Act II - Ascension of the Alder Jedi
Intro Note: Sorry about all the extra mistakes, depression and exhaustion makes editing harder with my dyslexia. I know some didn't like the chaotic dreams/visions but all of them are remembered by characters and vital to their character growth.
Hopefully, I'll have a bit more romance and family building in this last Act.
As for this story plot, my problem reading other time travel stories, with anyone but Obi-Wan, is that people swoop in and fix everything and the characters never immerse themselves in the world. So I wrote a story that destroys the future yet lets us keep our time travellers. Because fuck physics this is Mortis.
Chapter 21 - This is Mortis
Anakin coughed, and he couldn't stop coughing. He fell to his knees, the Daughter catching him as he tried to breathe.
He just wanted to breathe.
The Son knelt before him, touching his face, and his touch, with both the Son and Daughter with him, allowed for Anakin to take in a shallow breath.
But he knew it was ending, that his life was over.
The body that he inhabited was supposedly a god, but it seemed even gods died. His bones ached, his form was emancipated, he hadn't been able to take in food for some time now. He could barely keep down the water the Daughter forced on him each day.
Anakin had done all he could to give Obi-Wan more time, but it was over now, and he was in too much pain to care.
He closed his eyes, maybe the universe would be better off without him, after all, what he had the potential to become…
Snips.
Tears came to his eyes.
Anakin knew he wouldn't make it through this night, and he was relieved.
"Father, please, don't do this," the Son pleaded with him.
Anakin did not understand the Son, he was pretty sure the god-like being of the personified Dark Side would have happily killed him, until Anakin had started saying things like, "I'm… not your- da-d."
Which is what he said now through cracked lips.
The pain was visible across that ghastly face grey face marked by reddish black tattoos, his glowing eyes were so alien yet were now familiar to Anakin. The Son said, "I can't lose you. I thought… but I was wrong, Father."
The Daughter embraced Anakin from the side, "We know you've changed, but that's no reason to give up on life."
If Anakin had had a bit more energy, he would have rolled his eyes. The Daughter could be extremely patronizing, everything from 'I know you don't remember us but you're still the Father, our Father,' to 'Father, your beard cannot be removed it is a part of you.'
That last one, while not as big a miss understanding as to the first, had been the bane of his existence for the last seven years.
"Father, can you hear us?" the Son asked impatiently.
Anakin considered the merits of simply falling back and pretending to have fallen into a coma, but knew as soon as one of the siblings wasn't in contact with him that the coughing fit would start again.
Until the Son had to push it, his hand on Anakin's face became harsh, "Just acknowledge that you are the Father and I will let you be."
Anakin glared back up at the creature, "I am Anakin Skywalker, and my son and my daughter have yet to be born. You are nothing to me."
The latter statement wasn't exactly true. He had been keeping the peace between these two for years, and he had come to care for them, deeply, but that didn't make them his spawn.
The Son hissed, releasing his face and walking back to pace the room angrily.
The Daughter hugged him, "Father, I won't leave you."
"You selfish bastard!" the Son roared down at him, "You aren't allowed to leave us!"
"I'm dying," Anakin said between a cough, "I don't have a choice."
The Son and Daughter exchanged a look over his head.
"What?" he asked, immediately suspicious. Trouble always started when the two of them grew pissed at each other, but that was nothing compared to the destruction they wrought when they worked together.
Anakin had spent an interesting week trying to get the Daughter's convo bird, Morai, out from behind a waterfall. A waterfall that in order to get to he had to cross newly made fifteen tiered waterfalls and five trenches.
Sometimes he wondered how he would ever explain any of this to anyone. Padme probably would have given him her court face where she listened pleasantly to bullshit while tuning him out. Though at this rate the only person he would be speaking to anytime soon was his mom in the next world.
'It was totally wizard, Mom!' was probably the extent that he could have explained to her.
"What if we gave you the Chosen One's body?" the Son asked, jerking Anakin from his thoughts.
"I am the Chosen One," he managed to say, not that it did him any good. When he had first come here after dying then breathing anew in a different body, the actual Father came to him in a dream and told him that this was his destiny, to keep the peace between the Son and Daughter, Dark and Light for the betterment of the galaxy.
And Anakin had hated not getting any sort of choice in that. Shouldn't pursuing his destiny be something he strived for? Not this mandatory hell prison that he now hated worse than Tatooine. He loathed the forced isolation, his only company two delusional deities who thought he was their parent, and a bird.
Obi-Wan would have been proud of how much meditating he had resorted to.
"You will always be our Father," the Daughter said, taking his hand.
He felt his heart slowing, he tried to call an image of Padme's face to his mind as he felt his tethers to life slipping as he had felt them once before.
The Son took his other hand, and as he exhaled his last breath, he let out one last prayer, "Padme…"
He closed his eyes and the Force embraced him.
He inhaled, power and life filling him.
Anakin Skywalker opened his eyes, and his vision was clear.
He looked down at himself, and was no longer in the dying man's body but his own. He fisted his hands, the metal one not as receptive but still his.
He felt his face.
It was gloriously beardless.
He stood to his feet in a graceful, effortless, motion. He almost cried, he was alive, he was himself again.
He laughed aloud, his throat clear, his lungs expanding without pain.
He looked at the Son and Daughter who were staring at him with unreadable expressions.
"Thank you," he told them, "thank you so much."
"Now do you love us, Father?" the Daughter asked in a heartbreaking tone.
He looked away from her, "I am grateful, but I am not your Father."
He noticed then that he was wearing white. A familiar white-tan tunic at that.
Was he wearing Obi-Wan's robes? Why?
He knew he hadn't been when he had been caught in that explosion. He felt for his lightsaber, it was on the wrong side and his first thought was that it was Obi-Wan's by looking at the exhaust head, but then he realized the grip was more Qui-Gon's. It had been a very long time since he last saw Qui-Gon's saber, so he thought it could have been his.
When he ignited it, he supposed it had to be Qui-Gon's, the green light all but confirmed it. Obi-Wan must have modified it, something Anakin had never imagined his Master would have ever done.
Extinguishing the saber, feeling that it was just a bit too slim for his own comfort, he looked back at the siblings.
"Listen, I can't thank you enough for getting my body back. But I won't lie to you; I am not your Father. He died, or returned to the Force, or whatever is you people do, but the point is that I am not yours. I have my own kids, or I would have had one day."
The Son and the Daughter exchanged another one of those, 'we are working together so worlds are going to spontaneously, 'accidentally', combust' looks.
The Son started slowly, "So if we pulled your children from the Force and we killed them, then you would have to love us."
Anakin baulked, "What!? NO! That's not how that works!"
The Daughter was shaking her head sadly, "You will grieve for them as we grieved Father, but you will come to realize that we are your Son and Daughter as we came to realize you are our Father."
Anakin had to replay that back in his head to grasp her meaning. So on some level, they did understand that he was not their precious Father, on the other hand, they were threatening to kill his kids.
And he didn't care what reality this was or they thought they were going to do that in, he would destroy all of Mortis, the Daughter and Son and himself along with it, to keep his family safe.
He had only met his kids briefly in visions, and he already loved them.
Luke with both his mother's and grandmother's innate kindness.
Leia with both her mother's inner fire and her grandmother's dark eyes.
They were pieces of his heart, his soul, and Anakin would do anything for them.
Even beg crazy personifications of aspects of the Force not to commit trans-dimensional homicide, "Please, Daughter, how could it be the will of the Light to kill anyone, least of all the children of the man you call your Father."
She raised her chin, "It won't be real death, if we bring them here, they will have yet to be born. We are killing not them but the idea of them. Besides, this is for you Father."
"It's would still be murder!" he roared, losing his temper.
The Son laughed, "We are saving you Father, I saw the Chosen One's future. Your supposed children would have been the death of you."
Anakin thought of the monster who had in all probability killed Ahsoka, his Padawan, his charge.
His friend.
"Then I probably deserved it," he snapped.
The Son's expression turned mocking, "Think what you like, but once we kill the twins you will forget they ever existed and you will have no one but us."
The Daughters expression brightened, "We can take his memories! That way he'll never try to leave us!"
Anakin drew Qui-Gon's lightsaber, "You two are insane."
The Son smiled, "No, we just aren't human."
Neither the Son nor the Daughter attacked him, they had before and even in a dying body, he had been able to defeat them.
They didn't try to attack him now, not when he had his true body back.
Instead, they flew off on wings of feather and leather, taking their beast forms. There were no spreaders or technology on this planet, he could follow them even if he always had ways of finding them. He knew that if he tried to sleep, they would attack him then, try and take his memories.
Would he even be himself if they took all his memories? If he had no memories would he accept what they told him about being the Father?
Would he remember that his twins were in danger?
Anakin was beginning to panic, the Son and Daughter had powers that he didn't understand. Would they really kill his and Padme's children?
He looked up to the skies, to the arrowed shape ships entering orbit, and cried out in jubilation as he felt a familiar Force presence, "Obi-Wan!"
Death Star - Minutes after the Force Chose to Pull General Luke Skywalker - Darth Vader
Watching his son disappear into the Force was a bit disturbing. Especially as it reminded him of how Obi-Wan had died.
However, Luke had disappeared entirely, as in along with his clothes. So Vader hoped it was some type of teleportation, or some trick that had happened with Ahsoka when she disappeared in thin air too.
Hard to say if he had that memory right or not as he had promptly fallen through the floor, but he was pretty sure she had disappeared, especially as there had been such a large flux in the Force in the moment she left.
As there had been with his son.
Oh, how the boy reminded him of Padme.
The thought hurt.
Vader hadn't been lying when he had said it was too late for him to redeem himself, that was beyond him.
But Luke had been right about the conflict within him, that ceaseless battle between Light and Dark within him that he could never defeat one way or the other.
It was that nature of his cursed existence. He could no more fully commit himself to the Light than he could embrace fully the Dark, not forever.
Both lived in him.
And as Darth Vader turned to go tell his Master, the Sith who had enslaved him within the Force, within his own body, he thought of his old self.
Of the Jedi Knight who had been burning to death on the riverbank.
By all rights he should be dead now, Obi-Wan had not meant for him to live, and perhaps he had deserved that pain for what he had done to Obi-Wan's family.
Because truly, the Jedi Order had been Obi-Wan's family when it had never been his, and yet…
You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you.
For a moment, Vader let himself let go of his hate for his old mentor, his old friend.
Obi-Wan hadn't betrayed him, Vader had betrayed everything he had told himself he had fought against.
Slavery was worse in the galaxy under the Empire than it had been, under Darth Sidious, under Darth Vader's oversight. Chaos and fear ruled the cosmos, and the destruction of Alderaan had been going too far.
He wished he could go back, he wished someone or something had intervened.
He wished he had left with Padme when she told him she was pregnant, wished he had raised Luke himself with her, wished he had been able to truly live as a freeman.
Wish he had been brave enough to leave the Order on his own without turning to a new Master.
But he knew that Darth Sidious would never have allowed that. He would have destroyed everything in his life just as he twisted his relationship with Obi-Wan, the same bastard who had orchestrated a false war, bringing years of suffering to everyone and everything that he loved.
As he walked to the Emperor, he reminded himself that Luke was right. Reminded himself that Luke was the last piece of both Padme and Obi-Wan in his life, and he would heed his son where he should have heeded his wife and brother.
Where he should have heeded his mother.
Don't look back.
Darth Vader was a cripple, but wielding both the Light and Darkness, he might just be able to best the Emperor. Besides, he had something Darth Sidious did not have:
Absolutely no desire to live anymore.
Endor Moon - Entrance to the Imperial Base - 4 ABY - General Organa/Princess Leia Organa
Leia had woken that day with a heavy heart, the sense that Luke was far from reach, and confused memories of dreams that were overly clear in her mind.
But she was glad they were so clear… she had seen Papa again.
That memory and the knowledge of Luke on the Death Star solidifying her determination. They had to be victorious today.
For all the people they had lost.
For the freedom of the galaxy.
For her Papa, everything he had built, everything he had taught her, and everything he had hoped for.
Han was hot-wiring the blaster doors, and she glanced back to see the stupid look on his face as the first blaster door shut.
It made her want to smile.
That was until a blaster bolt caught her upper arm, and she cried out more from shock than pain.
She had felt worse.
"Oh, Princess Leia, are you all right?" Threepio exclaimed.
Han was at her side in an instant, "Let's see."
"It's not bad," she told him, the burning sensation making her want to grit her teeth but she wasn't bluffing, she would be fine.
"Freeze!" a storm trooper called.
They froze, staring into each other's eyes.
No, it couldn't end like this.
"Oh, dear," Threepio master of both under and overstatements.
The storm trooper yelled a warning, "Don't move!"
Leia held her blaster at ready out of view of the two stormtroopers moving toward them.
She locked eyes with Han, and time seemed to suspend between them.
The look on his face she would remember for the rest of her days.
"I love you," Han said.
She smiled up at him and returned, "I know."
"Hands up! Stand up!" the trooper called.
Han's responding grin was the last thing she remembered before he pulled back, hands, and she fired on their aggressors.
The sound of blaster fire echoed throughout the world, sparks flying as reality seemed to unravel around her. And as a sense, a presence pulled her, embraced her, she understood that all she knew would never be the way she had known it.
It was the same sense, the same inner understanding, that she felt with Luke. It was how she had been able to find him on Bespin, how she had always known they were meant to be together, that they were two halves of a complete being.
Now that she was lost in the Darkness, unable to see, and unknowing of where she was, she reached out to him.
And Luke was there, a light in the dark, it was confirmed that no matter what, planets exploding, galaxies falling, empires rising, he would always be with her.
When next she opened her eyes, it was up into the worried face of her brother.
"Luke," she breathed.
Relief washed over his expression and his face shone with light as he smiled at down at her, a night sky of unfamiliar constellations behind him.
"Leia," he said, his voice so full of emotion it broke his heart.
She sat up and pulled him into a hug, "It's alright, I'm here."
He held her tightly, burying his face in her shoulder. "I've missed you so much," came his muffled voice.
She laughed, pulling back from him, "Luke, I saw you last night."
Surprise crossed his face, "Leia, it's been three years."
She felt her jaw slacken, "Excuse me?"
AN: Reactions, thoughts, lost birds, or feedback, please?