I listened to Animal by Troye Sivan and Unholy War by Jacob Banks when I wrote this chapter. Animal makes more sense lyrically for this chapter later on, but the overall vibe of the song worked really well for me. And Unholy War just fits perfectly. :) -LRUF

"Miss us?" The Seventh Sister smirked. Her mask was clicked up, revealing her pale, lifeless features. 

"Hardly," Kanan answered. Both Jedi drew their lightsabers, bathing the eerie temple in multi-coloured light.

"Don't worry," the Fifth Brother replied callously. "You won't be seeing us again alive." 

The two Inquisitors charged, and the Jedi took defensive positions as their enemies attacked. Kanan favouring Form III as he always did, and Dev leaning towards a mix of Form III and Form II.  

Kanan knew well that Form III was a form of lightsaber combat that was mostly for defence. He had never had enough training to be all that great at attacking with it, but he had never quite been able to move past using it. It had been his Master's form. So during their long years of hiding, he had studied the form relentlessly, determined to acquire the skill his Master had achieved with it. 

Hopefully, the little amount of actual practice duelling he had been able to do would be enough. 

The Seventh Sister swung at Kanan, and he blocked it quickly. Quickly glancing over at his son, he noticed that Dev had taken on the Fifth Brother, and was succeeding in keeping him at bay. 

"You can't win this, Jarrus. Our skills have only grown," the Seventh Sister snarled, engaging Kanan in a series of fast swings and stabs that Kanan only barely managed to parry. 

"So have your egos," Kanan remarked coyly before somersaulting over her and lunging forward. His attack was parried effortlessly, and he gritted his teeth before being pushed back into defence. 

Dev blocked the Fifth Brother's strike and rolled between the man's legs before quickly cutting upwards as he rolled. The man barely moved in time to avoid getting sliced where it would really hurt. Spinning back to an upright position, he had to grin at the Fifth Brother's shocked expression. 

"Where did you learn that, petulant boy?" 

"A Holomovie," Dev answered honestly, chuckling before leaping forward to attack, hoping to have the element of surprise on his side. But the Inquisitor parried, seemingly anticipating his every move. Dev began to strike faster, but to no avail. He began to pant, sweat rolling down his forehead. His technical lightsaber skills had improved in hiding, but his endurance had not. Deciding to switch it up, he launched himself into the air and twisted sideways, pulling out his blaster mid-air and shooting off a few rounds before sliding it back in his holster and landing on the other side of the Fifth Brother. But the move had cost him even more energy, and he was dismayed to find the Inquisitor unscratched from his efforts. Sneaking a look at his father, he noticed the same signs of exhaustion taking place. While Kanan's moves became more sloppy and less precise with every passing second, the Seventh Sister never faltered, continuing to press his father deeper and deeper into self-defence. 

"Give up now, and perhaps Lord Vader will spare your pointless life–or make your death painless." The Fifth Brother smiled evilly. 

Dev bared his teeth, gripping his lightsaber tightly. "I've told you before, and I'll tell you again: Never." 

Dev lunged at the Fifth Brother, exhaustingly stabbing at the man's chest with his lightsaber. The man easily stepped away from the strike, and Dev floundered forward due to his momentum. The Inquisitor seized the opportunity, and kicked Dev squarely in the chest. Dev stumbled backward, and the Inquisitor booted him in the chest again, sending the young Jedi's lightsaber flying straight into his enemy's hand. 

Distracted by the loss of his lightsaber, he didn't sense the attack from behind until it was too late. 

The Seventh Sister kicked him in the back of his knees, and he cried out as he collapsed on his knees, in between both of the Inquisitors. He could sense his father running to his aid, but Dev knew he would be too late. 

He was going to die today. 

Something slammed into his wrist from behind. Something cold, not scalding like he expected.

Vibroblade. 

Dev screamed, yanking his hand to his face. His wrist was gushing blood everywhere, and the red liquid began to pour in large volumes onto his clothes and skin. He stared at the deep, fleshy wound in shock. It was, by far, the worst wound he had ever had, and that was saying a lot. Even compared to when Vader had scarred his face with his lightsaber, this was much, so much worse. Is that bone...?  

A crimson beam of light appeared in front of his neck, and Dev stiffened at the heat of the red lightsaber glowing above his neck. Kanan ground to a halt instantly.

Over the past three years, as his bond with his father had grown even greater than before their separation, they had gained the power to telecommunicate through the Force extremely well. He like always joked that he, his father, and Ezra were a family of telepathic Force-sensitives on the run, just like in the old Holomovies.

Are you okay? His father asked urgently.

Peachy. The cut isn't that bad.

He was lying, and Kanan knew it. He was surprised he hadn't lost his hand; his wrist was a cascading waterfall of blood. He winced and looked away, looking to his father instead.

"Let him go." The sound that tore from Kanan's throat was inhuman.

The Seventh Sister laughed, and looked down at her fallen prey, sheathing her vibroblade as she spoke. "I don't think so. Why don't your son and I catch up, Jarrus? I'm sure he remembers me, from all those years ago."

Despite his circumstances, Dev chuckled. "You oughta just kill me now. You'll get nothing out of me."

"Defiant as always. You would do well to remember how your resistance ended for you last time." The Inquisitor smirked at him.

Dev replied with a string of angry swear words and insults.

"Lovely son you have, Jarrus," the Fifth Brother said, coming over to stand behind Dev, who glared at him. "Can you curse in that many languages as well?"

"I'd be more worried about him than me." Kanan replied evenly.

Both Inquisitors laughed at this statement.

"He's a child." The Seventh Sister chuckled.

"You would do well to remember how saying that ended for you last time." Dev mimicked. "How did it? Oh yeah: Me and Mel kicked your guys' butts into fire."

The Fifth Brother proceeded to glare at Dev, but the female just laughed again.

"Ah, yes. The girl. The one I stabbed through, all those years ago."

Dev's eyes flared with both anger and pain and he would have lunged at her, had it not meant his neck being severed.

"I see your anger is as strong as ever," the Seventh Sister smiled cruelly. "It hurts your soul, doesn't it? To know that you will never be free of your past, of your darkness within."

"Shut up," Dev glared at her. He wished his death stare could shoot laser beams at the Inquisitors. Deadly ones, preferably.

Kanan felt a jolt through the Force–Dev was starting to lose control. "Dev–"

"You will never get past it. Just like you will never grow beyond the pain of your girlfriend's death."

"I don't want to get past her death," Dev bared his teeth.

"Dev!" Kanan was starting to panic. In all their years in hiding, he had avoided ever bringing up Mel. He had thought that the best thing was to let Dev mourn in private. But now, he wished he had tried harder to help Dev come to peace with it, because it was obvious that he hadn't.

He felt the dark side swirl around him, but it wasn't currently interested in him. Force, he had been wrong to put Dev's attraction to the dark side aside for the time being. So, so wrong.  

And now, it might cost him greatly. 

"What was she to you, young Dume? A friend.... Or more?" The Seventh Sister leered at him. She leaned close to him. "I think more."

And that was when Dev lost it.

As his roar tore through the air, the ground shook violently, causing everyone to stumble. The two Inquisitors looked at each other, in a mixture of worry and surprise. Kanan just stared at his son as the stone underneath his boots vibrated. He had been right.

The remnants of the dark side had never left his son's soul.

Dev's hands seemed to move of their own accord, stretching out into the air on either side of him. The Force hummed urgently, darkly, around them all.

Kanan had just enough time to scream his son's name and brace himself before the ground split in two. He was sent flying backwards with the force of Dev's powers, and the last thing he thought before his head cracked against a stone pillar and he fell unconscious was that he should have known better than to bring Dev–or Ezra–here.

*************************************

He felt the ground split underneath him. He felt the wind tear at his hair.

None of it compared to the turmoil the Seventh Sister had unleashed inside of him.

He couldn't control what he was doing with the Force right now. He had let it grab him, and now it was controlling him. And he didn't care right now. Until the power faded, he would stay it's vessel. It was the master and he was the puppet on a string, dangling how it pleased.

Eventually, it would fade. He knew it would. It always did.

Dev had experienced similar power surges to this before, when he was training under Darth Vader. However, this was for sure the largest display that he had ever created, and he was certain that it was because of the strength of the dark side here. A Sith Temple after years in hiding? He should have expected it. But he could never have told his father. He could not deal with the shame, the shame that he was not strong enough, that he would likely never be strong enough, to resist the dark side's pull. This may have been the first time since Vader's training that Dev had used the dark side, but he had still used it. And he didn't know how he would face his father after his dad had witnessed his utter failure in controlling himself.

Finally, he felt the dark side's hold on him begin to fade away into the wind. The strength of the dark side, the strength that had occasionally emerged within him since going into hiding, but had never quite surfaced, seemed to seep from his body. As it drained out of him, Dev looked around. He had at some point stood up, and he faced the abyss that he had created in the ground, his hands falling to his sides. On the other side lay the two Inquisitors who had tormented him for all these years, both in real life and in his nightmares. Both were unconscious, and injured, but unfortunately neither was dead. He could sense both of their energies through the Force. They were in pain and temporarily weak, but still their violent hearts beat.

Wait. His heart skipped a beat in fear. Where was his father? He whirled around in utter terror, searching all around him frantically. If he had accidentally killed him, if he had killed his own father....

The relief he felt when he spotted Kanan's body lying on the other side of the chasm, many feet away from the Inquisitors, was indescribable. Even from the distance away he was, he could see his father's chest rising and falling slowly, deeply. He didn't appear injured either; just unconscious. 

He's okay. You didn't kill him. 

He's okay.  

Dev fell forward onto his hands and knees, exhausted from his unintentional exertion of the dark side of the Force. He cried out in utter agony as his injured hand hit the ground, the dark side having temporarily numbed his pain. Tears streamed down his face. This was about more than his hand, more than his use of the dark side, this was about more than the fact that she had died. The reason for the still strong agony was clear. 

He blamed himself for Mel's death.

As Mel had lain on the ground, the life bleeding out of her, gripping his hand with all of her remaining strength, he had felt many things. Anger, despair, hopelessness, pain, anguish. But he had felt something he had never felt before as well: Love. And in a way he had never expected. In that moment, in the moment she was taken away from him forever, he had realized just how much he cared about her. She had been a best friend and a sister to him, but the revelation of the depth of his feelings had awoken just as it was too late. Not only had he been unable to protect her from the Empire, from death, but he had never been able to tell her how he really felt.

That agony of the unspoken truth, the truth that should have helped him protect her, even at the cost of his own life, was an agony that had never dimmed or faded in the slightest.

As Dev knelt on the ground, his father lying unconscious nearby due to Dev's own darkness, he sensed someone approaching. But it was a dark presence, the colour of oblivion amidst all of the grey around him. He didn't have the strength to stand up as black boots stopped right in front of his face. He hated the fact that it likely looked like he was kneeling in submission before whoever it was. He managed to raise his head, and immediately wished he hadn't.

"Dev Dume," the Dark Lord said with something like praise, the Second Brother grinning triumphantly beside him. "You did always gravitate towards the dark side of the Force, even when you weren't my student."

Dev wanted to rebuke the evil man, to shout that what he said wasn't true, to tell him that he was a Jedi, not a Sith.

But he himself didn't believe that Vader was wrong.

Instead, his voice wobbling, he gazed up at the Sith Lord before breathing, nearly pleading, a single word. "Master."

Then, his body and soul drained, he collapsed into a peaceful oblivion.

The battle here was supposed to be fairly quick, as it's Kanan and Dev's first lightsaber duel since going into exile, besides practice duels against each other and Ezra. Of course, their practice duels were in a tiny little basement where there was little room for complex maneuvers, in order to keep their Jedi identity secret on Dantooine, so there wasn't a lot of physical training that they could do. Therefore, the constantly training Inquisitors had the advantage of both endurance and practice. :) 

May the Force be with you,

-LothalRebelUltraFan