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Now, on to the chapter!

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“Wake up and control your hound, you useless Wizard!” Doom stood between Merlyn and Etrigan, wreathed in emerald flame. Merlyn sat in a meditative pose behind him, frozen in a mental struggle, while Maul lay half broken on the ground. “I can only hold him for so long!”

 

Etrigan inched forward, wrapped in magical chains created by Doom’s spellwork. Rage filled the Demon’s eyes, but it wasn't directed at his allies. Muscles bulged under his obsidian black skin, willpower locked in a battle with the lesser demon at his back.

 

“You may command me, with the Wizards shackles it can be done,” Etrigan snarled between his teeth. “But your mind already falters, melted wax under my midnight sun…”

 

The demon took another step toward Doom, a creak as several chains exploded into stardust. Sidious snorted, sweat on his brow as he loomed behind the demon.

 

“How did that weak old fool control you at all…” The Sith tightened his eyes and scowled at Etrigan’s back. “His mind is formidable enough, but your power…”

 

“My power is, and always was, my own,” Etrigan raised a foot, hesitated, then returned it to the same position on the floor. A line of blood trickled down Sidious’ lips, forced from within by his struggle with the Demon. “Merlyn’s prison gave me freedom, escape from something you’ll one day bemoan.”

 

Etrigan turned his head, wide cracks along the skin of his neck as he refused the compulsion within. Green-black blood slid down the demon’s chest, even as his grin opened wide. A vibration built around them, steady and swift in its growth.

 

“You’re connected to the Wizard, but for how long… I wonder?” Etrigan barked out a laugh filled with gore, fragments of bone and lung as his resistance carved apart his body. “You’ve only just been born, little demon… do you know what happens when your body is torn asunder?”

 

“What is this… what are you doing!” Sidious ground his teeth and redoubled his efforts. The vibration built to a tremor, strong enough to fragment the metal floor. “STOP!”

 

“I’ve done nothing, I’m afraid,” Etrigan laughed as he forced his shoulders to turn, until he faced the Sith Lord. “But you might want to act, or you’ll never evade…”

 

Sidious howled, body in step with a warning from the force that came almost too late. He rolled to the side, in time to avoid a pillar of blue light. It speared from the ceiling and continued into the depths of the planet. Superheated air howled, a hurricane that swept the Sith’s robes into chaos.

 

The force screamed, so loud that Sidious was frozen as its words hammered into his mind. RUN. FLEE. FEAR. Wrath and hate rose from his core and pushed aside the warning. He would decide his own fate. The Lord of the Sith did not answer to the force, he held it in his hand and shaped it to his will…

 

The blue heat faded, narrowed down into two distinct lines and vanished. Sidious kept his gaze locked on the hole in the ceiling, mind still determined to consume Merlyn and claim true ownership of the arrogant Demon. He was mid-step, headed toward Etrigan’s back, when another premonition forced his feet to the side in a blurr.

 

Twin fists tore a hole through the metal where he’d stood an instant before, too fast for him to gain more than a glimpse. A shadow-skinned being with a stylized ‘S’ on his chest, rocketed from the floor and through the ceiling above.

 

Sidious dodged again as the blurred figure lanced through the wall behind him. This time the edge of an elbow grazed the Sith Lord's shoulder. A sickening pop, followed by a mist of blood. Sidious and one of his arms spun in different directions.

 

“Hmmf!” Merlyn snorted and his body sagged, while Etrigan rushed to support his exhausted frame. Doom sank to his knees and cancelled his spells, drained.

 

“Where have you been?” Doom withdrew his unusual helm and glanced about the chamber for the elusive figure. “You seem to have overestimated the Ysalamiri, and underestimated Sidious’ power…”

 

No response was forthcoming. Silence reigned as Sidious forced himself to his feet, a corona of black lightning around his body. Blood held inside the stump of his arm through sheer will, the Sith opened his mouth and released a thunderous howl. A force-scream filled with all his pain and rage. It curled the metal floor back, a maelstrom with him at its centre. A net that deflected another charge from the man in black.

 

This new foe was fast, almost too fast for him to react. Sidious cursed in his mind, senses focused on the chamber and beyond. The attacker was very cautious. He vanished into the distance after each strike, only to return from a new angle. The pain of his body was irrelevant, but another blow would render this flesh useless.

 

“Let’s see if your mind is as powerful as your freakish body…” Sidious kept a part of his focus on the wizards and their Demon. The rest expanded out like a miserable fog, wrapped around the planet like a web. “Where are you…”

 

---

 

 

Failure. Dan sighed, positioned between Coruscant and its sun. Merlyn was half dead, the system warned he needed immediate attention, and he’d failed to finish Sidious with a single blow. Now, the Sith’s power coated the world. Another surprise attack would be almost impossible, and if he entered the man’s psychic field…

 

“Time for plan B,” Dan activated his com and hailed Ultron. “Pull everyone from the section of the planet where you’ve got Sidious locked down,” he raced away from the star, alined with Coruscant. “I mean everyone, all the people between the surface and that chamber, including Doom and the others.”

 

Dan retreated further, until he was well outside the star-system. It was time to take a page from the book of Viltrum. Eyes set on his distant target, Dan drew on all his power. Ki and the might of the sun, fused together and drove him forward. Body transformed into a spear, he pushed until his speed closed on the barrier of light. 

 

“Let’s see you dodge this…”