A/N: Well I'm back! I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who took the time out of your days to follow and review my story. You guys really motivated me to continue this even during regents week. I'm pretty excited to see where this goes.
—
There was a disturbance in the Force.
Normally, there would be minor tremors, like when a child is born, or when someone he has been keeping track of left a planet they were previously on. But the shifts became louder and stronger, each day that passed. He didn't know the source or location of these sensations, as there was a great distance between him and the source. They were less of a major issue, and more of a nuisance. But this was no tremor nor was it a nuisance.
This was a disturbance.
Even Lord Vader had enough sense to feel the distortion of the his apprentice didn't voice it, Emperor Palpatine was able to feel Vader's confusion. Anakin Skywalker's inquisitive demeanor had been completely erased as Palpatine showed him the consequences of questioning his motives repeatedly.
No, he did not want Vader as his pupil just to abuse him, but all of his apprentices at one point had to be put in check.
"Lord Vader," Palpatine croaked, almost hissed menacingly. "Do you feel the…disturbance in the Force?"
The more machine than man in question knelt down at being addressed. "Yes, my master. The Force has shifted." Vader's answer was short and straightforward but the question might as well have been rhetorical. Of course he had felt it.
"It has done more than shifted, my apprentice," Sidious corrected, a tinge of aggravation in his voice. Vader, still kneeling, resisted rolling his eyes underneath his mask. His master had always found opportunities to criticize him, even if the "correction" was unnecessary. Not even Obi-Wan corrected me this much, the Anakin in him internally voiced.
Vader mentally slapped the small piece of his former self away. These past few hours he's been going back and forth. Sometimes he thought like Vader, the dark apprentice of Lord Sidious, and other times he thought like Anakin Skywalker, the good man with a good heart who had lost it all. Before the mental war between Anakin and Vader started again in his mind, his master's soothing voice echoed in his helmet, much to his annoyance.
"Something is stirring across the galaxy. Can you sense it?" Sidious asked, his frustration growing rapidly. Vader's swirling thoughts suddenly halted as he attempted but failed to pinpoint the planet or sector of this disturbance.
"Yes, my master." Vader was desperately trying to keep his frustration at bay. "Yes my master," was all he seemed to say to the old man. At least, when he was Anakin, there was rarely a need for formalities with his former master. He could outright call Kenobi an old man. If Vader was being completely honest with himself, a part of him missed the playful banter between him and his friends. It took the weight of the war and being the so-called Chosen One off of his shoulders, even if it was only for a few minutes.
But those days are over. No use in dwelling on a past that will never return to him, no matter how badly he might have wanted it to.
Vader blinked the thoughts away. He couldn't alert his master to the conflict within him. But as Sidious' eyes narrowed underneath his intimidating hood, Vader knew his thoughts, his own private thoughts, hadn't gone unmonitored.
"I am going to meditate on this… something is rising, my apprentice. Something that should not be. You are in charge of the Fleet at the moment, Lord Vader. Find the Rebels, and draw them out of hiding. I expect a full report on your progress. Do not fail me." Palpatine announced sternly. He felt a slight a jolt of surprise in the Force coming from his apprentice, then stalked away to his quarters stealthily, trying to avoid confrontation of any Imperial officers. Lord Vader seemed oddly...distracted, after learning about the survival of Anakin Skywalker's apprentice. Admiral Tarkin might need to pay a visit. Overseeing the construction of the Death Star would have to wait a few days.
He had matters to attend to.
—
Darth Vader, for once in his fifteen years of being Darth Vader, was lost. He was completely, and utterly lost. Vader could have described himself many things. Emotionless, heartless, empty…
Lonely.
But lost didn't seem like one of them then. Apparently it did now. He had never felt so lost in his life. His main reason for staying in the dark was because he felt he had nothing left to live for. But now...now of all times, his past decided to come back and patronize him.
Lothal wasn't easy for him. Physically, Vader was perfectly fine. No suit malfunctions, no helmet punctures. The Rebels could've been destroyed in a matter of minutes, and they almost were. A few more hits and they would have ceased to exist. Simple.
And that's where Vader was emotionally unstable. His…former apprentice was alive, and in league with the Rebels he had been working to destroy. He had already informed his master, and another Inquisitor had been dispatched to hunt her, along with the rest of the Rogues down. But…was it right? The small piece of Anakin left in Vader screamed that it was absolutely wrong. That his hatred and pain had continuously clouded his judgement. That he should forgive her. That he should stand by her. But that was something he couldn't bring himself to do. He was in too deep to back out now.
She was your best friend, a voice in his head argued. She was your sister.
Vader winced, and his loneliness increased at that particular thought. Even during the Clone War, where blood was shed and lives were lost, he had a family. He had a sister who held his sanity, a brother who held his strength, and a wife who held his heart. When everything fell apart…when he caused everything to fall apart...he felt like a black hole of nothingness with no purpose. Without his master, he had no reason to exist. So the dark became his family. Yes, he knows both Obi-Wan and Ahsoka are alive. But they held Anakin's strength, and Anakin's sanity.
And Anakin hasn't been alive for fifteen years.
Some days, when his master wasn't present, Vader wished Anakin was still alive. So he could step into the blinding, welcoming light. But for the last decade and a half there had always been a dark leash wrapped around his legs, preventing the light from claiming him. The dark had tripped him, mocked him, and molded him until he couldn't care less about it. Before finding out about his apprentice's survival, Vader felt that the light had nothing left to offer. The Light Side didn't even have his old appearance to offer. Now, doubt leaked into his hollow, shell of a mind, and machinery leaked into his broken, shell of a body.
Some days, when his master wasn't present, Vader wished Anakin had left the Jedi Order alongside his apprentice. He wished that Anakin had chosen differently. That way, he wouldn't have fallen prey to Palpatine's manipulation. That way, he could have had his child with his wife, and lived in peace with his friends by his side. That way he wouldn't have been lonely.
Vader forcefully pushed the stinging memories aside, and tried to focus on the task at hand. His master would handle the evident disturbance in the Force, and he would assist only when necessary, though he cared little about the outcome. He needed to lead the Imperial Fleet, locate the Rebels, and crush them.
And then turn his former apprentice to his side. Not out of pure villainy, no. He would never forgive himself, let alone live with himself, if he turned his sister to something she wasn't just because his master demanded him to. No, he wouldn't do it for his master. But because he needed someone.
Because he was lonely.
—
Deep in his meditative state, Lord Sidious felt...power. Seething power. His demeanor as the great Emperor Palpatine was long gone, and his hands crackled with blue electricity. Even with his eyes shut tightly, Sidious felt the darkness surrounding him in the Force, the beautiful unbalance that he had pleasantly felt for fifteen, glorious years.
Sidious made it simple. It was like a balancing scale, the Force being the scale itself. Light on one side, dark on another. With the foolish Jedi eradicated, the scale tipped in the favor of the dark. And Sidious drenched in the clear darkness.
However, this disturbance in the Force, the main reason why he was meditating in the first place, was neither tipping in the light nor the dark's favor. Perhaps that remained to be seen, and the fate of the dark and light side remained to be sealed.
As the dark haze swirled around Sidious' hooded form, he stretched out into the Force, and tried to get some sort of location from where the disturbance was centered. His vision through the Force was oddly distorted, and his senses were severely dulled. But he noticed something.
Red. So much red. It only lasted for a few seconds, that anyone could have missed it. But he wasn't just anyone. He was the most powerful being in the galaxy. The red wasn't blood. However, it was as if the only possible color that could be seen through his eyes was red.
It may not seem that important to most. But Sidious took any clue he could receive. He dug deeper into the dark side of the Force, relishing in it, scraping for any traces of the disturbance he'd been looking for. Images flashed and played themselves into his mind, faster than he would have wanted them to. Fortunately, he was still able to identify a few of them. Some images had some significance and others didn't. He saw a planet. Full of green. Full of life.
Disgusting.
That was the first thought that popped up in Sidious' head after seeing this planet. Too much life on a planet had tended to...revolt him. Hence why he never spent much time on his homeplanet, Naboo. The image quickly blinked itself from his vision, and a new one took its place just as quickly. Though this one was much clearer.
And much darker.
He saw an…explosion. A shuttle plummeting hundreds of thousands of feet out of the air into an ocean, after a violent detonation. Water met fire. Sidious searched his memories for a familiar scene, as he remembered something…
The image once again changed. Sidious scrunched his eyes tighter in frustration, and concentration. He had to dig deeper, go further. He was close. Very close.
He saw... gray. But it wasn't like how he saw the red. No, this gray was the color of an object.
A mask.
It most definitely wasn't anything like Lord Vader's mask. This mask was elliptical, pointed at the sides. The mask was...rusted almost, with the gray fading.
Sidious then saw hundreds of these masks, and more of them being manufactured. And even after fifteen years, he recognized them in a second.
Grievous.
Sidious' eyes snapped open. He stood from his meditative position and outstretched one of his hands to unlock the control panel. He called the closest Imperial officer over, and he was deeply amused to see the officer trembling in the Dark Lord's presence.
"Summon Lord Vader. I have news for him," the Emperor demanded. The officer nodded and hurried away to find his apprentice. Sidious was anxious. This threat needed to be eliminated. And fast. Almost immediately after the officer departed, Vader entered his chambers.
"Yes my master?" Vader questioned nervously. Too nervous for him.
The Emperor turned his body away from Vader, facing the floor to ceiling window, which reminded him of his previous office as Chancellor. "I have found the answer, my apprentice," Sidious stated in a matter of fact way.
"An old foe has risen once again."
—
So I decided to add Star Wars Rebels into this story, so it basically starts right after Siege of Lothal, but I promise it won't be the main focus. Grievous will be obviously. The reason I didn't have Vader care too much about Grievous' presence was because I wanted him to seem unstable and stressed out in this chapter, so that later on if he and Grievous end up confronting one another, he'll be more volatile and won't necessarily have a clear state of mind.
Remember, this chapter, along with the previous one, is only a prologue to the story! After this, there will be much longer chapters. I'll try and update soon.