Author's Note: Wow I've been pretty consistent with the chapter lengths here haven't I? Anyways Rebels had a lot of tonal dissonance so I'll be combining Rebels stuff with some Legends stuff to fix that. And that means doing things with Rebels differently.

Chapter 5: Wound

Sensing Vader's presence in the Force approaching was enough to give Maul pause, however when he also sensed Kenobi along with a second presence which reminded him of Kenobi's old apprentice when he'd first come across the young man, Maul knew he was about to be swarming in enemies.

So instead of trying to take the Bridger boy as an apprentice this time around, Maul decided to cut his losses and see if he could rebuild the Crimson Dawn and seduce the boy over to be his apprentice in a more long term fashion.

As the former Jedi and the boy engaged the remaining Inquisitors, Maul cloaked himself in the dark side and leapt off the pyramid, heading for the Inquisitors' ships.

Aboard the approaching Millennium Falcon, Luke turned to speak to his master.

"Master Be-I mean Obi-Wan...I know what happened on Malachor up until the Exile disabled the Mass Shadow Generator and destroyed the Triumvirate, but you mentioned there'd been an actual pitched battle of Jedi versus Sith here?"

"Indeed, young Luke. Things are...murky about this time period. All I know is that the Great Galactic War resumed for a third time, after period of attempted cooperation called the Eternal Alliance and someone called the Outlander, who is speculated to have been a descendant of Nomi Sunrider. During the third conflict period of the Great Galactic War the Sith Empire under a Sith empress, who, unlike her predecessor Vitiate, is a name lost to history. To cut to the chase she sent a Sith witch to Malachor to reestablish a Sith stronghold and reactivate the super-weapon. The Jedi came to battle to prevent this and it was partially activated in the battle, I have never been here but legends say everyone in the battle was turned to stone."

"Well that's...encouraging," Luke groused, "So what is the objective we are here to reinforce? You didn't tell me much, Master."

Obi-Wan nodded, "I do not know all that much else. Fulcrum's message was vague. I am not sure she knew what more there was specifically, other than a great darkness."

Luke extended his senses out then winced and withdrew them, "Well the darkness is pretty obvious."

"Indeed..." Obi-Wan activated his comm-link, "Captain Solo, get us as close to the pit I pointed out from orbit and lower the landing ramp."

The comm beeped and an incredulous voice responded, "Uh...if you insist, I don't know what kind of space wizard trick you're gonna pull here but I've got a bad feeling about this."

There were a few clicks and whirrs behind them as TS-11 readied his load-out, "This unit is ready for combat, Commanders."

"Now Luke, according to Fulcrum we are likely to come into conflict with the Grand Inquisitor of the Second Inquisitorius Squad. You are not to engage, Fulcrum and I will handle him. You are to focus on any lower level Inquisitors and your droid should actually hold the loading ramp for our retreat. This is an extraction mission primarily."

For the first time, Luke looked up at his mentor, and saw neither the old and caring old man nor the pained and broken Jedi on the run.

He saw, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, member of the Jedi Council. General of the Clone Armies of the Republic.

With a nod Luke palmed his father's lightsaber and patted his belt to make sure everything else was in place as the Falcon's loading ramp lowered and he began to be able to see out into the crater they were lowering into.

"Aye-aye, General Kenobi. Holding position," with a snap-hiss almost similar to a lightsaber the energy shield of TS deployed and he hunkered down, blaster pointed out.

Luke's eyes were greeted with a strange structure, almost a pyramid, obviously the Sith had created the structure to channel force energy up into the top with Sith Alchemy in order to replicate the Mass Shadow Generator.

On the top two levels there were multiple battles unfolding, and all Luke could see was the colors of the lightsabers.

On the top level two silver bars were clashing with spinning red, and down below blue and green blades clashed with multiple red ones, one set also spinning.

"Hold...hold..." Obi-Wan repeated as they neared, almost within Force Jump range.

"Trust in the Force, Luke. Take below and aid Fulcrum's allies, I will be up top and will signal when we need to retreat back to the ship," With that Obi-Wan leapt off the ramp and his blue lightsaber ignited, joining the fray.

Luke followed soon after, descending into the chaos of the lower level.

With his own blue blade ignited he immediately let the Force flow throughout him, guiding his actions, and without even thinking of it his arm lashed out in a Force Push sending one of the three Inquisitors on this level slamming into the wall, and stunning the hulking man.

This allowed a boy, no older than Luke himself, with a green lightsaber to spin around and block an attack from a lithe female Inquisitor.

"Kanan, I think Ashoka's back-up is here!"

An older Jedi, old enough to have seen the initial Purge Luke thought, grunted in acknowledgment as he struggled to fight seemingly with a helmet over his eyes.

Luke quickly moved to engage the brutish Inquisitor he had sent into the wall as his new companions were able to re-engage their own foes, now one on one once again.

It was here in combat, deep in the Force, that Luke for the first time felt the true depth and nature of lightsaber combat.

Against Hett he had been incredibly outmatched, but here on Malachor, against this Inquisitor, he was dominating.

The gray-skinned humanoid was slow, unrefined, and all brute strength. He used the barest semblance of Djem-so in his attacks and Luke easily wove around them with the elegant and unified form of Niman.

The problem was, even bolstered by the Force, he was going to have to get an actual lightsaber strike in to do any damage, because he'd gotten a Force-enhanced elbow strike and a similar kick in and done nothing.

And the frustrating Inquisitor was always just barely quick enough to get his lightsaber up.

Well, he was quick enough to block one lightsaber.

With a grin, Luke backflipped away from the man and slightly shifted his stance and held out his left hand just above his hip.

"Fancy moves, child, but what do you expect to do? I am so much stronge-"

His words were cut off as Luke's second lightsaber, leapt into his hand and ignited into a brilliant silver blade, similar to Ashoka's, and the young man leapt forward with dazzling speed, blue and silver blades whirling.

A high block, a middle block, a grunt from the Inquisitor as a glancing blow seared his forearm. Backed right into the wall he ignited the other end of his multi-form lightsaber, but it simply wasn't enough. He was even more unwieldy with the multi-form due to his size and eventually Luke slammed both of his blades into the lower blade of the multi-form and used his opponent's lack of balance to drive his own secondary lightsaber blade into his gut.

"Uck!" The dark side user let out as he stared up into Luke's eyes and saw not an angry and impassioned warrior about to end his life, but a detached and sad look that showed regret for what he was about to do.

As Luke turned around to help Fulcrum's crew finish off their own opponents and Fifth Brother's head rolled over to the edge of the step pyramid there was a call out from above.

"Luke, Ghost crew, fall back to the Falcon! They have their own reinforcements, we will finish up here!"

Luke quenched his second blade and motioned for the other two men to follow, "Come on, disengage! You heard the General!" They certainly wouldn't know who his master was, but dropping his master's rank on them might get them moving.

The younger man easily disengaged and began running to the side closest to the Falcon, which was now coming around and in closer, loading ramp lowered and TS's blaster bolts firing down with precision to force the Inquisitors to focus on deflection. Luckily with his shield deployed, reflected blaster bolts were not a problem for him. Though it appeared as if the Inquisitors only had minor talent in that area, both opting to instead spin their multi-form blades to simply send the shots ricocheting off into the darkness.

As the three of them neared the edge to make the jump there was a scream of agony and then a woman's voice called out from above, "Kanan I'm sending Hera and the Ghost our rendezvous coordinates! We have to get out of here before Vader arrives!"

The two forms of Obi-Wan and Fulcrum were seen soaring through the air onto the landing ramp, then the woman continued, "The Grand Inquisitor is down, we can leave and blow this place sky high!"

A joint leap later and soon the loading ramp was closing to the screams of anger from the two living Inquisitors left behind.

However as the Falcon turned to leave after dropping a proton torpedo down into the crater to collapse it and hopefully the temple, they came under fire from a heavily customized TIE-advanced.

"Vader has arrived," Kenobi stated, frowning deeply.

"Luke and Ashoka take the turrets. Captain Solo, I hope you know what you're doing because you need to get us out of the atmosphere and into hyperspace."

Han nodded grimly and started flipping switches, "Alright, buddy. Full speed ahead, and move deflector shield energy to the back to give them more time to blow this guy outta the sky."

Quickly Luke and Ashoka took their places and the turret guns of the Millennium Falcon began to bear down upon Vader, who used the maneuverability of his small craft much to his advantage.

Even dropping deep into the Force Luke and Ashoka could barely get any glancing hits into the shields of the craft, let alone a direct hit that could pierce them.

It was some of the wildest, most skilled, and most intimidating flying Luke had ever seen.

And to Ashoka it was a style that was hauntingly familiar. Something dark and confusing, lingering in the very back of her mind.

Soon the Force guided Luke and Ashoka away from the offensive, instead they slowly began to work in tandem with the Force and each other to place their shots to keep Vader from landing his own, buying Han the time to find a safe hyperspace route towards the rendezvous point.

Eventually the stars began to streak into lines and the Sith Lord was left behind.