Sol's holding cell was the nicest prison she had ever been in. During the clone wars, Sol experienced a handful of prison cells when missions turned sour. They were always in dungeons and were of the lowest hygienic standards. But Sol was never imprisoned for long, as Anakin or Obi-wan would arrive to save the day. Whether it was through 'peaceful' negotiations or with an explosion acting as a distraction, the rusted bars would cease to hold Jedi Master Sol as a prisoner.

But on Admiral Thrawn's star destroyer, Sol's prison cell was sleek. With slanted grey walls to meet at the highest point of the ceiling, the floor was tiled with black vinyl. Without the luxury of proper heating in the cell block, Sol refrained from taking her boots off when walking around. Not that she walked often, as her cell was only four metres in length and width. But when Sol's legs fell asleep, she would have to attempt some exercise, and the cold tiles and the lack of blankets on the grey slab that was her bed made for an uncomfortable experience.

After a night in the cell, Sol studied the sliding door that could be her escape. When the storm troopers left her the previous day, she heard the latches lock where the door connected with the wall. There was no doubt a keypad of some sort was on the other side, but much to Sol's dismay, the troopers left the Force-restraining cuffs on her wrists. She couldn't search the inner workings of the lock nor search the keypad with the Force.

But Sol couldn't give up, when her own starfighter was in the hanger of the destroyer. Her getaway was still onboard and there had to be another way for Sol to escape her cell and make it to the hanger. But the destroyer was large, and her lightsaber had never been returned to her. Sol was sure that Darth Vader still held her weapon on his belt, but she had escaped situations without her lightsaber before. But the situation was drastically different, as she was intending to escape an Imperial star destroyer where the leader of the Galactic Empire was onboard and incharge of her detainment.

Darth Vader. Sol couldn't believe that she had been captured, and it was at Darth Vader's hand. She had spent years fearing his wrath all while imagining what it would be like to see who Anakin Skywalker had become. His Force signature had been exactly what Sol had thought it would be, and she didn't like to see how little remained of Anakin's orange warmth. And the suit that the Sith wore was beyond what Sol thought she would ever see him in.

But it was that mask that chilled her the most. Sol was torn between wondering in curiosity what was underneath, and fearing what she would see. After the Emperor prompted the vision of Sol and Anakin on the balcony on Naboo, Sol was reminded of the reason why so many women hounded after the Skywalker. 

She remembered the young Padawans that would giggle when he walked by, and why Sol found herself jealous when in the presence of tall, blonde, attractive women. Anakin was always handsome with his smoldering eyes, high cheekbones and chiseled features. The scar that he earned from their rescue mission of the then Chancellor only added to his rebellious look of curly, light brown hair and his forever glaring gaze.

Did the mask hide the burns that Anakin suffered from Mustafar? None of the Empire seemed to know who was underneath, so was it to hide his Jedi past? Or was it just to intimidate?

The door to the cell hissed as it slid open. Sol jumped up from her laying position on her solid bed. At the sight of the black leather and reflective black mask, Sol rushed to stand and faced her back to the wall.

Darth Vader ducked his head to enter the cell and Sol attempted to pull at the restraints around her wrists. She had tried to break their hold already and knew there was no way of freeing herself with sheer strength. But at the sight of Darth Vader in her cramped cell, Sol's instinct to defend herself made it so that her wrists pulled at the restraints for one final time.

Vader stopped, his figure blocking the open door. Sol didn't dare try to step around him to escape. She had seen what his power could do to a helmet of beskcar, so there was no telling what it could do to her exposed flesh or bones. Instead, Sol stood with her wrists together and her jaw tight.

'Are you prepared for your training?' the deep voice sounded through Vader's vent. Sol's eyebrows flew up and her lips parted.

'Training? For what?'

Sol straightened when Vader took steps towards her. She couldn't back away with the wall being behind her and she was forced to crane her neck up to look at the mask that stared down at her soullessly. 

When Vader paused in his walk, he was a breath away and Sol swallowed. She didn't feel the same serenity she used to when in Anakin's presence, and she even had to look to the wall to escape the intensity of his breathing and stare.

'For your induction to the dark side,' he said, before his hand jutted out.

She gasped when his fingers enclosed around her bicep. Sol was shoved out of the cell with Darth Vader's gloved hand forcing her to walk beside him. She was manhandled into the hall, where her cell door closed behind them, and Vader proceeded to walk with a quick stride. If there was one thing that hadn't changed, it was the pace at which he walked that Sol always struggled to keep up with.

Vader's boots thudded against the floor as he brought Sol down hallways and past workmen. Sol had no choice but to unevenly jog to prevent falling on her face, and the restraints on her wrists made it so that she had no momentum to assist her pace. 

She made several attempts to yank her arm from Vader's grip, but it was made of iron. She knew that it wasn't flesh beneath the gloves, but bionic digits that had the ability to lock into place unlike a human hand. Her movements were futile, and it only made her break what stride she did have, making Sol's boots squeak against the tiles in small stumbles.

Not once did Vader urge her to keep up or forcefully yank her upwards when she stumbled. Although firm, Vader's grip wasn't painful, and although he pulled Sol, he slowed when she would trip. But he kept his head high and ignored the workmen and storm troopers that bowed or saluted in his direction. No one interrupted him in his pursuit or acknowledged the Jedi who he pulled along the halls. They respected their leader in their ranks before continuing on their way to lodge reports and attend performance reviews.

Sol was pulled to a halt in front of another door. Much like her cell, a keypad sat on the wall which Vader typed in a series of numbers on the touch screen. She didn't bother to remember the sequence and was pulled into the room that was dimly lit. The door slid closed behind the two, and Sol's bicep was finally released.

Sol created space between them which she thought would earn a reaction. She prepared for Darth Vader to follow her and grab her forcefully, but she was left untouched. Sol glanced around the room to see that the limited light was produced from the corners of the large room. From unseen bulbs, cool beams shot up from the floor and Sol was made aware of how far each corner stretched. Everything else was left in darkness, and Sol wondered if Vader had brought her to see the Emperor again. 

'I trust you remember the Jedi training of sparring,' Darth Vader said, the 'Jedi' sounding as if he would rather be saying anything else.

The Sith's voice made Sol turn to look at him. The man had moved from the door and placed himself in the middle of the room. His black attire made it difficult for Sol to make out his outline, but from the reflective material of his mask, Sol was able to find Vader with a limited search.

Sol said nothing to the Sith's statement. To hear Vader reference their time with the Jedi Order was strange. It was Anakin's memories, but with Vader in his place, Sol couldn't relate the masked man to the Jedi Sol knew. There were no cheeky smiles from Vader, nor the smooth voice of the Skywalker, so to hear Vader talk about the sparring that Sol and Anakin used to do, Sol didn't feel as if she could answer like she knew the Sith personally.

The restraints loosened around Sol's wrists. Her gaze shot down to watch the cuffs fall to the ground with the current between them fizzling into nothing. Her hands were free, and Sol felt a sense of relief. 

She looked through her eyelashes at the culprit, knowing that Vader had been the one to release the restraints. But he didn't look at Sol, and instead reached for the two lightsabers that attached to his utility belt.  

'You used to be skilled in the act of sparring,' Vader said again. 'But that was in the Jedi way. There is no room for Jedi anymore, not while I am here.' 

His red blade ignited. Sol's eyes widened when she realised that Vader was intending to fight her in this room, and not in a friendly act of dueling. 

A Sith dual was not meant to be a learning experience like a Jedi spar. It was meant to be a dire situation, where each opponent fought to win. If someone was hurt, then the offender was the stronger Sith.

While Vader's lightsaber hummed on the other side of the room, Sol caught the shine of the cannister that was thrown her way. She let her arm rise to catch it and felt the cold cynlinder against her gloves. The familiar ridges of her lightsaber's handle sunk into the curves of her palm and Sol pressed its ignition. Her cyan blade appeared, and she was now able to see more clearly in the dim room.

'Show me that you are still a Jedi, Sol,' Vader provoked. 'Show me that you still believe the lies of the fallen Order.' 

Sol didn't see a way of avoiding this battle. On Mustafar, Obi-wan had taken over the fight. On Hoth, Vader had walked away from Sol willingly. On Coruscant, Sol was overpowered by the sheer strength and presence of Vader. But in the dark room of the star destroyer, Sol was going to have to fight Vader in a purposeful dual. Whether there were stakes or not, Sol was terrified to call on her old saber skills as a Jedi.

'Advance, Sol,' Vader provoked again, his tone demanding and his saber still by his side. 'Show me that you are still as strong with the Force as you were.'

Sol did as he asked. It was out of desperation and from a deep desire to leave the room as fast as possible. She held her lightsaber with both hands and raised it to her right, letting the Force power her stride across the room. She hadn't sparred in years, and she didn't know how much of her skill she still had. But with a swing of her weapon, Sol tried to catch Vader by surprise to urge him to take her back to her cell.

The cyan light was blocked. Vader's red blade hissed as it made contact with Sol's, and he reared it back to steer his own attack. Sol diverted her saber to block in a similar fashion to his before a back and forth ensued between the two. 

Sol was out of touch, and she knew it. Instead of using the Force in her steps, Sol panicked whenever Vader would swing his weapon in her direction. In a series of half-formed leaps and twists, Sol tried to avoid the powerful swings of Darth Vader. Every blow was strong, and his objective was to overpower Sol to weaken her pace to be sloppy and slow.

She bent backwards to avoid Vader's one-armed swing and Sol let out a strained yelp when an unexpected attack came from above. Sol was able to raise her saber in time to stop the red from descending into her flesh, but she was caught in a place where she didn't want to be; with Darth Vader over her and his blade pushing down on hers. 

The same ache she felt in her arms in the alleyway on Coruscant returned. Sol was forced to look through her light weapon that buzzed against Vader's red blade with squinting eyes and clenched teeth. Vader had no issue standing over Sol with his arms flexed to push down in an attempt to overwhelm the Jedi. He felt the rush of satisfaction in his muscles at having the upper hand and the dark side boiled at his signature. His desire to win powered his movements and it increased his strength in ways that the light side could never achieve. 

'I know you feel it, Sol,' Vader hummed over the sounds of their connected lightsabers. 'The fear, the helplessness, it'll only destroy you. Let the panic turn to desperation and anger. You want to defeat me; you want to have the power to defend yourself. You want to be strong.' 

Sol couldn't give in like she did last time. No matter how painful the ache was in her arms and no matter how alluring Vader's words were, Sol had to ignore the dark side that was prodding at her fears. 

Her Force signature was breaking free from her unconscious efforts to smother it. The dark side was alerted to its white presence like a hive of bees to a garden. Its quiver of fear and unease was being caressed with the security of the dark, and Sol made a last-minute decision to drop the blanket she held over the flame to focus on her dual. 

Vader watched Sol's signature break free like the way the sun breaks through storm clouds. Its elegance and purity took him by surprise, and the weakening of Vader's stance gave Sol the opportunity to drop onto one knee and slide her saber out from underneath his. At the loss of support from below, Vader stumbled forward, and Sol called to the Force to spin around at a speed that he couldn't match. Sol rose to her feet and powered her lightsaber in a swing that ended by her hip. In a rain of sparks, her blade cut through the metal of Vader's mask. 

Sol took several steps back to create distance between the two. The heat of her lightsaber made the slice through the metal glow a magma orange. With a hammering chest and heaving shoulders, Sol watched in a small victory as Vader fell to one knee at the aftermath of her attack.  

He hadn't expected her signature to douse the Force in white where it blinded him to a point of delirium. For Sol to then slip out from underneath him and slice at his head, her skill was worthy of a moment of rest. Vader let out coughs and splutters as the ventilation of his mask was destroyed, and he let one fist fall to the floor to hold his upper half up. His saber remained in his other hand, suddenly useless as he tried to regulate his changed breathing. 

The redness of the Sith's blade dawned on the side of the broken mask. Sol kept her weapon by her side, but her eyes were wide she caught sight of skin and hair. She could see what lay underneath the split, and the distorted breathing from the vent allowed Sol to hear a human cough.

'Anakin...' she gasped at the sight of the left side of his face. 

Unruly, brown curls peaked out from the cut metal and a heavy brow sat over a blazing, yellow eye. His skin was unscathed, the mask taking the searing hit, and his features sat as they had done five years ago. As his tongue darted out to lick at the corner of his mouth, the face of Anakin Skywalker looked out from beneath the destroyed mask and glared at Sol on the other side of the room. 

'Anakin is gone,' Sol weakened at the sound of his raspy voice. 'I am what remains.'

Sol's bottom lip quivered. It was him. Anakin was underneath, and she could see the same skin, brow, and the corner of lips that she remembered. But the blue eye that went with the features was infected with the sickly yellow of the Sith, and the skin around his eye was dark, almost blackened from a deep purple. The crease that ran underneath his lash line was heavily indented, indicating that even after all these years, sleep never came easy to the man.  

Vader stood from his knee and spun the lightsaber with a rotation of his wrist. The stumble that he had taken was gone from his stance and the Sith stood rigid with a new objective. Sol had shown that she was still skillful, even to the point of landing a blow that severed his means of hiding his identity. His face was visible, and his vision was hindered with one eye seeing through glass, and the other seeing Sol in reality. 

With white knuckles and a trembling heart, Sol watched as Vader reached up to the neck of his mask. He yanked it upwards, covering his revealed left side for a second, before it was on display in its entirety. The hair that was tussled from being flattened and then disrupted fell over his ears, and Vader let out a relieved sigh at being able to breathe evenly. With two red-ringed eyes now fixated on Sol, Vader threw the mask to the floor. It sounded with a loud clang and rolled on its side with its purpose lost.

'It's you... you're still here,' Sol whispered, her hands shaking from the final confrontation.

Even with Sith eyes, the face of Anakin Skywalker stared at her from across the room. In the same black suit, the light brown hair and angled brow that he always wore made Sol's stomach churn, and the urge to weep grew unbearable. His hair was still the same length, and fine lines stretched from where his smile used to appear. He had aged, but Sol didn't care. He wasn't burnt like she had thought, and the scar still remained over his eyebrow. It was Anakin, even if Vader was his new title.

'Ani-'

Vader was across the room before Sol could finish her serenade. The yellow eyes pierced through hers, and the swing of Vader's red lightsaber swing was only just blocked at the last minute. With her saber held up to her left, Sol stood wide-eyed and her mouth agape at seeing Vader's face up close.

Vader's brow was low and his lips were tight. Sol couldn't look away as she began to notice the small changes that five years had done to his face. As if the dark side was playing with her, Sol wanted to admit that Anakin's change into Vader had preserved his looks to be just as alluring yet as devilish as ever. 

'Admit it, Solaris,' he spoke again, her nickname said with his sultry voice making her melt. 'You want this. You want me, just as much as I want you.' 

The buzz of their connected lightsabers faded, and Sol was too involved with the look of Vader to notice that he had lowered their weapons to their sides. She let her arms relax and with her neck craned upwards, Sol was frozen as Anakin's face looked back at her. She couldn't seem to rid herself from the trance she was in, and when she felt Vader's gloved hand cup her cheek, Sol felt that she was being touched affectionately for the first time.

'You will learn, Sol. You will give in, and we will be together and magnificent.' 

Vader's hand rose from her cheek and settled over her forehead. With a call to the dark reaches of the Force, Sol's knees weakened and her eyelids slid shut. Sol was unconscious in an instant and without her grip, her lightsaber sheathed and clattered to the floor. Vader caught her with one arm underneath her back and the other slipping under her knees. His own lightsaber remained clenched in his hand and as he leaned Sol against his chest, Vader realised how he could entice Sol to the ways of the Sith.