The railcar slowed and came to a stop.
Ahsoka found herself (how many times already in recent times?) in a well-lit chamber, large enough to accommodate a sizable transport ship, but the only thing in this room was the end of the rail line, which curved in a loop, allowing the automated car to return along the same path.
"Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, the scenery is all the same," sighed the Togruta, adjusting the oxygen mask on her face and leaping lightly above the surface.
The gravity inside the asteroid, which had become both her home and training center (no-no-no, don't even think about recalling the Jedi Temple where she grew up and honed her skills), was significantly weaker than in the living quarters.
Because, naturally, no one had installed artificial gravity generators here.
She reached the bottom of the cave, absorbing the weak impact with bent legs, then shot up several meters, after which she looked around, making sure she saw no enemies, and allowed gravity to reclaim its rights over her body.
Ahsoka descended smoothly to the cave floor, turned toward the dark corner of the chamber where, just a few meters from the curved section of the rails, there was a huge rounded slab of rock.
"Master!" she called, well aware that Vectivus would hear her. "I'm ready."
A man emerged from behind this slab.
This time he was tall and gaunt, clad in a black-and-gold traveling cloak that resembled a Jedi's but was made of expensive silk.
A lightsaber hung from his belt, its hilt also in a black-and-gold scheme.
He wore gloves on his hands, and his face was hidden in the deep shadow of his hood, with only his glowing eyes visible in that shadow—molten gold in color.
He stopped right at the edge of the slab, several meters from Ahsoka, and bowed ceremonially.
"I suppose I should stop being surprised by how many faces you have, shouldn't I, Master?" Ahsoka voiced the rhetorical question.
Vectivus's latest phantom looked at her disdainfully.
"And why should I take you seriously?" he asked.
The hooded man's words came out like a whisper.
But Ahsoka heard them.
"Here come the philosophical musings and debates again," the Togruta thought sadly. "And I came here for a fight!"
"What do you mean?" the girl asked.
"I am a master," Vectivus reminded her. "You are a Jedi Knight. I am stronger than you. Why should I waste my time fighting such a worthless entity?"
"Now that was just rude and uncouth," Ahsoka narrowed her eyes, hurling her blade at the figure.
The glowing lightsaber passed right through the spot where the figure had just been.
Obeying a mental command, the hilt returned to her palm.
And the figure reappeared in the same place.
"Nice to be a phantom," Ahsoka assessed. "Intangible means you won't get hurt."
"I am a phantom," Vectivus agreed. "I am not here. And I am here. Right in front of you."
"I've noticed," Ahsoka twirled her weapon in her hand, then pressed the activation button on her lightsaber with her right thumb. "Well, I suppose now I should just cut you in half."
"Aren't you afraid?" the phantom clarified.
"Why should I fear you?" the Togruta asked with a mocking chuckle, making a quick sliding step forward and to the right, then forward and to the left, after which she pressed the tip of her blade right against the neck of the ghostly entity.
"You promised to teach me," she reminded him, leaning in a bit lower. "So far, you've only taught me to get irritated and reinforced my skills. Tell me, oh Master, how exactly will this help me destroy an entity capable of living after death?"
"To kill, first you must understand if you're truly ready to do it," the phantom said. "What will stop you from the decisive strike? What will change your mind? What makes you vulnerable?"
"And do you have other guesses as to why I've been stuck on this Force-forsaken rock for a month now, listening to a long-gone Sith Master's phantom prattle on about his great art?" Ahsoka inquired. "Do you Sith always fool simpletons like this? Promise power, but deliver nothing but a waste of personal time?"
Vectivus did not respond to the jab.
The gleam of the Sith's orange-gold eyes vanished—and then, like a ghost, the "mentor" himself disappeared.
But behind the spot where he had stood, there was a faint rustle, and another figure stepped into the open.
This opponent was tall, moderately sturdy, dressed in black.
From his movements, Ahsoka could tell that the enemy was well-built, hence strong and fast.
He wore black pants, tunic, boots, and gloves, and held a deactivated lightsaber in his hand.
But, unlike Vectivus's previous guise, this figure had no hood, and his facial features were visible even in the dim cave lighting.
And that face...
"Rude of you, Master," Ahsoka muttered, watching as the phantom of Obi-Wan Kenobi, stroking his beard with the index and middle fingers of his left hand, flashed golden eyes and assumed the characteristic stance of Form III, Soresu.
The Togruta, gripping her own blade in a reverse hold that orthodox Jedi viewed so skeptically, smirked, looking straight into the apparition's eyes.
"I know people who would pay a pretty credit for a chance to see this fight for real," she said.
The phantom did not reply.
Without further thought, Ahsoka launched into the attack.
***
Vex was cleaning her blaster and pretending that the clash of lightsabers didn't concern her in the slightest.
Crimson and violet lightsabers crashed against each other with unprecedented fury, turning the silence of the training hall into the roar of battle, which she couldn't even follow.
So the Twi'lek stopped paying attention to the sparring pair (though it had stopped resembling a training session an hour ago).
She tended to her own business and ignored the sentients who were clearly trying to kill each other.
"Clean my rifle too," a pale-skinned bitch with an arrogant gaze and a mane of red hair tied at the nape plopped down heavily beside her. "Be useful for something, girl."
She languidly threw her legs up onto the maintenance table, then shoved the elegant casing of her favorite toy right in front of Vex.
The Night Stinger sniper rifle.
"Rancor up your nostrils, Sing," Vex forced a smile onto her face that Reynar called "blatantly infuriating" and favored the Dark Councilor with a look that, unfortunately due to nature's whims, she couldn't kill with. "I'll shove that antenna sticking out of your head deeper into your skull right now. Get those legs and your rifle off my workspace pronto."
"Make me, girl," Sing said haughtily. "I'll break you in a dozen ways."
The Twi'lek was about to fire back with a few sweet nothings when she felt a heavy, slightly damp but firm hand land on her shoulder.
It suddenly felt cozier, somehow.
And a dreamy spark lit up in the sniper's eyes, nearly turning the girl with the lekku inside out.
"Find another target for your mockery, Orra," Reynar said quietly but authoritatively.
Vex glanced at the man standing beside her.
Tall and solidly built, he was shirtless, revealing his sculpted muscles down which rivulets of sweat streamed.
His hair was soaked and plastered to his head, and he still gripped the hilt of his lightsaber in his hands, indicating a recent end to his training.
"Obscuro," Orra elegantly lifted her legs up, displaying their length, then rose from the chair with the grace of a junkyard gizka. "I see you've finished. Care for some comprehensive cardio training? You'll get a massage too..."
"I'll claw your eyes out right now, granny," Vex promised, trying to rise, but Reynar held her in place with his hand.
Without even exerting much effort.
"I have my own training regimen, Orra," the former Inquisitor stated. "Neither you nor anyone else but Maul"—he nodded toward the fighting red-haired girl and the Zabrak cyborg—"can help."
"Well, I wouldn't be so sure," Sing continued to flirt in her syrupy voice. "After all, I was a padawan in the Jedi Order once..."
"I think I can guess why they kicked you out," Vex said vengefully, glaring at her rival with venom.
"Bitch," Orra hissed at her.
"Crone," Vex beamed back with a smile of reciprocal insult.
"Your skills won't help me," Obscuro replied just as calmly. "In the Inquisitorius, I killed padawans and even Jedi Knights by the dozen. I doubt you'd want me to lose control during training and have my saber dice you into little pieces."
A mask of contempt and wounded pride appeared on Sing's face.
Silently grabbing her rifle, she strode away quickly.
"Get her, you... " Vex rubbed her hands in satisfaction. "Ow!"
The last was addressed to the light cuff that Reynar "rewarded" her with.
"What did I do?" the girl said indignantly.
"You took the bait," Reynar explained, grabbing a towel and wiping the sweat from his torso.
The girl strained with all her might to look away...
And lost the battle between reason and animal instincts.
"You're my partner," Reynar reminded her. "Here, everyone"—he jabbed a finger at his chest—"me"—he nodded toward the fighters—"Maul,"—he flicked his brow and head toward the departed Sing—"sentients with dark pasts. For us, provocations are a way to gauge the enemy. Orra is testing your resilience. She's a loner. Maul, until he found his apprentice, was a loner too. Orra feels uncomfortable now that the rest are pairing up. So she's lashing out, trying to sow discord. That's the way of the Dark Side—divide your enemies and destroy them one by one."
"I thought we were all on the same side," Vex snorted.
"But that doesn't mean we're not rivals," Reynar stated. "We serve one will, one set of orders. But our interpersonal relations are our own problems. Thrawn doesn't care, really, whether we're holding hands around the training holocron or killing each other in the breaks between classes and workouts."
"I can imagine what it's like for Fodeum in this atmosphere," the Twi'lek shuddered, thinking of the friend she hadn't seen in ages.
"He's a Jensaarai," Reynar reminded her. "They have a different philosophy from the Shadow Guard. They protect, we destroy. They seek, we make lost."
"Okay," the girl waved her hands, "let's skip your philosophical nonsense, alright? Or my ears will fall off soon."
"You don't have ears," Reynar reminded her.
"Oh, gods!" Vex widened her eyes. "What?! They already fell off?! It's all your Force's fault! I told you not to overload my girlish brain with tales of how many sides this unknown invisible th..."
The rest of her feigned frightened phrase drowned in the hearty peals of laughter from the former Inquisitor.
Vex, unable to hold back, joined in the merriment.
This gloomy maniac with a lightsaber (whom she sometimes wanted to devour without leaving a crumb) didn't laugh often.
She had to seize the moment.
They laughed so loudly that the fighting pair started glancing at them like they were lunatics.
"Hey, you two!" came a shout from the red-haired lady, who had paused the duel and was barely catching her breath from the exertion. "Get to the Hutt out of the hall, you're disturbing the training!"
"Don't be sour, hover in the air," sticking out the tip of her tongue at the red-haired brute, she grabbed Reynar by the hand and dragged him out of the hall amid the noise of the resumed battle. "Why is she so pissed?"
"We're disturbing her and Maul's fight," Obscuro explained. "From the intensity of her workouts, I gather she plans to finish them as soon as possible and leave us."
"I thought that redhead was one of you," Vex shared her thoughts.
"No," Reynar replied. "She's something like Thrawn's special agent. I don't even know her name."
"But from the way she's pounding Maul, and how he's responding, they clearly know each other," Vex drawled, cheerfully waving at the sullen Strin emerging from the recently completed holocron training room.
The former geosurveyor, neatly trimmed, dressed in the characteristic Black Guard attire but without the full helmet, bowed cordially to the girl, then headed toward the training hall.
"The past of anyone who comes to our base is none of our business," Reynar reminded her. "And honestly, I couldn't care less who she is. Even if she's Darth Vader reincarnate."
"She's pretty," Vex said slowly, casting a sidelong glance at Reynar.
He, stumbling on level ground, shot the girl a surprised look.
For several seconds they stared into each other's eyes, after which the former Inquisitor laughed again.
But more quietly.
"You're learning fast," he said. "But no, wrong guess. She's indifferent to me."
"And Sing?"
"And Orra," Reynar assured her. "I have you, and that's enough."
"You've become so boring," Vex pulled a sour face. "No, instead of talking like all normal Twi'leks about polygamy and such..."
"There's no word for polygamy in your people's culture," Reynar noted dryly.
"So you've checked!" Vex flared up, hands on hips. "No, look at this Cerean we've got here, huh?!"
"Woman, what's wrong with you?!" Reynar exclaimed in astonishment.
Vex shrugged as if nothing had happened.
"Just bored," she explained. "Stuck here, no killings, no explosions... And you promised me a wild youth!"
"How about you don't invent problems on the fly, okay?" Reynar asked her. "While we have time, let's just be together and enjoy each other's company?"
"As you say," Vex sighed, starting to pat down the pockets of her jumpsuit.
"What are you looking for?" Reynar showed gallantry.
"Your self-importance and your... Ow!" the girl yelped, clutching the spot below her back zapped by a white-blue bolt. "Why are you shocking me?"
Obscuro, cracking his neck, let another charge of electricity dance across his fingers.
"You'd better run," he advised, resuming his usual expression: arrogance mixed with controlled fury. "I guess I can't deal with you nicely."
"I'm scared-scared-scared!" Vex widened her eyes and grinned, bolting down the corridor, dodging Force lightning bolts.