Dr Doom in Star Wars

 Middle Ring. A planet unknown to the star charts.

 752 DBY.

 14 years before the Mandalorian Purge.

 One month later.

 Victor von Doom.

 Local mercenaries... Monstrously stupid.

 It would seem that if you've accumulated enough resources to start your own rise to power, then just go for it. What could be so difficult about that?

 Okay, even I can accept that there are fools who, instead of rising to power, hoard their wealth in such a non-trivial way for a quiet life later.

 But no!

 They continue to engage in this completely futile activity simply because they love it! Some kind of stupid romanticism of mercenary service! Instead of thinking through an appropriate strategy that would allow them to acquire a mass of connections and acquaintances, they... Just choose the most economically profitable orders! Complete idiots with the most primitive ambitions, which are not even worth mentioning!

 Annoyed, I clenched and unclenched my fist and leaned back in my chair.

 Why are the locals so limited? I understood the usefulness of connections back when I was a student in America, having made quite a few connections among the military... Oh, if only it weren't for those damned Richards and Mephisto... Although, on the other hand, if it weren't for those smug nobodies, there would be no Doctor Doom, whom the whole world fears...

 It was a complicated topic, and I quickly dismissed it, returning my attention to the local mercenaries.

 Even if I come up with another brilliant plan for rising to power through a kind of Mercenary King scheme, it's unlikely that this crazy fool, who so arrogantly calls himself my teacher, will allow it to be carried out. He is all for maximum secrecy, following the example of his predecessors... It's one thing to be one of countless mercenaries, but it's quite another to be the ruler of an entire planet who is also planning to expand his own material and resource domain...

 "Problem..." I tapped my fingers on the armrest, once again peering at my reflection. Let it be different from mine... But it was still a beautiful face, one that I still couldn't get enough of.

 The green eyes in the reflection narrowed.

 There simply wasn't enough time. My self-improvement was interspersed with the need to shine as a mercenary, and at the same time, in secret from Varborus... On top of that, all my greatest inventions at the local technical and material bases are hardly being implemented, and I actually have to develop them from scratch. And that also takes time, which I don't yet know how to influence with this Power!

 ...No, I definitely need independence and the ability to choose my own people. Perhaps they will betray me, as has often happened, but for a while they will make my work easier in some areas that do not require my personal control.

 So, it's decided.

 It's time to get rid of the self-proclaimed teacher, even if it means losing some of the knowledge he has given me.

 The armour lying nearby began to rise into the air...* * *

 Darth Varborus.

 "So you really weren't lying and you want to kill me in a fair fight... Amazing!" — exclaimed the Sith Lord, impressed but also delighted, looking at his apprentice standing before him, who had already created his own unique image.

 The Sith was somewhat curious as to where his apprentice had gotten such a love for green. He had thoroughly studied his successor! And there had been no indication of this... Perhaps it was because he, completely unworthy of a Sith Lord, had suddenly been visited by the spirits of ancient predecessors on Korriban, who told him where he could find the one he could call his apprentice.

 And, surprise surprise, this time the dead didn't lie, as they had done on other occasions!

 On one occasion, he spent thirty days without food or water in a coffin, suffering from hallucinations... Hee-hee-hee, those were fun times, hee-hee-hee!

 "I gave you my word. And I always keep my word." — the teenager said slowly, with a hint of arrogance that was palpable.

 Perhaps another Sith would have been enraged by his apprentice's behaviour, but not Varborus, who had long since forgotten his pride for the sake of the Rule of Two. That same pride had prevented him from quickly replacing his apprentice with someone stronger and more worthy last time, had prevented him from admitting his own mistake and forced him to see it through to the end... No way! He wouldn't make the same mistake twice!

 The new apprentice was impossibly vain, proud to the point of indecency, and did not consider anyone his equal, let alone submit to anyone, which had to be beaten out of him not with cunning, but with pure brute force. However, unlike many nobodies with such qualities who sat at the top of the Republic's power structure, Victorium, which translated from the high galactic language meant "Victor," or as he preferred to call himself, Victor, had a number of significant differences and advantages.

 Few acquaintances, privy to the secret of the Sith's existence, could consider Varborus a complete madman, and even the old man himself sometimes doubted his own sanity... But one thing he knew for sure.

 His apprentice was too intelligent and strong-willed to die ingloriously and fail to continue the Rule of Two. Now he could arrogantly place himself above the Sith Dynasty of Bane, but... Later... Later, he would undoubtedly realise that in one human lifetime, he could not fulfil all the ambitions that burned like green flames in his eyes. And then he too will have a student who will find the main flaw in his unshakable armour of power — he will find his pride, which will not allow him to renounce his word!

 It is striking how such an arrogant, intelligent person turned out to be so principled and kept his word. Usually, such people were masters of their own words — they could give them and take them back whenever they wanted, heh-heh-heh-heh...

 "Ha-ha-ha-ha!" — Darth Varborus laughed hoarsely, rising from his throne and descending to his apprentice standing on the other side. "Excellent, excellent! But do you really think that a beardless youngster who has not yet earned his own title of Darth can defeat the recognised Lord of the Sith?" — The Sith smiled provocatively, revealing his half-rotten teeth. What's the point of watching yourself if you're soon to fall for the greater good of the Grand Plan?

 "I don't care about your prejudices, Varborus." — The teenager, clad in a gauntlet, waved him away, concentrating the power of the Force within himself, twisting it around him and giving off the inimitable aura of the Dark Side.

 For a few seconds, the old man stared at his student, mesmerised and with a kind of inner tremor... Such power at such an age... No wonder the ancient spirits, unable to leave their tombs, were so happy with one of the quadrillions of intelligent beings that they did not kill or even punish Varborus, who was considered by them... Not the most worthy successor to the Sith cause.

 However, the ancients had always been even more arrogant than his apprentice, resenting those who could not fulfil their aspirations, which they themselves had been unable to achieve during their lifetime.

 "Then let's begin, my apprentice?" — Confident that the time for the apprentice to become the master had not yet come, the Sith Lord began to concentrate all the power of the Force in his own body.

 This place had been steeped in the dark side for centuries. From that moment on, every teacher and student of the Rule of Two gave a part of themselves and their power to strengthen this ancient fortress, allowing it to become the perfect place for the Dark Side of the Force to develop in future generations of the Dynasty.

 "Let's begin, my self-proclaimed teacher." — replied the armoured student, who resembled the Mandalorians in some way.

 The old man may not have recognised technology as anything significant compared to the true Force and the lightsabers that cut down everything in their path... But he couldn't deny that they made life much easier in a place where the Force was too wasteful to use. And lightsabers could be useful in some situations; after all, the famous ancient weapons of the Sith and Jedi were also mostly technology.

 Therefore, instead of immediately engaging in close combat, Varborus began to concentrate the Dark Side of the Force in every cell of his body, simultaneously throwing his arms forward and meeting the volley of silver lightning bolts with his own. The colliding electrical charges could not overcome each other, so they began to spread horizontally, scorching the side walls of the room.

 "Our powers are equal! To equal my experience in direct combat, you must be at least twice as powerful as me!" — the Sith Lord began to shout, drowning out even the deafening crack of lightning nearby.

 "You are nothing but..." — the apprentice paused for a moment to gather his strength, continuing to face the old man's increasingly powerful lightning bolts. "Another fool... Who..." — interrupting the youngster's arrogant tirade, Varborus directed more negative emotions towards Victorium in his attack, making it even more powerful. "He underestimates... my... mind!" — The armoured man from Hyperborea also tried hard and put his own emotions into his attack.

 The evenly matched battle continued until Varborus switched to using only one hand to release lightning bolts and used telekinesis to summon and activate a lightsaber, blocking the lightning bolts to show his student the superiority of the light sword he despised.

 ...And to the surprise of Lord Sith, a narrow, completely atypical blade appeared from the steel gloves, from an opening invisible against the rest of the background. Which, together with the Force, also blocked the Force lightning in a mirror image.

 "Combining the looped plasma of cyber crystals with the Force is a very good solution. But to fight with primitive swords when you have the Force... Fools, whose intelligence does not even reach one per cent of my magnificent intellect." Once again, he did not miss the opportunity to boast about his own genius, and once again, Varborus was forced to admit, through gritted teeth, that his words were true.

 And why were all the geniuses the Sith Lord had ever met so much more modest and pleasant to talk to?

 "You are smart, but young and inexperienced!" — Varborus grinned with a hint of contempt, feeling nothing for his apprentice except joy at his power and slight irritation at his character.

 Everything else was a pretence, a technique of Dung Mooch, which powerful and experienced Sith used almost always, trying to talk as much as possible and provoke strong emotions in the Jedi, which destabilised the foundation of their powers and turned them to the Dark Side.

 With the Sith, this technique was always used to make the enemy lose control of their own powers. Rough power will certainly increase, but the overall control of the Dark Side will fall, and like a lousy Fallen One who has not undergone proper, consistent training, this side of the Force will simply consume him. A true Sith will deliberately evoke negative emotions at specific moments to enhance their power in certain situations... This is completely beyond the Jedi, as it would destabilise their weak Light Side.

 Fortunately, his apprentice has learned this and uses the emotions from the trampling of his pride for specific enhancements. It is a perfect confrontation between Dung Mooch, and Varborus could not have said it better.

 Now, using another special trampling of his intelligence, the green-coloured lover sharply shifted to the side with the help of the Speed of Force. The lightning bolts gathered by his green blade moved slightly after him, but then broke off and struck the wall further away.

 Varborus attacked again only when the last spark escaped from his last finger, otherwise he risked damaging his palm due to the sudden interruption of the Force flow.

 The Sith Lord's new offensive consisted of a series of attempts to grab his opponent's limbs with the Force and pull him aside, causing him to lose his balance, and only then to attack in earnest. It was a very delicate process, because the same Force flowing through the enemy's body blocked and neutralised external influences to a certain extent. This applied to both attacks and simple falls, which is why even an untrained gifted person could survive multiple wounds that would kill a normal intelligent being.

 However... Victorium simply knocked down all the telekinetic nooses with sheer power, causing his armour to dent slightly — Varborus wasn't going to let him go just like that... For which he paid dearly when a clearly long-prepared Force Explosion hit him at full speed.

 The Force Explosion was a very interesting technique, similar to the simpler and simply repulsive Force Wave, which pushes back a row of enemies, but the epicentre of this wave, now in all directions, is not the user, but a point outside chosen by them. A telekinetic explosion occurs there, throwing everything around it away.

 Which is exactly what happened.

 Let the swing of a lightsaber, whose plasma was filled with power, thereby acquiring truly unscientific properties and calmly cutting through the immaterial analogue of a shock wave, reduce the power of the blow, but the Sith Lord was still thrown aside, forcing him to give his all, drawing as much of the Dark Side of the Force as possible and displaying a semi-transparent shield veiled in dark smoke.

 Simply because the apprentice seemed to have decided to go all in.

 "It's time to finish...* * *

 Victor von Doom.

 "...With this pathetic farce!" I said confidently, directing the Force technique I had prepared in the first few seconds.

 The destruction of the Force, to be precise.

 For this technique, I had to accumulate an incredible amount of energy within myself and then, with careful concentration, release it, using my own body as a conduit. The Dark Side of the Force came out directly through my steel-clad arm and allowed me to create an invisible but enormous energy field and throw it at the mad old man.

 With its large radius of destruction, it still hit Varborus, even though he was able to buy time with his Shield of Fear and dart sharply to the side with the Speed of Force. But despite avoiding direct contact with the outgoing stream, my self-proclaimed teacher managed to sustain a number of wounds from the remnants of the Force, albeit only glancing ones.

 "Excellent, my precious student..." — Paying no attention to the series of lacerations on his left side, Darth Varborus immediately burst into loud laughter, his voice full of madness and insanity.

 "What a weakling you are. Instead of realising your ambitions yourself, you pass them on to the next generation of the Order." — I said with a noticeable hint of contempt. "However... This was to be expected from followers of the Rule of Two... No, no. The Rule of Weaklings — that would be more accurate." — knowing full well what would hurt this madman the most, what to press on and what to use Dun Moach against.

 "How dare you, Victorium!" — The old man flew into a rage, as was to be expected, when the most precious thing in his life was trampled on. "The Rule of Two is the foundation of everything, the foundation of all Sith!" — he shouted, rushing towards me at full speed... And falling into a trap that had been set up in advance.

 The web of the Dark Side appeared as semi-transparent dark lines that intertwined into a separate network, which caught Varborus like a fly as he crashed into it at full speed.

 "You've become even crazier than when we first met. To fall for a smile like that..." — I shook my head exaggeratedly in disappointment, looking at my opponent from under the slits in my mask.

 "The Dark Side leads me, my apprentice!" — was all the old man managed to say before he was overtaken by the Pain Wires — practically the signature spell of Darth Zanna, a famous sorceress and successor to the founder of the aforementioned Rule of Two, Darth Bane."You... So easily... You will not win!" — With a painful rasp, Varborus nevertheless began to extricate himself from the double trap, tearing whole pieces of flesh from his body, exposing his muscles and bones.

 I felt a certain amount of respect for his willpower, even if it was caused by pure madness, into which the Dark Side was plunging him deeper and deeper, like demons always trying to devour the very essence of the intelligent beings that use it.

 Parallel to his quite successful attempts to break free, an attack by the Nightmare of the Dark Side suddenly made him reconsider, already raising his scarlet sword above my head. Now, even in his madness, he was overcome by the most terrible fear — the fear that he would kill me right now and would not have time to train a new apprentice, because the wounds he had received would greatly shorten his life. And the Dark Side would finish him off, and Bane's Sith would finally sink into oblivion.

 But I wasn't going to let the old man die so easily. Sure, I could finish him off with one blow, but doing it when he wasn't aware of the situation or even who had killed him... That would be completely uninteresting and boring. So the Sith Lord was knocked out of his nightmare by a powerful Force push, sending the old man on a short flight to his tasteless throne, completely smashing it and breaking the limbs of the fool who dared to call himself my teacher without my consent.

 "Kha-a-a..." — literally spitting out millilitres of blood mixed with pieces of his lungs damaged by broken ribs, the defeated man coughed.

 Let him have been powerful compared to the Jedi, it took me only a few years to surpass him in pure power and hide our difference. After all, he didn't have my genius. Because of this, in a different situation, our very brief battle would have lasted several times longer. But madness, the ideals of the Rule of Two, and underestimation of my strength did their job.

 Even so, using the last of his strength, he began to crawl on all fours with his limbs broken.

 Taking a few steps towards the madman, I grabbed him by the neck with my steel glove and lifted him into the air, simultaneously beginning to affect him with Life Drain and Power Drain — abilities that allowed me to forcibly borrow the Life and Power of my enemy, respectively. One of the hundreds of holocrons at the disposal of the members of the Bane Dynasty stated that they allowed the user to increase their own power at the expense of the defeated, but in return could drive the user insane by transferring the Power and Life of the soul fragments of the defeated victim.

 But can the mind of a madman cope with the willpower of my magnificent intellect?

 "You... You... Khah! You didn't choose your title... Let me... Let me before... Khah-khah-khah! Choose... It..." — No longer resisting, the Sith uttered in his last seconds of life, his soul unable to pass even into the Afterlife and Oblivion.

 "I don't need a title from you, you fool." — I replied with a contemptuous smile visible through the slit for my mouth. "My title is obvious. I am Doom. Darth Doom!"

***

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