"Anakin!" Obi wan called,

"Anakin!" his voice echoed back, sounding peculiarly empty.

He couldn't sense Anakin, his vision was clouded in that regard, nor could he see more than a foot ahead. His limited senses left him wishing for the tracking abilities of Master Vos, though even then, this sector of the mine was so vast that even then, there seemed little chance of finding Anakin. Not before gas exposure grew too much.

Obi wan's stomach churned at the thought.

"Anakin?" he cried again

"Anakin!" the echo cried back, wrought with despair.

Obi Wan sighed pensively. Qui Gon would never have let it get this far. He knew it was his teaching. Under his tutelage Anakin's brooding spells unrebuked. Small worries, passing storms. Had it been Qui Gon he would have… well, Obi wan didn't know what he'd do. He hadn't been at all like Anakin as a padawan, and when Qui Gon died, he'd still had so much to teach him, about the order, about raising a padawan.

Everything he'd learned, he'd learnt from experience, and experience, he was afraid, had been a rather poor teacher.

"Anakin!" Ahsoka's voice took up the cry from a distance, her voice was sharp and determined. His padawan's padawan. Obi-wan squinted at the faint glow of her saber quite some ways away from him, tainted by the hazy glow of magma.

It was all oddly familiar in the most surreal way. the way the volcanic rivers drowned out all else blindingly. The way the mist seemed to curl and twist with his every step, and Anakin. Obi-wan couldn't recognize him, couldn't feel him in the force. It was as if some great darkness was muffling him, yet his absence seemed the most familiar of all.

"Master?" Ahsoka addressed him, and the air grew a little brighter with her approach. She studied him sincerely, her eyes beamed comfortingly, "We'll find him, I know we will."

Obi-wan nodded appreciatively, though Ahsoka knew she'd given him little comfort, and moved forward in his search. Ahsoka followed, searching with purpose in her own direction, for her words had not been empty promises, and she felt sure they were drawing nearer to her master with every step, though she could no longer sense him, and had given up trying some time ago. Rather, she'd trained her senses on the darkness which grew more oppressive with every step. Anakin was in that darkness, and she felt that every stride carried her further into the thick of it, until finally she would reach the eye of the storm.

"Master!" she cried, as a shadow came within her saber's glow. The silhouette, crumpled low to the ground, was undoubtedly that of her master. His trembling figure was faced away, the strong presence snuffed out, and his fingers entangled wildly in gnarled locks of his chestnut hair. Saddened, she stepped forward, her hand outstretched. Truly he was a man transformed, and her heart ached to know she'd left him like this. Seeking her own destiny when he'd been in such a state.

"Anakin," her fingers, slender and childlike rested tenderly on the course robe draped over his shoulder. Through it all she was sure she could almost feel him, and the vision of Maul was forgotten as memories of her master, fearless, strong, and kind, flooded her mind. And she realized how much she'd missed him, and everything he'd been to her, a brother, a friend, and the kind guiding hand that had seen her from childhood to womanhood through all war's hardships.

In her reminiscence she did not see his hand fall to the saber, nor the instinctive curl of the fingers round its hilt.

Had her saber not been drawn already, she might have been a moment too late.

But sabers clashed in a brilliant display of light. For she was quick and sure footed. He'd trained her well, and the padawan was now equal to her master's blade.

Ahsoka bent on one knee, beads of sweat dotted her forehead, illuminated by the even glow of her lightsaber.

"Don't," she whispered, "Don't do this Anakin,"

She looked into the eyes of a frightened animal, panting as the sweat dripped from his hair and fizzled out just inches from her face. She knew those eyes, their gold flicker, their mad fury. She closed her eyes, and they came rushing back to her like a cold chill

To destroy…

Her eyes flew open,

Maul

He was right

With a grimace she stilled her trembling arms and reinforced her grip on her blades.

"Master please," she said through gritted teeth, "Don't- do- this."

"No" he cried, and with an otherworldly burst of strength she was thrown aside, "I see through you!"

She stumbled and skidded on the steel floors, only finding her feet in time to deflect his next blow,

"You!"

He swung blindly

"Obi wan!"

Crash!

"The Council!"

Kshh!

"The chancellor!"

He hacked at her blade like a madman

"The Republic!"

And he struck an erratic blow with such strength that she flew backward into the wall slipping so that she had to roll to dodge the next strike.

"All of you used me!"

She dodged artfully and sprung back to her feet, but this was not like any duel she'd ever experienced, his strokes were sloppy and unpredictable and aided by strength and size which greatly surpassed her own. For the present she could hold her own with speed and deftness taught by her master, but his senseless rage, fueled by the darkside would soon have her backed into a corner.

"I was tossed aside!"

She met his blade with her right,

"I wasn't worth it!"

Alternated to her left

"My mother wasn't worth it!"

And as he worked up for a third powerful blow she prepared with her blades crossed, but as blades met with a crash and a hiss, she felt him reach past her sabers, which were occupied in deflecting his, and grasp wildly for her neck.

"Anakin!"

Her left blade retracted with a hiss, leaving the right one solely to bear the worst of it, as she wrestled Anakin's mechanical grip.

"Padme wasn't worth it!"

"The senator is fine!" she cried. So that had been the secret, she thought back to the confidential looks and the frightened eyes. Anakin cared for the senator, it was only natural that the early labor, the premature babies, the mysterious father- Rush Clovis- she nearly lost focus as realization dawned on her. The Council, the republic, they'd failed to protect Padme from the wolf in shaak's clothing.

"They care for no one but themselves!" and with ferocious force he struck her saber from her right hand, and it clattered to the floor beside her. Both her hands became occupied in holding back his saber which bore down on her with such force that she could not afford to retrieve either of the lost blades.

"Master!" she choked, for the mechanical hand had been left free to close round her slender throat and squeezed it with such rage and vigor in the unfamiliar eyes in a dear familiar face that it frightened her, and she lost her breath quicker for the fright.

"I'm not your master!" and she thought he would choke the life out of her, "You left the order- left me!"

"Enough!" and just when she thought her strength would surely give out, her grandmaster's blade ignited with a snap and a hiss just a hairsbreadth from her face and intercepted the fatal blow. The two struggled, but Obi-wan was quite equal to his padawan's strength, and as the two locked blades, was able to force him back.

Ahsoka rolled to the floor coughing wildly and gasping for air. Her every breath seemed colored by the pain of her desperately bruised throat. She called her sabers with diminished strength and watched through splotchy vision as the flash of dueling sabers grew hazier and hazier. She tried to follow, to aid her grandmaster, who had so benevolently aided her, but even as she attempted to stand, the weight of her eyelids betrayed her and she placably succumbed to the void of unconsciousness which engulfed her like a balmy wave.