[ To be fair - had Vader been in a position to shove Maul to relative safety, he would have. Not from a stand point of helping, but rather a combination of half-apology for the attack and not wanting another struggling body in the pitt to make his own escape more difficult.

As it was, he'll take the dragging without fighting it, fighting off the efforts of the dead and Maul would lead to both them then being buried, and he wants out of this. Right now.

And once he was close enough to recognize him - and this wasn't a figure often in his dreams - Vader reached out and drug himself in closer. The bodies will see them both as enemies, and Maul has repeatedly proven himself good at surviving. Which makes him useful. ]

[ Vader is deceptively heavy although he doesn't struggle against Maul's assistant, he's still getting himself from grips of the bodies. ]

I mistook you for someone else, otherwise I wild not have attacked.

[ Take a guess. ]

They are going to be angry.

[ Indeed, the victim pitt's attention is shifting. ]

I suggest moving or tour promise will be moot.

[ Luckily he has built in crampons of a sort, heavy metal plates to support his weight and magnetically attach to ships. And his fingers can dig right on in to most rock. Which is good, because the cybernetics are clunky and heavy.

At least once he smacked his dome into Maul. Another, his cape flings out and threatens to envelop both their heads. Vader is mostly silent, save occasionally swearing under his breath.

But cresting the top, he stayed in his knees for a moment, the lightning reflecting in his deep red lenses. He can also guess who that is, and his muscles spasm involuntarily in remembered pain. ]

Does that work?

[ Not that the question stops him from getting to his feet, ready to move. But he was still visually searching Maul for a weapon. His saber was gone, as was normal in these nightmares. ]

[ Vader was somewhat sure he could summon his lightsaber if needed. For now, he's doesn't try.

But he still studied Maul's. ]

Which Inquisitor was that?

[ Just because he knew they were died didn't mean he always knew how. And it was easier to focus on that than the looming threat. ]

I will follow. I have more armor.

They didn't have names. He took them, gave them numbers.

[ He's under no illusion as to how someone died - but there was an idle curiosity as to who had fallen to Maul. Another time he's want details. ]

Watch for lightning from behind.

[ Something they were both unquinely vulnerable to, and Vader didn't relish taking one of those legs Maul had to the head. ]

[ He shrugged at the look. ]

He seems to have wanted you. They were just tools.

[ And in Vader's own medical records, there's just a number, the same as the Stormtroopers. ]

And they may hate him as much as they do me.

[ After all, the number of his victims that Palpatine hasn't personally ordered was very slight. ]

Quickly then.

[ Maul isn't wrong. Vader knows this, but it still chaffed. Palpatine can't really care about others, there's something malformed in him the Dark Side can't take credit for. ]

More openly a tool for him, then.

[ Vader followed, the two being more similar in height made up for Maul's more ease of movement, even if in this place, Vader could move with greater ease and speed than his suit allowed.

It being a blend meant their were more dangers as well - his own nightmares often a hellish landscape of desert dunes and bleeding lava flats, crumbling terrain and deadly sinkholes.

Maul's would make sense to also freature Mustafar heavily. And the two should know it better than Palpatine. ]

He's always left death in his wake, even before becoming a Sith.

[ It only now clicks that Maul might know more about Palpatine's past than the man would want getting out.

Something to investigate later. ]

It will work.

He weaves a convincing story. For most at least.

[ He looked at the cave, and inside the mask, his face twisted into a grimace. Much tighter quarters than he normally allowed. ]

Which hand do you prefer?

[ Vader had been likewise taught, but had the opposite preference.

He shifted so he was standing on Maul's right, but raised an arm to slightly block Maul's path. He stared hard inside, faint red lights from the cybernetics of his helmet shined against his sickly white skin. ]

It will be small, but ground is level, there are pockets in the walls.

[ His look complete, he removed his arm and ducked just a little to make his way inside, mostly crouched and sideways through the opening to allow Maul to enter with him, their backs together. ]

[ Vader can never escape his own mind, for good or ill and there's a high-pitched voice of a young child whispering in the back of his brain that hiding from a Master who wants to punish you always makes it worse, and the ghost-memory of an even younger child's foot disappearing into the mouth of a Hutt, glimpsed through Shmi's fingers as she tried to shield him until her hand was slapped away. Hiding, fighting back, both made it worse. It's why he had stopped, why he wasn't even sure why he was bothering now, save Maul had pulled him from the body-pitt and Vader felt a sense of duty. ]

Storms always end eventually. You may speak near subvocally. I will still be able to hear you.

[ He was already fiddling with his suit, turning down sounds, including his own voice, and lowering the power of the respiraions to make his breathing quieter. But he doesn't get down, twisting instead to keep the lights from being seen from the entrance and putting armor betweenthe outside and both of them. ]

Does he chase you often?

[ Vader almost wanted Maul to snap or snarl or even bite. These days he knew far more how to handle those interactions than anyone who might truly witness the suffering that was his life. Even if, between the two, Vader believed himself the lucky one. He'd had his mother for nearly ten years. ]

Once he's dead, they should stop.

[ Right? That was how it worked. Dead was no longer a threat and Palpatine would cease to be a specter in the hellscape.

It wasn't often Vader thought about it - the age difference between the two apprentices. How much he felt it right now. ]