"You are beaten."

Luke was thrown to the ground by the weight of Darth Vader's blade, his hip sharply cutting into an elevated step on the catwalk. The words ignited a fear within the youth as he lay dumbly on the ground, suddenly realizing the raw strength of his opponent. He could only shake in horror as the red blade inched dangerously close to his skin, closer and closer with every step, until the fire of the blade heated the skin on his face. He couldn't move but he could feel the stray whiskers on his jaw slowly burn as the core radiated against the smooth pores.

While he own fear shook him into blinded submission, the weakened Jedi used whatever drive left in his being to scoot back further and further from his impending doom until he was practically lying completely on his back, Vader's blade looming over the entirety of his body. Fire singed the outer cloth of his fatigues, his body glistening underneath in horrific sweat; he continued crawling until his back jagged the corner of a step. He couldn't move back further – it was either surrender his morality or end his mortality. And for the first time in this battle, Luke wasn't sure what the right choice was. He couldn't give into the twisting and hateful dark side – but was he ready to give up his own life instead?

This was the man that had taken so much, murdered so many, the destroyer of millions - the angel of death that threatened the entire galaxy. This was the symbol of evil personified to young Skywalker and yet here he was; defenseless and beaten. Bones creaked and muscles sprang as he futilely tried to advance back further. The lightsaber was all he could stare at; that blade was so close to his soul, ready to pierce at any instant. The running blood that trickled down his nose quickly formed to a crust as Vader continued. Luke looked to the masked man and then to the blade, nodding in blank acceptance, knowing full well that this very weapon could be the one that spilled his last blood and fried it into oblivion. If he was going to die, he would have to give Darth Vader hell.

"It is useless to resist; don't let yourself be destroyed as Obi-Wan did." As Obi-Wan did -his mind left his body as his physical being continued to fight, controlled by both blind rage and powers beyond his control. The fire had been replenished in his soul as Luke Skywalker threw his blade into the air, directly entangling it into the crimson hue of his opponent, striking forward with an intensity he had never felt before.

He could barely feel the maddening red of his face, the blood in his cheeks and forehead close to burst, as he instinctively twisted to the side and narrowly dodged Darth Vader's swipe. The hurt came rushing back, lingering abandonment and resentment returned to his will, reminding him of yet another reason why he stood here. Why he was facing a man Luke knew now he would never beat. He remembered standing there in the hanger of the Death Star – the red blade slicing into the deteriorating robe. He could hear his own cry piercing back and reliving the old memory: his uncontrollable anger, his sudden bloodlust, a second that snapped him out of reality and into someone bent on revenge. He wanted justice - no. he wanted murder.

The two were locked in combat. Luke was in a realm he has never experienced, his arms moving almost automatically in blind anger, preparing an onslaught against the Dark Lord. He stabbed forward, lunging to meet the blade, swiping back left and right. Vader had no right to say that name. He was determined to make his one strike – his one victory in a battle marred with failure. He gives in. He detects slowness on Vader's part and brings his blade down across his shoulder, sparks soaring into the air and shooting out into the abyss.

The roar of Darth Vader filled the chamber, the massive husk quickly raising his arm into the air and swiping. Despite this one congratulatory effort, Luke knew he was soon defeated; though his soul was raised anew, his body began to slow and his movements depressed. The wrath that fueled and gave life to his motions soon slipped away as fear seeped back in to the tiny frame of a fledgling man. "You can do this, Luke," the young Jedi scampered back as he regained control of himself, narrowly avoiding a horizontal slice that would have cut him in two. An overlooking panel was sliced in two instead. He tried to distance himself even further but soon became aware of his own grim fate – the overlooking catwalk was heading towards an abrupt end.

Luke turned around and faced his opponent, inching backwards, noting the charred remains of the bisected instrument panel that took that last hit for him, electrical smoke dancing in between the two warriors. Luke struggled to ward off Vader's ferocious attack, barely able to defend himself as fatigue continued to crush his own weight. He let go of his saber with his left hand and grasped the rail as he forced himself back as far as he could go. "Hold on," Luke whimpered against gritted teeth, refocusing his efforts on standing still and firm on the gantry.

Vader hurled his blade out and tangled Luke's blade with his own, twisting his wrist and lightsaber in circles. "I m-must try," he whispered in his head as his vision began to glaze over. In that very instant, the gushing winds below brought up the severed half of the dismantled panel into the air, distracting Luke from the Dark Lord for just one second; a second that Vader was quick to use to his own advantage. As he stopped directing Luke's lightsaber, Darth Vader slashed with the back of his lightsaber into the wrist of the young Skywalker.

His vision was suddenly blinded by white; he could feel his vocal chords being torn to shreds as he screamed aloud for a few harrowing seconds. Luke's eyes were blistered with tears but he managed to open them up long enough to take a look at where the pain was coming from: his hand – now arcing away from his wrist and flying downward to the shaft below. He could only stare at his stump in horror, his eyes wide as a flame flickered out of his sleeve. Luke screamed as he grasped the remains of his arm and pulled the sleeve over his stump, jamming it with blistering tears in a desperate attempt to fight the pain. He fell to his knees. His body was shaking in defeat along the slim catwalk, forcing him to let go of his arm and grip the railing again.

"My hand," Luke whimpered in disbelief, cradling his arm as the fierce roar settled into a dull throb. "My hand," he cried out again, the slow realization of just what he had lost coming to him. Not just his hand – the lightsaber. He lost he weapon that gave him the courage to openly call himself a Jedi, the only remaining tie he had to his father, Anakin Skywalker. Luke nursed his stump to his breast, pressing down tightly against his armpit, trying to draw out as much distance as he could muster against the demon that bested and maimed him.

"There is no escape," Vader hissed at the youth, "don't make me destroy you."

He stood still in victory as Luke tried his hardest to get away from the monster of his dreams. His guts were churning and swimming out of place, begging for Luke to spill them. Everything was.. spinning.. he tried to focus harder as he let go with his remaining hand, dangling himself over an endless abyss, desperately reaching to the abrupt end of the walkway. That was the only hope left. It was the only distance left before he'd get consumed by the dark side.

"Luke, you do not yet realize your importance," Darth Vader continued as Luke backed further away. "You've only begun to discover your power; join me and I can complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." His words entered one ear and out the other – it didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. Everything was unreal, out of focus, turning and twisting into a dizzy universe that Luke struggled to understand. All he could understand was 'join me.' Even with all the pain, Luke managed to let out a sour laugh as he hooked himself around the central pipe.

"Join you? I'll never join you!"

"If you only knew the power of the dark side," Vader enticed.

Luke looked down to his charred sleeve, now crusted with the slight remains of ash and blood. This was only a taste of the dark side. He'd lose more than just his physical self if he went down that path – he'd join Vader and lose his soul completely.

"Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father…"

"He told me enough!"

There was that rage again, oh, the fire that burned inside more than any cauterizing swipe. That passion inside the boy was waiting for a chance to explode, waiting to unleash a pain stronger than any lightsaber. Darth Vader dared to throw Obi-Wan's death in his face. He daredto throw his father's memory and spit it at him, minutes after taking the one thing he had of him.

"He told me you killed him," Luke spat back, staring straight into that mask.

"No, Luke. I am your father."

Luke stood still. His hood shook against the current of the wind, his hair rocking against his skin, as his face remained completely still. His eyes tighten. He looks to Darth Vader and then to the bowels of Bespin beneath him, confused, distorted by the very claim. He suddenly began to feel extremely ill, the stomach begging to wretch, his bloodshot eyes becoming clouded with heavy tears.

"Father", Obi-Wan described his father as a great warrior, a strong general, and a good friend; a man that had been slain by the villain known as Darth Vader. He was an upstanding man that people rallied behind and fought for the good of the universe. An unspoken for hero of the Republic.

"No," Uncle Owen described his father as a navigator on a spice freighter, a man haunted by a great love that he could never sate, a working man; just a simple man that perished due to his own carelessness and recklessness. Someone who had it all and lost it.

"No, that's not true!"

Anakin Skywalker was the man and figure of good that Luke Skywalker had always aspired to become. He had been successfully fed a web of stories about his father, some true, some false, that dared him to attempt the path laid before him. He bared his father's lightsaber for three years, brandishing it in the hopes of feeling a deeper connection to the man, to Anakin.

"That's impossible," Luke whimpered as he fought back the tears that stung his eyes. His lightsaber – his father's lightsaber – was gone. The last attachment he had to the light figure of his dreams had been cruelly severed, tossed away carelessly to the wind. Luke Skywalker looked to the black-garbed figure and choked back a heavy sulk as he came to the horrifying realization: the Sith Lord did not lie.

"No!" Luke cried out with the last remnants of his strained throat, realizing the deception of all the men he had surrounded himself with. The uncle that desperately tried to normalize him, the guardian that spoke ill truths of a man that once was, a teacher that knew far more than he was letting on. His last shred of innocence was now buried with the lightsaber.

"Luke, you can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny. Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son. Come with me. It is the only way."

These words felt so foreign and distant. The figure before him may have once been his father, he may even be him now, but it was not a destiny Luke was ready to choose. He wasn't ready to give up all the work he had accomplished in the past three years. All the people he had saved, planets that had been freed from the clutches of evil, the friends he had made in the pursuit of goodness. He couldn't throw them away like that. Luke looked down to the bowels beneath him. There had to have been several miles of distance between himself and the collapsing walls below. Suddenly, however, he felt his fear begin to recede. The channel of air that swept around him was whispering to his ear, begging him to let go. There was a choice to be made here: one of giving in and one of letting go. He turned to his opponent - his father - and inched back.

With sudden ease, Luke Skywalker let go of his grip of the panel and let himself be carried by the current.

His body danced amongst the waves of air, twisting and rocking against the current, falling down into an opening into the unknown world that surrounded the city. Luke had his eyes closed shut as he continued to fall, choosing to reject the words of Darth Vader and succumb to the destiny that fate had in store.

His father.

Luke tightened his eyes as he felt his physical self flail, oxygen slipping away as his mind slowly began to drip away into unconsciousness. He wanted to think, understand. His body was being thrashed about and battered yet his mind refused to waver. There was a perfect balance of certainty and uncertainty raging a war within his mind. The physical pain he was sustaining was nothing compared to the endless torment that wrestled with the soul.

Rolling and curving against the edges of the cramped pathway, Luke Skywalker slowly began to feel his momentum shift, moving almost to a crawl. His head was spinning and he felt like his limbs were violently shaking. Everything was so cold and distant. He picked himself up from the ground, sweat drizzling down from his hair and into his face, exhausted and beaten – and yet alive.

The wounded Jedi pulled up the sleeve of his right jacket to take a glance at his injury. Though it throbbed, he was surprised – and frightened – at how little it hurt him now. Where once his hand had been, a hand hardened through years of manual work that held the prize of his father, was now a precise cut of nothingness. He sat himself completely up and sighed in sadness.

Just as Luke sat upright, the floor beneath him caved in, thrusting him downward through another channel and outward into an opening that seemed to suck anything with great force. The youth was shot out of the channel and into the vast atmosphere of Bespin. Thinking quickly, he used the force of the air to propel himself downward into a vane, wrapping his legs around the base tight as his body flew hard into it. The air left his gut as his upper body reacted to the blow, the top half of his self spilling into the depths below.

Luke could have sworn he saw something spinning down miles below him – something that made his stomach churn even further – and it continued to fall until it became a speck. His eyes widened and he turned himself back to the pipe he precariously held with his legs, heaving himself upward. There was only so much he could use and only so little his body was willing to do. Wind stung as it smacked the youth left and right, a torrent of energy tugging and pulling at every inch, yearning for that moment where he loses resistance.

He closed his eyes after he let out a choked sob. The champion of the Rebel Alliance, Luke Skywalker, had finally lost; he couldn't even bare to process that thought, that he had chosen death over life and death was ever so approaching with every minute. His fractured left hand gave him pain with every second and could only sustain its hold for so long and his right hand was..

Luke adamantly shook his head in horror, as burning pain erupted into the stump where his right hand should have been. One second it had been there grasping his weapon and the next, replaced by a smoky haze and boiled blood. Tossed away like refuge.

"Ben," Luke whispered into the air, closing his eyes tight. The betrayal stung but Obi-Wan had always been there for him in the past. He needed him now. He deserved it after being lulled into this trap. If they had only been honest with him all along..

"Ben, please."

But that would be wrong. Obi-Wan and Yoda did not ask for him to go against his.. father. They begged for him to stay, to finish his training. He defied their wishes. Swooped up in his own arrogance and delusions of grandeur, Luke brought himself directly into this catastrophe. He had to go through it alone.

Luke looked above him for anything to grab onto. He noted the grill that he fell out of was still open. The Jedi Knight hoisted himself up and grabbed it with his remaining hand. The pressure of his weight caused the grill to stir, drawing itself back up and shutting out Skywalker from Cloud City for good.

There was little left to choose from now. He could either attempt to climb his way out with only one hand or sit until his untimely demise; Luke chose the former. All of his strength was slowly leaving him as his body gave way to shock but Luke was willing to make one last attempt before letting go. He shimmied his way up the pipe and the gripped the side of a panel for a few solid seconds before his legs gave in, dropping his upper half underneath his bottom.

"Ben, please, hear me."

Silence. There was a dull roar of engines flying against the wind, ever so out in the distance, on their way directly toward him. They were coming for him. His father was coming for him. Beneath him was the endless cycle of gas that pressurized and consumed. It was calling for him, pleading for him to dive into it's deadly stream, waiting for him to lose his self and plunge into the abyss of death.

Luke reflected on himself prior to meeting Yoda. Adventure was his escape. It was his escape from the cruel world around him; the cruel world that had swallowed up his parents, his aunt and uncle, his friends. All he wanted was to be a hero.. to be what he couldn't have been in the past. He wanted to singlehandedly end the Empire. He wanted to be written down in history.. he wanted.. only.. now, he realized, that what he wanted and the reality he had to face to get there was an entirely new obstacle. It began when he saw Darth Vader at Dagobah.

Fear had clouded his judgment. He ignored Yoda. He ignored Ben. He ignored the capabilities that he knew his friends possessed. He wanted to face Vader – to prove himself. He wanted to prove his power; for himself, for Ben, for Leia. But his fear blinded him to his own arrogance. Now? His skills that he had thought were impressive, were feeble. His lightsaber that had given him a sense of worth and power, now lay in a tunnel grasped in a severed hand. His life had been teeming and filled with promise, now waiting to succumb to certain death. He threw it all away for naught.

But he couldn't give in - he had to keep trying.

"Leia."

Luke reached out to the woman, feeling her escape. He longed to be held in her embrace, hearing her attempts to soothe, safe in a place far away. He didn't know if she could hear him or not. She was his closest friend, the one he understood the most, the one that started him out on this adventure. The Force lead him to her - maybe it would lead her back to him. It was a last minute chance with little hope that Luke was quickly running out of.

TIE fighters began to swarm the distance between Cloud City and Skywalker. There more ships here than Luke had seen in the space battle on Hoth. They were drifting slowly towards him, steady, each opening up a top emergency hatch. The ships were there to capture him, to take him back to the Empire. Luke cursed under his breath as they began to approach.

Out of the corner of his eye, Luke could see the vague shape of the Millennium Falcon in the distance. It was so close yet so far. He could sense the worry of Leia Organa on the vessel, wanting him to be saved. He wanted to be saved, too. But Luke knew he had run out of time. There was no way the ship could make it to him without taking heavy damage and risking destruction against all these ships.

He closed his eyes and begged for Leia to turn around, to leave, travel far and out of the clutches of the Empire. Go anywhere, any direction, north, south, east, west. Anywhere that wasn't here and that was safe. It was too late for him. The ship and all his friends would be sitting ducks in their attempt to rescue him if they carried on. He had gotten what he wanted – his friends safe. That's all that mattered. Please, Leia.

Luke.

A voice spoke to him from within – the Force. He didn't understand it fully nor did he know who it came from. He had to let go of the pipe. Luke knew he wouldn't be able to hold out any further. The muscles in his legs were collapsing and his body lacked any energy to sustain his movements. This may be the end.

Let go.

Luke nodded and closed his eyes, easing his legs from the weathervane, allowing himself to fall down into the murky depths of Bespin. Luke's thighs let go simultaneously from the weather-vane, his body slipping down into the winds. He was greeted with blackness as he began to fall, his arms and legs flailing against the wind, ready to meet his maker. They seemed to wrap themselves around him, beckoning him, wanting him. He felt his boots slide off above himself as he spun round and round and round in random directions. He wasn't sure where up and down where anymore. All he could think of what was next.

Suddenly, the wind slowed. The spinning stopped. He seemed to be.. simply floating. His eyes still slammed shut, Luke assumed that this was his end. He was floating.. down? Or was it up? Regardless, he let the force guide him to his fate.. and then the slamming winds were being broken up by a mechanical wiring. He opened his eyes in confusion, wondering what was coming his way. A shuttle flew to his right, its door opening with mechanical whining. Luke let out a sob in relief before collapsing into exhaustion.

Then there was a gentle thud; a sharp angle hit into his back as he fell into something. He opened his eyes. His body was squished into a tiny corner, surrounded by electronic paneling and metallic sheen. A man sat before him, his back turned away, his arms slowly rocking back and forth.

The fear returned.

"Lord Vader, we have Skywalker. I'll pilot him directly to your shuttle."