In a galaxy far, far away…
Two great forces stirred in the fabric of the galaxy — vast, ancient, and unseen. They were not armies, not empires, not fleets of steel and fire, but something older, deeper. They were belief. They were conviction. They were the Force, divided.
On one side stood the Jedi Order, guardians of peace and justice, cloaked in humility and discipline. To the galaxy, they were sages, warriors, protectors. They preached serenity, selflessness, and harmony with the Force. To many, the Jedi were heroes — the shining light in dark times.
On the other side rose the Sith, cloaked in shadow and ambition. They were reviled, hunted, feared. Yet they called themselves revolutionaries, champions of freedom through power, visionaries who saw the hypocrisy in the Jedi's dogma. The Sith believed in passion, in will, in strength — and they too were touched by the Force.
For thousands of years, these two factions clashed in cycles of war and silence, order and upheaval. Republics rose under Jedi guidance, empires fell under Sith fire. Each side claimed to know the truth of the Force. Each claimed righteousness. Each claimed the galaxy's future as its own.
The Jedi taught that peace came through control — of emotion, of desire, of power. The Sith rejected this. They embraced emotion, for it brought strength. They did not fear the darkness — they wielded it.
In every era, champions emerged — Jedi knights chosen by prophecy, Sith Lords born of fire and ruin. Some sought balance. Others sought conquest. Few survived the weight of destiny.
From the ashes of the ancient Sith Empire, where brother betrayed brother and dark ambition devoured its own kind, rose one who would not be consumed — Darth Bane.
He was not the strongest of the Sith when he began. He was not the most cunning. But he was the last to understand the truth.
The Sith had failed not because they were weak… but because they were many.
So he destroyed them.
With fire and betrayal, he burned away the rot. From their graves, he forged a new path — the Rule of Two. One master. One apprentice. No more.
One to embody the power.
One to crave it.
Darth Bane became legend — not for conquest, but for patience. In shadow, he rebuilt the Sith. He trained his apprentice in secret, feeding her strength, feeding her hunger.
Darth Zannah was her name — a child of war, molded in the image of her master. Where Bane brought brute strength, Zannah wielded deception and sorcery. She was subtle where he was storm.
The storm that raged across the volcanic plains of Ambria was not born of nature—it was the Force itself, writhing in fury.
Twin figures stood at the heart of the chaos, crimson sabers ignited, their hums lost beneath the howling winds and crackling energy. One was clad in battle-worn armor of black cortosis weave, his bald head glistening with sweat and rage—Darth Bane, the last surviving master of the Sith, the creator of the Rule of Two.
The other was draped in tattered robes streaked with blood and fire. Her saber twirled with impossible grace. Darth Zannah, Bane's chosen heir, now turned executioner.
"You dare strike me down," Bane growled, lightning curling around his fingertips, "and claim my legacy without earning it?"
Zannah's golden eyes burned with contempt. "You made me to surpass you. I have. The Rule demands your death."
Then came silence. And then—destruction.
Bane unleashed a torrent of Force lightning that exploded outward in a forked, blinding blast. The ground split beneath their feet, ash flying in all directions. Zannah hurled her saber into a spinning defense, her left hand thrusting forward, channeling a crushing telekinetic counter. The air itself bent between them as their powers collided midair, casting shockwaves for miles.
Bane broke through first. He surged forward with brutal speed, his saber carving downward in a diagonal strike meant to split her from collarbone to hip. But Zannah ducked low, catching the blade on her own, sparks flying as metal clashed. Her boot lashed out, catching Bane in the ribs.
He staggered back, but only for a breath.
Channeling the Force, Bane lifted his hand—and the ground rose with it. Shards of obsidian erupted into the air and hurtled toward Zannah like daggers. She spun in place, her saber cutting through the barrage, each slice a blur.
But the real attack came from above.
Bane leapt high, nearly vanishing into the smoke-choked sky. Zannah barely had time to shield herself before he crashed down like a meteor, his saber hammering into hers with titanic strength. The blast cratered the earth beneath them.
Zannah was flung backward, tumbling through jagged rocks. Blood streamed from a cut on her forehead. Her breathing was ragged. But she rose, slow and deliberate.
"I know your every move," she spat. "You taught me everything."
"Then you should've known to run."
Bane reached into the deep, ancient depths of the Force. A scream of pure energy pulsed from him as he summoned the Thought Bomb, the technique that had annihilated the Brotherhood of Darkness. But before the power could complete, Zannah whispered a forbidden phrase and unleashed her own secret: a binding spell of Sith sorcery, learned in secret from holocrons Bane had forbidden her to touch.
Ghostly tendrils of crimson energy wrapped around Bane's mind. He staggered as memories twisted, his thoughts warping under the assault. He roared, resisting her possession, but in doing so, his control of the Force wavered.
That moment was all she needed.
Zannah charged. Her saber slashed across his chest, cutting deep through armor and flesh. Bane screamed, and the storm answered—lightning poured from the sky, drawn to his pain, to his wrath. His apprentice fell back, shielding her eyes as he collapsed to one knee.
"Even now," he muttered, "you only win by treachery."
"No, Master," she said, lowering her saber. "I win by becoming stronger."
Bane's vision blurred. Smoke from the battlefield, his own scorched blood, and the suffocating presence of death choked him. But his mind raced. His body was broken, but not his will. Not yet.
Zannah approached for the final strike.
But the Force whispered to him—one word.
Escape.
With a surge of raw energy, Bane extended both hands, unleashing a shockwave that sent Zannah hurtling backward. Rocks shattered, the ground cracked further, and in the moment of disarray, he turned and fled—hobbling, bleeding, desperate.
Deep in the cliffs behind the battleground, hidden under camouflage netting and the Force itself, rested his last contingency: a Sith stealth cruiser, ancient and swift, designed for only one thing—survival.
He stumbled into the cockpit, fingers dancing across the controls, blood smearing every surface. Alarms screamed. Systems were damaged. Shields at minimum. But the hyperdrive still worked.
Barely.
Behind him, he felt her rage coming. Zannah had survived.
"She'll chase me to the ends of the galaxy," he hissed to himself. "Unless I go... where no star map leads."
He scanned for uncharted coordinates. The Outer Rim. No, beyond the Rim. Wild space. A strange blue sphere caught his eye—life-bearing, primitive. No Republic presence. No records. No knowledge.
Terra.
He programmed the jump. The ship trembled. Zannah's presence was near now—he felt her fury like a furnace.
A final strike hammered the rear thrusters. The ship bucked violently, systems shorting. Bane gritted his teeth as the navicomputer screamed errors. No return. No guidance. One jump, then darkness.
"I will see you soon, my apprentice," he whispered as he pulled the lever.
With a roar, the Sith cruiser disappeared into hyperspace—leaving Zannah behind, and the galaxy with her.
And aboard that dying ship, Darth Bane closed his eyes and let the shadows take him—plunging into the void of space toward a forgotten world.
Toward Earth.
The impact had nearly torn him apart.
Darth Bane remembered flames. He remembered twisted metal, alarms blaring, and the sickening crunch of his bones as the stealth cruiser scraped across forest and stone, skidding into the mountain crater where it would rest for centuries. His final escape from death had cost him nearly everything.
Everything—except the will to survive.
Three months passed in silent recovery. Within the fractured heart of the Sith cruiser, its last working system—the Bacta tank—preserved what remained of him. Day after day, it fed nutrients into his body and accelerated cellular regeneration. Bones reset. Nerves reformed. Skin knit itself whole again.
Floating in the luminous blue, he meditated. Not on peace, never that—but on pain, memory, and rage. Rage at his failure. Rage at Zannah's betrayal. Rage at the galaxy that no longer knew the strength of the true Sith.
He emerged whole. Taller than he remembered. Sharper. The deep scars on his chest faded into pale lines, his muscles newly forged beneath pristine skin. As he stepped out of the tank, the Force pulsed around him, whispering secrets, feeding on his hunger for vengeance.
And then he opened the airlock.
What greeted him was not the silence of a tomb-world or the ruins of a dead colony. No. The air was fresh, heavy with life. Trees swayed beneath a pale sky. Birds cried out in alarm. He stepped onto the soil of this world for the first time, wearing the black robes he had forged in the fires of Ruusan, lightsaber at his hip.
But the world—this Terra—was wrong.
There were no satellites in the sky. No engine hums. No artificial cities stretching to the clouds. Instead, horse-drawn wagons passed along dirt roads. Smoke rose from stone chimneys. Peasants in coarse woolen garments tilled fields and stared at him as if he were a demon in human flesh.
He was not in the galaxy anymore.
In a fit of fury, Bane returned to the wreckage, examining every shattered panel, every broken core. The hyperdrive matrix had melted. The primary power cell was ruptured. Navigation was dust. He could barely generate enough energy to power the Holocron, let alone cross lightyears.
"This world is a grave," he growled, his voice echoing through the remains.
But as the days passed, he realized it was not lifeless.
When he closed his eyes, he felt it—the Force. Alive, dense, more raw here than in most civilized planets he had known. It was untamed, like the dark side itself. But the people of this world did not call it the Force.
They called it magic.
He followed whispers through villages, listened to fearful tales of "witches," "sorcerers," and "wand-wielders." In one town, he saw a man light a fire with a flick of the wrist. In another, a healer drew water from the air to mend wounds. The control was crude, the focus primitive—but the energy, the source, was the same.
The Force had a different name here. But it was the Force.
Bane abandoned the name Darth. He shed his Sith armor and concealed his lightsaber. The galaxy was gone. Until he could return, he would become something else.
A scholar. A shadow.
A serpent among sheep.
He named himself Salazar Slytherin.
He wandered the world, learning its languages, its customs, and most importantly—its magic. He was astounded to learn that these "wizards" relied on wooden sticks to channel the Force, ignorant of the power lying dormant within themselves. They had no concept of will shaping reality—only spells, charms, and rituals passed down like recipes.
Pathetic.
But useful.
He traveled to ancient groves where druids whispered to trees. He stood beneath standing stones that pulsed with leyline energy. He fought monsters—basilisks, chimeras, wyverns—and bound their essence into scrolls of his own design. He infiltrated magical enclaves, speaking in tongues they mistook for prophecy.
All the while, he grew stronger.
The Force sang to him in this world. Not through the order of Jedi or the chaos of Sith, but in raw, untapped currents beneath the soil, the oceans, the wind. He studied magical texts, tore apart their metaphors, and rewrote them as formulas of power. He taught himself wandless control, manipulating objects, minds, even the very elements, with nothing but focus and fury.
In time, the legends began.
A strange man, tall and hooded, who spoke to snakes. Who healed the dying and cursed the unworthy. Who slew a basilisk and tamed its kin. A man who built secret chambers beneath the Earth and gathered students to pass on his knowledge—not of mercy, but of power.
Salazar Slytherin.
And though he did not speak of it aloud, deep in the recesses of his hidden lair—built in the bowels of a rising school he co-founded—he kept the wreckage of his starship hidden behind layer upon layer of spells and enchantments.
He spoke to his Holocron in solitude. Updated it. Waited.
Centuries passed. The world evolved. Kingdoms rose and fell. But the galaxy—his galaxy—remained out of reach.
Until one day, someone would come.
And through him… the Sith would rise again.
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