(A/N)- *drops Rebels fic out of the blue* Oh goodness me, where did this come from? *hides the dozens of Rebels fics in her favorites*
Yeah, it was time to admit I had a problem. This show is my new obsession, what can I say? Was only a matter of time before I wrote for it.
I had entirely too much fun writing Vader.
Disclaimer: My thirst is deep for this story and these characters but, sadly, Disney owns the rights to them instead of me. Pity.
Fated
There were tremors in the Force, stirrings he could feel even before the frantic private transmission from his Inquisitors came through, telling of the odd alliance they had encountered.
Malachor was a surprise, as was the presence of the former Darth Maul. But an old lapdog of Palpatine's was of no concern to him. Neither was the Jedi rouge and his padawan.
But Ahsoka...
It was hard to keep the pleasure out of his voice as he ordered, ""Do not permit them to escape the planet. Engage them. Detain them if you can. But I want the Apprentice alive."
"What of the others?" the Eighth Brother hissed anxiously. "The Shadow?"
"They do not interest me," Vader snapped. "Do with them what you please. I am on my way."
He punched the button to cut off the transmission and swiveled on his heel towards the door, his cape swishing behind him. The cruiser he was on was currently-fortuitously-in a system not too far from the forbidden Sith world. In his specialized TIE he could make it there within a standard hour, less if he pushed the craft to its limit.
It could only be the threads of destiny, hurrying him along towards this confrontation. The whispers of the Force were all around him.
He would go to Malachor. He would face her. And she... she would lead him to Kenobi. Willingly, if she was wise.
She was a dead woman otherwise. Relics of the old Jedi Order could not be permitted to live. Palpatine had decreed it so and Vader was bound to obey.
No matter his own feelings.
"Ready my ship!" he barked at the nearest officer he spotted in the hallway. The man started a little, but then scurried to comply, he and the other Imperial personnel quickly getting out of Vader's way as he stalked purposely towards the lower hanger.
There would be no escape for Ahsoka Tano this time.
-SWR-
The Force was vibrating all around Malachor. Even in his temperature-regulated suit, Vader felt a chill in his core.
The Dark Side pulsed around his place, permeating the very air of it. He wondered what desperate straits would have led the Jedi here.
He followed the pulse of energy, and the steady beeping of the transponders in the Inquisitors' TIEs. They had all converged upon a singular point-a crater on the northeastern side hemisphere of the planet.
Vader brought the TIE in low, skimming close to the surface. He could see a few large free-standing monoliths in a cluster. Holes dotted the ground all around them. It was a desolate place, empty and still. There was no vegetation, no signs of life save for the occasional circling bird.
He looked for several minutes, searching from the air. From the insistent ping of the transponder, it seemed his quarry was underground.
A brief visual search revealed a jagged crack of sufficient width to fit through, and with expert precision Vader looped his TIE up, back, and down into the chasm.
The receptors in his mask took a moment or two to adjust, and when they did Vader's eyes widened at the sight of the large, red-tinted pyramid. Strange designs curled up its sides. It looked almost like a giant holocron.
Impatiently, Vader thumbed the throttle, closing the distance between him and the giant Sith structure.
There was a rumble in the Force. The Dark Side suddenly swelled, and Vader had to shield his eyes against a bright flash.
He circled the TIE back around, marveling.
A crackling violet beam was shooting up into the sky from the top of the pyramid.
Vader felt out with his mind, discerning the source-its shape, its size, its properties. It was huge, steeped in the Dark Side, an ancient Sith device of unimaginable power. A weapon perhaps?
Was that what the Jedi had come for?
It was time for a closer look. He cut the engines, shutting down everything but the repulsor lifts. They whirred to a low purr as they cycled through their landing sequence. Vader unstrapped from his seat, already taking out his lightsaber.
He opened the hatch of the TIE, stepping out and balancing carefully on top of the craft. Details on the pyramid slowly came into view. The golden crown of it was split open. The epicenter of Dark Side energy was just within, thrumming with power.
A small figure had run out onto the landing. Even from this height, Vader recognized the bright orange flightsuit.
Jarrus's padawan. The Bridger boy.
He had frozen in place under the harsh lights of the TIE, gaping up with wide eyes as Vader descended like some hellish specter of darkness. Vader could sense the boy's unease, and smirked to himself.
He leapt from the top of the TIE before it even set down, sweeping his lightsaber in a lazy arc towards the boy, who immediately backed away, igniting his own blade.
Vader sensed out for his former padawan. She was near, but not immediately present. Besides the boy, there was no one else close by.
That gave him a moment's pause. He glanced towards the crackling violet center of the pyramid, where a floating black obelisk stood wide open. A gold and red holocron hovered in the middle, pieces unlatched, only tethered together by beams of energy.
"You have unlocked the secret of the temple," he noted. His tone vaguely approached sounding impressed. That hint vanished the next moment as he all but spat, "How did you accomplish this?", leveling his dark gaze on the young rebel.
Bridger glared defiantly, just as quickly snarling, "You're smart, figure it out!" and swinging his blade.
It was all too easy to push the youth back, the boy's feet sliding on the floor as Vader pressed his attack. The brief exchange of blows ended quickly; Vader overbalanced the boy and watched him stumble back, then straightened up to his full height.
He paid another brief glance towards the obelisk. The holocron must be the key. But he would have time to examine it later. After he had dealt with the Jedi. "No matter," he dismissed, returning his full attention to the padawan in front of him. "The power within will soon serve the Emperor."
Bridger blocked his way, declaring rather boldly, "I don't fear you."
Vader almost snorted. A hideous lie if he'd ever heard one. No amount of desperate smothering on the boy's part could hide the trickles of fear Vader felt off him through the Force. But he just rolled his eyes behind the mask and humored him with a sardonic, "Then you will die braver than most."
He raised his saber and let fall a heavy overhead swing. It bent the boy under its weight and force for a moment, before he managed to parry and throw Vader off.
Their blades clashed again, Vader pushing forward and Bridger giving way. The thin blue blade came up in an underhand swing; Vader batted it down harshly.
The next time Bridger raised his guard, Vader's lightsaber slashed through the oddly-shaped hilt.
The boy dropped backwards onto the ground, the pieces of his saber falling beside him and sparking pitifully. Immediately he was scrambling back on his hands and heels, the mask of bravado falling from him. Vader stepped forward, looming over him with lightsaber at the ready, and Bridger flinched, blue eyes wide, cradling his sword arm close to his chest.
As I thought, Vader said to himself. For all his bluster the boy was just a frightened little child. Pitiful.
"Perhaps I was wrong," he mused darkly.
His red blade lifted, raising high, preparing to strike the boy down. Bridger cowered, shielding his face with his arm and then-
"It wouldn't be the first time."
The voice was like a steel lasso that looped Vader's neck from behind, immobilizing him. He turned-Not too eagerly! he told himself-and there she was, his little padawan all grown up.
Her montrals were longer now, and taller, and she carried herself with a strength and serenity well-befitting of a Jedi, despite her years out of the Order. Her familiar Force presence pulsed with light, vibrant and furious. For a brief moment it warmed something in Vader's heart.
"It was foretold that you would be here," he said, a trace of delight in his voice. The Force had been whispering about this day from the moment he'd sensed her. It was ringing now, sounding the bells of Fate all around them, as palpable a presence as the crackling electricity from the obelisk. Vader squared his shoulders. "Our long-awaited meeting has come at last," he crowed.
"I'm glad I gave you something to look forward to," Ahsoka snarked.
The boy on the ground behind him, the obelisk, the holocron, all of it was forgotten as Vader faced his padawan.
"We need not be enemies," he said hastily. His heart beat anxiously inside his suit. It was not yet too late for Ahsoka-if she joined them, if she swore to serve the Emperor as he had, surely she would be spared the fate of the rest of the Order. Perhaps she'd even be given a place of high honor in the Inquisitorius. And then with her by his side-with their indomitable team reunited once more-they could hunt down the remaining Jedi traitors, overthrow the Emperor and bring order-true order-to the galaxy. "The Emperor will show you mercy," he told her, "if you tell us where the remaining Jedi can be found."
Take my offer, he urged in his mind. Join me. You owe no loyalty to them.
He waited with baited breath for her answer.
"There are no Jedi!" she snapped, throwing the offer back in his face. "You and your Inquisitors have seen to that!" she went on, eyes flashing with anger.
Vader scowled furiously under his helmet. Stubborn. Defiant. Well, it was fortunate he had not yet slain Jarrus's young padawan. If Ahsoka would not talk, he would wring the answers he sought out of the boy's flesh. Bridger was ill-trained, vulnerable to the Dark Side. He'd break easily. Maybe his screams would loosen Ahsoka's tongue.
"Perhaps this child will confess what you will not," he snarled, turning a dark glare upon the youth, who crawled backwards, shying away from Vader's fierce presence in unmasked fear.
Ahsoka always did have a weakness for children. Let her pay in secrets for the boy's life.
"I was beginning to think I knew who you were, behind that mask," she said, stopping him one again. She stiffened with a sniff of contempt. "But it's impossible," she declared. "My master could never be as vile as you!"
Vader's head jerked around. "Anakin Skywalker was weak!" he spat, tramping down on the flood of memories that threatened to rush through him at the name. Anakin was a ghost, a relic of the past, destroyed with the Jedi Order. "I destroyed him," he said.
Whoever he may have been before... it didn't matter. There was no Anakin. There was only Vader now.
Ahsoka closed her eyes with a pained expression, and when she opened them again they burned with conviction.
"Then I will avenge his death." She almost hissed the words, her voice cold, possessing a tranquil fury he had never seen from her.
But what an absurd thing to say. Vader was a bit taken aback by the sincerity and passion in her words. Did his old apprentice really mean to fight for a ghost? To try to kill him to bring honor to a dead man's name? Did she truly intend to take revenge on him?
"Revenge is not the Jedi way," he chided.
What Ahsoka said next surprised him all the more. She looked straight at him with eyes of steel and declared:
"I am no Jedi."
No time to ponder her words. She brought forth her lightsabers, crossing them and igniting the dual white blades, and Vader raised his saber in turn.
The tension stretched out, thick in the lightning-lit room.
And then Ahsoka charged.
She leapt up and aimed a high kick at his head. A slight adjustment from his end and her foot swept only empty air. As she landed Vader aimed a heavy horizontal swing at her, which she knocked aside with a quick uppercut from her blades. After a couple more glancing strikes, their lightsabers finally locked in earnest.
It didn't last long. Ahsoka summoned a wave of Force energy to push Vader back. It was just far enough to give her room to come down on him again from above.
There was a thunderous crash as their sabers clashed against each other's. He flipped her neatly over his head, swelled to his feet and pressed the attack. The crack and crackle of lightsabers filled the air. The eddies of the Force swirled all around them. Everything else was once again forgotten. All distractions faded away until his focus was solely on his Togruta opponant.
Ahsoka was just as quick and agile as he remembered, maybe even more so. But he had grown stronger as well. The Dark Side filled him with power, lending its strength to his hands as they gripped his saber, to his arms as he slashed with brunt vigor at his old apprentice.
She dodged and ducked, nimble on her feet. Her youth made it easy for her to evade him at first, but with his relentless press forward, driving her before him, she eventually began to tire.
Their battle raged out onto the landing. Ahsoka gave ground before his onslaught, holding her own but unable to contend with his strength.
Steadily, their battle drew closer to the edge. Vader kept her grounded, giving her no room for any more aerial gymnastics. Their sabers locked again and again, buzzing and sputtering, sending up green sparks whenever the blades met. Ahsoka blocked a blunt, two-handed swing with both her sabers and her knees bent under the weight of the blow. She strained mightily against the force of his saber bearing down.
With a valiant heave she finally disengaged, throwing her blades up to break the lock. She was unbalanced when she made her next strike, and it was all too simple and easy for Vader to throw off her sabers and extend a hand to Force Push her.
She flew off the landing, falling like a ragdoll into the dark beyond.
Vader peered down to see where she landed, but had trouble picking her out in the dim light.
The pyramid behind him gave a sudden rumble, the ground shuddering underneath his feet. Vader glanced up briefly, then returned his attention to searching for his apprentice. He could just barely make out her form, the white and blue stripes of her montrals standing out against the red-tinted gray rock.
She was splayed on her side, unmoving. Vader paused. Had the fall killed her?
No... no he could still make out her Force signature. The fragmented remains of their Master-Apprentice bond beat faintly with the truth that she was alive... for now.
Stunned then. He could drop right down there to the second landing and finish her off before she recovered. It would all too easy.
...But Vader hesitated.
He stood, still as a statue, staring down at the prone form of his apprentice. As if waiting for something. For her to move, for a nudge in the Force, he didn't know.
He found himself fuming after a moment. Angry at his hesitation. He could hear a voice in the back corner of his mind-it sounded very much like an echo of Palpatine-chastising him for his inaction.
Strike her down. Strike her down now! If she will not submit and surrender, she must be destroyed!
His own mental voice grumbled an answer:
I know.
His internal dilemma was interrupted by an even louder rumble from the pyramid. Vader glanced up, startled to find the walls slowly sliding down, returning to a closed position.
The holocron. Vader frowned. If the temple was sealing itself, the key keeping it open must have been removed. Somehow, just as he had unlocked the pyramid in the first place, the Bridger boy had found a way to force it closed again.
A mystery he would have to investigate later. After he retrieved the holocron. It could not be allowed to remain in Jedi hands.
Paying once last glance towards Ahsoka, Vader turned, stalking back under the overhang of the pyramid.
As he'd thought, the holocron had been removed from its place floating in the violet beam, which was crackling and sparking even more furiously than before, sending frayed lightning off in chaotic directions. Bridger and his master were stumbling off towards the opposite end, the older man leaning heavily on his padawan, injured perhaps. They were making for a ship on the far side; Vader could just barely make it out between the ever-narrowing gap of the pyramid walls.
He sensed out for the holocron, quickly finding it by the pulse of Dark energy it was emitting; it was clutched in one of Bridger's hands.
With a casual lift of his arm, Vader brought the Force to bear.
His grip raised the holocron up with a jerk, startling the boy and nearly ripping it from his hands. The young padawan held on valiantly to it though, as it tried to sail off towards the one summoning it, only briefly reaching back to grasp his master's frantic hands.
Bridger faced forward again and Vader saw his face blanch. "No!" the boy cried, desperately digging in his heels as he was pulled along with the holocron. "No no no no no no no no no!" he repeated in a panic.
Vader narrowed his brows in concentration. It should have been all too simple to wrest the device from the boy's grip, but the Bridger child stubbornly held on, tightening his fingers whenever the holocron almost slipped loose. His feet skidded in protest as Vader yanked on him with the Force.
Well, if he would not let go of it, he would share in its fate. Be captured for his Master and taken into Imperial hands. Jarrus too, who refused to release his padawan's other arm, desperately dragging the boy back from Vader's strong pull.
Vader was almost too busy focusing to feel the warning in the Force. Ahsoka's presence was suddenly behind him, closing the distance rapidly.
He released his hold on Bridger, already turning around as he and his Master fell in a heap.
Ahsoka came on too fast, leaping towards his head almost as soon as he turned to face her, parrying his lightsaber strike. All Vader saw was an orange blur and then a blinding white flash.
Pain seared into the right side of his face and he let out an involuntary cry, reeling and stumbling back from the blow. The heat of Ahsoka's lightsaber pierced through metal and circuitry, melting the black armor and burning close, too close, to his face.
There was a shock of hot bitter air on his flaky, white-leather skin. Vader blinked, the crackling violet ambiance of the room suddenly too bright, his view of the ceiling above too clear and unfiltered.
Vader rolled onto his knees, recovering from the sudden shock of air and light coming through his once impervious and tightly-sealed helmet. Ahsoka had gouged out a long slash, through which part of his face beneath was exposed. Vader panted, recovering, squinting through his right eye and remaining lens. His rebreather wheezed unsteadily.
He could hear his apprentice, see her form just outside his periphery, fallen to the ground as well from her last strike.
"Ahsoka!" the Bridger boy called to her, frantically. "Come on, hurry!"
He sensed her stir, saw her getting up in the corner of his vision, and found his voice, heard himself calling her name.
"Ahsoka..."
It was... strange to hear his own, unfiltered voice. There was a ringing in his head still, after-vibrations from Ahsoka's strike, but the pain was quickly fading and his eye was growing used to the outside air.
He looked up at her.
It was like he was seeing her for the first time. He almost did see her like that, not as she was, but as how he remembered her. The years were peeled back from her face, making her look younger, skinnier, smaller. Blue eyes bright and youthful, full of a curious vigor and spark. A round, eager face constantly looking up at him.
The lightning from the obelisk played across her and the illusion was suddenly gone, replaced by the older, wearier version, whose face was too lined with worry, whose eyes were too full of pain. She stared at him as if she didn't know him, with quiet horror and a mixture of disbelief and knowing.
"Ahsoka," he said again, almost gently.
It's me, Ahsoka. Search your feelings. Feel it through the Force.
He saw in her expression the acceptance win out over the disbelief. "Anakin..." she breathed.
Vader staggered to his feet, clumsily. His former padawan was rooted to the spot where she she stood, her lightsabers clutched in her hands. She could save herself, she could turn tail and run while Vader was still slow and recovering...
But she made no move to go.
"I won't leave you!" she declared, standing her ground in determination. "Not this time."
Yet another baffling statement. Ahsoka's loyalty to her dead master was misplaced, foolish, ridiculous. But it caused... something... to shake and jitter inside him.
He looked at her and saw his mother. Saw Padme. Another woman he could not save. Another friend who had turned on him, and would not be swayed to join him. The same hesitation that had paralyzed him outside gripped him now.
Along with the sensation of being pulled in two.
Like stone statues they stood, facing each other, still fixed points in the maelstrom of dark Force energy that crackled all around. The walls of the pyramid slid slowly closed; in moments it would trap the two of them inside together, and then the conflict would be truly decided.
There was no other recourse. There were no other options. If Ahsoka would not turn-either to the Dark Side, or to the ever-narrowing gap of the walls to escape-then her fate was sealed.
He didn't want to kill her. All the whisperings of Palpatine in his head, his own anger and hurt at her walking away from the Order, from him... they could not overcome the reluctance in his hand to raise his blade against her.
Again it seemed that the lightning flashed away the years upon her, his perception of her shifting between the padawan he knew, and the rebel leader that was a stranger to him.
I won't leave you, she'd said.
...But neither would she follow him. She stayed, defiantly, in the Light, waiting for him to join her.
He narrowed his eyes, ice entering his gaze. What she hoped for was the height of folly. There was no turning for him. It was far, far too late for that. The man she hoped to save was dead. And all traces of him would be scrubbed from existence.
Including her.
I'm sorry, Ahsoka.
"Then you will die," he said in a cold growl. He raised his saber, igniting the blade, and strode forward to finish their battle.
She clutched her own, unignited sabers tighter, planting her feet.
"Ahsoka!" came a faint cry from behind them. Ahsoka casually extended a hand behind her and the Bridger boy-trying to run up to her, trying to come to her aid-was pushed back beyond the boundaries of the pyramid walls, out into safety.
Vader took advantage of her distraction and swung down at her, only for her to raise her sabers in a crosshead behind her head, blocking him from slicing through her skull. She strained under the weight of his sword for a moment, before stepping forward and flashing around to face him.
White and red clashed, sparking, buzzing harshly. Their sabers were a whirlwind of motion, striking here and there, blocking across the flank, locking, glancing off each other. The pyramid sealed them in and the crash of lightsabers joined the crackle of lightning, filling the space with noise.
So focused on the battle was Vader that the warning in the Force almost came too late. The obelisk behind them was whining, a shrill tone reaching a fever pitch as reams of Dark Side energy bubbled up around it like a volcano waiting to pop.
Vader's eyes widened in alarm, but he had the presence of mind to disengage Ahsoka, step back, and raise a Force shield.
The ancient Sith device held its discharge for a few tense seconds.
Then it exploded outwards in all directions.
Wind and debris buffeted him, the force flinging him backwards, and all sight and sound of his padawan was wiped away in the blinding light.