~Anakin's POV~

The packed snow beneath Anakin's feet crunched lightly beneath him. The mid-day sun burned the back of his neck, stiff with cold, and his lightsaber felt heavier than usual in his unusually sweaty palm.

He knew, more acutely that he should, that he was staring at a parallel dimension, a person who reflected him in the shimmering waters of the Dark Side. Once it had been like looking in a mirror and finding himself with yellow eyes. Now it was like staring across a long plain at something he knew, and at the same time loathed.

Why did his inner demons have to come to life, literally?

Because I'm the Chosen One. The answer was simple, really. Vader stopped, not even five feet away, his black cloak billowing behind him. It was an ostentatious gesture bred from darkness; the Dark Side clung to this machine as it did all its servants.

The Light side moved around him, freely, not clinging or possessing, still as gentle and uplifting as if he were submerged in water though, not gripped by fire.

Not controlled by anything, not a slave to anything anymore. Anakin's blue blade cut through the air, response a red blade came up in a traditional fighting style. Odd, how they even shared that. They had each added their own flairs and tricks to the technique he was sure, but despite that the core was yet the same.

Anakin ignored the voice in the back of his head that whispered fighting style was a reflection of inner truth. He was tired of reflections. "You did this to me," Vader growled accusingly. He did not need to specify what he meant..

Anakin's eyes traveled over the black metal, listening to the harsh sounds of laboring to breathe, and he sighed.

"No," he said sadly, knowing what was to be said, but still, he couldn't shake the feeling that once, someone would have said the same thing to him. "You did this to yourself," he corrected.

The force burst with a slap of fury. Anakin rolled out of the way as Vader came down, striking faster than Anakin had expected. He had, of course, followed his enemy secretly, as he knew Vader had followed him. Every Jedi that had fought Vader and survived lived to tell Anakin how he fought.

Still, the ferocious aggression that swung a dangerous weapon at him now was a match he had not expected to be able to handle. He back flipped, using his superior physical flexibility to his advantage.

He could not imagine being stuck inside of a metal suit all the time, but it worked to his advantage, along with the snow and slick surface beneath his feet. If Anakin was inclined to trip every five seconds, then with metal under feet, he knew so was Vader.

Suddenly, his comm. link gave a worried chime. The force, swirling around him, panged with apprehensiveness. This was important. "Yes?" he gasped into the device. "Ani, do you know where the twins are?" Padme asked immediately as he pushed Vader back with the force. His gut clenched. "The twins? No. Why?" he asked, panting. He could feel Padme's fear through the force, as if it were his own.

"Anakin…" She only used his whole name when she was worried. His heart skipped a beat. "The cruiser they were on was shot down. Everyone was evacuated, but no one has seen them or Lux since the crash. They aren't in the escape pods," what? His next strike was ruthless with incredulity. "What! Where's the cruiser?" he demanded, already knowing the answer but hoping, hoping that Padme would tell him something different.

Padme's answer was half strangled with a sob. "It crashed into the mountainside," no. No, this could not be happening. With growl of sudden rage and terror, he back flipped over Vader and sliced at the metal surrounding him. A long vein appeared in the otherwise immaculate setting.

Vader gasped with pain. Anakin saw the pale, ghostly gray flesh underneath and turned his eyes away, fighting without much conscious thought, his body performing the moves as if they were embedded in his brain by memory, which of course they were.

He spread his senses out, searching, looking, groping for anything, any sign of those familiar force signatures…

Please, oh force please not my children, not Luke and Leia, I'll do anything, just don't take them yet. They were only five years old. Anakin would never forgive himself, never stop hating himself for their deaths. He would not be able to handle that sort of grief. He couldn't.

There!

"Padme, where are you?" He asked into his comm. link. "In the Rescue Bird, why? Do you sense them?" She asked anxiously. "Yes. They're alive, in the smoking heaps of the ship. Lux may have landed it, though I have no clue how he would go about doing that. They're on the other side of that huge mountain," Anakin reported. Padme was silent a second.

"Yes, our life scanners are picking up something. I'll tell you when we find them," he was supremely glad that she said when instead of if. The truth would not have done nothing but distract him.

"Good luck," he had to lunge out of the way, hissing as his vision went red with pain a moment. He grabbed his real arm, which now had a long gash in it to repay the one previously given. Despite his fear of the twins, he had to focus or risk losing his life before Padme ever had a chance to tell him if they were safe or not.

Breathing out pain and fear, breathing in concentration and Light, he got in his first stance, and prepared to fight again.


~Ahsoka's POV~

There was neither ships nor time to spare, so they went on foot, climbing up through the snow until the moisture had soaked into her boots and left her toes incapable of movement and soles stiff and tingling without warmth.

Having lost her cloak on the battlefield, Ahsoka hugged her bare arms, rubbing them to stimulate warmth. The clouds that the Light had stimulated near the caves misted the way before them in shadow.

They did not speak, instead stumbled blindly upwards, unsure of direction or if they were even headed the right way but somehow in their ignorance guided by a leash.

It reminded Ahsoka of that night she and Jinx had slept together. Not knowing where they were going or what was to happen, but knowing that they were guided by the Light, pulled by a mission that would not go uncompleted so easily.

Until they saw Starkiller.

Ahsoka gasped, her mind which had been hibernating, suddenly very active Stumbling, she ran and fell on her knees next to the Sith, who was face first down on the ground. The way he was positioned made it clear he had been trying to stumble away from the cave.

Starkiller groaned, he had a few centimeters of ice on his bare skin, signifying that he had been here quite awhile. His saber lay on his waist. He did not appear hurt, what was he doing here? And what had he been running from?

"Starkiller?" Intrepid gasped as she and Jinx caught up, wheezing in the thin air. Ahsoka nodded and ignited her saber. The hot beam granted her a minute of warmth as she neared Starkiller's stiff, almost blue tinted skin with it, hoping to stimulate heat and thus life.

"Ahsoka get away from him!" Jinx hissed, igniting his own saber, Ahsoka glanced at him with annoyance. "Relax, he's unconscious," she told him firmly, as she rolled Starkiller unto his back, lying his head on her knees.

Jinx watched this with shock. Intrepid knelt by her side and placed a finger on Starkiller's forehead. Ahsoka felt the Light stir before Intrepid opened her eyes, nodding.

"He's alive," her gaze was solemn as she looked up at Ahsoka. "But he's fading fast. He won't survive long in this current condition," Ahsoka bit her bottom lip anxiously. Though she and Starkiller were not the best of friends, she still cared for the Sith in…Some way.

She had been engaged to him not even four years previous, after all.

"Then you'll have to take care of him," Jinx sudden;y blurted. She turned surprised. "What?" Intrepid asked; the same surprise Ahsoka felt echoing over from the bond on her side. Who would have known Jinx could feel mercy?

Or, Ahsoka found that that was not what had surprised her, but the fact that Jinx would pick now, on this person of all times and places to display it once again without hesitation.

"Intrepid, stay here with him. See what you can do to help him. He's our enemy, but I don't think he'll fight. Will he?" Ahsoka looked down at the Sith apprentice and scowled. She knew that if Starkiller had awoken to see her he probably would not have fought, but Intrepid…?

"No," she decided, hoping that she was not making another stupid decision, this time that could get her sister captured and killed. "He knows you are my friend. Besides, he doesn't fight unless he has too," she did not know why she sounded so sure of this.

She did not known Starkiller as intimately as most people thought, but she did know him, perhaps better than anyone else. Maybe that was what this bond between them was.

Intrepid nodded and moved his head gently from her lap over to hers. "Alright then. You two go, finish the mission. I'll stay here," she said. Ahsoka nodded reluctantly.

"Here, Intrepid," Jinx unclasped his cloak and wrapped it around Intrepid's shoulders. "I can't…"Intrepid began. But Jinx shook his head. "Keep it," he insisted, his voice holding no room for argument. Intrepid met Ahsoka's eyes, and Ahsoka saw a new…Almost admiration for him in her eyes.

She rolled her eyes at her friend, even though her own heart warmed a little at his thoughtfulness and she bowed slightly.

"May the force be with you," she said soberly. "And you," Intrepid agreed, turning her attention to healing. Ahsoka turned, and with a nod at Jinx, they began to once more climb the mountain together, towards the caves where the Order's history lay in wait.


~Padme's POV~

Padme bit her bottom lip as the Rescue Bird swooped down, maneuvering and swirling its way through the battle zone; now almost deserted by any Jedi and filled with clones and Empire troops.

The largest mountain… "There!" She pointed to a smoldering heap in between the mountain. The Cruiser or…Half of a cruiser, really, lay in a jumbled mass of unconstructiveness in between the two mountains its top most control center having been snapped off and lay bare next to its tattered remains.

Her heart stuck in her throat. Surely none of them could be alive in that wreckage? "Don't worry senator," one of the clone medics assured her as the Rebel council in charge of the Rescue Bird took in one universal breath, numb with shock.

"We've pulled Jedi out of stuff lookin' much worse. Lower us down pretty, Broadshot," he told his brothers piloting them from the bird's large eyes. Mon Mothma put an arm around Padme's shoulders.

"Padme…I don't know, dear," she said into her ear softly, painfully. Padme's felt a pin prick her heart, she could have coughed out blood with the reality of the feeling.

Padme shook her head slowly. "Anakin said they are alive," she whispered in reply, her one hope hanging on his words. "Is he mad?" One of the others piped in, not harshly but just in shock.

"No one can survive that sort or damage," Bail hurriedly put a restraining hand on the astonished man's shoulder to silence him. Padme was too hopeful to say anything back. "We'll look anyway. Do you see anything?" they all rushed to the windows, eyes straining. Padme really wished Anakin were here, or Nava. She felt so alone.

"Hey, what's that?" One of the volunteers asked, squinting. Padme looked at where her eyes were straining, and gasped when she saw three figures sitting atop a garbled piece of the ship, a small fire in between them.

"The twins! Lux! They're there, they're alive!" She nearly screamed in delight. A bright light shined down on the survivors, and sure enough she saw the familiar faces of Luke and Leia, streaked with debris and slightly bloody, but clear with wonder.

"We'll go get them," leave it to the clones to have already set up a plan while her heart decelerated to normal pace. Padme felt her entire body slack with relief. They were alive. Mon Mothma squeezed her shoulder as the others in the control center erupted in cheers of triumph.

Outside of the small windows she saw clones equipped with jet packs start to slowly hover down to her children, who seemed to chatter away amiably with them as they rose towards safety. Padme promised herself to never let them out of her sights again. Never.

"They're tough little biters, I have to say," Bail chuckled from behind her. Padme nodded and spun on her heel, about to go down below and see if there was anything she could do when suddenly two five years olds raced into the room, tagged by a limping Lux Bonteri.

"Motha!" They squealed. Padme collapsed to her knees faintly and grabbed them both, tears running down her cheeks. "Don't do that to me!" She scolded them as she tore apart, hands searching for injuries, scratches, anything. "Motha! Motha! We crashed a ship like father!" Luke told her excitedly. "Yeah! We're real Jedi now!" Leia agreed proudly.

Padme barely heard the sounds of raucous laughter that accompanied this exclamation behind her; she only smiled at her two children through blurred eyes. They were the most beautiful creatures in the universe, she knew. They were perfect.

"Are you alright?" she asked tearfully over the heartfelt joy. "We're okay," Luke agreed with a nod. "Lux-Lux made us a fire and we told stories," Leia added, with an affectionate glance up.

Padme gave a start, she had forgotten about Lux. He was leaning heavily on one wall, the front of his torn shirt bloody and dried blood stains behind his ears that led into his hair, but he gave her one hearty grin.

"Lux," unwilling to release Luke and Leia completely, she stretched up a hand and he grabbed it. His fingers were stiff with cold. She shook his hand vigorously anyway, appreciative beyond words.

"Thank you," she whispered, throat tight with unexpressed gratitude. Lux put one hand over hers and nodded unsteadily, smiling. Then his face grew sober. "We still have a problem," he told her.

"What problem would that be?" Mon Mothma wondered, coming up behind her. "Hypothermia, perhaps?" Bail added, grabbing one of Lux's arms and draping it around his neck to steady him.

"Oh, yeah," Luke said dispassionately. "Hey, motha? We sensed an avalanche coming," he told her. "Uh huh," Leia yawned. "And it's heading right towards the battle."