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Novice Sidius Claw

The Chronicles of Sidius Claw


Chapter 1: Birth

I do not quite know how or when I first felt the power of the Dark Side within me. The first moment I can remember in my existence took place - when I was born, you might say - while I was fully grown and clothed. I wore clothes I don't remember owning, in a ship I don't remember seeing before, and with a headache whose origins I could not begin to guess at. It was dark in the ship, with that cold, metalic, and vague feel of spacecraft that only bounty hunters and smugglers can produce. Before I opened my eyes I could describe to you every detail of the room, and even the surrounding ship. That, I think, was the first moment I knew that whomever I was, I was different from the others.

I felt a man, about six feet four inches tall, and wiry in build, standing above me and looking upon me. I knew not why, but the knowledge that he was there brought upon me indescribable rage. At once, my eyes shot open and my body upwards, in a mortal - more appropriately, a feeble - attempt to engage the man. Here I found my hands bound above my head, for I was face-up on the floor with my hands locked to a pipe running horizontally along the floor. The man laughed, and the room went a darker shade.

The man stopped his laugh when this happened, and looked at me in a fearful manner. Seizing the opportunity, I again attempted to free myself. With the force granted me by my anger, I was able to rip the piping from the wall in a meter-long segment. Sliding my still-bound hands down to one end, I gripped it solidly and swung with full force at the man. The first blow glanced his shoulder, and sent him against the wall. Here I noticed a mirror, and discovered that the room had not grown darker, but instead my eyes had gone wholly black - the whites were completely gone.

Distracted, I lost focus on the man, and did not notice him again until he had cleared to the door of the room, and screamed for help. We were locked in. I turned to him, and flung the metal pipe through the air at an unnaturally high velocity. As the bar struck him and sent him dying to the floor, I ripped my hands apart, shattering the chains containing them. I covered the ground quickly between myself and the door, and was upon my next opponent as the door was opening. I sent a quick jab to his throat, crippling him instantaneously, and spun him around, reaching for the dagger blade I saw glinting through the bottom of his belt. Seizing the handle, I kicked the man forward into a barrage of blaster fire. The rain of lasers ceased when his companions saw who it was that they had maimed. With the feeling that their numbers were cut in half, I sent the dagger flying through the air in one direction and rushed quickly in the other.

My target fell to the ground silently, with only a single blaster flare sounding before I no longer felt him. The man I ran towards did not know what had happened until I was already behind him, an arm around his neck and another clasping his wrists above his head. I asked where I was, who I was, and what they wanted with me. The man answered in such a fearful voice that I did not wait for his response, but instead finished him. That insolent man could not even answer with an unshaking voice when his future was so certainly finished. Coward.

I took myself to the cockpit of the ship, and felt about the console. It was a customized vessel, named "Monte Carlo," as proclaimed by a plaque on the mount next to the door. As this provided no clues to any of the information I sought, I crushed the plaque with my fist, and then buried my fist into the pilot's chair with a scream of pain mixed with rage. In one fell swoop upon the plaque, I broke my right hand. I cupped it inside my left hand, and for the first time noted the odd peculiarity of cold and textured steel surrounding my right hand. I looked down upon myself, and saw that my left hand was bionic up to the middle of my forearm. The plating that might have passed for the skin of the artificial hand was torn away at places to reveal the bone and tendon-like insides of the appendage. I opened and closed several times, lost in thought.

I walked myself through the ship, surveying what was there. I judged the artifacts within to be mine, and after frisking the bodies of the men onboard, I took what I judged necessary and dumped them outside, onto the hard rock surface my ship was landed on. If the heat of the panels of my ship was any indication, I had been landed for about five days, and now was the latter-end of the fifth day. Five days is too long. I searched my ship for any external problems, and once I determined it was clear I sealed it off from the inside and brought the ship into orbit of the planet. The controls were so natural; it had to be my ship. Having detected no other craft in the vicinity, I set the 'Carlo on auto-orbit and went to the head. I was a bit scruffy.

I washed, and that night was afflicted with a nightmare to end all nightmares. I saw in vivid detail a lightsabre duel between two men. Both bore the dark, flowing robes of the Sith, and battled with the advanced, well crafted sabres only those most adept in the force have the ability to fashion. Each move one made the other countered, until it was obvious that the duel was going nowhere. During a pause in the fighting, one man, whose face was a shadow underneath his hood, sent force lightning pummeling, relentless, at the other, and weakened the man. The victim, falling to his knees, clutched his side in agony. Pausing the assault, the shadow man approached Sidius Claw and swung his blade vertically downward, attempting to split the man. The victim threw his left hand up in defense, and saw his arm severed at mid-forearm. A scream of agony followed, and the wounded man used the force to shove his assailant away, bringing up his lightsabre again and rushing wildly at the other. Screaming, the man did not even notice the lightning that again attacked him. The first bolts struck his right hand, forcing him to drop the lightsabre that was subsequently fried. The remaining onslaught cooked the man until he collapsed. His face was revealed. It was me.

I awoke, sweating bullets. A face lingered in my vision, laughing at me. It was a dark face, consumed with rage, anger, and aggression. An insane man. Only the word Malachai remained with me. I unintentionally flexed the fingers in my artificial hand. How did I get this hand?

The next six weeks, I spent in search of my history, and for direction in the future. This is my story.