Chapter Text
From the moment that they entered the Malachor system, Ezra felt a knot in the Force. Something tugging at his awareness, trying to get him to look here, if only you would see, look! That feeling only grew stronger the closer they came to the planet, and drove him very nearly to distraction until the Inquisitors arrived.
Now, alone in this darkened chamber, what had been but a whisper on the edge of his awareness grew into something else; a muted storm of emotion and will. Ezra, lightsaber held out to light his way, walked blindly into the dark in front of him.
Finally, he reached a wall, and there on the wall was a base relief of a masked and armored warrior, carved in what looked like durasteel. His senses are fairly screaming at him now. This is what has been calling to him since he entered the system, he knows it.
What he doesn’t know is why. What purpose does the Force have in calling him to this ancient piece of, admittedly well done, art? Idly, his hand goes to brush the dust from the inscription pad next to the relief.
What he finds instead is a control pad, and as he wipes the dust away it lights up, script in a language he doesn’t know flashes across the screen for a moment before the screen goes green. Then, to his astonishment, the relief heats up, turning red and then white as it melts away, only to leave the very man it depicted behind. No longer in a flat metallic grey, Ezra takes in his black hooded robes, the bronzium tint to his armor, and the splash of red on his mask and the decorative sash hanging from his belt ring.
Carbon freezing! What kind of monsters were the ancient Sith to imprison someone in such a way? And how long has this poor man been trapped here? The thought sends a shiver down his spine.
The stranger falls to his hands and knees, only barely catching himself as he coughs and sputters like a dying man, desperately choking for air. Ezra leaps forward without hesitation, intent on helping the poor man.
“Hey, are you alright?” He jumps back only just in time as a purple lightsaber flashes out in his direction, the movement crisp and full of surety even as the masked man continues to cough up his kidneys.
“Stay back!” The voice is modulated slightly by the helmet, commanding and strong, despite the weakened state the man is in, rather than fearful as Ezra would have expected.
Ezra’s hands go up in the air almost without him realizing it. “Hey, whoa! Okay, okay! I’m just trying to help!” The helmet looks up at him from beneath a dark hood for a moment before nodding once, as if making a decision. The lightsaber deactivates, and returns to his belt all in one smooth motion. The figure noticeably pulls his strength to himself in a whirl of Force energy that makes Ezra lightheaded, and rises to his full height. He towers over Ezra in much the same way that Kanan does; not short but not unusually tall for a full grown man either.
The helmeted stare bores down into Ezra for a moment before he speaks again, amusement clear in his voice. “You can put your hands down now, young one. I won’t hurt you.” Ezra startles, not having realized that he had frozen with his hands in the air, and immediately drops them to his side, saber held at an off angle to provide light.
“Right,” he says unsurely. “ Are you okay?”
The man ignores the question. “What brings a child such as yourself to a graveyard like Malachor?”
Ezra rolls his eyes, but answers regardless. “My friends and I came in search of knowledge.”
“Knowledge?” He pauses thoughtfully. “There is no knowledge worth seeking on this dead world, young one.” Ezra huffs at that. “Although, I must say that I am grateful that you have released me. Why did you?”
Ezra waves vaguely at the mount in the wall where the man was trapped. “I thought you were a statue and was looking for an engraving. I just happened to hit the release switch.”
The man turns to look at the wall, “The will of the Force then. I guess It’s not done with me … after all.” and then he just stares, motionless and without saying another word, and the only thing keeping Ezra silent is the sudden wave of turmoil that has rolled out from this stranger in the Force. It’s sharp, and bitter, and feels far too much like panic for Ezra’s liking.
“How long has it been?” The man asks so quietly that Ezra is sure he’s asking himself. Regardless, Ezra has no answer, but before he can speak, the stranger continues. “Bastilla!” His hand flies to his chest, grabbing at his heart, and what Ezra thought was panic in the Force somehow sharpens, turns to ice so cold that he wraps an arm around himself without thinking, and suddenly Ezra is afraid. That felt far too much like Vader did. Maybe, Ezra thinks warily, this man was imprisoned here for a reason. After several silent moments, that mask turns towards Ezra, and whatever sense of him Ezra can glean through the Force simply vanishes.
“What is your name, young one?” Ezra contemplates giving a false name, but even as he thinks it he knows that it is a bad idea. This man has just been released from carbonite after who knows how long, and regardless of what he might have done to end up there, he has no reason to wish harm on the one that released him, or, by extension, his friends.
Ezra hopes so, anyway.
“Ezra. Ezra Bridger. What’s your name?”
“I wonder if my name has been remembered after all this time,” the man muses to himself. “I am Darth Revan, and you have my eternal gratitude for setting me free.” Ezra’s blade is up and held defensively between them before Revan can finish, casting the both of them in its blue glow.
“Darth!? That’s a Sith title!” He refuses to acknowledge how scared he sounds as he says it.
“Yes, it is.” The man- Revan seems totally unconcerned with the lightsaber hovering only a few inches from his throat.
“You’re a Sith!” But there’s less force behind the words now, confusion taking its place.
“And that’s enough reason to draw your blade, is it?” Ezra hesitates, his stance faltering as he considers that.
“No, I guess it isn’t.” He drops his defensive stance, but keeps his saber lit for illumination. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.”
Revan tilts his head, and Ezra can feel the man considering him from behind that mask. “You’re forgiven,” Ezra smiles at that, “So long as you and your friends help me get off this tomb world.” Ezra actually smiles wider at that, nodding before Revan can even finish.
“Yeah! We can help with that, definitely!” But then Ezra narrows his eyes suspiciously at him. “Wait, how did you know I wasn’t alone?” Revan turns, heading towards the nearest door at a brisk pace, forcing Ezra to catch up even as he spoke.
“I can sense their presence. Am I right in assuming that the two Jedi are with you, and the three Sith are your enemies?” Ezra nods hesitantly, suddenly realizing that it might be dangerous admitting to being enemies of the Sith to another Sith, but not knowing what else to say or do in the situation.
“Then we must hurry. Your friends are more powerful than those Sith, but numbers can overwhelm.” A saber flew to Revan’s hand, its blade springing forth to light their way through the darkened halls.
A blade that bathed the halls, and Revan himself, in an eerie crimson light. Ezra swallowed thickly at the sight, but shook himself and managed to keep pace despite his misgivings.
After a period of silence during which Ezra didn’t know what to say, and Revan seemed content to let the silence stretch, they came to a fork in the hallway. To their left was a short hall that came to a sudden end, while the right seemed to stretch on and on into darkness in a way that made Ezra nervous for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate. Despite that, it was the only way forward, so Ezra made to head down that long dark, only to be yanked to a standstill by Revan’s durasteel grip on his arm.
“You said you came here seeking knowledge.” There was a hardness, an intensity to Revan’s voice that gave Ezra pause and stopped him before he could even utter a sound of protest. “What kind of knowledge do you seek?”
Ezra hesitated, knowing in his head that telling a Sith that he sought to destroy his order is a bad idea, but then there was a prodding in the Force, and he spoke the truth before he could think. “I want to know how to destroy the Sith.”
“Why?” Again, he felt that same prodding and his answer came without hesitation or restraint.
“So I can set my people free! So I can set the whole galaxy free from the tyranny of the Empire!” Ezra didn’t even notice he was shouting or out of breath until Revan released his grip and stepped back, moving towards the dead end at a rushed pace.
“So,” Revan started, Ezra following in his wake. “The Republic has fallen and the Sith rule the Galaxy.” What sounded like a despondent sigh came over his vocoder. “My worst fears have come to pass.”
“What? But, you’re a Sith! Wouldn’t that have been exactly what you wanted?” Revan whirled on him, anger burning hot in the space between them with a suddenness and strength that startled the young man.
“Do not presume to know me just because you have known other Sith, Padawan Bridger! Or would you like me to judge you and your friends based on the Jedi that I have known?” The anger in the air around Revan pulsed and grew, turned to white hot rage by the end, and Ezra shrunk away from the man more and more with every word. “If I did,” He continued in a deadly whisper. “You would already be dead.”
Ezra wouldn’t look at him, and when he spoke his voice was small, contrite. “You’re right. I can’t judge you,” his saber was returned to his belt: a sign of good faith. “Not until I get to know you.” As he spoke, the near-violent rage simmered and hissed as it shrank, before it was locked away once again, leaving them in a tense silence.
Eventually, Revan sighed. “You had no reason to think otherwise of me, and you won’t until I give you reason.” Ezra looked at him then, questions burning in his eyes. “Come. You seek the knowledge to free your people? I will give it to you.” Revan turned to the blank wall that made up the dead end, and raised a hand towards it. Ezra was confused for a moment, but then there was a rush in the Force around Revan, his fingers flexed, and the stone wall in front of them started to lift off the ground with the near deafening sound of stone grinding upon stone. Ezra watched, eyes wide in astonishment as the Sith casually lifted a wall that had to weigh several tons at least!
When the wall was high enough they made their way forward - only to be brought up short after only a few feet by another stone slab blocking the path. Ezra was about to ask what the plan was when Revan spoke.
“These Sith, they think that a test such as this can only be done by two, by a master and an apprentice.” His lightsaber went back to his belt, casting them into near perfect darkness. “It is meant as a learning tool, and a trust exercise.” He said into the dark around them. “They misunderstand the nature of the Force. Follow me, Padawan Bridger.”
“Revan, I can’t see! How am I supposed to follow you?”
“Well,” His voice was obviously amused. “You could reach out with your senses and trust in the Force, or …” He trailed off suggestively.
“Oh, right.” Ezra’s lightsaber ignited, bathing them in it’s blue glow, and revealing Revan, stood, one hand held up above his head, the other held out in front of him as he made his way down the hallway that was in the process of revealing itself as not one, or two, but what had to be a dozen stone blocks lifted off the ground in succession in front of him.
“How are you doing that!?” Ezra shouted as he ran to catch up. Revan turned his helmeted head towards him as he came up alongside him.
“Telekinesis is a very basic Force power, don’t tell me that it has somehow been lost over time.” He was very nearly condescending in tone, but Ezra heard a real note of worry underneath that, as if he thought that such a basic power would actually be forgotten by the Jedi.
So Ezra huffed and said, “Of course it hasn’t been lost! There’s just no way I’d be able to lift one of those stones, let alone all of them!”
“Why do you say that?” Ezra looked at him like he’d sprouted wings and declared himself an angel.
“They’re too big, too heavy, I can’t.” He said as if explaining something to a child.
Revan outright laughed at that. “You think the Force cares how heavy something is? What is your master teaching you?” Revan shook his head and stopped as the final slab suddenly dropped not even an inch from his face, landing with a deafening crash that startled Ezra so bad he nearly dropped his saber.
“What are you doing!?”
“Teaching a lesson. Lift it.”
“I already told you! I can’t.”
“Lift. The. Stone. For every moment you delay, the chances of us finding your friends as corpses grow. I will not lift this last stone. You have to do it.” Ezra scoffed and turned away from the Sith.
“I’ll just go back and-” Only to be cut off as the stone slab slammed down right in front of his face, with far more force than it should have if it had only been dropped. Revan had actually slammed the metaphorical door in Ezra’s face. Several more thuds resounded after, and Ezra knew that Revan had dropped the rest of them.
All but the one under which they stood.
“Going back will be much harder, Padawan Bridger. Best to go forward, now.” The amused smugness in Revan’s voice wasn’t just obvious, it was downright dripping from every word.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” Ezra demanded as he whirled on the infuriating Sith. Revan didn’t answer, just stared at Ezra from behind his mask, waiting patiently for him to do the impossible.
Except, it’s not really impossible, is it? After all, he just saw Revan lift a dozen of them at once, surely he can at least try. And, when he fails, Revan will have no choice but to let them out himself. Resigned to this, Ezra turned to the last slab and raised his hand, eyes closing as he attempted to focus on getting the damned thing to move.
Revan watched, contemplating the boy in front of him for several moments before speaking again. “Do not ask the stone to move.” Ezra startled slightly, but didn’t open his eyes or relax his posture. “Will the stone to move. Make it happen. Shape your will into reality. That is the true power of the Force, Ezra. Use it.”
Before him, the stone creaked, dust fell from overhead, and finally, the stone slid upwards and out of the way.
“Good job Ezra. You learn quickly. Let’s go.”
The attack came without warning, just as Kanan and Ahsoka were coming out of a darkened hall and into open air. Three Inquisitors fell on them from above, their blades whirling dervishes of crimson as they clashed with Kanan’s blue blade. Ahsoka’s white blades danced elegantly between and around every attack aimed her way, and several aimed at her compatriot.
Within moments Ahsoka knew that they were in trouble. She could handle the poorly trained Inquisitors relatively easily, but Kanan was another story altogether. Much as he had grown as a swordsman and Jedi recently, he was still barely able to take on one Inquisitor, let alone the two or three that a fight of this nature demanded he be able to engage.
With so much of her focus on watching Kanan’s back she had nothing left to put towards offense. She pushed back the Seventh Sister with a concentrated wave of the Force, and knew that if she pushed her advantage and took the Inquisitor out of the fight entirely that it would leave Kanan far too exposed and get him killed, so she fell back, deeper into her defensive posture instead, her blades intercepting a blow meant for each of them again and again without end.
It was into the melee that Ezra’s voice came, and Ahsoka was simultaneously immensely glad that he was alright, and downright panicked now that he had made his presence known. He was good, certainly good enough to handle non-Force sensitives and droids, but not good enough to be of any real help with this fight.
Then his actual words clicked in her mind.
“Kanan! Ahsoka! I’ve brought help!” The Inquisitors paused for a moment in their attack, no doubt to gauge the newcomer, allowing Ahsoka and Kanan to glance behind them and do the same. What kind of help could he have found? Ahsoka wondered, not without some concern. When her eyes fell on a man wearing armored robes, with a hood pulled over what she swore was an ancient Mandalorian buy’ce, standing next to Ezra, she knew that he’d gotten into some sort of trouble and they’d only left him unsupervised for less than an hour.
“Ezra,” The stranger said in a slightly modulated voice, and then, when Ezra looked at him: “Stay at a safe distance. I will handle this.” He was moving even before Ezra finished nodding, flashing forward with blinding Force enhanced speed, a saber coming to life in each hand with dual snap-hisses. Ahsoka barely had time to register that one was red and the other purple, and then he was upon them.
The stranger fell upon the Inquisitors like a crashing wave, his blades flashing to and fro faster than the eye can track, his purple, off hand blade preempting every attack sent his way and his red, main hand blade delivering immediate counterattack. In less than a heartbeat the Inquisitors leapt back to create distance, obviously surprised by the newcomers skill, but he followed them mercilessly. With a wave of his hand he sent two of them crashing into a nearby pile of rubble while the third was immediately put on the back foot by an onslaught of crimson and violet the likes of which Ahsoka had not seen since the Clone Wars, and even then only at the hands of the cybernetic monstrosity Grievous.
It was the Seventh Sister, one of the two that had been flung back by his Force push, that realized the reality of the situation first.
“Retreat!” She shouted, her blade spinning above her. It was already too late. Even as she said it, a lance of purple shot out, spearing through the center of the Eighth Brother’s lightsaber handle. All it took was a flick of the wrist and his saber fell to pieces in his hands. The Eighth Brother had less than a heartbeat to realize what had happened before that same blade flashed forward and buried itself in his heart.
The Seventh Sister and Fifth Brother lifted off, using the Force to hold their spinning sabers aloft while they themselves held on with all their strength.
Revan’s crimson blade returned to his belt with a thought, and he reached out towards the retreating Inquisitors, grabbing hold of their sabers with an insurmountable will, and slamming them back into the ground before they could make it more than ten feet into the air.
Fifth Brother’s saber was crushed on impact, reduced to a sparking bundle of useless metal in an instant, while Seventh Sister had managed to twist just enough to save her weapon from the same fate. Shaking off the impact as best she could, Seventh Sister rose to her feet and turned towards Revan, ready to fight or flee for her life.
The Force slammed into her in a way she had only felt in distant dreams, muddled by time and easily forgotten, and she found herself frozen in place, held there by the will of this attacker that had already killed one of her fellows. She cast a desperate look towards Fifth Brother, hoping against hope that he was able to resist where she could not, only to find him frozen in much the same way she was.
Revan stalked forwards, saber hilts dangling from his belt, right up to the frozen form of Fifth Brother.
“I need information, and you will provide it.” Revan said in a conversational tone.
“Never!” Fifth Brother snarled back, eyes hard.
Revan said nothing, merely reached out towards Fifth Brother, and around them the Force screamed. An instant later, so too did the Inquisitor as Revan expertly shredded his way through his mental shields.
“What are you doing!?” Kanan shouted in horror while Ahsoka and Ezra watched in stunned silence.
Revan ignored them, his focus entirely on the two enemies he held in his grasp. He doubled down on the Fifth Brother, his hand inching closer, fingers clenching as the Inquisitor's eyes rolled back in his head and blood leaked from his nose. The Fifth Brother screamed, and screamed, agony and desperation bleeding off of him in waves that battered the senses of the other Force sensitives present.
But not Revan.
He stood tall and unmoved by the agony he was inflicting on the Fifth Brother, even as the large man was forced to his knees before him.
Ezra watched all this, and couldn’t help but thank the Force that he had somehow managed to befriend this ancient Sith Lord, even while his stomach heaved. Then, without warning, there was a crack that reverberated in the Force, and the screaming stopped. Ezra made himself look, and saw the glassy eyed stare of the Fifth Brother, looking without seeing while a Sith Lord rummaged through his shattered mind.
“I felt his mind break.” Ezra whispered to himself, and promptly turned to heave the contents of his stomach all over a nearby pile of rubble.
Revan’s red saber flashed up into his hand, and with one sure stroke he divested the Fifth Brother of his head, and the Force went mercifully quiet once more. He turned immediately to the Seventh Sister, who shook her head as much as she could in his grip, eyes wide with unrestrained terror.
“No! No! Please, have mercy!” Her saber flew from her hand and into Revan’s before it was clipped to his belt alongside his own. He stopped in front of her, close enough to reach out and touch if he so chose, and the Seventh Sister’s knees buckled beneath her, fear overwhelming her for just a moment. She expected to be kept in place by the invisible hand that held her, and so it was to her surprise that she fell to her knees instead when his hold relaxed.
She looked up at him with wide eyes, arms limp at her sides, utterly defeated already.
“Do not try to fight me.” The words were soft, almost gentle, and Seventh Sister couldn’t stop the reflexive “What?” that slipped out.
“Do not resist me, and I won’t be forced to break you.” A moment passed, the Inquisitor staring up into an emotionless mask shrouded by dark robes, trying to peer underneath at the man in front of her. Finally, after an interminable silence, she nodded her head, a single jerky movement that spoke to just how terrified she still was.
Revan reached out, and Seventh Sister’s eyes fluttered closed, face pinching in obvious discomfort, but the Force did not scream as it did before.
The Seventh Sister had always been proud of her mind. She was organized, intelligent, cunning, witty enough to use banter as a tool in battle and against her fellow Inquisitors, and so she put more work into meditation and maintaining her mental shields than any other Inquisitor she knew. And yet, despite, or perhaps because of it? She had been plagued by unsettling dreams for as long as she could remember. They were murky, mutable things entirely lacking in detail or context, but never in feeling, and it was those exact feelings that always left her sitting up in bed late at night, gasping for breath and soaked in sweat.
She had expected this man to go straight for the military secrets she held: names, places, schematics, plans that extended far further into the future than any of them would live to see, and at first he did. Then, to her utter astonishment he breezed past those thoughts and memories after only a cursory look.
“Your brother had such knowledge. I do not need it from you, only wanted to confirm what he knew.” It was said aloud, but the spoken words were mere echoes compared to the weight the words held as they reverberated in her very mind.
“I have come in search of something else. Your brother,” Don’t call him that, not a family, never a family! “The Fifth Brother remembered you … oddly. You were there before any of the others, and yet your training took the longest. The Grand Inquisitor favored you while Darth Vader loathed you. I am curious as to why.” Her thoughts turned towards her dreams, remembering how none of the others had similar problems, and how much focus was put behind her mental training by both of her masters. Revan- how do I know your name? He followed the shape of her thoughts, but where she turned back, shied away, he plunged deeper, and what he found made them both gasp aloud.
There, at the very heart of her mind, was a great, black barrier of Force energy the likes of which the Seventh Sister had never seen before.
“What, what is that!?” What’s in my head, what’s wrong with me!?
Revan took a deep, steadying breath. “You’ve been mind wiped.” Terrified and confused eyes bored into his own through his mask, and her thoughts soon followed: what does that mean? What happened to me!?
“Someone pushed all your memories and your personality behind a wall in your mind, then replaced them with a person of their own design. I’m sorry, but the life you have lived these past fourteen years has been a lie.” Were he not in her head as he said it, she would have never believed him when he said he was sorry of all things. But he was, and she felt every bit of his empathy for her situation, and his disgust at whoever did this to her. It flowed through them both, and there was something oddly familiar about the circuit it cut in their minds.
“I don’t- what do we do?”
“I can take the wall down, free who you used to be. It will be painful.” He didn’t move to do so immediately, and Seventh Sister realized he was giving her a choice. “There is always a choice.” He said softly but surely. “No matter what, there is always a choice.”
A choice, between who she was now, a soon to be dead Inquisitor, and whoever she was before … before. How can she choose between the only life she has known and her true self? Her hands clenched into fists hard enough at that thought that, if she weren’t wearing gauntlets, she would have gouged herself with her own nails.
My true self. My true self! Blazing yellow eyes opened, filled now with determination and a rage that Revan found all too familiar, and he knew what her answer was.
“Be still.” He said, cradling her head between his hands, and then he flexed his power, driving its sharpened edge straight through the barrier deep in Seventh Sister’s mind, and Seventh Sister screamed even as the Force around them sang.
Revan was right, it did hurt, but not in the way she had expected. Not in the way she had felt Fifth Brother suffer before his death. No, this was agony that went beyond anything she had ever felt before. Once the barrier in her mind was breached, memories burst out. They were not dull, senseless holo-recordings, but entire sensory experiences that interwove and played over each other, screaming and shouting for her attention, for her to remember me first! No me! NO ME!
It was too much, she couldn’t take this much at once, she was going to break, she knew it. She was going to end up just like Fifth Brother: empty and lifeless even as his body drew breath because she wasn’t strong enough to-
Then Revan was there, holding the memories at bay even while he cradled her in his arms, speaking straight into her mind.
“You can do this. I know you can.” He said it with such surety, as if the idea of her breaking under such an onslaught was so far-fetched as to be laughable. She actually did laugh; once, sharp and filled with pain, but a laugh nonetheless. More importantly: she believed him. His conviction was too strong not to have faith in his faith in her.
But even so, she was still afraid. Some of what she had felt in that whirlwind of memory had been so painful it had scorched her. Stay with me?
Of course. She wasn’t sure why she asked it of him, or why he acquiesced, but he did so without hesitation or judgement, and Seventh Sister felt something spark in her heart that she had not felt in many years: hope.
Together, they turned their senses towards her memories. Revan acted as a sort of funnel, slowing the flow of memories from an explosion to a stream, earliest memories coming first.
She had always known she used to be a Jedi, all the Inquisitors were former Jedi, but she had never remembered the Creche before. How she and the other children would play and laugh together while their caretaker watched over them, the philosophical lessons that she adored almost as much as her best friend loved their lightsaber practice, the smell of food from the refectory-
Cmon, try it! One little veggie won’t hurt! The sound of a girlish giggle, sharp teeth flashing behind an unrestrained smile, sparkling sapphires set in a cherubic face, framed by such short montrals that they barely even brushed her collar when she turned her head.
Barriss! You know Togrutas don’t eat plants!
In the end, when all had returned to her, Barriss Offee held her face in her hands and wept. She- She had- what had she done!? Fingers scrabbled, tearing at the helmet she had worn every day for fourteen years until it came away. With a cry she hurled the horrid thing away and out of sight. Revan kneeled before her, hands on her shoulders to steady her as she sobbed desperately.
“It wasn’t you.” Barriss shook her head and tears dripped through her fingers. “Do you hear me?” He added, “It wasn’t you. It was the person they forced you to be. Those sins, they are not yours.”
“But they are! I remember! I remember everything! ”
“Those memories are not yours.” She felt the words echoing down the chord that bound them, and her sobs quieted as he spoke until, by the end, she looked up at him with tearfully hopeful eyes. “You were not you. Another had taken your place. A falsehood, crafted by evil men and forced upon your body while your true self slept: buried under the weight of the darkness. But you are free now. You are yourself again, are you not?”
She nodded, just barely. Revan cupped her cheek, and wiped away a tear with his thumb.
“Be strong, Barriss Offee.” Be true to yourself, went unsaid, but she felt the words blaze across her mind and she took them up, seared them into herself.
Barriss nodded at him, a determined glint in her blue eyes, and he nodded back before helping her to her feet.
“What in the kriffing Corellian Hells just happened!?” Kanan demanded, glaring at the pair distrustfully while Ezra nodded next to him.
“I felt- what you did to that one!” Ezra stopped there, disgust writ upon his face as he pointed at the Fifth Brothers severed head.
Barriss’ eyes burned back at them. She took a step forward, “Show some respect-!” but was stopped by Revans arm barring her progress.
“Let me explain, Barriss.” He said. Before he could say another word, Ahsoka stepped forward.
“Barriss?” Her voice was quiet, disbelieving. “Is that really you?” She was looking at the other women with wide eyes, trying to take in every detail. Barriss nodded, eyes flaring yellow as her expression twisted with guilt. Even as Barriss’ signature in the Force flashed with darkness, Ahsoka knew it was really her.
“Barriss!” And Ahsoka rushed forward. Barriss braced for an attack, and was utterly surprised when Ahsoka threw her arms around her in a fierce hug instead. “Barriss, I am so sorry! I tried to find you after The Purge, but the records of you just, just stopped and I didn’t know where to look when you weren’t in prison anymore.” The words were soft, whispered straight into her ear, but carried a heft of emotion that left Barriss even more shocked.
Shock gave way to confusion, and Barriss had to know: “You- You’re glad to see me?” Ahsoka pulled back to give her a puzzled look. “After every-everything I did?”
Ahsoka frowned, “That wasn’t you. This stranger is right about that. The woman I knew would never have-”
“The temple bombing,” Barriss cut her off, her eyes glowing more intensely as she remembered those events herself. “Remember?”
But Ahsoka only shook her head, montrals gently swinging. “Everyone makes mistakes, Barriss. What you did was terrible,” Barriss looked away, shame clear in her eyes. “Trying to frame your best friend for it was almost worse.” Barriss visibly flinched at that.
“But,” Barriss whipped her eyes back up to Ahsoka. “I can see now why you did it. I didn’t understand then, but looking back?” She closed her eyes and sighed, before opening them again and meeting Barriss’ lost gaze. “The Jedi had lost their way. You weren’t wrong about that. You were just very, very wrong in how you went about telling people how you saw things.”
She smiled a small smile, “And I can forgive that.” Barriss’ eyes roved over Ahsoka’s face, and her other senses searched the currents of the Force around them, looking for any sign that this was a trick, or a lie, or-or some falsehood of any kind.
She found nothing.
Ahsoka meant every word.
Barriss didn’t know it, but her eyes were slowly returning to their natural blue as she looked at her old friend.
“Ahsoka, I-” She shook her head, at a loss. “I don’t know what to say.”
The Togruta just smiled, “You don’t have to say anything. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later.”
“Yes,” Kanan spoke up, obviously agitated. “Once the one who breaks people's psyches explains to us exactly who he is!”
Barriss glared at Kanan, eyes flashing dangerously once again, but said nothing as Ahsoka turned to look at the stranger who had somehow restored her friend’s personality. Or, Ahsoka thinks to herself, perhaps he saved her soul? After all, she was completely unrecognizable as the Seventh Sister, whereas Anakin …
The man tilted his head at Kanan, who had his saber still in hand, though unlit, and a fiercely defiant expression on his face.
Kanan felt he was being measured and found lacking by the other man, and it made him bristle.
“Who are you?” Kanan demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“Kanan, take it easy. He’s on our side. Look, he helped me find what we were looking for. Go on, show ‘em!” Ezra said, casting a nearly desperate look Revan’s way. Almost as if to say: don’t make me regret waking you up .
“What did he help you find?” Ahsoka asked as the stranger reached behind him and pulled out a glowing red pyramid just small enough to fit in a hand comfortably. “That’s a Sith Holocron!” The stranger turned to her then, and she felt his presence brush against hers, like he was acquainting himself with her.
“Yes, it is.” He tossed the holocron to Ezra, who secreted it away in a pouch on his belt. A show of good faith, she supposes.
“You Jedi are very surprising. Coming to a world like this in search of ancient Sith knowledge, releasing people from their imprisonment, and all the while one of you doesn’t even know what the word Padawan means. Curious indeed.” His tone was nearly wistful by the end.
“Imprisonment?” Ahsoka asked.
“Yeah,” Ezra answered. “Revan here was frozen in carbonite.” Ahsoka and Kanan both snapped their attention to Ezra at the name. “I thought he was just a statue, but I accidentally hit the release and, well, here we are.”
“Did you say his name is Revan?” Kanan asked, falling deeper into his defensive stance as he moved between Revan and Ezra.
“He did.” Kanan turned a glare onto the masked man. “I take it you’ve heard of me. Ezra has not, and you …” He turned his gaze to Ahsoka, who only nodded as she contemplated what this could mean.
An ancient Sith Lord long thought dead, returned to life and activity in the age of the Galactic Empire? The very face of the galaxy could change at his hands if he willed it.
“You know of me as well. Yes, I am Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith. No, I am not interested in killing the friends of the boy that released me from my prison. No, I am not interested in joining the Sith that currently rule the galaxy. What I am interested in, however, is your help.”
Ahsoka took this in with her mind open to the guidance of the Force, and though it railed against her common sense and her experience, she knew his words were genuine. Or at least that he posed no immediate threat to them anyway.
Kanan, however, was not convinced.
“Why would we help you, Sith?” The venom in his voice could choke a Hutt.
Revan regarded him silently for a moment. “I see where Ezra gets it from.” Everyone blinked at that, but Revan continued before anyone could voice a question. “I do not believe in fate, or destiny, but I know the Force. I have not been freed now, by you, by accident. The Force has brought me back for a reason, and I believe that that reason is to help you destroy the Empire that enslaves the Galaxy.”
For a moment, no one moved as they all absorbed the fact that a Sith Lord wanted to help the newborn rebellion against the Empire. Then Revan added: “Failing that, are you really so cruel as to just leave a man to starve on a wasted world when you could have helped him?”
Ahsoka looked to Kanan, whose guard had finally lowered fractionally. “Kanan.”
Kanan took in a long draw of breath before returning his saber to his belt. “Fine. But I don’t like this.”
Throughout all of this, Barriss watched and listened with rapt attention. “What will become of me?” She finally asked.
Revan turned to her, and they all felt him flexing his senses around the former Inquisitor. “You will need a guiding hand in the coming months. Someone to help you balance the two lives you have lived within yourself. You need a master.”
He offered her her lightsaber back. “I am willing to be that master.” And, his voice whispered in her thoughts. We are already bonded after all.
“I would be honored and glad to accept your teachings, but-” She glared at the saber in his hand. “I refuse to use that revolting weapon any further.”
“Then you will need a new one.” Revan opened his hand, and just like that the Inquisitor's saber split into its component parts, revealing the two gleaming red crystals that made up its heart. Several pieces were immediately discarded, being unceremoniously dropped at Revan’s feet. An ancient saber from a nearby rubble pile rose up and similarly dismantled itself at his behest, the parts flowing through the air to hover over his hand as well.
“These crystals,” Revan intoned. “Have they any meaning to you?”
“They were the very ones my master took me to Ilum to collect, many years ago.” Sadness dripped from her words. “They’ve been corrupted with the Dark Side.”
“Corrupted?” Reven repeated. “No, not corrupted. Merely altered. They are the same crystals, and they should respond to you just the same. Reach out to them, will them to be yours once more, whatever that might mean.”
“That’s possible?”
“That’s how I got my lightsaber crystals,” Ahsoka gestured to the hilts hanging on her belt, giving Barriss an encouraging smile when their eyes met.
“Whenever you’re ready.” Revan said. Barriss nodded her head determinedly and closed her eyes to focus her other senses.
The crystals screamed and cried with all the rage and pain and hate that she had poured into them to bleed them.
Part of her flinched away.
Part of her relished in it.
She focused, pouring her will into the crystals and forging a new bond with them.
The screaming stopped, and became … she’s not sure exactly what it became. Not quite a song, not quite a chant, but something steady that carried the implication of sudden and rapid increases in tempo. When she opens her eyes, she sees two gleaming golden crystals floating amongst the lightsaber parts above Revan’s hand.
“Very good Barriss,” her new teacher praises her as the pieces flowed together to form a hilt with only a single emitter. “The hilt is basic, and you can of course personalize it or completely replace it as you wish, but it will serve for now.”
She reached out and the handle flew into her grasp. She ran her fingers over it, examining the seams, the guard, and the power settings. It was a simple hilt for sure, but well constructed and it fit her hands rather well.
“Thank you, Master.” Revan dipped his head in acknowledgement.
“So,” Ezra spoke up, walking up to Revan. “We’ve got what we came here for, and a couple new friends.” He turned back to Kanan, “What’s the plan now?”
“The inquisitors said something about ‘the secret of the temple,’ I imagine that had something to do with the pyramid over there.” Kanan waved towards the pyramid in question.
“You thinking we should see what this power is for ourselves?” Ezra asked. Revan spoke up before Kanan could.
“There’s no point. Powerful as the temple here was, it’s utterly useless now.”
“What do you mean?” Ezra put in.
“This Temple was here long before the Ani’la Akaan, and was damaged and unstable even then. I cannot imagine the weapon would fire at all, and if it did it’s just as likely to detonate as do what it’s supposed to do.”
“Wait, hold up.” Kanan interjected. “I’ve got some questions.”
“By all means, Jedi,” Revan intoned, “ask away.”
Kanan scowled. “First off, what is this weapon supposed to do? And secondly, what the kriff is an Aneela Ackan?”
“The temple is a fairly powerful surface to space cannon, designed to reduce capital class ships to dust with a single shot. Fairly mundane, as far as ancient Sith weapons go.” Revan chuckled. “The Ani’la Akaan was the name the Mandalorians gave to the battle that decimated this planet. It means Great Last Battle.” Kanan glared but said nothing.
“That was the battle that did all this?” Ezra gestured to the devastation all around them. “What happened?”
Revan hesitated, just for a moment, but they all got the sense that he was lost in some memory. “I won.”
Kanan raised a disbelieving brow at him. “That’s it? ‘ You won?’”
“Let us speak while we move. It’s unwise to stay in the open like this, too easy to be ambushed. Where is your ship? We should get off world as soon as possible.”
Ahsoka nodded her head in agreement. “The Darkness of this world is unsettling. It almost feels anticipatory.”
“I don’t like it one bit,” Kanan groused.
Ezra pulled a comlink from his pocket and spoke to Chopper for a moment before saying, “That way.” And pointing to the southeast, directly at the Temple.
“Ezra,” Ahsoka said. “Have them bring the ship to the top of the Temple, we’ll meet them there for pickup.”
The group made their way towards the monolithic temple in the distance, Revan and his new student at the head of the group. Ezra rushed forward, despite Kanan trying to stop him, to walk next to the Sith Lord.
“So, how did you win this great battle of yours?” He spun around with arms out, as if to encompass the whole world in his question.
“I admit, I am curious how you did it as well.” Ahsoka added. “This was the last battle of the Mandalorian Wars? Records of that time are incomplete, and all we know is that the Mandalorians were defeated and the war was won for the Republic.” She eyed Revan speculatively. “Your name featured rather prominently, but there were no details.”
Revan replied without looking back. “I’m not surprised. The Republic was not proud of what its champion had done to protect it,” the modulation only enhances the scathing tone of his voice. “They must have omitted it from the records to make themselves look better in the history books.”
“And what had that champion done?” Kanan inquired.
Revan sighed tiredly. “I did what I had to do to end the war then and there.” He paused, looking up at where the sky should be above them. “It wasn’t worth it, activating the Mass Shadow Generator. This world,” he shook his head and returned to staring forward.
When he continued, his voice was softer, regret clear even through the vocoder. “It was full of life. Commerce. People. I knew that invading it, full scale, with nothing held back, would draw the bulk of the Mandalorian military into one battle. And, perhaps even Mandalore the Ultimate himself.”
“I was right. I killed the Mandalore in single combat while the battle raged around us, and that should have been the end of it. Without their leader it would have been simple to scatter them and mop them up over the course of a few months. But I wanted the war to be over. And Malak and the others agreed, so we went ahead with the plan.”
Everyone felt a shiver of emotion go through Revan at Malak’s name, but it was Ezra who had the temerity to interrupt with his curiosity. “Who was Malak?”
“My friend and partner at the time. Eventually he would be my apprentice, and he would betray me, but even then he was already a monster. We penned the Mandalorians in around the planet, and then activated the weapon.”
Revan paused again, gathering his thoughts as the temple loomed ever closer.
“The Dark Side is necessary. Without it there can be no balance, but it can twist you if you cannot control it. I was in too deep at the time, the Darkness had a hold of my heart, and I destroyed this world and every life upon it in a single moment of simple impatience. It was only when I felt them- billions of them, crying out in fear and anguish only to be cut so short so quickly, that I understood what I had done was monstrous. I vowed on that day that I would learn to control the Dark, rather than let it control me. Malak, on the other hand?” Revan shook his head again, and the disgust was obvious when he finished.
“He reveled in their pain.”
“So,” Kanan said after a moment of thought. “You’re every bit the butcher history paints you as.”
Barriss whirled on him, eyes flaring as a blade like molten gold sprung to life, the point just short of piercing Kanan’s throat. “Do not insult my master, Jedi!”
Kanan stopped short, his hands flying up in obvious surrender, wide eyes never leaving the blade at his throat. Before anyone else had a chance to react, the blade was retracted, and confused blue eyes met his.
“I’m- I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” Ahsoka gave her old friend a worried look, while Ezra dropped his hand from his lightsaber hilt, where it had gone without him even realizing it.
“It will take time and meditation for you to overcome the false identity that was forced on you,” Revan said solemnly. “Until then, outbursts like this, where you react as you would have as the falsehood, will be common.” He moved to grasp her shoulder, but froze just before he could.
“Do you feel that?” He asked, looking up, as if he could see through the distant ceiling, into space, and directly at the disturbance that had just entered the system.
“Yes,” Ahsoka replied. “We must hurry. He’s here.”
Everyone felt different in the Force. Kanan felt to Ahsoka like a river of fast moving water: reliable, but also choppy as it went over rocks. Ezra was much the same, only the rocks were so numerous he was more akin to rapids than a river. Whether he would find his strength among the rocks, or rise above them as Kanan had, only time would tell. Barriss … Barriss felt confused on a fundamental level, like she was looking at a churning ocean with an oil slick on top.
She worried greatly for her old friend.
Darth Revan, the great betrayer, feared and reviled ancient Lord of the Sith, felt nothing like how Ahsoka would have imagined.
To look at him was to look down upon a great battlefield, where the armies of Light and Dark clashed and warred and danced and rejoiced, singing and crying in ecstatic torment. He was a walking contradiction, wrapped within a veneer of calm that one might mistake for peace if they didn’t peer beyond the surface.
The presence that had just entered the system felt nothing like any of them. It was a dead star, a great fiery beast of hate and pain barreling towards them, sucking the light and its warmth out of everything it touched, leaving the Force itself cold and frozen in its wake, even as it burned in its own flame.
It was him.
There was no denying it. Despite how much he had changed, she could still recognize the core of him. His fire had never really gone out, it had only turned inside out.
They ran, all of them, as fast as they could, towards the landing zone at the top of the pyramid. They had to get away. They had to get off world before he caught them.
The Rebellion needed them! They had to get out of here!
Yet, despite knowing this, a part of Ahsoka’s mind stayed locked on that dead star growing ever closer, and the withered chord stretched between them that grew more taught with every second.
She wondered, for a moment, what would happen if she tried to open that long dormant bond?
Ahsoka knew that today was the day they would finally meet, and she could find out first hand, face to face.
They reached the pyramid in minutes.
They had mere minutes until he reached them.
The elevators were too small for them all to fit on at once. They would have to take turns.
The Force prodded at her, and Ahsoka made a snap decision. “Ezra, Kanan, you and I will go first and secure the ship. Revan, Barriss: head for the next elevator further down the wall and meet us up top.” She expected the Sith Lord to argue, but he merely nodded before heading off, Barriss at his side.
Kanan and Ezra trusted her without hesitation, of course.
The elevator ride was interminable.
She could feel him getting closer, bearing down on her like a guided missile. He must have been mostly through the atmosphere at this point. She felt like she could reach out and touch him.
Even Malachor’s natural darkness shrank away from him, from the ice he left in his wake.
Ezra’s comm chirped, Chopper letting them know the ship was in position.
Ahsoka bolted as soon as they reached the summit, heading straight for the cockpit of the Ghost with Force enhanced speed. She knew Kanan and Ezra hadn’t mastered that technique yet, but she trusted them to catch up while she got the Ghost ready to go.
She strapped herself into the pilot's seat, hands dancing across the controls, prepping hyperspace coordinates, activating tracker jammers, and raising deflector shields.
Where is everyone? They should have caught up by now. The ship rocked suddenly as a white hot spear of danger came to life at the heart of the temple.
“Oh no, what did you do Ezra!” Ahsoka flies out of her seat and down the ramp of the Ghost, only to stop dead in her tracks at the sight before her.
The Dead Sun cloaked in shadow is there, stood over a frightened Ezra, scarlet blade poised to strike. Kanan lays unconscious, propped up against the central terminal of the temple several feet away, within which the Sith holocron hovered, open and glowing.
“Perhaps I was wrong.” The voice is wrong, the darkness of him cloying, but the stance? The stance is all him, and she speaks without thought as to what she will say.
“It wouldn’t be the first time!”
He stops.
Lowers his blade.
And turns to face her.
Blood red lenses stare at her from within a black death masque, and she wonders, just for a moment, if she would recognize the man underneath.
Around them, the temple shakes. Loose bits of stone and dust rain on them from above, and lightning arcs across the ceiling above them. Yet between them is a bubble of anticipation and tension masquerading as calm.
“It was foretold that you would be here. Our long awaited meeting has come at last.” Ahsoka isn’t sure what she expects: for his words to be filled with malice? For him to leap into threats and gloating?
She gets none of this.
His unnatural voice is even. Cool. Collected. But, she can feel something. Something like hope and despair melded together, radiating faintly into the Force around him.
“I’m glad I gave you something to look forward to.” He thumbs his lightsaber off.
“We need not be adversaries.” That’s something he would have said, followed by some call to surrender. The Dead Sun, of course, does not disappoint. “The Emperor will show you mercy, if you tell me where the remaining Jedi can be found.”
“There are no Jedi!” She can’t believe it! After all he’s done, the depths he’s sunk to, he truly thinks the Jedi way has survived? “You and your Inquisitors have seen to that.”
“Perhaps this child,” He turns, masque boring down into Ezra, “will confess what you will not.” His threat is obvious, and it infuriates her.
“I was beginning to think I knew who you were, behind that mask,” he turns his focus back to her, completely disregarding Ezra. “But that’s impossible! My Master could never be as vile as you!”
“Anakin Skywalker was weak. I destroyed him.” It’s said conversationally, so matter of factly, like an irrefutable, fundamental truth of the universe that she is just too blind to see.
Yet it rings hollow.
She closes herself off to that, refusing to accept it.
He believes it, and that is enough.
She closes her eyes, steeling herself for what she knows she must do. What may well have always been her destiny to do.
“Then I will avenge his death.”
“Revenge is not the Jedi way.” The words are familiar. Words of a better man, echoes of a better time.
“I am no Jedi.” That time is passed, and that man is dead. There is nothing left now but ghosts. She ignites her sabers, twin shafts of pure white springing to life in front of her.
He responds in kind, crimson blade held across his body in a defensive stance she recognizes on a man she doesn’t.
For a moment, all is still. Then Ahsoka rushes the Dead Sun, striking low before jumping up into a high kick that connects squarely with his helmeted head.
He doesn’t so much as flinch at the impact, but she manages to leap off and away before he can retaliate.
He’s on her immediately: blood red blade crashing against her blocks and parries with superhuman strength and precision. Every stroke is a deathblow in the making, and she knows that every move she makes, every step, every dodge, every riposte, could be her last if she makes even the smallest mistake.
She catches an overhead swing with both her blades, focuses, and pushes at him with everything she has. He doesn’t go flying like she hoped, but he does slide back several feet, falling into a crouch at the end.
Before he comes to a stop, Ahsoka is airborne, leaping at him with both blades. He blocks, and momentum forces her to leap over him.
He’s on her again as soon as she lands. She dances around him, but no matter how fast she moves, or where she strikes, his blade is there. He shunts her every attack aside with consummate ease, while she is hard pressed to keep up with his own counter attacks.
Revan stepped off the elevator, the Force wrapped around himself and Barriss to keep them hidden from notice, and stopped.
Before, Ahsoka had shone with an intensity that Revan could hardly bear to look at for more than a moment at a time, but now she was radiant . There were dark spots in her, as there were in all things, but they were insignificant specks against the backdrop of blinding Light that was her soul.
Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, stood as a dark inferno that raged and churned, all consuming in its intensity. There were echoes of Light in him, repressed and nearly forgotten in the sea of cold fire that burned in his heart.
He was Darkness incarnate.
She was the Light given flesh.
Revan, Lord of Balance, beheld this battle between Light and Dark with rapturous attention.
“Barriss,” He whispered to her, “get to the ship and stay there.” She nodded, a single fearful glance in Vader’s direction her only hesitation before she did as she was told.
As if pulled forth on invisible strings, Revan moved closer to the duel of the cosmos. Never in all his years had he seen something like this.
He didn’t know what to make of it.
As he watched, Ahsoka’s strength began to wane. She was slowing, her guard nearly being broken under the weight of Vader’s blows.
She was going to die.
No. No, no this was wrong, he could feel it. Their fight, this endless battle between Light and Dark, the Force wept at it!
The destiny is yours Revan, not mine. Malak’s final words come back to him, and he knows what he must do.
Vader’s blade came down on her with robotic precision and inhuman strength again, and again, and again until her entire existence narrowed down to just the two of them. Nothing but the swing of their sabers, the push and pull as they danced around each other, footwork tight, controlled, deliberate. Her breathing came hard, and harsh, while the tempo of his respirator hadn’t changed. Her arms are numb and shaking. Absently, she recalls the last time she faced a foe so physically overwhelming.
Grievous was a terrible thing to fight, but he didn’t have the Force.
And no one was ever as strong as he was.
She opened herself to the Force, throwing wide the door between it and herself with wild abandon.
If she is to die here, to him, she is going to make him work for it.
For a time, it works. The Force suffuses her entire being, bringing new strength and a sharp focus to her every movement, and for a moment she pushes him back. His defenses are as impressive as his offensive, and in only a handful of seconds he twists one of her attacks aside, and then his blade is coming down on her in an unrelenting series of deathblows, one after the other without pause or respite. She dodges, ducks, weaves her way around and through his attacks as best she can, his blade coming within millimeters of her time, and time again. So close that she can feel the heat of it, as hot and blazing as the fire of his heart.
She comes out of a riposte too slow and his counterattack knocks her completely off balance, throwing her guard wide open. For one blazing moment Ahsoka knows she is going to die. Her defense is broken, his weapon poised to strike.
There’s nothing stopping him.
And yet the blow never comes.
Vader pivots, blade coming up just in time to stop Revan’s surprise attack while his off hand thrusts out towards her. A Force wave crashed into her, hurling her clear off the temple to plummet down towards the ruins below.
She twists in the air, the Force cushioning her fall and allowing her to land in a crouch, blades held at the ready. It’s as she’s summoning the energy needed to leap back up the edifice and return to the fight, that Revan is flung from the pyramid as well. He reaches out towards Vader and yanks, and the Dark Lord is ripped from his perch to join the ancient Sith in his plummet to the earth.
Revan lands, rolling to a stop next to her, while Vader floats gently down to the ground in a show of control so impressive that it has Ahsoka’s heart racing. His back is to a wall, piles of rubble on either side, faced with two powerful Force users, and yet Ahsoka knows that their advantage is only minor at best.
The Temple rumbles, lightning arcing across its surface violently. It’s unstable. Time is short.
Vader makes a show of assuming the standard Form V defensive stance. He’s mocking them, baiting them into rushing him. She’s not about to fall for it. Ahsoka flourishes her blades into her own, modified, reverse grip Shien ready stance. Low to the ground, her off hand saber held defensively in front of her, with her main hand poised for immediate counterattack. Vader’s death masque tilts the slightest bit, and she can feel him appraising her.
Deep down, hidden beneath the raging, icy inferno, at the very heart of the Dead Sun, is a spark of approval and pride.
For her.
She blinks, trying to will away her own instinctual response to his approval, without success.
Revan, it seems, has grown impatient with their little standoff, darting forward in a burst of Force enhanced speed.
“Revan, no!” She calls out, but he does not stop. He comes down on Vader as a whirling dervish, like a many armed beast lashing out with malignant grace. A blur of motion and death, attacking in a seemingly random staccato, bearing down on Vader unrelentingly, unceasingly. Ahsoka knows, with sudden clarity, that Revan had been holding back against the Inquisitors. Giving them a chance to show their skills, and when he found them wanting he cast them down.
Not here. Not now. Now, he brings every ounce of skill and power he has to bear against him.
Vader is unmoved. He stands firm, foot and bladework precise and calm, never giving an unnecessary inch, defending himself with unerring accuracy and timing. Always is his blade only just in time to halt what would have been a crippling blow here, a decapitation there, but there is no struggle in his movements. No fear. He is calm, the eye of the storm that Revan weaves around him. In this moment, he reminds her more of Obi-Wan than she would have ever expected.
Ahsoka watches, already knowing what will happen before it does. Revan makes some error, some slight misalignment of his blade, some minor misstep so small that Ahsoka doesn’t see it, that leaves him off-balance by the barest amount, and Vader retaliates. His strikes are crisp, clean, unerring. Each one a deathblow in the making. The power behind his blade such that even the powerfully built Revan has his guard pummeled, nearly broken by every blow.
Revan tries to counter, spinning away from an overhead strike to thrust with his offhand saber, only for Vader to neatly sidestep the attack, grabbing his wrist while casually slapping away his other blade before it could bisect him. He pivoted, dragging the ancient Sith Lord along, and hurled him away to crash into a pile of rubble. The pile teetered, and at his urging collapsed forcefully, burying Revan in several tons of shattered duracrete and rusted metal. Revan’s presence in the Force dimmed, unconscious.
The Temple rumbled again, shaking the very earth beneath their feet, as the Dead Sun turned his attention back to her. She firmed her stance, adjusting her grip on her saber hilts, determined to see this through to the bitter end. For a moment that stretched on into what felt like minutes, but couldn’t have been more than a handful of seconds, they regarded each other. Between them, nearly invisible to their senses but growing clearer with every beat of their hearts, the withered cord of a bond, long abandoned and mourned.
Vader stalked towards her, slow and implacable as the tide, and the air around them grew heavy, laden with his power and intent. From the piles of rubble all around them, rose hundreds of pieces of duracrete, ruined metal, stone and dust, all directed by him . Her eyes widened, awed by a display of such power she’d never seen before, then narrowed; piercing him with a challenging glower, daring him to try it.
His power flexed, and the debris converged on her. She leapt straight up, over a chunk of duracrete that shattered on the spot she’d been a nanosecond earlier, twisting in the air to plant her feet on the side of another piece of rubble as it soared past her, and pushed . Open to the Force, at one with it, unable to tell where it ended and she began, Ahsoka flew forth into the maelstrom of rubble and debris the Dark Sun held in its shadow. From one missile to another, she careened through the air, spinning, flipping, always a millimeter ahead, and always was Vader in her sights. Closer and closer she came, circling him as the rubble he held in his sway, until finally she was close enough to strike.
She did not. Instead, she leapt up and away, just barely dodging the strike she knew he would send her way, planting herself on the underside of a boulder as it passed overhead, and diving down at him from above, faster and harder than she’d ever moved before.
She batted his saber away with one hand, planting her feet on his shoulders, and slashed across his face with the other. The lens of his death masque shattered in a shower of sparks, the metal around it burning away, and the Dead Sun howled. His pain rippled into the Force, along with his surprise and admiration, and it rocked Ahsoka to her core. She pushed off, flipping back and away as Vader fell to a knee. The debris he’d turned into a storm fell like rain around them, his concentration broken, or perhaps he simply discarded the tactic as useless against her.
The rubble shifted, parted, and Revan rose, coming to her side, breathing hard. His left arm hung limp, clearly dislocated. With a grunt, he shoved his arm back into the socket, rolling his shoulder to work out the newly acquired kinks. Behind them, the Ghost came to hover just above the ground, ramp lowered, and there was Ezra; blaster in hand, calling out for them to get on the ship.
“We should go, Ahsoka.” Revan intoned, and she nodded, already turning to leave before Vader could recover. She took a single step, and then stopped cold. That old, withered cord tightened, strengthened, tugged from the other end. Without thought, or hesitation, only by pure instinct did she respond in kind; throwing the bond open and letting them flow together once again. The feeling of that old bond, alive once more, drove the breath from her lungs in a shuddering gasp, and set her hands to shaking.
“Ahsoka.” He said, still on his knees behind her, and hidden under the false vocoder, hidden under the voice of the tyrant, was one she knew all too well. She turned, no longer able to deny it. No longer able to pretend he was anything other than what he was.
“Ahsoka.” He turned, and she saw him. His eye, revealed by what should have been a deathblow, a great fiery chasm of hate and pain, the skin around it unnaturally pale and scarred, so very different from the man she remembered, and yet she recognized him as easily as she recognized her own reflection.
“Anakin.” She breathed, hardly able to believe it even now, with their bond thrumming between them as if it had never been shuttered and dark for fourteen long, terrible years. He rose to his feet, a monolithic man, a titan of the Dark Side, but she knew what to look for now. She always knew where to look in him to find his hidden places, where the best and worst of him was kept away from prying eyes. Like dust in the cosmic wind, unseen but ever-present, were motes of Light floating in the Dark inferno that he had become. She reached across their bond, calling out to him. Not to the man he was before, or the man she thought he could be, but the man in front of her, now. She called to the Light in him with every fibre of her being; her Light and her Darkness, her love and her compassion, her selfish desire to have him back, to not be alone in the galaxy any more!
The motes of Light in him pulsed and grew, multiplied, fluttering like butterflies in a soft breeze, but so too did something else. Despair and hatred, a hatred she could now see was directed at himself, rose like a nova, searing in its burning intensity. She did not flinch, did not pull away, but threw their bond ever wider, feeding her Light across and into him, even as she accepted his Darkness into her own heart in turn.
“I won’t leave you! Not this time.” She declared aloud, but the words were pale imitations of the dedication that poured forth across their bond, welling up from the deepest parts of her heart with a surety, and a strength that reverberated in the Force around them such that it sent shockwaves rippling out across the galaxy.
Anakin staggered back, shock evident in his one visible eye. Connected as they were, Ahsoka felt every ounce of surprise and self-recrimination that sparked into being in his heart. And then, an icy terror, like a dead dragon, rose up within him. A great and terrible fear, not for him, but for her. Flitting across the bond was an image, a name, a face at once familiar and terrible. The manipulator, the schemer, the liar, the Sith Lord that brought the galaxy to ruin so he could seat himself on the throne at the peak of the rubble.
Darth Sidious.
His Master.
And all at once, she understood.
“Ahsoka, what are you doing?” Revan shouted from the ramp of the ship, poised as if he might come and snatch her from where she stood.
“Go, Revan.” She called over her shoulder, giving him and Ezra a grim smile. “I have to do this. Go.”
Ezra shook his head, and made to jump from the ship, but Revan caught him, and dragged him, kicking and screaming, up the ramp and away. Ahsoka closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and turned back to Anakin. She heard as the Ghost pulled away, and in the distance, the Temple rumbled once again, louder than before.
They had so little time now.
A heady mix of fury and gratitude rose up in him. Furious that she would be so careless, so reckless as to stay behind and face him, and paradoxically grateful that she hadn’t left him. That at least, in the end, they would be together as they should have been all along.
“Anakin,” she stepped forward, towards him, determination and desperation writ across her features in equal measure. “You’ve forgotten who you are. You’ve forgotten where you come from!”
His eye narrowed furiously, but there was no anger in him, only a weary sort of acceptance, as if he knew what she would say as well as he knew that it would not change anything.
“You told me, remember? You told me stories about your mother, and the other mothers of the slave quarters on Tatooine. You told me what it meant to be a slave, and that you would rather die a thousand deaths than ever be one again!” His weary acceptance was swept away, replaced with actual fury in the blink of an eye, but Ahsoka did not relent. She could not, she had to remind him of who he was. Before the Jedi tried to take it away from him, before the war took its toll, before whatever tragedy led him to the choices that ended with him, here, now.
“You are Anakin Skywalker. Do you remember the stories you told me? Of the trickster god of a thousand shapes and names, that always walked amongst the stars? Unfettered and free. The breaker of chains. Your namesake! Do you remember who you are?” She marched up to him, sabers unlit and held at her sides. Her guard utterly lowered, as open as the bond between them. As open as she was now to the Force, flowing through her, guided by its eddies and currents, but always in control. Her purpose never lost, not even for a moment. Not even as Anakin ignited his blade, and raised it as if to strike her. She marched on, until she was less than a foot away, looking up at him, through his mask and scars, and all his pain and self hatred, she saw him.
Between the growing motes of Light, underneath the Dark, raging inferno that consumed him, she saw her Master. Her teacher. Her friend. Her brother. All these things and so much more. She saw a Skywalker laid low by chains of his own making, and the chains were self-hatred, and fear, and loneliness. They were the words of a liar, taken up by his victim and branded into his own heart, made sharp, and deadly. Weapons forged from his own shackles so he could convince himself he had control, had power, had agency.
She saw a man enslaved in mind, body, and soul, and she still loved him.
She took that final step, falling forward into his chest, her arms wrapping around him in a desperate embrace as she poured her heart out through the Force, showing him, saying look! See how you are loved! See how you are not alone! I am here. I see you. You are not alone. I see you , and I’m not going anywhere, not even if you kill me. I’ll be with you, always.
He didn’t move. His heart and his breathing continued apace, the machinery she could sense within him this close not allowing him even the freedom to control his own breathing, and tears welled in her eyes, falling for him, and them, and all they had lost.
She dared not hope, dared not dream that her desperate attempt to reach him worked. She squeezed her eyes shut, ready to die, here and now, for him. For the man that taught her how to survive. For the man that taught her moving meditation on the engines of damaged transports. For the man that held her when she cried. For the man that propped her up when the burden of command grew too heavy. For the man that had promised her he would never hurt her, never. For that man, she held on, she bared her soul. She let him know that she was there, that she loved him still, that she had always loved him, even when she was gone. Especially when she was gone.
She always would.
Behind her, the Temple shuddered and shook, and finally, destabilized and failing, it exploded. A great wall of superheated plasma billowed outwards. Death racing for them both, and she held him tighter.
“I remember.” He said, the voice of the tyrant falling away, and it was him in full. Their bond exploded as his arms came around her, cradling her head to his chest the way he used to do when he was afraid she’d been hurt. All his pain, all his fear, all his love, and his passion flowed through their bond, and into her.
And for an instant, she was him.
She was the mortal fear of loss, of weakness. She was failure, and she was sin. She was his joy, his pride at her survival, and his dread at his duty, and the overwhelming terror of what the Master would do to her if he failed to kill her. She was his determination to save her, even if it meant killing her, and she was the moment when her love flowed into him, and through him, and for an instant, he was her. He saw the truth of himself reflected back at him through her eyes. He saw the trap of the Dark Side realized in her heart, and he saw her determination to set him free, even at the cost of her own life.
She was the moment when his arms came around her, when he looked upon the shackles he had forged on his soul and realized that he could cast them off , and did.
The explosion was upon them, and they acted in concert; weaving their power together as they had done so many times before, but there was something deeper, something fundamentally stronger about their bond now that hadn’t been there before. The superheated plasma crashed into an unyielding wall formed from their combined will, their desire to live, to protect each other, flowing around them without touching them. The earth around them was scorched and charred, the air sizzled and crackled, and they stood unaffected.
And then, in an instant, it was past, but still their power lingered together; interwoven so deeply that neither could tell where they ended and the other began. His Darkness, her Light, all of it melded into a unity that had the Force singing in exultation.
Above them, Morai circled, her song joining with the Force in a beautiful duet.
“The Emperor knows that you live. You will never be safe.” Not my master, no he only called him The Emperor. Already she could feel, could see how his shackles had been broken.
“I can handle the Inquisitors.” She snarked, falling into old habits as easily as breathing. Something warm bloomed in their hearts at the familiar feeling.
“The Emperor has servants far more dangerous than the Inquisitors.” Anakin warned gravely. His hand ran down her rear lek, and she rubbed her face into his chest, uncaring of how hard and angular his armor was.
“You won’t hurt me.” She’s sure of it. They’ve found each other again. He’s found himself again. He would never hurt her, just as surely as she could never kill him. Some part of her, buried in her subconscious, must have known, acknowledged, recognized him, even without the bond. Because that blow should have killed him.
She pulled the hit, entirely without meaning to.
“I wasn’t talking about me, Ahsoka.”
“Come with me, then. We can watch each other’s backs. We can get revenge on the Emperor together.” She already knows he’ll say no, and she understands why, but she has to say it. She has to.
“You really aren’t a Jedi anymore.” He mused, and pride of a dark and shadowy kind bloomed, strangely warm and effervescent, in his heart for her, followed shortly by a rush of hopelessness as deep and cold as the oceans of Kamino. “I can’t. I’m so much less now than what I was. I cannot kill him.”
“When have you let the impossible stop you? There must be a way. To weaken him, or heal you. There has to be!” Something dark slithered through his mind, an old memory. A temptation: the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, the power to cheat death, power over life itself. A promise as yet unfulfilled, a secret kept from him by the Emperor.
“There might be a way.” He murmured, fresh fury at having been denied such vital knowledge igniting in his heart, chasing away his despondency and filling him with purpose.
The Ghost came roaring back towards them, touching down less than a hundred feet away. The ramp lowered, and Revan was there, appraising them both with something more than idle curiosity. She pulled back, looking Anakin in the eye, uncaring and unflinching at the fact that it still burned with the power of the Dark Side. Dark or Light, she doesn’t care, so long as he’s himself.
“Find it. Find it, and then come find me. We’ll kill him together. In the meantime, I’ll keep his attention elsewhere.”