Chapter 10 – Duel of the Fates

Author's Note: I have no regrets. :):):)

~ Amina Gila


Custos feels Maul approaching them long before the Zabrak steps into view at the end of the hall. For a long moment, the three of them stand there staring at one another, before Maul smirks. Cruelly. "Kenobi," he drawls, drawing and igniting his double-bladed red lightsaber with a flourish, spinning it. "How nice of you to show up."

"I hope your master doesn't want you back in less than two pieces like last time," Custos taunts as he and Obi-Wan ignite their own lightsabers in response. Obi-Wan spins it, holding it parallel to the floor, left arm extended in the traditional opening stance for Soresu. Custos, on the other hand, sticks with the Ataru he's used to. He is not like the Jedi; he does not fight defensively. He is untamed aggression and fury, and he lets the Dark Side flood through him, humming through his veins and lighting him up from the inside.

The Sith hurt Vader. Sidious hurt Vader. They touched his child. And they will die for it. He will make them pay, make them suffer for it. The failure is his, because he should have protected Vader from them. But since he couldn't protect him this time, anymore than he could have in the past, he will avenge him.

Maul growls, lunging towards them, and Custos blocks him, reaching to Obi-Wan through their Force, their bond singing with harmony and rightness, and they work in sync together. It took them so long to achieve this unity, but they worked for it, trained for it, and now… it's paying off. While they can't label their relationship with one another, Custos can say with certainty that they are, at the very least, friends. Their soul is the same, and the bond between them is as powerful as any weapon could be. Like this, minds linked, they are two halves of the same person, two bodies, but one mind.

As long as we keep him occupied, the stormtroopers won't risk shooting at us. Custos doesn't know which of them thought it first, but it's something that they mutually agree upon. They need to keep Maul busy. They need to kill him as fast as possible, so they can move on. Maul, they can handle. Sidious…

Well, Custos isn't so certain about that. The Sith Master is clever, crafty, and if not for how everything changed, Custos has no doubt that Sidious would have succeeded in winning Anakin over to his side.

Their lightsabers clash together, a blur of blue and red. Custos pushes on the offensive, while Obi-Wan stays on the defensive. And Maul is overmatched. He is not close to being strong enough to stand up to both of them at once, not when they're fighting together like this. Obi-Wan Force shoves Maul backwards, and Custos doesn't give the Zabrak a chance to recover, lunging towards him. Maul twists out of the way in time to avoid being impaled, stumbling back a step as Custos' red blade crashes down with incredible force.

He pushes them back a few steps with a Force push, but they're on him again in moments, lightsabers swinging as they hammer at his defenses, steadily forcing him onto the defensive. It's so unlike the first duel Custos had with Maul when Qui-Gon was killed, because he and Obi-Wan are, naturally, working together with an ease and familiarity that he and Qui-Gon never achieved. They're the same person at the core, so it makes sense, but there's still a small part of him that wishes Qui-Gon hadn't died like that. Maybe a part of him will never truly be over it, not when Qui-Gon's death had meant that he and Vader fell into the Sith's hands.

Realistically, there's nothing his once master could have done. When Plagueis showed up, it was all over for everyone. Still, he… struggles sometimes with the imprisonment and torture that he endured at the Siths' hands, even if it was nothing even half as severe as what his child endured.

Maul missteps, and Obi-Wan takes advantage of it, slicing through one end of Maul's lightsaber, leaving him with only one working blade. A few strikes later, Custos gets a hit in on Maul's side, and when he stumbles from the sudden pain, Obi-Wan stabs him in the chest. Without missing a beat, Custos cuts off the Zabrak's head.

Neither of them stops to watch or gloat as the body falls on the floor, because Custos – and Obi-Wan, too – can acutely sense that Vader and Anakin are in danger. They change a look and take off running, using the Force to move faster and scout out their way, avoiding as many stormtrooper patrols as possible – and cutting through those they can't – as they head in the direction where their sons are. Nothing – nothing can stop them or stand in their way, not when their sons need them.

**w**

Unsurprisingly, the number of stormtroopers in the corridors increases the further they get, until finally, they're practically stuck, trying to figure out how to get past so many guards so they can reach the cell block where Ahsoka is located.

"Force cloaking," Vader finally suggests. "If we work together, we might be able to slip by unnoticed."

At this point, it's not like they have anything to lose, so Anakin reaches out to Vader through their bond, linking their presences and power and focusing their intent on being unnoticed, on wrapping the currents of the Force around them in such a way so that no one – hopefully – will spot them. They stay close to the walls, but it seems to be working, since the stormtroopers which they pass don't even glance their way.

"She cannot fight," Vader cautions in a low voice as they creep down the corridor towards Ahsoka's cell. "We will have to protect her."

The sick feeling inside Anakin grows stronger. What did they do to her? It's not a question he asks, knowing that he'll see soon enough, and besides, it's not a question that Vader could easily answer, or he would have spoken about it far sooner. Dread coursing through him, he pushes the button to Ahsoka's cell.

The door slides open, and Anakin's first reaction is relief, because Ahsoka is there. She's there and alive, and that's what matters most. "Ahsoka," he breathes, stepping into the cell.

She looks up sharply, inhaling when she sees them. "Anakin. Vader. You're… here." Her left arm, Anakin notices is… gone. There's a bandage wrapped around it, and it ends near the elbow. If – no, he doesn't want to know what happened. If Sidious merely cut it off, that's no reason for Vader to be acting… like he was about it. What did he do?

"Always," Anakin swears, hurrying to her side and helping her to her feet. She sways, pain filtering through their bond, pain from the… amputation and from electrocution. He steadies her, helping her to the door of the cell where Vader is waiting, expression stricken and tortured.

"I'll be fine." It's all she says to Vader, and a silent, unspoken exchange passes between them. Vader opens his mouth and then closes it again, nodding, subdued, looking away.

Anakin doesn't pry. He knows that they'll tell him everything when they're ready, and if they're never ready, that's alright too. He understands, intimately, how some things are too hard to ever discuss, and he can't fault them for being unable to speak of it. Also, he now knows very well what Vader means about Ahsoka being unable to fight. She isn't. And that means she's a liability to them since they have to protect her and themselves. It will not be easy, but things worth doing rarely are. They came all this way; they won't abandon her or let her die or get injured further under their watch.

"This is a trap," Ahsoka tells them, leaning on Anakin as they walk to the exit. "You shouldn't have come."

"Of course, it's a trap," Anakin answers flatly, "But we weren't going to leave you."

With Ahsoka there, it's a lot harder to use the Force cloaking, especially since it's obvious that she escaped. They give up entirely, Vader moving in front of them, deflecting blaster bolts and cutting down stormtroopers, while Anakin merely defends them both. But there are far, far too many troopers in their path. There were a lot on the way in, and there only seems to be even more now. They were preparing for this, Anakin realizes grimly; this was a trap, like Ahsoka said, like they realized.

But he doesn't regret coming here. They had to do it. They had to destroy this battle station, since they couldn't take the chance that Alderaan would be destroyed, and their family with it. They had no choice, really, and Anakin can only hope that they'll all get out of this intact.

There's a twinge in the Force, and Obi-Wan's and Custos' presences wash over him. He breathes out a sigh of relief, adjusting his grip on Ahsoka and holding her a little tighter with his left arm as a blue and red lightsaber join the fray from behind the stormtroopers. They're all here, back together. Now, if only they can keep it this way.

He isn't counting on it.

There's no way they'll escape unscathed, especially not when they have so many enemies between them and a shuttle or escape pod. The control to the bombs feels warm on his wrist, and Anakin can't quite prevent the anxiety from gnawing at him. The timer will go off at some point, and if they're not off… well, then they'll all die here. He doesn't want that to happen; he doesn't want his children to grow up without him, without any of them. But better them than Alderaan.

They make it from the prison level, cutting their way through any resistance. It doesn't help that some of the blast doors are being closed, forcing them down a very specific path, and even though they cut through the floor, dropping down a level, they're still being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. They're exhausted and injured – Anakin has a burn on his arm where a blaster bolt singed him – and they can only hold so for so long.

This isn't like fighting droids. These are people who they're hurting, killing.

And then, they turn the corner to a dead end. All the blast doors in front of them are closed, and there are troopers chasing them from behind. Vader drives his lightsaber into the floor again, since they can cut through that more easily than a blast door several inches thick, and that's when the stormtroopers in front throw a smoke bomb at them.

Or wait. No, it's not a smoke bomb. It's… a sedative.

Anakin doesn't even realize it until he's already inhaled it, and he can feel it working through him. Ahsoka sways next to him, unsteady, and he gathers the Force to him, trying to push the chemical away from them. Either they can wait here and hope they can escape to clean air before the drug – and it's a really powerful one, possibly even designed solely for him – takes effect, or they can go around the corner, back into the line of fire.

They wait, and the world begins to get fuzzy around the edges as Vader finishes cutting a circle in the floor. Ahsoka is first to go down, her body going limp against him so suddenly that he nearly topples over. Obi-Wan goes down to one knee next, visibly struggling to fight off the effects, but Anakin knows that it's a lost cause, even though he still jumps through the hole in the floor, holding onto consciousness through sheer willpower, and waits for Vader to lower Ahsoka to him.

Because of his dulled senses, he doesn't notice the stormtroopers waiting there until the Force twinges a warning, but by then, it's too late. Stun bolts slam into him, overloading his system, and everything goes black.

**w**

Obi-Wan regains consciousness slowly, sluggishly, and it takes him a moment to remember everything which happened. They had been escaping, and then the stormtroopers hit them with a sedative. He jolts awake, adrenaline brushing away the lingering traces of confusion from the drugs as he instinctively takes in his surroundings.

All five of them are here, in a massive room that almost resembles a throne room. His breathing picks up, as he scans all of them, checking for injuries as best he can. Ahsoka is still slumped on the durasteel flooring, not that it surprises him. Seeing her like that sends a pang of regret through him. She has suffered horribly in Imperial hands, and Obi-Wan doesn't want to know what led to the amputation of her arm; he'd noticed it almost immediately, but they couldn't afford to be distracted at the time, so he hadn't asked.

Anakin and Vader are stirring as well, though Custos is still out of it.

There are Red Guards positioned around the room, near all the exits, and they're in binders, so even if they could escape, they wouldn't get far anyways, not without any weapons. At least they still have the Force, though, and Obi-Wan can sense his lightsaber somewhere close by, though he doesn't know exactly where it is.

He twists, reaching out with his leg and kicking Custos' thigh to rouse him. He doesn't want to say anything or make more noise than necessary; he doesn't want to unnecessarily draw attention to himself or alert… Sidious to their consciousness.

Because the Emperor is here. The throne up above them might be facing the viewport – and Alderaan – but Obi-Wan can still feel Sidious there. Great. He doesn't want to see the Sith Master, now or ever, especially not after what happened to Ahsoka, after what happened to Custos and Vader in their reality.

Despite himself, he feels a burning anger start simmering within him. He has no idea how they'll get out of this, but they have to. They have to because Obi-Wan refuses to die here. He refuses to let his sons, his family die here. They'll get out of this. Somehow. He doesn't know how but they will because he won't stand for any other outcome.

Custos stirs, pushing himself into a sitting position – more like kneeling position like the rest of them – but he doesn't say anything, checking everyone visually much like Obi-Wan did. We'll destroy him, his eyes seem to say when he meets Obi-Wan's gaze. We will.

I know, Obi-Wan replies silently, not verbally, not through the Force.

He used to hate their connection; he thought it too unsettling to have such a close connection with another person, to have someone who could understand his most intimate thoughts and feelings. Over the years, he got used to it, and he came to accept it, embracing it as another fact of life which he couldn't change. But now… he's grateful for it. He and Custos have lived separate lives for years, but they're still fundamentally the same, and that means that they can read each other even without using the Force.

It may prove to be their only advantage, because if they make plans, Sidious will sense it. Their only hope may lie in being able to read each other and acting impulsively. The same is true for Anakin and Vader. All four of them are in a very… unique position. And that, perhaps, may be the only way they can prevail, especially with the situation being so dire.

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