Brakiss was waiting patiently at the top of the hill, his arms in the opposite sleeves of his robes. He frowned when he noticed Mara walking alongside Luke.
"I thought I said just you, Skywalker," he called, irritably.
Luke gave him a small smile as he paused a few steps from his former student. "You know wives, Brakiss. They don't listen."
Mara scowled and pointed her unlit lightsaber at Brakiss. "I remember you as a skinny runt who was so afraid of his own shadow that we had to coax you out of the Temple for practice. What do you think you're doing, issuing threats to my husband on our wedding night?" She crossed her arms and glared.
Luke and Brakiss stared at her a moment, both of them in shock at the bluntness of her words.
"Told you," Luke shrugged.
Brakiss rolled his eyes slightly. "I want just you, Skywalker. Mara can go free."
Mara pointedly dug the toe of her boot in the dirt.
"Fine," Brakiss spat. "But I have no quarrel with you, Jade."
"It's Jade Skywalker now, Brakiss," Mara corrected him with sugary sweetness in her tone.
Luke cleared his throat to gain both of their attentions again. "Brakiss, I don't want to fight you. And I don't want you to keep killing all of these innocent people." He gave Brakiss a familiar stare that he had perfected with unruly nephews and a niece.
"I don't listen to your false words anymore, Skywalker," Brakiss declared. "They only poison the mind." He took a step backward and raised his lightsaber. "It is time for you to defend yourself. When you die, you should know that I will not harm your wife, unless she makes it a point to come at me."
"And then we shall see who will harm whom," Mara spat at him, her green eyes flashing.
Luke held up a restraining hand. "Mara, this is a battle I must try to win on my own." His eyes searched hers, hoping that she would understand what he could not explain in words.
For a moment, she just glared at him, and then her expression softened. She gave him a long, lingering kiss.
"But you better believe that I'll come in if I think you're losing," she half-teased him. Her eyes were sad, but determined.
Luke smiled at her. "And I'll appreciate it. I love you."
"Love you, too," she responded. Dragging her feet, she walked about seven feet away and then sat down cross-legged on the grass. She closed her eyes and suddenly Luke could feel her boast his strength.
//I'm right here with you until the end,// he heard in his mind.
He smiled and then spun his lightsaber into his fist. "I'm ready for you, Brakiss. If it is necessary for you to have peace, then let's do this."
Brakiss gave him a truly chilling grin. "Oh, it's necessary."
Luke focused deeply into the Force. It was hardly a surprise to him, then, when Brakiss suddenly flipped, trying to get behind Luke to slash at his back. Luke spun around while Brakiss was in mid-flip and kicked at him.
Brakiss was caught off-guard and his landing was shaky. While he was still trying to find his balance, Luke decided to press his advantage to test how much his student had learned while away from him. He thrusted in quick succession about five or six times, alternating between left and right slashes.
Brakiss was quick. He effortlessly blocked every one of Luke's attacks, and then he took the offensive.
Luke was surprised at how ferocious Brakiss had become. Very quickly, Luke's arms were beginning to tire from the constant bombardment of Brakiss' assault. He had to do something to trip his former student up, but what? He was beginning to believe that this battle would end only with one of their deaths.
Brakiss went to kick at Luke so Luke dodged a little to the side. In mid-motion, Brakiss shifted his angle and knocked Luke's lightsaber out of his grip.
Luke swiftly called his falling lightsaber back to him…but it paused in its flight and shuddered. Startled, he glanced at Brakiss to discover his hand out for the lightsaber as well. If Brakiss managed to disarm him, he would then be in very serious trouble indeed.
He strained, veins popping out along his skin in his mental battle for his weapon. Then, in a surge that shocked Brakiss and Luke himself, the lightsaber sailed neatly into Luke's palm. Luke's eyes cut to his wife, still sitting cross-legged on the ground and he smiled. Though she would respect his wishes to stay out of the physical battle, she evidently had decided to help him mentally instead.
He wouldn't complain. He wasn't as young as he used to be and Brakiss was twenty years his junior.
Brakiss glowered and speedily slashed at Luke's momentarily open side.
Luke felt white-hot fire burn into him as the yellow lightsaber of his student bit into his side. Hot blood gushed from the deep wound to run down his side and he hissed in pain. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mara twitch, but she did not get up.
Sadly, Luke knew for a certainty now that this fight would only be ended by one of them dying. Brakiss wanted blood—so he would have it.
Luke straightened and used Jedi pain suppression techniques to keep the pain from interfering with his movements. He wasn't sure how deep the wound was and he knew the danger of bleeding to death so he resolved to quicken this battle to its conclusion.
Brakiss twirled his lightsaber in his hands—and that's when Luke saw the weakness in Brakiss's fighting. He smiled serenely.
Mara, help me, he sent to his wife, and showed her in quick mental pictures what he planned to do. With his injury, he would need his wife's added strength to assist him to complete it.
Luke danced to his right foot which was in front of him in his stance. To Brakiss, it looked like a lunge and so Brakiss went to block it as such. Drawing on the Force—and Mara's own strength as well—Luke used his forward momentum to suddenly tuck and roll in between Brakiss's outstretched legs. His side pulled, tearing the skin that was already weakened, like he knew it would. He ignored it and jabbed upward with his lightsaber, trusting in Mara's now open eyes to guide his hand in his blind strike.
He came back to his fight, swaying slightly, and gazed at a very surprised Brakiss. The younger man seemed almost betrayed by Luke's desperate maneuver, and then he toppled over, the hole in his gut spilling more blood than Luke's wound.
Luke closed down his lightsaber and stood over Brakiss as he died.
"I never meant to hurt you, Brakiss. I did not know that my words would make your mother do what she did. I'm sorry," Luke said sincerely. "But when you hurt and kill hundreds of innocent people just to avenge your hate is when you cross the line between a Jedi and the dark side."
Brakiss shuddered and even as he died Luke could read the hate in them for him.
Luke sighed and wobbled on his feet. Mara caught him.
Gazing up at her, he whispered, "Let's go home."
Leia was furious when Mara brought her out of her healing trance that Luke had put her in.
"Where is he?" She stormed. "If Brakiss didn't do it, then I'll kill him! How dare he!"
Mara calmly looked her sister-in-law in the eye, then glanced at Han as he started to come around. "He's hurt badly. Brakiss got him deep in the side. I can't stop the bleeding." Her quiet tone spoke volumes of how worried she was.
Leia sobered. "Take me to him. Han, get us out of here."
As Chewie got the Falcon off the ground, Mara took Leia to the medical bunk where Luke had been after their father had cut his hand off when he was eighteen. He was slumbering deeply, blood-soaked bandages wrapped around his chest.
"He put himself in a healing trance to see how badly he was hurt. He thinks Brakiss knicked a vein, though whether by accident or design neither of us will ever know," Mara informed Leia.
Leia sharply glanced at Mara. "So Brakiss…?"
"Is dead, yes," Mara finished. "Luke killed him, though he didn't want to."
Leia let out a sigh of relief, though she was still worried for her brother. "Well, we don't have to go to Coruscant right away to get him to a medcenter. There's one on our way on Ithor. If he can hold out a few days longer."
"He will," Mara promised, her voice a growl. "He better, or he'll have to deal with me."
Leia laughed.