Originally posted by Intrepid37
Yes, he was. Paratus was winning against Marek in the lightsaber duel portion of the fight,
Nope:
"Paratus lunged while the apprentice was momentarily distracted. The pike left a shallow cut down his left forearm before he could repulse the strange creature's attack. Part flesh and part machine, the renegade Jedi Master was proficient with the Force, and quick with it as well. Every blow the apprentice tried to make was instantly blocked by either end of the whirling pike. As fast as he lunged or retreated, the mechanical legs outpaced him. Paratus hopped around the dilapidated chamber like a deranged jumping spider."
Neither winning nor losing, though obviously Galen was at a disadvantage by getting hit and having to fight through thousands of droids and Paratus' droid golem first. Thats the entire lightsaber portion of the fight btw.
Originally posted by Intrepid37
and against Brood, Marek had to switch to a style unfimilar to her to get an advantage.
Nope:
"Her eyes blazed red as she rained blow after blow upon him. He staggered backward, weakened by more than just his battle with the bull rancor.
He was fighting himself-but not in some flashback-inspired hallucination, where the Jedi and the Sith warred in him for control of his future. This time the fight was real, and his opponent was as joyously rich in the dark side as he had ever been. She, too, had lost someone she cared deeply about; she, too, had been sent out into the hard galaxy to fend for herself. They should be helping each other, not fighting each other. But with Bail Organa watching, he couldn't even raise the possibility of a truce. He was even using Soresu moves against her raw, unpredictable lunges, just as the vision of himself had done in Jedi robes. And yet. . .
As he defended himself, he saw nothing but self-pity and fear in her eyes. Both were inferior to pure anger, although both could be potent gateways to the true mastery of the dark side that his Master had demonstrated to him. Maris was a newcomer, barely beginning her journey-as he, too, was journeying along a path toward full mastery. For the first time, he understood that the
I one didn't come in two shades only: dark and light, distinct and combative, never meeting in the middle to form gray. Those were ideals, and ideals existed solely for philosophers and theoreticians to argue over. In the real world, dark and light coexisted in varying proportions; nothing was ever static. Thus this former Jedi Padawan could turn to the dark side after a lifetime serving the light-and she could just as easily turn back to the light afterward, if she survived.
Light, dark, Shaak Ti had tried to tell him, they are just directions.
We're always moving, he thought, toward the dark or toward the light. It's impossible to stand still. Some, like Darth Vader and the Emperor, had been descending through the dark side for so long that the light must have become a faint and distant memory. Some hovered eternally in the gray, never entirely choosing a side. There were, in fact, no actual sides, just the direction in which one happened to be moving. It was all relative.
Coming to that understanding gave him a new kind of strength. When Sith betrayed one another, it wasn't because they were enemies. Their paths had simply diverged. So fighting Maris wasn't turning his back on the dark side. She was simply in his way, like so many other people before him.
Do not be fooled, Shaak Ti had also said, as so many have before you, that you walk on anything other than your own two feet.
Blocking Maris Brood's spinning strikes, he changed from the staid form of Soresu into the more aggressive Juyo favored by the dark side. Maris noticed the shift in his fighting style but, having only been trained in Jedi methods, failed to understand what it meant. She continued attacking with increasing desperation, even as he began to drive her back across the mounds of bones, past the body of her giant pet and away from Senator Organa. Her breathing became hard and her moves less focused. Fear began to dominate the wild look in her eyes. She was close to losing her concentration entirely.
Use the fear, he wanted to tell her. Use the fear to make you angry, because anger makes you strong. I killed your Master. Mm, tried to kill me and I am stronger for it. You could be, too, if you would only realize that simple truth!
But even in the depths of her darkness, the light had corrupted her too deeply. She was a lost cause.
Enough, he thought.
Raising his left hand, he used the Force to lift a mound of bones into the air. Rattling and tumbling, they swirled around tin two of them, picking up speed. Maris didn't know where to look. While she was distracted, he disarmed her with two swift, precise moves. Her blades skittered away through the bones and she fell back, rubbing her singed forearms. Defiance gleamed in her eyes, but too late. Much too late.
When she turned to run, he struck her in the back with Sith lightning and she fell sprawling to the bones."
He didn't need to do anything. He was weakened and confused and still kicked her ass.
Originally posted by Intrepid37
Against Kota, Marek was again losing, only winning because of Kota having a vision.
Nope:
"Suddenly Kota was moving, charging with astonishing speed behind a furious diversity of strokes. The apprentice retreated with lips pulled back over his teeth. This is more like it! Green and red energies clashed as he blocked blow after blow and still Kota kept coming, attempting to overwhelm him with sheer determination and speed. The apprentice went back four steps, then stopped. He drew his blade close around him, forming a tight defense in deliberate imitation of the Soresu style that Obi-Wan Kenobi had favored. Realizing he couldn't penetrate it, Kota backed off and tried a different style-slow, deliberate, with sudden and devastatingly quick strikes. These, too, the apprentice parried, and when the old man's guard looked to be slipping, he offered strikes of his own.
The duel raged all across the control center, which shook and rattled as the facility around it broke apart. The apprentice ignored everything else-Juno's voice, the wildly fluctuating gravity, the never-ending explosions, the rising temperature of the floor beneath him-in order to concentrate solely on this one vital battle. Kota wouldn't beat him, but could he beat Kota? He had to. He would rather go down with the ship than break off and admit failure. Darth Vader's secret apprentice knew which fate would await him if he did.
The general was wily and strong and possessed some moves the apprentice had never seen before. But he was older and willfully ignorant of the dark side of the Force. He attempted his charge attack two more times, obviously hoping to force a mistake or wear out his opponent, but it was he who started to show the effects of the duel, he who took hits. Soon his cloak was a smoking rag and one of his shoulder pads was glowing red-hot."
Looks to me like Marek was winning.
Originally posted by Intrepid37
And ''near perfect'' is hyperbolic
So what? The obvious meaning is that Marek is exceptionally skilled.
