The Gauntlet (Evil Hobgoblin) [completed]

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville paced the halls of Bast Castle, her cloak brushing her heels in the gloom of the interior as she waited for the Gatekeeper. The small creature was one of the original beings to dwell within these walls. His knowledge of the Lord Vader, and of Bast itself made him an invaluable asset to the Hand.

He allowed the presence of the Dark Jedi within the walls for his own dark reasons. She had found out quite early on that he desired above all else to harness the strange power known as the Force. Adept in all sorts of illusions, he had made the transistion from simply Gatekeeper to Trickster, and was growing stronger in the Force every day.

She walked onward, appearing aimless in her direction, but with a specific purpose in mind. He desired to be tested, to be given a rank as a Dark Jedi. Tested he was, by her siblings. Darkserpent fought him physically, Cloak taunted him with a riddle. Hobgoblin had defeated both tests with ease.

One last test he required, from De'Ville herself. Neither physical strength nor mental prowess was enough to call oneself a Jedi, dark or otherwise. Tricks were all well and good, but without a practical application of one's powers, what was the purpose of having them?

De'Ville climbed up into a tower, remembering the last time she had been inside it. A dark spell of Sith magic she had woven that night, sealed with her own blood. A curse, sending her unborn son to the same maddening doom she herself was buried within. To be forever joined to the Dark side. One day he would realize his destiny, but he was far too young now. And he was far away, in the arms of her old friend Calmoarn. Perhaps even now Jax was being handed to Tondry.

The thought brought a small smile to her lips, and she gained the top floor of the tower, leaning against the lip of the hole which served as a window. She could feel eyes upon her, and knew the time had come.

Lilaena spoke softly, addressing the creature in the tower with her. "I may not be able to see you, but I know you are there, Hobgoblin. Show yourself."

[Evil Hobgoblin]

A hairy hand suddenly reached up and gripped the window ledge.

It was a deliberately unusual form of reply and it suited Hob's peculiar sense of style; where he could not possibly approach from is exactly where he would be. The dictates of the physical sciences had long ago stopped trying to apply themselves to Hob, and in response Hob had been all the more flagrant in his abuse of their absence.

A second hand joined the first on the window ledge, then the two hands hoisted Hob up and into the air. Upside down.

Hob's two feet took hold at the top of the window and he held himself upside down, staring straight into the face of the one who had called him, like one of the supremely powerful Wish-Granters that appeared in old tales.

"What d'ye want?"

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Lilaena regarded the dwarf impassively, appearing not to mind that her companion was upside down. Without bothering with pleasantries (Hob would certainly have laughed at her had she attempted them) she spoke to him. "It is not so much what I want, but what you want."

Her green eyes held his cockeyed gaze, and she held her hand out to the side, manipulating the door with the Force. It closed slowly, creaking from years of unuse. From a pouch at her waist she withdrew a small holoviewer.

Hob staying put in the window, stars blotted out by the outline of his body. De'Ville activated the viewer and set it on the floor, projecting a holographic map of the galaxy into the entire room. She walked amongst the stars, and pointed, her finger resting in the meteor belt that had been known as Alderaan at one time.

"Alderaan was a planet of great influence at one time." She turned again to the dwarf, the glow from the holo display throwing shadows onto his visage. "Should it have been destroyed?"

[Evil Hobgoblin]

Hob cackled and leapt from the windowsill, landing neatly in the center of the room among the exquisitely created starmap. Hob walked through the Maw, examined the Cron Drift, and eyed the Rishi maze, then turned his eyes upon the now empty system where Alderaan had once been.

He grinned. "Many of the truths we cling to come from a certain point of view," he began. "In Hob's point of view- no, Alderaan should have lived."

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The woman rubbed her hand over her shaved head, feeling the rough stubble that was still growing in. De'Ville nodded slowly in response to his answer, but said nothing, walking slowly around the Corellian sector. Her eyes lifted from Selonia and caught Hob's gaze, and held his eyes tightly. "Why?"

She stood still, surrounded by the holograms, arms at her sides. "Why should Alderaan have lived, Hobgoblin?" Her voice was soft, and smooth, without the usual underpinnings of anger. It seemed that she was merely curious, yet both knew much depended on this meeting.

[Evil Hobgoblin]

The grin grew wider. "There lies in all things the potential for change," he explained. "Know a thing, know its' possibilities, and know it anew."

"Imagine the possibilities if Alderaan had been brought to serve the Dark Side of the Force. Oh, yes, a long road and a hard fall it would have been. Require careful engineering and masterful execution, it would have. But with the subtlest of twists..." Hob lifted a hand and snapped.

The holoview suddenly changed. Alderaan was back in place, but it had a blue tinge to it. At first, the shading was limited to Alderaan only, but then the blue grew darker and deeper. It seemed to extend to the planets around it. A thin tendril leapt out and touched Coruscant, and then suddenly blue exploded all over the galaxy.

Then, the blue vanished, leaving Hob smiling crookedly at the place where Alderaan had been. "Do you see?" he asked.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Lilaena nodded, "I do see." She recalled the holoviewer to her hand, and the stars winked out around them, leaving them in darkness for a moment.

There was a spark on the wall, and then a torch flared to life, five feet away from De'Ville. In its flickering light, the two beings faced each other, one short and squat, the other tall, and elegant. "I have one last test for you."

She stayed where she was, about four feet in front of the Hobgoblin, and clasped her hands in front of her. "You must face your worst fear." Her eyes bored into Hob's, and he did not flinch away.

[Evil Hobgoblin]

A dark heat began to burn within Hobgoblin's chest. The proposal was madness- how had De'Ville seen any of Hob's fears? He hadn't shown them in ages, had kept them locked away in that place inside himself the Trickster watched over.

But... perhaps there would be a benefit to unleashing this demon into the light. Long had it plagued him, and Hob knew that it could only be contained for so long.

What consequences would come, though, only the future knew.

"Very well," Hob said, drawing himself up fully. "But know this- it is a Pandora's Box you open here. All I can tell you is that I will face whatever it is you place before me with all my strength. Be wary, and be certain, that you do not find yourself in a place to be overwhelmed by my might or you will die."

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville nodded once, and the torch sputtered out. Darkness enveloped the pair, their eyes straining to catch even a glimmer of light. The stars outside provided the only illumination; apart from the Force, only a dim outline was visible of either being.

Her voice was soft, yet he had no trouble hearing her. "You fear being made into nothing, your workings proven to be nothing but mere child's play. Like Alderaan, if you were snuffed out, would the universe be any different?

"Are you the one called Peck or are you the one known as Trickster? Hobgoblin, the Hand would know your intentions, and what your worth is to them. Does what you design to do affect anything at all? Or is it all for naught?" De'Ville stepped back a little from the diminutive being, and awaited his answer, wary of his actions.

[Evil Hobgoblin]

The Force died at Hob's fingertips. It could not defeat THAT attack.

It was concentration that allowed Jedi to wield the Force as a weapon, and the disarming of it meant that Hob's concentration had scattered to the winds. What could he say that would refute De'Ville's claim?

This was a question he had pondered long and hard. Hob's way was one of subtlety- never using a direct strength where a sidestep would do. He employed it in everything he did to the point where his ideas and plans were habitually complex, relying on several factors that seemed at the time to be random chance but were, in fact, influenced by Hob. Lives saved, lives destroyed, all at the grace of a little man that hid himself behind corners.

Even coming to Vjun and joining the Black Hand had meant little, for Hob usually remained inside Bast Castle's walls, practicing and experimenting with the curious power that he'd been gifted.

Which did not mean that things would have turned out the differently, had Hob not been present for his life's events. The factors in place could have tumbled the way Hob had designed on their own. What did Hob possess that allowed him to have any effect on things at all?

There was Talasea- but no. Talasea would not necessarily have remained without Hob's presence. Two Sith Lords and an apprentice had been there, not to mention the Sith Master Ogre Mal Pannis himself.

And given that Hob had spent little time in the Sith Master's company, he had learned little else from and had little effect on Ogre himself.

Confusion and shock gave way to frustration and fury. The universe seemed content to favor it's grand creations, and frown on the small, misshapen mistakes it made.

It wasn't fair. Not fair, not fair, notfairnotfairnotfairnotfair-

"NOT FAIR!!!!"

The words roared out of Hob's mouth like a gale force wind. The air in the tower grew disturbed and malevolent. Arcs of electricity began to coalesce around Hob's clenched fists.

"notfair, not fair, NOT FAIR, not fair, Always has the universe deigned to feed me scraps of hope and grandeur, then turn around and kick me beneath the table like a worthless cur without value!" the words spat themselves from Hob's mouth, which them clamped itself shut.

"Those favored," Hob ground out from between clenched teeth. "Those smiled upon look at Hob as though he were a no one, a nothing, even while wasting away the precious gifts they were given with! And Hob has watched and waited, knowing that his chance for greatness would be given to him. But never has it come, never has it come, and Hob has grown tired of waiting."

Hob threw his arms back and faced De'Ville. "You question the worth of my membership in the Hand?" he roared. "I am no torch to be snuffed out at your whim, wretch! If you question my existence, I question yours!"

Hob's last words were accompanied by a ferocious blast of air that struck De'Ville full on and tore her from the ground, hurling her towards the tower window.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville was knocked off her feet by the blast of wind, and she hit the window edge painfully. Reaching out, she grabbed the edges of the window, and held out, strengthening her grip with the Force. Gale force winds still threatened her, and made it impossible to talk. Her fingers slipped down, down to the window sill, or at least where one might have been at one time, until she was hanging down below the window and out of the wind.

The stones here were crumbled and weak from long exposure to the elements of Vjun, and one disintegrated from underneath her hand. Hob's outburst calmed for the moment, and she quickly pulled up with her hands and flipped back into the room.

Her cloak had been ripped off her body, leaving her in a simple outfit of dark blue. "Hob. Hob." She held her hand out towards him, palm out, and as he prepared to strike out at her again, she slammed him against the wall with the Force, making the tower shake again. "You are powerful. But what are your intentions? Will you be ruled by your fears; turned impotent by their overpowering might?"

[Evil Hobgoblin]

Fear is nothing.

"Fear is nothing," Hob spat, springing to his feet as though he hadn't felt the impact from slamming into the wall. "I am not nothing."

Not nothing. Not nothing, he'd said, but De'Ville wanted him to prove it.

Prove it, prove it, prove it...

"You want proof," Hob sneered at those swirling doubts that called themselves De'Ville. "I will show you your proof!"

And then Hob let go.

The Force became a swirling maelstrom, given form and substance by the wind blowing throughout the tower. The rage that a Sith would have given form to was present in that wind, but so was the implacable calm of a Jedi Master. The resulting hurricane force tore the roof off the tower and held it above a cyclone of wind.

"Do you see this!?" Hob shouted to De'Ville over the noise, able to split his concentration thus even in the face of wielding so great a force. "Do you see what I can do? I have tapped into the greatest of powers, and I will use it to shape the galaxy! Beings will whisper my name with awe and reverence! I will make myself great- no, grand- by showing them the truth!"

Abruptly, the wind stopped. The roar became a whisper and the tower roof fell back to where it had been with the clang of durasteel on durasteel.

"I will show them my truth," Hob whispered. His eyes burned with an inner fire, and his focus was on himself.

"I will show them the truth of the Dark Jedi."

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Lilaena stood still amidst the winds, and managed not to flinch at the clang of the roof falling back down. "The truth of the Dark Jedi." She pursed her lips in thought. In the darkness she kept an eye on the diminutive figure of Hob, who was, in many ways, the antithesis of the Jedi Master Yoghurt. He only lacked the title, but certainly held the power, albeit in different areas of strength.

De'Ville spoke once more, softly. "And what truth would that be, Hob?"

[Evil Hobgoblin]

What truth? What truth had this little, misshapen creature drawn from the travels he'd undertaken in search of an answer to Jeseth's riddle? What had he learned from his battle against Seth Darkserpent? What, in his own investigations and studies, had he gleaned as knowledge and wisdom?

The dwarf swung on De'Ville, staring at her in focussed confusion. "Surely you have seen it," he began. "You left the Sith knowing they would wreck everything with their sheer rage, after all. The world- nay, the universe, must be protected and carefully nurtured if it is to bear good fruit."

"It is something key I have seen in the Jedi," Hob added, talking fast and again to himself. "They would save the universe, but they lack the strength to compel others to do the same, except where their Code draws them a line. They are weakened by their refusal to use their anger and eliminate the weeds from the garden."

Hob's eyes began to burn once again, slowly but surely regaining a familiar spark. "But we, we are Dark Jedi. We understand the steps that must be taken to preserve the universe. It is true that the galaxy must be enlightened to this, and therefore Hob shall see to that task, eliminating those weeds who would deny our role as protectors and guides."

The last line Hob delivered had him raising one hand, cupped as though holding something precious, into the air above his head for him to stare at in an almost theatrical accompaniment. His eyes stared at the empty air as though it were the most beautiful thing in all the worlds.

Then he swung his arm down and it began to glow with accumulated power. His gazed fixed upon De'Ville again, and he grinned the grin of the Trickster. "Does that answer satisfy you?" he asked.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Lilaena nodded slowly. "Yesss...yes it does." She quirked her eyebrow up, and rubbed her hand over her scalp. "I question not your right to be in the Black Hand. You pass my test."

The door swung open, and torches flared to life down the long, spiral stairway. She turned to go, then stopped and looked at Hob again. "Let no one call you Peck, for you are the Trickster." She made a small gesture of respect, and then walked silently down the stairs.

[Evil Hobgoblin]

Hob stood, staring at the door De'Ville had left through. Several minutes passed, yet still he remained.

Then his grin grew even wider. "Let no one call me Trickster," he said quietly in a resonant, deep bass. "For I am the Dark Dwarf."

Hob stretched his arms out and wrenched at the tower roof once more, this time working to weld it back in place and repair the damage he had done.

"I will be the Sight that Blinds," he muttered to himself as he worked. "All will see my truth and revere me."

With a final effort, Hob sealed the roof down. Then, he pulled away from the Force and sat down on the floor.

And then he began to laugh, loud and long.

The tower stairway echoed with Hob's voice for an entire hour.