Mustafar

Twelve Hours Later

Slave 1 settled gracefully and delicately onto a landing platform which was surrounded on most sides by bubbling lava. Han Solo, whose eyes had been steadily improving in the last hours, grimaced and said, "Vader lives here?"

"Part time, yes," Older Leia said, her hands dancing about the instrumentation as she shut down vital systems, including comms. "Most of the time he is on Executor, rushing around committing genocide and fun things like that."

"And you really think he is your father?" Han demanded incredulously.

"Well, that one isn't," she said, waving a hand toward the Sith who was standing outside, some twenty meters away, flanked on each side by, yes, two Luke Skywalkers, one of whom was young, and one somewhat older.

"My Vader is dead and has been for more than a decade," Leia continued, rolling to her feet. "Shall we?"

Han swallowed hard. His interactions with Darth Vader had been supremely unpleasant, consisting of torture followed by being dropped into carbon freeze. He thought himself a brave man, but he was, at the moment, terrified.

"We won't let him hurt you again," Older Leia said, and her expression was so fierce that Han was insensibly comforted.

"All right, then," he said, holding his arm out gallantly. The alternate of the woman that he loved seized his arm with considerably strength, and guided him out of the cockpit and down the ramp which led to a large rock, where the Sith Lord and two versions of his son were waiting.

"Han!" younger Luke cried out, hurrying forward and throwing his arms around his friend. "Are you all right?"

"Sure, Kid, sure," Solo replied, keeping a wary, weather eye on Vader. "I'm fine. You good?"

"Pretty good, yeah," Young Luke said with a sigh of relief, and then cast an outraged look at Darth Vader. "Though I would have lost my RIGHT HAND if my alternate self hadn't shown up in the nick of time!"

"He was gonna cut off your hand?" Solo replied, and, still filled with peculiar courage, glowered at the cyborg. "Pretty lousy parenting, your Sithliness."

He would have thought that Vader could not possibly stiffen his back more, but he did. The black helmet shifted a millimeter or two, and the deep voice said, "Do not trifle with me, Solo. I am not inclined to harm you for the sake of my … my children, but …"

"But," Older Luke said, taking a few steps forward and grinning at the Corellian, "we don't have time for this nonsense. Palpatine is on his way to collect younger Luke, and we need to get ready for him."

"Palpatine?" Solo repeated, blinking several times. "The Emperor himself?"

"Yep!" Leia said. "And we have something special planned for him."

/

Main Landing Platform

Mustafar

Four Hours Later

The Emperor's shuttle landed with the grace of a butterfly on a twig, and Darth Vader, with his manacled son at his side, waited until the ramp had lowered, and twelve red robed Imperial Guards had run out, and then the aged Emperor tapped his way, using his cane, down the ramp onto the solid rock. Vader waited until his master had achieved Mustafar firma, and then kneeled before him, while Luke Skywalker remained standing, his gaze fixed balefully on the leader of the galaxy.

Vader was nervous about this whole plan; Palpatine was not just incredibly powerful in the Force, he was gifted at understanding the hearts and minds of those around him, especially his second in command. Vader had never had much luck concealing his intentions, and now, given that his intention was to assist in assassinating his master – well, this could go very wrong.

On the other hand, the Force was very confused right now, and Palpatine was almost certainly not as prescient as usual. Luke Skywalker, the younger version, was a maelstrom in the Force, and was currently broadcasting anger and irritation, and outrage, and a host of powerful emotions. It was enough to buffet Vader's shields, and Palpatine's as well, and thus there was hope that the Emperor would find himself dead before he figured out what was really going on.

"Rise, my friend," Palpatine croaked, though his yellow eyes were fixed on Luke, who lifted his chin defiantly.

"I see," the Emperor continued, taking a few steps closer, "that you succeeded in capturing the young man. You have done very well, Lord Vader."

"Thank you, my master," Vader replied in as meek a tone as was possible given that his vocoder had been designed to sound deep and fearsome.

"As for you, young Skywalker, I am most pleased to meet you at last. You will come to know me well; indeed, in time, you will call me Master."

This was said in the most oily, drippy, superior, annoying tone possible, and the Older Twins, who were coyly hiding behind Vader's private X-wing a few meters away, grimaced as one and Luke whispered into the comlink, "Go ahead, Han."

Solo, currently perched in a room in Vader's palace and looking out the window toward the landing site, had been thoroughly annoyed at not being permitted to participate in murdering Palpatine. Then again, he was not a Force user, plus he was still recovering a bit from torture and being stuck in carbon freeze. He also really liked the Empire's big guns.

He leaned over the gun in question, which had been outfitted to protect Vader's palace in the unlikely event of the Rebels attempting a ground assault on Vader's fortress, and pulled the trigger.

Laser bolts spat out of the gun and blasted into the red guards, causing four to fall instantly, while the other eight surged forward to protect their lord and master.

Vader had, by this time, grabbed his son and moved him a few meters away, fearful that the boy would be harmed if the Emperor started hurling Force lightning at him.

"Treachery!" Palpatine screamed, and did indeed lift spidery hands to shoot bolts of lightning in Vader's direction. "Treachery!"

Vader had dug out a lightsaber to replace the one he had lost at Bespin. It had been stolen from a Jedi he had killed, and had originally been green, though he was doing his best to change the crystal so it would turn to red. It was, at the moment, a mix between green and red which was so aesthetically ugly that even he was a trifle disturbed. It was mud colored more than anything else. Ick.

It did, at least block lightning bolts, which was what really mattered. The cyborg took a step in front of his son and lifted his blade to catch the bolts, protecting both his own electrical circuits and his boy. A moment later, the Royal Guards began shooting at him as well, even as Solo's gun fell silent. Vader did not much care if Solo was alive or not, but Luke did, so he spared a quick Force tendril toward the Corellian; the man was alive and healthy, but Palpatine had jammed up the workings of the gun by twisting it with the Force or something of the sort.

It was hard deflecting lightning bolts and laser bolts, and a moment later, he had a new headache as Luke divested himself of his manacles, which was unnerving. He knew that both Lukes had spent some hours working on locks, but that was fast learning.

Worse than that, young Luke apparently had no interest in staying safe, as the boy pulled his own (Anakin's old) lightsaber from Vader's belt, took a few steps forward to stand at his father's side, and began deflecting bolts away from them both.

"So this is how you treat me?" Palpatine hissed, taking refuge behind his guards. "You betray me, your very master?"

"You murdered Padme," Vader exclaimed, suddenly furious, and took an ominous step forward, just as…

Just as the Emperor suddenly yelped in surprise and, before Vader's startled eyes, began rising in the air.

"Help, help!" the desiccated despot cried out, flailing desperately as he began drifting toward the nearest pool of lava. "Help!"

This, not surprisingly, drew the attention of the six remaining guards, who spun around and, after a moment of uncertainty, leaped up to grab at their master's booted feet. Two of them, taller than the others, managed to hang onto Palpatine's spindly legs for a few seconds, and the Emperor dropped a few feet, only to rise again when younger Luke leaped forward and sliced the guards in two.

Vader was busy dealing with the remaining guards, who had now belatedly pulled out their Force pikes and were attempting to land hits on Vader and his son. As the four guards battled the twosome, Palpatine continued to waft his way over the lava, squealing and screaming all the way.

Within a minute, the guards were all dead, and the time traveling twins emerged from their hidey hole behind the TIE fighter and walked toward their Alters, their hands outstretched toward Palpatine, who was hovering some ten feet above the lava, babbling in terror and flailing around with the Force in a totally useless way.

"What are you going to do?" Young Luke asked, gazing round eyed at the Twins.

"We are going to dunk him in lava," Luke said matter of factly.

"And then hold him under," Leia continued. "It will be a quick death that way."

"Along with being appropriate given that he didn't give Father good medical care after being burned in lava," Luke chimed in.

"No, no!" Palpatine shrieked. His hood had fallen back, revealing a truly unpleasant skeletal face with only a few lank strands of hair. "Have mercy!"

"You didn't have mercy on Alderaan," Leia said coolly, and gestured.

The Emperor plunged down onto the lava, and then into the lava, and his screams lasted all of four seconds before he was under the lava. Vader, watching with bewildered fascination, was startled when the life force of his master flickered out in less than five seconds.

"He did not last long," he said in wonder.

The twins released their grip, and Palpatine's scorched corpse bobbed up buoyantly and began to flow toward the hole where this current flow of lava would carry it into the depths of Mustafar.

"Well, the lava is really really hot, and I think that he wasn't really healthy," Luke said. "Also, while I loathe the man, I didn't want him to suffer for a long time. Actually, I kind of choked him too as we dropped him, so he was only conscious for like two seconds, so…"

"You are … you are incredibly powerful," Vader admitted, genuinely awed.

"Maybe the Light Side isn't so weak after all, huh?" Leia said snidely.

"To be fair, Leia and I together are more than the sum of our parts," Luke said judiciously. "We are ridiculously powerful separately, and together we are stupidly strong."

"Hey!" a voice came from behind them, and the group turned to see Han Solo stride toward them across the rock. "Is he dead?"

"Yes," young Luke said happily.

"Great! Hey, Vader, do you have any alcohol in this dive? This calls for a celebration!"