Anakin's Visions.
By TimeTraveller-1900.
-8-
The visions kept coming; Anakin had been swept up in a whirlwind of extremely nasty visions; this one was no different. Padme was lying somewhere, but Anakin was confused and he didn't understand what was going on here, as he watched her face contorted in agony. Padme calls out in pain. Obi-Wan was near her and softly speaking to her.
"Save your energy," the Jedi Master was saying as soothingly as he could.
"I can't!" Padme whimpered, becoming truly weaker now.
Obi-Wan saw it, and his voice became urgent, "Don't give up, Padme. Don't give up . . ."
-8-
In a lavishly appointed apartment, Anakin saw…himself. He was in the living room, working. He was sitting on the couch. Padme walked in and crossed behind him.
Anakin saw himself looking around, a frown on his face; in the present, Anakin could see that they were both a few years older, and he could see the stress on their faces. And Padme was pregnant. Anakin was ecstatic at first, but he remembered the outcome…"I sense someone familiar . . . Obi-Wan's been here, hasn't he?"
Padme frowned herself, not liking his tone. "He came by this morning."
"What did he want?"
Padme stared at him for a moment, her expression one of pure worry. As he watched his future self looking so tense, Anakin wondered why his future self seemed so….so controlling. So toxic.
"He's worried about you," Padme said at last, looking like she was wishing she was anywhere else; Anakin didn't like the look of this, he didn't like the way Padme looked.…scared. Why, why was she scared? What was his future self doing? And then he remembered the content of the future visions he had seen so far; of himself destroying worlds, being a Sith, Luke, the way he had tormented the galaxy.
It looked like it started here, with Padme.
Was this how his persona as Vader came out, with hurting people?
"You told him about us, didn't you?" Anakin gasped at how…aggressive, and how angry his future self was. After what he had just seen, Anakin was becoming increasingly aware….he was dangerous.
Padme's unhappy face tore his heart apart even more. She continued to walk to the bedroom, and he followed, his younger self watching in horror and worrying.… was he abusive?
"He's your best friend, Anakin," Padme said, trying to be the voice of reason. "He says you're under a lot of stress."
"And he's not?"
"You have been moody lately," Padme rubbed her belly, wincing a little bit as the babies were causing problems; after seeing the Skywalker twins in the splintered visions, Anakin could not blame her. What was wrong with himself, why was he pushing this?
"I'm not moody . . .," Anakin growled.
But Padme wouldn't have it, and past Anakin watched even more worriedly, "Anakin! Don't do this again," she looked upset.
It seemed to get through to Anakin of this time; he dropped his barriers and looked like he was barely holding on. "I don't know ... I feel . . . lost," he whispered.
Padme looked at him, scared and worried. "Lost? What do you mean? You're always so sure of yourself. I don't understand," she said.
Anakin sighed, "Obi-Wan and the Council don't trust me," he said.
Anakin of the past frowned.
This…was not old news; he had known from the moment he met the Council that they didn't….like or trust him, beyond one or two of them, but they were cautious around him, and then he remembered how Ahsoka had been kicked out… but this was worrying.
"They trust you with their lives. Obi-Wan loves you as a son," Padme argued.
Anakin….remembered how tense his earlier relationship he and Obi-Wan had been; he would never forget the fact Obi-Wan hadn't wanted him when Qui-Gon died. The only reason he had fought so hard was because Obi-Wan had promised the Jedi Master who'd trained him so long to dedicate himself to Anakin's training. But Anakin was not stupid. He knew Obi-Wan still felt a lingering sense of distrust and even disdain. It had taken them years to move beyond it.
But the Council were a different story. Anakin could never forgive them for their arrogance, the way they had just dismissed the changes in the galaxy, how they had continually told him to let go of his past, unaware it was not that simple.
But his future self didn't seem prepared to listen to her. "Something's happening . . . ," Anakin of the future said, his voice low and lost, "I'm not the Jedi I should be. I am one of the most powerful Jedi, but I'm not satisfied ... I want more, and I know I shouldn't."
Anakin of the past knew how he felt.
Only too well.
Padme, bless her, tried to understand. But she couldn't. "You expect too much of yourself."
Anakin sighed. She didn't get it. She didn't understand how the Jedi Order had heaped so much on his shoulders when Maul appeared, and the whole illusion of safety the supposed end of the Sith from the wars a thousand years before had brought was just…ripped off like a bandage from a rotting wound.
Padme didn't understand that ever since Qui-Go took his midichlorian count and the Council cast their judgement on him, saying he would not be trained, only to change their minds later at Obi-Wan's behest, and when he first began his training life in the Temple had been a living nightmare for him (he would not think about how he couldn't even make friends because of the enormous divide between himself and the other Padawans and younglings), especially as the Masters distrusted and disliked him and pushed him on and on, punishing him whenever he effortlessly succeeded, all under the guise of 'humbling' him, and Obi-Wan just let them which made the tension between them worse than ever. He had no friends; the other Padawans disliked him, and the younglings despised him.
But younger Anakin pushed that all away as he watched them. They had stopped in front of the window in the bedroom. Anakin put his hand on her belly.
"I have found a way to save you."
Anakin froze. No, he was talking about the Dark Side. How could he be so desperate and moronic to think that, especially after everything they'd been taught about the Dark Side's nature, how it corrupted and destroyed?
Padme blinked, mystified, "Save me?" She repeated, worried now.
"From my nightmares," Older and stupider Anakin clarified.
"Is that what's bothering you?" Padme asked.
"I won't lose you, Padme."
"I'm not going to die in childbirth, Annie. I promise you."
"No, I promise you! I am becoming so powerful with my new knowledge of the Force, I will be able to keep you from dying."
Padme, looking distinctly nervous, scared and more frightened, looked Anakin in the eye. The stupid fool, he didn't even realise he was making her nervous.
"You don't need more power, Anakin. I believe you can protect me against anything, just as you are," was all Padme said.
-8-
The next scene in the collection of visions from this terrible possible fragmented future was much more violent. Younger Anakin watched in horror as his future self let out a terrible scream, and sliced off Mace Windu's arm, making the Jedi Master scream and yell in agony as he fought the waves of pain down. Younger Anakin studied the scene, seeing they were in an office, but it was impossible for Anakin to see where on Coruscant they were, there was a dark figure crouched down next to the window. As Mace stared at Anakin in shock, the figure who was more like a hideous wraith, sprang to life, unleashing a terrible barrage of Force lightning. Desperately, the injured Jedi Master attempted to deflect them with his one good hand, but the force was too great. As blue rays engulfed his body, electrocuting the champion, the Master of the Order, the Sith yelled, "Power! Unlimited power!"
And then the force of the Sith lightning threw Mace Windu out of the window, where he fell down into the cityscape, vanishing for good. There was no scream, no cry. Nothing.
But one thing would haunt Anakin.
The look of shocked condemnation in Master Windu's eyes.
Younger Anakin had spent years trying to make the Korun Jedi Master see he was wrong, and now here he was, proving Windu's point about him being dangerous. What was wrong with him?
Older Anakin collapsed as he realised what he'd done. "What have I done?" He whimpered pathetically.
Younger Anakin wanted to lunge forward and choke his older self, to make him see reality, to stop this. But he couldn't. The wraith-like Sith Lord stood up; Anakin knew this Sith would go on to rule the galaxy for the best part of 20 years, shattering everything the Republic stood for - while he didn't really think the Republic worked, it was better than an empire that destroyed planets! - but what frustrated him the most was how he couldn't even see who the Sith was.
It was like the Force was trying to stop him from seeing too much like it wanted the Empire!
But that was crazy, right?
"You are fulfilling your destiny, Anakin," the unseen Sith Lord oiled. "Become my apprentice. Learn to use the dark side of the Force."
Older Anakin looked down, distraught, desperate. "I will do whatever you ask."
"Good."
Younger Anakin shuddered at the word and the way the Sith said it; it sounded like a piece of stone drenched in oil and then sharpened on a rock.
Older Anakin went on, "Just help me save Padme's life. I can't live without her. I won't let her die. I want the power to stop death."
Younger Anakin knew how his older self felt, but he was currently mentally with it enough to know the Sith Lord was not going to help, that his promises were completely empty, and always would be. He was using his older self.
"To cheat death is a power only one has achieved, but if we work together, I know we can discover the secret."
That was enough for older Anakin; he knelt before the Sith.
"You fool," Younger Anakin hissed, thinking of the awful things his older self would do.
"I pledge myself to your teachings. To the ways of the Sith."
"Good. Good. The Force is strong with you. A powerful Sith you will become. Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth . . . Vader."
"Thank you. my Master," Older Anakin, now Darth Vader, a Sith who had yet to show the galaxy the true brutality of the Sith, bowed gratefully.
"Rise, Darth Vader."
-8-
The cloaked form of Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith, was hovering around the periphery of a group of medical droids who are working on Anakin, who was looking up at them, confused in a haze of pain; he felt his connection to the Force, vastly different from the sensations of the Light Side.
It was the Dark Side.
But how did Anakin know all that?
It was lulling him in, promising him revenge, power…it was heady, and he lapped it up gladly.…or at least a part of him did, another part of him was sickened. He could smell the stench of burnt flesh, and chemicals.
Anakin felt completely out of it; he felt as if he was there in the room, as the droids performed their surgery; he felt weird, pains in his bones, and he felt as if something heavy was being draped over him…but he was so groggy he couldn't make sense of anything, and he was phasing in an out of consciousness.
And all that time, he felt the darkness of the Sith Master in the background. A part of him knew who he was. Anakin felt as if he was fractured; part of his mind and essence in the future, the rest in the past.
Out of sight, Sidious paced about in the foreground. A droid approached the Dark Lord.
"Well?" Sidious demanded.
"My Lord, the construction is finished ... he lives."
Anakin heard the smile in the Sith Lord's voice.
"Good. Good," Sidious oiled.
The droid moves back to the table where Anakin lay. The table began to move upright, and Anakin heard a hoarse breathing sound that sent shivers down his skeleton, and he saw a distorted view through eye lenses in the mask which was lowered into place over his face.
"Lord Vader, can you hear me?"
Vader?
Who was…Vader?
And then Anakin remembered. He was Vader.
Fuck, he was a Sith Lord now, and Sidious…Sidious was his Master!
"Yes, My Master."
Anakin recoiled at the voice; it sounded like someone speaking through a loud hailer. It took a moment for him to realise he was looking around the room.
"Where is Padme? Is she safe, is she all right?"
Anakin sensed Sidious walking towards him. "I'm afraid she died. ... it seems in your anger, you killed her."
WHAT?
A terrible, low groan emanated from within Anakin and filtered through the mask. Suddenly everything in the room begins to implode, including some of the droids. "I couldn't have! She was alive! I felt her! She was alive! It's impossible! No!"
Anakin screamed, breaking his bonds to the table, and stepped forward, waving his hands, causing objects to fly around the room. Anakin staggered, feeling heavier than before, but he didn't care. He felt as if his heart was torn out of his chest, images of himself choking Padme, who was gasping, pleading desperately for him to let her go, to stop….
And he didn't.
He'd gone on, choking her, feeling the Dark side swirl within him, intoxicating him until he couldn't even tell what he was doing anymore as he was lost in a dark haze of homicidal glee. Sidious was almost hit by the smashing objects in the room, but the Sith Lord easily deflected the objects, some of the droids weren't so lucky. Anakin's painful screams echoed throughout the centre.
-8-
Anakin gasped as he snapped out of his meditative trance, tripping up over his own feet and barely managing to execute a rollout of reflex to stop himself from hurting himself. Once he'd righted himself and sat down, dragging his knees up to his chin, Anakin struggled to relax, his head dropping into the palms of his hands, gasping with horror at what he had just seen, struggling to get his racing heart thudding in his chest under control, breathing in and out using the techniques he had learnt in his training. Never one to be sitting still, especially during childhood, he usually found a large, empty room, and he ran around, or in one of the Temple gardens where there weren't any more Jedi near him to disturb them to force himself to meditate.
Rocking himself backwards and forwards, Anakin tried to make sense of what he had just gone through. He had been trying for the last few months, desperately hoping to find a way of making sense of the visions he was having of his mother Shmi, and what was causing her suffering, to see if there was anything he could actually do since he was trapped here, on this damn planet. As he had probed deeper, hoping to discover the truth, he had seen her suffering on Tatooine, and he had pushed harder and harder, channelling all of his supposed power of the Chosen One into it, hoping to find out what was going on.
The Force had resisted. And he had almost given up; the Force was cloudy on Coruscant because of how unnatural the planet was, but then he had decided to use the presence of everyone on the planet excluding the Jedi, of course, as they would sense what he was doing, and channelled it in, so he could do what he wanted, which was to discover the truth. Anakin knew he was breaking a cardinal rule among the Jedi; the future was always in motion, and it was dangerous to dig into it so recklessly, but he was now starting to appreciate the logic behind that judgement.
He didn't feel bad about it, considering that the ends justified the means. In any case, Anakin was going mad, he had been assaulted by these visions of his mother for months now, and they were getting worse. Obi-Wan and other Jedi Masters kept saying they were dreams of homesickness and they would go in time, but Anakin didn't feel any kind of love or attachment for Tatooine. He wasn't stupid; he knew the Jedi wished for his lingering love for his mother to snap.
Anakin hated them for that, what right did they have to tell him to let go of the only family he had? He didn't know if any of his mother's relatives were even alive. She had been sold into slavery at a young age, as had the rest of her family. By the time he was 8, Shmi had already given up hope of ever seeing her parents or siblings again, she barely even remembered them it had been so long; Anakin himself had not thought of looking for them, and he had tried but found nothing in turn. He had accepted that. And besides, if he had been homesick, wouldn't it have happened long ago instead of 10 years later?
Anakin had been driven to the point of madness, and he had decided to break one of the most important rules in the Order, and of the Force, deciding his mental health was more important than what the Force wanted. Only he had dug too deeply, and he had felt himself seeing a future, a possible one that was so terrible, vague in places that he had trouble believing all he had seen.
But he had seen them, some moments were so clear they may happen…tomorrow, or a couple of days from now, and he was having trouble focusing on all he had seen.
Anakin desperately struggled to make sense of what he had seen. He had been a slave his whole life, to the Hutts, Watto, now the Jedi. And after seeing himself grovel before a Sith Lord, and say "What is thy bidding, my Master?" He was disgusted with himself.
Slowly as he used the exercises he had been taught as a padawan in his first year of training, Anakin slowly calmed down, and he began unravelling what he had just seen.