Count Dooku had always prided himself on seeing patterns others missed. It was a skill honed over decades as a Jedi Master, refined further in his years serving the dark side. He read people the way scholars read ancient texts—carefully, thoroughly, searching for hidden meanings beneath the surface.
And recently, a pattern had emerged that chilled him to his core.
Palpatine's interest in Anakin Skywalker.
Dooku had first noticed it years ago, before his very public defection to the Separatist cause. Whispers from Jedi he still maintained contact with—Sora Bulq among them—about the young Chosen One's unusual relationship with the Supreme Chancellor. How Skywalker spent hours in Palpatine's office when not training or on missions. How the Chancellor requested his presence at state functions, offered personal guidance, shaped the boy's worldview with patient, insidious care.
At the time, Dooku had dismissed it as standard political maneuvering. Palpatine cultivating the Jedi's golden child for propaganda purposes.
Now, knowing what he knew, the truth was far darker.
Sidious had been grooming his replacement.
The realization settled in Dooku's stomach like poison. All along—from the very beginning—Sidious had been searching for the perfect apprentice. Not Dooku. Not Maul before him. Certainly not Asajj. They were placeholders. Tools. Stopgaps until the real prize revealed itself.
Anakin Skywalker. The Chosen One. Conceived by the Force itself.
That was who Sidious truly wanted.
And Dooku? He was merely keeping the seat warm.
The knowledge should have enraged him. Should have driven him to immediate action, to strike before being discarded like yesterday's garbage.
Instead, it brought cold clarity.
Because something had changed. Something Sidious hadn't anticipated.
The Avengers.
Dooku had noticed Sidious's growing frustration over the past months. His master's carefully controlled demeanor cracking at the edges whenever reports came in about Skywalker's activities. The young Jedi spent more time with the off-worlders now than with Palpatine. Trained with them. Fought alongside them. Absorbed their philosophies and their camaraderie.
Every hour Skywalker spent with Captain Rogers or the others was an hour Sidious lost influence. Every friendship the boy formed outside Palpatine's carefully constructed web was another thread pulling him away from the dark side's orbit.
Sidious was losing control of his chosen successor.
And then Ultron arrived.
That abomination—that thing—had thrown the entire galaxy into chaos. An artificial intelligence with power that rivaled Force-users, immune to mental manipulation, operating outside the rules Sidious had spent a millennium perfecting.
Two wild cards. The Avengers and Ultron. Both completely outside the Sith's grand design.
For a man who believed he controlled everything, who had orchestrated a thousand-year plan down to the smallest detail, the appearance of variables he couldn't account for must be agonizing.
Dooku smiled slightly at the thought.
Perhaps these disruptions were exactly what the galaxy needed. What he needed.
A chance to turn the board over entirely.
"Master?"
Asajj's voice pulled him from his musings. She stood before him, expression guarded but attentive. Waiting for instruction, for purpose, for direction in the chaos her life had become.
"You need to remain here," Dooku said. "Rest. Recover. Use this time to meditate, to train properly without the pressures of war and assassination."
Her brow furrowed. "But Master, I don't know if I can—the power you spoke of, I've only touched it briefly. Glimpses during training, nothing more."
"It is there." Dooku stepped closer, placed one finger over her heart. "Hidden deep within you. Waiting to be unlocked." He held her gaze. "I cannot continue the Sith bloodline through traditional means—the Rule of Two binds me to Sidious, and him to me. But you? You can forge something new."
Asajj's eyes widened.
"When you master this power," Dooku continued, "I will grant you the title of Darth. Not through Bane's archaic restrictions, but through the old ways. Or perhaps entirely new ways, befitting a new age." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "You will lead the Sith into their next evolution. One not bound by Sidious's vision."
She dropped to one knee immediately, head bowed. "Master, I won't fail you. I'll exceed every expectation."
"See that you do." Dooku allowed himself a small smile. "But I will need another apprentice as well. Someone to present to Sidious. A replacement for you, publicly at least."
Asajj looked up, confused. "Why not one of the other acolytes?"
"Because they are initiates at best. Sidious would see through such an obvious ploy immediately." Dooku began to pace, hands clasped behind his back. "I need someone powerful. Someone with their own motivations beyond simple service to the dark side. Someone with a personal stake in what we're building."
"Who could possibly—?"
The air shifted.
Both master and apprentice tensed, hands moving toward weapons. The Force rippled around them, carrying the scent of ancient magicks and older power.
"If you seek a new apprentice, Count Dooku..."
Green mist materialized from nowhere, coalescing into a familiar figure. Mother Talzin emerged from the ethereal fog, her presence commanding despite her advanced age. Those eyes—ancient, knowing, touched by magicks that predated the Sith—fixed on Dooku with unmistakable intent.
"Perhaps I can be of assistance."
Far from the political machinations and Sith plotting, in territory that once belonged to the witch queen Zalem, reconstruction had begun.
Rose Lai stood atop a partially rebuilt watchtower, surveying the work below. Nightsisters moved through the ruins, clearing debris, salvaging what could be saved, building anew from the ashes of her mother's ambition.
The weight of leadership sat heavy on Rose's shoulders. She was young for such responsibility—too young, some whispered when they thought she couldn't hear. But Mother Talzin had appointed her, and the clan had accepted. That would have to be enough.
Zalem's shadow stretched long over this place. The witch queen's atrocities—the kidnappings, the power-draining rituals, the casual cruelty—would haunt their people for generations. Some wounds cut too deep for time alone to heal.
But Rose was determined to try. To rebuild not just structures but trust. To prove the clan could be more than Zalem's legacy of darkness.
It would take years. Possibly decades.
But it was work worth doing.
Movement caught her eye—a figure in a red hooded robe, face obscured by a simple mask, moving through the reconstruction site with purpose. Rose frowned. She didn't recognize the woman, and strangers were rare on Dathomir. Dangerous, even.
She was about to call out, to demand identification, when the figure passed near the great pit where Zalem's ritual chamber had collapsed. The woman paused, knelt, placed both hands flat against the sand.
Rose felt it then—a ripple in the Force. Subtle. Controlled. Searching.
Her hand moved to her weapon.
The robed figure pulled out a communicator, spoke quietly into it. Rose couldn't hear the words from this distance, but the body language suggested success. Discovery.
Then the woman pocketed the communicator and raised her hands.
The ground began to tremble.
Sand bubbled like water approaching boil. The pit's edge crumbled inward, then reversed—something rising from beneath, pulled upward by invisible force.
Rose started running.
By the time she reached the edge of the pit, the figure had vanished. But something remained, floating in the air where she'd stood—
A seed.
No, not quite a seed. A remnant of one, perhaps. It glowed with faint blue bioluminescence, encased in what looked like a honeycomb lattice of copper wire. The metal seemed grown rather than forged, organic in its irregularity.
Rose recognized it immediately.
One of Zalem's artifacts. A piece of the dark magicks her mother had been collecting, studying, weaponizing before her death.
The woman had taken it.
Rose spun, scanning the landscape, but the mysterious figure had disappeared completely. No tracks in the sand. No trace in the Force. Gone as if she'd never existed.
But Rose had heard something before the woman vanished. Just a whisper, carried on the wind:
"Soon, Queen Gethzerion. Soon, this world and the galaxy itself will be ours."
Gethzerion.
The name sent ice down Rose's spine. She'd heard stories—ancient ones, warnings passed down through generations of Nightsisters. Gethzerion the Terrible. Banished centuries ago for crimes too dark even for Dathomir's standards. Exiled to the far side of the planet, imprisoned by wards and barriers that should have held forever.
Should have.
Rose ran for Mother Talzin's dwelling, the name burning in her mind.
Whatever was coming, whatever Gethzerion was planning, the clans needed to know.
Before it was too late.
In the twisted forest, unaware of the threat growing in the shadows, Count Dooku stood face to face with Mother Talzin and contemplated the pieces moving across the galactic game board.
Sidious believed himself the grandmaster. The ultimate strategist. The puppet master pulling every string.
But the board was changing. New pieces appeared. Old pieces revealed hidden depths.
And Dooku, patient and calculating, was learning to play an entirely different game.
One where he might, finally, emerge victorious.
Or die trying.
Either way, the status quo was ending.
Great change was coming.
And the galaxy would never be the same.