VIII

R.o.t.J. part III

The lightsabers flashed their martial pattern together, and Anakin had not fought like this in a long time. Ruen played with catching his father's slow attacks. But Anakin had fought like this before, with Obi-Wan his only father and now Ruen his son. It all gauged to point of view.

Suddenly he could feel the Force fueling him, not even sure which side it hailed from, and after a bout of parries which stung his hands a determined blow halted Ruen's twisting slash for Anakin's neck. The humming blade-fields locked; Anakin employed one of many half-remembered dueling techniques and shoved.

Darth Ruen's exquisite balance twisted on his lanky frame at the very edge of the staircase. He fell into a liquid but limping four-point crouch at the bottom with the red lightsaber deactivated in his hand.

Palpatine crowed from above. "That's it! Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Attack! Let the hate flow through you."

But Anakin had stilled. Inside, yes, he remembered power, prowess, admiration, and savored the feelings returning. He felt how he deserved them! Ruen had gone through no terrors to gain him power! Anakin held all the authority, all the solidness of a father! Or no! Despite the evidence, this was not what a father was supposed to do, punishing his son for another man's, Palpatine's, faulty influence, like two Sith Lords each aimed for killing to gain or retain the title of Master...but no, now Anakin was becoming confused. The light side of the Force patiently reminded him that his mission was to save, turn, protect his son Ruen from the dark side. Luke...

...the boy who had stood and ferally grinned up at Anakin, so ready to fight.

"I will not fight you, son," rasped Anakin. "Here," and, to extremely prove all, he threw his lightsaber down the stairs so that it clattered into a stripe of hard shadow near Ruen's feet.

Ruen laughed. "You underestimate the power of the dark side, Anakin. Worry about saving your friends on Endor now--that is more likely than converting me, or you, or my sister."

Anakin's fear of physical attack swept away. "What!"

Ruen's voice lowered as he came slowly up the light-striped stairs. "She truly believes herself to be the emperor's daughter. Perhaps you have heard of our Danae? She is his hand in politics, but she could be just as useful as an acolyte of the dark side...whether or not you succeed in changing."

"A daughter was to be named Leia!" Anakin had never forgotten those never-used names.His terror and fear for a twin child he had never known existed blinded all reason for a surge of energy toward the foe so long in his gray tunnel vision. He leapt down the stairs, lightsaber slapping into his clenching hands, suddenly viewing Ruen as a cruel, cruel failure--

His forceful attack surprised both of them. His violent strikes pushed the younger Skywalker across the bridge area, pounded at him, kicked when Ruen's fluid 'saber style grew tired and choppy--finally, the young Sith's legs crumpled under him next to the pipe-like railing. Anakin sliced an X into Ruen's chest armor and pointed the blue lightsaber at his throat. The armor's burnt material curled back like charred petals and revealed only pale skin beneath, and rough breathing. Still controlled breathing, but it pushed at thick muscle and pained in the Force--

Anakin began to speak, perhaps of the defeat that had heralded his own redemption, but Palpatine began to applaud. The staccato clapping echoed and punctuated the emperor's stoic movement down the stairs behind Anakin.

"Good, good! You hate has always made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and regain your place at my side!"

Anakin gathered his voice like a jump beneath him. "Never! I'll never kill for you again, your highness. I am a Jedi, as our order was before me!"

A momentary quizzical look fell over Palpatine's face. Anakin grasped the good Force which had given him conviction and sustained himself with it. Now would come the last battle?

He could sense what was so come as Palpatine croaked out his next words, and focused himself to walk through it.

"Young fool. You will pay the price for your lack of vision!"

However, Anakin could do nothing when the lightning came. Worse than Dooku's, though it wiped all perspective except for now is pain entirely away, the lightning's intensity and evil only grew worse. Barely did he feel himself reeling, curling around a table-sized sensor pod, shaking--this is what it is to be an old man--"Luke, please!"

Daring to hope...hope died when Ruen crawled to Palpatine's side and stood watching. Anakin felt himself escaping, blacking out or dying, and in the Force a tiny eke of something like bright faith bleeding out of him, like servo fluid--

The Ruen caught the Dark Lord around the body and neck, caught lightning that snapped his head up and rifled through his hair, but he lifted Palpatine up and heaved the stiff body over the walkway's side. Anakin's pain blissfully doused, though the shaking would not stop.

Blue smoke and light like out of a meteor's impact billowed out and back in to the service pit's depths.

Ruen sat down with blue fire between his teeth and collapsed almost into the pit.

Anakin drug himself to the other man's side, and with a will he did not remember afterward pulled him back from the edge. Anakin's right arm had short-circuited into dead weight, but somehow, between them, Anakin and Luke remained leaning up against the railing and each other.