Tried not to leave you hanging too long......Enjoy!
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Vader attacked Palpatine, his son at his side, his eyes finally opened to his blindness, his actions, twenty years of callousness to right and wrong. Luke's unfailing goodness had won him over, his devotion to what he knew was right and for the people he cared for. Luke's anger and his attack were purely in defense of his friends.
And it would be up to his father to see him succeed. For without Vader's help, after the sufferings he had endured of late, the boy was no match for Palpatine
Amid the corona crackle of blue fire, the Emperor's face shone with hard anger. "My friend, you would be wise to back away," he advised coldly, fingers sparking white lightning toward Luke. "If you care at all what happens to your son." Luke caught most of the burst, wincing still at the snaking tendrils that shot past his defenses.
"I care what happens to my son," Vader snarled, springing to the young man's defense with a wide, arcing swing of his saber.
"Father—look out!" Luke snapped. Vader dropped, barely avoiding a flagstone arcing through the air toward his skull. He spun, cleaving the rock in two. The stone shattered against the floor like glass shards. Luke stumbled to his father's defense as Palpatine threw another burst of lightning toward the dark lord.
"You leave me with little choice, Vader," Palpatine's graveled, angry voice spoke above the din of the battle with an air of finality and sudden premonition of danger.
Instinctively, Vader dove toward his son, but was not prepared for what happened next.
Before he could cry out a warning, he suddenly felt blinding, numbing pain explode through Luke's mind. His son suddenly went rigid with a startled, agonized gasp, his eyes widening in belated realization, his lightsaber dropping from his hand like a hot stone.
"Luke!"
The Jedi slid to his knees, eyes wide, color draining from his face.
"What a sad waste," Palpatine said piteously into the sudden balking silence. "All this might have been avoided."
Vader was at Luke's side as his son dropped, gasping in startled pain, to hands and knees, trembling arms threatening to buckle beneath him. The dark lord lifted the young man up, placing himself as a shield between the boy and the Emperor. "Palpatine—let him go!" he cried, enraged. Luke only doubled forward with a cry.
Vader caught his son, fear and helplessness racing in his heart, lowered him to the floor. He didn't know what to do to ease his son's pain—didn't know what Palpatine was doing to the boy. He could only sit there in shock as Luke crumpled under the invisible barrage. The Jedi's eyes were tightly shut, shoulders shaking with every shuddering breath he took.
"It's a shame you are such a slow learner," Palpatine remarked to Skywalker who was now past listening. Luke only writhed in pain, curling up against the stone floor with another gasping cry.
********
Terror and grief flooding her mind, Mara watched as Luke went down. It seemed as if it happened in slow, agonized motion, frame by frame. She felt his pain screaming out at her through the Force. His broken voice sobbed into the thick silence, incoherent words. *The implant!* she thought desperately. And she could do nothing but try and block him out of her mind to keep his pain from immobilizing her.
"Luke!" Leia Organa's voice had cried in horror across the room. The other woman struggled to her feet in an effort to run to her brother, but Solo, horror and grief flooding his features, pulled her back. The princess dropped to the floor. "Luke—no!"
Vader was kneeling over his son, frantic movements trying to calm the Jedi's pained cries, trying to relieve his son's agony somehow. Black gloved hands reached for the boy's temples in an effort to draw away some of the pain. But there wasn't anything the dark lord was able to do.
"Palpatine, you're killing him!" Vader cried in rage, twisting to face his master. Luke was curled in a fetal position against the flagstones, shoulders shaking, arms clenched rigidly over his stomach, fingernails digging grooves into the rock, his voice pleading hoarsely for it all to stop. The Emperor, expression cold and hard, only responded with a burst of blue lightning. Vader leapt to his feet, deflecting the bolts away from him and Luke.
In rage, he sprang forward to resume the attack. "You're killing my son!" he cried angrily. "I will not let you kill him!"
The dark lord flew into a furious attack, his lightsaber a blur of crimson, his bulky form moving with agility in the offensive. But Palpatine was not without his defenses: too fast to see, uprooted flagstones hurled toward Vader from the shadows.
"I'm afraid, by now, you have little choice, my friend," the Emperor said calmly. "I warned you not to let your emotions get in the way."
A flagstone caught the dark lord glancingly on the shoulder, hurling him to the floor. Vader barely managed to deflect most of the next bolt of lightning hurled toward him. Mara knew, if he was to do this, he would need her help.
Like a marionette whose strings had been snapped, Luke's body fell limp against the flagstones, his screams suddenly silenced, his sense in the Force going out like a snuffed candle. Mara gasped at the shock of the sudden emptiness in her mind. Crawling forward on hands and knees, she pressed to her feet, feeling ill. Vader needed her help if he was to defeat Palpatine. She knew she had to somehow summon the strength to fight.
Blue lightning sparked from the Emperor's fingertips again, surrounding Vader's red blade in a blinding coronal fire that flashed purple light through the throne room. The dark lord deflected the lightning, swinging his blade viciously toward Palpatine.
The Emperor ducked aside with nimbleness that refuted his frail appearance, waving a clawed hand in the direction of the wall. Emitting a shower of sparks, a large piece of machinery detached itself from the ceiling and flew towards Vader. The dark lord ducked beneath the equipment sailing towards him, slicing it in two with his lightsaber. He barely managed to bring his weapon back up to deflect another burst of lightning.
The severed pieces of equipment crashed to the ground, skidding across the stone floor. With a fierce wave of his hand, Vader levitated both pieces toward the back of Palpatine's head, while still parrying rapidly against the lightning. In response, Palpatine raised his hand, stopping the equipment in midair, and then twisted it around again to pummel towards Vader.
Mara continued to watch tensely from the shadows, her stomach tying itself in little knots as she alternately eyed the battle, Luke's friends crouched by the stairs and Luke's prone, lifeless form lying still in the center of the floor. The pieces of machinery, twisting rapidly in the air, finally came under the Emperor's control, shooting towards Vader and catching the dark lord on the shoulder. The impact was enough to knock Vader's arm to the side, making him miss deflecting most of the next lightning burst.
Mara clenched her teeth. Shutting out the numbing possibility that Luke was dead, she scanned the throne room, seeing the lightsaber lying forgotten next to his prone form.
As she called the cylindrical weapon to her hand, she marveled briefly. As much as Luke had seemed to bottle the guilt up inside him, as much as he might have viewed himself as a failure, he had managed to find the good in the people that were his enemies and turn them to his side.
The green blade sprang to life in her hand. Mara rushed forward, hoping that she would have the benefit of surprise on her side. *This is in memory of Luke,* she thought silently.
Palpatine's expression registered no surprise or anger when she jumped into the fray. Vader did not react as she deflected another piece of flying machinery away from him. It didn't matter what they thought now. All she needed to do was provide enough of a distraction for Vader to be able to go in for the kill.
She caught a burst of lightning on her blade, jumping in spite of herself as a terrific *crack!* pierced the air. She looked up just in time to see a number of flagstones wrench up from the floor and shoot toward her and Vader. Gritting her teeth, Mara tried to split her attention between deflecting lightning bolts and fumbling for purchase on one of the huge stones. Next to her, Vader severed two of them in quick succession, dancing quickly out of the way of the lightning.
*All I need is make one distraction,* Mara thought quickly to herself. *Just one.* The boulder was slipping from her grip. If she was going to do it, she had to do it now—while Palpatine was preoccupied with Vader. But levitation wasn't exactly one of her strong points. Even as she tried to maneuver the stone, while still deflecting a barrage of lightning, she was losing hold of it.
With a surge of surprise, Mara suddenly felt an unfamiliar presence buoying her up, helping her with the stone. Leia Organa, she realized a moment later. *Of course.* It had just never occurred to her that Luke's sister was Force-strong.
Together, Mara and the princess steered the hovering flagstone straight for Palpatine. The Emperor's rock-pummeling stopped. Angrily, he whipped toward the boulder, fingers sparking a spider's web of lightning, shattering the stone. But it was the distraction they needed. Vader found his opening, diving forward and jabbing viciously upward with his lightsaber. Palpatine didn't have time to react.
An explosion of blue-white energy suddenly detonated with a thunderous crack, shattering the massive windows and virtually engulfing the room. Mara had the distance and presence of mind to fling up a barrier against the sudden onslaught as she was thrown to the floor. Distantly, she could see Solo in the corner, protecting wife. Vader staggered from where he'd cut down the Emperor, swallowed up in the awesome energy he had unleashed, cape whipping in the fury of the sudden storm. Mara clenched her eyes shut, praying for it to end.
When finally the deafening roar and dark energy subsided, there was a brief moment of deathly silence. She opened her eyes, crawling again unsteadily to her feet, Luke's lightsaber still clenched in her hand.
The throne room had been instantly transformed into a war zone. The cold wind skittered eerily through the shattered windows, flinging a flurry of icy snowflakes to scurry across the stone floor, to tangle in dark curtains. In the center of the stone floor, right where Palpatine had stood, was a massive, gaping black hole. A few feet away, Darth Vader lay, unmoving. And only a few feet from him was the lifeless form of Luke Skywalker, the one person who deserved to have witnessed the scene that had just transpired, to know what had just happened.
It was over. The Emperor was dead.
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Vader attacked Palpatine, his son at his side, his eyes finally opened to his blindness, his actions, twenty years of callousness to right and wrong. Luke's unfailing goodness had won him over, his devotion to what he knew was right and for the people he cared for. Luke's anger and his attack were purely in defense of his friends.
And it would be up to his father to see him succeed. For without Vader's help, after the sufferings he had endured of late, the boy was no match for Palpatine
Amid the corona crackle of blue fire, the Emperor's face shone with hard anger. "My friend, you would be wise to back away," he advised coldly, fingers sparking white lightning toward Luke. "If you care at all what happens to your son." Luke caught most of the burst, wincing still at the snaking tendrils that shot past his defenses.
"I care what happens to my son," Vader snarled, springing to the young man's defense with a wide, arcing swing of his saber.
"Father—look out!" Luke snapped. Vader dropped, barely avoiding a flagstone arcing through the air toward his skull. He spun, cleaving the rock in two. The stone shattered against the floor like glass shards. Luke stumbled to his father's defense as Palpatine threw another burst of lightning toward the dark lord.
"You leave me with little choice, Vader," Palpatine's graveled, angry voice spoke above the din of the battle with an air of finality and sudden premonition of danger.
Instinctively, Vader dove toward his son, but was not prepared for what happened next.
Before he could cry out a warning, he suddenly felt blinding, numbing pain explode through Luke's mind. His son suddenly went rigid with a startled, agonized gasp, his eyes widening in belated realization, his lightsaber dropping from his hand like a hot stone.
"Luke!"
The Jedi slid to his knees, eyes wide, color draining from his face.
"What a sad waste," Palpatine said piteously into the sudden balking silence. "All this might have been avoided."
Vader was at Luke's side as his son dropped, gasping in startled pain, to hands and knees, trembling arms threatening to buckle beneath him. The dark lord lifted the young man up, placing himself as a shield between the boy and the Emperor. "Palpatine—let him go!" he cried, enraged. Luke only doubled forward with a cry.
Vader caught his son, fear and helplessness racing in his heart, lowered him to the floor. He didn't know what to do to ease his son's pain—didn't know what Palpatine was doing to the boy. He could only sit there in shock as Luke crumpled under the invisible barrage. The Jedi's eyes were tightly shut, shoulders shaking with every shuddering breath he took.
"It's a shame you are such a slow learner," Palpatine remarked to Skywalker who was now past listening. Luke only writhed in pain, curling up against the stone floor with another gasping cry.
********
Terror and grief flooding her mind, Mara watched as Luke went down. It seemed as if it happened in slow, agonized motion, frame by frame. She felt his pain screaming out at her through the Force. His broken voice sobbed into the thick silence, incoherent words. *The implant!* she thought desperately. And she could do nothing but try and block him out of her mind to keep his pain from immobilizing her.
"Luke!" Leia Organa's voice had cried in horror across the room. The other woman struggled to her feet in an effort to run to her brother, but Solo, horror and grief flooding his features, pulled her back. The princess dropped to the floor. "Luke—no!"
Vader was kneeling over his son, frantic movements trying to calm the Jedi's pained cries, trying to relieve his son's agony somehow. Black gloved hands reached for the boy's temples in an effort to draw away some of the pain. But there wasn't anything the dark lord was able to do.
"Palpatine, you're killing him!" Vader cried in rage, twisting to face his master. Luke was curled in a fetal position against the flagstones, shoulders shaking, arms clenched rigidly over his stomach, fingernails digging grooves into the rock, his voice pleading hoarsely for it all to stop. The Emperor, expression cold and hard, only responded with a burst of blue lightning. Vader leapt to his feet, deflecting the bolts away from him and Luke.
In rage, he sprang forward to resume the attack. "You're killing my son!" he cried angrily. "I will not let you kill him!"
The dark lord flew into a furious attack, his lightsaber a blur of crimson, his bulky form moving with agility in the offensive. But Palpatine was not without his defenses: too fast to see, uprooted flagstones hurled toward Vader from the shadows.
"I'm afraid, by now, you have little choice, my friend," the Emperor said calmly. "I warned you not to let your emotions get in the way."
A flagstone caught the dark lord glancingly on the shoulder, hurling him to the floor. Vader barely managed to deflect most of the next bolt of lightning hurled toward him. Mara knew, if he was to do this, he would need her help.
Like a marionette whose strings had been snapped, Luke's body fell limp against the flagstones, his screams suddenly silenced, his sense in the Force going out like a snuffed candle. Mara gasped at the shock of the sudden emptiness in her mind. Crawling forward on hands and knees, she pressed to her feet, feeling ill. Vader needed her help if he was to defeat Palpatine. She knew she had to somehow summon the strength to fight.
Blue lightning sparked from the Emperor's fingertips again, surrounding Vader's red blade in a blinding coronal fire that flashed purple light through the throne room. The dark lord deflected the lightning, swinging his blade viciously toward Palpatine.
The Emperor ducked aside with nimbleness that refuted his frail appearance, waving a clawed hand in the direction of the wall. Emitting a shower of sparks, a large piece of machinery detached itself from the ceiling and flew towards Vader. The dark lord ducked beneath the equipment sailing towards him, slicing it in two with his lightsaber. He barely managed to bring his weapon back up to deflect another burst of lightning.
The severed pieces of equipment crashed to the ground, skidding across the stone floor. With a fierce wave of his hand, Vader levitated both pieces toward the back of Palpatine's head, while still parrying rapidly against the lightning. In response, Palpatine raised his hand, stopping the equipment in midair, and then twisted it around again to pummel towards Vader.
Mara continued to watch tensely from the shadows, her stomach tying itself in little knots as she alternately eyed the battle, Luke's friends crouched by the stairs and Luke's prone, lifeless form lying still in the center of the floor. The pieces of machinery, twisting rapidly in the air, finally came under the Emperor's control, shooting towards Vader and catching the dark lord on the shoulder. The impact was enough to knock Vader's arm to the side, making him miss deflecting most of the next lightning burst.
Mara clenched her teeth. Shutting out the numbing possibility that Luke was dead, she scanned the throne room, seeing the lightsaber lying forgotten next to his prone form.
As she called the cylindrical weapon to her hand, she marveled briefly. As much as Luke had seemed to bottle the guilt up inside him, as much as he might have viewed himself as a failure, he had managed to find the good in the people that were his enemies and turn them to his side.
The green blade sprang to life in her hand. Mara rushed forward, hoping that she would have the benefit of surprise on her side. *This is in memory of Luke,* she thought silently.
Palpatine's expression registered no surprise or anger when she jumped into the fray. Vader did not react as she deflected another piece of flying machinery away from him. It didn't matter what they thought now. All she needed to do was provide enough of a distraction for Vader to be able to go in for the kill.
She caught a burst of lightning on her blade, jumping in spite of herself as a terrific *crack!* pierced the air. She looked up just in time to see a number of flagstones wrench up from the floor and shoot toward her and Vader. Gritting her teeth, Mara tried to split her attention between deflecting lightning bolts and fumbling for purchase on one of the huge stones. Next to her, Vader severed two of them in quick succession, dancing quickly out of the way of the lightning.
*All I need is make one distraction,* Mara thought quickly to herself. *Just one.* The boulder was slipping from her grip. If she was going to do it, she had to do it now—while Palpatine was preoccupied with Vader. But levitation wasn't exactly one of her strong points. Even as she tried to maneuver the stone, while still deflecting a barrage of lightning, she was losing hold of it.
With a surge of surprise, Mara suddenly felt an unfamiliar presence buoying her up, helping her with the stone. Leia Organa, she realized a moment later. *Of course.* It had just never occurred to her that Luke's sister was Force-strong.
Together, Mara and the princess steered the hovering flagstone straight for Palpatine. The Emperor's rock-pummeling stopped. Angrily, he whipped toward the boulder, fingers sparking a spider's web of lightning, shattering the stone. But it was the distraction they needed. Vader found his opening, diving forward and jabbing viciously upward with his lightsaber. Palpatine didn't have time to react.
An explosion of blue-white energy suddenly detonated with a thunderous crack, shattering the massive windows and virtually engulfing the room. Mara had the distance and presence of mind to fling up a barrier against the sudden onslaught as she was thrown to the floor. Distantly, she could see Solo in the corner, protecting wife. Vader staggered from where he'd cut down the Emperor, swallowed up in the awesome energy he had unleashed, cape whipping in the fury of the sudden storm. Mara clenched her eyes shut, praying for it to end.
When finally the deafening roar and dark energy subsided, there was a brief moment of deathly silence. She opened her eyes, crawling again unsteadily to her feet, Luke's lightsaber still clenched in her hand.
The throne room had been instantly transformed into a war zone. The cold wind skittered eerily through the shattered windows, flinging a flurry of icy snowflakes to scurry across the stone floor, to tangle in dark curtains. In the center of the stone floor, right where Palpatine had stood, was a massive, gaping black hole. A few feet away, Darth Vader lay, unmoving. And only a few feet from him was the lifeless form of Luke Skywalker, the one person who deserved to have witnessed the scene that had just transpired, to know what had just happened.
It was over. The Emperor was dead.
****************
