"We come to it at last, the great battle of our time." Gandalf, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King movie. It fits this final chapter though this really isn't the great battle of our time. The great battle of our times was Anakin and Obi-wan's duel on Mustafar I suppose, or for those of you who are older than I perhaps the greatest battle of your time was in Return of the Jedi, or The Empire Strikes Back, or A New Hope. Dunno, I do know this is my last chapter. All things must come to an end. Though I have asked it before I must do so again. Do you want me to do a sequel? Yes or no. Simple question, if one of you will read it then I will make another. If not it is pointless, I write fan fiction half for my own enjoyment, half for other people to read and review. Review! Ah and for the best reading experience possible I suggest you grab a snack, insert it inside your mouth, eat it, crack open a nice cold coke (whether it is caffeinated or not depends on you, for example I drank a caffeinated coke yesterday, the last of the 12 pack, today I drink a caffeine free coke.)

Chapter 20: Emperor and Son

A chrono would read well past midnight if there was one to be seen when the Emperor led the way for Vader and his son into his grand throne room. The lights kicked in and half lit the room as the Emperor made his way up to his throne. He sat down on it and smiled.

"Come, sit. We must talk." The Emperor said. Vader and son walked up to his throne and took a seat on the two chairs that fell from the ceiling. For the first time tonight Ravan felt a wave of anxiousness pass through his body. Did the Emperor know about their plot? Is that why he wanted to talk?

"Why so nervous my boy?" The Emperor asked, making Ravan's anxiety double.

"No reason." He lied.

"I know you're lying." The Emperor said smoothly. "But I suppose it does not matter. I am tired anyway and will retire soon."

"Excellent." Vader spoke up.

"How so?" Asked the Emperor suspiciously. Ravan watched as his fathers hand reached for his lightsaber hilt, he followed suit.

"We are not tired like you are old man," Vader explained. "And that just makes it all the easier to kill you."

"Hmm," The Emperor shrugged. "I knew this day would come eventually my old apprentice, when you would challenge me for supremacy over the Sith, as all apprentice's do when they are strong enough."

"You are so calm, and yet you're about to die." Ravan said nervously. "Why is that?"

"Because I am not about to die."

In a flash of movement the Emperor extended his long clawed fingers, equally as quick Vader and Ravan drew their blades just in time to stand up and meet the on coming Force lightning. It crashed into their lightsabers, pushing them back but both had the physical strength to grapple with it.

"As you can see my powers are far beyond yours." The Emperor barked loudly over the cackle of lightning. "Now back down."

"And our skill with a lightsabers is far beyond yours." Vader countered. "Eventually you'll have to stop the Force lightning and attack us directly."

At that point it seemed the lightning increased ten fold and Ravan and Vader had to steer their lightsabers more into it. The Emperor smiled as the lightning continued to pour out of his finger tips at the same deadly strength, never waning.

"I draw my power from the dark side of the Force." The Emperor shouted. "And as long as there is so much of it my power is unlimited!"

Ravan's resilience to the lightning was waning, he cocked his saber lower, the strength of the lightning was winning. The Emperor kept it coming. And the strength slowly and steadily waxed until it was at a point where Ravan could barely keep his saber from quivering in his hands. If the Emperor upped the dosage even another notch he would die. Gathering the Force around him he used it to spring up from the ground and flip over the Emperor's chair.

Taking action the Emperor trained one hand on Vader and upped the dosage of lightning ten fold, while producing a lightsaber hilt in the other hand and activating it. Ravan landed behind his chair. The Emperor stood up, careful not to let the force of the lightning waver as he trained it on Vader. Both he had Ravan were separated by one plasteel chair and the Emperor could not move and could only fight one handed, a big disadvantage. Though he had the chair. Using the Force to grip it he tried to pick it up. Unfortunately Ravan had acquired the same idea and was also trying to lift the chair. Now the Emperor was fighting a battle of tug of war, and trying to zap Vader with lightning at the same time. He had to let one go.

The chair.

The Emperor released his grip and the chair went flying back towards Ravan, and stopped just before it hit him in the face, darn he should have thought of that earlier and pulled harder. Now Ravan had the chair and within a fraction of a second it was flying towards the Emperor's head. He had no choice. He stopped the cackle of lightning and ducked as the chair flew over and collided with Vader. Both toppled down the steps.

The Emperor stood up just in time to meet a hammer strike from Ravan. He parried it and sent both blades down to the floor. He spun with the blades still connected, and Ravan did as well. Both struck horizontally and both blades clashed together in a loud hissing explosion. Each pulled their blade away and struck at a different angle, each struck the opposite place as the other so both blades collided in midair. The Emperor growled and wrapped the Force around his foot, using it to kick one of the chairs Vader or Ravan had sat on at Ravan. Breaking concentration for a small second Ravan ducked.

The chair flew over him and collided, full force with the transparasteel window of the throne room, sending hair line cracks up in down it and forming a kind of spider web. By the time Ravan looked up the Emperor's blood red blade was slicing through the air and coming at his head. Ravan raised his saber and parried but the blow knocked him down onto his rear end. The next strike forced him to lie down.

There was no third strike. The Emperor angled his humming blade down at Ravan's throat.

"You have lost." He said. "You will never be strong enough with the dark side to defeat me, it is pointless. Don't let yourself be destroyed. Take your father's place at my side."

"Never! Kill me know or drop your weapon and let me kill you."

"So be it… traitor."

The Emperor angled his free clawed hand down at Ravan and zapped him with a dose of force lightning. It felt as though there were a thousand white hot knifes stabbing into small portions of his skin where the lightning hit. Waves of deadly blue electricity flowed up and down his body and continued to do so even after the Emperor injected him with the second dose, and the third, and the fourth, and by the fifth, most powerful dose he felt ready to die. It was as though the Emperor had thrown everything he had at him in that last deadly wave of lightning. The impact felt not like one punch to the stomach, but like a five ton boulder to the stomach, or an Imperial class star ship.

Ravan withered on the floor as currents of electricity continued to flow throughout his body.

"And now young Skywalker… you will die."

Ravan braced himself for the next wave. It half hit and then stopped mid stream, like movies on dial up internet (had to say it, sorry). Ravan looked up painfully to see his father, Darth Vader locked in deadly combat with the Emperor. Both swung their sabers at each other so fast it was almost impossible to see.

They looked like a wave of black and red. Finally the Emperor struck low and Vader parried, locking the lightsabers together.

"Your son could not defeat me, he was to young. You are to… mechanical. Face your destiny and die!"

Vader broke the lock and swiped at the Emperor's head. The Emperor parried before the blow reached within a foot of his head.

"No, face your destiny and die."

The Emperor laughed loudly and feigned a strike at Vader's hip, all the while gathering the Force in him. When Vader's blade went to parry the Emperor's hand went out and pushed Vader with the Force. For the second time in twenty minutes Vader tumbled down the stairs, cracking on of his eye lenses on the way down and deleting the vision in it.

The Emperor turned around to Ravan who lay sprawled out on the floor near the window.

"It's a shame," He began as he started to walk forward. "You had great potential, you know. And now you must die."

Ravan inwardly smiled as he painfully gathered all the Force he could muster. Once the Emperor was within five feet of him he extended his sore arm, made a fist and pulled the air. The Emperor was snatched and came flying forward, flipping and flying over Ravan. He feet hit the window and smashed through, when it got to about his waist he stopped. His lower end outside and his upper end in, stuck in the window will a million points of glass jabbing into his flesh.

After a few moments Ravan stood up, hearing Vader's mechanical breathing as he ascended the steps. He walked over to the bleeding Emperor.

"Finish it." He choked, sounding as though he had chained smoked death sticks for fifty years. He breathed in and winced. Ravan glanced down, a shard of glass had cleanly cut through his abdomen and sliced his lung. It was lying on the floor a few feet away, covered in blood.

"Kill him." Vader said.

Ravan walked up to the Emperor, raised his blade… and brought it down, hard slicing cleanly through the back of the Emperor's neck. The head fell to the ground. The body went limp, stuck in the window, the air from the lungs escaped out of the open throat and the body slipped through the window entirely, falling away and into the night.

XxX

In the next few days Vader took over the Empire, placing Ravan in charge of his old fleet and announcing to the galaxy he was his son. Ravan spent a few lonely weeks on the Executor hoping for some news of where Mara Jade could have gone, or if she was coming back. But then again, nobody knew her or what she was. When the Emperor was killed she basically lost everything. Still Ravan would rule the galaxy with Vader, whether Mara came back or not, they would rule it as father and son.

XxX

Half a Year Later

On Tatooine, in the city of Anchorhead a tall woman dressed in a black tight suit, and wearing a dirty black robe and hood over it stepped into the local cantina. Her hair hung down, dripping wet from sweat in the hot sun while she wore black. It looked like wet fire.

She walked casually up to the bar and sat down, shrugging some of her robe of her shoulders and revealing her tight fitting suit. She waited a while until the bar tender came up to her.

"What can I get you honey?" He asked. Seeing her hair flowing from under her hood. She looked up at him, half her face covered in shadow, the bar tender just barely saw the light glint in her invisible eyes.

"Information." She answered in a cool voice.

"What kind of information?" The bar tender asked with the slightest hint of nervousness in his voice.

"Has anyone come around here who has dealings with the remnants of the old Empire, anyone who deals with those still loyal to former Emperor Palpatine who broke off after Vader took over?"

"Shh!" The bartender hissed. "Damn it, people around here don't wanna hear that kind of stuff. Its bad business."

The woman reached down into her pockets and pulled out three metallic chips. She set them down on the table.

"Here's three thousand credits."

The bartender looked down at his new small fortune. He looked as though he were about to explode with excitement.

"EVERYONE OUT!" He cried. "Bar is closed!"

The various humans and aliens lounging in the cantina all groaned and cursed and threw food across the room. With the bar tenders persistency however they were soon ushered out. Like the bartender always says, nothing makes people want to leave more than a fully charged blaster rifle. Once they were all alone the bartender spoke again.

"Alright, it just so happens I do know someone who can get in touch with an entire fleet of star destroyers that broke away from the Empire and are hiding beyond the our rim. A few day ago I think it was. A woman came into the cantina. Smuggler I think, said her name was Kallisto, she had some small smuggling group and a base out on Cato Nemodia.

"Cato Nemodia? That's right under Coruscant's nose."

"That's what I said. But anyway she gots this group, and they supply the ones that broke off from the Empire best they can. I'll be willing anything to bet she's in charge of that base and Talon Karrde is in charge of her."

"Talon Karrde?"

"Yeah. Big time smuggler, bigger operations than even Jabba the hutt's sometimes. No one knows where his base is though and unless he wants to talk to you, then you never will. Safest bet would be to go to Cato Nemodia and look for the Kallisto woman."

"And who am I going to ask? Nemodians? They deserted the planet after the Clone Wars. Embarrassed because some Nute Gunray was a viceroy of one of the supporting groups of the separatists."

"Maybe that's why her base is there." The bar tender suggested looking at his new money. "Dense forests and such."

"Thanks for the help then." The woman said, standing up to leave.

"Whoa wait a moment! Can I get a name?" He asked.

"Well if I give you my name then I'd either have to waste credits to make you tell no one. Or I'd have to kill you."

"Well never mind then."

"Too late I think." The woman snapped. She flipped her hood off revealing all of her sweaty red hair. She drew a compact and wicked looking blaster from a holster under the sleeve of her robe, up by her shoulder, flipped it and shot the bar tender twice between the eyes. Smiling she walked back and retrieved her three thousand credits still clenched in the man's hand.

"Moron." Mara Jade muttered as she left the cantina.

That's the end. If you want to read a sequel, let me know now. Its all set up and this'll lead right into it.