**Chapter 512**
**The Fall of a Count**
**Scene 1**
**Dooku POV**
The fear was unexpected.
Count Dooku had faced many powerful opponents in his long life — Jedi Masters, Sith Lords, and monsters of all kinds — but the darkness radiating from Dagon Marek was something else entirely. It was raw, ancient, and bottomless. For the first time in years, Dooku felt a genuine flicker of doubt.
*Is this boy stronger than Sidious?* The thought unsettled him more than he cared to admit.
Their blades clashed in a violent storm of red and blue. Dagon's crossguard lightsaber burned with unnatural fury, the spinning plasma edges grazing Dooku's shoulder and searing through his elegant tunic and flesh beneath. Pain flared hot and sharp.
Dooku hissed, retreating a step while parrying another brutal overhead strike. He tried to create distance, hoping to disengage and report back to his Master. But Dagon was relentless.
A flash of black armor — and Dagon's armored fist slammed into Dooku's jaw with bone-crushing force. The Count staggered, spitting blood and coughing as he tasted copper in his mouth.
He raised his blade to defend, but Dagon pressed the attack, his voice cold and commanding between strikes.
"I thought you were supposed to be a dangerous Sith," Dagon growled. "I will let you live if you tell me this — who is your master?"
Their blades clashed again, sparks flying. Then Dagon ignited a second blue lightsaber in his off-hand — a weapon Dooku had not seen him use before. In a blindingly fast combination, Dagon severed Dooku's left arm at the elbow.
Dooku screamed — a raw, furious sound — as he clutched the cauterized stump. Blood hissed where the blade had burned the wound shut.
"Emergency!" Dooku snarled into his hidden comm, voice strained with pain. "Send help! Now!"
**Scene 2**
**Dagon POV**
The Count staggered back, clutching the smoking stump of his left arm. I held both blades ready — red crossguard in my right hand, blue in my left — watching him with cold calculation.
Before I could press the advantage, the air in the chamber shifted. Multiple hatches hissed open along the walls. From the shadows emerged fifty figures — tall, cybernetically enhanced Kaleesh warriors. Their bodies were a grotesque fusion of organic and machine, clearly prototypes courtesy of the Techno Union's advanced cybernetics. Each wielded a lightsaber, their eyes glowing with programmed rage.
Grievous clones. Or at least something very close to them.
"Huh," I said, tilting my head. "So these are the new toys. Kaleesh clones from Grievous' homeworld. Not bad."
The fifty lightsaber-wielding maniacs ignited their blades in unison — a forest of red and yellow plasma — and charged.
I spun my dual blades into a defensive stance, the red crossguard humming aggressively.
"Girls," I called through the bond, a fierce grin spreading across my face, "we've got company."
The chamber erupted into chaos as the enhanced Kaleesh warriors attacked from all sides. I met the first wave head-on, my blades a whirlwind of death and precision. Sparks flew as I parried and countered, severing limbs and cutting down the cybernetic abominations with ruthless efficiency.
This wasn't just a battle anymore.
It was a message.
Dooku would not leave this station alive if I had anything to say about it.