=== Sebastian ===
The arena's tense hush exploded into chaos the instant Sebastian's roaring declaration echoed across the metal slab.
Mace Windu spun back toward the towering Astartes, his violet blade blazing to life once more. The Jedi Master's face was a mask of cold fury now, but behind that iron control, for the first time, flickered the smallest spark of dread and fear.
Sebastian stepped forward, no longer burdened by shield or sword, no longer the knight with ritualized formality. He was raw hate and faith made flesh, steam streaming from the ruined left side of his helm, exposed bionics sparking. He let out a thunderous roar that rolled across the arena like an artillery barrage.
Windu lunged, the Master of Vaapad at his peak, his blade a vortex of unstoppable cuts and thrusts. But each strike that would have cleaved lesser men in two found only the ceramite wall of Sebastian's armored gauntlets. Sparks flew where violet plasma clashed with black adamantium fingers.
Windu spun, using the Force to accelerate his blows, a flurry of strikes that blurred the air itself. He tried for shatterpoints in the Astartes' armor joints, the exposed cables in his arm, the damage already done to the helm. Each time, Sebastian shifted, deflected, or simply took the strike with a grunt of rage, moving forward step by step like a juggernaut that could not be turned aside.
Windu ducked low and swept his saber in a rising arc. Sebastian caught the blade with his bare gauntlet. The Force-enhanced strike should have sliced through ceramite and bone alike, but instead it hissed against the armor plating while Sebastian's servo muscles locked. He wrenched the saber sideways, throwing Windu off balance, and drove his left gauntlet into Windu's ribs with the force of a battering ram.
Bones shattered as the left side of Windu's ribcage collapsed. He staggered, breath knocked from his lungs, but he recovered in a flash, pivoting and unleashing a titanic Force push. The shockwave smashed into Sebastian's chest, driving him back a step, but that was all.
"You think your tricks will save you now!?" Sebastian roared. He launched forward again, shoulder-checking Windu so hard the Jedi Master bounced across the metal slab like a ragdoll.
Windu rolled, came up onto one knee, and hurled his saber like a spear. It spun end over end, violet light screaming, but Sebastian batted it aside with a contemptuous swipe of his armored forearm. The saber tumbled off the arena's edge, clattering away into the dirt below.
Windu tried to call it back, but it was too late. The massive Black Templar was already on him.
Sebastian's fist crashed down, a hammer blow that would have caved in a tank's armor. Windu twisted aside, but the blow clipped his shoulder, spinning him to the ground. He flipped backward, trying to regain his feet, but a boot the size of a man slammed into his chest, pinning him flat.
The clones gasped. The Jedi who had come to bear witness stepped back, eyes wide. Even Maximus and Raxor watched in silence.
The boot lifted, but only so the Black Templar could grab Windu by the collar of his ruined tunic. One-handed, he hauled the Jedi Master off the ground, lifted him up to eye level. Windu struck out, fists crashing against the giant's helm, drawing on every last shred of the Force to drive him back, but the blows didn't even rock the towering warrior.
Sebastian's gauntleted fist came in like a piston, crashing into Windu's side. Ribs broke again. Another blow smashed into his jaw, his head snapped sideways, blood spraying across the deck as his Force enhanced body took the beating.. He tried to strike back, but every ounce of power he drew only fueled Sebastian's righteous wrath as he threw the smaller man to the ground below.
Windu coughed, eyes glassy, blood dripping from his split lip and broken nose. But even now he pushed to his feet, staggering, defiance in his eyes.
He threw a punch, a desperate, final swing fueled by the dregs of the Force. Sebastian caught his arm, twisted, and with a brutal backhand, he sent the Jedi Master spinning to the ground again.
The clones flinched as Windu skidded to a stop just a few meters away, gasping, dragging himself up on trembling elbows.
Sebastian loomed over him before he reached down, and grabbed Windu by the back of the neck with one massive hand, lifting him high overhead like a broken doll. Windu's feet kicked uselessly at empty air, the raw power of the Force slipping from his fingers like water from a cracked jug.
Sebastian turned so the entire arena could see, so Maximus, Raxor, Palpatine, and every witness would know the price of crossing the Emperor.
"You are no god-slayer," Sebastian snarled through broken vox-grilles, his voice a choir of rage and devotion. "You are a man… and men break!"
With a titanic roar, the Black Templar heached up with his other hand, grabbing Windu's legs before he brought him down to meet his knee. The Jedi Master's spine broke with a wet, sickening crack that echoed through the coliseum. The clones recoiled in horror, the Jedi covered their mouths, eyes wide with the impossibility of it.
Windu's body went limp, arms dangling uselessly. Sebastian hurled him aside like a piece of discarded carrion, the shattered Jedi Master crumpling on the metal slab face up.
For a moment, there was only silence, broken only by the Black Templar's ragged, static-laced breathing. Then he lifted his gore-slicked gauntlets high, eyes sweeping the shocked crowd.
"THE EMPEROR'S SWORD DOES NOT BREAK!" he roared. "LET ALL WHO DEFY HIS WILL KNOW DESPAIR!"
The sky seemed to answer, thunder rolling above the jungle canopy of Yavin IV. And the galaxy, already trembling at the Imperium's might, was reminded in that brutal instant, that even the greatest heroes of the Jedi were but mortal men.
Smoke curled from the battered metal slab where sparks flickered off torn ceramite and shattered decking. In the center of that field of ruin, Grandmaster Mace Windu lay broken, his body contorted, the ragged remains of his robes smoldering where Sebastian's blows had struck. His chest heaved in shallow, tortured gasps, his eyes half-lidded but burning with that final, stubborn fire that refused to die.
Sebastian stood over him. Blood and oil ran in rivulets down the grooves of his battered armor. For a moment, he watched the Jedi Master writhe, clawing at the metal slab, his hands dragging feebly at the torn plating as if trying to crawl away from the inevitable.
And then, with a strangled snarl of defiance, Windu stretched out a trembling hand. The Force rippled around him like a final, desperate heartbeat, and across the arena, his lightsaber, half-buried in the dust and debris, rattled free. It snapped into the air, a violet streak hurtling toward his outstretched fingers.
Sebastian's hand closed around it instead. The saber's emitter hissed against his armored palm, the blade's energy crackling along the gauntlet's surface. The Black Templar glanced at the weapon for a moment, an elegant thing, beautiful even in its simplicity, a thing that had nearly felled him, that had scarred him.
A smile tugged at the corner of his ruined mouth. "A fine addition to my collection."
He thumbed the saber off, the blade dying with a hiss. Carefully, reverently even, he fastened it to a clasp on the blackened ceramite plating across his back, alongside purity seals. The Jedi behind Windu stirred, their eyes burning with grief and helpless fury, but none dared speak. Not yet.
Sebastian turned away from the dying Grandmaster just long enough to bend and recover his own power sword, the blade's energy field flickering as he tested its balance. The massive blade crackled with raw power, a gleaming fang forged to cut through abominations, and today, through one of the galaxy's greatest warriors.
When he stepped back to Windu, the Jedi Master's breathing was ragged, his eyes unfocused, pain etched deep into every line of his face. Still, Windu glared up at the towering Astartes, a final flicker of defiance in his violet gaze.
Sebastian looked down on him, and the fury that had fueled him moments before drained away, replaced by something colder. Something almost reverent.
"You are the most powerful foe I have faced in single combat, Grandmaster," Sebastian rumbled, his voice carrying through the colosseum like a funeral bell. "You fought as only the worthy do. You faced me without fear, without deceit, and you nearly brought down a son of Dorn."
Windu's mouth twisted, as if he wanted to spit a curse, but he could no longer summon the breath. His eyes, though, remained locked on Sebastian's, the ghost of a warrior's pride flickering there.
"You should take pride in this battle," Sebastian continued, lowering his power sword. "In the halls of my Chapter, your name will be recorded as a warrior. That is more than many will ever earn."
He lifted the massive blade, humming as its edge hovered above Windu's chest. The Jedi Master coughed, blood flecking his lips. The surrounding clone troopers and Jedi looked on in silent horror, some trembling with the urge to rush forward, to do anything. But they did not move. They could not.
Sebastian lifted his gaze skyward, the storm clouds above parting to reveal a sliver of stars. His voice, when it came, was a solemn chant, the ancient words of his Chapter echoing with the cadence of ritual.
"By the Throne of Terra, I send this warrior's soul to your side, my God. May his courage and strength find a place in Your eternal armies if it be your will."
He brought his gaze down again and locked eyes with Windu one final time.
"Be proud."
The power sword came down in a single, clean stab, an act of mercy forged in brutal necessity. The blade hissed as it passed through flesh and bone, cutting through the final resistance of the mortal coil as the blade finally met the ground.
Sebastian stood over the fallen Grandmaster before pulling it up and away, the blade steady before lowering it in a warrior's salute. Slowly, he knelt beside the body, this towering, scarred giant of war bowing before the man he had slain. He rested one armored hand on Windu's shattered chest before closing his eyes.
Behind him, the silence fractured, the Tech-Priests and serfs moved forward, incense drifting as they began the solemn rites of preservation. The Jedi, their faces masks of horror and fury, stepped forward, robes swirling. Cin Drallig stepped forward with rage burning in his eyes, opened his mouth to speak, but Sebastian rose, towering over him like a thundercloud.
"Hold your tongues," he growled, eyes narrowing. "He will be treated with the honor he earned. His corpse will not be desecrated or left to rot in the filth of this battlefield. He will be given the highest rite a warrior like him can hope for." He jabbed a blood-smeared gauntlet at the Jedi. "Your Order should be proud to have bred such a man."
Palpatine's voice slid through the tense air like oil on water. He stepped forward, hands folded, his eyes gleaming with hidden malice. "Barbaric," he said, pitching his voice so the remaining Jedi could hear. "Is this what passes for 'honor' among you brutes? Taking trophies from the dead? You call this peace?"
Sebastian turned on him, the massive Astartes looming like a living statue of wrath. His snarl was as cold as a winter blade. "I would not expect a fork-tongued politician like you to understand the meaning of sacrifice. Of respect. You deal in shadows and lies. We deal in truth and steel."
He planted his power sword tip-first into the ground beside Windu's body, voice rising so all could hear. "Let it be known, the duel is done. This galaxy has seen what happens when the old world challenges the sons of the Emperor." He swept his gaze across the assembled ranks of clone troopers, Jedi, serfs, and his own brothers, his bionic eye flickering.
"We have peace!" he thundered, voice echoing from the colosseum, up into the star-filled void above Yavin. "And should any challenge it, remember this day. Remember who stands victorious when our God makes war."
Maximus and Raxor stepped forward, the giant Ultramarine resting his thunder hammer across one massive pauldron, the Salamander's heavy bolter humming quietly as its targeting lens dimmed. They bowed their heads in grim approval.
The Tech-Priests lifted Windu's body onto a grav-slab, chanting liturgies as they prepared him for the journey to the fortress-monastery. The Jedi looked on, some sick with rage, others silent in bitter defeat.
Sebastian turned his back on them all, his stride heavy but unbroken, the hiss of his bionics and the rattle of purity seals the only sound that followed him across the arena's ruined floor.
Beside him, the corpse of the Grandmaster, slain by an Astartes clad in steel and faith, drifted away into the shadows, bound for a place where even enemies might be remembered with honor.
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