What Could Have Been Part III: The Destined Warriors

Mercy

      Luke

      How was this possible? Leia was beating him? Even with all the power he had from the Dark Side, Leia was still beating him. "Do not dissapoint me, apprentice. Hold nothing back," Darth Midas hissed critically down at Luke from his vantage point in the balcony. Luke gritted his teeth. Leia would not take away his power. He would not allow it. Killing her was no longer his final test, but his greatest desire.

      The girl was flushed now; her breathing irregular and labored. In another attempt to flee, she Force jumped up into the balcony across the ballroom from where Midas watched; idle and interested. Luke pursued her furiously. He landed on top of the balcony's ledge and swiped his sword out in front of himself flourishly. "Higher drop, higher stakes. I like it," he grinned psychotically. His free hand shot up and pulled Leia into a Force choke that lifted her off her feet. Luke leaned in close to her, wanting to catch the essence of fear in her eyes. "I've been looking forward to this," he said in a low, sinister voice. Leia struggled to breath as the Force grip around her windpipe cut off her air supply that had already been dwindling from the injury to her ribs. "Luke... Plea-ease..." She coughed silently. How satisfying it would be to watch the last bit of air escape her lungs as she hung helplessly by an invisible noose.

      Luke thought the last of the carbon dioxide had left her body when Leia suddenly made a mighty heaving swing with her dangling legs and sent a kick right into Luke's gut. He let out an ooof of discomfort and relinquished his grip on Leia's throat. Falling to the ground out if breath and out of strength, Leia inhaled desperately as she forced herself to her feet. Luke had already recovered from getting his stomach punted and was growing impatient. Why wouldn't she give up already?

       Lightsabers clashing once again, the twins attacked more brutally at one another. In his attempt to drive Leia backwards, he had led the fight outside to where the balcony overlooked the city of Iziz. The rainstorm continued to pour, leaving the marble veranda slick with water. It didn't take long for the constant downpour to soak into Luke's cloak until he could feel the chilling rain in his bones. Leia seemed to not be fairing any better. Her dark brown hair was drenched and stuck to the side of her blue face. The winds attacked in all directions like the storm couldn't decide which way to blow. It was impossible to fight in the conditions but somehow the two continued, unshaken from their fight despite the relentless weather.

       Leia was burnt out now; the shallow breaths were no longer sufficient in powering her wounded body. She swung unsteadily and Luke pushed her shaft back with little effort. This was it. His chance to finish her had come. He couldn't be stopped.

       Luke had just raised his lightsaber to make his final attack on his weakened opponent when Leia made a move faster than the lightning around them. She ducked under his blade and knocked the hilt from his hand while simultaneously raising her blazing sword to less than an inch under Luke's chin. What? How? He awed in utter disbelief and fear. What would she do with him now? Kill him and take his place as Darth Midas' student? The Sith lord strolled out onto the balcony and ran his gnarled white nails along the dripping balustrade. Luke and Leia remained frozen. Luke straining to keep his head raised up so as not to lose it and Leia holding her sword close enough to his neck so that when the rain hit the glowing sword, the droplets evaporated into steam that rose up and scalded Luke's chin.

        "Impressive indeed, my Jedi friend. Most impressive," Midas praised as enthusiastically as Sith could. Leia glanced between Luke and Midas and Luke watched her eyes as she decided what her next move would be. "As for you my boy, no hard feelings?" He grinned in false sympathy before turning back to Leia.

       "Kill him."

       Leia

     "Kill him."

        Midas' words hung in the icy air as rain pelted Leia's cloak in fat drops of freezing water. She looked between Midas and her brother who was paralyzed with fear.

        It had been a long and agonizing fight between the two siblings and all Leia wanted was for it to be over. The lightsaber weighed down on her outstretched arm as she held it against her brother's neck and it would have been so easy for her to decapitate him with the flick of her wrist. It would be over. It would be over and she could drop her sword and collapse onto the chillingly wet stone floor and lose consciousness. She could escape the numbing in her fingers and the aching in her frozen bones and slip into a dream world where she wasn't in pain and where she hadn't murdered her brother and where things were okay. It would have been so easy.

        But Jedi never took the easy way. Leia couldn't bring herself to kill her brother. Even if he was nearly gone- buried beneath the Dark side- Leia saw nothing but the boy who she knew better than anyone one else. The one with the blond hair hanging over his eyes, who liked flying ships and tinkering with droids like their father, but spoke softly and thoughtfully like their mother. The boy who she had swore never to turn against despite any prophecy even if that meant she wasn't a Jedi. She saw her brother who didn't want to die and who had regretted what he had done. Luke was still there. The Sith hadn't won yet.

        The sound of Leia's retracting lightsaber was drowned out by the roaring storm as she tossed the hilt aside and it skidded across the slippery floor. Luke stumbled back; exhaling gratefully as he did so. Leia turned to face Midas and attempted to stand tall and defiant despite the toll her injuries had taken on her. "You have failed Midas," she told him. "I am a Jedi. Like my father before me... And like my brother."

         Darth Midas shook his head, but to Leia's surprise, a malicious smile crept across the wrinkles of the man's grey face. "Foolish little girl..."

         Leia wasn't exactly sure what happened after that, but she felt her body hurl foreward and flip over itself until her momentum crashed her into the hard ground. Everything went blurry for a few seconds as Leia recovered from her brutal impact. When she could finally make out her surroundings, she saw Luke standing over her; lightsaber in hand.

         He wouldn't hesitate this time.