Star Wars: Edge of Hope

Chapter Fifty Four: The Warrior Ways of Old...

"I don't think so..."

Obi-Wan looked at the little broken charred bird crumpled in a heap trying to catch her breath. Try as he might his hands wouldn't remain steady as he gripped his weapon, the clanking of the hilt against the palm of his hand, as he fought to push back the memories rising to the surface. Flashes flooding through his mind as he blinked away the replay of them, the churing of tide & the growling of the fire as it landed on the old derelict ship. The blood pouring from her lips as she smeared it with her hand, the way her face darkened as she drew her tongue across the bitter bile, & the way she slowly rose stuttering from the pain she tried to hide. He saw all the shadows part as she began walking through the falling curtain of fire the black noxious fumes billowing around her more as her feet crunched through the mounds of ash.

"It's over...."

Umbra: We're not finished yet...

"Don't try it..."

Umbra: You underestimate my power...old man...

Obi-Wan could hear the ring of his voice in her grunted guttural growling tone. As Umbra pulled her saber locking it into configuration & began advancing twirling it, the long red blade kissing the wet metal sending off thousands of dying embers. The smell of the burning metal, the whine of the spinning saber as it tore through the breeze, there was a melding of past & present. Even with more than a lifetime between this moment & the one fighting to pull him back into the shadows of the past.

"You were supposed destroy the Sith..."

Umbra: I am more powerful than ANY SITH. More powerful then even your lost apprentice....You cannot defeat what you...yourself created!

"I loved you..."

Umbra: You shouldn't use words you don't understand....

As the wreck began to tilt as the mountain of roiling water climbed high overhead, both adversary & opponent fought to keep themselves from falling off the edge. Obi-wan grabbed hold of Reham's arm holding tightly to her as the roar of the falling wave descended on them he fought to hold it at bay, to keep the fire from touching her. Umbra teetered, her footing struggling to keep a grip on the deck,  she dug her saber into the rotting corpse of the Black Star of the Empire. Obi-Wan watched as she disappeared under the wave, the curtain of molten rock & fire falling on her, but when the blue curtain receded she lay flat clutching onto her saber the water around her darkening with her blood.

"You have become the very thing that you swore to destroy..."

Umbra: You...you're hands wrote this path in stone...a long time ago, old man. I'm the culmination of all your sins gathered together in one soul. You...You knew this would happen...That's why you turned your back on me, remember?

The sharp scratch of the images as they bled together pulling Obi-Wan back to a time when the darkness had come to revisit on him all the pain he'd tried to outrun. He watched as the blarring heat of the Mustafar lava became the searing heat of the desert wastelands of Tatooine. He was stooped in the sand working on the moisture vaporator when he felt a familiar pull. He stopped dropping the tools in the sand & for a moment, Obi-Wan had accepted the impending fate that must be his. But the small voice that echoed out across the canyon was not the deep menacing tone of the black knight of the SITH. Obi-Wan had thrown away almost all the trappings of the past, foregoing the connections to the old ways of the JEDI, he sought no redemption or atonement...his mind was his own.

"Whoever you're looking for, I assure you, you're mistaken..."

Umbra: Do you remember, Obi-Wan? Do you remember what you said to me?