AN: Yes, I finally managed to post another chapter. Sorry for the long wait, but at least it is the longest chapter I ever wrote. I still won't be able to update regularly, you still have to be patient. But in the meantime, you can leave me a review if you like to, I always enjoy them.
Chapter 13
"You know what? I liked it better when you were hoarse."
The only thing that could be worse than their situation, was being in said situation and simultaneously having to take lessons from Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan shot him an exaggerated hurt look from his procumbent position on the floor.
"If you would just concentrate on your task instead of complaining about it, it would be much simpler," he sighed. "So, where do you go if you want to reach the entrance?"
Anakin sighed back, irritated.
"I go to the left, then I take the third corridor on the right side, then the second on the...left...no, the right!, then the fifth on the right side and I follow it straight. See? No problem. May I now finally work on the binders? Or do you want me to tell you the way to the kitchen in case I get hungry on the way?"
His annoyance was clear. Instead of concentrating on the escape plan, Obi-Wan had him recite the way to the hangar and to several other spots for the last two hours. Could Obi-Wan not see how they were wasting precious time until Maul would come back? A part of him wanted the Sith to walk in right away, just so he could rub it in his master's face. No. That was just his annoyance trying to overwhelm him. He always hated being passive while facing a threat, and it was a pretty big threat that would come up to them.
"I'm sorry," Anakin's bad conscience stepped in. He should not blame it on Obi-Wan, just because he was the only other person around. And he was in a bad enough shape already. His master heaved himself up, supporting his weight on his one good arm.
"Anakin, I just want you to get out of this mess unharmed...or," he looked at Anakin's burnt robe at his ribcage. "As unharmed as possible."
Obi-Wan was deadly serious, Anakin could feel it, but it didn't calm him down. If possible, it unsettled him even more. One rarely heard a confession of affection from Obi-Wan, and only in the worst situations.
Anakin went from leaning against the wall to his master's side and reassuringly touched his shoulder.
"Obi-Wan, we will get through it. Like we've done before."
He shot a pained look back to Anakin. "Yes, we survived before, but this is different. It's not about some kind of global conflict, it's about Maul trying to settle old scores. It's something personal and I led you into this whole mess. Into my mess."
So that has been bugging Obi-Wan all the time. He thought that it was his fault. He even evaded his look. That was so typical for Obi-Wan, he always blamed himself, even if there was absolutely no reason.
"Obi-Wan, did you tell me to come here? No, you didn't. I came here by my own choice, and as I am no longer a padawan, I take the full responsibility for my actions. You are not to blame for it," Anakin insistently argued.
Obi-Wan finally glanced up again. He cleared his throat. "You're right. It's just my apprehension. I guess that I'm not in immediate danger of dying, he wants me alive for as long as possible, but you...he will have no qualms killing you."
Anakin had to process these words before he fully got their meaning. He had been right. Their position really must be a dire one if Obi-Wan used that much of brutal honesty.
But Anakin was not a Jedi to easily back down.
"Then there is all the more need for a quick escape." He reassuringly squeezed Obi-Wan's shoulder again and went to his wall to reach for the locking mechanism of his chains with the Force.
"Anakin, stop."
He yanked his head around, furious.
"What is it this now? You said yourself that there is not much time - " Anakin prepared for a rant until he saw Obi-Wan's face. He had become even paler.
"He's coming back. Now," Obi-Wan urged.
Finally, Anakin could hear the metal crescendo of his captor's feet coming along the corridor. Fierfek! Couldn't he have given them just a few more minutes? Now they had to delay their escape until after Maul finished his next torture session. If I make it that far, he worriedly added to his thoughts.
Obi-Wan was moving and tried to get up, but he was too slow.
It was Anakin's luck that he sat near the wall, so when the chain slid into the wall, he was just roughly yanked up. Obi-Wan on the other side was too far away from the wall. He was hauled across the room and smashed into the wall fiercely. His back impacted at full speed and he groaned in pain. Anakin could only imagine the blood from the freshly torn open wounds that now stained the wall behind Obi-Wan.
And then the door opened. It was really a very short frame of time which they would have during their escape attempt.
Maul strolled inside, the door closed firmly behind him.
He halted before Obi-Wan, too close for comfort as before.
"How are you feeling, Obi-Wan?"
The false smoothness in the Sith's voice made Anakin want to retch. This bloodthirsty creature before him had no humanity left. It consisted only of rage and darkness.
And now it stretched out its hand and dug its filthy fingers in his master's sore upper arm.
And when Obi-Wan screamed, Anakin screamed, too.
His rage and distress finally overflowed and broke through their inner prison.
"Don't touch him!" he roared.
Maul's head snapped around and he seemed to finally notice him. He tended to ignore Anakin as long as Obi-Wan was around, now he looked at the young Jedi with a mildly surprised look.
Like Obi-Wan. His master was torn between shocked and surprised, a furrow formed between his eyes and he shook his head slightly. Anakin should not further aggravate Maul, he knew what Obi-Wan wanted to tell him – but it was something different to obey him.
But as it really made no sense to make Maul more furious – he seemed to be on a pretty high level of fury in general – Anakin took his own anger and slowly quenched it, under the watchful eyes of Obi-Wan, who sagged in his chains in relief and Maul, who kept his predatorily amused look.
Anakin's breathing came back to a normal level, and the Sith still held his gaze. That was unsettling. Up to this moment, Anakin hadn't been more than a bothersome fly for Maul, or maybe a tool to get to Obi-Wan. The look in Maul's eyes told him that this was now over. He now had the Sith's full attention, and Obi-Wan realized it, too. He stiffened again, now as rigid as the wall behind him.
"So, the Chosen one wants to give me orders..." Maul purred.
That was not good. Anakin had always been "the boy" for Maul. That he now referred to him as "the Chosen one"could only mean trouble. And he was right.
"What do you think, Obi-Wan?" Maul continued as he turned back around to the other Jedi."Is he stronger than a Sith-lord?" He took one step back in Anakin's direction, while still holding Obi-Wan's gaze.
"What will happen -" a sharp snap and the heat radiating off the red lightsaber startled Anakin.
"- when I slice him through?" His voice was now as cold as winter on Hoth.
Anakin was curiously distant from everything. The hot blade singeing his garments over the hip, the morose look on Obi-Wan's face, he didn't really discern it. He had no right to say in the matter. It was between Maul and Obi-Wan. What his master said next would likely determine Anakin's fate. And if he was to die, he would do so. If only Padmé wouldn't be devastated when she heard of his death. He tried to figure out the last words he spoke to her, when he was brought back to reality.
"No. Please. Don't kill him."
Although spoken in a soft voice, the words hit Anakin like a massive cruiser. He had never heard Obi-Wan beg for mercy. It was something Obi-Wan just wouldn't do. He would negotiate in the meanest way possible and convert to aggressive negotiations if necessary, but he was too good a Jedi to beg his nemesis for mercy – even if it was on Anakin's behalf. It was a great victory for Maul, and he knew it.
"So you have still not overcome your debility regarding attachment," the Sith leered. "It's what makes you weak."
And with that he turned to Anakin and struck out for a backhanded blow.
The searing blade aimed for his neck, and Anakin couldn't do more than stare back at Maul defiantly. He would not die scared like a coward. And so he remained silent when the saber seared hot over his armpit, his right shoulder, when it burned agonizingly in his neck, even when he heard Obi-Wan's scream of denial and when the line of fire continued over his left shoulder.
But something was amiss. He still saw the joyful glittering in Maul's eyes, but he should be dead by now, his head shouldn't still be on his shoulders, should it?
The Sith saw his discomposure. His saber snapped off and he stepped to the side, giving Obi-Wan free sight on Anakin.
When he saw that Anakin was still breathing, he slowly relaxed his rigid muscles, although his eyes still spoke of an exceptional alertness. Anakin knew what he thought of. That couldn't be the whole game. Maul had, instead of beheading him, only injured him with a shallow burn. But why? His gaze flickered back to the Sith, whose attention was already consumed by Obi-Wan again.
"You've saved him this time. I will reward you for abandoning your values with his life," he explained. "It was no easy decision to beg me for mercy, was it? Next time, that won't suffice. And don't think it is pure generosity. You've damned him to explore pain as he never did before."
Obi-Wan clenched his mouth, but Anakin knew that he was more relieved to see Anakin alive than he was bothered by Maul's words.
Sure, the promise of unbearable pain – especially by this person - was not to be taken lightly, but they had just bought more time to make their escape.
However, Maul didn't seem to stop just yet. He already had another weapon in hand. One that both Anakin and Obi-Wan were unfortunately familiar with. It was a shock whip, like the slavers on Kadavo used them. Just great. Why was everybody so eager to electrocute him? Very inventive.
The aghast expression on Obi-Wan's face told him that he might have said that last part out loud. Oops.
But Maul didn't even bother and was already busy removing Anakin's leather tabards. That calculating son of a Sith-whore had sliced them earlier with his pretended death blow, deliberately withdrawing the protection they would have given his skin.
Anakin was roughly flung around to the wall. His neck still burned but he guessed that it was nothing compared to what was to come. He took some deep breaths. He wouldn't scream. He wouldn't give Maul the gratification and, more importantly, he didn't want to burden Obi-Wan's conscience any further.
When the first blow came, it was not as bad as he thought it would be, although the burst of electricity through his body after the initial sharp pain of the whip let his body cramp.
The second blow was much worse. While he clenched his teeth to hold in his scream, he asked himself if there was a regulator for the voltage on the blasted whip that was now turned on full power. He considered it very likely.
And while he still panted and tried to release all the pain into the force, the next blow came. This time he was not able to hold back the scream.
Try to connect with the Force. Blank out the pain. He tried to concentrate, to reach a trance-like state, but he was brought back by another vicious blow, an aslant line of pain over his back that expanded and converted to an electric shock which sent his body to arch and chafe his wrists at the binders.
After that he fell into some kind of stupor. The lashes coalesced into a swelling and ebbing melody of pain, and he didn't know when it would end, or if it would end at all. The Force was a constant stream through his body and dulled what happened to it. But that brought him to not knowing what he was doing. He had no control over his body. Was he screaming? Or worse, was he crying? He couldn't know. But it didn't matter, as long as he could bear his treatment for the moment. Just once was he brought back again, when another line of fire appeared exactly over an already wounded and raw red stripe. He screamed out his agony once more, and slowly, the wall before him received black dots, which amplified in his field of view until he drifted – finally - into the salvific numbness of oblivion.
Obi-Wan was not so lucky. Well, he had not been whipped, but that was only a small comfort when Anakin had to take it. He felt every single blow as if it was delivered to him. He knew how it hurt, had experienced it himself already. On Kadavo, one of his greatest setbacks, he had learned to hate these shock devices. Maul could not know it, but seeing it used again brought back a big trunk of memories that he had no intention of revisiting. And with the memories came the realization that his situation then had much in common with his situation now.
In the slave facility, he had for the first time begged an enemy for mercy. It had been for an innocent man, but he had hated the idea of subjugation. And he still did. But his pride was in no way a reasonable factor to sacrifice Anakin.
Anakin, whose black robes were now in shreds, and the red flesh was visible underneath. But at least he was not bleeding, the shock whip immediately cauterized the wounds it inflicted. The perfect weapon for every sadistic bastard who just wanted to torture, not kill.
He could see now, as clear as never before, that Maul was no longer just the Sith-lord he claimed to be – he had become a monster. How he soaked up every bit of Obi-Wan's emotions – a sponge only wettable in hurt, grief and blood, never able to be fully saturated again.
Even when Anakin had gotten limp, Maul delivered some more blows, just to see Obi-Wan's disgust at the prolonged defilement of his apprentice's body.
It actually became harder and harder to release his emotions into the Force instead of dashing them right into the grinning visage in front of him. But he had taken that path – more as a kind of detour – only once, and would never again, whatever the cost. Because the final stage, if you stayed on that dark path, was exactly what stood before him. A monster.
Finally, said monster deactivated the whip and stalked back to Obi-Wan.
"There is one thing I'd like to know. How did you hide your attachment from your precious council? Or have they abandoned their old values by now?" he asked, imitating interest.
It took Obi-Wan a while to find a proper reply. Both because what the Sith said wasn't that false and because the shock of seeing Anakin nearly murdered still sat deeply in his bones.
"Maybe it's the same thing like your attachment to your brother," he countered. "It's not an obstacle until something very bad happens."
And although Obi-Wan knew that it wouldn't get him anywhere good, he continued:
"By the way, how is Savage doing? Haven't seen him around in a while."
He had been right, Maul's eyes were blazing with overflowing hatred. The force-lightning cracked out of his hand instantly, right into Obi-Wan's chest, and the pain and darkness surrounded him once more, promising endless harm. He felt the Sith's voice more in his head then he heard it.
"I should kill you on the spot, but that would still be too gracious. You deserve everything that you will get."
It finally stopped and Obi-Wan was panting heavily, while Maul leaned forward, sinisterly whispering with a nod to Anakin: "And what he will get."
Another shock wave crashed down on the Jedi, burning the dark promise through skin and muscles, through bones, never stopping, always getting more intense and destructive, until his body was but a hurting mass, arched against the cell wall and only held by his chains.
Eventually, it ended, and Obi-Wan fell straight into unconsciousness, not even realizing his captor's satisfied smile when he stood over him for a short while until he left.
