The Grand Inquisitor
I
She danced around him at a speed that even most Force-users would have been hard-pressed to follow, slashing at him with one of her lightsabers before jumping away to try the same from a different angle with the other one, not staying at any position for even a second, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't break through his defence.
He had an advantage, of course. He knew her fighting style, had helped her develop it throughout the Clone Wars, and while she used the few years they had been apart from each other to improve her form, it wasn't enough to throw him off. He, on the other hand, had been forced to change his old form completely and develop an entirely new fighting style. Using Form V as a basis, he adapted it and included parts of every lightsaber combat form until he had created a unique style of his own. Combined with the fact that one of the most important tasks his form had was to protect himself from enemies who used a fast-paced style like the one she used, it was obvious why she stood almost no chance in their bout. Maybe things would be different if she had a decade or so time to improve herself, but as things stood now, that was not the case.
Foreseeing where she would be next, he turned around and brought his lightsaber down in a straight line, forcing her to stop and raise her two lightsabers to block his strike. It was clear from the very start that he had more raw power than her and amplifying her strength with the Force did only so much when he could do the same. Predictably, she tried to escape the situation by directing his weapon to the side before jumping away once more. Instead of letting her escape, however, he let go on his lightsaber with one hand and used it to backslap her with it, throwing her through the room until she hit the wall with a bang.
In an exemplary manner, she tried to jump up again immediately, using her pain to make herself stronger instead of letting it slow her down, but he had already ripped her weapons from her hands and pushed her to the ground with the Force.
"Your improvements are most impressive," he told her. "You have mastered Jar'Kai, and your reverse grip makes you harder to predict."
"Thank you, Master," she replied, but he could sense that, while appreciating his praise, she was unhappy with how the duel went.
"You will focus on mastering the other lightsaber forms as well, at least to an acceptable level. Use what you learn to add to your style. Expand on it, improve it, make it unique. Most Jedi, as well as most Sith, depended on only one or two forms, making them vulnerable to forms that exploit the weaknesses of those they use."
Which was one of the main reason he had gone through all the trouble of including parts of every form into his own in the first place.
"Is that was the Emperor has done as well?"
He could feel the undercurrent of emotions she felt when she mentioned his master, and the thought that their meeting still affected her like this made him scowl. If she were only angry with him for his treatment of her, or even scared of his power and apprehensive of what he could do, he wouldn't have a problem with it. Not as much, at least. He wouldn't have a coward as apprentice, after all. But no, his main concern was her continued uncertainty about her place at his side, all because he hadn't given her a proper Sith name yet.
The most annoying part was that he had actually bothered to explain to her why that was the case, not something many other Sith would have done. She should be thankful.
Not only had he known that his master would search her mind for just that, making it too dangerous to baptize her in the way of the Sith, but he also refused to give her a name with the title of 'Darth' as long as Sidious was still alive. There could only be two, and he wouldn't be like his master and just grant the title to his apprentice before he was the Lord of the Sith. Ahsoka would not be another Maul, carrying the title of Darth without being a real Sith.
She was no mere pawn, no toy or weapon, but a proper apprentice. He would do this right.
"The Emperor has mastered all the different lightsaber forms on a level that most could only hope to achieve," he finally answered her question. "He decided that, instead of creating his own style, he would just master every form in existence, allowing him to use whatever form would be most fitting against his opponent in any given situation."
Which was just another reason to create his own style, as that took this advantage away from him. At least to some extent.
"But my master looks down on lightsaber combat in general," he continued to explain. "In his eyes, it's a Jedi art and the only reason he mastered it to the degree he did is that he savoured the thought of besting them in their own art."
"To mock them."
He nodded.
"Come," he spoke up when she didn't say anything else. "It is time that you meet your new subordinates."
"Your hesitation is flooding all my senses. If you have a question, ask."
She sent him a dirty look but didn't offer a reply in return. That should have been expected, he assumed, considering that their relationship right now was different from what they had before. As it should be. She wasn't his Padawan but his Apprentice, a Sith instead of a Jedi even though her official title -for now- was Grand Inquisitor. He probably should be glad that she showed the minimum of required submissiveness expected of her, even if sending him dirty looks would technically count as overstepping her boundaries, but surprisingly, he found that he was slightly disappointed when no reply came. Oh, he would punish her if she stepped too far out of line, but he still didn't like this more demure version of her. For now, he would be patient, though. Her confidence would no doubt grow simultaneously with her powers in the dark side. He was sure that in time, they would find a sufficient way to interact with each other.
Their relationship would never be what it was before when both of them had been weak, but he could already tell that it would definitively be different from what was expected of Sith. Not that he cared much; once Sidious was dead and he was the Lord of the Sith, the Order would be whatever he desired. He would be free to act as he pleased, change and create rules as he saw fit, and mould the Sith into whatever he wanted.
"Why are you wearing this suite?"
He narrowed his eyes, only the knowledge that there was more behind that question than simple curiosity halting his first instinct to lash out at her for her audacity.
"You already know the answer to that."
"No," she said, frustration sweeping into her voice. "Why are you wearing this suite. I'm not as good with machines as you, but even I can see that those are... less than optimal."
At her words, the by now well-known anger at his master, at Kenobi, and even at himself made itself known once again.
Ahsoka was right in her observation. While the armour doubtlessly had its advantages, there was no arguing in that it was a horrible design. The life system was good enough, and his own research had shown that indeed there hadn't been much else that could have been done for his lungs, but the rest was a different story. It was pretty obvious that it was made to limit him while simultaneously making him endure an endless amount of pain, probably as some sort of punishment for his failure on Mustafar. Over the last few years, he had made several adjustments on it; from correcting the design of his legs to not only make them the same length but also better his balance and changing the gloves on his hands to make it easier to grasp things, to adjusting the connection of his nerves to the mechanical limbs to improve his fine motor skills. These and other, similar things had overall improved his capabilities, but all that didn't change that the armour was a monstrosity. He had adapted to it, turned its weaknesses into strengths and improved his powers and skills in the Force until he became more powerful than any Jedi, but it still irked him to be limited by such terrible mechanics.
"It's impossible to make extensive changes without deactivating my life support system," he finally answered, choosing to tell her the truth. "The odds of me surviving this are not favourable enough to risk such a procedure."
Of course, there were still improvements he intended to make, but some of those had to wait. He didn't want to do anything that changes his armour too much, as that would alert his master that something was off. Betrayal was the way of the Sith, true, but it needed to be done in secret. Subtlely. If he was too obvious about it, Sidious would only get in his way and make things much more complicated. If he didn't outright kill him, that is.
"We are here."
He didn't give her any time to continue the conversation and opened the doors in front of them before stepping in, forcing her to follow suit. He stopped at the railing and looked down onto the floor where all seven currently present Inquisitors were training, not including the former Grand Inquisitor, who was making his way toward him right now.
"Lord Vader," he said with a low bow. "Forgive us, but we weren't informed of your arrival. Your next visit wasn't scheduled for another month and thought-"
"I didn't know that I need to announce my coming and going to you, First Brother."
She could see by the way his eyes narrowed and glanced towards her that he hadn't known of his demotion yet. "First Brother? Excuse me, Lord Vader, but I don't-"
He didn't get the chance to finish. "Your thoughts irrelevant. The reason I am here is to introduce your new Grand Inquisitor to you and nothing more."
She didn't bother to hide her smile at the anger she could feel from the other man. He had obviously never even considered that he could be replaced in such a fashion.
"Her, my Lord? Isn't she-"
Before he could finish his sentence, he was lifted into the air where he struggled to breathe for a moment before he flew backwards into the little arena below.
"As I just said, I'm not here to listen to your meaningless thoughts. You would do well to spare your breath." He then addressed the rest of the group, all of which had since stopped training and instead watched the events unfolding in front of them. "This is Ahsoka Tano. From this day on, she will serve as the Grand Inquisitor." Even though he didn't turn towards her, she knew that she was it who his next words were directed at. "Of course, for you to respect her, you will be allowed to test her abilities for yourself by challenging her to a fight."
She took her clue and jumped over the reeling, landing in a graceful crouch before rising and grabbing her both lightsabers from her waist.
"Whoever manages to kill her will become Grand Inquisitor themselves," her master added to motivate her opponents even further. "Begin."
There was no positioning before they attacked, no gloating and no insults. The straightforwardness was a bit disappointing, to be honest, but she didn't complain. As amusing at that could have been, facing several enemies at the same time was still much more interesting than exchanging sarcastic comments.
She quickly noticed that none of them was especially strong. In fact, several of them were weak enough that she was sure she could have beaten them when she was just fourteen. The thing was, even as weak as they were, their numbers and partly unique fighting styles was enough to keep her busy for now. Even that wouldn't have been enough, however, were there not two men who kept pressuring her. They were still weaker than her, enough so that she could have overwhelmed them easy enough if this were a one against one, but with the advantages in numbers, they could fall back after every attack. Probably former Jedi, she thought, considering they obviously have more experience than the others.
She blocked a strike towards her head by crossing her own blades, catching her opponent's in-between them before directing it against another incoming attack to stop it. Then, without turning around, she leaned her head forwards to dodge the blow from behind and kicked out with her right leg, sending whoever had attacked her through the room.
Another one instantly replaced that opponent, unfortunately. Rather than blocking this one's attack, she instead chose to jump into the air while twisting her body to avoid all other attacks as well, bringing herself out of that encirclement. Landing behind the man that had been behind her just a second ago, she slashed at his waist with her left blade. Now momentarily without the support of his allies, he hardly managed to defend herself against her attack, nor the next one or the one after that.
Altogether, her offensive lasted less than two seconds, but it was enough to break through his defence and cut off his arm just below the elbow. A second later, he flew towards the one opponent she had kicked earlier, knocking both out as they hit the wall.
The longer the fight lasted, the more evident it became that their numbers were working just as much against them as it did for them, if not even more so. From what she knew, they seemed to work in teams of two, which could also be seen in the way the fought; rather than effectively working as a group, they worked in several small groups that crashed with each other. She doubted they could beat her even if they worked together, but at least they would have been more of a challenge.
The next one to be knocked out was the one who used a lightsabre pike; thinking she found a hole in her defence, the female thrusted her weapon forwards only for her to grab it by its hilt below the laser and ripping it out of her hands before throwing it back at her. Now, she could have killed her there and then, but she knew that her master –and maybe even the Emperor- would be displeased with unnecessarily losing an asset like that, so she aimed at her knee instead of her head.
She screamed when she fell, hindering one of the other inquisitors –one of the two males who actually had some skills- and thus allowing her to take him out as well. Twisting to evade the other attacks, she jumped forwards and kicked the clumsily thrown slash aside with one leg. Then, she landed on his chest with the other, allowing her to use his body as a springboard to lift herself into the air and out of reach of the others. Her opponent, still distracted by her attack, had not the presence of mind to even attempt to block her when she used the Force to throw him into the air and against the ceiling.
He didn't stir again after falling to the ground afterwards.
With only three fighters left, their coordination became noticeable better, but it also meant that there were fewer enemies for her to worry about.
Redirecting two of the incoming attacks while casually dodging the third one, she pushed the female in the middle back with a well-directed kick to the chest. It wasn't enough to take her out, barely throwing her ten feet before she landed on her back, but it removed her from the fight for long enough to take care of the other two.
They came at her simultaneously from both sides, trying to swing their blades in a manner that doesn't leave any opening for her to flee. So, instead of blocking the attacks and thus doing as they wanted, she used her superior speed to duck under one of the blades and jump behind its wielder's back. Packing him by his neck, she twisted around herself, pulling him with her.
The other opponent barely managed to block her strike before his ally, still captured in her grip, came flying at him, making it impossible for him to do anything when his lightsabre cut of his leg. Another Force push guaranteed that neither of them would stand up again anytime soon.
Sensing the Force warning her of danger, she jumped around and released a little storm of lightning towards the approaching woman.
Her Force Lightning was still relatively weak, not even as strong as it had been in her fight against Shaak Ti, but it was enough to send her opponent flying while screaming in pain before being knocked out when she crashed into the wall.
"I see you have become a little better."
She turned towards the slowly approaching Pau'an, raising one of her face marks in the same manner a human would raise a brow. "What gives you the idea you could be the judge of that? I don't think we ever met before."
"Oh, you don't recognize me?"
"Should I?"
He chuckled, dark amusement leaking into the Force. "Well, I guess you were quite distracted at the time. It's not every day that you stand trial, after all."
She instantly narrowed her eyes. "What?"
"Oh, yes. I have been there on that day, you know. I don't blame you for forgetting me, though. I mean, why bother remembering a single, unimportant guard, even if he's the one leading you towards your demise, right?"
Reaching out with the Force, she could feel nothing but the truth in his words. No decisiveness, only glee and satisfaction. But that could have been faked, even though she doubted the Pau'an was skilled enough to tricks her. No, what truly convinced her that he spoke the truth were the emotions that she could sense from her master.
Rather than disliking him as he did the others or just looking down on him, he actually held some grudge against him. It was only a single drop in the endless ocean of hate and suffering that always surrounded him, but it was undoubtedly there.
Thinking back, there had only been the few Temple Guards and some clones that guarded her during her imprisonment. The former Grand Inquisitor was no clone, that was obvious, so he must be one of the former...
"Oh," her opponent continued with a wide smile that showed his sharp teeth. "You remember me now, do you?"
Anger flooded her senses, burning through her veins and urging her to punish her opponent for his crimes, but she held herself back. If the fight against Shaak Ti had proven one thing, than that her master had been right when he warned her about the risk of losing control. She wouldn't do the same mistake now, wouldn't allow herself to be killed by this opponent of all people because of such a stupid idea.
"You will regret telling me this."
"Is that so?" he laughed. "Your control over the dark side is impressive, I can see that. You were always one of the most promising padawans, if I remember correctly, so that isn't very surprising. I have to wonder though, what do you think would Skywalker have to say about his student falling to the dark side?"
Contrary to whatever reaction he might have expected, she laughed. Using her relationship with her master, which was well-known to be very close, against her was a good strategy, or at least it would have been if she didn't know who was behind Vader's mask. It wasn't his fault that he didn't possess that information as well, of course, but it was still hilarious that he thought to use this supposed 'weakness' against her.
"I don't know," she answered with a wide smile, resembling the one he had sent her earlier. "But I think he might be very proud of me."
Her opponent was visibly confused by her reaction, giving her all the opening she needed.
Jumping forward, she slashed at him from both sides. Eyes wide, he jumped back just in time to avoid being cut in half before activating his lightsaber and swinging at her as well. She easily swept his attack aside and started pushing him some more.
She didn't outright play with him, she wasn't naive enough to underestimate him that much, but she probably didn't push as hard as she could have. That, in turn, gave him enough time to recover from his shock, gaining his footing back and actual force her to back down when he activated the lower half of his double lightsaber.
The sight made her almost snort. Using such a weapon was especially effective because most people didn't know how to correctly counter it. After all, most Jedi trained and fought all their lives with normal lightsabers, so the sudden appearance of an unfamiliar weapon threw them out of the loop. With other words, the mental advantage that the user of a double lightsaber had was its strongest point.
Unfortunately for the Pau'an, she had fought such a weapon before and no matter how good he was, he couldn't compare to a true master of it as Maul had been. If she could best him, she could best this little pest as well.
Having accepted that trying to rile her up was a useless endeavour, he instead chose to attack.
His blows were fast, coming at her from every direction, but it was just as she had predicted; he was not on Maul's level. She blocked right and left and then right again, caught his blade between her own when he swung it at her from above and then ducked under another one from her side.
The easy manner in which she evaded his attacks –which she made sure looked even more casual than they actual were- seemed to enrage him, but he was better trained than the rest of his order and thus kept enough of his cool to stay in control of himself. So, rather than waiting for him to slip, she chose to do what she could do best; she attacked.
Suddenly increasing her speed, she rushed in on him and broke right through his guard. Then, using her superior agility, she jumped while twisting out of the way of his desperate counter-attack and sent a kick right to his face.
Now it was he who found himself on the defensive again, but she wasn't just playing around anymore. So, when he tripped, rather than giving him the chance to recover his footing, she took the opportunity and cut his weapon in half. He was fortunate enough to regain one functional half, though, meaning he could block her next attack that would have taken his right hand.
He was much worse at blocking her attacks with only half his weapons, however, so he found himself soon victim of one punch after another. Every time she saw an opening, she punched him again, purposefully targeting the exact same spot every time. That didn't do much harm to him, his armour protecting him form the worst, but the mental damage was what she was aiming for.
She needed to wait for no longer than three minutes for him to finally lose his cool enough to make a mistake; for one second, he was unable to suppress his anger and took a swing at her that was much less controlled than his previous ones, giving her all the opening she needed to sweep his weapon out of his hand and destroy it with a little twist of her hand.
Then, just because she could, she cut off both his hands.
His mouth opened in a silent scream before he was lifted into the air when she took a page out of her master's book and chocked him with the Force.
It would be so easy to just snuff the life out of him like that. What could he possibly do? She hopelessly outclassed him, giving him no chance to defend himself. And since he had a hand in her 'trial', no matter how minor, didn't he deserve to die? Surely he-
"Let him go."
Her master's voice was almost regretful, as if he wouldn't mind letting her kill him but knew better than to actually go do it, but she reacted on instinct and did as she was told, her body remembering the lesson she had been given the last time she had disobeyed him.
"Very well done," he told her before he turned to address the rest inquisitors, even though half of them were still unconscious. "Does anyone here still want to challenge the Grand Inquisitor's position?"
The only answer was silence.
She didn't care much for this title, knowing that she was much more than a mere Inquisitor or even Grand Inquisitor, but proving her dominance like this…
It felt good. Even if these people were weaklings, barely worth her time, it felt good.
The dark side sang in her ears, its power almost boiling over and only strengthening her satisfaction. Soon, she told herself. Soon, she would test her new powers against more worthy opponents. Against Jedi.
She would enjoy every second of it.
I'm much happier with this fighting scene than I have been with the last. Feel free to let me know what you think, I love reading your comments! :)
