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Sidious descended into the Sith Temple, prepared to wrest from it the secrets it kept hidden deep underground. It trembled as he approached the center of the cavern, the monuments to the greatness and mysteries of the Sith of old swaying in response to his power.
The realization that the Temple was not responding at all, and that the trembling was merely a natural earthquake, was an embarrassment. But Sidious kept his composure. He would not be made a fool in front of remnants and relics that he was going to conquer and extract all knowledge from.
That he was deep underground did not trouble him, even as the tremors continued. What was a mere natural phenomenon against the might of the Sith? They defied nature, crushed it and bent it to their will. The rumbling of an earthquake was as a child’s tantrum to a true master of the dark side, and this Temple had stood for thousands of years as a monument to one.
He instead turned his attention to the artifacts that lay before him, imposing his will upon them, laughing at their paltry efforts to defy him.
You see? he told the echoes of their architect, I am far greater than you, far greater than any Sith who has come before.
So absorbed in this task, so confident in the Sith Temple’s ability to stand against the forces of nature, Sidious didn’t notice as it began to fail, its towering walls beginning to buckle and the ceiling breaking apart, the statues toppling over. Only as the stone above the temple began to crumble and rain down on him, did his attention break and he realized what was happening.
He raged at the interruption, believing it to be part of the Temple’s petty defiance (he could not imagine that it was simply the natural forces of the planet, indifferent to his existence), and pushed back, demonstrating his power as he held back the rain of the crumbling ruins and the stone above.
A mountain was above him, but Sidious did not care. It was mere nature. Even as the earthquake knocked him off his feet, Sidious still fought back, pushing it as far as he could, disintegrating pieces of rock with lightning.
A Sith could survive a long time on rage alone.
Even as the available air shrank, even as the debris held precariously above slipped bit by bit out of his grasp, Sidious would not be defeated by this.
He was the greatest of all Sith.
He…was…