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The dark side coursed through his veins, and Darth Vader waded in again.
The crowded corridor kept the fight at closer range than Vader would have liked, but no matter, there was no doubting who the master of the Force was in this battle ... he knew it, and could feel that Obi-Wan Kenobi knew it too.
That his former Master was alive at all had stunned Vader when he first made the connection of the long-buried presence in the Force hours before in the Death Star's hangar. To feel someone besides he or his dark Master drawing on the mystic energy field was so foreign ... it had been so long.
Through the Force, Vader felt Obi-Wan's presence, calm yet scattered, the old Knight's attention darting from place to place. It was a puzzle to Vader that Obi-Wan's focus would not be fully on his fallen pupil, who even now threatened to extinguish his life force.
Vader smiled cruelly under his black mask, grimacing at the pain the use of those muscles caused him. Perhaps the years had simply overwhelmed Master Kenobi's finely-honed sense of the Force. The Sith Lord pressed his advantage again, forcing Obi-Wan back again and again. "Your powers are weak, old man." Vader taunted, as Obi-Wan circled around, redirecting the fight.
Like a homing beacon, Obi-Wan's focus suddenly seemed completely back on the fight, his voice calm and clear, as it had been during many a lesson.
"You can't win, Darth," the bearded Jedi replied, refusing to use Vader's former name. "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
Obi-Wan went on the attack this time, but his thrusts and stabs were feeble, nothing like those of the man who had first put a lightsaber in Vader's once-human hands so many years ago.
Pushing Kenobi back, Vader shook off his former Master's ominous proclamation. The dark side offered the only true power. He had seen it, he had bathed in its black light as he had tracked down and slain the last of the Jedi Knights in the years since his Master had usurped control of the Republic and become Emperor.
This duel with Obi-Wan brought forth memories of those early days of the Empire, when he had been charged by his Master with the elimination of the few Jedi who had escaped the Great Purge. The Emperor had put bounties out on them, but Vader took pride in beating the greatest of the galaxy's hunters to the prey, giving those he found the choice -- a duel to the death or an execution.
Some of them, feeling Vader's presence in the Force had been overwhelmed with fear, losing their faith when the apparition in black emerged from the shadows of their supposed secret bases and hiding places. Some chose to flee, others, who knew who Vader had been before his rebirth, tried fruitlessly to speak to the weak, dead man they believed still alive inside the suit of black armor. Those were destroyed quickly and without mercy. Others fought bravely, among them the master swordsman Plo Koon, who had engaged Vader in a battle across hours and nearly three square miles of dense forest on the fourth moon of E'Daym before succumbing to the Sith Lord's crimson blade.
Wherever Obi-Wan Kenobi had been hiding all these years, he had clearly not kept up his skills with the laser sword, and Vader intended to make his former Master see the error of his ways once more. Some Jedi had died with honor, some had begged, others had simply lost all emotion and stared up as Vader destroyed them. None had made anything resembling the bold claim Obi-Wan had -- power beyond death was something religious fanatics believed in. Kenobi was up to his old tricks, clearly trying to buy time until he could escape the duel. Vader would not allow it, pushing Obi-Wan back again.
"You should not have come back." he gloated.
The old man backed down the hallway, keeping his blade extended, to keep Vader at arm's length and unable to strike a killing blow. Vader could sense Kenobi's hopes rise as he neared the open doors at the end of the corridor leading to the hangar where the captured Corellian frigate sat under the guard of stormtroopers. Just as quickly as Obi-Wan's emotions rose, they plummeted back down as the stromtroopers, fascinated by their Lord engaged in battle, moved from their posts near the ship to a better vantage point, effectively cutting off any escape route for the Jedi.
He felt Kenobi's attention flutter again, and the Jedi's gaze shifted somewhere past the stormtroopers. Vader refused to follow his glance, mindful of a trick from his former Master. Through his perceptions augmented by the dark side, Vader felt the presence of a new group of minds entering the hangar, a mixture of excitement, fear and anxiety rippling from them ... no doubt the Rebels who had accompanied Obi-Wan in the bold rescue attempt of the young Alderaanian Princess. Vader paid them no mind, nor did he feel the need later to discipline the stormtroopers for not recapturing them. The homing beacon aboard their ship would lead the Imperial Navy to the Rebels' hiding place ... and the Death Star would soon follow to lay waste to the pitiful uprising. The Sith Lord kept his focus on Kenobi, as the older man returned his gaze to Vader and for the second time in so few hours, Dath Vader felt the odd tinge of surprise, something that seldom surfaced in his dealings inside the Empire's bureaucracy.
Fully focused on his fallen pupil, Obi-Wan Kenobi smiled.
