The heat of Vader's saber burned through the cold like a second sun.
Kai twisted away from a brutal downward strike, the red blade carving deep into the hangar floor with a hiss of scorched metal. The shockwave from the impact sent Kai stumbling, just long enough for Vader to advance—fast now, not measured. No more testing.
Only annihilation.
Kai ducked and rolled, barely avoiding a horizontal slash that would've bisected him. He came up low and jabbed forward—Vader batted the blow away like swatting a child's toy, then reached with his free hand and pulled.
Kai was ripped off his feet. He hit the ground hard, skidding across the deck. His lightsaber rattled from his grip, clattering to the side.
Before he could reach it, Vader was there.
The red blade came down in a savage arc—and Kai rolled again, searing heat grazing his shoulder. He cried out, gritting his teeth, throwing his hand toward the saber. It ripped back into his palm just in time to parry the next blow, though the strength behind it nearly shattered his stance.
He was losing ground fast.
Desperation bled into instinct. He sprang backward, flipping onto a stacked supply container, using the height to avoid another cleaving strike. Vader followed with unnatural speed, hand outstretched—
And caught him mid-leap.
Kai's leg was suddenly gripped by the crimson blade—just a grazing cut, but enough. Agony flared, white-hot. He spun wildly in the air, landing hard on a lower platform, saber barely up in time to block.
His left leg buckled. His foot was half-dead from the pain.
Vader loomed above like a shadow made real.
Kai's eyes flicked to the space around them.
Then his focus shifted.
The Force surged through him, not as a flood but as lightning channeled through iron. He exhaled sharply—and pushed.
Crates exploded from their stacks, flung into Vader's path. One after another—containers, sparking cables, even a discarded astromech. The air filled with the thunder of slamming debris. Vader batted some aside with his saber, shattered others with the Force, and strode forward still, but Kai wasn't done.
He reached deeper.
Not for strength. For will.
A broken metal beam tore free from a shattered catwalk. Kai flung it sideways with a violent twist of his arm. It screamed through the air like a spear.
Clang!
It crashed into Vader's shoulder, sending the Sith Lord staggering for half a step. Just enough.
Kai leapt, despite the burning in his leg, saber spinning in a whirlwind of violet light. He struck hard—once, twice, three times—forcing Vader to finally raise both hands, red blade blazing as he countered with precision.
"You are skilled," Vader intoned, voice like steel against stone. "But skill alone does not win wars."
Kai snarled, locking sabers again, their faces mere inches apart, breath steaming in the frigid air.
"I'm not here to win a war," he hissed. "I'm here to stop a monster."
Vader shoved him back again—but this time Kai landed upright, saber still in hand, feeling agony from his leg but fire in his eyes.
The storm hadn't broken him.
Not yet.
Vader came at him again—relentless, implacable, the weight of each blow enough to numb Kai's arms. The hangar echoed with the clash of lightsabers, the heat of their energy blades throwing flickering shadows across the durasteel walls.
Kai moved like fire and wind—dodging, weaving, evading—not trying to win, only to delay.
He grunted with effort, parrying another punishing strike, but instead of pressing forward, he stepped back. He could feel the pulsing throb in his injured leg and the tremor in his grip. He wouldn't last much longer like this.
So he adapted.
As Vader lunged in again, bringing his saber down in a deadly vertical slash, Kai suddenly deactivated his blade.
The crimson saber whooshed downward—meeting no resistance—and Vader stumbled forward from the unexpected lack of impact.
Kai sidestepped and twisted around him in a blink, his saber reigniting behind Vader's back with a vicious snap-hiss. He slashed low—not at the Sith Lord—but at a column of coolant piping lining the edge of the hangar. Supercooled vapor burst forth in a scalding, blinding cloud.
Vader turned, cloak sweeping through the mist, but Kai was already moving—limping, yes, but fast—toward the far edge of the hangar.
Beyond the haze, the battered X-wing waited, repainted and stained with grime, its profile barely recognizable as anything but another forgotten relic.
And standing by it was R6, chirping in short, anxious bursts as the engines warmed with a building hum.
Kai skidded behind a support beam as Vader's saber tore through the fog behind him, narrowly missing. He glanced back once—the red glow of the Sith's blade carving through the mist like a hunter's beacon.
Kai didn't need to win.
He only needed to leave.
R6's domed head swiveled toward him as Kai approached, cockpit hatch already open. "Good job, buddy," Kai panted, half-hauling himself up into the seat as the droid clicked and warbled excitedly.
A flash of red behind him—Vader emerging from the smoke, cape trailing like death itself.
Kai slammed the cockpit shut and hit the vertical repulsors. The X-wing roared to life, engines screaming as the ship lurched upward.
Vader raised his hand, reaching—
The ship jolted, shuddering in the air, dragged momentarily by the sheer pull of the Dark Side.
Kai gritted his teeth, channeling every ounce of his will into the Force. "Not today."
A flare of violet light pulsed from the X-wing's stabilizers, the repulsors overloading in a burst of raw power—just enough to break free.
The X-wing shot out of the hangar's upper blast doors, narrowly missing a structural beam as it tore into the Hoth sky, leaving a smoking streak in the air behind it.
Inside the hangar, Vader stood motionless, cape billowing.
His fist clenched slowly at his side.
He had not underestimated Kai Saxon again—but he had still miscalculated.