Chapter 6 - Vader
DISCLAIMER: We do not own Star Wars, even if we wish we did. xD
Luke stiffens, slipping away his blaster and pulling out his lightsaber. Finally. I take a deep breath. Honestly, I highly doubt we stand a chance here, not if Vader is really the one who helped destroy the Jedi. I may be a good fighter, but I'm not a Knight yet. And Luke hardly has any training at all.
We both approach the dark figure warily. "The Force is with you, young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi yet," Vader says, tone as ominous as his appearance. Luke activates his blue lightsaber in response.
Then, I feel the dark presence brushing against my shielded mind. The action hardly surprises me, but what does is what follows. My bond with Anakin suddenly flares to life. I knew it. I knew he was still alive. I would have been – I don't know, excited perhaps? – if the bond didn't lead me straight to the Sith Lord standing right in front of us.
Shock and denial hit me first. No, this is impossible… it can't be true. There's no way this can be real. No. But the Force doesn't lie. It is him. But how could such a thing even be possible? He would never become a Sith! He would never destroy the Jedi, and certainly never kill Obi-Wan. Or the long list of things about the future that I have yet to discover. I open my mouth to say something, some sort of denial, maybe, but nothing comes out.
"Time travel?" growls Vader, or Anakin, whomever he is, "That is impossible." He obviously just realized who I am, as well, and for some reason, I have the feeling that's very bad. The Force is screaming danger, warning me to run. I can't. I won't leave Luke here alone. I'm rooted to the spot. Even if I wanted to move, I don't think I could.
"Anything is possible with the Force," I blurt randomly. The news refuses to sink in. How could any of this possibly happen? It's not possible. It can't be! I can't accept it. I just can't. Luke glances between both of us, confusion evident. I'll definitely have a lot of explaining to do once we get out of here. If we get out of here, whispers a voice in the back of my mind. I can't do anything but stare at Vader, silently begging that this be a nightmare. The worst nightmare I'd ever had, and that I just wake up… two weeks ago. Or a lifetime ago. Whenever that was.
"You won't get away this time," Vader snarls in response, the rage in his voice sending shivers through me. In a swift move, he activates his red lightsaber and lunges at me. The move and force of the blow catch me off guard, though I manage to block the strike in time. I feel numb with the shock of it all. It just – it's too much. Everything else, yes, but this could never have happened. But it did, and I don't know why.
Luke instantly swings his lightsaber at Vader, who easily parries the blow. I back away, with a pointless wish of ending the fight, but Vader clearly doesn't want me to escape, just like he promised. Our lightsabers begin clashing furiously, and both Luke and I are on the defensive in moments. I'm backing up with every movement, hardly taking a single swing at him. This – this must've been what Anakin felt like on Mortis when I attacked him. Except he's not being mind-controlled. I almost wish he were.
I want to try to talk to him, to convince him to come back, but… where'd I even start? What would I even say? Except – "I don't want to fight you, Master." I back farther along the edge of the carbon freezing pit. Vader swings his lightsaber at me, and I duck. His blade slashes through a column next to me.
The noise that escapes his vocoder sounds suspiciously like a venomous snarl, and the Dark Side surges. A sudden powerful Force shove hits me, one which I don't have a chance to counter. I'm sent flying across the room before smashing into the wall and falling to the floor in a heap, dazed, head spinning.
Luke at tacks Vader with renewed fury. "You have learned much, young one," Vader remarks to – to Luke, his son.
"You'll find I'm full of surprises," Luke boasts, and as if to counter that statement, Vader spins his blade, wrenching Luke's from his hands and sending it clattering to the floor. Losing your lightsaber so easily to my master's favorite move definitely counts.
Without missing a beat, Vader lunges towards Luke, who dodges out of the way. He's too close to the stairs though, so he trips over backwards and tumbles to the bottom. Vader leaps after, lightsaber raised. Luke scrambles to his feet and backs away. With no small amount of concern, I note that the pit is only inches away from Luke.
"Your destiny lies with me, Skywalker. Obi-Wan knew this to be true."
The words take a moment to register as do the realizations that follow while the room continues to spin around me. Vader knows Luke's name? Does that mean he knows that he's his son? Would he still hurt him? Anakin would never do that, but Anakin wouldn't attack me either. Anakin… the Anakin I knew, would die before hurting me.
"No!" cries Luke, taking another step away from him and promptly falling straight into the carbon-freezing chamber.
Panic rises within me. I'm not about to let this happen. In a condition to fight or not, I need to get back over there. Struggling unsteadily to my feet, I call the lightsaber back to my hand and reignite it before Force leaping across the room, landing not far from Vader, careful to keep my distance so he won't throw me into the pit after Luke. I do not need to get carbon-frozen too
"All too easy. Perhaps you are not as strong as the Emperor thought," Vader remarks, turning and pushing a button to turn on the carbon-freezer just as Luke leaps back out and catches onto the hoses hanging from the ceiling.
Thankfully, Vader doesn't notice right away because he immediately turns back to me. Actually, I don't know if that's good or not. As steam begins pouring out of the pit again, Vader attacks me. I parry his blows, backing away each time. Finally, Luke calls his lightsaber back into his hands and ignites it. Finding myself being backed into a wall, I leap into the air, narrowly avoiding the red blade, before landing on Vader's shoulders and jumping to the ground on his other side.
As Vader spins around, Luke swings his lightsaber at him, giving me a moment to collect myself. I want – I just want to run. I can't keep fighting my master, Sith or not. I can't. I want to go back to my own time, where everything will be right again. Where all the Jedi are alive, the Republic still exists, and I'm with my master, with Anakin, where I belong. I have no idea how long I'll be here, though, so that's not going to be an option, at least not now.
We have to continue to hold off Vader until there's an opportunity to run where he can't follow us. We just need to survive long enough. I leap back into the duel, and our lightsaber clash wildly once more, with me doing most of the fighting.
"Obi-Wan has taught you well. You have controlled your fear. Now release your anger," Vader urges Luke. Thankfully, Luke doesn't react, and continues controlling himself. As for me, the only thing threatening to take control is the overwhelming pain stabbing through me. I don't think I can go on much longer without breaking down and screaming at him to stop this madness.
As the fight continues, Vader is slowly but steadily backing away from us. Somehow, I get the feeling he's leading us somewhere. There's no way we're winning, not when I'm not even trying, and Luke hardly knows how to fight. This is not good.
"Only your hatred can destroy me," Vader prompts our lightsabers continue clashing. I am struggling my hardest to ignore my overwhelming emotions, not to let them take control, because if they do, I know I'll be dead. Vader continues backing up, and then suddenly, steps off the outer edge of pipes, and falls out of sight.
Luke deactivates his lightsaber and steps over to the stairs. "Luke, I think we should leave," I warn, deactivating my own blade. I really want to talk to Vader, but it doesn't seem like that will work. Not right now. Clearly, he's furious at me for something, and until I figure out what, I can't confront him properly. I know I was going to leave the Order – probably did in this timeline – but I don't see how that warrants a death sentence.
"We might never get another chance," Luke insists, stepping down. Another chance for what? To be defeated or killed by Vader? Isn't that a good thing?
"We're never going to win the fight, you know," I warn him again, but he's not really listening to me. I'm beginning to wonder if he even realizes how much Vader is toying with us. Sighing dramatically, I follow. I cannot keep fighting much longer; I'm exhausted. I hope he realizes that. I'm almost tempted to just leave, but I can't abandon him here. Even if Vader doesn't kill him, which I don't think he will, Luke's not going to win the fight.
We both enter a tunnel. It's extremely dark down here with huge floor to ceiling pipes. In front of us is a metal grate with bars that opens as we step up to it. As we go in, Luke pushes a switch and lights come on, illuminating the tunnel. I follow him to the other end, sensing the approaching danger with each step. This is a bad idea, but Luke isn't Anakin, and he seems completely unconcerned with it. Probing him lightly, the only emotions I sense are determination and anger.
Just as we step out of the tunnel and into another room which is also dark – and looks like a control room of some sort – the metal grate on this end of the tunnel slams shut, trapping us in here. Great. Now we're stuck with an angry Sith Lord who seems intent on killing me.
We walk further into the room, and I glance around as we approach the window. A sudden noise from behind startles us both, and we spin around igniting our lightsabers in time to see Vader stepping out of the shadows. His presence is suffocatingly dark, like a black hole in the Force, and pinpointing his location is extremely hard.
He slowly moves closer to us, red blade hissing to life in his hands. I hear a noise and sense danger coming from behind, just as a piece of machinery comes detached from the wall and flies straight at us. I Force shove it to the side seconds before it would have hit me in the head. Vader lunges towards us again, and Luke quickly parries the blow before I jump to his defense.
As we continue fighting, Vader telekinetically detaches another piece of equipment and throws it as us. Luke swings his lightsaber, slicing it in half as it nearly smashes him in the head. Vader steps back, while keeping his lightsaber ignited, and begins throwing more random objects at us. I'd be astounded by his raw power and control if it wasn't directed at me.
I Force throw aside as many of them as I can, but they're coming too quickly, especially when I'm keeping my lightsaber ignited in one hand just in case. And unfortunately for Luke, he's not good enough with telekinesis to shove them aside, so he just swings his lightsaber at all of the pieces that fly at him, ducking if he can. Some of them still end up hitting him anyway. As the debris continue to sail at us, several of the objects smash through the large window behind us, and wind begins whipping about the room.
Then a whole barrage begins flying at us, and I'm forced to deactivate my lightsaber in an attempt to throw them aside. But it's not enough. As the window is shattered entirely, an extremely strong wind starts blowing through the room, and somehow, a vacuum is created, sucking everything out of the room. I struggle to keep hold on something, anything, but fail. The next thing that registers is that Luke and I fall out the window and land hard on a surface a distance below as Vader remains standing unmoving in the center of the room.