Disclaimer: Nope, don't own anything.
OK, you know al from the last chapters, danke for all the wonderful reviews, now please read my conclusion.
Oh, and, guess who the lost Angel is that I'm referring to: Anakin or Padme?
Chapter Six
You Were The Chosen One . . .
Anakin and Obi-Wan landed a ways from eachother on the thin metal beam that hung so precariously above the burning, hissing waves of hellish lava, Anakin in a twirl that left him in a crouch, Obi-Wan in a leap that left him standing.
Anakin straightened and advanced upon his former master.
Master. Obi-Wan's heart ached. Master. Padawan. Friend. Anakin and he. What were those titles now? They were battling eachother-they, they who were supposed to be like father and son. They, who had been through so much together. They, who were once friends. Obi-Wan had thought he had known Anakin.
No. Who had really known Anakin? Who could have foreseen the devastating turn his path would take, that would lead off into the shadows?
Anakin. Once a sweet, innocent child he'd met on a desert planet. Once a child that had been loved.
Loved.
Mother. Shmi had loved her son, loved him with the strong, iron love of a mother. For her sake, her son had disobeyed Obi-Wan's order and had flown to her side. Her son - Anakin - had held her cooling body in his arms, felt her faltering breath against his cheek, heard her last, whispered words, looked into her fading eyes as her spirit flew her body and her last breath faded away. Anakin, her beloved little boy, had listened to his dying mother's words and had felt them so strongly in his heart . . .
I love . . .
No more. The crackling, black, burning anger that had flared up in Anakin's heart, the anger that had driven him to slash and stab and slay the Tuskan Raiders so savagely had flared again, burning away reason and light, consuming him. All that remained of the innocent little boy Shmi had so treasured and loved was a dead, scorched child.
His heart ached. Ached for Shmi, the mother who had never seen her little son grow, who would never see the monster that he was now. Ached for Anakin, the true Anakin, the mischievious little boy who he had grown and learned under his tuteledge, the now dead child inside a hating monster.
Obi-Wan's eyes filled with tears. What had gone wrong in Anakin's heart?
What had destroyed Anakin's soul?
"You were the Chosen One!" he cried in anguish, cried to the cold, burning, black figure approaching him. A solitary tear tracked down his cheek, sliding down his cold, cold cheek.
Anakin continued to advance, slowly, steadily, undetterred by Obi-Wan's desperate words.
Obi-Wan's throat tightened with sorrow - and anger. The evil being that stood before him was not Anakin. This hating, angry creature had betrayed his friend to the Dark Side.
This hating, angry creature had murdered his friend's soul.
A feeling spread through Obi-Wan, an anger so strong that it burned. And yet it cool, mixed in it were sorrow, guilt, and horror.
And then the anger died, extinguished by the flames of Obi-Wan's peaceful heart.
He darted towards the Sith, slashing with his blade. Anakin blocked and countered, but Obi-Wan steadily forced him back. Both their skins ached and burned from the heat of the lava and the constant sparks. Neither cared.
Slowly Obi-Wan backed Anakin off the beam and back onto the balcony, turning his attack so as to drive him near a wall. Anakin sidestepped and twirled around, slashing at Obi-Wan's hip. Obi-Wan was not so quick to counter, and darted backward, feeling the stinging heat as the beam glazed his skin.
Anakin advance, stabbing, this time at Obi-Wan's heart. Obi-Wan, predictably, countered it, but Anakin followed through with a high kick, which Obi-Wan kicked hard, throwing Anakin off-balance in a twirl, his saber flying away from Obi-Wan's. This time Obi-Wan stabbed, grazing Anakin's leg as Anakin leaped up, kicked the wall, and soared clear over Obi-Wan's head, landing behind him. This time it was Anakin that forced Obi-Wan back.
The two battled across the balcony in spins and slashes, moving dangerously near a group of cable. Anakin slashed at Obi-Wan's neck, and Obi-Wan deflacted it, sending both their sabers slashing into the cable. With a screeching hiss, the cut cable plumeted, taking a section of beams with it to fall, hissing and screaming, into the lake of lava.
A great wave of burning lava flew from the lake, crashing into the balcony, on the far side of Anakin and Obi-Wan. Sparks hissed as metal melted, and both duelists staggered as the heat washed over them. Obi-Wan grabbed one of the few intact cables in a desperate attempt to escape the lava, and swung out over the lake, clinging hard to the cable. Anakin was not quite so lucky, and ran back to the opposite side of the now-nonexistant left balcony, seizing a cable and swinging out. The weight of Obi-Wan and Anakin on their respective cables yanked them free, and the swung out to meet eachother above the lava.
The sabers hissed and spat sparks as they made contact, their blue blades clashing together with a light that burned. Obi-Wan kicked out at Anakin, who responded in kind. The two struggled, each slashing and stabbing and kicking.
Then they broke apart, spiralling outwards and breathing hard.
Again and again they met, their struggles growing more and more vicious. Anakin scored a hit on Obi-Wan's side; Obi-Wan scored another hit on Anakin's leg. And still they fought, Obi-Wan seeking justice, Anakin seeking vengence.
Vengence for the lost Angel.
Finally, they met, one last time. As their cables colided together, a feeling of finality settled in Obi-Wan's heart.
Anakin swung out, nearly decapitating Obi-Wan, who successfully blocked. Anakin followed with another sweep of his leg, which Obi-Wan, lashing out with his own, deflected. But Obi-Wan twisted his arm, driving Anakin's saber down low, than hooked his leg around Anakin's. Retracting his arm lightning-fast, he reached up . . .
Anakin looked up just in time to see Obi-Wan release his leg and slice through his cable.
Fear assaulted the young Sith, but that fear nowhere equaled the anger that flooded him. The fury, the ire, burned through him, burned in every particle of his flesh, charring his heart and flaking the dark ashes onto his soul.
Obi-Wan looked into Anakin's eyes, and saw only the burning, burning, burning anger that stabbed and grabbed at him, burning through Anakin's flesh and flaming in his eyes. Just for a second, the two stared at eachother, Obi-Wan's soul recoiling at that terrible anger.
And then Anakin fell.
Down, down, Anakin plumetted, still clutching the cable. In those last seconds before his body hit the heat, hit the lava, Anakin flung up a shield around his body, and then . . . fell, disappeared, into the burning lava.
He did not feel the heat, so angry was he.
But he felt the pain.
Obi-Wan, watching from where he hung, clutching his cable as it flung outward, shuddered as, just for a second, a terrible scream of anger, hatred, and pain sliced through the air and stabbed at his heart. Than it was gone, gone as Anakin was gone. So quickly did it cry out that Obi-Wan was sure he imagined it, or maybe it was his conciense, or something. He let himself fall as he swung over the balcony, dropping onto the undanaged part. Crouched there, he gazed into the lava.
"You were the Chosen One." he whispered, his voice cracking slightly. "It was not meant to be like this. Anakin, where ever you are, forgive me. It was not meant to be like this. Farewell . . . my friend."
As he turned to leave, a single, gleaming tear fell from his eye and sizzled in the heat, disappearing from his cheek in a hiss.
Anakin did not scream once his body was enveloped in lava. Unknown to him, the Emperor, Palpatine, was watching, and, unwilling to lose a valuable ally, constructed his own shield around Anakin. The combined force of the shields held back the lava, but did not hold back the heat, or the pain. Swiftly, Palpatine raised the now-unconscience Sith out of the lava, into the air, just seconds after Obi-Wan left. Swiftly he guided the burning, burned body back up the stairs, moving too quickly for the naked eye to see, and telepathically contacted the stormtroopers,who imeadiately opened one of the bacta tanks inthe ship. Anakin was placed in it by Palpatine's mental hand before the troopers knew it. Swiftly, they hooked up the oxygen tanks, and discovered that Anakin's lungs were nearly burned away.
Back at the newly-crowned Imperial City, surgeons replaced Anakin's burned lungs with machines, working on healing the burned flesh. Anakin survived, but would wear a mask for the rest of his life, unless placed in a pressured room.
It was such a room that he now rested in, his flesh scarred and still warm to the touch, though from anger - the very anger that had sustained Anakin - or from the lava, no one could tell. His dark eyes stared out of a now-white face, smoldering.
Weeks later, Darth Vadar stood outside the room, his mask in place, abord one of the Emperor's ships, overlooking Mustafar. Vadar clenched his hands, his breathing echoing around the small room in which he stood with the Emperor.
"I will have my revenge, Obi-Wan." he whispered in a voice that was altered deep, not Anakin's but Vadar's. "I will."
Well . . . yeah, I know this isn't EXACTLY like the movie, and not all the details are correct, but, hey . . . didja like it?
Should I do another? What would that one be about?
Please, please, PLEASE review, my eternal thanks to all who do and-
May the Force be with you.
-Raablyn.
