AN: Shorter than normal, I know, but there's a lot going on here, and I wanted it to breathe on its own. Enjoy, guys! See if you can catch everything that's happening!
Chapter 20: Premonitions
"You need to relax," Obi-Wan said, his voice calm and soothing, sitting with his feet tucked under him and his hands on his knees Before him sat Ezra Bridger, his legs crossed and his eyes closed as he fidgeted uncomfortably, mostly due to the fact that behind them, Kanan was pacing. He was uneasy and anxious about this whole thing, and his reservations about this were bleeding into his Padawan. Kenobi frowned. Kanan's Padawan, and his apprentice. He sneered at the thought, a slight flash of anger and bitterness running through him, which Kanan picked up on immediately, which only served to fuel his unease. Which made Ezra more nervous. Which made Kenobi more frustrated. Which made Kanan-
"Kanan says this is a bad idea..." Ezra said meekly, opening his eyes only to be met by blazing, piercing gold, and he quickly looked away.
"Kanan has no bearing on the situation because while you are on my ship, you are mine, apprentice," Obi-Wan growled. "I need to see this vision, and you will show it to me."
"I don't know how!" Ezra said, frustrated and frantic, and he winced and fell silent when the golden eyes narrowed.
"Because you do not listen," Obi-Wan snarled. "Now, relax. Clear your mind. Open yourself to me, let me in..."
"This is a terrible idea," Kanan said quickly, holding fast when Obi-Wan glared at him from over his shoulder. "No, don't you look at me like that, Kenobi! You're a mind controller, you brainwash people! I've seen what happens to the people you touch, I've seen how broken you leave them!"
"Oh, please, stop being so dramatic..." Kenobi drawled. "Besides, you've seen no such thing."
"Oh yeah?" Kanan asked, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb at the Chiss woman that languidly lounged upon the couch. "What about her?"
"Her?" Obi-Wan scoffed and waved his hand dismissively. "A lover."
"A slave!"
"Because she wanted it!" Obi-Wan cried defensively, looking back to meet the woman's gaze and smiling wolfishly. "Carcir csei nah bavrcso, ch'eo bustucah? Vah vust'ch'ah vim rt'eseci ch'at'iscan ch'at ch'ah."
"Sei ch'at vah, nor ch'at vah, ch'eo crahsystor..." the woman responded, her voice low and thick with arousal, her hips rolling in open invitation under the black tunic she wore, and Kanan quickly looked away. Ezra didn't.
"See?" Obi-Wan said, a triumphant grin on his face. "She wants to be here. Some people crave their chains, Jedi."
"And some people are made to know nothing else," Kanan cooly retorted. Obi-Wan rolled his eyes.
"A technicality. She isn't imprisoned here, she can leave at any time." Kanan growled, his hand tightening at his side.
"Fine. What about Depa Billaba?!"
"Ah..." Obi-Wan leaned back on his hands and closed his eyes, slipping into the Force as he felt the minds of those around him. Only Kanan remained perfectly guarded, the personal nature of the inquiry lending him additional strength to resist the Sith Lord. "I did break her, yes..." the Sith said softly, his voice distant, and the Jedi tensed with anger. "Your concern has been noted, Kanan, but it's unfounded. I do not seek to break the boy, which is why I am trying to get him to relax. The wind does not break the tree that bends. Such is the case with the mind as well." Kanan arched an eyebrow.
"What's this, Jedi wisdom from you, Lord of the Sith?"
"Don't be an idiot, Jarrus, there were few things more rigid than the Jedi Order in the waning days of the Republic," Obi-Wan growled. "This saying is Sith. Every changing, ever adapting." Gold, predatory eyes fell on Ezra, and it took the boy a moment to notice and tear his gaze away from the seductive Chiss. "I will see this vision, apprentice. I can make you relax, I can make you open your mind wide to me, willingly give yourself over to my will..."
"See, this!" Kanan shouted, pointing at the Sith. "This is why nobody trusts you! Weird, creepy mind powers. You could be influencing people at any time, how is anyone supposed to know their thoughts are their own when they're around you?!"
"They usually don't, that's the point..." Kenobi drawled casually. "Listen, I'm not in the habit of doing anything without purpose, and breaking your student, or you, or your lover, or any of the other people I have allied with is not conducive to my plans. I've been around you this long and haven't compelled you, why should I start now?" The Jedi said nothing, only continued his hard stare in Kenobi's direction, and Obi-Wan hung his head with a sigh. "Would you be more comfortable coming with us?"
"...w-wait, what?"
"Hold on, this will just take a moment," Obi-Wan said, raising his hand toward Kanan and splaying his fingers, and half a breath later, Kanan felt as though he was suddenly and violently yanked out of hyperspace. There was a rush of wind, so strong, so powerful that Kanan could see nothing but a dark, windblown haze, could hear nothing but the howling in his ears, could feel the storm ripping and tearing at him as if threatening to pull his skin off his body. He was falling into a deep, infinite chasm, and it only ended when he landed hard, face first on the ground, his mouth filling with a bitter taste, and he quickly sat up, sputtering and spitting to clear the awful, acrid taste.
He squinted, rubbing his eyes to clear the haze that settled over him like a fog, and slowly, his vision came into focus, the Jedi looking around cautiously at the barren landscape around him. The sky was gray, thick and heavy with storm clouds that lit with arching lightning, the air filled with th sound of distant thunder. The horizon glowed with reds and yellows and oranges, flickering lights that came not from a sun, but from distant burning fires, the inferno massive and consuming, from the look of its effect on the sky, though it was clear that the fire storm was long past, and would not return. It could not return. There was nothing left here to burn.
The surrounding landscape was peppered with dead, blackened husks of charcoal that were once trees in a verdant forest, the ground covered in a thick layer of gray and black ash that swirled into the air with each stirring of the wind, black ashes and red embers constantly drifting through the air like dust in an abandoned building. It was eerie and unsettling, made even more so by how desolate and alone Kanan felt just to look on this place, the cold gripping him and filling him with a profound sense of loss and a longing for life that he knew could never return. The feeling only intensified as his vision continued to focus, and he looked around him to see bodies laying scattered across the ground. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them.
Jedi. All of them, Jedi.
With a startled cry, Kanan scrambled to his feet, only to trip and fall backwards as he tried to get away from the bodies. Frantic, he backed away, trying to put distance between himself and the dead Jedi, his own memories of the terror of the Jedi purge flashing before his eyes, his quick and nervous movements kicking up ash and embers and sending them drifting into the air. He stopped when his hand touched something cold and hard, and he slowly glanced over his shoulder, afraid of what he would see, and his eyes widened as he looked down at his hand on the arm of Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi, his skin pale, his eyes milky and lifeless, his torso ripped in half, blood and viscera soaking into the ash and leading like a gory trail to where his lower half lay nearby.
He was going to be sick.
Nausea beat back his panic as he rose to shaking legs and tried not to vomit, and he slowly removed himself from the grisly sight. And worst of all...he had been here before. He had stood in the field of ash, had seen the body of his Master laying dead upon the ground, but nothing so vivid as what he saw now. The same scene from a different perspective. Before, he had seen Obi-Wan here, standing calm and cool and collected and staring right at him. Like he could see him, like Kanan knew now that he had seen him. Before, he had brushed it off as little more than a nightmare, but now, he saw things from a new angle.
He looked around him at the bodies, so many of them indistinguishable, but a few lay vivid and clear among the ashes, Padawans with their long braids, humans, non-humans, Knights and Masters. Most he didn't recognize, but among the dead, he had vague memories of a few of them, members of the Jedi Council, wise and strong and dead, fallen during the war at the hands of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
When the light from the distant blaze hit just right, Kanan could see...shadows. Ghostly figures walking the barren, open grave in an aimless shuffle, like they were lost, misplaced, their figures shifting and waving like they were struggling to maintain their shape, like they couldn't remember what they were supposed to be. Most were humanoid, some tall, others much shorter, males and females, ghosts, all of them. Drawn closer to them, Kanan slowly approached, though the distance between him and the ghosts never seemed to lessen. Still, if he looked close, he could make out small details, small differences among them that seemed to shift in and out of existence.
Yellow eyes peering out from one shifting form, a band of diamond shaped markings across the face of another. One small and lithe with shifting, purple markings on a smooth head, another tall and strong, its face marked by a yellow band. There were others as well, but he couldn't distinguish between them, save for one shadow, large and hulking and mechanical that for just a moment as it shimmered and shifted looked like an inky, impressionist painting of General Grievous.
Where the hell was he?
"Welcome to my domain, Kanan Jarrus," the smooth, clipped accent drawled, seeming to come from all directions at once, and Kanan slowly turned until he saw Obi-Wan walking toward him, his hand on Ezra's back and pushing the apprehensive boy forward, his eyes wide with horror as he looked around him.
"Where are we?" Kanan asked softly, and the Sith Lord rolled his eyes in irritation.
"We're going to get inside your student's head in the gentlest way I know how, which means taking the long way. We get him acclimated to the Force, and we go from there." He laid a hand upon his chest. "My domain. Here. Within me."
"You?!" Kanan gasped, looking around. "This is what's inside you?"
"As I said before..." the Sith drawled, extending his open palm before him, and one of the shadows broke away from the rest, gliding over to where they stood and reached out, laying it's mirage-like hand on Kenobi's, and his hand closed around it. The shadow faded away when he touched it, like mist on the wind, and Obi-Wan brought the pale hand he now held to his lips. "There's nothing inside of me..."
Kanan watched as the shadow faded, forming into a pale, blond woman, her eyes a brilliant blue, her features sharp and beautiful, and he looked between her and Kenobi as the Sith Lord pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes closed and his face peaceful and melancholy as their fingers intertwined. The environment around them seemed to shift in response to the emotions of the Sith, a beautiful harmony of love and loss and pain and pleasure brushing the ashes away, the bodies disappearing into nothing and scattered to the wind as the gray skies darkened to inky blacks and purples scattered with stars, the breathtaking beauty of space above them as they stood in emerald green fields on the shores of a sapphire lake, the brilliant blue glittering with reflected light from the stars above. When a gentle wind blew across Kanan's face, it felt like the breath of the Force itself.
"Hey, Kanan?" Ezra asked, creeping closer to the Jedi and gluing himself to his side, his eyes fixed on the Sith Lord as he quietly spoke to the woman in his arms in soft, gentle Mando'a. "I don't understand what's happening at all. Who is that?"
"I don't know, but I can guess..."
"Haa'taylir lo ner kar'ta, Jetiise," Obi-Wan said softly, the woman's hand poised in the crook of his arm. "You wish to know my heart, Jedi. You've seen what rests inside me, and now, you need to trust me. We cannot train this boy correctly if we don't." Kanan looked at him for a long while as silent understanding slowly fell over him. The Sith's soul was a barren husk of ash and cinder, a place filled with the bodies of the dead and haunted by the ghosts of those once dear to him. It was...personal. Intimate. The Lord of the Sith was abrasive, intimidating, kept everyone at bay with the blade of his bloody saber, so for the man to bring Kanan and Ezra within himself when he could just as easily have forced himself within a broken Ezra's mind...
He was exposing himself. This was more than an act of trust. Kanan could only imagine what it took for the Sith Lord to bring someone this close after all his devastating losses. And with the woman on his arm, Kanan saw a side of the Sith Lord he didn't think was possible. There was no cruelty, no hatred or viciousness, none of the things that branded him as Sith. There was just...tenderness, a calm and sorrowful grace as he gently stroked the woman's hand, her arm, her thin hip, her high cheek. Kanan recognized the gentle, intimate caresses as a thing not just shared by lovers, but by one who held the heart of the other in their hands, and Kenobi's was held by a ghost. He had given it away, the recipient had died, and now it was gone, the shadow of it remaining only in his memory.
"Is that her?" Kanan asked softly, stepping forward, and the Sith's fierce gaze fell on the Jedi, tense...apprehensive, perhaps, his eyes searching Kanan's face and seeming to look right through him. Kanan felt the Force tug and pull at him in a natural ebb and flow, warm and thick in the air around him and filling his lungs with each breath he took. The Jedi Masters had spoken about being lost in the Force, about falling so deep in meditation that they could feel one with it, like there was little separation between their consciousness and the living Force around them. Kanan could only imagine that this was it, and Kenobi had dragged them in with him.
"...yes," Kenobi whispered, his voice tight with emotion he struggled to repress, his hand tightening around the woman's. "My Satine, she..." He stopped, shook his head, and turned away from the Jedi toward the waters. "She's not real," he said bitterly. "Come, we have work to do." When Kanan moved to follow, Ezra ran past him, a bright, excited smile on his face as he bounded to the Sith's side.
"Hey, is this part of the training?" Ezra asked Obi-Wan, walking so close that Kenobi edged away with an irritated scowl on his face, his arm draping over Satine's shoulders and possessively pulling her close. "Am I going to learn how to do this? Where are we exactly? Hey, are you going to see my vision?" Before he could move, a swift hand shot out and grabbed hold of his chin, and Ezra was faced with the blazing, furious eyes of the Sith Lord, spiked, blood red spreading around the gold of his iris as the Dark Side gripped him.
"Yes," Kenobi snarled, his voice a deep, resonant growl in his chest, "yes, the tides of the Force, and yes." He pushed the boy's face away and looked back at Kanan. "You are a Jedi, have you taught him no patience at all?!" Kanan just shrugged.
"Ezra's difficult to teach, and I'm no teacher, Master Kenobi." The Sith Lord hissed, a sharp shiver of pleasure running down his spine.
"You really know how to talk to me, don't you..." Obi-Wan muttered, pushing Ezra toward the shore, and Kanan just laughed.
"Hey, if calling you Master is all it takes to get what I want from you, you can be my Master any day..." Kanan drawled, leaning in toward the smaller man and smirking. "Just don't tell Hera."
"Oh, I'm going to tell her..." Kenobi drawled, leaning up toward the smirking Jedi. "More than that, I'm going to get her to join us. You are all mine, Spectres, each and every one of you..."
"Mm, how many Jedi have you seduced talking like that?"
"A few, and it seems to me like I'll be adding another to my tally very shortly..."
"Is this what you two do with each other when you're training? Flirt with each other?!" Ezra asked, a fierce flush on his face as he watched the Jedi and the Sith draw ever closer, each one challenging the other and neither willing to be the one that turned away first. With a slight smirk on his lips, Obi-Wan put his hand on Kanan's face and shoved him away. Bold and brash, Kanan was. So much like Quinlan.
"More or less, yes," Kenobi drawled, placing his hand on Ezra's back and leading him to the water's edge. "Now, as for you, my apprentice, touch the water, focus, let the Force flow though you and bring to mind the vision you saw in the temple."
"A-alright..." Ezra said, biting his lip as he reached down and touched the mirror-still waters of the lake, sending little ripples through it that made the starry reflections move across its surface. He could feel Kanan come to stand beside him, peering down at the water in interest, just as curious as his student was. This was the domain of Masters, of the particularly talented, of the living vergence , and he was as big of an intruder in this place as Ezra was. Closing his eyes and breathing deep, Ezra focused, reached into his mind, and the water began shimmering with light, reacting to the images in the boy's mind.
"Oh, my..." Obi-Wan drawled, a wicked grin spreading across his face as he watched images of tanned, heated flesh, rubbing against another's bare torso, sweat slicked bodies heaving as they moaned and panted and gasped in the heat of their passions. Kanan quickly turned his eyes from the image, but the Sith Lord simply chuckled, low and deep as he looked at flushed, horrified Ezra.
"I-I..." Ezra began, swallowing hard. "W-what's-"
"The images within your mind, apprentice..." the Sith drawled, bringing Satine's hand to his lips. "It looks as though someone is having fantasies about a certain rebel Mandalorian explosions expert..." Obi-Wan frowned. "Though, I must say, you're a little young to be having thoughts like this. I was a teenager when I started being plagued, you're only ten."
"W-what?!" Ezra gasped, the flush on his face now not only from embarrassment. "I'm not ten, I'm fifteen!"
"...no, I don't think that's true..." Obi-Wan said thoughtfully as he stroked his beard.
"T-this is your fault anyway!" Ezra cried, tearing his hand from the water in hopes of making the images of the moaning teens disappear. It didn't. "If you and Kanan weren't busy seducing each other-"
"Oh, to be young again," Obi-Wan drawled, rolling his eyes. "To find arousal in next to nothing at all. At least you have good taste, Sabine Wren is Mandalorian, superior to all save the Sith."
"I wonder what it's like to be as arrogant as you..." Kanan said, rolling his eyes and smacking the surface of the water, the splash and violent ripples blurring the image until the colors swirled together and disappeared back into the sky's starry reflection, the waters stilling as the Jedi hand calmed the waves to stillness. Obi-Wan watched Kanan carefully, a small smile on his lips as the man instinctively navigated the waters of the Force.
"Am I arrogant for knowing and accepting the truth?" the Sith Lord said softly, and the Jedi shook his head, rolling his eyes as he laid his hands on Ezra's shoulders.
"Focus, Ezra," Kanan said in a soft, calm voice. "Let go of everything, clear your mind." Nodding, Ezra did as he was told, shivering slightly when Kanan took his arm and dipped his fingers into the waters once again. "Your visions at the temple, imagine them now..."
"I just told him the same thing, Kanan, and he gave me sex fantasies about Sabine Wren," Kenobi said, rolling his eyes. "That advice isn't working." The water began to ripple, the stars swirling together and darkening, a faint red glow coming from under the churning waters as Ezra's visions began to take shape, flashing on the surface of the lake. "I kriffing hate Jedi..." Obi-Wan muttered, his hand held out to the visions in the water and stopping the flashing images when he felt a strong pull of the Dark Side, and without wasting a moment, he shoved Kanan and Ezra into the water, the Jedi tumbling with a cry into the lake and disappearing beneath the surface.
Kanan kept a tight hold on Ezra as they sank, the water far deeper than he thought, his legs kicking to propel them toward the surface, or to push off the bottom, but there was no bottom, no surfacing, just falling and falling deeper into the water, the pressure on his chest increasing as they sunk into the depths. He held his breath, his lungs straining until Kanan could hold it no longer and he forcefully exhaled, the air leaving his lungs in a thick stream of bubbles. With nothing in his lungs, it took everything in him to resist the burning pain, the reflex to breathe, and he didn't last long. With pain pulsing within him, Kanan gasped as he inhaled, water rushing to fill his lungs, and he clutched Ezra close as he began thrashing as he drowned.
They struck the ground hard, both Kanan and Ezra coughing up lung fulls of water as they shivered against the cold, gasping for air now that they could breathe once again. On his hands and knees, Kanan looked around the new environment, his vision dark from lack of air, and slowly, his sight returned, the imposing form of Obi-Wan standing with his back turned toward the Jedi, his form backlit by red light, the woman that had been by his side gone and replaced by the blazing red glow of his lightsaber..
"Damn it, Kenobi..." Kanan groaned, pushing himself to his feet and dragging Ezra up by the arm. "Why-"
"Hush!" Obi-Wan hissed, low and serious and dangerous, and Kanan was immediately alerted to the warning in his voice, the Sith Lord looking dangerous and feral, his golden eyes spiked with red and glowing brightly with the fires that burned in his gaze.
"H-Hey..." Ezra whispered, drawing closer to Kenobi, heedless of the danger, and the Sith Lord shot out a hand, laying it on Ezra's chest and keeping him from getting closer. "That's it, that's what I saw in the temple."
"Is it exactly like it was?" Obi-Wan asked his voice seeming to resonate in his chest, the smooth tone deep and feral and not his own. Kanan laid a hand on Ezra's shoulder as he looked at Kenobi's face, his features shadowed by the red glow surrounding him, his jaw clamped together tightly, his features alert and wary, but the eyes...not the pure gold Kanan had grown accustomed to, but something primal and savage, something supernatural in its intensity, an open conduit for the Force. This wasn't Obi-Wan. This was Darth Lumis. Kanan's hand tightened defensively on Ezra's shoulder and pulled him back toward him.
Ezra surveyed the scene, his eyes narrowed as he examined every detail, but something was...off. Like before, there stood the three shadows, the tall, imposing figure and the lithe, twitching man standing at the sides of the hooded figure, a beaten, defeated Kenobi kneeling on the floor before them, his head bowed and his breathing ragged, his black robes in tatters as smoke rose from a smouldering wound on his back. A soft, hollow cackling echoed in the air, and the hooded man raised his hands, lightning shooting from his fingers as it struck the image of Kenobi, and the Sith Lord fell to the ground, writing in agony before he fell still, the glow leaving his eyes as the golden color dulled, growing hollow and vacant. Kanan quickly looked toward the Sith, fear filling him as he watched the fate of the man play out before them. They couldn't allow this to happen. Whatever it was, the shadows in the room were evil, more than the Sith he was coming to know.
"It's different," Ezra whispered, pointing toward the shadows. "Last time, they had glowing eyes. Like yours. I-I thought they could see me." He frowned and shook his head. "No, it felt like they could see me. They stared at me, and I felt so cold, a-and it felt like burning." Ezra laid a hand on his chest. "Here." The Sith Lord frowned as he looked at the scene before him.
"Stay here..." he muttered. "Don't move, Jedi, there's danger here."
"It's just a vision, isn't it?" Ezra asked nervously. "I mean, this hasn't actually happened..."
"Not yet..." Kenobi said, his voice distant and hollow, and Kanan and Ezra both shivered with foreboding. "It may be a vision, but we are not the only ones who can walk the Force, apprentice, and I am not the only predator that swims the Dark Side..."
His hand extended to the Jedi in warning and his golden eyes narrowed and commanding obedience, Obi-Wan turned away from them and walked toward the figures in the vision with careful, cautious steps. Keeping his eyes on the shadows, Kenobi knelt beside the vision of himself upon the ground and looked at his reflection, his possible future. His chest slowly rose and fell with shallow breaths, but the body was otherwise lifeless, the gold eyes dull, vacant, devoid of the soul, the hate, the passion that burned within him. This was an empty shell, an open conduit for the Force, a living vergence turned into an object, a Force Nexus of Dark Side energy that could be used to channel the flow of the Force for the use of one that possessed it. He wasn't dead. This was far worse.
Obi-Wan looked up to gaze at the shadows, the soft, hollow laughter echoing around him. To Ezra, they may have been just shadows, but to him, they took on a whole different meaning. Maul, Vader, Sidious, the only other Sith Lords in the galaxy. The Empire's Sith Triumvirate. The three of them were powerful, extremely so, even poor, broken Maul held strength that Sidious may one day find a way to harness, and Vader had been gone for so long, it became impossible to gauge how strong he had become over the years. Fifteen years of service to Darth Sidious was no laughing matter, and it was more time that Kenobi had spent as his apprentice. There was no good way to tell how powerful Vader was now, though it was a good bet that a torso on mechanical limbs simply couldn't rise to the heights he had been. Anakin Skywalker, Force Nexus, was dead, and it wasn't something that Vader would ever be able to achieve.
Just as Obi-Wan had been unremarkable as a Jedi, his fall to the Dark Side prompting in him a change that would see him become a vergence in the Force, Anakin Skywalker had been born to be a conduit of the light, and when he had turned, the talent was burned out of him as darkness fell. It didn't make Vader weak. Compared to the Inquisitorius, compared to Maul, compared to the children that had been saved from the Temple as it burned, Darth Vader was power beyond their imagining, and certainly beyond their ability to fight. But for all his strength and brutality, for as great of a weapon he was in the hands of his Master, when faced against another Sith Lord, there was simply no contest. Kenobi wasn't in the business of defense, as the Jedi were, leaving them easy prey for the Dark Siders that ruled the galaxy, but in the business of domination, and his blatant disregard for life that stood in his way was a dangerous thing to contend with.
No, the problem was Sidious. Gone were the days of cautious plotting and scheming as he manipulated galactic events in his lustful reach for power. Now, Emperor Palpatine had people to rule his Empire for him, which would leave him the time he had craved for study of the Dark Side, and no doubt the Master hadn't been slacking. Sidious had been powerful when Lumis had been apprenticed to him, far more than he ever knew, and he still had no inkling as to how powerful he was, nor how powerful he had become. It was a serious problem, one that Obi-Wan thought about a great deal, because one day, he'd have to stand against his former Master and slay him, and when that day came, he needed to know he was stronger. And even if he was, Sidious had the uncanny ability to prepare for every contingency, to navigate the visions of the Force and produce the outcome he desired. Except in the case of Vader, but Obi-Wan doubted his former Master would be so careless again.
But the vision...
He looked back to the image of himself on the ground, his eyes milky and distant, his body beginning to twitch and convulse, his lower back arching off the ground as he so often did when the Force took him and filled his mind with visions. Was that it? Kenobi reached out and touched the pale cheek, his fingers passing through the vision. Could this have been his fate? Was this what lay at the end fo the road? Defeated and captured by Sidious, a Force Nexus to be used as a way to accurately predict the future. Sidious' visions had always been a wide net, showing him a vast array of possible outcomes, leaving him to discern which path to take to achieve a desired outcome, while Lumis' visions had always been more consistent, and far, far more accurate. Was that the ultimate plan? To capture Lumis, destroy his consciousness, and use his body to channel the Force for the Emperor's own desires?
And if so, if this was his ultimate fate...why had it been Ezra to have the vision?
The cold, hollow laughter suddenly became rich, amused, chilling, and Kenobi felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, his head snapping up as he quickly stood to face the shadows and found blazing yellow eyes staring back at him from Sidious' image. This wasn't just a vision, the Sith Master was actually there, and he saw them.
"Master..." Kenobi said under his breath, his eyes wide and locked with Sidious' triumphant gaze as he slowly backed up, putting himself between the Emperor and the two terrified Jedi. His eyes narrowed and a vicious growl in his throat, he raised his saber and pointed it at the shadowed man, red blades extending from Maul and Vader's hands as he did so. The hooded man just laughed.
"Darth Lumis..." the Emperor said in a soft, smooth rasp that sent a chill up his spine. "I see you..." A bitter chill snapped through the Force as a savage wind rose, causing the vision of the room they stood in to disintegrate and be blown away in the storm, leaving them standing in a cold, black, long room before the mighty Imperial throne, the full weight of the Dark Side pressing down upon them, causing the shadowy figures of Maul and Vader to kneel. Kenobi was unaffected, but the Jedi behind him were not.
"Kenobi!" Kanan called out through grit teeth, kneeling on the ground as he struggled to rise, only to fall in a low, prostrate bow upon the cold floor, Ezra on the ground beside him, clutching his head and screaming as his pupils narrowed into pinpoints in his pain, and the blue of his eyes gave way to the glowing yellow corruption of darkness. "Kenobi, help us!"
"Did you truly think to stand against me, Lumis?" Sidious hissed, his voice bitter and amused as he reached out and pulled the empty Kenobi on the ground to him, the lost man's body held in the air by his arms, his head hanging limply to his chest. With a deep, cold cackle, Sidious reached up to stroke the bearded cheek, his fingers hooking under his chin and forcing him to look up, his sightless eyes staring straight ahead, gazing eternally into the Force.
"Kanan, get out of here!" Obi-Wan shouted, pointing his blazing blade out toward the Sith Master, his eyes narrowed and the Dark Side rushing to him like a vortex, the creature in the very depths of him pulsing to life after years laying dormant within him, its mighty eyes opening and focusing on Lumis, its gaze piercing through him and seeing him as it hadn't since his battle with Vader on Mustafar. In Sidious, he could feel the same pulse of power, could see those yellow eye widen in recognition of the meaning behind the movements of the Force, and then narrow in anger.
"It is futile to resist," Sidious growled dangerously, the hanging body of the broken Lumis lifted to hand above the throne. "This outcome has already been foretold. This is your destiny, Lumis. Your presence here assures it."
"Yeah, we'll see about that..." Lumis said, defiance in his voice as he stared his former Master down. "This vision isn't mine, so it may yet be changed. I haven't seen this vision in the Force." A wide grin spread across Sidious' shadowed face.
"But you have now, my apprentice..."
"Obi-Wan, help!" Kanan shouted, his teeth grit as he struggled against the weight of the Dark Side as he tightly, defensively gripped his screaming student to his chest. "I can't get Ezra out, he's too far in darkness! Help me!" Lumis snarled in frustration, refusing to take his gaze from Sidious' for a moment as he slowly backed up, and feeling the Jedi behind him, he knelt, his saber deactivating as he laid his hands on Kanan and Ezra's heads, his touch gentle and soothing as he ran his fingers through their hair.
"There is no escape, Lumis," Sidious said, laughter in his voice. "You have already lost." He gestured up behind him to where the empty shell lay hanging. "In the end, even you will serve me. Look upon your fate, apprentice, and accept it."
With a rush of the Force around them, the throne room began to fade, the shadows blowing away in the powerful wind, and as darkness enveloped them, all they could here was the Emperor's amused, hollow cackle.
They fell back into their bodies, the three slamming to the ground, Kanan dazed and hazy for a moment before he heard Ezra's pained screams, and called to action, the Jedi scooped the boy up, looking in horror as the images from the vision bled into reality, the young Padawan's eyes stained a pale, sickly yellow. Before he had a chance to call for help, Kenobi was at his side, two fingers pressed to Ezra's forehead, and with a sharp gasp, the screams stopped, the boy's eyes closing as he fell limp in Kanan's arms. With a hiss of frustration, Kenobi stood and paced away, his long fingers rubbing his temples, the air he passed through cold in his wake. Gathering Ezra tight in his arms, Kanan stood and slowly approached the tense, angry Sith Lord.
"Obi-Wan, what was-"
"I don't know!" he snarled, Kanan drawing back when he saw the blood red in his fierce eyes, his voice deep and seeming to echo as if a second person spoke in unison with him, and for the first time, Kanan could feel him in the Force, could sense the savage rend Kenobi's mere presence created. A moment later, his rapid, uneven breathing slowed, the fury on his face abated, and the Dark Side lifted, leaving the man contemplative, determined, focused. "I don't know, Kanan..." he said, his voice smooth and even once again.
"...is Ezra-"
"He's fine," Kenobi quickly cut in. "At least, he is for now. I'll need to meditate on it. As should you, Jedi." Kanan nodded.
"Obi-Wan, if that's the future...if we know what happens, surely, we must be able to take steps to prevent that from happening.
"Often times, the steps taken to prevent an undesirable outcome are the exact steps needed to ensure it comes to pass..." Obi-Wan muttered. "We don't even know if that's the future or not. This isn't a vision given to me by the Force, this came through Ezra, a boy already susceptible to the Dark Side and its manipulations. We can't trust it, not completely..." He breathed deep, a hand extended and calling a glowing red pyramid to float in the air before him, the holocron unfolding and opening as the Sith Lord sighed and took in the familiar drawling hiss of Ancient Sith. "And with Sidious present, it seems very likely that he could be manipulating what we see. I'll have to meditate on this."
Kanan nodded and laid his hand on the Sith's shoulder, the man flinching at the sudden contact, and for just a moment, Kanan could see how truly anxious Obi-Wan was. "We're with you, Kenobi, you hear me?" the Jedi said softly. "All of us, no matter the outcome. We'll see this through to its conclusion...whatever that may be." Kenobi sucked in a sharp breath, his golden gaze meeting Kanan's for a moment before looking away.
"...thank you, my friend."
They didn't say anything else. They didn't need to. Kanan sat with Ezra, the unconscious boy laid out on a couch as he recovered, and the Sith Lord seated on the floor, the holocron open before him as he slipped into the Force, and even there, hand in hand with the vision of the woman that held his heart, he couldn't shake the feeling of foreboding that pulsed within him.