Thank you so, so much for all of your wonderful support! Thanks for your time spent reading, for the comments, the favs, all that jazz. Your support is SO appreciated. THANK YOU! Please continue to enjoy~~

Chapter 12

A surge of pain washed through Anakin, and he temporarily jolted out of the visions in his head and back to reality. His back arched, and he screamed against the pain. Force lightning or an electro-jabber—he couldn't differentiate. It didn't matter. When the electric current ceased, he collapsed onto a surface that stabbed into his skin and muscles.

Dull metallic gray blurred over his head. Lights blinked at the corners of his vision, but he couldn't turn his head. He tried to lift a hand, but his wrists were bound. Something sharp and tight, like a brace, secured his wrists instead of the frigid metal shackles he'd previously worn.

He had no idea how long he had been here, wherever here was. Only that he was alive and shouldn't be and wished he wasn't.

His mind wandered despite his best efforts to rein it. A strange effect of the electricity was to bring him back and then elicit another wave of nightmares.

Bodies crumpled before him. Young and old. It all went by in a blur, and Anakin barely noticed their faces. Didn't care to stop and see their species, their sex, their age, or any other detail about them. They stood in his way, so he destroyed them. Again and again and again. Anakin began disassociating with the Tuskens—they were animals, nothing more than barely sentient barbarians. Eventually, the entire galaxy became as such, trivial things that needed to be put down.

Anakin destroyed the Jedi and the Republic. Padmé and Obi-Wan. He enslaved entire planets. He obliterated entire worlds. He tortured his children.

Another shock of lightning ran through him, ripping him back to reality.

"My boy, you are finally awake. Good, good," said the silky voice of Sidious from somewhere over Anakin's head. He strode into view, shadows draped around him in the scant light. A gentle smile crept onto his lips as he gazed down at Anakin. He set a hand on Anakin's forehead and sent a wave of chills shuddering through Anakin's muscles. "I suppose you are wondering how we are not dead. I would be surprised, too. It was a well-thought-out plan."

So Sidious had lived, and Anakin had failed. If the Force had a sense of humor, it wasn't a very good one.

Sidious' grin grew into something grotesque, feral.

"But you should know, it was my plan, and so the results, of course, were in my favor. I lured you, not the other way around."

Anakin opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Purple light flashed near his legs, and then another surge of electricity washed through him. Electro-jabbers. He writhed and choked back a scream, and then he collapsed. He still could not turn his neck, but he glimpsed a droid skirting his vision. He also saw glossy black at the tips of his feet. His boots never would have shined like that.

"I planted a vessel, shielded us in our own containment field, and fled with no one the wiser. And the Jedi believe we are dead. That is the greatest deception, for now they are lulled into a false sense of complacency. Focused on trivialdistractions," Sidious said.

Another wave of electricity jolted through Anakin. All day, every day. Endless pain, but he didn't care anymore.

Sidious smoothed Anakin's hair away from his forehead, maybe like a father. Anakin wanted to turn away but couldn't. The touch felt invasive, offensive—treacherous. It played at affection but was nothing more than a lie.

"While the vision was a nuisance at first, it has proven to be quite enlightening. For you see, Anakin, I own the future. Nothing is hidden from me." Sidious paced a small track around Anakin's head. "I have been able to view my shortcomings from an outside perspective and consider how I might better myself. And improve I have." He leaned over Anakin. "I have seen beyond the ambitions of my former self. And merely destroying the Jedi seems so insignificant now."

Electricity surged through Anakin, and he writhed on the table. Every jolt sent a cascade of disoriented images ricocheting through his brain. Padmé dead. Obi-Wan dead. Torture. Slavery. Slaughter.

Sidious ran his hand across Anakin's head one last time, his fingertips ice against Anakin's skin. Then he withdrew, his grin vanished, and he stepped back. A wicked and sinister gleam leaped through his eyes.

"Do it."

Gears whirred somewhere beyond Anakin's vision, and then light caught on something moving over his head. Anakin flinched from the brightness, at the haze of shapes. An oval splotch of black came into focus above his head, fixed over him by a metal arm. The shape lowered towards his face. Red lenses glared at him in a frame of solid black. Familiar. Unmistakable.

A black mask.

Dread swelled in his chest, and visions flickered through Anakin's mind of the same, haunting image from the future. He let out a muffled protest, but his throat, his tongue couldn't form words. Instead, he unleashed a garbled scream—it was all he could do. He tried to turn, but something braced his neck in place. Wrists and ankles shackled. Trapped.

"I told you, Anakin. The future is inevitable. This is your destiny," Sidious said, his gentle words booming in Anakin's head.

The mask landed on Anakin's face and locked into place with a definitive click. Anakin thrashed against his bonds but couldn't move. He could hear himself inside the mask, but he also heard the strange echo of a deeper voice and rasping breaths. The mask didn't have a breathing mechanism, but it distorted his voice just the same. It burned in his ears, haunted his mind. The horrible words spoken by his future self. His raspy breaths. It was the voice of his cruel, true self.

Another shot of electricity went through him, and Anakin screamed against that, too. Image after image swirled in his head of the atrocities he had done.

"Do not be alarmed, Anakin," Sidious said. He set his hand near Anakin's shoulders, but Anakin didn't feel a thing. "I have no intention of killing you. In fact, you will not be left with a single scar. This time, I will have your body fully intact and at full power." The feral smile reappeared, and darkness stormed in his eyes. All seen through the red haze of the mask's tainted lenses. "It is your mind I do not need."

Sidious swept away and out of Anakin's vision. Another jolt of electricity shot through Anakin, more powerful than before. Force lightning, probably. An endless stream poured over and through Anakin. He jerked against whatever confines held him. Weight pressed against his chest and his lungs constricted.

"Once your mind is broken, you will belong to me. The more you fight, the more I will be forced to take measures against you." Sidious spoke firmly, and the lightning stopped. "What must I destroy for you to succumb? I wonder where your children will go. To Senator Organa or to the Lars family?"

Anakin shuddered as more and more images crowded his mind. Luke. Leia. Sidious knew where they belonged—where they would go. They were all targets because of Anakin.

"What of the clones? There are so very many of them, and the fragile jamming signal could fail at any moment." Booming footsteps echoed through the room, through the mask. "What of Padmé—dear Padmé. I do hope she survives childbirth this time. Oh wait… childbirth did not kill her." The footsteps paused. "You did."

Images. An entire lifetime screamed through Anakin's mind. Once. Twice. Faster than ever before. All of the anger, the suffering, lumped together in a few brief seconds. Then again. Anakin's heart stuttered in his chest, racing so fast. He couldn't breathe.

"Submit, Anakin, and such measures may not need to be taken. Let us pave the way to a new and glorious future together where everyone bows to our power." The footsteps moved away, but Sidious' voice rose in pleasure. "And I mean everyone."

Electricity shot through Anakin, and his vision went black. He never lost consciousness—the obnoxious droids attending him didn't allow sleep. Instead, he lurked somewhere between awake and asleep, between living and dead. Felt the pain coursing through him and watched his life flash before his eyes on loop, hundreds of times.

Watched as he destroyed the galaxy.

Anakin tried again to understand how he could become such a monster, but nothing made sense. Even the risk of Padmé's life, how could he betray her and bend a knee to Sidious, to the corruption she hated. He couldn't understand how he transformed into a monster, so his only conclusion was that he had always been one. A monster wearing the mask of an innocent man.

As he often did to escape the physical pain, Anakin sank into the Force. He could numb his mind to the external forces, but he couldn't flee from himself—he was always there. His future and his failures were burned forever in his mind. Truth, not lies. Fact, not fiction. He could never escape them.

The memories followed him into the Force. Pounded at him. Buried him.

People expected excellence from Anakin, but he'd failed at everything. He'd convinced the world he was a worthwhile General and Jedi, a person of value. But he was a monster that needed to be put down before he could destroy the innocent.

What would he have to do to make Sidious kill him? The dead didn't hurt anybody.

Then the visions of death and destruction receded and gave way to an empty world of white. He sat in a physical body in the strange, muted world. Ripples of color swirled around him. The warmth of the Force sheltered him, and he loathed it. He didn't deserve its comfort.

His hands were a child's hands, calloused from years of tinkering at Watto's shop. He wore the clothes of a slave—of his nine-year-old self, for that's what he'd become.

"Ani," called out a familiar voice.

It stirred in Anakin great anguish, and tears filled his eyes. He lifted his head to peer across the white expanse.

Qui-Gon stood not far off, closer than he felt. He folded his hands inside his sleeves and arranged his face into a solemn frown. It wasn't a dream, or a vision—it was as real as the first time Anakin had met him.

"I am sorry, Ani," Qui-Gon said. "I never wanted this to happen to you. But I did what was necessary to prevent that future from coming to pass. I could not reach you sooner—I could not reach Obi-Wan at all. You must understand that this was the only way." He did not blink or falter as he said, "I intended only for you and Obi-Wan to see the vision. The Force had other plans."

Tears spilled down Anakin's face. Qui-Gon had sent the vision. In all of his wisdom, with all of his power, even after death he managed a greater feat than any Jedi alive. No, perhaps becausehe was dead, was one with the Force. And because of him, Obi-Wan, Padmé, and many others would hopefully be spared.

Spared from Anakin.

"You should have listened to them," Anakin said in a child's voice, still nine years old. "Everyone knew, even Obi-Wan. That I was dangerous. You should have listened." And he wept, because now he knew it, too. What the Council had said was true. What Obi-Wan had warned Qui-Gon about on the landing platform years ago was true.

That boy is dangerous. The Council sees it. Why don't you?

"Ani—" Qui-Gon took a step forward, his presence comforting and warm.

Anakin didn't deserve it, and so with a fierce mental push, he shoved him away. Qui-Gon slammed into an invisible wall, and the Jedi Master pressed his hands against it, bewildered.

"Anakin—"

"You should have left me," Anakin said. He wasn't blaming Qui-Gon. No, it was good to believe in others, wasn't it? But everyone knew from the start there was no hope for him, and they should have believed it. Everyone should have believed it. "I would have lived and died a slave and the galaxy would be better for it." Anakin buried his face in his hands. Throbbing pain lanced through his head, through his chest and limbs. Every muscle burned. "You should have listened to them."

Anakin drew his knees to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and buried his face as tears fell. Qui-Gon's presence lingered, warm and familiar. Something Anakin imagined a father's presence might be like, not that he knew. Palpatine—Sidious—had once made him think as such. Emotions, attachments, feelings were not to be trusted.

So he pushed Qui-Gon away with another mental shove, and as he did, Anakin wept.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I failed you." And he pushed, and pushed, and pushed.

When at last he lifted his head, tears drenching his tattered trousers, Qui-Gon was gone. And the white, fluffy world faded away. Horrific memories poured in. Death poured in. Torture, destruction, and despair poured in. All he could hear was that horrific breathing—through Darth Vader's mask. Through his mask.

He was Darth Vader, and that raspy, gasping breath that struck terror into the galaxy? It was his.

All the visions gave way to one that played out before his eyes in slow motion. Something new, something different. So real and tangible that he could feel the drench of humidity, could smell the musty scent of wet. The din of blaster fire muted all other sounds. The battered ruins of a large craft formed out of a haze, and he saw Obi-Wan, soaked and with hair plastered to his forehead, leaning against a sparking control panel. Obi-Wan had Anakin's lightsaber, but he wasn't using it.

Sidious approached him and raised a hand. Obi-Wan rose from the ground, a ragdoll strangled by a vise grip to the neck. Sidious ran the red blade of his lightsaber through Obi-Wan's heart.

Another wave of electricity ripped Anakin from the vision, from the images that weren't a part of his future memories.

Pain washed over him, and yet he dove back into the numbness of the Force where he was only remotely aware of the agony his body suffered.

Again, more prominent and louder than all other visions, he saw the images of Obi-Wan slain at the hands of Sidious. The destroyed bridge of a ship, Sidious' death grip, all played out before Anakin as clear as though he stood in the midst of it.

Sidious hoisted Obi-Wan into the air and strangled the life out of him. "Now it is my time. Die, Kenobi." Then the Sith Lord stepped forward and thrust his lightsaber through Obi-Wan's chest.

Obi-Wan jolted from whatever immediate sense of pain he felt, eyes wide, and then he was gone. Sidious cast him into a sea of clone trooper bodies, their white armor marred with the charred marks of blaster fire.

An electro-jabber hit Anakin and sent another wave of burning pain through him, scattering the images in his mind. They came back again on loop: Obi-Wan died at Sidious' hands. Again, and again, and again.

If trying to understand and change the future were forbidden paths to the dark side, why did Anakin have visions at all? Why did the Force make them exist? Anakin never tried to see the future, not intentionally. He'd never wanted to see any of it, not his mother's death, not Padmé's death, not his fall to the dark side. What was the point of it, if only for Anakin to suffer again and again by having to watch? By standing by, watching, and doing nothing.

If he was meant to do nothing, why bother showing him? And if he was meant to change it, why did it always go wrong? Everything Anakin tried caused more pain than what he tried to prevent. Everything he did ended in failure. And so he watched as Sidious struck Obi-Wan down, knowing full well he could do nothing to stop it.

Again, the visions danced through his mind. Again, the Force deemed to torment him with a vision of the future he could not, should not touch. An attempt to change the future would lead only to failure and greater death. Padmé vs. the galaxy, and Anakin had chosen wrong. Obi-Wan vs. what? Who would die for Obi-Wan to live? What foolish choice would Anakin make, and who would suffer the consequences of it? Again, and again, the visions played.

Choke. Stab.

Anakin's muscles tightened. His head throbbed.

Choke. Stab.

He couldn't do anything to escape it. Another jolt of electricity shot through him. His hands squeezed into fists, but they didn't feel right, as if he were trying to grab through oversized gloves.

Choke. Stab.

Why did he have to see it? Why did he have to watch the people he loved die knowing he could do nothing?

Choke. Stab.

He didn't want the dark side. He didn't want power. He didn't want to control the future. He didn't want anything but to be left alone.

"I don't want to see," he said, his voice cracked, broken, and unrecognizable even to his own ears. Inside the mask, it sounded weak and hollow, but beyond the mask it sounded deep and husky, like two completely different voices he could hear at one time. "I don't want to see and do nothing."

Choke. Stab.

"Don't give it to me!" he screamed at the Force, and he pulled at the restraints binding his wrists. He wanted to claw at his own face, at the mask that twisted his voice into that of a monster. "Don't give it to me if you don't want me to change it! Don't give it to me if you don't want me to try!" As he screamed, another jolt of electricity shot through him from somewhere, but he was so numb that it tingled harmlessly through his stiff muscles.

And then another vision, a break in a blanket of clouds. Streaks of sunlight cutting through a demolished ship. Water dripped off metal into glinting puddles. Anakin knelt and found the mask of Darth Vader on the ground. He picked it up and brushed it off, and he had the immense feeling that, once and for all, he would sink into oblivion and disappear. He turned the mask to his face and drew it near.

"Don't," Anakin muttered, stricken. Don't give in.

Choke. Stab.

"Don't," he said, and then he ripped both of his arms upwards and towards his chest, and whatever shackles bound him snapped. "Don't!"

He threw himself from a metal table, the shackles on his ankles shattering as easily as those on his wrists. Several droids came at him with electro-jabbers, but Anakin caught the blade of one with his hand—his hand gloved in polished black armor—and held fast. Purple threads of electricity swam around the black armor on his hand, but he couldn't feel it. He grabbed the weapon and flung the droid into a wall with impossible strength. The droid shattered and fell to pieces like fragile clay pottery.

Anakin held his hand out against several other droids swarming through the door, and they crumpled at a mere thought. Not just the droids, either. An entire wall collapsed, and the computer console connected to it shattered, sparked, and burst into flames. Anakin staggered towards the door on feet not his own. He stood taller than before and wore a treacherous suit of pure black armor to match the mask on his face, the helmet on his head. He stumbled to one of many computer consoles in the room, and on the blank screen, his reflection stared back at him.

Darth Vader stared back at him.

Anakin smashed the screen with his mechno-arm and the polished glove, and he felt nothing. He staggered to the door, images of the future playing in front of his eyes on top of reality, living two lives at once. A swarm of battle droids came at him with blasters, but with just a thought he pushed them several meters in a tangled knot of metal.

When blaster fire crashed over him, he held out a hand. A shield of white light danced off his fingertips and dissolved every shot. When he reached the droids, he simply pushed them with the shield. An unhindered march straight through metal corridor after metal corridor. A few droids came from behind, and they exploded at a mere nudge from the Force.

All the while, the future played on. Obi-Wan died. Clones slaughtering the Jedi. Anakin put on the mask. Jedi slaughtering the clones. A new future, no better than the last.

Anakin would not do nothing.

He reached the end of the corridor and found a hangar bay, and at least two dozen droids rolled in a haphazard ball in front of the barrier he held at his fingertips. He pushed with the Force and flung them away into the hangar. With resolve and without fear, Anakin marched towards the smaller ships at the back of the bay. Small vessels built for speed.

Beyond the ships, the mouth of the hangar gaped open into a world of glistening blue that blinded Anakin.

Anakin stormed to a row of various starfighters and scanned for a functional hyperdrive without the need for a hyperdrive ring. A cluster of destroyers rolled around the line of ships and unraveled before him, shields up, but Anakin simply hoisted them in the air and flung them out into the endless blue beyond the hangar. His head hurt and his mind went fuzzy, but it was all surprisingly easy even though he felt as though his body was on fire.

He slid into one of the starfighters with a hyperdrive, a sleek gray vessel packed with a blaster and little else. He brought the fighter to life and opened fire on incoming droids and every nearby ship he could take down. Then he propelled the ship out of the hangar and into brilliant blue skies littered with a few blossoms of white clouds. Below lay the picturesque landscape of sprawling green forests and sheer mountain peaks of gray and white, and an endless, aquamarine ocean like something out of a holo. Pure, unadulterated paradise.

Without R2, he was at the mercy of whatever coordinates had already been set for the hyperdrive. Anakin was pleasantly surprised—and equally concerned—that the last route used by the starfighter and the only coordinates set for it would send him straight to Kamino.