugh to reveal his location, and on cue, he could sense Praxeum charging.
Supreme Prophet Praxeum
The air, filled with dust of crumbled statues, lodged into Praxeum’s throat as he jumped through the air. Shadow stood, no revealing and sign of worry or fear as the Dark Lord raced towards him. Praxeum’s feet gently touched the rim of the domed ceiling Shadow remained on. The pair remained still, using one another’s looks to spare rather then the Force.
The stillness of the corridor was broken when Praxeum outreached his hands about him, and then extended a vast source of Dark power from within. Suddenly, debris rained from right underneath the pair of fighters. A quick flash of light entered from underneath them and illuminated the opponent’s faces. Shadow forced himself a grin as he saw the domed ceiling slowly rise up from the roof it was attached to.
Then, once the dome was hanging above the building, Praxeum flicked his wrist and the dome quickly flipped, causing the Emperor to slide down to the center of the bowl while Praxeum stood at the rim.
