A single brass hand dragged its owner through volcanic gravel. Anakin groaned in agony as the rough stones scraped at his charred flesh and bare muscles. He wasn't sure how he was still alive, but there was one thing that made him glad that he was. He felt Padmé's presence, and that helped distract him from the pain.

After he had dragged himself away from the lava, a large shadow flew over him, but he didn't notice it. What he did notice was the distinctive cry of a shuttle. Anakin looked up and saw the blurry silhouette of one landing nearby. He rolled over and coughed as he took a deep painful breath.

"Your Majesty, this way," came the voice of a homunculus.

Anakin didn't bother to look. He could sense his master.

"There he is," another homunculus said.

Lord Sidious looked down at his mutilated apprentice and smiled. "He's still alive." Of course he was. Sidious was making sure of that. He turned to his escorts "Bring a stretcher immediately."

"Right away, my Lord." The two homunculi ran back to the shuttle.

The Emperor walked over to Anakin and knelt down beside him. Anakin groaned and wheezed as Palpatine placed a hand on his apprentice. Palpatine had practice keeping the grievously injured alive. After all, that's how he had obtained the General for his master plan.

Polis Massa was a rocky island in the middle of the Outer Rim near Mustafar and Subterrel. For fifteen hundred years, it had been home to a monastic order dedicated to healing and the study of life. The order and the Jedi long enjoyed an alliance thanks to their similar goals. Following a cataclysmic seaquake that sent half the island into the sea, the Jedi provided aid to the survivors and helped them to rebuild. This debt allowed Yoda to land there without any threat of persecution.

Yoda meditated in the monastery's rotunda as the first light of dawn appeared on the horizon. A voice had reached out to him again, and this time he was able to listen to what it had to say. It was comforting after such recent tragedy to hear an old friend.

Yoda's meditation was interrupted by Bail Organa entering the room. "Excuse me? Master Yoda?"

The Jedi opened his eyes and turned towards Bail.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi has made contact."

By the time Obi-Wan pulled the yacht into the small harbor at Polis Massa, Padmé had been in labor for about fifteen minutes. Bail met him on the dock as he carried Padmé down the gangplank. "Master Kenobi, how is she doing?"

"She's been in and out of consciousness since we left Mustafar. I've tried to do what I could on the way."

"The Massans have a room set up for her in the main ward. This way."

A great storm raged as the Emperor's shuttle arrived back in Coruscant. Sheets of rain pounded at windows and wild winds ripped banners from their poles. A massive bolt of lightning cracked across the sky as the shuttle landed on the platform of the tower owned by the master artificer Cylo.

The homunculi on the shuttle gently lowered Anakin's stretcher to a team of their brothers on the ground. Anakin groaned as the heavy raindrops hit his scorched flesh.

Cylo met Palpatine at the door as Anakin was carried inside. "My Lord, my other selves are hard at work inside. The most vital parts are nearly finished and the rest will be completed by sunrise tomorrow."

The Emperor frowned. "I had hoped for sooner, but if your work lives up to my expectations then I shall overlook this delay."

Cylo smirked. "I promise, my work will not disappoint."

Bail, Yoda, and Obi-Wan waited in Padmé's room, idly chatting, worried about their friend. Their conversation stopped abruptly when a Massan monk opened the curtain around her bed. The white-robed monk wore an expression of worry that made all three of their hearts sink.

"Medically, she is completely healthy. However, for reasons we are are unable to explain, we are losing her."

Obi-Wan's jaw dropped. "She's dying?"

"I am afraid so. It is as though her life is being drained away."

Yoda and Obi-Wan looked at one another, unsure of what to make of this.

The monk continued. "Her labor is progressing as expected. We will do what we can, but at this point we can only hope that the babies will be born before we lose her."

The plural caught Bail's attention. "Babies?"

"Yes," the monk said, frankly surprised that they didn't know. "She is carrying twins."

Obi-Wan looked past the monk to the habit-wearing midwife standing next to Padmé. The older woman held Padmé's hand and whispered to her reassuringly as she stroked her hair. Padme winced and gritted her teeth as another contraction hit her.

Anakin lay on a steel table surrounded by medical automata. He cried out in pain and writhed constantly as he had done for the hours since he had arrived. Already Cylo had fitted a new mechanical prosthetic leg and two of his other selves were busily fitting the other leg and left arm.

Anakin cried out as a wave of pain washed over him. Involuntarily, his right arm tensed and moved, sending a tray of empty vials and surgical instruments crashing to the floor. His back arched as the pain intensified and Cylo thought it wise to restrain his "patient" before he accidentally hurt himself further.

Padmé screamed and gasped for air as she pushed. A brief wave of relief washed over her as she felt her first child slip free. Moments later, she heard her baby cry as it took its first breaths.

The midwife clamped off the umbilical cord and cut it with a lancet. She wiped a bit of blood off the baby's face and held it up. "It is a boy, Milady," she said with a gentle smile. "What will you name him?"

"Luke," Padmé gasped.

"A wonderful name." The midwife placed Luke on his mother's bare chest and Padmé gently wrapped an arm around him.

"Oh, Luke," Padmé whispered to her newborn son.

After a minute, pain shot through Padmé's pelvis again as the second baby moved into position. Padmé wimpered and the midwife stroked her hair again.

"Oo-baa, oo-baa," the midwife whispered, reminding Padmé to breathe.

Tears and sweat ran down Padmé's face as she consciously breathed. After a few breathing cycles, once more she screamed as she pushed.

"Oh, I can see the top of their head, Milady! Keep pushing, you are doing great!"

The second twin slipped free moments later, and cries resounded through the room. The midwife repeated the process of clamping and cutting of the cord and carried over the baby. "A beautiful baby girl, Milady."

"L... Leia," said Padmé weakly.

"Lovely." The midwife placed Leia on the other side of Padmé's chest. She turned and opened the curtain, beckoning Obi-Wan inside.

Obi-Wan looked at Padmé and her children sadly. He could sense that she was fading quickly.

Cylo had made good on his promise. Outside, the first glow of dawn lit the horizon and his commission was complete. He believed it to be his finest work.

In Cylo's workshop, Anakin still lay strapped to the table. Armor wrought of the finest Mandalorian black steel, polished to a mirror shine encased him. Each piece was edged in ornate copper strips carved with thousands of runes meant to keep him alive. The center of the articulated chest plate bore the binding sigils that kept the runes' magic working in tandem. A long Mandalorian style kama of fine scale mail ran from his waist to his mid shins. Supporting his neck was a gorget with a batwing design around the base. Finally, a cape of the most supple black leather stretched down his back.

Gone was the majority of Anakin's pain, reduced by the magic of his armor's runes. His breathing had become more labored and his vision swirled.

Two of Cylo's selves stood in position with the two final pieces of armor; the faceplate and the helmet, the former of the two being the first fitted. Cylo had designed it to resemble a skull with eyes made from lenses of enchanted obsidian. The bottom of the faceplate slid perfectly into place at the top of the gorget and the obsidian lenses showed Anakin a red tinted view far clearer that anything he had seen before. Slowly, Cylo slid the wide skirted sallet helmet onto Anakin's head. It hissed as it fully sealed.

In that moment, Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One, the boy from Tattooine died.

Padmé no longer had the strength to move her arms. As her vision started to fade, she called out Obi-Wan's name.

"I'm right here, Padmé."

"There's good in him... I... I know there's... still..." Padmé's head gently turned to one side as her eyes closed one last time.

Both Luke and Leia started crying as though aware of their mother's passing. A tear fell from Obi-Wan's cheek and landed on Luke's head as he picked him up to hand to the midwife for swaddling.

Sidious smiled as he felt the last bit of life flow into his apprentice. Plagueis had indeed taught him everything. The Dark secret to cheating death was a perversion of the Jedi's healing magics. Instead of using one's own life energy to heal others, a Sith siphoned that life into themselves or another. And it had worked splendidly.

Cylo slowly rotated the top of the table up and locked it into place. Darth Vader stayed there, wrists and ankles shackled to the table. Sidious walked over and looked at Cylo's impressive work. "Lord Vader? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Master." Darth Vader's voice was deep and menacing, altered by his armor. He turned his head towards the Dark Lord. "Padmé... Where is she? Is she safe? Is she all right?"

"It would seem... that in your anger, you... killed her," Sidious lied.

"What? No. No, I couldn't have! She was alive, I felt her! She was fine!"

The entire room shook as though in the grips of a groundquake. Every piece of glass, from the smallest vial to the giant alembic shattered at once. The metal shells of the medical automata crumpled and the stone floor buckled. Vader's hardened steel shackles shattered and he stepped away from the table, hunched over with grief and the weight of his armor.

Darth Vader fell to his knees, breaking more of the already fractured floor. Everything he had done, all the lives he had taken, even the grievous injuries he had sustained, it had all been for nothing. He fell forward, catching himself on his metal hands. Everything he had loved and lived for was gone. The bright, shining future he had wanted was gone. And he only had himself to blame.

"No..." He reeled threw his head back. "Noooo!"