quote:

Deceived
The last word hung in the air, frozen in time, as Malgus drew on the Force and augmented his speed. The hilt of his lightsaber filled his hand and its red line split the air. He crosscut the guard before him, putting a black canyon in his chest, continued the swing through the guard on his left, and with his left hand used a blast of power to drive the third guard into the Temple wall hard enough to crush bones and kill him.

quote:

Deceived
Malgus felt the sudden surge of terror in the two soldiers up on the ledge to his left, felt them take aim in sweaty hands, start to squeeze triggers. He flung his lightsaber at them, guided it with the Force in a flickering red arc that cut both of them down, then recalled the blade to his hand. He deactivated it and hung it from his belt.

quote:

Deceived
Malgus drew on the Force and with a blast of power drove the Padawan across the hall and into one of the towering columns of stone, where she collapsed, blood leaking from her nose.

quote:

Deceived
Leaping high over the male’s cross-slash, Malgus landed behind the Togruta, who parried his lightsaber strike but could not defend herself against a Force blast that sent her skidding across the hall and into a pile of rubble.

quote:

Deceived
Another Jedi stepped in front of him, blue blade held high. Malgus barely saw him. He simply extended a hand, pushed through the Jedi’s insufficient defenses, seized his throat with the Force, and choked him to death. Tossing the body aside, he moved toward Zallow.

quote:

Deceived
Malgus, burning with hate, flung his lightsaber at Zallow. He guided its trajectory with the Force, and it spun a sizzling path through the air at Zallow’s neck. But Zallow, riding the momentum of his attack on the second Sith, leapt into the air and over the blade.

While Zallow was still in the air, Malgus unleashed a blast of energy that caught the Jedi unprepared and sent him crashing downward into a pile of rubble. He lay there, prone.

quote:

Deceived
When the crowd did not respond to his demand, he slammed a fist into his palm and let anger-fueled power explode outward from his body. Screams sounded as the blast shoved everything away from him in all directions.

Bodies flew backward, slammed into one another, into the walls, against and through windows. The transport he’d rode on lurched from the blast. The doors of the medical facility flew from their mounts and crashed to the ground.

quote:

Deceived
The ship descended to fifty meters. Below, the ruined Temple was dark, covered in the velvet of night. But he perceived the presence of Aryn Leneer as clearly as he would have under a noon sun.

He stepped to the doorway, drew on the Force, activated his lightsaber, and leapt out into the dark.

A ROAR, heavy with hate and rage, pulled Aryn’s eyes skyward. Malgus descended like a meteor. His cape flew out behind and over him, a comma of darkness, and he held his lightsaber in a two-handed grip. Power went before him in a wave of visible distortion. The shuttle out of which he had leapt flew off into the night sky.

Aryn fell fully into the Force, raised her defenses, took a fighting stance, and parried Malgus’s two-handed overhand slash. Still, he landed in a cocoon of power, hitting the ground in an explosion of might that shattered the stones around them and turned them into a hail of shrapnel.

quote:

Deceived
When she landed atop a large chunk of stone ten meters from the Sith, he made a cutting gesture with his free hand and two pieces of statuary rose from the rubble and rushed toward her from either side. She leapt into the air and they smashed into each other beneath her, spraying shards of rock.

quote:

Deceived
Malgus bounced up from the somersault and loosed a telekinetic blast that lifted Aryn from her feet and blew her across the hangar.

quote:

Deceived
He drew on the Force, gestured as if he were shooing away insects, and sent both of the troopers flying against the wall of the manse hard enough to crack bone. Both sagged to the ground, unmoving. The black eyes of their helmets stared at Malgus.

quote:

The Third Lesson
Malgus stood in a pocket under a mountain of rubble, legs bent, the power from his upraised hands preventing several tons of duracrete and steel from crushing him. Dust made his already troubled breathing more difficult. He coughed as the words of his father echoed in his mind.

He'd been sloppy, so lost in his need for revenge that he'd failed to properly evaluate the Jedi's power. He'd surrendered his reason to bloodlust. But no more. With an effort of will, he contained his anger, controlled it, made it a whetstone against which he sharpened his power. Using the Force, he blew the rubble up and away from him. It fell with a crash into the adjacent buildings. A Force-augmented leap carried him out and over the heap. The Jedi's eyes widened as Malgus hit the street. Malgus sneered and charged.

quote:

The Third Lesson
At the same time, he reached out with the Force for the hidden light-side user, brushed aside the resistance he felt, and pulled the Jedi out of hiding.

A human male in his twenties rose up out of ruins, dangling like a fish on the hook of Malgus's power. His legs kicked futilely; the green blade of his lightsaber cut at empty air; he gagged as Malgus's power squeezed shut his throat.

"Vorin!" shouted the Zabrak.

"So much for your ambush," Malgus said, and closed his fist, crushing Vorin's windpipe. He let the body fall to the charred earth.

quote:

Deceived
Malgus augmented his strength with the Force, took a two-handed grip on his blade, and unleashed an overhand slash designed to split the Jedi in half. The Jedi sidestepped the blow and crosscut with his blue blade at Malgus’s throat. Malgus got his blade up in time, parried, and slammed a kick into the Jedi’s mid-section. The blow folded the Jedi in half, sent him reeling backward five paces.

quote:

Deceived
Before he could locate the Jedi Master, three more Jedi swarmed him. He parried the chop of a human male, leapt over the low slash of an orange-skinned Togruta female, severed the hand of the third, a female human, disarming her, then grabbed her by the throat with his free hand and slammed her into the floor with his Force-enhanced strength.

quote:

Deceived
He ducked under a slash from the male, lunged forward, and took the Jedi by the throat. He lifted him from his feet and held him suspended in the air, gagging. The Jedi’s brown eyes showed no fear, but did show pain. Malgus roared, squeezed hard, then dropped the body and stood over it, blade at his side, breath coming hard.

quote:

Deceived
Malgus spun into a high, Force-augmented kick that hit Zallow in the chest and sent him flying backward ten meters.

quote:

Deceived
The force of the Sith’s blow made her arms quiver, but she gave no ground.

quote:

Deceived
Before Aryn could follow up, Malgus drove an open hand into the side of her face.

She was unready for the blow. The Force-augmented impact exploded a spark shower in her brain and sent her cartwheeling away from Malgus; she slammed into a rock and landed on her side ten meters away. Adrenaline pulled her to her feet, though she swayed unsteadily. She spat a mouthful of blood and held both lightsabers at the ready.

quote:

Deceived
Malgus’s strength drove her to her knees.

quote:

Deceived
He pushed her blade to the side with his own and kicked her in the face. The strength behind the blow blew through her defenses, caused her to see stars, loosed teeth, and sent her head over heels backward. She landed on her knees, stunned, seeing double.

quote:

Deceived
Malgus picked up his pace, turned the walk into a charge. His boots thumped off the wood floor of the hall. He did not bother with finesse. He vented his rage in a continuous roar as he unleashed a furious series of blows: an overhand slash that Adraas parried; a low stab that Adraas barely sidestepped; a side kick that connected to Adraas's side, broke ribs, and flung Adraas fully across the narrow axis of the hall. He crashed into a column and the impact split it as would lightning a tree.

quote:

Deceived
"You called her a mongrel," Malgus said. He removed his gauntlets, took Adraas by the throat, and began to squeeze. "To my face you called her that. Her."

Adraas blinked, his eyes watering. His mouth opened and closed but no sound emerged.

"You are the mongrel, Adraas." Malgus bent low, nose-to-nose. "Angral's mongrel and you and those like you have mongrelized the purity of the Empire with your pollution, trading strength for a wretched peace."

Adraas's trachea collapsed in Malgus's grip. There was no final cough or gag. Adraas died in silence.

Malgus rose and stood over Adraas's body. He pulled on his gloves, adjusted his armor, his cloak, and walked out of the manse.

quote:

The Third Lesson
Malgus loosed a furious series of overhand strikes that forced the Zabrak to retreat rapidly. Sidestepping a stab from the Jedi, Malgus rode his motion into a Force-augmented spinning side kick that hit the Jedi in the ribs and sent him cartwheeling into the wall of nearby building.

quote:

Deceived
Despite his wound, the Sith slapped aside Aryn’s Force-hold on the blade and snatched it out of the air, as quick as a sand viper.

quote:

Deceived
His Force-enhanced reflexes moved faster than their trigger fingers. Without slowing his pace, he pulled his lightsaber into his hand and activated it as the blasters discharged. The red line of his weapon spun so fast in his hand it expanded into a shield.

quote:

The Third Lesson
He closed the distance between them rapidly. The red line of Malgus's lightsaber moved so quickly it blurred into a red smear.

quote:

The Third Lesson
Malgus, nested deeply in the Force, perceived the dozens of bolts and their trajectory with perfect clarity. Without breaking stride he whipped his blade left, right, angled it ten degrees, and turned three bolts back on the soldiers who’d fired them, killing all three.

quote:

Deceived
Malgus, not to be outdone, picked a Jedi Knight at random, a human female ten meters away, held forth his left hand, and discharged veins of blue lightning from his fingertips. The jagged lines of energy cut a swath through the battle, harvesting two Padawans as they went, until they caught up to the Jedi Knight and lifted her off her feet.

She screamed as the lightning ripped into her, her flesh made temporarily translucent from the dark power coursing through her. Malgus savored her pain as she died.

quote:

Deceived
As Aryn prepared to leap at Malgus, he held forth a hand, almost casually, and lightning sizzled through the space between them. Aryn interposed her lightsabers, but the power in the lightning exceeded anything she had felt from Malgus before. It blasted through her defenses and both lightsabers flew from her hands. The lightning seized her, lifted her up, and threw her from the top of the shuttle.

As she flew toward the deck, she smelled burning flesh, heard screaming, realized that it was her flesh, her screams. She hit the ground hard and her head bounced off the ground. Sparks erupted in her brain, pain, and everything went dark.

quote:

Deceived
Malgus held forth his hand and the rage within him manifested in blue veins of lightning that discharged from his fingertips and slammed into Adraas. The power stopped Adraas's charge cold, blew his lightsaber from his hand, caught him up in a cage of burning lightning. He screamed, squirming in frustration and pain.

"End it, Malgus! End it!"

Malgus unclenched his fingers and released the lightning. Adraas fell to the ground, his flesh smoking, the skin of his once handsome face blistered and peeling.

quote:

The Third Lesson
At 10 meters, Malgus extended his free hand and loosed veins of blue Force lightning. They struck the charging Jedi: swept through his defenses, swirled around him, and began to burn flesh.

Shouting with pain, the Jedi leaned forward into the lightning - teeth bare, blue blades held before him - and staggered toward Malgus. Despite his burns, he came onward. One step, another, another, but he was failing, wilting in the heat of the lightning. Malgus channeled more power and the Jedi fell to his knees, screaming. The lightning spiraled around the Zabrak, blasting dark holes in his body. The lightsabers fell from his hands and he writhed in agony, screaming his pain into the sky.

Malgus ended his attack. The Jedi, ruined, fell to the ground and rolled over onto his back. His breathing sounded worse than Malgus's.

quote:

Deceived
Zallow and Malgus closed. They halted at one meter, studied each other for a moment.

A human male Jedi Knight separated from the swirl of battle and stabbed at Malgus. Malgus sidestepped the blue line of the blade, punched the man in the stomach, doubling him over, and raised his own blade for a killing blow.

Zallow bounded forward and intercepted the downstroke. Zallow and Malgus stared into each other’s faces and the rest of the battle fell away.

There was only Malgus and his rage, and Zallow and his calm.

Their blades sizzling in opposition, each used the Force to press against the strength of the other, but neither had an obvious advantage. Malgus shouted rage into Zallow’s face. Only a furrowed brow and the tight line of his mouth betrayed the tension behind Zallow’s otherwise tranquil expression.

Feeding off the anger from Eleena, Malgus shoved Zallow away and unleashed an onslaught of overhand slashes and crosscuts. Zallow backed off, parrying, unable to respond with blows of his own. Malgus tried to split Zallow’s head but Zallow blocked again and again.

Malgus spun into a high, Force-augmented kick that hit Zallow in the chest and sent him flying backward ten meters. Zallow flipped and landed upright in a crouch near two of Malgus’s Sith warriors.

They lunged for him and Zallow parried one blow, leapt over the second, and spun a rapid circle, cutting down both Sith.

Malgus, burning with hate, flung his lightsaber at Zallow. He guided its trajectory with the Force, and it spun a sizzling path through the air at Zallow’s neck. But Zallow, riding the momentum of his attack on the second Sith, leapt into the air and over the blade.

While Zallow was still in the air, Malgus unleashed a blast of energy that caught the Jedi unprepared and sent him crashing downward into a pile of rubble. He lay there, prone.

Malgus did not hesitate. He mounted the column of his anger, shouting with hate, and leapt twenty meters into the air toward Zallow. Mid-jump, he used the Force to recall his blade to his hand, took a reverse two-handed grip, and prepared to pin Zallow to the Temple floor.

But Zallow rolled out of the way at the last moment and Malgus’s blade sank to the hilt in the stone of the Temple’s floor. Zallow leapt up and over Malgus, landed in a crouch, reactivated his lightsaber, and pelted across the floor back at Malgus.

Eschewing speed and grace for power, Zallow loosed a flurry of rapid strikes, slashes, and lunges. Malgus parried one blow after another but could not find an opening to mount his own counterattack. Lunging forward, Zallow slashed crosswise, Malgus parried, and Zallow slammed the hilt of his saber into the side of Malgus’s jaw.

A tooth dislodged and his respirator was knocked askew. Malgus tasted blood, but he was too deep in the Force for the blow to do real damage. He staggered backward a step, as if the blow had stunned him.

Seeing an opening, Zallow stepped forward and crosscut for Malgus’s throat.

As Malgus knew he would do.

Malgus turned his blade vertical to parry the blow and spun out of the blade lock. Reversing his lightsaber during the spin, he rode it into a stab that pierced Zallow’s abdomen and came out the other side.

Zallow’s expression fell. He hung there, impaled by the red line. He held Malgus’s eyes, and Malgus saw the flames of the burning Temple reflected in Zallow’s green irises.

“It is all going to burn,” Malgus said.

Zallow’s brow furrowed, perhaps with pain, perhaps with despair. Either way, Malgus enjoyed it. He waited for the light to disappear from Zallow’s eyes before jerking his blade free and allowing the body to fall to the floor.

quote:

Deceived
Aryn fell fully into the Force, raised her defenses, took a fighting stance, and parried Malgus’s two-handed overhand slash. Still, he landed in a cocoon of power, hitting the ground in an explosion of might that shattered the stones around them and turned them into a hail of shrapnel. Unflinching, Aryn deflected them with the Force as she parried another slash from Malgus. The force of the Sith’s blow made her arms quiver, but she gave no ground.

Blades locked, sparking, their eyes met.

Malgus’s dark eyes burned with a rage that knifed through her. The anger he radiated was tangible to Aryn, made the air feel greasy, polluted. But she felt something else in it, something unexpected, an odd ambivalence.

“I know why you’ve come,” he said, his voice a hiss from behind his respirator.

She forced words between gritted teeth. “You killed Master Zallow.”

“And now I will kill you, too,” he said. “In the same place I killed him.” He leaned into his blade, pushed her back a step, and unleashed a Force-augmented kick at her ribs.

But she was the quicker, and a flip sent her over his head and fifty meters away, deeper into the mountain of ruins where her Master had died. She landed in a crouch atop one of the broken columns sticking out of the rubble.

“You will find that difficult,” she called, and answered his anger with a wave of her own. “I assure you of that.”

Malgus gestured with his left hand, and the column she stood on began to shake. She leapt off it to another nearby, then another, then another, leapfrogging her way across the ruins, back toward Malgus.

When she landed atop a large chunk of stone ten meters from the Sith, he made a cutting gesture with his free hand and two pieces of statuary rose from the rubble and rushed toward her from either side. She leapt into the air and they smashed into each other beneath her, spraying shards of rock. She landed atop the remains, lightsaber ready.

Malgus growled, leapt through the air from his perch toward hers. She slid to the side of his downward slash and his blade split the stone at their feet. She unleashed a crosscut that would have decapitated him had he not ducked under it.

She flipped up and over him onto another piece of rubble, fifteen meters away. Taking telekinetic hold of a large stone near Malgus, she flung it at him. He never moved, simply held his ground and split the incoming rock in two with his lightsaber. Red sparks and bits of stone rained down

Aryn could not find her calm. She was fighting angry, but did not care. Snarling, thinking of her Master, she bounded across the hill of rubble, leaping from one chunk of rock to another, closing the distance with Malgus. He answered her charge with one of his own, the two of them jumping across the gravestones of the Jedi Order until they closed to within striking distance.

Aryn stabbed low and Malgus slapped her blade out wide, reversed his motion, and unleashed a backhand swing at her abdomen. She leapt over it, pulling her legs in tight, and loosed a two-handed overhead strike as she came back down. Malgus parried crosswise with his blade and stepped into a Force-augmented side kick aimed at her ribs. She caught the kick with her free hand, closed her arm over his leg, spun, and flung Malgus twenty meters from her. He flipped in midair and landed atop the cracked face of the Odan-Urr statue that had once lined the processional approach into the Temple.

She took the hilt of Master Zallow’s lightsaber in her off hand, crouched, and bounded into a leap toward him. He watched her come and at the apex of the leap’s arc, he thrust his left hand at her, roaring, and veins of Force lightning squirmed toward her.

Ready for it, she activated Master Zallow’s lightsaber, used it to form an X with her own, and intercepted the lightning on the two blades.

His power met her will. The lightning twisted around the glowing blades. The force of it stopped her downward descent and held her aloft in the air for a moment, suspended on a column built of the dark side.

And then she overcame it. The lightning dissipated to nothingness and she, unharmed by it, fell straight down, landing on her feet atop a shifting pile of rubble and deactivating Master Zallow’s blade.

The moment she landed, Malgus was upon her, his blade slashing, stabbing, spinning. He tried to use his superior strength to force her off the stone, off balance, but she answered his strength with speed, sidestepping his blows, leaping over them, parrying, unleashing her own flurries. The hum of their weapons through the air, the sizzle of crossed blades, merged into a single song of speed and power.

Aryn and Malgus locked blades.

“I am more than your match, Sith,” she said over the sparks of their joined lightsabers.

“Your Master was not,” Malgus said, grunting, and shoved her with a telekinetic blast of such force that she flew backward and slammed into the rock and rubble. She used the Force to cushion the impact, but she still landed on her back and the impact blew the breath from her lungs.

Malgus leapt high into the air, shouting with rage, his blade held high for a killing stroke. She rolled aside as he came down and his blade sank to its hilt in the rubble of the Temple. She leapt to her feet and unleashed a backhand crosscut at his throat. He got his blade free and vertical to parry it, but at the same time she pointed the blade end of Master Zallow’s lightsaber at Malgus and activated it.

He must have sensed his danger at the last moment for he slid partially aside. Still, the green line of Master Zallow’s blade pierced his armor and side and elicited a snarl of pain and rage. Before Aryn could follow up, Malgus drove an open hand into the side of her face.

She was unready for the blow. The Force-augmented impact exploded a spark shower in her brain and sent her cartwheeling away from Malgus; she slammed into a rock and landed on her side ten meters away. Adrenaline pulled her to her feet, though she swayed unsteadily. She spat a mouthful of blood and held both lightsabers at the ready.

Malgus stood astride the ruins, his blade sizzling, eyeing the smoking hole in his armor, the furrow in his flesh.

Seeing an opportunity, she did not hesitate.

Using the Force to guide it, she hurled Master Zallow’s lightsaber at Malgus. The blade cut a glittering green arc through the air as it spun end over end toward Malgus’s head.

Despite his wound, the Sith slapped aside Aryn’s Force-hold on the blade and snatched it out of the air, as quick as a sand viper. He deactivated the blade, held the hilt in his hand, studied it. He looked up and over at Aryn, his eyes burning. She imagined him smiling under his respirator.

“This weapon did not avail him and it will not avail you.”

The sound of an engine pulled Aryn’s head around. She whirled, her blade ready, and saw the Armin speeder roaring out of the sky like a comet, Zeerid in the driver’s seat. T7 sat in the rear. He came in too hard and the thrusters could not completely stop the speeder from slamming into the ruins. Metal creaked. Dust flew up.

“Aryn!” Zeerid called. “Get in!”

Zeerid looked past her to Malgus, seemed to consider unloading a blaster shot, but thought better of it.

“Come on, Aryn!” Zeerid shouted, and T7 backed him up with an urgent whistle. “Please. You said you would help me.”

She hesitated.

Malgus looked at her, brandished Master Zallow’s hilt, a taunt to keep her there.

She made her decision.

She wanted to efface the smugness she’d heard in his tone, to see in his eyes what she had seen in Master Zallow’s. Killing him was not enough. She wanted to see him in pain. She just had to figure out how to do it.

She leapt high into the air and landed beside Zeerid in the speeder.

“Death is too easy, Sith,” she called to Malgus, the venom in her tone surprising even to her. “I am going to hurt you first.”

The words left a bad taste in her mouth. She felt Zeerid’s eyes on her and dared not look him in the face.

Malgus, too, seemed almost puzzled, to judge from his furrowed brow and the tilt of his head.

“Go,” she said.

Zeerid accelerated and started to turn the speeder.

Anger went forth from Malgus. He reactivated Master Zallow’s blade and hurled it after them. Zeerid tried to wheel out of the way but the blade curled and kept coming at them. T7 beeped in alarm.

Aryn watched the weapon spin, felt it, and before it reached the speeder, she reached out with the Force and snatched it from Malgus’s mental grasp. The weapon turned upward over the speeder and descended hilt-first into her hand as Zeerid rose into the night sky and sped away. She deactivated it.

She looked back one last time to see Malgus standing atop the ruined temple, his blade in hand, his cape fluttering in the wind. He looked like a victorious conqueror.

And she hated him.

quote:

Deceived
She did not wait for Malgus. She bounded across the hangar, her speed augmented by the Force, the lines of her blades leaving a blur of light in their wake. Malgus held his ground, blade ready.

She stabbed low with her primary blade, high with her secondary. Malgus leapt over both, flipped, landed behind her, and crosscut for her neck.

She ducked under it while spinning into a reverse leg sweep that caught his feet and tripped him. When he hit the ground, she rose, turned, raised both blades, and drove them down in a parallel overhand slash. Malgus somersaulted backward, and Aryn’s blades cut gashes in the floor of the hangar. Sparks flew.

Malgus bounced up from the somersault and loosed a telekinetic blast that lifted Aryn from her feet and blew her across the hangar. She slammed into one of the shuttle’s bulkheads, but used the Force to cushion the blow so that it did no harm. Bouncing off the cool metal, she charged Malgus. As she ran, she cast first her own lightsaber at Malgus, then Master Zallow’s, using the Force to guide both.

The attack caught Malgus unprepared, and Aryn’s blade bit into his armor. Sparks flew and Malgus winced, snarled with pain. He ducked under Master Zallow’s blade, and Aryn recalled both to her hands as she ran. The moment she had them, she cast them both at Malgus again.

But this time he was ready. Augmenting his speed with the Force, he flipped high into the air and out of the way of both. She anticipated his movement, however, bounded forward to cut him off and landed a flying kick in his chest. He used the Force to diminish the blow’s impact but it drove him back a step and she heard his breath hitch through the sound of his respirator.

He recovered, roared, raised his blade high to cut her in two, and brought it down. But she had already summoned her own blade back to her hand and interposed it in a parry.

Malgus’s strength drove her to her knees. She held out her other hand and pulled Master Zallow’s blade to her hand, stabbed for his stomach with it.

Malgus sidestepped the stab, though it skinned his armor and showered sparks. He pushed her blade to the side with his own and kicked her in the face. The strength behind the blow blew through her defenses, caused her to see stars, loosed teeth, and sent her head over heels backward. She landed on her knees, stunned, seeing double.

She rose, swayed on her feet, seeing four blades in her hands rather than two. Something was in her mouth and she spat it out—a tooth, the root forked and bloody.

“You are a child to hate,” Malgus said, his tone incongruously soft as he stalked toward her. “Your anger barely smolders. You are a fraction of what you could be.”

She needed time to recover her senses, some distance from Malgus. She backflipped high into the air and landed atop the Imperial shuttle. Her mind was beginning to clear.

“Your Master was also misguided. He thought to defeat me with calm, but failed. You thought to defeat me with anger, but carry too little, despite your loss.”

Aryn’s vision began to clear. She felt more herself.

“Be grateful for that, Jedi. Anger exacts its own price.”

Again she felt the odd sense of sympathy or pity adulterating the otherwise pure hate flowing from Malgus. His eyes went to Eleena, her body crumpled on the landing pad’s floor.

As Aryn prepared to leap at Malgus, he held forth a hand, almost casually, and lightning sizzled through the space between them. Aryn interposed her lightsabers, but the power in the lightning exceeded anything she had felt from Malgus before. It blasted through her defenses and both lightsabers flew from her hands. The lightning seized her, lifted her up, and threw her from the top of the shuttle.

As she flew toward the deck, she smelled burning flesh, heard screaming, realized that it was her flesh, her screams. She hit the ground hard and her head bounced off the ground. Sparks erupted in her brain, pain, and everything went dark.

quote:

The Third Lesson
He closed the distance between them rapidly. The red line of Malgus's lightsaber moved so quickly it blurred into a red smear. The Jedi parried again and again, the sizzle of blade on blade resounding through the ruins. Malgus's onslaught - a blizzard of slashes, cuts, and stabs - allowed the Jedi no room for a counterattack. The Jedi retreated before the offensive, desperately intercepting Malgus's blows.

Malgus could have ended the Jedi in any of several ways, but he needed the satisfaction of a lightsaber kill.

Malgus's lightsaber traced glittering red arcs through the air. He spun, slashed, stabbed, pushing the Jedi backwards. But always the Jedi parried. He seemed to be biding his time.

He was baiting him, Malgus realized. Feigning weakness.

Malgus relented in his attack, backed off a few steps, and reached out through the Force. Immediately he felt the faint, intentionally suppressed signature of another light-side user to his right. The Jedi's ally was hidden in the rubble, moving closer.

Malgus loosed a furious series of overhand strikes that forced the Zabrak to retreat rapidly. Sidestepping a stab from the Jedi, Malgus rode his motion into a Force-augmented spinning side kick that hit the Jedi in the ribs and sent him cartwheeling into the wall of nearby building. At the same time, he reached out with the Force for the hidden light-side user, brushed aside the resistance he felt, and pulled the Jedi out of hiding.

A human male in his twenties rose up out of ruins, dangling like a fish on the hook of Malgus's power. His legs kicked futilely; the green blade of his lightsaber cut at empty air; he gagged as Malgus's power squeezed shut his throat.

"Vorin!" shouted the Zabrak.

"So much for your ambush," Malgus said, and closed his fist, crushing Vorin's windpipe. He let the body fall to the charred earth. A flash of anger, quickly suppressed, shot from the Zabrak as he bounded over the rubble at Malgus. Malgus watched him come, his red blade held slack at his side.

At 10 meters, Malgus extended his free hand and loosed veins of blue Force lightning. They struck the charging Jedi: swept through his defenses, swirled around him, and began to burn flesh.

Shouting with pain, the Jedi leaned forward into the lightning - teeth bare, blue blades held before him - and staggered toward Malgus. Despite his burns, he came onward. One step, another, another, but he was failing, wilting in the heat of the lightning. Malgus channeled more power and the Jedi fell to his knees, screaming. The lightning spiraled around the Zabrak, blasting dark holes in his body. The lightsabers fell from his hands and he writhed in agony, screaming his pain into the sky.

Malgus ended his attack. The Jedi, ruined, fell to the ground and rolled over onto his back. His breathing sounded worse than Malgus's.

Malgus strode to his side and stood over him.

He found that he admired the Jedi's mettle.

He deactivated his lightsaber.

quote:

Deceived
Lord Adraas stood within the open doorway. He wore a black cloak over his elaborate armor.

"Malgus," Adraas said, his voice showing surprise, but his tone turning Malgus's name into an insult. "You were in the Unknown Regions."

"I am in the Unknown Regions."

Adraas understood the implication. "I knew you would come one day."

"Then you know I am here for you."

Adraas ignited his lightsaber, shed his cloak. "For me, yes." He chuckled. "I understand you, Malgus. Understand you quite well."

"You understand nothing," Malgus said, and stepped into the room.

Malgus felt the hate pouring off Adraas, the power, but it paled in comparison to the rage and hate roiling in Malgus. In his mind's eye, he saw Eleena's face as she died. It poured fuel on the flames of his rage.

Adraas, too, stepped into the room. "Do you think that your presence here is a surprise? That I have not long foreseen this?"

Malgus chuckled, the sound loud off the high ceiling. "You have foreseen it but you cannot stop it. You are a child, Adraas. And tonight you pay. Angral is not here to protect you. No one is."

Adraas scoffed. "I have hidden my true power from you, Malgus. It is you who will not leave here."

"Then show me your power," Malgus said, sneering.

Adraas snarled and held forth his left hand. Force lightning crackled from his fingertips, filled the space between them.

Malgus interposed his lightsaber, drew the lightning to it, and started walking toward Adraas. The power swirled around the red blade, sizzling, crackling, pushed against Malgus, but he strode through it. The skin of his hands blistered but Malgus endured the pain, paid it as the price of his cause.

As he walked, he spun his blade in an arc above his head, gathering the lightning, then flung it back at Adraas. It slammed into his chest, lifted him bodily from the ground, and threw him hard against the far well.

"Is that your power?" Malgus asked, still advancing, cloaked in rage. "That is what you wished to show me?"

Adraas climbed to his feet, his armor charred and smoking. A snarl split his face.

Malgus picked up his pace, turned the walk into a charge. His boots thumped off the wood floor of the hall. He did not bother with finesse. He vented his rage in a continuous roar as he unleashed a furious series of blows: an overhand slash that Adraas parried; a low stab that Adraas barely sidestepped; a side kick that connected to Adraas's side, broke ribs, and flung Adraas fully across the narrow axis of the hall. He crashed into a column and the impact split it as would lightning a tree.

Adraas growled as he climbed to his feet. Power gathered around him, a black storm of energy, and he leapt at Malgus, his blade held high.

Malgus sneered, gestured, seized Adraas in his power, and pulled him from the air at the apex of his leap.

Adraas hit the ground in a heap, his breath coming in wheezes. He climbed to all fours, then to his feet, favoring his side, his blade held limply before him.

"You hid nothing from me," Malgus said, and the power in his voice caused Adraas to wince. "You are a fool, Adraas. Your skill is in politics, in currying favor with your betters. Your understanding of the Force is nothing compared to mine."

Adraas snarled, started to charge toward Malgus, a last-ditch attempt to salvage his dignity if not his life.

Malgus held forth his hand and the rage within him manifested in blue veins of lightning that discharged from his fingertips and slammed into Adraas. The power stopped Adraas's charge cold, blew his lightsaber from his hand, caught him up in a cage of burning lightning. He screamed, squirming in frustration and pain.

"End it, Malgus! End it!"

Malgus unclenched his fingers and released the lightning. Adraas fell to the ground, his flesh smoking, the skin of his once handsome face blistered and peeling. Again he rose to all fours and looked up at Malgus.

"Angral will avenge me."

"Angral will suspect what has happened here," Malgus said, and strode toward him. "But he will never know, not for certain, not until it is too late."

"Too late for what?" Adraas asked.

Malgus did not answer.

"You are mad," Adraas said, and leapt to his feet and charged. He pulled his lightsaber to his fist and activated it. The attack took Malgus momentarily by surprise.

Adraas loosed a flurry of strikes, his blade a humming, red blur as he spun, stabbed, slashed, and cut. Malgus backed off a single step, another, then held his ground, his own blade an answer to all of Adraas's attacks. Adraas shouted as he attacked, the sound that of desperation, filled with the knowledge that he was no match for Malgus.

Finally Malgus answered with an attack of his own, forcing Adraas back with the power and speed of his blows. When he had Adraas backed up against the wall, he crosscut for his head. Adraas ducked under and Malgus cut a column in two. As the huge upper piece of the column crashed to the floor and the balcony lurched above them, Adraas fell to one knee and stabbed at Malgus's chest. Malgus spun out of the way and rode the spin into a chop that severed Adraas's arm at the elbow. Adraas screamed and clutched his arm at the bicep while his forearm fell to the floor along with the column.

Malgus had taught the lesson he'd come to teach.

He deactivated his lightsaber, held up his left hand, and made a pincer of his fingers.

Adraas tried to use his own power to defend himself but Malgus pushed through it and took telekinetic hold of Adraas's throat.

Adraas gagged, the capillaries in his wide eyes beginning to pop. Malgus's power lifted Adraas from the floor, his legs kicking, gasping.

Malgus stood directly before Adraas, his hate the vise closing on Adraas's trachea.

"You and Angral caused this, Adraas. And the Emperor. There can be no peace with the Jedi, no truce." He clenched his fist. "There can be no peace, at all. Not ever."

Adraas's only answer was continued gagging.

Seeing him there, hanging, near death, Malgus thought of Eleena, of Adraas's description of her. He released Adraas from the clutch of his Force choke.

Adraas hit the ground on his back, gasping. Malgus had a knee on his chest and both his hands on his throat before Adraas could recover. He would kill Adraas with his bare hands.

"Look me in the eyes," he said, and made Adraas look at him. "In the eyes!"

Adraas's eyes showed petechial hemorrhaging but Malgus knew he was coherent.

"You called her a mongrel," Malgus said. He removed his gauntlets, took Adraas by the throat, and began to squeeze. "To my face you called her that. Her."

Adraas blinked, his eyes watering. His mouth opened and closed but no sound emerged.

"You are the mongrel, Adraas." Malgus bent low, nose-to-nose. "Angral's mongrel and you and those like you have mongrelized the purity of the Empire with your pollution, trading strength for a wretched peace."

Adraas's trachea collapsed in Malgus's grip. There was no final cough or gag. Adraas died in silence.

Malgus rose and stood over Adraas's body. He pulled on his gloves, adjusted his armor, his cloak, and walked out of the manse.

quote:

Deceived
He resided in the calm eye of a storm of hate. Power churned around him, within him. He did not feel as if he were drawing on the Force, using it. He felt as if he were the Force, as if he had merged with it."

He had evolved. Nothing split his loyalties any longer. He served the Force and only the Force, and his understanding of it increased daily.

quote:

Book of Sith: Secrets of the Dark Side

Through the principles of anger, I will structure and maintain my Empire. The writings of Darth Malgus confirm that anger, combined with will, is the key to power. When anger intensifies to rage, it is unstoppable.

Malgus submitted utterly to the dark Side, and doing so made him an exemplary warrior. His battlefield feats have never been duplicated.

It must be understood that anger can be funnelled through the body and released near the heart at the "vital gate." The destruction that can be unleashed by this method is immense. Thousands of enemies can be annihilated in a single act of malice.

In time, the channeled anger of the dark side will prove just as destructive as the Death Star. there will no longer be a need for costly constructions. Already, I have perfected the Force maelstrom, which creates an invulnerable energy sphere to block incoming attacks while bombarding enemies with debris and electrifying them with bolts of lightning.

This technique can be increased into a Force Storm. The churning energy mass of a Force Storm can consume everything it touches, for at its eye is pure hate. Just as a black hole devours a star, this storm can swallow armies and fold space. It may take decades to master this art, but once I have perfected it, I will be invincible.

quote:

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Encyclopedia

One of the Sith Order's greatest warriors is Darth Malgus, known for inspiring armies with his bold fury and vengeful passion. Malgus stormed the Republic defences of Korriban at the start of the Great War, shattering the Republic army, and crushing the defiant Jedi to reclaim the Sith homeworld.

quote:

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Encyclopedia

For more than 3 decades Darth Malgus has played a crucial role in many major Imperial victories. He had repeatedly taken enemies by surprise and crushed even the strongest resistance with his unorthodox methods and powerful anger.

quote:

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Encyclopedia

Even before the Great War, Malgus was widely regarded as one of the greatest warriors in the Sith Empire.

quote:

The Journal of Master Gnost Dural

There in the hanger I first encountered the most dangerous embodiment of the dark side I have experienced - the man who would later be known as Darth Malgus.

Malgus and his master must've sensed our presence. They landed their interceptor in the hangar entrance, blocking our escape, and the two Sith rushed to confront us. I had engaged in hundreds of practice duels but nothing prepared me for the sheer ferocity of the Sith.

Malgus would have killed me then and there were it not for Master Kao.

quote:

The Journal of Master Gnost Dural

I entered the battlefield and was immediately disheartened to realize that the Sith Lord Darth Malgus was leading the forces. After our last confrontation on Korriban, I had dreaded the possibility of another confrontation with Malgus, and my life was nearly forfeit again on this occasion. It was only the determination and strength of Captain Malcom that prevented it from happening. Together though we managed to defeat Darth Malgus and left him for dead beneath a mountain of rubble.

In the aftermath of that fight I counted myself lucky to be alive - and I was stunned to find that not only had we survived, but that we had won the day.