The True Apprentice | Teen Ink

The True Apprentice

November 18, 2015
By Duanerstine BRONZE, Amery, Wisconsin
Duanerstine BRONZE, Amery, Wisconsin
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

There I was, sitting in the ship, my master sitting next to me, and a droid piloting the ship.  All was silent, except my mind, which was racing.  I knew what was to come, I was to fight my master’s current apprentice.  Considering I was lost for so many years, I knew nothing about this new apprentice, besides his name.  He had to know about me.  He was my master’s new apprentice.  There was no way that my master never mentioned me.  He, most likely, knew my fighting style and about all my training.  I was scared, but only for a split second.  I quickly caught myself and stopped instantly.  If my master sensed my fear, he would likely kill me on the spot.  No, I would not fail when I am so close to my destiny.

My name is Darth Maul, and I am a Zabrak from the planet Irrodonia.  Zabraks are a race that is mostly human, but has tattoo-like patterns on the body. They have no hair on their heads, but horns surrounding their scalp instead. At the age of three, I was taken from my home by a sith lord.  He trained me to be a sith assassin, but he told me I was his apprentice. He also taught me how to use the force.  The force is all around us, and it is what binds everything to this world, and it can be used to manipulate objects, but not anyone can use it.  My master’s name is Darth Sidious.  He is a human male that is just starting to get older.  He is the most powerful user with the dark side of the force.  At the age of eight, he sent me to an academy, telling the instructors I was going to be his body guard. They then trained me in the martial art form of Taras-Kasi, a form for non-force users to be able to combat force users.  Now, being a force user myself, this form was even more powerful for me, considering with force augmentation I could predict my opponents’ next move.  While I was there, Darth Sidious was still training me in secret, teaching me more about the force, lightsaber combat, and about the Jedi.  The Jedi work for the republic and are who I would be targeting.  I specialized in form six lightsaber combat, or Juyo, an aggressive form of lightsaber combat that focuses solely on offence and barely covers defense.  I used a double-bladed saber staff after I finished my training.  My master had me assassinate a few different targets, mainly political targets, to help him infiltrate and gain power in the republic senate.
There was one target, senator Amidala, who had two Jedi defending her, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi.  I managed to defeat Qui-Gon, but Obi-Wan managed to defeat me after I became reckless.  I lost my legs and my lightsaber by his blade, but my state of mind stayed intact as I rotted in a pit for many years.  There were a few tasks I accomplished while I rotted away.  First, I managed to rebuild my broken lightsaber, and then I managed to build myself a new set of legs.  Now throughout all of this, I wanted to prove to my master that I wasn’t a waste of his time.  I would be his apprentice yet again, and all I had to do was get out of this pit and find him.  As soon as I built my legs, I managed to escape the pit.  After I got out, I knew what I must do, I had to attract some attention to myself and then my master would come find me.  The first thing I did was hitchhike a ride on a supply shuttle to the planet of Mandalore to pick a fight with some of the most ruthless bounty hunters around, Death Watch.  I fought their leader, Pre Visla, who found the legendary dark saber, a long lost saber with the hilt of a katana and a black energy blade, and the only one of its kind.
“This battle is now over!” boomed the loudspeaker.  “The newcomer, Darth Maul, is the winner, and his prize is the dark saber!”  I used the force to grasp the dark saber from him and fling it to my hand, where I ignited the blade and examined it briefly before putting it at my belt. 
“I’ll be taking this,” I said before I turned away and started sprinting.  I could feel it in the force, my master was almost here.  Just as I left their camp, I saw a shuttle land in front of me and I knelt down next to the hatch, as I could sense his presence.  It whooshed open and my master, dressed in his black robes walked out.
“Maul, I see you’ve survived your injuries,” he said just loudly enough for me to hear.
“Yes master, I survived and am now able to be your apprentice yet again.”
“Maul, you know about the rule of two, correct?”
“Yes master,” I stated, confused, “there can only be two, a master and an apprentice,”
“I am not here to take you as my apprentice,” he said, calmly, while I strained to hear him, “I am here to exterminate you, as I already have an apprentice, Darth Tyrannous, Count Dooku.  I can’t have a rival, and you know this.”
“Master, wait!” I blurted out while still readying myself for his potential attack. “Take me to him. I will challenge him to prove myself.  With your training, I am better than he and will always win.”
A slight smirk appeared on Darth Sidious’s face.  “That’s what I wanted to hear Maul.  I needed to make sure your loyalties laid where they used to.”
Darth Sidious gestured for me to come and we walked into his shuttle.  He nodded to a droid, who sat at the controls, and the droid quickly started up the ship and took off.  We sat in silence as the droid flew us into space and then started hyperspace, or maximum speed, until we reached Dooku’s battle cruiser, docked, and walked briskly to the bridge.
The door slid open with a hiss, and Dooku, another human male who was starting to age, but not as much as Darth Sidious, was kneeling, as he sensed the presence of Darth Sidious.  He saw only me when he looked up.  I could sense his power, but I wasn’t afraid.  “Dooku,” I nearly screamed, “I challenge you, one sith to another, in one on one combat!”
“Well,” Dooku said, as he ignited the glowing red blade of his lightsaber, which had a bent handle.  He stood up quickly as to not bow to me, “this must be another of my master’s tests.  I accept.”
“He won’t be your master for long!” I yelled, as I ignited both red blades on my fixed double-bladed red saber.
I immediately charged in with what I knew best, my offense.  One side of my blade immediately was in a collision with his saber, then broke off, and I started a series of quick strikes that Dooku deflected with ease.
“Is this all you have? You call yourself a sith, but I’ve never seen you before, so you must just be a reject,” Dooku stated calmly.
I recognized this technique instantly, as occasionally I will use it myself, Dun Moch.  It’s a technique where one side tries to make the other side angry or distracted and become unfocused and start being reckless.  The application of it has one backfire, though, if the other party gets more powerful from being angry, then it will fail.  This technique makes me more powerful, as my skill in Juyo adds even more quick attacks to any barrage when I am angry.
Dooku laughed and said, “There is no way a reject can defeat me.”
I snarled loudly and started another barrage of attacks with both ends of my saber, all of which Dooku had no trouble deflecting.  On the final blow of my attack, he was able to launch a mighty counterattack.  He cut my fixed saber in half and sent me flying backwards with a mighty force push. Without saying a word, as he realized his Dun Moch was making me more powerful, he ran up to me and tried to strike me down where I laid.  Using my skill in Taras-Kasi, I managed to roll out of the way and kick him in the back of the knee.  He was forced to kneel down, but he still swung his blade at my midsection.  I managed to get right up next to him where he was unable to swing at me without cutting through himself.  Then I quickly turned over his wrist so his lightsaber fell out of his hand, the blade retracting.  As soon as he stood up I kicked him back over, ignited the dark saber I grabbed from my belt, and pointed it at him.  He quickly used force lightning, another force technique where lightning flies out of the users fingers.  It is a skill I never was able to learn, but I knew about it.  I was able to use the dark saber to block the lightning.  I knew I had to finish this quickly, so I used force grip to pick him up and throw him against a wall.  I quickly jumped to him and pointed the dark saber at his throat.
“I give up, please, you win,” Dooku breathed.
Darth Sidious, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, smirked and said, “Darth Maul is victorious.”
I retracted the dark saber, kneeled before Sidious, and said, “Of course, it was always destined to happen.”
Dooku started to run away to get to an escape pod, and I started to run after him, but Sidious put his arm in front of me and said, “Let him go.  He is no threat to us.”
“As you wish, my master,” I murmured while bowing my head.
“Now as your first mission…”
He continued on, starting something new already.  Just like I remembered, always something to do.  I listened to what he said, but in my mind I knew I was finally the true apprentice, and nothing would take that away from me, not some Jedi, and especially not another apprentice.


The author's comments:

My sophmore class in high school is in a writing unit.  We are supposed to write about things that we are passionate about, and as you can read, I am passionate about Star Wars and my favorite character, Darth Maul, so I wrote a fanfiction.


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