First before I start posting this snippet I wish to thank David Alan Abramczyk for giving me this challenge and previewing the drafts sent and giving me ideas and inspiration in how to make this.
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If Sith Keitaro were to take a Sith name of old, he would out of spite say Darth Snun-gills due to the fact that all the really good names were already taken, and that the half-finished and discarded Sith holocron of Lord Kaan had stated critical opinions of the Darth title followed by arguments that great Sith Lords like Marka Ragnos and Naga Sadow had never made use of this title and neither had Exar Kun for that matter. He shuddered at the thought of once to have considered taking the name Darth Sunshine as a joke.
Darth Traya once said: 'Sith' is a title, yes, but like you, the title is not who I am. It is not what I believe.
It gave him an excuse to postpone his official Sith titling for future loops.
The looper-turned-Sith Acolyte had experienced many adventures in the galaxy far, far away. He had died several times; become the lover of either Asajj Ventress or Aurra Sing; Hijacked a World Devastator from an earlier loop and turned the Death Star into a hearty meal and used all the raw material for more practical military ships; destroyed the galaxy by mass-producing droid replicas of Naru and Motoko and programmed them to see everything else as him with the Star Forge; Made his own swooper Sith gang by converting a handful of the Disciples of Ragnos to his cause and naming naming themselves the Biker Sith from Korriban and rocking Coruscant to the core; Rebuilding the Bando Gora after the demise of Komari Vosa and becoming the most infamous Sith drug lord in Galactic History and experienced many more misadventures throughout more loops than he could remember.
Golrath reminded him a bit of Mustafar when he first arrived here in this loop, but he had swiftly discarded thoughts of comparing volcanic planets and built his own Sith Temple where Golrath Station once stood. It certainly wasn't impressive looking like a makeshift ziggurat made of volcanic rock and capital ship parts, but it was good enough for a half self-trained Sith who still had a long way to go before trying to become THE Dark Lord of the Sith.
Currently he was waiting in his throne room for another looper version of himself, one who bore the callsign Postal Keitaro with pride whenever he went mad followed by indiscriminate mass destruction.
The thunderous explosions of military grade thermal detonators accompanied by the sound of slugthrowers and blaster rifles being fired and the insane laughter of someone who was an alternate looper version of himself, informed him of his steady progress.
Seconds later the barred metal double door enhanced by Sith Alchemy leading to this inner sanctum filled by the essence of the dark side was blown into oblivion by what seemed to be more explosives than needed for the task.
After a short while Postal Keitaro strode through the demolished doorway wearing T-51b Powered Infantry Armor, a power armour from another reality if Sith Keitaro wasn't mistaken, and holding a DC-15S blaster.
Sith Keitaro had trouble reading his Postal self because of the power helmet, but even he could see what his other self had in mind when he pointed his blaster rifle straight at him and unleashed bursts of blue blaster bolts at him.
Reacting quickly Sith Keitaro brought up his gloved hands without moving from his throne. The Force guided and protected him as he started deflecting and blocking all the shots that would hit him. Most of the shots missed him by a long shot, so it made things a bit easier. After a few frantic minutes of Postal Keitaro blasting and Sith Keitaro blocking and deflecting, Postal Keitaro to his disappointment discovered that he had run out of power packs; Sith Keitaro on the other hand was jumping around in front of his throne waving his red hot gloved hands around frantically as if he wanted to get them off while screaming.
"Damn!" Sith Keitaro swore and removed the still hot crushgaunts from his burned hands and tossed them aside. "I don't see how Darth Vader could do this with only one hand!?" The crushgaunts had been enhanced by the remains of the Paperweight of Simus found cluttered somewhere on Ziost. Maybe he should have used the Bondage Gear of Aleema Keto or the Rubber Ducky of Marka Ragnos as Dark Side components the next time he tried his hand at second-rate Sith Alchemy in creating proper protective gear.
"Let's see you block this!" Postal Keitaro discarded his blaster brought to bear a strange rifle-like contraption pointed in Sith Keitaro's direction.
Sith Keitaro desperately leapt behind his throne as several railway spikes were fired at him followed by sounds that reminded him of a steam whistle for each projectile fired. Seconds later he emerged from his hiding place while his adversary was reloading and drew his trusty Sith Tremor Sword from the sheath strapped to his to his side and started deflecting whatever railway spikes that were launched at him in a rapid succession.
"What? No lightsaber at all with that bloodshine blade look?!" Postal Keitaro asked puzzled.
"My synth-crystal broke when my lightsaber short-circuited last week and the furnace for making them still needs fixing," Sith Keitaro admitted with a hint of embarrassment in his voice and blocked another shot fired at him with some effort. "And the fact that I seem to have hanged around the Bladeborn too much that they've rubbed off on me."
"Too bad," Postal Keitaro shrugged and pulled out an assault slugthrower, "You'd get one hell of a surprise if you tried deflecting this baby!" Pulling the trigger he opened fire on the Sith Acolyte who desperately began to block projectiles.
As one projectile nicked Sith Keitaro in the head he desperately brought out an open palm pointed at his other self. An invisible force struck Postal Keitaro with the force of a charging reek and sent him crashing into a wall, the slugthrower thrown into the opposite direction. The power armoured looper quickly regained his senses and was quickly on his feet as the other incarnation of himself unleashed lightning at him. Prepared for such an attack he activated his energy shield and braced himself. Even though the energy shield and power armour took most of it, he still could feel some pain of electrocution which he shrugged off. When the Force Lightning ceased to engulf him he began to slowly walk towards the Sith Acolyte, drawing his own sword that began to surround the blade with fire.
"Damn! Those things felt like cortosis-alloy bullets!" Sith Keitaro growled as he wiped the away some of the blood on his face.
"Pretty much," Postal Keitaro admitted while brandishing his makeshift flaming sword made from speeder bike and swoop parts. "And since this suit and sword also has been treated this way, it does give me a fighting edge against most lightsaber wielders." As he finished his sentenced he charged at him, intending to cut him wide open and set his guts on fire.
Sith Keitaro managed to block the strike and counter-attacked with a blow of his own which his Postal self blocked in return. The two Keitaros continued trying to hack each other to pieces, neither of them seeming to be able to overcome each others defences and inflict a mortal wound to end it. The Sith Acolyte bit his teeth together as both of them jumped back from each other to get some breathing space. His skills in Niman and his Force Sensitivity should have given him the upper hand in the duel, yet his fellow looper self seemed to match him in his own way using what could be seen as a unrefined version of Djem So and that his power armour allowed him to take more chances by letting him concentrate more on attacking while the armour absorbed the blows that managed to get through his guard. And every time he tried to use a Force Power requiring hand motion, his Postal self would try to hack off the arm he tried to use and kept close enough to swiftly counter him from using the Force properly.
After a nick on the sleeve of his Correllian flight suit starting setting the whole sleeve on fire, Sith Keitaro Force Jumped over his adversary who almost managed to cut his leg off in the process and ran out of the throne room.
He could hear Postal Keitaro hurl curses at him from behind almost deafening the clanking sounds of his power armour.
When the pursuing Postal Keitaro turned around a large corner he came face to face with something very unexpected. The ziggurat was huge but he didn't believe it was that huge to actually house this behemoth.
The giant tank which many would regard as a battle fortress of doom and destruction opened fire with its primary armaments followed by all the secondary armaments that could hit the homicidal postal looper.
The last thing Postal Keitaro heard before he perished was the voice of his other self in his head saying So long, sucker!.
When the smoke, dust and falling rubble cleared the coughing, burned and bleeding Sith Acolyte emerged from his hiding place having discarded his burning flight jacket before he led his other self into the death trap. Without any traces of fear he walked towards that massive Bolo and stopped in front of it.
"Are you okay, Sempai." the familiar voice of a young girl emanated from the giant tank.
"Nothing that a dose of bacta won't fix, Shinobu-chan" Sith Keitaro smiled and planted a grateful kiss on a part of the front hull.
"Auuuu!" the Bolo cried out as the turrets began to spin around in circles.
Sith Keitaro chuckled since he knew that she was both embarrassed and blissfully happy at the same time. In this loop he had taken Shinobu as a lover and treated her very much as if she was his wife. Then that terrible accident happened that fatally wounded her. Desperate to keep her by his side he had drawn on the power of the Dark Side in such a magnitude and way that he never had done before. When he realized that her dying body was beyond saving he made a desperate gamble to transfer her spirit and mind into that of a dead Bolo that she brought with her by accident from another loop. It had worked in the fact that she still was with him, but as a pretty powerful Bolo containing the spirit of a shy young girl. It would take a while before a high-quality clone of her real body would be grown so that he could transfer her spirit into a body of flesh and blood, but Shinobu didn't seem to mind much considering how big and powerful his "Shinobu-chan" currently was and that she had the potential of causing a lot of Dark Side Mayhem.
When Shinobu had managed to calm down Keitaro looked at him with a mischievous gleam in his eyes that would have made her heart beat wildly if she had been in a human body. "Say, Shinobu-chan: how about we take a few days vacation on Coruscant while the repairmen fix our place up? The boys from our Sith Swoop Gang would love to ride with us around the whole planet like we did the last time."
"Can we go to the Courscant Opera again?" Shinobu queried in a begging manner which was hard for him to say no to.
"Sure, my little rice muffin." Keitaro answered and started stroking the front of her hull and planting a few kisses here and there.
"Auuuu!"
Entering the giant Bolo carrying Shinobu's spirit was bit safer now than the first times. Shinobu almost overloaded with happiness and seemed to be so eager to please that she took more chances than he imagined she would take like that messy incident on Nar Shadda.. He always felt safe riding inside her and he knew she was happy to help and protect him when bad things started to happen.
Shinobu set course for heir personal ship carrying her Sith Acolyte sempai, looking forward to a night at the opera with her sempai and hanging out with the gang...
"Statement: I must get one of these!" HK-47 declared as he spied on the couple from his starship....