"Anakin, the greatest danger is about to come," That voice once again echoed in the mind of Skywalker. "Remember my warning, I know it will be extremely difficult for you to do it, but I cannot think of a better way, I'm so sorry." It went silent again.
And Duchess Satine, was sitting next to him, having a little rest.
She was too tired, not just took care of Anakin by using very limited resources in the ship, she also had to pay attention to the outside whenever possible to see did the rescue team come or did that Sith Lord come back.
"Duchess Satine," that voice that echoed so many times in the mind of Anakin, finally was able to communicate with the Duchess. "I'm sorry, it's so difficult to communicate with non-Force sensitive."
The sound was very light, but Satine still could hear clearly inside the ship. She knew that voice was from the familiar power of the Force. After heard this voice, the Duchess was very shocked, that voice… Could it be ... her eyes began to moist.
"Anakin was in great danger, a conspiracy will soon be implemented. "The voice said with serious tone. "Thank you for your care these days, but now he needs more help."
"You are referring to that mysterious old woman?" Satine immediately figured out.
"Yes, she is a powerful dark force users, planned to draw Anakin's soul and strength for her own use. If you let those droid performed the surgery, perhaps Anakin had already been doomed." He had praise of Satine.
"Although I could temporarily sealed most of his memory in order to protect his soul, but the witch is about to master the things I can not stop, so it comes to you." The words came out slowly, it seemed he felt ashamed about what he had to say next, "I will help you show all your true feelings to him, so that we may have the opportunity." His tone was filled with deep regret, "But after that ... Can you promise me, Do not… do not let Anakin have to make a difficult choice. "
"I will not let you down," Satine said firmly, "I also believe that you will guide him well, Master Qui Gon."
Although she could not see the image, but she knew he must be very surprised. Satine grinned while her eyes were filled with tears, her voice was slightly trembling, "how could I forget your voice?"
That warmhearted JedI Master who never stickled to those rigid and useless disciplines in the war. After he came with his padawan, he took a good care of her like a father, comforted her when the young girl witnessed the tragic loss caused by the war. She could not remember how many times did Master Qui Gon risked his life to save her from the assassins. His words and deeds also taught her so much, let her stay away from the path of hatred and grew as a pacifist.
When the Jedi Council arranged a new mission for them, Obi Wan left while he was indeed sad, but Master Qui Gon Jinn disobeyed the council's order, chose to stay longer because the situation was still unstable. He continued to protect and help for a few months until everything was settled and her safety was ensured.
During his departure, she cried so sadly in the arms of the JedI Master, that was the only time she cried like that in her life.
She had never seen a man with such glare before, she thought she wouldn't see one ever again.
Until she met Anakin ...
She swore she would protect the man she loved, and never fail the most respected and admired father figure in her heart. She could imagine that Qui Gon Jinn nodded to her with a smile.
As for what to do after this crisis, she didn't want to think about it now.
"Why not just create an illusion so that will save you a lot of strength?" Not too far away from the spaceship, The burly figure asked.
"It won't work, that boy is too familiar with her. Simply use my witchcraft to create an illusion will be figured out when he approaches her." That husky voice replied.
Shortly after, in the night of Coruscant, the capital of the Republic, strange green mists that nobody noticed slowly moved toward the residence of Padme, the Senator of Naboo.
Padmé hadn't been able to sleep well for a few days because she was so worried about her husband. Aftet Obi Wan went to the rescue, she decided to convince herself to take a good rest, Anakin wouldn't want to see her like this.
While Padmé was about to fall asleep, the mysterious green mists infiltrated through various cracks in the doors and windows and filled her room almost instantly.
"Wake up, girl." The voice was not loud, but straight through Padme's mind, she opened her sore eyes. She saw a red-robed, pale face Dathormir witch floating before her, surrounded by green mists.
"You…who are you?" Padmé was very frightened.
"A friend, and I am willing to help you from losing your husband's heart." The witch's hand waved, presented visions before Padmé's eyes.
These visions weren't really horrible in any other people's eyes, but as for Padme, it was indeed nightmare, she could not believe that these. But these visions were so real and caused great impact to her heart.
"These are the visions of the future, the only way to overturn it is to cooperate with me." The witch said kindly.
"No, no!" Padmé was struggling, "I will never cooperate with you!"
"Part of you had already agreed."A strange smile appeared on the witch's face when Padme wasn't sure what did she mean. The witch then stretched out her hand, Padmé felt like the witch was siphoning something out from her body and soul. "And that's all I need."
Padmé was unable to resist, she only to felt weaker and weaker, and soon lost conscious.
"Do not worry, when you awake, you will not remember a bit about this." After the witch finished her words, her image and the green mists faded away almost instantly from Padmé room.
The Next morning, when Obi Wan and crew just arrived in Akaan, they found Darth Maul was already waiting for them.
The Sith Lord was dressed in black robe, exactly like when they met on Naboo, twelve years ago. He gritted his teeth, fire almost burst from his eyes, "Let's end this once and for all, just you and me."
"Why should he fight you alone?" Ventress didn't take it seriously, "My former servant, oh, your brother isn't with you this time, we don't have to waste time. " She was ready to take out her lightsabers and completely ignored the clone troopers.
"You won't be able catch me even if you all come." Maul said confidently, "Then I will just hide and strike out when you are busy dealing with other enemies, take you down one by one." Maul hated to waste his tongue, especially upon the enemies, he started to lose his patience.
Obi Wan knew what Darth Maul said was right. He could feel there were more than one users of the Dark Side of the Force on this planet. They could now waste too much time to defend Maul's ambush because Anakin and Satine needed their rescue. At this moment, it's wise to get rid of this circle of hatred that lasted twelve years.
"Well, I accept." Then both sides went silent, only the sound of the lightsabers could be heard.
Twelve years ago in Naboo, Obi Wan was just a Jedi padawan, fought alongside with his master Qui Gon jinn but still could not get the upper hand against Darth Maul. If it wasn't Maul's overconfidence which lowered his guard, Obi Wan got no chance against him alone.
Now, Obi Wan had been been through in numerous battles became a powerful Jedi Master. If he faced that Darth Maul on Naboo, it would be a close battle.
However, the Darth Maul he faced now was no longer the one he met on Naboo.
Although never really die, but he was reborn.
Although he no longer had a sound body and got a even more twisted mind, as Sidious said before, after his regain the control of his mind, he had become more powerful than ever.
He didn't release his full fury and hate in the battle with Anakin. He was saving them for his sworn enemy: Obi Wan.
Maul almost became the avatar of hate, driven by the dark emotion that grew in his heart since twelve years ago, his Juyo Form also became unbelievably vicious and deadly.
His body moved so rapidly along with his flashing double bladed light saber. Obi Wan could only see a mass of living shadow in front of him. The red blades were everywhere, struck from all directions in various attacking styles.
As a master of the Soresu Form, he had always been able build unbreakable defense, and at the same time observe the enemy's negligence then launch efficient counterattack. But facing such rapid and strong attacks, he could only focus on defense and barely keep it, even the slightest neglect would cause his defense to break, and could not even think of counterattack. He can only wait for Maul to get tired. But with great hatred, Maul did not loose a bit, his power even grew stronger after seeing Obi Wan could just barely defend his attacks.
As Maul threw all his hatred and anger, use them as weapon against Obi Wan. Obi Wan could only suppress his hatred against Maul for killing Master Qui Gon. In their last battle, Maul's words let the JedI Master lost his control over his anger, made him wide open and got easily defeated by Maul.
Completely different with the most violent Form Juyo, Soresu Form required its user to stay calm and control his emotions, anger would only let the user to lose his balance. Not to say that Obi Wan was a Jedi, the discipline was to suppress such feelings, as the Sith did the opposite.
Obi Wan almost could not catch the pace of Maul. Defense is the only thing he could think and make, there was no chance to counterattack.
After continually blocked serveal violently striks of Maul, the hands of Obi Wan began to go numb, but the Sith Lord was not done yet, he swiped his body, use the other end of his light saber to sweep Obi Wan's body. If this went on, Obi Wan would soon get exhausted then lost, no matter how good his defense was, he can not keep against such a beast's non stopping impact for too long.
Obi Wan , after all, went through hundreds of battles. He finally figured out an idea, changed to Ataru Forum, his body suddenly moved extremely agile like a panther, he leaped high to avoid Maul's sweep. At the same time, he was not satisfied to avoid the opponent's attacks, but to use the agility and acrobatics to make several quick attacks against Darth Maul.
From Soresu suddenly changed to Ataru, from a steady defensive style suddenly changed into an agile offensive acrobatic style. If it was against other opponents, they might not be able to handle and could be defeated.
But as for Darth Maul, he would never forget that young Jedi jumped up and then cut him to half. Although he was full of hatred, but did not therefore become irrational. In truth, that defeat always haunted and reminded him, never repeat the same mistake again and get ready for his move.
The Sith Lord's body started to whirl, he was using both sides of his double-headed lightsaber to block the continuous attacks of Obi Wan. After he adapted the tempo of Ataru, he started counterattack, Compare to Obi Wan, Maul didn't increase his movement tempo too much, but enough to keep his mobility.
With the fight went on, the tide once will again clearly tilted to Maul, after Obi Wan missed the opening chance, Maul could predict Obi Wan's move easily due to Ataru's excessive body movement. Switch the style again would be quite hard, the number of Obi Wan's attacks were keep decreasing, he used the acrobatics mostly to dodge the swings of Maul now.
To make matters worse, Ataru's cost of the Force was significantly greater than Soresu, not to say Obi Wan already had disadvantage against Darth Maul on the power of the Force. He must figure out a way to switch back to Soresu again. Even though he still could not find a way to cause real threat to the Sith Lord.
Obi Wan began to increase his speed, keep feinting and launching series of light thrusts, temporarily pushed Maul back. Despite these moves would cost more energy, he must gave a try or death would call. In spite of these attacks, he quickly jumped back then started to change his strikes back into steady defense moves.
When Maul rushed back, he would be able to establish a solid defense.
However, the Sith Lord didn't simply rush to him, but charged for a small distance and then quickly thrust out his sword.
Before Obi Wan was able to complete his defense, Maul's lightsaber appeared before his chest, the hilt was longer than ordinary lightsaber, but it still got a little distance, made it impossible to stab into his body.
It's time to turn the tide, thought Obi Wan, another half a second, he would easily parry away Maul's blade, then it would a great opportunity to launch a deadly counterattack. The Sith Lord was still careless, chose to thrust his blade when they were so far away.
But the Sith Lord's move was not over yet, he slightly rose his lightsaber, the scarlet blade instantly sliced the lightsaber hilt of the JedI Master to half.
Maul then swung his blade, sliced the hilt that Ventress threw to Obi Wan, without turning back.
He would never forget How did Obi Wan use Qui Gon Jinn's lightsaber to slice him to half.
Obi Wan had seen more exquisite attack from Count Dooku, but he didn't know Maul, this savage Juyo practitioner would come with such a move.
The Sith started to learn how to control and release all the negative emotions in their heart, firmly control and use them as weapons. Unlike Jedi, chose to suppress and avoid them.
Darth Maul, the winner of this battle, came close to Obi Wan, then rose his fist and violently beat the JedI Master, again and again.
"I'm thinking about making your face more scary than mine." Maul laughed.
The Sith Lord's other hand was holding his lightsaber, ready to stab Obi if others dare to interfere. His move would be quicker than anyone, including the annoying Dathormir Dark Jedi. The Sith Lord knew Obi Wan's crew didn't want to see the Jedi die.
Only this would not be enough to please him, Maul looked at the badly beaten Obi Wan, used his fist again to strike him down and kicked Obi Wan's body a few times. Then he stepped his foot on the face of Obi Wan, turned his head against a clone trooper. "Record this scene! "Maul shouted.
While the clone troopers were looking at each other, not knowing what to do, the pleasure from revenge on Maul's suddenly went off.
If an other being dare to disturb him when he was humiliating Obi Wan, he would simply left it to pieces.
However, it was his Master, Darth Sidious, directly giving order. Sidious was indeed so powerful with the Force now, he was still able to send simple command to his apprentice's mind when he was on the other side of the galaxy.
"Damn, don't leave from this planet if you have any courage left, we are not done yet!" the Sith Lord unwillingly left Obi Wan aside and ran away ...
"Anakin? Anakin?" A sweet female voice suddenly appeared in the unconscious mind of Anakin.
It was also heard by Satine.
"So it has begun," the Duchess murmured.
Padmé? Is that you?" Anakin was so surprised, since he came to this planet, the young JedI had never been so happy.
With the response of Anakin, a petite Naboo girl's image emerged in the ship. She smiled and lay out a hand to Anakin: "I miss you so much these days. Now, I am here, what are you waiting for? "
It was indeed Padmé. He wouldn't make mistake.
Anakin was overjoyed, he really wanted to wake up and run to her and hold her hand ...