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When a Jedi master dies through violence, the bond they share with their padawan dissipates in a flash of white hot pain. But this master is not dead yet, even if his padawan can feel the ache rippling through his mind and sense the growing emptiness, life escaping a pierced vessel.
The ray shield hums, unperturbed, and behind it the Sith paces, flashing his teeth, deft fingers twirling his saberstaff in taut anticipation of the fight ahead.
Despair and hatred come flooding in, tantalising. Maul knows he shouldn't look at them, should never even touch such emotions. At the sight of Qui-Gon's prone form however, his training is all but forgotten. He drapes himself in them like a cloak, lets the anger stiffen his grip on his saber.
The Sith notices—of course he does. His rictus turns into a sultry smile, his tongue coming out to lick his lips like he can drink at the fountain of Maul's hatred and relishes the taste. He cocks his head, hair tumbling across his forehead, golden eyes sparkling.
'Oops,' the Sith says, his smile showing some teeth. 'Did it hurt?'
Maul's breath comes out chopped, each exhale burning his throat.
'Silly Jedi and their emotional bonds,' the Sith continues, his features warping into a theatrical mask of concern and pity. 'It makes them so vulnerable once death is in the cards. Such a shame.'
The ray shield collapses and Maul roars, surging forward, his blue blade coming down in a Force-assisted Makashi strike. The Sith deflects him, unphased by his switching forms.
Maul pushes on, keeping each blow short, violent. He renounces all the subtlety of Makashi, all the stony patience of Soresu. He leans into his instincts until he becomes his own blade, and his sole duty is to wipe the grin off the face of his enemy. Yet everywhere he strikes, a red blade meets his own. When Maul splits the staff in half, he dares to hope he's destroyed it, only to be nearly skewered when the blades don't collapse and the Sith throws one of the halves at his face.
The Sith pulls the saber back and Maul dives out of the way. The smell of burnt keratin reveals he wasn't fast enough and one of his horns must have paid the price for it.
Maul growls, enraged beyond reason.
'Yes, kitten!' the Sith exclaims, laughing. 'Go on! Yowl a bit. Show me some teeth!'
Maul shows him the best of his lightsaber abilities instead. He gives it his all, driven by the growing anguish of Qui-Gon's diminishing presence and the growing doubt that his best will be enough.
The Sith's black robes flow around him as he somersaults out of the way. His hand flashes white over them as he extends it to slap Maul with a burst of kinetic Force. Maul stumbles, taken by surprise, and the haunting golden eyes glint with malice as the Sith dives after him, ready to kill.
Maul sends a push of his own, but the Sith weathers it, only stopped in his tracks for an instant. The red blade slices into Maul's arm and he screams, his lightsaber falling from nerveless fingers. Another slap of the Force and he finds himself thrown to the ground and sent skidding to the edge of the pit at the centre of the room, his saber disappearing into it.
'Well, aren't you a disappointment?'
The Sith calls Qui-Gon's lightsaber to his hand and Maul is hit by a wave of nausea as the Force coalesces, like a pent up scream in the man's fingers. The saber shatters, its crystal ground to dust, its pieces scattering on the floor.
'Why—' Maul croaks. 'What do you want with us?'
The Sith bears down on him, his gait predatory. Maul has never seen a Human like him, not even among the masters of the temple. The man comes to a stop at his feet and squats down. He extends a finger as if demanding Maul's attention and cocks his head in Qui-Gon's direction.
'Shh—listen,' he orders, grinning.
'N-no...' Maul whimpers as the last of his master's life trickles out into the Force.
The bond in Maul's mind vanishes. He cries out, hands flying to his temples. For a second everything is pain—and then nothing—Maul is left shaking and empty; the rage, the fury and hate—all vanished.
He's alone in his mind and alone in this room with a mortal enemy in arm’s reach, looking down at him without compassion.
'Your master was weak,' the Sith says in a conversational tone. 'Did he become a librarian or something? Pushed out of the archives for this mission? Or is this truly what the Jedi Order has been reduced to?'
'What do you want?' Maul asks again, tears pricking his eyes.
He almost doesn't care. The mission is a failure. His beloved master is one with the Force and Maul soon to join him. He hopes Padmé will be able to protect the Tatooine boy, Anakin, but it all feels so far beyond his reach now. The worries of another life, one he wasn't meant to live.
'What does a Sith ever want with a Jedi?' the Human asks him, amused. 'I could say this isn't personal. It isn't, really, between you and me. I have orders to follow and my mission clashed with yours. Unfortunate, isn't it?'
'I don't believe in fate or fortune,' Maul tells him bitterly.
He isn't sure why he bothers talking to the Sith. Not like he's trying to delay his own fate.
The Sith nods in agreement, looking almost pleased. 'Nor I. It would be rather sad if we did, wouldn't it? You, fated to die here like a little nothing... What are you, boy? Seventeen? Eighteen? Have your adult carnassials even come out? Little Nightbrother saved from Dathomir's sisters only to die a slave to another Order.'
Maul lunges forward, hands gripping the man's collar. He jerks him close, showing him the teeth he's so curious about, not caring what the act could cost him.
'You know nothing, Sith! You have no idea what being in the Order is like, what—'
'But I do.'
That brings Maul short. The man is nose to nose with him, his golden eyes all encompassing, the cold metal of his lightsabers pressed against Maul's ribs in silent threat. His breath is hot on Maul's face as he explains.
'Once upon a time, in a star system far, far away, there was a little padawan learner called—oh, should I say?' The man's face splits into a feral smile, his eyes crinkling. 'Well, his name was Obi-Wan Kenobi, poor sap. He worked very hard to get a master. He wanted to be an upstanding Jedi, do good for the galaxy. He sacrificed many things for that goal.'
Maul lets go of the man's collar, trying to regain some personal space. The Sith stays close, leaning into him.
'What happened to you?' Maul asks, fearing the answer.
He can see what happened to little Obi-Wan Kenobi, if that's the same man squatting over him now. But he isn't sure what it would take, to corrupt any padawan into becoming such a creature...
'Oh, no.' The Sith waves a hand, lightsaber and all, as if to dispel the idea. 'No, little Obi-Wan died. He was left all alone without a lightsaber on a war torn planet, for the crime of wanting to help.'
Maul shakes his head. 'No, we wouldn't do that.'
'What does the kitten say, from atop his kitten years? "We don't do that here!" Ah. It must have been a dream, then.'
'I don't mean your experience wasn't real, just that no Jedi... No Jedi would abandon their padawan willingly, it's just— C-could your master have died, or—'
'Yes,' the Sith says, smiling softly now. 'He did.' He jerks his chin towards Qui-Gon. 'I just killed him.'
Maul looks at him in horror. 'No.'
It's not possible. He won't believe it. Not Qui-Gon Jinn, not the man who saved him and raised him, taught him everything he knows.
But the Sith only stands and gives him a small shrug. It's what makes it real, that shrug, that total lack of interest in forcing the point. Believe me or not, I don't care, he seems to say.
A crushing Force grip takes a hold of him and Maul finds himself lifted off the ground and dangled over the pit. The red blades snap to angry life, the poorly contained heat of the plasma burning his face from being held so close.
'If you went to your archives,' the Sith goes on, 'you would find that there too, Padawan Kenobi is listed as dead. Killed in action, actually, and it's true, from a certain point of view.'
'What happened to you?' Maul asks, pleading now, wanting things to make sense.
Again the shrug, dismissing him.
'I am Darth Heka, boy. Nothing happened to me. I happen to the world.'
The red blades plunge into him, slicing, tearing him apart. Maul has no voice to scream with, no last hope to be dashed, nothing but the image of Darth Heka's sneering face as his vision narrows, the sensation of falling, down and over, into the nothingness of the Force.