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More Trials
Damian deflected Zera's lightsaber, then used his free hand to snatch it out of hers and turned to the door as it opened, Kanan and Ezra walking in.
"Hey guys," Damian said, handing Zera's lightsaber back to her. "What's up? You look troubled."
"We ran into the two Inquisitors again," Kanan said. "No droids this time, thankfully."
"How'd Ezra do?" Damian asked.
"Not bad, actually," Kanan said. "He held his own against the Seventh Sister well, and the Fifth Brother fairly well. It was a pretty even fight."
Damian nodded. "Good. Come on. I expect Ahsoka can probably answer your questions better."
Kanan nodded and they followed him to a room where Ahsoka was watching a hologram of Anakin Skywalker, her former master, teaching Form Four for blaster deflection.
"He's amazing," Ezra said. "I sometimes watched his recordings to help me with my own lightsaber training."
"Anakin Skywalker," Ahsoka said. "He was my Master."
"I heard he was the most powerful warrior the Republic had during the Clone Wars," Ezra said.
"He was an amazing fighter," Ahsoka agreed. "He rarely lost a fight. But people were always amazed by how kind he was."
"Does anyone know what happened to him?" Ezra asked.
"No one knows," Ahsoka said. "Last time I saw him, he was running off to save the Chancellor. Then everything changed. Suddenly the Clones turned on us, and whoever survived was hunted down."
"By the Inquisitors?" Ezra asked.
"Or worse," Ahsoka said.
"Speaking of Inquisitors," Kanan said. "What do you think about us doing the hunting for a change?"
"When you killed one, two more came," Ahsoka said. "Who's to say we wouldn't multiply our problems yet again?"
"And there's Vader," Ezra asked.
"I agree," Kanan said. "But the fact remains that we can't protect our friends from Vader and the Inquisitors. I can barely protect you." He looked to Ezra.
"I don't need protecting," Ezra said.
"You've gotten strong, Ezra, but you're still young," Damian said. "Protecting isn't about someone being weak, it's about them being important. Even the Emperor of the ancient Sith Empire used to have bodyguards."
Ezra sighed.
"It's times like these when Anakin and I would turn to someone like Obi-Wan or Master Yoda," Ahsoka said. "They always had the answer. Well, almost always."
"Then maybe we should go ask Master Yoda," Kanan said.
"You know where he is?" Damian asked.
"Maybe," Kanan said. "Come on. I'll explain on the way."
Damian and Ahsoka followed Kanan and Ezra tot he Phantom and they separated from the Ghost, jumping to Hyperspace. As they flew, Kanan explained that he had spoken with Master Yoda's disembodied voice while waiting in the Lothal temple for Ezra to find his lightsaber crystal.
"Does he have a high voice, and talks kind of...mixed up?" Damian asked. "Or backwards?"
"Yes," Ahsoka nodded. "How'd you know?"
"I heard him on Ilum when I was trying to find my lightsaber crystal," Damian said.
"Really?" Ahsoka asked. "You never told me that."
Damian shrugged. "I just thought it was a hallucination from being inside the Jedi Temple."
"Fair enough," Ahsoka nodded.
After a few minutes, they reached Lothal, landing before the temple. Ezra explained how to open it to Ahsoka, but Ahsoka declined, as she had left the order, despite the Force accepting her as a Jedi later, and Damian likewise declined for having never been one. Ezra shrugged and he and Kanan extended their arms, the massive stone spike before them turning and rising, revealing a doorway. However, that doorway continued to rise, leaving the ground behind as the spike rose higher and higher.
"Hey, where's the door going?" Ezra asked.
He glanced at Kanan, who was ignoring the fact that the door was gone, and returned his focus to the task at hand as well. After another moment, a second doorway came into view, this one looking much more like the door to the temple. Where the last had been little more than a hole in the spike, this one was a massive carved door with walls around it the doorway inside of a the broken rock.
"This is new," Ezra said.
"Well, new doorway, new door," Kanan said. "Chopper, stay here, keep an eye out for trouble."
Chopper agreed and the four of them headed into the temple together. As they reached the massive open chamber inside, a grinding sound reached their ears and they spun, seeing a door sliding sideways into the doorway, blocking it.
"How did you contact Master Yoda here?" Ahsoka asked.
"Well...he...kind of contacted us," Kanan said.
"I thought I was dreaming when I first heard Master Yoda's voice," Ezra said.
"And I was meditating," Kanan said.
"Then perhaps that's a good place to start," Ahsoka said.
They all knelt and Damian slipped his hand into Ahsoka's, smiling. Ahsoka smiled back and gave his hand a squeeze before they closed their eyes.
"We're probably all about to be tested," Damian said.
"Most likely," Ahsoka agreed.
"I see a doorway," Kanan said suddenly.
Damian looked around, but saw nothing, Ezra and Ahsoka both saying as much. However, when Damian closed his eyes, he could sense the Force calling to Kanan. "I can feel it. It's your door, Kanan. You and you alone."
"Agreed," Kanan nodded. "Last time we spoke to Master Yoda, we were separated."
He stood, walking toward the doorway.
"Be careful," Ezra said.
"Don't worry," Kanan chuckled. "I wouldn't do anything you would do." Then, he walked through the doorway, and when Damian opened his eyes there was nothing but a solid wall.
"Where'd he go?" Ezra asked. "He just disappeared."
"As you know, these temples can be tricky," Ahsoka said.
"At least this one's not cold," Damian said, Ahsoka smiling and nodding in agreement.
"Ilum is cold?" Ezra asked.
"Ilum is a frozen world, caught in an eternal ice age," Damian said, then stopped, looking toward the sealed door they had come in through. "Ilum is probably one of the worst places to get stranded."
Ezra nodded. "You knew Master Yoda?"
"Yes," Ahsoka said, making eye contact with Damian and nodding, letting him know she sensed the Inquisitors who had just arrived as well. "He taught almost all of the younglings in the temple, at one point or another."
"Kanan described him to me," Ezra said. "Small green and wrinkly with pointy ears, but he didn't know what he was really like."
"I'm not sure anyone did," Ahsoka said. "He was wise. Kind. But when I was young, he seemed happier. As the Clone War dragged on, he carried a great burden. A deep sorrow. As though he knew before anyone else that one time was ending, and another beginning." She stopped suddenly, looking around, and when Damian looked around, he saw why.
Ezra had vanished.
"Looks like it's just you and me now," Damian said.
Ahsoka nodded, giving his hand a light squeeze. However, just as she did, Damian felt himself falling. He gasped harshly, but when he looked around, there was nothing. No Ahsoka, no walls, not spot of light shrinking above him. Just an empty void. Then, he blinked, and he was suddenly lying in the same room he'd just vanished from, but Ahsoka was gone. He stood, dusting himself off and sighed.
"My turn, then, huh?" Damian mused. "Alright. I'm ready."
"Are you?" a voice Damian recognized instantly asked as the Sith Stalker stepped out of the shadows. "You're rather calm, for being newly single."
The Sith Stalker tossed Ahsoka's severed head at him, but when Damian caught it, he nodded approvingly, then tossed it over his shoulder.
"Not a bad illusion," Damian said. "Fortunately for me, I know Ahsoka's alive. I can feel her. You can't fool me."
The Sith Stalker huffed. "You're quite sure?"
"Certain," Damian nodded.
"You've grown," the Sith Stalker admitted. "I knew you would be able to surpass me. You just needed a little motivation. But you haven't seen the last of me. You and I shall face each other one last time. But keep your chin up. Remember, you decide everything. It was always your choice. Just like when it was my turn, it was my choice. You will have to decide both of our fates. And that choice will leave you changed greatly. Forever. I hope you choose correctly."
"You can't tell me what the choice will be?" Damian asked.
"No," the Sith Stalker said. "But you will know. When the time comes, you'll know."
Then, Damian opened his eyes and was beside Ahsoka again, except, she was on her knees, crying. He turned, pulling her into a hug, and she cried into his shoulder for a long while. Damian didn't say anything. He simply held her and stroked her back comfortingly. Finally, she sniffed, wiping her eyes.
"It's him," Ahsoka said. "I wasn't certain, I had my doubts about it, but it's really him. Anakin really is Vader."
Damian nodded, resting his forehead against hers. "It's going to be okay. We'll figure this out."
Ahsoka nodded, resting her head on his shoulder. "I have to stop him. I abandoned him when I left the Jedi Order, and because of it, he lost himself to the Dark Side."
"That wasn't your fault," Damian said. "Whatever happened to him, it wasn't your fault. Besides, do you really regret leaving? If you didn't leave then, we wouldn't have met. We wouldn't be married. We wouldn't have Jek or Shaeeah, Barriss or Riyo. We wouldn't have Alina. Do you really regret all of that? Do you think Anakin, the real Anakin, would hold want you to have chosen him over the chance to have a family who love you?"
Ahsoka sniffed and shook her head. "No. He wouldn't have wanted that. Thank you."
Damian smiled and nodded, kissing her. After a moment, a high-pitched voice laughed pleasantly.
"Care deeply for you, he does," Yoda's voice said.
"Master Yoda!" Ahsoka gasped, smiling. "Are you really alive?"
"Alive?" Yoda asked. "Perhaps. But not living. Or maybe living I am, but not alive."
"You're really good at riddles," Damian said.
"Thank you," Yoda said cheerfully. "Powerful you have be come. A great Jedi, you would have made."
"I'm not so sure," Damian said. "I don't think I could have lived a celebrate life."
"A product of our environments, we are," Yoda said. "If raised in the temple, celebrate you may have been."
"I suppose," Damian said. "But then again, living a protected and relatively safe life in the temple would have kept me away from all of the battles and enemies that forced me to be strong. And if I hadn't been with Ahsoka, I wouldn't have had the one reason why I became strong anyway."
"A fair point, that is," Yoda said. "Disagree with your relationship, I do not. A fan of that rule, I was not."
"Really?" Ahsoka asked.
"An easy rule to follow, it was not," Yoda said. "Officiated a secret wedding, I did, for Masters Secura and Fisto. But baseless, that rule was not. A dangerous path, is the one you've chosen. Powerful, can love be. But a path to an equally powerful hate, it can also be."
Damian frowned. Yoda had a point. He could understand that. He felt it himself when Shaeeah and Jek were wounded by a Sith Stalker, just before using the Dark Side to try and kill that Sith Stalker.
"Master, what should we do about Vader?" Ahsoka asked.
"Whatever you must," Yoda said. "Fallen to the Dark Side, he has. An enemy, he has become. But other concerns, you may have."
Damian nodded. "We understand, Master."
Just then, the temple began to shake as it rose, dust falling from the ceiling. They both looked up and around, and as they lowered their gaze, there was a door open, and something sitting on the ground before it. Damian walked over to it and picked it up, staring. It was a helmet. One formed similar to his own Mandalorian Iron helmet, but with a small round protrusion on the sides, over the ears, each about three inches across and maybe half an inch tall, and a pair of horizontal bar eye slits, both with the inner bottom corner reaching down a quarter inch in a short point. The helmet itself was entirely white except for a gold design reaching up the front. The design covered the underside of the chin, then had a pair of thin lines reaching up along the sides to about level with the wearer's cheekbones, had a pair of short disconnected gold lines just behind each of those lines, two more gold marks in front of them, shaped like cheekbone highlights, then had a long thin trail of gold reaching up the center, reaching between the eyes before becoming a spear just above the eyes, with a pair of arms below the spearhead, both angled upward and curving to point straight up at the ends. Lastly, the marking had three gold lines curving off of the spearhead on each side, a thin one near the base of it, a thicker one in the middle that curved back downward at the end, then another thin one at the end of the spearhead, the spearhead's tip being at the top of the forehead, where the helmet curved backward to wrap over the head.
"What's this?" Damian asked, showing Ahsoka.
"It's...a Temple Guard helmet," Ahsoka said.
"What's it doing here?" Damian asked.
"I think it's waiting for you," Ahsoka said.
Damian stared at it just before the temple shook more violently, more dust falling. "Time to go."
He pulled the helmet on and they ran through the doorway and along the tunnel inside of it. After a few minutes, they ran into a room with two more tunnels into it, Kanan and Ezra running into it at the same time.
"Kanan, Damian, Ahsoka, you won't believe what I-" Ezra stopped as Kanan spoke.
"Tell us later, come on!" Kanan said, running toward a fourth tunnel out, the others all following.
After a couple of minutes, they found and exit and sprinted out of the temple, finding blood red lines glowing in a massive seal around the temple. As they sprinted toward it, Chopper flew down in front of them, reporting Imperial Forces closing in, Ezra translating, just in case. Once they were on and Chopper was flying away from the temple, Ezra stood up straight again.
"I saw Master Yoda," Ezra announced.
"You saw him?" Kanan asked. "What did he say?"
"He said to find Malachor," Ezra said. "Who's Malachor?"
"Malachor is a place," Damian said. "It's a planet where ancient Sith and Jedi once fought a war, resulting in the complete desolation of both sides. Everyone died, and Malachor was left as a horrible place, shrouded in the Dark Side of the Force. If Yoda said to go there, we don't have a choice. But it's still not going to be pretty there."
Ezra nodded and they all fell silent until they were back with the others. Once they were, Damian and Ahsoka went to their room so Damian could tell her about his vision of the Sith Stalker in private.
"We'll have to be careful," Ahsoka said. "But, either way, I know you'll make the right decision. You always do. Now come on. It's time to beat Ezra and Kanan senseless."
"Oh good," Damian grinned, picking up his new Jedi Temple Guard helmet and his Mandalorian Iron one. "Just let me drop these off with Sabine so she can swap the paint job over."
Ahsoka nodded and they left, Damian dropping his helmets off with Sabine and letting her know what he was asking, then heading to the Cargo bay to meet the others for training.
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