Author Note: Here we go guys, lights...camera...action...cue the evil Sith...and the darkness drawing in...and the readers starting to read this next chapter...
(-o-o-)
"If I am just a mere Sith to you then why don't you kill me?" Leia dared, obviously believing her mother wouldn't be strong enough to do it.
"I shall do what I must," Padme replied, drawing and igniting her saber. Leia looked at the long blue blade her mother was wielding, and her eyes were wide with shock, but then she shook her head slightly as though waking from a dream, and pulled out her own saber. The purple blade glowed menacingly against the darkened sky, and then as though this had been the cue, a large bolt of lightning cracked through the sky, lighting everything up for a few seconds before plunging everything into darkness again.
"This is the end for you my mother!" Leia called and before Padme could respond, she had leapt through the air to land infront of her.
For one awful moment, Anakin thought Padme wouldn't attack and would allow Leia to kill her in cold blood, but Padme had other ideas.
As Leia's lightsaber hummed towards her, a calm certainty filled Padme. Leia was going to kill her. Oh she'd make Leia work for it. She'd fight with everything she had. But at the same time she was positive that she would die at Leia's hands, just like poor Luke.
Her lightsaber came up in an instinctive parry. She had never sparred with her daughter before, and yet Padme somehow knew all her favourite moves. She hardly had to think to counter each of Leia's attacks. Lightsabers humming, they battled their way across the landing platform away from the ship, and the others.
It felt...familiar, like another practice session with Anakin, except for the bolts of lightning and the knowledge that this was no practice session, but would be a fight to the death.
She saw the same emotions reflected on Leia's face. But then the expression changed into a sneer.
"You're no match for the dark side!" she said as they continued to battle along a narrow passageway.
"I've heard that before Leia," Padme said. "But I never thought I'd hear it from you."
On they went, deeper into the mountains, never pausing from their relentless attacks on each other. And it was then, as they moved inside a nearby cave, that Padme suddenly realised.
This is exactly the same as my dream, only it's not father on son, like I thought! It's mother on daughter, and it's a fight to the death!
This sudden realisation caught Padme a little off guard and Leia tried to take advantage, but Padme was too quick and immediately wove her blade into a defensive shield against Leia's attacks again.
Leia backflipped onto a higher ledge to gain the high ground, but Padme didn't follow. She had been expecting something like that and instead swung her saber low, aiming for Leia's feet. Leia jumped up to try and miss the blade and Padme thrust out a hand, knocking Leia flying with a strong Force push.
As she fell, Leia lost a grip on her saber. Padme caught it and stared at it in surprise.
How can Leia kill me if she doesn't have a lightsaber?
Then Leia charged at her and before Padme could swing her own weapon Leia was on her. Her left hand gripped Padme's right wrist, holding off the deadly lightsaber. Her other hand fought to repossess her own weapon. Anger and hatred proved stronger than frustration and doubt and Leia was able to wrench her weapon away to attack once more.
Down a narrow tunnel they fought, then onto a balcony above a large pit. A small ledge led from one side of the pit to another ledge on the other and as Leia's attacks intensified, Padme was forced onto the ledge, where a single miss-step would send her plummeting into the abyss below.
(-o-)
Back on the landing platform, Obi-Wan was still struggling to find a way out of his cell. Peering over at Anakin, he saw that the clever Jedi had opened the flap in his wrist and was using the wires from his mechanical handto short circuit the power. In no time at all, the lasers had shut down and they were both free.
Running up the ledge that Padme and Leia had dissapeared down moments before, they could still hear the clashing of sabers deep in the mountain. Anakin wondered what they would find when he got there.
He also wondered if what Leia had said about Luke and the others was true. Surely she couldn't have allowed them all to die in such awfull ways...surely she couldn't have allowed them to die at all. But then Leia had imprisoned her father and attacked her mother, so she was capable of anything now. Anakin felt a cold shiver run down his spine as they neared the cave. He was almost frightened to go inside, for fear of what he might find.
(-o-o-)
Up on the ledge the fighting continued, even as the ledge narrowed and became almost impossible to move along. And still, neither woman could gain an advantage.
But that's not really true, Padme thought as she ducked and wove and parried. Both her and Leia felt the anguish of their need to kill the other. But Leia had turned to the dark side. It gave her an advantage Padme could not match. Unless she let go of her own despair and let the living Force move her - the Force that bound all living things together, even Padme and this new, deadly, evil Leia.
It was hard. It was, perhaps, the hardest thing she had ever tried to do. Harder than joining her husband on the dark side, harder than slaughtering all those Jedi, harder than even realising her husband had once turned against her. It was the hardest thing she would ever have to do, for in letting go of her anguish, her despain, her pain, she would have to let go of the daughter who she loved, had raised in a loving home, had always been so fond of. She would have to admit that this time, she could not save her little girl, whom she had rescued from so many scrapes before.
Padme couldn't do it.
She slipped as Leia lashed out again and her saber fell down into the pit. Padme never heard it hit the floor. Leia took advantage of the fact that Padme was now weaponless and continually slashed at her feet, her chest, her head, anywhere she could. Padme jumped back away from the deadly blade again and again, before finally backflipping onto the ledge behind her.
Now what! I'm weaponless against a Sith!
As though her thoughts had been answered, Anakin and Obi-Wan charged onto the opposite ledge and Leia looked back at them. Then she flipped onto Padme's ledge too, and the two men started running across the narrow bridge. Padme backed away from the purple blade that hummed dangerously close to her throat, then she felt the ground give way beneath her feet and tumbled over the edge, grasping a tiny outcrop of rock a few feet below where Leia was now standing, looking triumphant.
(-o-)
Anakin had seen Padme fall and saw her now dangling from the rocks. Rage filled him and he charged across the remainder of the bridge. Abandoning any pretense of observing even the slightest caution, he barreled into Leia with such fury that he almost knocked both of them off the ledge and into the abyss aswell. He struck at Leia with his lightsaber as if his own safety meant nothing to, lost in a red haze of rage and frustration, consumed by grief for Luke and his failure to prevent Padme's fall.
Leia was borne backwards by her father's initial rush, caught off guard by his wild assault, and pressed all the way back to the far wall of the ledge. There she struggled to keep the Jedi Master at bay, trying to open enough space between them to defend herself. Lightsabers scraped and grated against each other, and the chamber echoed with their fury.
Lunging and twisting, Leia regained the offensive and counterattacked, using both her lightsaber and her feet in a effort to try and remove Anakin's legs from underneath him. But Anakin was experienced and was able to anticipate and miss each blow without much effort.
The fight took them outside through a small doorway onto yet another ledge looking out over large jagged rocks. They fought on, into the nooks and alcoves of the rocks, into the shadowed recesses and around large boulders and stone pillars.
Twice, Leia went down, losing her footing on the smooth rocks of the ledge. Once Anakin hammered at her with such determination that he scorched the young Sith's tunic, shoulder to waist, and it was only by countering with an upthrust and by rolling quickly away and back onto her feet that Leia was able to escape. This action obviously impressed Anakin because a hint of a smile began to play at his lips. No longer was he angry, but joyful, as though he was enjoying this contest between them, like it was some sort of game like when the twins were younger and he used to play with them.
(-o-o-)
They fought their way back inside the cave, and Anakin noticed that Obi-Wan had managed to pull Padme to safety. Both jumped out of the way as Leia charged past, Anakin close on her heels.
However, Leia had another trick up her sleeve. She began to use the force to throw heavy rocks at Anakin to throw him off balance and to disrupt his flow of attacks. Padme and Obi-Wan stood to one side, unable to believe what they were seeing.
Only a true Sith has that power. Obi-Wan thought as Anakin was forced to duck yet another low flying rock.
The battle wore on, and for a time it was fought evenly. It seemed that Anakin had been able to do what Padme hadn't and had let go of his emotions, allowing the force to just guide him. She felt guilty that she hadn't been strong enough to do that.
However it eventually emerged that Leia was now the stronger of the two and was driven by a frenzy that surpassed even the frantic determination that fueled Anakin. Eventually, Leia began to wear Anakin down. Bit by bit, she pressed him back, carrying the attack to him, looking to catch him off guard. Anakin could sense his body weakening and he began to think about what it would mean if he, too, were to fall, like his son, at the hands of his own daughter.
Never! He swore furiously and sensing his opportunity slipping and his strength dissapearing, he mounted a final assault. He rushed Leia with a series of side blows designed to bring the saber horizontal. Then he feinted an attack to Leia's left and brought his own lightsaber over and down with such force that he scorched a deep mark in the rock wall.
Crying out in fury, he cut at Leia's unprotected head, a killing blow.
And missed completely.
