"You cannot hide forever, Luke."
"I will not fight you," replies the disembody-conflicted voice.
"Surrender yourself to the Dark Side." Vader feels his intentions are increasingly ambiguous in this conflict; the purity of his evil is being compromised. The boy is clever indeed—the Sith Lord knows he must move with extreme caution now.
Emotions such as remorse, regret, and abandonment. Shades of pain. But somehow now directly related to Vader. To others, to…Endor. Ah, that is it—the Sanctuary Moon where his friends shall soon die. Luke will learn soon enough: friendship was different on the dark side. A different thing altogether.
"Give yourself to the dark side, Luke," he entreats. "It is the only way you can save your friends. Yes, your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong, especially for—"
Vader stops. He senses something.
Luke withdraws further into the shadows. He tries to hide, but there is no way to hide what was in his mind—she is in pain. Her agony cries to him now, and his spirit cries with her. He tries to shut it out, to shut it up, but the cry is loud, and he can't stifle it, couldn't leave it alone, had to cradle it openly, to give it solace.
Vader's consciousness invades that private place.
Vader is incredulous. "Sister? Sister!" he bellows. "So, you have a twin sister?! Your feelings have now betrayed her, too!" he roars triumphantly. "Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me, but now his failure is complete." His smile is clear to Luke, through the mask, through the shadows, through all the realms of darkness. "If you will not turn to the dark side, then perhaps she will."
This, then, is Luke's breaking point. For his sister is everyone's last unflagging hope. If Vader turns his twisted, misguided cravings on her…
"Never!" he screams, aiming his green lightsaber towards Vader's chest.
He rushes to his father with a frenzy he never was aware he has. Two sides of the Force are making contact with one another, the boy who has risen from nothing is now a fully prized Jedi standing against the overwhelming presence of the dark side. The dark flames are bemused briefly but begin offering his defensives.
Strike after strike, Luke begins sending him back with all his might, determined to protect his friends and family under any means necessary.
And as much as Vader wishes he can just call upon the young man's fears and error in giving into emotions, he is incapable of doing so. How? He'd killed many Jedi after the rise of the Empire yet why can't he just cut down this one too?
The Dark Lord allows himself to be driven to his back, seeing that his son now becoming nothing but a green blur that is raging down upon him before one of the blows makes it through, disarming him within a second.
The hand, along with bits of metal, wires, and electronic devices, clatters uselessly away while Vader's lightsaber tumbles over the edge of the span, into the endless shaft below, without a trace, surprised across his face at now standing above this dark figure.
Vader is surprised himself, surprised to see that his son now is standing above him, surprised to see that he was unable to kill this boy and cast him aside. This boy rose emotions in him unlike anyone haven't done for decades. Starkiller came close but even that wasn't enough.
Vader remembers the battle with Starkiller a few years ago, how he'd surprising bested him as well. The boy had been in the battle of his life, sacrificing himself for his friends and beginning the Rebellion. If Starkiller could resist that darkness after being raised by Darth Vader himself, so can Luke. Something within him sobs at the thought of Luke becoming a cold enforcer. He couldn't bare it.
The Emperor's evil cackle echoes behind him as Luke drowns in darkness, Vader hopes that message reached him through the Force as his son aimed his emerald blade toward his chest. He hears Sidious's dark laugh and sees him walking down towards him and his son.
"Good!" Sidious cackles. "Your hate has made you powerful! Now fulfill your destiny, take your father's place at my side!"
Vader reads Luke's emotions through not the Force but by his eyes, seeing the emotions across his face. He can see the boy is fighting to force the anger and furious emotions out, trying to call back to Yoda and Kenobi's teachings no doubt.
Anakin has been in this position before when he was the fully developed and the other has been just a Jedi Master who was seconds away from killing Sidious. For some time, Vader wondered what would have happened had he not turned and betrayed Master Windu all those years ago, and allowed Windu to kill Sidious, or finish him off himself. He would have been cradling his children right.
As unlikely as it is to the eyes of the common people, Vader once been a man too. It was those times when have been given the option of making a choice and not the Emperor's attack dog. That same man who many depended on - a time when he was happier, hadn't been one of oppression and served for a greater good instead of serving to kill for a tyrannical monster. Now, he is the second most feared man in the galaxy. But no one knows who is truly behind that mask.
Sidious has taken everything that defined him yet the boy seems to be so determined in saving Anakin Skywalker, a determination that would be his downfall. Vader felt emotions burning in him that he hadn't felt for a long time. Luke stares down at his robotic arm and then back at his father.
'So, this is how it ends,' Vader thinks.
But then Luke deactivates his lightsaber, proving himself a Jedi to the end. He is not a murderer. He is not someone who would allow himself to be limited as much as his father has been.
"Never!" Flinging the weapon aside, he declares, "I'll never turn to the dark side. You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
The Emperor scowls. With immeasurable displeasure, he declares, "So be it... Jedi. If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed."
Still lying against the bridge railing beside the elevator shaft, Vader watches the Emperor extends his gnarl fingers and unleashes blinding bolts of blue lightning from his fingertips. The lightning strikes Luke, who tries to deflect the crackling bands of energy but is so overwhelmed that his body crumples to the floor.
Luke is nearly unconscious beneath the continuing assault of the Emperor's lightning. Tormented beyond reason, being taken of a weakness that drained his very essence, he hoped for nothing more than to submit to the nothingness toward which he was drifting.
The Emperor smiles down at the enfeebled young Jedi, as Vader struggles to his feet beside his master.
"Young fool!" Palpatine rasps at Luke. "Only now at the end, do you understand. Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side." More lightning and Luke collapses from the wailing he is laying on. "You paid the price for your lack of vision."
He laughs maniacally; and although it would not have seemed possible to Luke, the outpouring of bolts from the Emperor's fingers actually increases in intensity. The sound screams through the room, and the murderous brightness of the flashes is overwhelming.
For a brief moment, Luke feels the torrent's ending.
"Now, young Skywalker, you will die!"
Luke's body slows, wilt, and finally crumples under the hideous barrage. He stops moving altogether. At last, he appears totally lifeless. The Emperor hisses maliciously.
At that instant, Vader springs up and grabs the Emperor from behind, pinning Palpatine's upper arms to his torso. Weaker than he has ever been, Vader has lain still these last few minutes, focusing his every fiber of being on this one, concentrated act—the only action possible; his last, if he fails. Ignoring the pain, ignoring his shame and his weaknesses, ignoring the bone-crushing noise in his head, he focuses solely and sightlessly on his will—he will defeat the evil embodied in the Emperor.
Palpatine struggles in the grip of Vader's unfeeling embrace, his hands still shooting bolts of malign energy out in all directions. In his wild flailing, the lightning ripped across the room, tearing into Vader. The Dark Lord fell again, electric currents crackling down his helmet, over his cape, into his heart.
Vader stumbles with his load to the middle of the bridge over the black chasm leading to the power core. He holds the wailing despot high over his head, and with a final spasm of strength, hurls him into the abyss.
Palpatine's body, still spewing bolts of light, spins out of control, into the void, bouncing back and forth off the sides of the shaft as it fell. It disappears at last; but then, a few seconds later, a distant explosion can be heard, far down at the core. A rush of air billows out the shaft, into the throne room.
The wind whips at Lord Vader's cape, as he staggers and collapses toward the hole, trying to follow his master to the end. Luke crawls to his father's side, though, and pulls the Dark Lord away from the edge of the chasm, to safety.
Both of them lay on the floor, entwined in each other, too weak to move, too moved to speak.
For the first time, the Death Star rocks. The collision with the exploding Destroyer was only the beginning, leading to various systems breakdowns, which led to reactor meltdowns, which led to personnel panic, abandonment of posts, further malfunctions, and general chaos.
Smoke is everywhere, substantial rumblings come from all directions at once, and people are running and shouting. Electrical fires, steam explosions, cabin depressurizations, disruption of chain-of-command. Add to this, the continued bombardments by Rebel cruisers—smelling fear in the enemy—merely heightens the sense of hysteria that is already pervasive.
For the Emperor is dead. The central, powerful evil that had been the cohesive force to the Empire was gone; and when the dark side is this diffused, this nondirected—this is simply where it led.
Confusion.
Desperation.
Damp fear.
Amid this uproar, Luke manages to make it, somehow, to the main docking bay—where he is trying to carry the hulking deadweight of his father's weakening body toward an Imperial shuttle. Halfway there, his strength finally gives out, though; and he collapses under the strain.
Slowly he rises again. Like an automaton, he hoists his father's body over his shoulder and stumbles toward one of the last remaining shuttles.
Luke rests his father on the ground, trying to collect strength one last time, as explosions grew louder all around them. Sparks hisses in the rafters; one of the walls buckled, and smoke pours through a gaping fissure. The floor trembles.
Vader motions Luke closer to him. "Luke, help me take this mask off."
Luke shakes his head. "You'll die."
The Dark Lord's voice is weary. "Nothing can stop that now. Just once let me face you without it. Let me look on you with my own eyes."
Luke is afraid. Afraid to see his father as he really is. Afraid to see what person could have become so dark—the same person who'd fathered Luke, and his sister. Afraid to know the Anakin Skywalker who lived inside Darth Vader.
Vader, too, is afraid—to let his son see him, to remove this armored mask that had been between them so long. The black, armored mask that had been his only means of existing for over twenty years. It had been his voice, his breath, and his invisibility—his shield against all human contact. But now he would remove it; for he would see his son before he died.
Together, they lift the heavy helmet from Vader's head—inside the mask portion, a complicated breathing apparatus had to be disentangled, and a speaking modulator and view-screen detach from the power unit in the back. But when the mask is finally off and sets aside, Luke gazes at his father's face.
It is the sad, benign face of someone who is supposed to be middle-aged yet disfigured and old. Bald, beardless, with a mighty scar running from the top of his head to the back of the scalp, he has unfocused, deep-set, dark blue eyes, and his skin is pasty white, for it has not seen the sun in two decades. The old man smiles weakly; tears glaze his eyes, now.
It is a face full of meanings, that Luke will forever recall. Regret, he saw most plainly. And shame. Memories can be seen flashing across it… memories of rich times. And horrors. And love, too.
It is a face that hadn't touched the world in a lifetime. In Luke's lifetime. He sees the wizened nostrils twitch, as they tested a first, tentative smell. He sees the head tilt imperceptibly to listen—for the first time without electronic auditory amplification. Luke feels a pang of remorse that the only sounds now to be heard were those of explosions, the only smells, the pungent sting of electrical fires. Still, it is a touch. Palpable, unfiltered.
He sees the old eyes focus on him. Tears burn Luke's cheeks and fall on his father's lips. His father smiles at the taste.
It is a face that had not seen itself in twenty years.
Vader sees his son crying, and knows it must have been at the horror of the face the boy beholds.
It intensifies, momentarily, Vader's sense of anguish—about his crimes, now, he adds guilt at the imagined repugnance of his appearance. But then this brings him to the mind of the way he used to look—striking, and grand, with a wry tilt to his brow that hinted of invincibility and took in all of life with a wink. Yes, that was how he'd looked once.
And this memory brought a wave of other memories with it. Memories of brotherhood, and home. His dear wife. The freedom of deep space. Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan, his friend…and how that friendship had turned. Turned, he knows not how—but got injected, nonetheless, with some uncaring virulence that festered, until…hold. These are memories he wants none of, not now. Memories of molten lava, crawling up his back…no.
This boy pulled him from that pit—here, now, with this act. This boy is good.
The boy is good, and the boy comes from him—so there must have been good in him, too. He smiles up again at his son, and for the first time, loves him. And for the first time in many long years, loves himself again, as well.
Suddenly he smells something—flares his nostrils, sniffs once more. Wildflowers, that is what it is. Just blooming; it must be spring.
And there is thunder—he cocks his head, strains his ears. Yes, spring thunder, for spring rain. To make the flowers bloom.
Yes, there…he feels a raindrop on his lips. He licks the delicate droplet…but wait, it isn't sweet water, it is salty, it is…a teardrop.
He focuses on Luke once again and sees his son crying. Yes, that is it, he is tasting his boy's grief—because he looks so horrible; because he is so horrible.
But he wants to make it all right for Luke, he wants Luke to know he wasn't really ugly like this, not deep inside, not altogether. With a little self-deprecatory smile, he shakes his head at Luke, explaining away the unsightly beast his son sees. "Luminous beings are we, Luke—not this crude matter."
Luke shakes his head, too—to tell his father it was all right, to dismiss the old man's shame, to tell him nothing mattered now. And everything—but he couldn't talk.
Vader speaks again, even weaker—almost inaudible. "Go, my son. Leave me."
At that, Luke finds his voice. "No. You're coming with me. I'll not leave you here. I've got to save you."
"You already have, Luke," he whispers. He wishes, briefly, he can meet Yoda, to thank the old Jedi for the training he'd given Luke…but perhaps he'd be with Yoda soon, now, in the ethereal oneness of the Force. And with Obi-Wan. "You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister you were right."
"Father, I won't leave you," Luke protests. Explosions jars the docking bay in earnest, crumbling one entire wall and splitting the ceiling. A jet of blue flame shot from a gas nozzle nearby. Just beneath it, the floor begins to melt.
Vader pulls Luke very close and speaks into his ear. "Luke, you were right…and you were right about me…Tell your sister…you were right."
A tremendous explosion fills the back of the bay with fire, knocking Luke flat to the ground. Slowly, he rises again; and like an automaton, stumbles toward one of the last remaining shuttles.
Closing his eyes as he slumps back against the shuttle ramp, Darth Vader has every reason to believe that he is finally about to embrace perpetual darkness, about to embrace the hell that he deserves to be in.
He died on the second Death Star. But the scene is not as it is, there is no longer a strange amount of pain, but rather a strange sort of subjugation. The former Sith stares, the heat of the planet radiating down on him as he attempts to make sense of the changes that happens around him. There is also the fact that Vader is freed.
It has to be from before the war, when there wasn't a darkness blanketing everything, making it difficult to sense where the Sith was. Vader breathes for the first time in a long time.
Everything is different now.
Vader places his now flesh left hand onto his face, surprised when he feels something similar to a beard on his lips. He frowns in consideration, looking down at his new flesh body, the lightsaber as always clipped to his belt yet even that feels lighter.
... Something is not right. It feels like there is a great darkness among the Force. Did his actions back on the Death Star did not save the galaxy? Yet, why is Sidious's presence still painfully obvious as well as another that is of a greater darkness?
Vader wanders over the landscape. He attempts to find something, either a ship to get him off this planet or a place to get away from the harsh effects that bore down on him the longer he stayed on the surface. The Force - much clearer, so much clearer - guides him all the while, pushing him in a direction that he trusts will lead him to something.
Everything feels lighter, lighter than it was for over a decade.
He obeys, feeling deep in his gut, his body that it is right. That he is supposed to follow it.
It leads him to a shadowy building, seeming to be abandoned from afar. There's a darkness that shrouds it, not too different to the Sith that the Jedi had spent the war trying to find. It isn't as covered in the Dark Side.
Among the darkness is a bright spot, still within the building. He can sense a tormented signature within, something that is not different to his own, but seems to be rather much youthful and fearful. He would rescue it. He will not allow someone else to suffer. If there is anything that he have learned during his time as a Dark Lord, Anakin would give them freedom.
The building is quiet, nobody there to greet him as he walks in.
Vader travels through hallways, not even asking about being let in, but rather barging in. He has a mission to find the tormented presence and not allow it to flourish forward.
The Force guides him towards the bright spot, nudging him insistently as he draw nearer.
Vader senses no threat so he doesn't draw his weapon, at least not yet. He would not allow his fury to consume him so the bastard doesn't sense him coming.
Vader sends a gentle nudge through the Force to the Force Signature, not wanting to give the individual a threat of any sort. Fear is evident within the young Force Presence. There is a anger that is also present, perhaps undeserved, but still evident. Vader can't tell who it is but he wants to take the person and hold them.
His heart aches.
Vader breaks the lock to the door, slowly opening it. There is only a light, hanging from the ceiling as it illuminates the whole room. He didn't see a youngling anywhere, but he can still feel their fear, leaking out from their shields.
Eventually, Vader sees him.
It is Maul. Vader should end him right then and there while he is most vulnerable. First, he is now young, not a Dark Side user. Vader knows he is consumed by the Dark Side but there is still hope for him. He is trembling in the corner, big golden orbs locking onto Vader's own orbs.
What in the galaxy is this?! First, he'd seemed to have avoided death! Now he's standing before the Zabrak who would have went on to kill Qui-Gon and resurfacing in the Clone Wars after being chopped in half by Obi-Wan ten years before. He seems much more... youthful, younger, still dark; but also with much fear. How old is he now?
Five? Six?
Maul activates his saber staff and points it, trembling. "Stay away from me!"
Vader doesn't make a move to come closer, just remains still. Once, Maul would have been someone who Anakin fought to arrest and Vader fought to kill, but this is a younger Maul, and everything is different now. The Zabrak clearly fears those around him.
"Who are you?" Maul asks, at last, his big golden eyes still centered on Vader.
"I'm Vader," He replies calmly, keeping his tone light, at least as much as possible with his respirator.
"Why are you here?" Still stilted and cautious, Maul inches closer to him, lightsaber still angled.
"I'm here because I felt your pain," Vader starts, still keeping the same tone. "I was wandering over the surface and found this place to take shelter. What's your name, youngling?"
"Maul." He responds, shrinking away. "Master told me that I am to have challenge. Are... Are you a Jedi?"
"No." Vader responds, and Maul clearly is probing him, trying to read him for his Signature. "Now, now, no need to be that way. I'm not here to hurt you."
"You're not lying," Maul replies innocently. The Zabrak tilts his head, obviously sensing the sadness and remorse within him. "My Master would search for me. How can I get away from him?"
Vader takes a mental breath, knowing that he would have to approach this with patience. "Your Master wants to rid you of your innocence, young one, you don't have to fear him. I am here to help you."
Maul's lightsaber deactivates and it falls to the floor, hands going to his head. "He's coming! No one can stop him! No one! No one! He would demand why I am talking to you instead of training!"
Vader's sympathy pours into the Force. "Then leave him. He wants to use you. I can take you far away, train you to become someone different than a Jedi and Sith."
Maul's eyes lock onto his. "How do I know you will not hurt me? Master said that I am supposed to listen to him only."
"Your Master is evil incarnate," Vader replies roughly. "Don't listen to him. Listen to yourself."
Maul walks up slowly and wraps his arms around Vader.
"I do." Vader replies softly.
Maul allows Vader to lift him up and lead him out of the room. Vader doesn't give a kark about what a future Maul did. He would help Maul now, not repeat the same mistakes he'd made with Luke, Leia, and Galen, make amends, and at last restore order to this broken galaxy.
Arthur's note: May the 4th be with you! Most likely won't be continued!