Nothing made sense.

Vader could feel every inch of his body. His hands, his legs, his head. But he couldn't see them.

How strange. Is this what Death feels like?

Vader had read stories of the all consuming Chaos that awaited him when he died, the endless black pit whose tendrils would swallow him whole leading to ever lasting torment. If this was it, then the stories were overrated.

Instead of blackness, he was surrounded by an illness inducing green haze. He floated upwards and then immediately downwards. While there was a rudimentary sense of direction, there was no sense of time. In the green maze that he had found himself in, time was nothing. His head or what he supposed that his head should be felt heavy. Whenever he tried moving it around, the deep green haze that permeated everything around him got thicker. It was as if he was immersed in old engine oil, viscous, sticky and muddy. It twirled, forming spires and spinning cyclones that only served to increase his disorientation.

And then Vader heard it.

"Anakin. Anakin is that you?"

My old name, but who... who is that... The Angel? The Angel is here?, he thought, the ethereal voice sounding familiar.

"Slave boy?"

What?

"Stop hiding… SLAVE BOY!" The shout pierced his being as Padme emerged from the mists. It wasn't the Padme that he knew though.

Her eyes offered him no comfort or joy. They weren't even eyes, they were more akin to fiery pits as green flames smoldered and vibrated with every move that the spectre made. Her royal robes lacked their usual regal grace and beauty. They were now a mess, torn and shriveled by a thousand different hands and barely kept together by some mystical force. Her hair was free, a mockery of the intricate hairstyles that she had to wear as Queen of Naboo. They moved with a mind of their own, strands of hair coiling and springing out towards him like snakes.

Instead of a Queen, his Queen, Padme was a Chimaera, a beast of legend.

"Do you think I am waiting for you? Thinking of you? SLAVE BOY, YOU ARE NOTHING. LESS THAN SAND", the Chimaera spoke as Vader felt his heart bawl and shrink with every mention of the word Slave. He wanted to close his ears, strike back in some manner but you needed to have hands for both of those things and he couldn't find his.

"YOU WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING!", she kept shouting at him but her voice was twisted, mixed with somebody else's. It sounded as if two different holonet channels smashed into each other and amalgamated into something unintelligible and uncanny.

"Dark Lord of the Sith? You can't even legally pilot a speeder in most worlds, son".

HOW!?, he screamed without a voice as the Chimaera's voice turned into that of his old Master.

Somehow, Sidious was back. Back to torment him.

The old man sighed, not angry, no, never angry. He was disappointed, even pained.

"It is my failure, really. Defeated by a boy that couldn't hold his own against me. But you… you! You are the bigger fool"

NO, I AM NOT!

"Yes you are!"

NO, I AM NOT!

"I had so much more to teach you, you had so much more to learn in your quest to dethrone me. You could have been more powerful than any Jedi, than any being. But you had to get angry at the wrong time", his Master's voice continued, spitting out the last word. Padme then calmly lifted her hands up. With a flick of her wrists, the Chimaera spewed out streams upon streams of green lightning. Pain followed. Rolling, continuous, unrelenting pain.

He was unsure of how long it had been since the unholy creature had left him alone. After having tormented him physically and verbally, the hybrid monstrosity of his Master and his Angel had been sated. It disappeared into green mist once again. He had no ability for coherent thought at this point.

Did I ever have it?

He had resigned to his fate, floating through the green inferno, the chaotic energies that spiraled around him being the only constant, both scenery and companion.

Until…

"Ani…"

What now?

"Ani, my goodness. You're hurt"

Ahh, she's here too.

He turned or rather gravitated towards the source of the voice, his suspicions confirmed. His mother was there. It was simply her. The familiar garb of a Tatooine slave, the smell of machine oil and dirt, the always welcoming smile. No change. No twist, simply Shmi Skywalker. Her hands were extended, waving at him to come closer. He wasn't sure if he had a choice on the matter as he floated towards her waiting embrace.

A new feeling, a warm sensation run through his body as he was engulfed by the protective embrace of the apparition that looked like his mother. The mother that he had left behind, the mother that was…

"…Dead to you. I am dead to you aren't I? He managed to alienate you, just like he did to my boy. Took you away from her and turned you into a monster", Shmi said calmly as her hands waved through his invisible, disembodied hair.

Her boy? I am her boy.

"No, you are not", she flatly replied. "You will never be. You are a Sith."

He looked upwards and was met by bony fingers with long, sharp nails that were attached to pale, thin, haggard hands. Her slave robes were now replace by a long flowing dress with large shoulder flaps that floated upwards, close to her head. Her face was pale with wide black tattoos marking it. Combined with her pronounced cheekbones and sunken eyes, she looked like a skinless skull. He watched at her as the warmth retreat from his body as fear took its place. It wasn't the good kind of fear, the fear that gave you strength and purpose during a duel, that made you sharp in order to survive. It was the kind of fear that he had tried so hard to purge from his psyche. The kind that made you weak in the knees, destroyed you and rendered you paralyzed when you should be looking for a way to survive.

Her bony right arm was raised to up in the air, a finger extended outwards. The Witch begun lowering it slowly downwards. "A little Sith that killed and maimed my sisters with indifference. A little Sith that was careless enough to draw our attention", she said, the finger coming closer and closer to his forehead. He tried moving away from her but he achieved nothing, his phantom limbs being unresponsive. "But your stock is strong. I'll drop you into Dathomir's mouth. It will chew you, it will smash you, it will destroy you and teach you obedience to your superiors. And then you'll grovel at my feet, last of the Sith. My son will be avenged and my clan will be made stronger."

Her fingernails were now almost grazing his forehead. He tried one last to escape her, inching away as much as he could but it was to no avail. He could only scream in fear as her finger made contact with his skin.

Vader screamed as pain reverberated through his forehead. Its center was a small cyclical spot between his eyes, just above his nose. His eyes dropped downwards. They were in pain too, probably from being kept up for a long tie. The whiteness of his vision gradually retreated, allowing him to see where he was. Images and sensations flooded Vader as he came to visualize his surroundings. His hands and legs were securely tied to the walls of the container, for lack of a better word, that he was in. His wrists burned as the harsh rope chafed his wrists. He looked downwards, finding that his training clothes had been replaced by cheap rags spun from a fabric that made his skin itch. To the opposite of him there was his guard.

She wasn't much older than him but the girl had the trained confidence and bearing of an older woman. Is that what people mean when they say I looked like him?, he thought. She was a Witch herself, there was no doubt about that. She had her own set of facial tattoos albeit in a different style than that of the Witch in his dream. Instead of a skull, hers resembled a predator. She had long, dark brown hair that was held together in loose, twin braids. Her inquisitive black eyes looked at him in childish curiosity, as if he was the first boy that she had seen in her entire life.

I might as well be, he thought. The Book of Sith didn't go into much detail about the Nightsisters or their powers but there were some things in it about them. They were a matriarchically society that had dominated the males of their world, using them as either breeding stock or a literally stock, to be traded and seconded to clients that paid the exorbitant prices that they set for their services.

"Whe…", he tried speaking before the little girl reached for the metallic hilt on her waist in a menacing manner.

"Alright, alright, no talking", Vader rushed to say while he glued himself to the wall in a futile attempt to get as far away from her. She's clearly not of the talking sort, he thought looking around the container. The whole structure shaked softly around him. His sharper senses could detect a consistent buzz, indicative of a speeder's engines. Ferrying me around like cattle, he thought. But where to?

Vader tried reaching out through the Force, picturing an invisible hand crushing the windpipe of the girl that was guarding him. If she won't talk, might as well try my hand. He hadn't attempted choking somebody without channeling the Force with his hands but Vader knew it was possible. He channeled every ounce of anger and fear that coursed through him. It amounted to nothing.

Why?, he thought as a renewed wave of anxiety came over him. He had no problem using the Force before. His Master had put him through torture that would have rendered others into mute invalids just to break him down in order to build him up once again. It had done nothing to decrease or impede his abilities. The thought of losing his connection to the Force truly terrified him. The Force gave him strength, power and victory, an edge that couldn't easily be supplanted. If the Dark Side had forsaken him over his defeat or the Witches had robbed him of his power…

"Don't try that again", the girl spoke in the, by now, familiar accent of the Dathomirians. Her voice was lacking the usual deepness of her sisters but it was nonetheless menacing.

Did she feel that?

"Try what Witch?", Vader decided to feign ignorance, both as a ploy to divert her attention elsewhere as well as to cover his renewed interest in her. He hadn't felt the Force in any of her Sisters, at least not in any significant capacity, mostly residual energy from their Talismans and Artifacts. Could this girl be Sensitive to the Force just like him?

"Choking me", she replied lifting a finger to stop him from replying. "There's no use in lying or trying again. Mother Talzin made sure of it."

The Force hasn't forsaken me, relief hesitantly returning to him. His current powerlessness was somehow connect to the Witches and this Talzin.

"Does Mother Talzin know that you can feel the Force too?", he continued with a question, trying to refocus the conversation to a place that he chose, his favorite tactic from his Junior Assembly days.

The girl smiled for a moment, a smile that was full of sweetness before she reverted to a dread gaze. "What do you think?", she retorted, answering with a question.

"Ah so this a lesson or rather a lesson in the form of an assignment. Oh look how weak the Sithling is...", Vader purposefully paused, waiting for her to give him her name.

"Silri.", the young Witch replied. It was Vader's time to smirk. I finally understand Sidious.

"Silri", he continued, "I've done those myself too. Are you learning at her feet as well, I suppose? Being taught the secrets of Dathomir, separate from your more mundane sisters because you, you Silri, and those like you are the special ones. Does it ring a bell?", he said. The girl remained silent but her facial features shifted. We're getting somewhere, he thought and pressed on.

"Save yourself some trouble and poison her or whatever it is you Witches do. Everything she says is in fear of being replaced", he concluded.

A deafening silence fell between the two after that as the speeder kept plowing through the world that they were on. If his dreams were to be believed the Witch called Talzin would have brought him to Dathomir, in order to drop him in its mouth, whatever the hell that meant. It was quite clear that she didn't want to kill him but rather break him just as his Master had done in the past and twist him to her own ends, whatever those may be. A tool once again. A blunt instrument, he thought. That's how everybody saw me in the past, so why would it change? It was painfully true but things were different now. He didn't possess a modicum of misguided loyalty to anybody on this world or any other world bar himself. That meant his goals were and would always be his own and he wouldn't fall for any false promises. Vader would pass the gauntlet that this Talzin would put him through, whatever its form would be and come out stronger. And when he did, he would destroy her and her entire cult, even if it was the last thing that he ever did with his life.

Silri could help me with that, he thought. Vader looked at the girl. She was too eager to study him before their little talk but now her black eyes run away from his own. A seed had definetely been planted but would it take root? She no doubt knew of his own power and the fact that he had killed four of her sisters and maimed another one. If she has even a shrivel of ambition... things will be interesting.

The engine of the speeder came to a stop, the momentum of the vehicle gently rocking both him and Silri. One side of the container rolled away, revealing a pair of Nightsisters, their features clouded by the dark of night. Warm, moist air invaded the container, sticking to his skin. The girl moved away from him to allow her older sisters to work on him, untying his restraints before dragging him out on his knees. Vader could have walked, he was even tempted to but decided to bear the pain that would be caused by a few scrapes on his knees if it meant that they would have to carry him. It was a petty gesture and he knew it but the Dark Lord didn't change his way. At the edge of what he realized were the primitive huts of a village, a trio of horned forms were waiting for him.

"Ah, sisters! Welcome, welcome", spoke the horned man at the head of the group, his raspy voice sounding strong but ultimately hiding sickening, slavish delight at being in the presence of those that were his betters. This being would do anything and sacrifice everything if it secured a single moment of appreciation from one of the women. "This is him, I presume?"

"Wow!", Vader said with a mocking chuckle. What an idiot. "I see why you keep him around. He's a genius!", he continued, turning the chuckle into laughter. The man growled at him, showing his teeth. "Oh scary!", Vader followed up, opening his mouth in faux shocked expression as he waved his head before he saw an opening, the same one that he saw in the girl. "I've killed four of them and maimed one so I don't know what yo…"

An elbow came crashing into Vader's ribs, cutting him off. He produced a choking noise akin to an engine failing to ignite as he forgot how to breath for a moment. "He's mouthy but you can fix that, can't you Viscus?", the Witch to his left said without a care for the choking child that she held down.

He hadn't seen a person nod his agreement more than the man that was supposed to be the leader of the group that he would become a part of. "Don't you worry Sisters, don't you worry. When I am done with him, he will be as compliant as one of your rancors"

"You will be… dead… when you are done with me", Vader spoke between breathes. He knew that the line he was walking was thin but Silri's comments as well as those of this Viscus told him that word of his achievements had indeed been spread around. Rumors brew doubt and doubt gives openings. Openings give victory. Vader had already seen the effect of that on the girl and now on the leader's cohorts. They would doubt him at first, how could a child kill four of the strongest beings that they knew of but with each one of his successes they would believe him more and more.

Viscus approached him and jerked his chin violently, assessing him under his careful gaze. "Hm… Savage's lot maybe. We will see. Take him", the horned man murmured and his guards took him from the sisters. Exhibiting the same dogged refusal to make their job easier, Vader kept dragging his feet as the men brought him deeper into the village. He turned over his shoulder, looking at the Witches and Viscus being in discussions, the girl staying close to her Sisters. "Be seeing you, Silri!", he shouted before he received a light hit on the back of his neck, forcing him to turn forward.

"You'll respect the Nightsisters from now on, boy. Welcome to Dathomir."

Author's Notes:

-Hello there, folks. I missed you, it's been a while. I enjoyed my last few days of summer vacation, hence the delay. Winter is fast approaching though and we'll be back to a relatively consistent schedule.

-A warm Dathomirian welcome for our Sith Lord,a planet full of dangers but also new opportunities. Let's see how this world will shape him and change him.

-Silri is an old Legends character from the Empire at War game. She is a personal favorite and without a concrete birth date I decided to include her in this one. She's the same age as Vader in this continuity, a young Nightsister in training.

-The next few chapters will catalogue important events during Vader's stay with the Nightsisters. They'll be a few time jumps in between and after those chapters I'll drop two relatively large ones from Padme's and Dooku's point of view, detailing the events of the Galaxy at Large.

-This is my longest chapter. I don't how to feel about that but it is an interesting fact.

-asonia99, Ouch indeed and as you can see it will get more ouchy.

-As always I appreciate and welcome all kinds of feedback, even if it is a few lines.

-Till we meet again.