Anakin crouched low, breath still, heart a silent drum. The cold hum of the energy gates filled the corridor with a slow pulse.
He didn't move yet.
The Force around him trembled with a sense of inevitability. That same fracture from before, just moments away.
Qui-Gon sat and meditated with his saber ignited besides him.
Obi-Wan paced anxiously and powerless.
Maul stood and waited with calculated patience.
Anakin's mind raced, not with panic, but with purpose.
Ever since his rebirth, since the moment he'd gasped awake in that small room on Tatooine, his connection to the Force had been different.
Clearer.
Not just simpler, but deeper and more grounded than before. The Force was still a vast, untamed mystery, but now he grasped why it had always felt so close, so natural to him.
Why even as a child, he could build machines that others his age couldn't dream of.
Why could he fix anything Watto handed him with such ease?
How could he have flown podracers and starfighters with reflexes and instincts no normal human should possess?
While others saw a gifted boy, tinkering with machines, fixing parts, flying through Boonta Eve and space like a prodigy, Anakin had been practicing something else entirely.
Mechu-deru.
He does not know the name of the technique he was using. He hadn't learned this from any ancient Sith holocron or Jedi scroll. He only knew the feeling. The way machines responded to him, not just as tools, but as extensions of thought, of will.
Long before he even knew what it was, he had already begun using small traces of it. In the podracer he built from Watto's scrap. In all the old engines and hyperdrives, he tuned with his eyes closed. In C-3PO's wiring, he felt where a faulty input would short before it ever sparked. He hadn't been manipulating machines through effort.
He had been listening to them, feeling their pulse through the Force.
It was subtly guiding him.
Not just how to build or fix, but how to listen.
How to reach.
The Force had never whispered the name of the technique to him, it had only shown him the path. And he had followed it, not to control machines, but to become one with their song.
Only when he entered the podrace for the second time did he finally realize.
The moment he let go and just followed the will of the Force had he felt Sebulba's engine and intake begin to shudder with stress. He could feel the vibration of metal in his mind, the strain of circuits too tightly bound, the crack in coolant flow patterns like a ripple in still water.
He was tracing the pulse of fusion engines in his mind, each hum of energy, like a heartbeat he could feel without touching. Each part laid bare to his awareness.
Ever since that moment, every machine, droid, and starship he encountered, whether aboard Queen Amidala's cruiser to Coruscant or fine-tuning Threepio, it all became a part of his training.
This was why he spent most of his time meditating to ship engines hum and letting his consciousness drift through mechanical systems.
Even back in the hangar, alone in the cockpit of the N-1 starfighter, he'd meditated not on battle or destiny, but on the navigation systems pulsing beneath his hands.
The Force had always been guiding him, and now, with the clarity of hindsight and the patience of someone who knew he was walking a narrow path toward fate, Anakin had seized that thread and followed it relentlessly.
He tuned into them with precision as if the machines were speaking to him in a voice the Jedi had never bothered to hear. At least, not as consciously as he has.
The Force didn't just live in people, in minds, in emotions.
It lived in everything.
He now knew why the Jedi had called him powerful, even dangerous.
Because his talent was not just with the Force.
His talent was being the actual extended part of the Living Force itself.
And now.
That path had brought him here.
There was no duel. No Sith, no Jedi.
Only logic pulses and the sound of power coils humming. A control node tucked in a junction panel twenty meters back, feeding the timing of the gates. He followed the pattern.
Ten seconds open, Ten seconds closed, on repeat.
It was the energy door system.
He reached out with the Force. Issuing a command to the system.
And the gate system answered.
Click.
A beat skipped.
The next energy gate hissed open, and held.
Another gate held open.
And another.
Obi-Wan's head turned. He noticed the odd change, but pushed his thoughts aside as he sprinted to his master's side.
Qui-Gon stood slowly, sensing the change as the gate behind him opened, allowing Obi-Wan to reach him.
The two of them were together again.
Even Maul stiffened, and his yellow eyes snapped wide. Not out of fear, but his careful calculations and planning have gone to waste. His predator's instinct and gaze had suddenly become uncertain. He took a slow step back, he had lost control of the battle.
The trap he had set had suddenly shifted.
'Now, ' Anakin thought.
He simply pushed, palming the floor, sending a subtle pulse to misalign the magnetic field emitters in one final junction.
The last gate, the one separating Maul from Qui-Gon, flickered.
Then vanished.
It would appear to the others like a system glitch… an error. But in that split-second anomaly, destiny cracked
The corridor exploded into motion, a symphony of heat and light.
Qui-Gon rose in a single breath, no hesitation, his lightsaber leaping into his hand like a memory rekindled. Obi-Wan fell into position at his Master's side, movements crisp with training, honed instinct, and raw urgency.
Together, they instantly closed the distance.
Twin arcs of green and blue carved through the air, flanking, pressing, overwhelming.
And for the first time, Darth Maul faltered.
His double-bladed saber spun in a vortex of crimson fire, his body twisting into a dance of rage, but the rhythm he had crafted, the trap he had orchestrated with such brutal precision, was broken.
His control slipped, just slightly. But in battle, slightly was everything.
Still hidden in silence, Anakin started backing towards the hangar.
His breath was steady.
He had already done what mattered most.
A single moment reclaimed.
A moment that was the difference between a Master's death and a future unwritten.
And that would be enough for now.
He still has a battleship to destroy.
Maul reeled as his twin blades scraped against the walls, clashing with pipework and durasteel.
Driving Maul back with sheer weight and presence, Qui-Gon pressed on. The Jedi Master's form Ataru had evolved, more focused, precise, and advancing with blade sweeping low, then high.
Obi-Wan flanked, tight and controlled, his Soresu flowing like water around Maul's strikes. He timed his attacks to Qui-Gon's rhythm, exploiting every feint, every stagger, every opening. Together, they pressed Maul toward the edge of the walkway.
Crimson clashed against blue and green, heat sparking off the walls, their blades moving too fast for the eye to follow.
Maul snarled, teeth bared, his saber spinning in desperate arcs. The twin blades were no longer an advantage, they were too long. With each swing, he risked overextension. With each turn, the narrow footing betrayed him.
And the Jedi were relentless.
He twisted, flipped over a low slash, brought both ends of his saber down in a crushing overhead cross, blocked by both Jedi at once.
A scream of metal.
Qui-Gon drove forward.
Obi-Wan mirrored him.
Maul stumbled.
His back hit the wall.
Nowhere left to go.
He growled, rage pulsing through every fiber of his body. The dark side swelled to meet it, roaring in his chest, igniting his limbs with violent clarity.
'They were supposed to be divided!' With a snarl, Maul turned his full fury on Obi-Wan.
He dropped low, twisted, and swept out with his saber in a deceptive feint. Obi-Wan leaned into the block, expecting a midstrike, but Maul's blade retracted in an instant, reversed in a flick of his wrist, and slashed up in a cruel arc.
Obi-Wan's scream was sharp and immediate.
His lightsaber flew from his hand.
His left hand, severed just above the wrist, hit the ground with a dull thunk, steam rising from the cauterized stump.
"Obi-Wan!" Qui-Gon roared.
Maul turned, expecting a break in rhythm, and smiled at his success.
Instead, he met the full force of a Jedi Master's barrage.
Qui-Gon attacked, not with blind anger, but with unrelenting will. His strikes came heavy, measured, and final.
There was no more room for defense, no space for tricks. Maul blocked one…two…three blows, then faltered under the fourth.
Qui-Gon stepped through his guard.
And drove his saber forward.
It pierced through the Zabrak's side.
Maul's eyes went wide.
The next strike came from the side, a clean left arc.
Qui-Gon's blade sliced cleanly through Maul's torso, bisecting him at the waist.
For a breathless second, Maul stood frozen, the sear of the blade still echoing in the air.
Then his body collapsed in two, and the pit welcomed him.
His severed form tumbled silently into the abyss, the red light of his saber flickering like a dying star as it spun into darkness.
Silence fell.
Only the hum of lightsabers remained, joined by the distant sound of blaster fire echoing through the palace.
Qui-Gon deactivated his saber slowly, breathing hard, his shoulders rising and falling.
He turned to Obi-Wan, already on his knees, cradling his wound, pale but conscious.
"I'm fine," Obi-Wan muttered through gritted teeth. "Just… hurts like hell."
Qui-Gon knelt beside him and helped stabilize the arm. "You'll live."
Obi-Wan gave a dry chuckle. "Thanks to you."
Qui-Gon didn't answer immediately. His gaze drifted toward the shaft, toward the dark void where Maul had fallen.
Qui-Gon looked back toward the exit.
"Come. We're not finished yet."
And together, battered but alive, they rose.
Before the timely defeat of Maul Anakin emerged from the shadows of the corridors. The echo of ignited sabers was gone, as he rounded the final corner back toward the hangar. It was there that he met a familiar astromech rolling toward him with a series of cheerful chirps and beeps. R2 was clearly excited and relieved to see him again.
Anakin smiled faintly, crouching to greet him.
"Told you I'd be back," he said, his voice low but resolute. "Come, we have work to do."
Without another word, he led the astromech toward the waiting N-1 starfighter. The vessel shimmered beneath the hangar lights, still warm from its last flight, its systems sleeping but ready.
As Anakin leapt into the cockpit, R2 trundled up the droid socket lift and slotted in with practiced ease, the interface panel lighting up in response. Across the hangar, C-3PO looked up from a console and tilted his head in confusion.
"Master Anakin? Oh great heavens! I was so worried!"
"I thought you were, oh my, is that Artoo?" His steel hands flailed slightly as he stepped forward, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.
"Master Anakin, where are you going? I don't believe you're authorized…"
The rest of his protest vanished in a roar of repulsorlift engines flaring to life. Anakin gripped the handle, eyes forward, jaw set.
The starfighter lifted from the hangar deck with smooth precision, wind rushing through the open hangar doors. C-3PO flinched as the N-1 blasted forward, vanishing into the bright sky beyond.