Darkness swallowed him. The frigid water seeped through seals in Revan's armor, biting into his skin. His breath rasped harshly inside the mask. He sank, disoriented, until his boots thudded against uneven durasteel grating beneath thick sludge. Above, Skywalker's silhouette was gone, replaced by the jagged hole of light, already dimming as steam condensed. Silence pressed in, broken only by the gurgle of water and distant, muffled explosions from the Temple above. The violet saber's ignition was a reflex, casting a weak, rippling glow through the murk. Debris clogged the flow – shattered droids, unrecognizable refuse, and worse. He kicked upwards, breaching the surface near a crumbling maintenance ledge slick with algae. His limbs felt leaden. Pain flared where the lightning had grounded through his armor.
Shoving the Mandalorian mask's waterlogged filters aside, he gasped stale air. The utility droid's amber beam flickered weakly nearby, scanning the flooded tunnel ahead. "Master... lifesigns detected... downstream. Distance: forty-two meters." Relief warred with urgency. He hauled himself onto the ledge, water cascading from black plates, and scanned the oppressive gloom. The tunnel curved sharply left, choked with debris. Distant splashes echoed – not random, but frantic, panicked. He plunged back into the icy current, forcing his exhausted limbs to push against the sluggish flow, violet blade held high like a failing beacon.
Around the bend, the amber light revealed a scene of precarious survival. The Twi'lek Padawan stood waist-deep in the filthy water, her green saber humming frantically as she deflected floating debris – jagged metal sheets, shattered crates – away from five small forms clinging to a half-submerged conveyor belt mechanism. The Initiates shivered violently, eyes wide with terror, one still clutching the tooka doll like a lifeline. The utility droid buzzed protectively overhead. "Structural instability detected upstream!" it shrilled. The Padawan met Revan's visor, her relief palpable. Behind her, the tunnel groaned ominously; Skywalker's fury echoed through the Force, drawing nearer. Time was collapsing.
He hauled himself onto the rusted conveyor, water sluicing from black plates. The violet blade cast fractured reflections on the churning surface. One Initiate whimpered, pointing upstream where the water surged violently. Debris choked the tunnel's throat – durasteel beams twisted like wire, insulation hanging in sodden curtains. Beyond it, a flicker of unnatural gold light pulsed against the rising steam. *Him.* Hunting. The droid projected a trembling holomap: the waste flow branched fifty meters ahead – one path spiraling deeper into the underlevels, the other surfacing near a decrepit hangar bay. Both pulsed crimson with projected clone patrols. Survival demanded silence, speed, and sacrifice Revan's archives deemed statistically impossible.
The Padawan opened her mouth, perhaps to strategize, to plead, to question the impossible figure before them. Revan cut her off with a single, sharp gesture. His modulated voice, stripped of Revan's ancient resonance, cut through the din of rushing water and distant thunder: **"We need to move."** No explanation. No reassurance. Just raw, undeniable urgency. He plunged back into the icy flow, violet saber held high like a torch against the encroaching darkness, the directive hanging heavy in the steam-choked air. The Twi'lek hesitated only a heartbeat, then shepherded the younglings after him, her green blade weaving a desperate shield against the debris. The conveyor groaned, then buckled, vanishing beneath the black water behind them.
The debris choke loomed ahead – a tangled nightmare of twisted durasteel beams, shattered crates, and glistening insulation cables draped like rotten vines across the tunnel's throat. Water surged against it, spraying high into the steam. Beyond it, the pulsing golden light grew brighter, sharper, radiating pure, predatory intent. Skywalker was close. Too close. Panic threatened to freeze the Padawan, her breath catching as she scanned the impassable wall. Revan stopped before it, water swirling around his waist plates. **He didn't hesitate.** **He raised his black-gloved hand, fingers splayed towards the mangled barrier.** Concentration, fierce and desperate, replaced Revan's effortless command. He wasn't manipulating space; he was *brute-forcing* physics. He visualized the weakest load-bearing beam, felt its stress fractures through the Force like cracks in glass. With a low, guttural sound amplified by the mask, he poured borrowed power into a focused, violent *shove*. Not elegant telekinesis, but demolition. The targeted beam screamed, tearing loose with a shriek of tortured metal. Cascades of smaller debris followed, crashing down in a thunderous roar, momentarily widening a jagged gap just large enough to squeeze through. **The wave of displaced water slammed into them, nearly sweeping an Initiate away.** The Padawan lunged, grabbing the child, her cry lost in the chaos. "Go! NOW!" Revan barked, already pushing the first youngling towards the precarious opening, violet blade held low to illuminate the treacherous path through shifting wreckage.
He stood sentinel at the breach, water surging past his armored legs. The golden light was blinding now, painting the steam above in hellish hues. He felt Skywalker's approach vibrate through the water itself – a tremor of pure, focused annihilation. Debris shifted violently behind him; the Padawan was pushing the last Initiate through. **Revan kept his hand raised, fingers splayed toward the collapsing gap.** Not retreating. Not waiting. Calculating Skywalker's exact point of emergence. The water boiled. A dark silhouette materialized through the churning murk and steam, molten eyes locking onto his armored form. **Instincts screamed.** Kyber crystals shrieked in unison. His outstretched palm snapped forward.
**Blue-white lightning erupted not *from* his fingertips, but *through* his armored palm – a jagged, shrieking lance of pure Force energy ripped raw from Skywalker's own assault moments before.** It wasn't Sith sorcery; it was desperation weaponized. The bolt slammed into Anakin's chestplate with the force of a seismic charge. The crackle drowned out the roaring water. Skywalker convulsed mid-stride, golden eyes wide with shock and incandescent agony. Durasteel blackened and melted instantly beneath the impact point. He staggered backward, boots sliding on sludge, momentarily pinned by the unexpected counter-onslaught. Steam hissed violently where the lightning grounded into the filthy water around him.
The moment cost Revan dearly. Searing pain lanced up his arm as the borrowed energy tore through conduits not meant to channel it. Inside the mask, his vision blurred crimson. Yet he held the torrent, forcing Skywalker back step by stumbling step. Behind him, the last gasp vanished through the breach. He saw Anakin's snarl twist from pain into volcanic fury. The Dark Side surged anew, pushing against the lightning stream. Revan's arm trembled violently. Circuits inside his vambrace spat sparks. He couldn't hold. He *wouldn't*. With a final, wrenching shove, he redirected the remnants of the lightning burst downward into the water at Skywalker's feet. Steam exploded upward in a scalding pillar, obscuring the Sith Lord completely.
Revan turned, plunging through the jagged opening without looking back. The violet blade ignited, casting frantic light on a scene of frantic flight. The Padawan was urging the younglings down a narrow service ledge slick with grime. Distant shouts echoed – clones converging. Above them, the breached debris groaned violently. Skywalker's enraged roar, muffled but primal, shook loose rust from the ceiling. Revan landed heavily on the ledge, grabbing the rearmost Initiate as a chunk of durasteel plummeted where the child had stood seconds before. **"Run!"** his modulator rasped, the word swallowed by the thunder of Skywalker tearing the obstruction apart. His violet blade became their sole guide, carving a path through dripping darkness toward the faint, distant promise of the hangar bay. The lightning's echo still burned in his bones.
He heard the rending screech behind him – Skywalker tearing through the ruined choke point like flimsiplast. Steam boiled outward in a wave. Revan didn't glance back. He shoved the Padawan and younglings ahead into a wider junction where corroded pipes hissed overhead. The utility droid zipped ahead, scanning frantically. "Primary egress vector compromised! Secondary route... active thermal detonation signatures detected!" Its voice was drowned by Skywalker's footsteps echoing closer – deliberate, heavy, resonant with wrath. Revan positioned himself at the tunnel mouth, facing the steam-choked darkness he'd just fled. He flicked off the violet saber. Silence fell, thick with anticipation. Only the frantic breaths of the Padawan and the dripping water broke the quiet. He stood alone, a black silhouette against the faint emergency strips reflecting off pooled water.
Then, the steam parted. Anakin Skywalker emerged. Molten gold eyes burned in the gloom, his scorched chestplate still smoking faintly. His blue blade ignited with a scream of kyber fury, bathing the tunnel junction in cold, unforgiving light. His gaze locked onto Revan's impassive mask. Pure, unadulterated hatred radiated from him, twisting the air itself. Revan felt it like physical pressure. Slowly, deliberately, **Revan raised his armored right hand. Not to ignite his saber. Not to unleash Force power. Instead, his gloved fingers snapped crisply to his helmet's brow ridge in a sharp, exaggerated salute – the mocking gesture of a departing soldier acknowledging a futile pursuit.** The silence stretched, charged. Skywalker froze, his fury momentarily crystallized into icy disbelief. The dark armor, the Mandalorian mask, the insolent defiance –
**Revan didn't wait for the eruption.**
As Skywalker's roar of incandescent fury shook loose grime from the ceiling, Revan pivoted on his heel and sprinted after the Padawan and younglings. The crimson blade ignited in his left hand with a hungry *snap-hiss*, joining the violet's hum as he carved a path through corroded piping and dangling cables. Behind him, Skywalker's charge shattered the junction floor where Revan had stood, sending shrapnel ricocheting off his backplate. The Padawan's green blade flickered ahead, guiding Initiates around a collapsing gantry. Revan felt Skywalker's pursuit like a vibroblade against his spine – closer, closer, the Dark Side coiling to crush him.
**The name tore through the steam-choked darkness, a venomous hiss that pierced the chaos:** ***"REVAN!"***
It wasn't a shout. It was a curse, a blade of pure hatred honed by Skywalker's unraveling sanity. The Force itself recoiled at the sound. Revan faltered mid-stride. Not from fear, but from the *weight* of it – the millennia of dread, betrayal, and war carried in that single syllable. His borrowed reflexes dissolved. His muscles locked. Crimson and violet blades sputtered as he stumbled against a dripping conduit, the world tilting. Inside the mask, his own breath roared, drowning out the Padawan's cry of alarm. Skywalker's molten eyes glowed through the gloom, twenty meters back and closing fast, triumph twisting his scarred face. The name wasn't just spoken; it was a Sith chain snapping tight around Revan's soul.
**He fell.**
Not to his knees, but into memory – *Revan's* memory. The Mandalorian Wars. The taste of ash on Malachor V. The sting of Vitiate's betrayal. The agony of the Mind Bomb. It flooded him, a tidal wave of borrowed anguish that blurred the present into fractured holocrons. His body sagged against the conduit, sabers dipping, sparks showering the wet floor. Skywalker's blue blade lunged, a killing thrust aimed for his exposed neck joint. The Padawan screamed. The utility droid shrieked a proximity warning. Time slowed. Revan saw only the burning gold eyes of the Jedi he'd failed, the Sith he'd become, the monster he'd unleashed – all reflected in Anakin Skywalker's gaze.
**The violet saber moved.**
Not by his will, but by the ghost of a General who'd faced despair on a thousand battlefields. It whipped upward in a desperate, instinctive parry, meeting Skywalker's thrust centimeters from Revan's throat. The impact rang like a funeral bell, scattering blinding sparks. Pain jolted Revan back into the present – the *real* present, with terrified younglings and a hangar bay somewhere ahead. He shoved forward off the conduit, boots sliding on sludge, forcing Skywalker's blade aside with sheer, grinding momentum. "RUN!" he snarled at the Padawan, his voice raw through the modulator. He didn't see the green blade vanish into a side tunnel. He saw only Skywalker's snarl, the blue saber already whirling for another decapitating strike. Survival was a heartbeat away. Redemption was buried under the rubble of the Jedi Temple.
**Than his instincts unlocked.**
The crimson saber ignited in his left hand, not as a weapon, but as a shield – a blazing counterpoint to the violet. Revan's *true* reflexes flooded him, cold and precise as durasteel. He wasn't blocking Skywalker; he was *dancing* with him. Sidestep the thrust. Deflect the follow-up slash toward the dripping ceiling pipes. Feel the Dark Side's surge not as terror, but as *fuel*. Skywalker pressed, relentless, his strikes a blur of blue fury. Revan yielded, pivoting backwards through the maze of hanging cables and corroded machinery, using every obstacle as terrain. The saberstaff forms of Darth Revan flowed like poisoned water – Juyo's aggression tempered by Makashi's elegance. Each deflection wasn't just defense; it was a subtle redirect, forcing Skywalker's power to shatter conduits or shear support beams, filling the tunnel with steam and falling debris. He wasn't hiding anymore. He was *hunting* the hunter. The borrowed name ceased to be a mask. It became his armor. His purpose. Darth Revan lived.
**He embraced the abyss.**
With a twist of his wrists, Revan unleashed a kinetic wave borrowed not from the Light, but from Malachor's shadow. It wasn't a push; it was a localized gravity *shear*. The tunnel floor beneath Skywalker buckled violently upwards. Durasteel groaned. Anakin staggered, his footing lost on the suddenly uneven ground. Revan didn't press the attack. He flowed *backward*, deeper into the tunnel towards the distant whine of starship engines. His crimson blade traced a contemptuous arc through the steam – a silent challenge thrown over his shoulder. The violet blade remained low, humming defiance. The air crackled with ozone and hatred. Skywalker's enraged roar shook loose rust from the ceiling as he righted himself, molten eyes burning through the gloom. Revan felt the Dark Lord's fury sharpen into cold, focused intent. Good. Let him chase. Let him *bleed*.
**The hangar bay doors loomed.**
Ahead, through a final archway choked with fallen girders, emergency strips illuminated a cavernous space littered with burning wreckage – Lambda shuttles gutted by turbolaser fire, a half-crushed ARC-170 spewing acrid smoke. Clone squads moved amidst the chaos, securing exits. The Twi'lek Padawan crouched behind a scorched fuel pod, green saber unlit, shielding the younglings pressed against its hot metal. Revan's droid hovered frantically above them, projecting a pulsing escape vector: a lone, barely flightworthy Consular-class diplomatic ship, its boarding ramp lowered fifty meters across open ground. Death waited in that gap. Skywalker's footsteps pounded closer, a relentless drumbeat of doom. Revan deactivated his violet saber, plunging the archway into near-darkness save for Skywalker's approaching blue glare. Only the crimson blade remained ignited, bathing Revan's Mandalorian mask in hellish light as he braced himself against the crumbling durasteel frame. One path. One chance. Darth Revan smiled beneath the mask. "Time to fly."