"The Force is with you, young Skywalker. But you are not a Jedi yet."
He was back. Back in the room on Bespin. The lights. The steam. The tall large dark form and the even mechanical breathing of the respirator. The lightsabers igniting. Blue on red. Red on blue. They hummed and hissed.
"You have learned much, young one," the deep voice of Vader called out.
Luke arrogantly replied, "You'll find I'm full of surprises."
But that wasn't true. It was Vader who was full of surprises. Or at least one surprise. One horrible truth.
"Your destiny lies with me, Skywalker," Vader said. His voice was so full of knowing. "Obi-Wan knew this to be true."
Why hadn't Ben told him? Why? He could have told Luke on Dagobah right before he left. He knew Luke was leaving to face Vader. Leaving to face his father, and yet he had said nothing!
"Only your hatred can destroy me."
Why? Why? Why was Darth Vader his father? How had it happened? What had happened to Anakin Skywalker? The war general people remembered warmly and proudly.
"I met your father once when I was just a boy," Luke recalled Red Leader telling him in the hangar on Yavin VI. "He was a great pilot."
Again the fateful words repeated in Luke's mind. "No. I am your father."
The words repeated over and over again. There was a coldness that grabbed him. It was dragging him down. Down the reactor shaft. Down into the darkness. The words spinning and lashing at him the entire time.
I am your father. I am your father. Father. Father.
Anakin made his way through the dark streets of the lower levels of Coruscant. Luckily, the Council had allowed Anakin to hunt for this Sith lord. Anakin guessed the Sith had not gotten very far with the boy as the boy was clearly injured. Anakin assumed the two were still nearby and hiding while the Sith treated the boy's injuries. At least that's what he hoped for.
Anakin made sure he was shielding himself properly. He didn't want the Sith lord or even the boy to know he was coming. Anakin's thoughts kept going back to the boy more than the Sith lord. The boy was a complete mystery. Anakin had gone over the data collected on the kid including images of the wreck he was found in. The fighter was a mystery too. It matched no known designs. Anakin had never seen anything quite like it, and he prided himself in knowing starfighter designs.
Anakin had examined the clothing the boy was first found in. It was a bright orange jumpsuit. The helmet had a red symbol on it, which was very similar to the Jedi symbol but it looked more like a bird. Even odder than the fighter, was the boy's right arm. It was prosthetic, but like the fighter it matched no known prosthetics. In fact the healers hadn't even known it was prosthetic until they did a scan. The skin over the fake arm was extremely life like.
Anakin wished they had gotten a better scan of the mechanics of the hand. He would have liked to seen it. From what little they did have, the technology was more advanced than Anakin's own hand. Which was an impressive feat.
A mystery boy crashed on to Coruscant in a mystery fighter with a mystery symbol on the helmet. The boy had a prosthetic hand more advanced than any current model. The boy also had an insanely high midichlorian count. He carried a lightsaber, but was not in any Jedi records. The kid called out the name Skywalker in his sleep. Then the kid was taken by a Sith lord. A Sith lord who was gentle with the kid?
None of it was adding up, and Anakin hated it. But he did agree with the Council. Whoever this kid was, he needed to be found. Along with this mystery Sith. Anakin couldn't help but wonder if this was the Sith mastermind behind the war. What if they did catch him? What if they could finally end the war? All this bloodshed could finally stop.
. . . father . . .
Anakin stopped. He had heard a call in the Force. At least he thought he had.
. . . father . . .
There it was again. Anakin reached out towards the source. He felt pain. Confusion. Fear. Anakin started to move towards it. Why was he hearing this voice? To be able to speak telepathically to another Force user, one must have an established bond. Anakin could just barely sense whoever it was. It wasn't Obi-Wan. It wasn't Ahsoka either . . .
Father . . .
Anakin followed the pull of the Force to a shady rundown apartment building. He felt no danger lurking inside, so Anakin carefully made his way in. He followed the pull up several flights of stairs to a door. A simple flick of the Force unlocked the door and Anakin was inside. The apartment was filthy, but mostly empty. In the main room Anakin found a large bed with someone sleeping in it.
Father.
This was the person talking to Anakin in the Force. Anakin approached very carefully. His hand was right above his lightsaber. Then he paused as he made out the blonde hair on the pillow. He edged closer to the bed. With a small wave of his hand, he used the Force to pull down the covers.
It was the boy! The mystery boy. He laid on his side. His face was plastered with sweat. He was shirtless, but his left side was covered in wrappings with blood staining through. Cuts and bruises covered the kid.
Father, the kid called out again through the Force.
Anakin was on his comm unit at once with the Jedi Temple telling them he had found the kid. Anakin stretched out his senses with the Force, but still didn't feel the icy coldness of the Dark Side nearby. Granted the Sith could always be shielding himself. Anakin looked back down at the kid. Why did he keep calling out for his father? Was the Sith . . . the Sith his father? Surely not. Sith didn't love . . . and yet Anakin recalled the security holo of the roof. How the Sith had gently caressed the kid's cheek. Was it possible this kid was the Sith's child? And if that was the case, why hadn't he fallen to the Dark Side?
Darth Vader watched from several rooftops over as Luke was loaded onto a Jedi shuttle inside a medical capsule. Vader's body was tense. It itched to move. He was very tempted to go down there and retrieve his son. It wouldn't take much. A powerful pull to the shuttle's engines would disable them. He could then take down whatever Jedi and clone troopers were down there. But . . .
Luke needed medical attention. A dip in a bacta tank preferably. Vader had nothing. Only the clothes he was wearing and his lightsaber. When he had crawled out of his wrecked fighter, he instantly recognized the Works, the factory district of Imperial Center. That was when he realized something was off in the Force. Really off. It was dizzying. Nauseating. Vader felt sick. Claustrophobic. Like he couldn't breathe. He had the sudden urge to take his helmet off, and his panic he did so. That was when he realized he could breathe without it.
His lungs . . . his lungs worked fine. There was no pain. No labored breathing. He took in a deep breath and relished in the sweet ease of his chest filling on its own. Over the next hour Vader discovered that it was more than just his lungs. Most of his body, besides his prosthetics, were healed. His skin was smoother, though still covered in faint scars. He could breathe and eat. It appeared he didn't need the suit at all. Prying himself out of it was painful due to the many tube and connections it had to his own body, but the pain was worth it.
He was free.
It had taken him much longer to come to the realization he was in the past. Then another stretch of time to accept it. By the time Vader had come to accept the truths about his current situation, a half a day had gone by. He had long left the wreckage of his TIE and the useless cage of his suit behind. He had found an abandoned factory to meditate in. That was when he felt the flicker of Luke's Force signature. Whatever had brought Vader about twenty-four years into the pass, had also dragged his son here as well.
It didn't matter what time he was in, nothing would stop Vader from claiming the boy. Luckily the boy was heavily dosed with drugs by the time Vader found him in the hospital. He came with Vader willingly. Vader had then made the mistake in relaxing as he piloted a speeder with his injured son away from the hospital. The CPF had tracked them down after Vader had left two dead in the hospital hangar, which then had resulted in the speeder crashing on to a rooftop and Vader's duel with the Jedi. Vader was not going to allow anyone to take his son from him.
Except . . .
He could feel Luke's pain. The boy desperately needed medical attention. And . . . The Jedi would see that Luke was healed. Vader was just going to have to . . . trust Luke to the Jedi for now. Plus Vader needed to get himself more secure in this time. He had no money. No resources. Once he was comfortable, then he could get his son. It was Luke's destiny to be at Vader's side.
Vader already knew all the weaknesses of the Order. He knew exactly how to manipulate them to freely handing Luke over if need be. The only thing that worried Vader was Sidious. Hopefully Vader's wayward reckless child would be wise enough to avoid the future Emperor. But that didn't mean Sidious was going to avoid Luke. Vader needed to act quickly. The Jedi were a doomed caused. Their extinction was near, but the Sidious was just coming into his power. And Vader would not allow Sidious to get his hands on Luke.