Revised 10/29/14
Tess Naberrie couldn't feel anything. Her thoughts just disappeared. Everything seemed to go numb from pure shock.
As the Emperor touched Tess' cheek, Luke ignited his lightsaber and pointed the end at the man's chest.
"Get away from her," the Jedi warned. "I won't let you manipulate her like this."
"There is no need for manipulation, young Skywalker," Palpatine snickered. "She is my blood. She knows it to be true, just as you and I. She may be your half-sister, but the other part of her is a darkness that you could never even imagine. A darkness that will destroy you, and whatever rebel friends are left after today."
Tess, becoming more aware of what was going on as the numbness subsided, looked up at Darth Vader. She wished she could see his expression. He just stood there, silent. Tess once had an unbearable amount of hate for that black suit of a man, but now, standing beside the Emperor, she realized that he was nothing more than the apprentice of the man who she should truly fear. The man who was—oh, gods—her father.
"Now," the Emperor continued. It was as if he was plucking for a reaction from Vader. "Assuming you've learned your lesson, Lord Vader, we won't be needing your son."
At that, Emperor Palpatine shot blue lightening from his fingers—a sight all too familiar to Tess—and sent the bolts to Luke.
"Luke!" she cried out.
The Jedi was immediately flung to the ground, convulsing and screaming in pure agony. His entire body was illuminated with the lightening.
Again, Tess looked up at Darth Vader, her heart racing. Somehow, she expected him to do something.
"Stop! He's your son!" Tess reminded him frantically. Still, Vader stood unmoving. "Do something!"
Seeing that he was not going to be any help, Tess immediately Force-snatched her lightsaber from the Emperor's robe. He hardly noticed, but Vader did. Finally moving, Darth Vader jumped in front of a lightsaber blow meant for the Emperor, blocking it with his own. Tess pushed against his sword, then powered through another strike. He pushed her to the south side of the room with his blows as they alternated between blocking and attacking each other. Vader's pure stature was enough to scare Tess into the best dueling she had ever done.
As Tess heard Luke scream out for his father to help him, she felt anger surge in her blood.
"You're the only one who can stop him!" Tess lamented. Vader ignored her, though he seemed to be striking less and blocking more.
Tess couldn't just stand here fighting Vader while Luke was dying, but it was her only choice. Anger fumed inside her as she attacked harder and harder, powering through as Darth Vader's lightsaber grazed her shoulder and he fought her towards the balcony, overlooking a hundred-metre drop. She just kept striking and striking and striking...
Before she knew it, Tess was letting her anger take control. She drank in Vader's energy—almost feeding off him—pulling whatever the Force could reach through the black mask. A swell of emotion rushed through her very blood as Tess was pulled into the reflection of her own face and their clashing lightsabers in Darth Vader's helmet. Fear in a little boy hugging his mother. Revenge in a Jedi weapon plunging into the chest of a Tuskan Raider. Love at the sight of a beautiful woman with long brown curls. Hope in the touch of her swelling pregnant stomach. Dread at the thought of losing her. Desperation… Descent… Betrayal… Hatred…
Now when she looked at Vader, he looked back at her. Somehow a humanity that was once blocked by the mask showed through as his own words "Stop… Stop… Stop!" pulsed through each collision of their weapons. As if he was telling himself, not her.
But he was still winning.
A microsecond of delay in her parry gave Vader the opportunity to knock her lightsaber out of her grasp and Force-push her up against the barriers that surrounded the reactor shaft. His gloved hand closed in a strangling shape, lifting the girl off her feet and constricting her airway until she couldn't breathe.
"Stop…"
Tess could still feel Vader's inner conflict but could not understand it.
She felt her heartbeat throb in every part of her body. Lungs starved for oxygen. Fingers clawing at the hand around her neck that wasn't even really there. Feet trembling a half meter above the ground. She was prepared to watch herself die in the reflection of Vader's helmet.
Then suddenly the teenager felt her legs buckle to the floor. Vader's grip on her neck released and she drank in the air hungrily.
Then Darth Vader's head sunk forward, yielding. Giving up. Physically he could have destroyed her, but somehow, he was drained of whatever kept him fighting back. And Tess began to see what was restraining him.
"You loved her…" she whispered.
Vader's labored breathing was her only response, but it was all she needed. Another cry from Luke turned both of their heads.
"Once Skywalker and his sister are dead, we will have no opposition," Palpatine grunted through his Force exertion. "You and I will rule the galaxy as father and daughter." A pair of red and yellow eyes under a sagging gray brow locked on Tess'—seeing through her—reading for exactly what she wanted to hear. "You'll have what you've never had. What you've always wanted. A family. With no more questions left unanswered."
"I already have a family," Tess told him with resolve. "And its not you!"
At that, Tess stepped in between the Emperor and Luke. Her hands outstretched, Tess didn't think. She just let the Force take over, taking the lightening from her fingertips and firing them straight at the Emperor's advances.
"You are no match for me, my child," Palpatine laughed. Tess ignored him. She pushed harder. The Emperor did not seem to expect that. "You are strong. More so than I realized," he admitted. Then suddenly, the lightning came at Tess all at once, sending her sprawling towards the black wall and crushing into it painfully. The Emperor chortled again.
"But I am stronger." Palpatine walked to the other side of the room where Tess crashed into the wall. "As I will continually remind you. In time, you will reap the benefits. You will learn." The girl pulled herself to a stand, wiping away the blood from her nose.
"If you think this will turn me," Tess sneered, surprising even herself. "You must be on death sticks." She brought her lightsaber from the floor to her hand with the Force and turned it on, prepared for whatever the Emperor had coming, even if it would kill her.
The Emperor Force-threw a barely conscious Luke from the other side of the room into the wall near them.
"Soon you will see that the rebels you have come to know as family are weak, and crush under the thumb of the Dark Side. They have convinced you that you are like them—but our flesh and bone, my child, is laced with the potential for absolute power. Strength incomparable. Immortality. You will be invincible."
His words trickled through her ears and clouded her thoughts.
No, she scolded herself. Don't let him control you!
"Oh, I know you will need more… convincing," he said. "Perhaps it will be beneficial to watch your brother die." His eyes flaring with pure evil, lightning once again sparked from Emperor Palpatine's fingers.
Luke screamed through the blasts of Force-lightening.
Her heart and mind racing, Tess looked from the Emperor to Luke, her hands at each side of her head as if to keep it from spinning.
"Stop! Stop, you're killing him!" she screamed. "Please, I'm begging you!"
Once again, Tess tried to jump in front and block the Emperor's Force lightening, but this time he was prepared for her. Her efforts were to no avail as he flung her against the wall, only distracting him from Luke for a second.
Tess stumbled to a stand. Darth Vader, his mechanical breathing sounding extremely labored, stumbled behind the Emperor as if to watch the show.
"Father, please!" Luke screamed at Vader. Tess watched him, near tears.
"Father, please! Stop!" Tess cried to Palpatine—like Luke, she had just a shred of hope that their connection as parent and child could turn her father. Maybe even help him.
"Vader!" Tess choked out. With her last bit of strength, at the top of her lungs, she screamed "Anakin!" Tears poured profusely from her eyes. "He's not just your son—he's hers, too!"
Vader made no visible movement. Tess collapsed as her knees buckled from under her, sobbing, her hopes buckling with them. Luke turned his head in her direction, fighting through the pain just long enough to assure her that it was all right. That she couldn't save him. That he wished he could have saved her.
"I'll be okay…" she whispered with a tear-soaked face.
He didn't need to say that he loved her. She knew it, and he knew it, too.
Tess could feel Luke's life slipping away. She closed her eyes tighter and tighter until she couldn't see the blue glow of Force lightening.
Leia… she reached out. Leia, I'm sorry…
Suddenly, the Emperor cried out. Tess's eyes snapped open. She looked up and saw Darth Vader hoist his master over his head, his body now engulfed in his own Force lightening. Vader heaved the old man into the chasm of the reactor shaft, sending Emperor Palpatine flailing down hundreds of metres to his death.