Chapter 38 - What Stays and What Fades Away

Author's Note: I do not enjoy writing fight scenes, so this... is all that will be included on-screen. :) Enjoy! :D

Next chapter: October 26th

To RandomGuest: Yep! I'm glad you're enjoying! ^-^

~ Amina Gila

Even while consciously tapping into the Light, clinging to it fiercely, Vader is still every bit as relentless and merciless as ever. He's had to be, to survive as long as he has. And Windu is one adversary to which Vader has no intention of showing mercy. Their lightsabers clash repeatedly, a blur of red against purple. Windu is good, but Vader is better, and it's only a matter of time before the Jedi Master falters and fails.

But it's hard to fight him when Vader is so angry at him, hard to hold onto the Light and not let his anger get the better of him. It's against everything he's done for years, against everything Sidious taught him, and he… is struggling, far more than he cares to admit. But he won't let himself weaken, because it's the Light which is giving Anakin a fighting chance. Even while they fight, even as he continues to press forward, forcing Windu back and away from where Anakin is, Vader feeds the younger strength. Anakin can use his abilities, to a limit, to keep himself stable, but he cannot do it alone, and Vader is helping him as best he can. He can feel Obi-Wan helping, too, and later, though he cannot say how much time has passed, he can feel Omega.

It's her presence which gives him pause, because she should not be here. It sends fear coursing through him, too; if something happens to her, he could never forgive himself.

Windu raises a hand, trying to Force shove him backward, and Vader counters, throwing up a shield to block him. It backlashes on them both when the pressure gets too high, sending them flying in opposite directions. Vader catches himself on one knee, pushing back to his feet and stalking forward to meet his adversary once again.

They trade furious, rapid blows, testing each other's defenses, searching for weaknesses, but Vader has none, not in his lightsaber form. His only weakness is his armor, and that he's heavier, slower. The weak points in Windu's form are more than accounted for by his speed and agility, leaving them fairly matched.

But there can only be one victor, and Vader will not die here. He and Anakin will live.

Fire fights are scattered all around them, and even some lightsaber battles. A distance away, Vader can see Grievous cutting through a group of Pyke guards, and he turns his full focus back to Windu, letting a trickle of raw power continue to filter to Anakin, keeping him stable. His anger is growing, though, and with it, a steely determination to win no matter what. It gives him pause, because he knows how easily it could lead him into the Dark once more.

"You can still surrender," Vader warns, lightsaber clasped tightly in his hand as he battles with himself. He cannot let this duel continue much longer lest he lose himself again and lest Anakin suffer the consequences.

"To a Sith?" Windu almost scoffs. "Never. You may have fooled the people into believing you're a good person, but not the Jedi. We know who you are, what you're capable of."

"Then you will die." It's a promise.

Vader delves into the Force, holding his bond with Anakin open, and dividing his focus between feeding the younger with energy and lifting nearby debris with the Force, hurling it toward the Jedi Master. Windu ducks and repels what he can, but some of it gets through, hitting him in the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble.

Vader seizes that opening, shoving him backward against the crumbling wall of the building, pinning him there with sheer brute force. Windu struggles in his grip, trying to break free, but his strength is not even half as powerful as Vader's, and Vader is being driven by desperate need just as much as a desire to win. Windu, on the other hand, is relying solely on his hatred of and disgust for Sith as well as a misplaced sense of superiority, for not having chosen the Dark. Vader's need to protect, though, is stronger than Windu's need to destroy, and he's helpless to fight back when the clones come to place Force-restraints on his wrists, standing guard to keep him prisoner until they can safely extract him.

It would be easy, Vader knows, to kill him, to take his lightsaber and run him through, but he won't do that. Giving into his feelings of vengeance will weaken his hold on the Light, and Anakin needs him. Anakin comes first; he always will.

**w**

Luminara is a Jedi Master, and as such, she's a very skilled duelist, certainly better than Barriss or Ahsoka, if they were alone. But they're not alone. They have each other, and they have raw determination on their side. "You don't need to do this, Padawan," she warns, blocking their strikes and retaliating with some of her own. She's good, Ahsoka knows, and that only increases her determination further. She isn't going to let any Jedi take her down, not when she's a shield between them and Anakin, especially now.

"Yes, I do," Barriss replies, steely calm. "I am a Jedi. The Jedi are meant to be peacekeepers, not Sith slayers. We cannot bring peace if we kill all those who disagree with us."

"The Sith are evil." Luminara's tone is disapproving.

Ahsoka snarls at her. No one calls Anakin evil. No one. She will gut them for it. All he's done is help. All he's ever done is sacrifice himself, again and again, so he can help people. He's made mistakes, of course, as all people do, but he's owned up to them. He regrets them, and that's far more than most people can say. "Maybe the Jedi are the evil ones for trying to kill the Sith," she retorts, punctuating each word with a flurry of strikes. "Ever think about that? Anakin never tried to wipe you out."

"He will, in time," the Jedi Master argues. "It's inevitable."

"I thought the future was always in motion," Barriss points out, blocking a strike from her master. "As Jedi, it's our duty to help people. What you are doing is the very thing we have fought against, or what we should have fought against. How can you not see the dangers of the path you're taking?"

"Vader has blinded you," Luminara says, shaking her head with something almost like regret.

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. "Why is it that every time a Jedi questions if the millennia old conflict with the Sith needs to end in bloodshed, it's always you are blinded?" Ahsoka demands incredulously. "Are you even listening to yourself? What if we're the ones seeing clearly, and you're blinded?"

"Passionate, much like Skywalker was," the Jedi Master murmurs, "And you have been corrupted by him just as he was corrupted by Vader." Her eyes have something like sorrow in them which only makes this worse and makes Ahsoka angrier.

"Maybe you're too corrupt to admit when you're wrong," she hisses, Force shoving Luminara backward. It hurts to be doing this, to be fighting against another Jedi, and her instincts scream at her to back down, to offer respect because that's what she's always been taught to do. But here and now, with Anakin's life on the line, Ahsoka will not back down. She can't afford to, can't let Anakin or Anakin die.

Luminara catches herself, standing again, and Ahsoka suddenly remembers a long time ago, at the beginning of the war, how she and Luminara fought Ventress together. She doesn't want to kill Luminara, and she doesn't want Barriss to have to do it either, but she doesn't know any other way that this could end, and if it's a choice between Anakin and Jedi, she will choose Anakin, just as she has every time before.

Barriss and Ahsoka adjust their grips on their lightsabers almost in sync, closing in on her. It's time to end this.

She's not the only threat out there to Anakin.

The duel progresses, growing more intense as they vie for the upper hand, and while Luminara is older and more skilled, Ahsoka and Barriss have a determination borne from a need to protect, and Ahsoka knows that the Light is with them. Maybe this is what the Jedi were always meant to do, meant to be. Maybe their duty is not to destroy the Sith, but to save them, heal them, redeem them, let them be better.

Luminara falters when Ahsoka swings at her with both blades, a move she learned from Anakin and one she's struggled to perfect. Barriss seizes the opportunity, slashing toward her hand in an attempt to disarm her, but she twists, and instead of slicing through the hilt of her lightsaber, Barriss's blade stabs into her chest.

Everything freezes over, and for a moment, none of them move, but then, Luminara slowly reaches up to touch the stab wound on her chest as she crumples to the ground with a strangled gasp of pain. She says nothing, and neither Ahsoka nor Barriss move as the Jedi Master dies in front of them.

Barriss makes a quiet, choked sound, and Ahsoka deactivates her lightsaber to go to her, touching her shoulder. "I didn't –" she croaks out, shaking her head. "I never wanted it to come this far."

Ahsoka glances around, seeing the battle still raging all around them, but they're safe for now, so she clips her hilts to her belt and throws her arms around Barriss. "I know," she assures, "And I'm sorry it had to come to this."

But, Ahsoka suspects, given that Luminara's death was inevitable, Barriss probably prefers to be the one who dealt the death blow. Somehow, it'll make it easier for her to handle, even if the guilt will forever haunt her. "We're supposed to be peacekeepers," Barriss whispers shakily, gripping Ahsoka, hugging her back, "But the Jedi have fallen, haven't they? We've fallen from our way, become an army fighting for the Dark. This is never what we were meant to be."

"I know," she answers, softly, understanding those questions, questions that she's asked herself even after choosing Anakin, "But with Vader we have a chance, a chance to be what we were meant to be."

"Yeah," Barriss agrees after a moment, "I guess we do." She pulls back, straightening, though Ahsoka doesn't miss the grief in her eyes as she looks at Luminara's body. "Let's go," she says, "We still need to end this."

And side-by-side, they step back into the fray.

**w**

Obi-Wan doesn't hesitate, pushing Viszla back and away from Anakin and the others. He's been itching for a fight, especially after seeing Anakin injured like that and the revelation about Vader, and seeing Maul only added fuel to the fire. Fighting… helps. Maybe it's not the most Jedi-like sentiment, but it's always helped him, and he's not much of a Jedi anymore is he. He thought he could be, but the moment he saw Anakin stabbed, everything came into perspective –just too late.

That was the moment when he realized that he couldn't continue to ignore the depths of his attachment to his once padawan. Anakin is everything to him; he always has been, even if Obi-Wan was too blind to admit it, even to himself.

The fights around them are starting to die down a little, most of the initial resistance crushed and smothered, the clones and droids circling through debris and dead bodies, searching for survivors, killing those who fight back, arresting those who don't. And amidst them all, the ones causing the most damage and devastation is Death Watch. They're warriors, so it makes sense, and Obi-Wan knows from personal experience how strong they are. War is in their blood; that's how they're raised, after all.

He knows that, and he knows how important the Darksaber is to the Mandalorian people. If he can defeat Vizsla and claim the Darksaber from him, maybe he can force the rest of Death Watch to stand down, so they can wrap this up and get Anakin to medics who can help him before it's too late.

"I have a proposition," Obi-Wan says, Force shoving Vizsla back a few steps, smirking slightly, "A one-on-one duel with me. The victor gets the Darksaber and the right to rule Mandalore."

He knows what he's asking for, knows what it'll mean for him to win, but he's angry, and the most important thing to him is to defeat Vizsla. It's not a Jedi-like feeling, to want to see an adversary beaten, but right now, Obi-Wan doesn't especially care. He'll do what needs to be done, to end this once and for all. It's unrealistic to think that all of Death Watch will be destroyed, and if he can take them, rule them, perhaps they won't come back to haunt them later. After this, he knows he can't stay a Jedi anymore, not after how the Jedi tried to kill Anakin like that, in cold blood; Anakin saved him, protected him from being seriously injured, and he nearly died because of it. Obi-Wan owes him, and he'll pay that debt.

Obi-Wan can feel a dark amusement from Vizsla. "I accept your challenge," he says, lunging forward again, striking at him with the Darksaber.

Vizsla might be good, and he might be a Mandalorian, but Obi-Wan is a Jedi, and he's one of the best duelists in the Order. The Force is with him, guiding him, protecting him, and deeper than that, he's being driven on by a fierce, unrelenting protectiveness. But still, Vizsla is a warrior, and he's good. Mandalorians are well-known for being able to kill Jedi.

They fight, back and forth, using all the skills in their arsenal in their bid to come out on top. Vizsla uses his other weapons and armor to his advantage, while Obi-Wan relies solely on his lightsaber and the Force.

And then, it happens. Viszla missteps, ever so slightly, and Obi-Wan shoves him backward, knocking the Darksaber from his hands. By the time he's recovered, the blue and black blades are crossed at his neck.

"It looks like I win," Obi-Wan says lightly, very tempted to kill him, to just finish it, but something stays his hand. During the fight, toward the end, Vizsla's helmet was knocked off, and as Obi-Wan stares into the Mandalorian's blue-gray eyes, he finds that he can't quite push himself to go through with what would be a cold-blooded murder. Vizsla is beaten. It's over.

The Mandalorian laughs. "They'll never follow you, Jedi," he sneers, and Obi-Wan only smirks.

"Oh, but I think they will." He twists the hilt of the Darksaber in his hands, feeling the weight of it, the history, the blood. "I won this, didn't I?"

He stares back, defiantly, not answering, and Obi-Wan gestures to nearby clones to stun him and take him away. With Vizsla gone, the rest of Death Watch are leaderless, disorganized, and most of them back down, realizing the legitimacy of Obi-Wan's claims, no matter how unhappy they obviously are at having a Jedi rule them.

But rule them Obi-Wan shall, if that's the cost for ending this battle and getting Anakin to safety.

**w**

Padme had, admittedly, not quite expected to find herself here, in this kind of situation. She had known they'd be walking into danger, and while she's no stranger to warfare, the devastation here is worse than she'd thought. She's part of an invading army, not fighting for her life and her home like she was when she was young. She's never been on the frontlines of an actual war before, not like Anakin has, and while she has seen the aftermath in aid and relief missions, she'd not expected it to be so… brutal. Terrifying. Violent.

She's not worried for herself though. She's worried for Omega, for Anakin's adopted daughter… and hers too, though it's not something she'd ever expected to happen, not this soon.

Omega is still crouched at Anakin's side, expression drawn and tensed, eyes closed, hands resting on his chest as she struggles to continue whatever exactly it is that Obi-Wan was doing before they arrived. Keeping Anakin stable, apparently, with the Force.

The fight is still raging, though, and Padme is restless, driven by a need to help.

It's the cry that draws her attention away, and she shifts her grip on her blaster, spinning toward the noise, seeing a young Twi'lek attempting to take refuge in a pile of smoldering rubble, a Zygerrian standing over him with a raised electrowhip, trying to get him out. Padme fires without thinking, shooting the slaver dead. "Cover me," she demands of the clones. "I'll go get him out."

"Wait –" begins one of them, she's not sure who because they all sound the same.

"Crosshair, cover her," interrupts Hunter. His voice is a little different than the other clones, and since he's the one in charge, it makes sense he'd be the one talking.

But she doesn't stop to check, ducking out from where they are and hurrying to the Twi'lek's side to pull him back to where they are, to where he'll be safe. "Come on," she urges. "It'll be safer over there."

"Look out!" yells one of the clones, and Padme is thrown to the ground from a nearby explosion that rocks the ground. She pushes herself up, momentarily stunned, as two more Zygerrians approach, weapons drawn. A blaster bolt takes out the first, and the second jumps at her. She rolls out of the way, her blaster now out of reach, but Crosshair – presumably – shoots him before he can hurt her.

"Go," she orders the Twi'lek, and he does.

She glances around, spotting another small group of Zygerrians attempting to make a break for it. Something twinges, shifts, and she feels a pull inside of her, a sense of urgency, a quiet push to act, and she grabs for the nearest weapon, which just so happens to be an energy bow, aiming it toward the fleeing group. One of them is female, Padme notes, and there's a strange knot of… something inside of her, a fleeting touch of instinct nudging her to act. She wonders if it's the Force; Anakin once told her that the Force guides everyone, and everything inside of her is telling her to do something, so they don't escape.

Padme takes a deep breath, drawing the bow, aiming it at the back of the Zygerrian female, dressed elaborately enough that she suspects it may be the Queen. It feels as if the universe itself is waiting and watching as she fires, the purple blast flying through the air.

The Zygerrian queen crumples to the ground, dead on the spot, as the laser bolt sears through her head, and Padme cannot explain the strange triumph that she feels over it.

**w**

By the time Vader spies the Jedi fighting Maul, the duel is already slowing, the combatants becoming increasingly exhausted. At least one of them is down, dead, and Aayla is injured, a burn searing along one of her lekku, though it's thankfully not too deep. Gallia is favoring her right side, so Vader suspects she's injured, too. He doesn't know if he can trust her, but he's relatively certain that Vos and Aayla support him, so he doesn't hesitate to step forward, lightsaber in hand, as he throws himself into the duel.

Fighting Maul is, in many ways, almost harder than Windu. He was angry at Windu for being complicit in hurting Anakin, but it's worse with Maul. Maul is… everything he fought against as Anakin, everything he sought to destroy as Vader. Maul was chaos, disorder, and crime in a galaxy where Vader only wanted to bring peace, order, and justice. Maul killed Qui-Gon, but that was only the first of his crimes, though it's one that Vader has held a grudge against him for, for the longest.

Maul killed Satine, too, hurting Obi-Wan deeply.

But the thing that Vader hates him for the most, the thing that he will never, ever forgive him for, the thing that's pushing Vader to kill Maul instead of trying to recruit him, is the clones. When his boys never came back from Mandalore, he had known. He had known, and when he had gone there, to the crash site, when he had seen the graves, he had known it was Maul who did it. It had to be.

Maul was there, in the cruiser, and he was a Sith. He was brutal, and he would have stopped at nothing to escape. Ahsoka would never have done that. She was good. She would not have cruelly brought the entire cruiser down, killing everyone aboard, just to save herself – that is, of course, assuming that the 501st was even given the order to kill her. Vader doesn't know. He wouldn't put it past Sidious anymore, but Ahsoka wasn't a Jedi, so he doesn't know what happened there.

He'd found Ahsoka's lightsaber next to the graves, and he had known, when he saw it, that she survived. He knew she was out there all alone, and he'd hoped she'd stay far away from him, so he wouldn't hurt her, so she'd be safe.

But when he saw the graves, graves of the men he had known and loved, men he had sworn to protect, men who accepted him as one of them in a way no one else ever did, something in him had broken irreparably. Vader was no longer able to cry then, but on that deserted moon, feeling the pain and death still saturating the air, the whispers of death of his boys, he had grieved. And it was there that the final fragment of Anakin Skywalker died. After that, he had nothing, no one. There was no one for him to go back to, no one who would come back for him. He was empty and alone, haunted by his choices and mistakes, and he can no longer remember the number of times he wondered if he should have ignored the Council and his mission and gone to Mandalore himself.

His boys died there, because of Maul, and he was on the other side of the galaxy. He wasn't there to help them, and they died because of it, because of Maul.

It's not fair to judge this Maul based on that, but Vader can't help it, and he doesn't care. Maul had a chance. He had a choice to be better and do better, but instead, he went further into the Dark of his own. He destroyed the 501st, and it is that which Vader can never forgive him for. Rex died there. Jesse died there. So did Hawk and Ridge and Coric and –

There are too many names, too many who died there, and nothing can bring them back. Nothing. The ones here aren't his. His boys, almost all of them, died because of Maul. There were so few graves, compared to how many there should have been, and he knows that most of the bodies were probably burned or crushed or destroyed. Rex's helmet wasn't there, and Vader couldn't help but wonder what happened to him, if Maul slaughtered him first, when he stood between the Sith and his brothers, ready to die to protect them if he could – that's just who he was – and there was nothing, nothing at all, that could undo the helpless despair he'd felt, knowing that Rex fell there, that his body was too destroyed for Ahsoka to recover it for burial.

It's an old rage, an old hurt, a festering wound that's never healed, and his grip on the Light slips a little, a bit at a time, as he clashes blades with Maul. It was his job to protect them, and he failed. He won't fail again.

Maul is vicious, brutal, but Vader's strength is his family. His strength comes from the people he loves, from the people he loved, from the people he had and lost. This is vengeance. This is justice. It's neither and both, and when Vader finally gets an opening, he seizes it, stabbing his lightsaber into Maul's side, shoving upward towards his hearts. He wavers on his feet, yellow eyes furious and crazed, but he's been mortally wounded, and it's over.

Vader steps back, watching, as Maul collapses to the ground. He watches impassively as the Sith dies, and then, only then, does the relief crash into him. Maul is dead, gone, and he can't hurt anyone ever again.

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