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.
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