Here is the second instalment to the chapter, it has taken me ages for which I apologise, all rights for star wars and the name starkiller belongs to George Lucas. I am only playing in his sandpit of awsomeness. Enjoy...

"Master!" screamed Starkiller as she went on the defensive, she had sparred with Vader often, both because of training and out of anger, that was until she had finally been taught control by Sideous. She did as Vader had taught her, did as Obi-Wan Kenobi had taught Vader before: picture your opponent in your mind. True, he was a more able swordsman- hence the immediate defensive stance, but he was old and his bionic arms and legs did not have the same fluidity as her own limbs did. But Vader was fighting to kill and that made him more dangerous than any amount of skill- life had taught her that when someone tried to kill it would strip all morals, he would be feeling not thinking. A Sith's strength is through his passion.

"I am his apprentice" Vader declared and suddenly, amongst the flashing and sparking of the lightsabers Starkiller did not only understand but sympathised. It was not about the mission, it wasn't about jealousy, and Vader was not fighting to kill. He thinks my mission is to kill him, and then, with this moment of clarity came another shocking realisation: Sideous had had this planned. Happiness sprung unbidden from seemingly nowhere and the darkness sang as a result, feeding off of it and twisting the darkness of the girls thoughts, it had been her that had been chosen by Sideous, not her supposed elder, she was more powerful than the chosen one. Not that a spectator of this fight to see that.

"This…" she grunted, desperately pushing Vader back both with her lightsaber and the force, creating a short breathing space. "Is not my mission" she cried, noting with satisfaction that her skills had got better as her opponent flew back and slammed against the wall. "This is not my mission" she repeated waving her lightsaber around in his face.

"Liar!" Vader called, anger leaking into his voice as Starkiller felt herself fly into a wall and stay there, held fast by her opponent's ability in the force. She then felts something brushing against her, something very black and very solid. She cursed under her breath as felt vaders helmet on her forehead, she prepared an attack of her own, lightsabers held loose in both hands, she didn't need them, this was to be a battle of the minds.

Vader pushed against the younger Sith's mind trying to find a weakness and was rewarded with penetrating the first layers of defence, brushing through recent memories and those which were inconsequential: a conversation with a trooper about girls, or what she had had for lunch, at the same time Starkiller was retreating further and further into the citadel of her mind pulling various bits of knowledge and memories with her.

For a spectator it would have been a strange sight, Vader standing over his younger colleague, who looked more of her true age of fifteen years as she sat motionless, crumpled against the wall, except for the occasional squirm that signified Vader going just that little bit further.

Inside, the battle was very much one-sided as Starkiller retreated further and further in on herself as more memories were being left unguarded: old fights or old missions allowing Vader to sift through them.

"Surrender now!" Vadar called, the words echoing around her mind. "You are no match for me and you know it". Inside her mind she didn't hear the humanoid voice, the scratchy metallic voice of her master, but rather the sneering once handsome voice of an ex-Jedi, one that didn't get burnt alive at Mustafa. At the sound of his voice and the acknowledgement that his statement was very much correct Starkiller faltered her and her defences died, memories of her youth came unbidden to the front of her mind, memories of the Jedi. She watched on hopelessly as her life was played out before her, tears streamed down her face as she watched herself laugh and jokes forgotten and feel pain forgotten afresh once more. She mourned loss as if it was new and screamed out as if being tortured.

She didn't realise it stopped, she didn't notice the overbearing silence until she reached out instinctively for her only source of comfort: the Force. Its black tendrils swirled around her mind dipping in and out of shades of grey. She bathed in it like someone would a hot bath letting it fill her up and replenish her as she slowly asked it to take her away on its currents into the dark abyss….

The smell of sulfer assaulted her nose, the heat on her skin as hot as the sun, but instead of it coming from above in the sky it seemed to be coming from all over, the sounds: constant distant booms, natural sounding and the closer and more inhuman sound of metal clanging. Starkiller opened her eyes, the light quickly brought them closed again but not before she understood she was no longer on the ship, no longer in the force and certainly no longer in the Empire. Her eyes flew open; this time she blinked away the sun forcing her sluggish eyes to adjust quicker.

"Mustafa" she breathed, why, of all places had The Force brought her here? She paused, struggling to remember past the flashes of red and blue lightsabers.

"Faeyassa!" Called a voice. "Youngling its time to go" Starkiller looked up to see a young Jedi Padawan, a very young Jedi, dressed in the traditional beige costume, her braid defined by her unusually short hair staring straight at her.

"Coming Master!" The girl all but croaked, her voice distorted as a result of her young throat not being used to this particular atmosphere, but there was no denying the eagerness to please in her voice, and the enthusiasm on her face. Something that Starkiller's mentors had then had to whip out of her.

"Youngling" the voice called again, the girl's master came into Starkiller's view, and that of the young girls. His hair was long, as had been the style of the time, his face…. Starkiller couldn't concentrate on his face for any short period of them as if things kept dragging her away from studying it. Every time she brought her eyes up to study it she would find them being dragged slowly away again, was it The Force? Or, Was it the strange familiarity that kept her from looking at him too long, as if she was scared to know who he really was. "Don't run off again!" His voice was firm yet fair, like that of a loveable dad scolding his child. He was young Starkiller realised, this was his first Padawan and fresh out of that rank himself. As she stood in the middle of them the force swirled around her letting her make the basic assumptions of the situation which she was in:

They couldn't see her

This vision is of the Force

She should follow these two characters.

"I'm sorry" Starkiller murmured, hearing it from the girl too.

"If I lost you…. I" the elder of the two Jedi began, causing the girl and Starkiller to look up.

"Yes?" Starkiller prompted again, or was it the little girl, or both. The Jedi Master sighed.

"I don't know what to do with you" he said, his voice full of affection. This was too close for Starkiller, she knew what this was now, it wasn't a vision, it was a memory.

"Liar!" She screamed and before her the scene fizzled and warped, the noises becoming echoy, the colours taking on the swirls of black, the dark blacks and purples of The Force. "Vader." She whispered, remembering how she had been taken from the realms of reality to the supernatural. Remembering her very first bit of training she reached out and grasped onto anything that made her who she was, the scene began to reform around her as she began to chant to Qotsisajak.

"Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through power I gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken. The Force shall set me free". She repeated it feeling herself grow stronger and more grounded, her eyes closed and her hands over her ears to block out the memory which Vader was forcing her to relive. "I have to defeat Vader" she muttered. "I will have my victory." She said again pushing into The Force with her newfound strength and will power. She did her best not to hear the rockets that would signal the end for the Jedi youngling. "I WILL be set free," she commanded as her eyes flew open to the sight of the ship, her ship, her home, her quarters. Her hand was up and she became aware that she was using The Force to keep Vader in place against the wall opposite. She smilied and the dark side sang to her promising vegence for the pain he had caused her. Vader had been right, this was her true mission, not one that was commanded but one that was just known. Sideous, had, ultimately, chosen her, The Force had chosen her, in a way Vader had also chosen her by brining her back from Mustafa and not letting her die.

Her arrogance broke her concentration and allowed Vader to force himself free and throw Starkiler against the wall he had just been released from so fast that she barely registered what was happening. She crumpled, her vision flickering on and off as she sailed too and from consciousness. Between flashes she saw Vader's lightsaber. It ignited, the point driving toward her heart. She noticed the blue of The Force lightening flashing across her face. She saw The Force, laid out in the all its dark beauty with one thought on her mind: The Force will set you free.

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Claws2501