And I'm back! Sorry this took so long, but in my defense, it is nearly twice as long as my regular chapters. Can I just say, writing close quarter lightsaber fighting is hard?! So many limbs, so many weapons... and there are only so many variations on saying 'sliced.' Ah well. This should still be enjoyable, and I HOPE it is, because I rather enjoyed writing it.
Also: thank you, Guest 'Ashley B.,' for inquiring about my school's testing. We won't actually know our grades till later on in the month, but the gesture is very much so appreciated!
Disclaimer: After seeing what it takes to create an actual realistic lightsaber fight, I'm perfectly fine with saying Rebels belongs to Disney. Too much work.
"GO!"
Without needing further encouragement, Kanan took off, sprinting towards the direction where Ezra had been flung. Ahsoka would have sighed a private sigh of relief that, for now at least, Kanan wasn't indulging himself by relying on the Dark.
Of course, having a moment of private satisfaction while fighting against a dangerous Sith Lord who knew how you fought was just not possible. Nor was it advisable.
Because, of course Anakin knew how she fought. He had taught her how to, after all. Sure, she'd learned the basics of lightsaber combat while training as a youngling, but it was always the Master that trained how to wield the blade, and the various forms of lightsaber fighting techniques that there were, and which one suited which occasion, and other such details.
Ahsoka still remembered the look of incredulity Anakin had had on his face when Ahsoka showed a liking to wielding her blades backwards, in reverse Shien form as opposed to the normal way of handling the blade. He had been surprised at first, most definitely, then chuckled and made some joke about thinking and fighting backwards. She didn't remember the exact words he had said. She wished she did. Because there would never be another moment of harmless jibing at one another.
Now, they were fighting against each other, using their extensive knowledge of one another against them.
"Tell me, Ahsoka, how did you feel when the Order fell? When the same band of lazy monks that forced you into exile was finally dealt justice?" Ahsoka's eyes narrowed, and she slide back a couple paces after just barely blocking a stroke of his blade. She was still shaken, and she had no doubt it was only because fighting had been ingrained into her that her limbs were still moving.
"The Jedi Council never forced me anywhere, you know that. I left of my own accord." Her voice was flat, controlled. It betrayed nothing of what she was feeling inside.
"Because they refused to believe you. If they had not been so quick to doubt you, you would have stayed with them. You know it in your heart." Ahsoka sprang back at Anakin, moving her lightsabers quickly. But of course, he blocked them both. She wasn't exactly on the top of her game at the moment.
"And done what? Lived a happy life for the rest of my days? You and the Emperor made that fantasy an impossibility for thousands of the Jedi. I would have fared no better than they if I hadn't left." Ahsoka's voice softened, but just barely as their battle continued on. "Why did you betray them? They were your family as much as they were mine."
If Anakin could have growled, Ahsoka was sure that had been what had come out of the voice-processing unit attached to his helmet.
"My family was destroyed because of the Jedi. It is because they did not see reason and refused to stray from their out-dated ideals that I had to eradicate them."
Ahsoka crossed her arms so they were parallel to one another, her lightsabers held in two defensive green lines in front of her chest. "Your family? The Jedi Order WAS your family!"
Anakin shook his head, straightening up all the way and holding his lightsaber out to his side. "No, Ahsoka. The Jedi Order forbade my family. They viewed it as something to be outlawed, banned. And because they would not change their way of life, everyone I loved and would have loved died."
Ahsoka's forehead creased into a slight frown, though she did not lower her guard in the moment of stillness. "Everyone you loved? Who else besides the Jedi could you hav-" Her eyes widened as the answer to her own question came to her. "Padmé..."
Vader lunged.
Though her body and limbs were thrown back into the fight, Ahsoka's mind reeled, processing this new and un-expected development.
Yes, now that she looked back on all the times she had spent with the Senator from Naboo, Ahsoka could see the evidence fitting together. Whenever they were together with one another, they was always something off about how one or the other had behaved. Anakin had always gotten very much so emotional whenever she had been put into danger, something Ahsoka had noted over the years. Well, Padmé could get very feisty when Anakin was in danger as well... Now, after all these years, Ahsoka couldn't believe she hadn't seen it sooner.
"Yes, of course... you loved Padmé, didn't you?" Ahsoka might very well have been decapitated if it hadn't been for her quick backwards duck.
"Loved her? She was my everything!" For just a single moment, Ahsoka was looking at an expression of pain on Anakin's face rather than the expressionless black mask in front of her.
But that image faded fast as Ahsoka was pushed into purely defensive mode. Anakin- no, this was just his anger now, this was Vader -was taking strength from anger as he brought up the past. Just like Kanan before-hand, he was using his rage to power his strokes- but with one, major difference. Kanan's fighting style had been like Anakin's, to block out emotions during a fight. But Vader had been trained to feed on those emotions. While Kanan had been spiraling out of control, Vader was now climbing further and further into his area of strength, to his peak of power.
That didn't bode good, for any of them.
"So you killed everyone?!" Ahsoka leaned backwards, using both of her blades in her best attempt to block the single downwards swipe the Sith sent at her.
"The Jedi turned against the Republic! They were going to kill the Chancellor; take away Padmé's only chance of living!"
Ahsoka could barely catch Vader's multitudes of attacks, even though she had twice as many lightsabers as he did. A brief expression of panic flashed across Ahsoka's face as she struggled to keep an eye on his blade, which seemed to be everywhere. But she couldn't stop talking. She had to understand why Anakin had turned into Vader, no matter how rash getting that information might be.
"Anakin, Padmé is dead! The Jedi had nothing to with it, she died on Mustafar!" Ahsoka remembered that. She remembered how devastated she had been when the news of the Senator's death had come to her, though at the time everyone she had ever been friends with had been falling away at the time. Padmé had just added a sting to the pain of losing her everything, but she had been a powerful sting. The Senator had been one of her closest friends, despite their age difference.
"Nothing to do with it?! It was because of Obi-Wan and the others she turned against me, it was their fault she died! It was their fault my family was destroyed."
Ahsoka had rarely seen Anakin go out of control, and whenever she had it had been genuinely scary to see. But seeing Vader lose control was terrifying. Sure, there was no facial expression to judge by, but that somehow made it even worse, because even though the mask showed no emotion, the anger and wildness was still coming through. But that didn't matter much to Ahsoka, because something had clicked in the the back of her brain.
His family. As in more than one member.
"...everyone I loved and would have loved died."
Ahsoka's eyes widened. Her mouth opened in an 'o' of shock. Her arms would have dropped had they not been otherwise engaged.
"She was going to give birth, wasn't she?" Ahoka's voice was soft, shaking slightly. Vader's roar seemed to fill the entire bay, and Ahsoka was forced to back-flip several times just in order to get out of the vicinity of his lightsaber as he charged.
Vader threw his palm outwards, and Ahsoka was sent skidding backwards, away from the wreckage of the Phantom. But the Togruta dug both of her lightsabers into the metal floor, and she did not fly as far as Vader had intended, instead coming to a stop nearly ten meters away from the Sith. There was pain in her eyes as she looked at what her Master's love had morphed him into.
"She was going to die. But the Jedi did nothing, only the Emperor would have helped her." Vader was striding towards her, not rushing, but with speed and purpose. "And then they were going to kill him. They were going to kill the only man who could have saved her. What choice did I have!?"
He closed the distance between them, and delivered a vicious downwards blow that made Ahsoka's sprained wrist throb very much painfully, but it was either grit through that or die.
"You didn't have to commit genocide! That should never have been the solution to any-"
"Solution!? There was never any solution! There was only pain or my family! And everything was still taken away from me!" Anakin jabbed his lightsaber at her left shoulder, making Ahsoka duck downwards and to her right as she moved both of her blades at different targets. The one in her left hand shot out to meet his red lightsaber, preventing any downwards stroke that would have sliced right through her, and Ahsoka's right blade she swung towards Vader's mid-riff, trying to land a blow that would at least slow the Sith down.
Instead, Anakin leapt, jumping up and forwards, using the place where his blade pressed on top of hers as his fulcrum of movement (no pun intended). Ahsoka spun around, coming to face him just as he landed and struck out once more.
"Even you left me!" There was anger filtering through his voice-processor. A lot of it. Ahsoka stood her ground, panting slightly in response to the excess of movement blocking Vader's strikes had caused.
"I never wanted to leave YOU!" Ahsoka could feel her emotions welling up inside of her, threatening to burst out. But she was too much in control to let that happen, and so there was barely a tremor in her voice as she spoke. "You were the one reason I always doubted my decision! I left the Jedi because they weren't who I thought they were; but I never ever wanted to leave you! I thought you died, I thought you all died, and I could never forgive myself for leaving you because of it!"
"Then why are you fighting? If you never wanted to leave my side, why are you fighting? Because the Jedi turned everyone who was close to me against me!" Ahsoka stood up, completely straight, slightly turned to the right, both blades hanging down. Her eyes stared straight into the view-ports of Vader's mask, and they stood there for just a second.
"No. I would never turn against Sky-guy, and I never have." Ahsoka lifted her chin just slightly and narrowed her eyes. "But he died on Mustafar." Her voice was shaking just slightly. "The Anakin that I knew and loved is gone. The only thing left is this mass of hatred that calls itself Vader." He straightened as well.
"Then you have sealed your fate against me." Ahsoka's eyes softened for just a moment in sadness and pain. Anakin was dead. The only thing left was Vader. Her Master was good and truly gone, and Ahsoka doubted whether anything could ever bring him back to the Light. But Ahsoka had to accept that for now. A break-down could come later. Now was the time to fight until they could run.
And she sprang towards him.
Her limbs were obeying her now. There was no hesitation, no trembling, no reluctance any more. She was not fighting Anakin. She was fighting the monster that had replaced him. Fighting against the anger that had overcome him. This she was okay with.
Ahsoka moved in faster than any non-Force sensitive could hope to achieve, ducking low and feinting to her left. Her left lightsaber cut out in front of her, aiming towards Vader's legs, but then she moved out of the feint and sprang up and diagonal to her right, so that her slash now came in close to the nest of mechanisms on the center of Vader's chest.
The Sith took a step backwards, getting out of the range of her attack, and sliced towards her unguarded legs- only to be met with her second blade, pulled up behind her in a defensive position. Because while he knew how she fought, she also knew how he fought.
Landing once more in a crouch, Ahsoka immediately jumped up again as she hopped over the low sweep Vader had sent out, batting his red lightsaber away with her right blade and moving in for another air-borne attack with her left. The Sith simply twirled out of her range, holding his lightsaber out in a defensive position.
Vader in a defensive position was a really odd thing to see.
Ahsoka landed, stilled, and watched Vader with unwavering eyes. The Sith held his blade outwards and to his right, seemingly relaxed. He made for a tempting target- to anyone who wasn't Ahsoka. Instead, she once again raised her lightsabers up horizontally parallel to one another, so that her sight was rimmed by glowing green on the top and bottom of her visual spectrum, Vader standing in the middle.
They stood there for a few moments, until Vader made the first move by jumping straight at her unexpectedly. His lightsaber was pointed directly in-between her two blades, towards her face.
Ahsoka knew better than to fall for the feint, and was rewarded for her awareness with a successful block at a strike that would have taken off her right leg from the knee down.
Ahsoka sprang upwards, going for the unexpected. And it must have been unexpected, because her feet successfully touched down on the top of Vader's helmet without being sliced off.
But she did not make some futile kick or other move that would progress them nowhere in the fight. Instead, Ahsoka leapt forwards once more, to Vader's backside, trailing both her lightsabers low to her sides, where they were sure to hit his shoulders.
She landed on the floor, turned around, and the corner of her mouth twitched in satisfaction as she saw the rut her left blade had left in the Sith's right shoulder. It wasn't serious, and the limb was in absolutely no danger of falling off, but it would be enough to hamper his movement.
Which, when going up against Vader, was about as good as you were going to get.
Vader turned his helmet to the left, his back still facing Ahsoka while he looked at her through the corner of his eye. Again, she knew better than to take the bait. She waited once more, crouched low on the floor, until she realized that Vader wasn't trying to bait her.
Instead, he was fiddling with the controls on his chest.
His limbs were severely damaged by the lava- he must rely on his electronics to move them as fast as he can. That stroke must have come close to damaging that system- she had no more time to think before he had finished and once again leapt at her, closing the distance in a frighteningly little amount of time.
Ahsoka let her body move on auto-pilot while her eyes made a quick up and down search over Vader's body, searching for any more potential weak spots.
Legs, arms, extremities, maybe a few sections on his back, definitely the center chest-
Her moment of distraction was dearly payed for.
A white hot pain spread stabbed through her upper left leg as her defenses slipped, causing Ahsoka to release a loud cry of pain. Quickly, she crossed her lightsabers in an 'x' in front of her, around the red lightsaber piercing through her quadricep. With a quick scooping motion that lasted barely longer than a phemto-second, Vader's red lightsaber was quickly removed from her leg as Ahsoka sprang backwards using her right leg. She landed heavily, off-balanced, and only a few feet away from her original position.
Vader's attack had dug his blade through her leg, and pain lanced through it even while she was not using it. There was no blood, because a lightsaber automatically cauterized any wound it made, but it was smoking very gently. The flesh around it was burnt and black, Ahsoka could feel the slightly crusty dead skin crinkling already. Oh, and her muscle had a big hole in it. That was probably the most major thing to assess here. Just maybe.
And then Vader was on her again. She almost didn't even block him in time, the pain off-balanced her so. Because, yeah, getting stabbed in the leg hurt. And it did so especially when it was used to being completely operable while in battle.
"Your strength is failing you." It was the first few words either had spoken in a minute or two; the sudden reintroduction of language took her a second to readjust to.
"Lucky I don't give up."
Ahsoka raised both lightsabers above her as she blocked a sweeping downwards swipe that would have cut her in half. In the brief second that their weapons hung in the air, Ahsoka kicked off the ground with her right leg once more, adding downwards pressure to force Vader's lightsaber back towards the top of his head as she did so. The Sith tilted his head to the left, nearly avoiding being skewered by his own blade.
Ahsoka landed farther away from him than she had last time, which was good; while injured, distance was your best ally in a fight. Though as she landed, another jolt of pain racketed up through her leg, and Ahsoka knew if she tried any leg-stunts fancier than kicks, she'd most likely black out from the pain.
Which, as one might expect, made Ahsoka really hate the situation she was in as Vader once again charged at her.
Keeping her left leg bent an still, Ahsoka sprang to her right, landing on one foot, then jumping straight over the air and over the Sith as he pivoted to face her. She dangled one of her lightsabers down low, going for yet another over-head strike, and wasn't all that surprised when he blocked it.
She landed just behind him, but she knew better than to try and strike him while his back was turned. Because a single moment later, his back wasn't turned anymore, and his lightsaber whooshed through the space she had just been occupying moments before.
Ahsoka was panting now. Hard. Living on nothing more than nuts and berries and the occasional animal on Yavin 4 for nearly a year hadn't done wonders for her physic. Sure, the running had helped keep her in shape- but the malnutrition really hadn't helped. That and now she was injured, going against one of the most powerful men in the galaxy, and generally everything that described a situation even the chanciest of gamblers wouldn't bet on.
"You are going to die here, alone." It was just a little freaky that he had gone completely calm. Just a few minutes ago he had been raging- only now, Ahsoka gathered that he had compressed that rage and hidden it under the surface, letting it stew. The icy cold, calculating look and feel his mask and behavior gave him was as effective a weapon as any lightsaber, one that she had no doubt had worked on countless opponents before.
"One thing I learned was to never expect my death, Vader. It only leads to doubts." Her voice could also be calm and still, collected and tranquil. Though the effect was slightly ruined by the glaze of pain in her eyes and the tightness of her mouth, not to mention her obvious change in movement as she favored her right leg above all other movement.
And though she was not planning on dying any time soon, there were still doubts swirling through her head. No matter the amount of stubbornness or recklessness she had shown before, Ahsoka was still a calculated fight- most of the time. In this particular fight, she knew deep in her core that it would not end well for her.
Still, though. Retreat was not an option. Dying was not an option. Surrender was not an option. Even winning wasn't an option; that was pretty much impossible. The only thing she could do was keep on fighting until another option presented itself to her.
Though with her leg and exhaustion hampering her movement and fighting maneuvers, the more sensible part of Ahsoka's mind reasoned that it wouldn't be long before she couldn't fight any more.
The rest of her... headstrong brain refused to even admit that was a possibility.
Ahsoka reached down with her right hand and planted it firmly on the ground, lightsaber held in the very tips of her fingers while her left raised in a defensive horizontal position. Vader stood still, and they both looked one another in the eyes.
A split second later, both of them had sprang into action.
Ahsoka used her hand as a springboard, throwing all of her weight on it as she sprang upwards into the air, preforming a low backflip that carried her just over Vader, who had bolted straight towards her. No- he had veered to his right, and his lightsaber was extended outwards to try and hit her while she was in air-
Her left blade flashed out, just barely saving her back from having a new and unwanted red-hot piercing.
But the unexpected movement caught her off guard, and she landed awkwardly. Trying to regain her balance, Ahsoka had to hop away again when Vader continued his pursuit. One of the benefits of having a robotically enhanced suit was... it robotically enhanced everything. Speed, endurance, strength, and defenses.
Unfortunately for Ahsoka, she was not currently in possession of such a robotic suit to aid her every move.
The jolt of her landing sent a colossal wave of pain through her leg; enough so that even with all of her training, Ahsoka stumbled. Her left leg collapsed, unable to keep up with the movements required of it, and Ahsoka crumpled onto the floor instead of landing in a low crouch.
And the next second, there was a red blade positioned just centimeters from her neck. If she even attempted to bat it away or to even move- which her leg was making an impossibility -Vader would strike her down before her attempts even made it past the planning stage. She could only stay stock-still while the Sith before her gloated.
"Doubts or no doubt, death will still come for you, Tano."
Ahsoka narrowed her eyes and lifted her head slightly in defiance. "I don't fear death, Vader. It is only the Sith that do."
"Then you are a fool, and you shall have the same end as one." Ahsoka's gaze did not waver, and there was no last minute regrets about anything. Her life did not flash before her eyes. She did not feel fear, because to a Jedi, there was no fear of death. She may have left the Temple, but the teachings of the Jedi had been her life. They were not easily discarded.
Vader's lightsaber flashed-
Away from her.
Because, as she learned immediately after rolling away from Vader and to her right, a very odd function of a lightsaber- shooting, of all things -had just been used to great effect at distracting Vader by none other than Kanan Jarrus behind them.
Does anyone else secretly hope inside of them that Ahsoka would actually bring up Padmé while fighting Vader? Seriously, I need this in the show.
Don't worry too much about the next chapter, it should have a much shorter uploading time that this one. At least I very much hope so. :P