The Dark Path

[BigBadDaddyVader]

This is my first fic.I have attached it as a pdf as it is a short story but quite long.All comments are welcome.:)

[BigBadDaddyVader]

Here is the piece to save downloading the pdf.All comments and thoughts welcome:

THE DARK PATH

The reek of sulphur surrounded him, penetrating his very pores and sickening him .Once more reaching to the force to numb the white hot pain in his nerve endings he again found a calm centre in the dark side.
The piercing agony of his burnt flesh was replaced by a serene fury that completely focused him and pushed back all thoughts of the destroyed mass of his body. He focused on the wretched, self-righteous visage of Obi-Wan and his deluded lecturing. He saw the lies in Padme’s face and knew she had betrayed him to the naiive, posturing Jedi.
This caused him to lose the dark calm he had achieved and a bolt of searing pain shot through what remained of his limbs. He released a coarse scream through his blackened lungs and reached forward with his charred prosthetic hand to drag himself further from the river of molten lava only to find himself losing the grip on the loose stones of the incline and slip further back .He rolled and then consciousness was lost.


“You’re going down a path I can’t follow.”
“Because of Obi-Wan.”
“Because of what you’ve done. What you plan to do.”
The misty image of Padme rose in his dream. Her treacherous pleading and her lies. She had no conception of the power he had achieved and all to save her pitiful life and she threw it away for Kenobi.
He caught sight of Anakin’s face in the dream but a hazy, faltering picture that he could not grasp. He reached out to Anakin and the face drifted farther and deeper into the darkness.
A guttural roar cut through his dream and a coal black skull loomed over him enveloping him, smothering him. The terror was palpable and real but soon this subsided into a grateful acceptance of the inevitability of destiny and the righteous darkness that he had given himself to.


Awoken by voices he raised his head with what little strength remained in him to see his master and two clones. Once more he slumped upon his back but he could feel the presence of his master approaching him. Through scorched eyes and encroaching unconsciousness he could see the twisted mask of evil that was his master somehow touched by an almost paternal concern for his fallen apprentice and as he laid his gnarled hand upon him he felt a cold energy seep through his veins. He so deeply wished to thank his master but he sank back and let it take hold of him.


“The dark side of the force is a pathway to abilities some consider to be unnatural.”
He had lied to him. That was true. The lies, however, had led to a greater and deeper truth. He was not so blind as to not understand how his master had schemed to turn him to the dark side and have him become his apprentice. It was the winsome naiivety of the Jedi that had prevented him from understanding the true nature of what his new master offered him. It was this arrogance that led him to the moment of his choice without any true knowledge of the choice that he was to make. He understood now that destiny would have had allowed no other outcome to that encounter in Palpatine’s chambers. His master had foreseen it and truly understood the nature of his apprentice. It was this greater understanding of his nature that was what would eventually allow him to reveal himself as the Dark Lord Sidious in the final moments of Anakin Skywalker’s life. The Jedi had never understood him and it was this that led to the destruction of all three in that chamber. The disguise of the righteous politician Palpatine died that night. The so greatly revered Mace Windu found his destiny and in the end of Windu so also ended Skywalker.
“A powerful Sith you will become.”


He screamed as he was lifted into the medical capsule. Reaching desperately to the force with a brute will that he had previously unimagined he crushed the clone’s skull. The bloodied remains of the clone collapsed to the cruel gravel with a pulverised crunch .The other troopers stayed stock still in greater fear of reprisals from their Emperor who hovered nearby, a wicked, leering half-grin playing at the corner of his rotted mouth. His master reached out with his cold presence to touch him and bring calm to the roiling rage within him. As the troopers attached a breath mask to him and inserted a fluid system into one of his limbs he suddenly and unexpectedly felt the lingering, light touches that Padme would draw across his chest as she lay beside him. He felt the floral softness of her hair feathering his back and the warm scent of lillies that would seem to emanate from her as she slept. Before he could centre himself the unbearable weight of separation from her took hold of him. His tear ducts had cauterised and none would ever flow from them again but he felt the tears raining into his dark heart. A chill gripped him and he was vaguely aware of his master easing him into sleep again.


“What does your heart tell you?”
Shmi’s corpse appeared in the hazy past of the force but all he could hear was the bare, scraping call of the Tusken echoing through him. The Tusken children’s shrill barks as he butchered them alongside their mother’s with sleek, swift strokes of his lightsaber. The hum of the blade and the silence as he stood amongst their hacked bodies before the primal roar of incandescent hatred poured from him to be replaced by a strange emptiness that would never be filled. Shmi’s body had been light and ravaged by her time with the animalistic Tuskens and it should have taken no effort to place her body on the speeder but the weight had seemed endless, draining all life and hope from him with every step. As Shmi slipped away from him so he slipped farther away from himself. He reached in vain for her crying “Mother!” and Shmi’s outstretched hand drew away with a look of unfathomable despair etched in her sandworn features.


As he looked up at the crimson glow of the Mustafar night he fought to breathe through the mask. Each induction of air into his scorched lungs stabbed ever deeper than the last. It took all the energy of the dark side within him to keep his body from the brink of surrender. Ahead of him he could see the flowing graceful sweep of Sidious’ cloak as it swept the ground behind him. He could sense the fear in the clones carrying the capsule and this pleased him greatly. Once more fuelled by their fear he could feel the power of the dark side coursing through him. What a fool Kenobi was to fear the dark side so. Kenobi believed him defeated and his contemptible words of JedI compassion masked his own desire for revenge. The hypocritical JedI order would indeed be made to suffer at the hands of his master. He would be the instrument of their final annihilation.
Sidious’ personal shuttle was waiting with Captain KagI at the transport’s ramp. With the slightest gesture of his hand his master brought the walkway down as KagI stepped aside and bowed to allow his Emperor to board. His Emperor nodded almost indistinguishably toward him and KagI joined the clones guiding the capsule on it’s repulsorlifts and led them toward the cargo bay which had been hastily transformed into a makeshift medical bay. The stark and blinding neon lights flared a white pulsating ache into his seared eyes. As the capsule was hyperbarically sealed for the journey he felt a spinning, nauseating sickness and was lost.


“I can see there is no fooling you, Anakin.”
The snap-hiss of a lightsaber and the electrical storm of blades connecting struck him in his dream. Qui-Gon had fended off the assault of the dark lord Maul on Tattoine as Anakin had watched and fled to the waiting Kenobi. Jinn’s faltering parries against the powerful Sith were becoming ever more desperate and he too sought escape. As the craft took to the skies of the arid planet Anakin had looked below and saw a black figure lowering a blade with a gaze of hateful determination. Anakin ,strangely, had not feared this mysterious assassin but rather was intrigued by the single-minded red hatred that he felt flowing from him. He could also feel something from Qui-Gon that he knew Qui-Gon could not admit to. It puzzled the young boy why such a great Knight as Jinn should be so shaken, so weakened. As Jinn’s face became clearer in the dream so it was utterly swallowed by his pyre. As Jinn burned Anakin felt an unknowable coldness and dread flow through him. Through the dancing fire he saw a flickering trace of his destiny and he turned from it in horror seeking solace from Kenobi who grasped the young Palawan’s shoulder’s and told him to not be afraid.
He would be a Jedi.


“Careful when sensing the future you must be Anakin.”
Through the impossible vapour of the force he saw glimpses of what was to be. A distant, ruined world. Buildings lay in rubble around him and all was devastation. As he looked down he glimpsed a black gloved hand wielding a scarlet lightsaber. The glove was in tatters and singed circuitry smouldered lightly beneath. All was tinged blood-red. He could see dozens of mangled, unrecognisable corpses at his feet. Unfamiliar troopers filed by him in triumphant order. They nodded and said a name that he could not distinguish from the din of war. He could sense that this brutal victory was his accomplishment. He had subjugated this world for his master. They had felt the true nature of power as they fell before the swathes of his Sith blade. The vision waned and became indistinct eventually succumbing to the will of the force and vanishing to be replaced by a city in the clouds. A golden aura hung above this city which flared into a vivid nova. Gradually he realised his gloved hand was outstretched toward a remote falling figure. He could feel a roar of wind bellowing around and through him and an infinite sadness seemed to wail from this wind as the figure disappeared from sight leaving the vision to melt into a grey nothing. Through the smog he realised this was not indeed greyness but a light smoke drifting upwards from a crumpled robe and his foot was treading the folds of this cloak and stamping out the remains of life. A scream “NO!” ripped the vision as loud as the clarion of battle and blaster fire erupted around him as he beckoned his troops forward. Blast doors closed around his vision and warped into the merciless, ravaged cackling face of his master. A green blade swooped down with an elegant hiss as he crossed it with his own ruthless blade. As the vision began to fade he could hear his master’s voice echoing into the darkness….”Only now, at the end, do you understand.”

[BigBadDaddyVader]

Jolted awake by the sudden shift of the sub-light engines activating on their exit from hyperspace he welcomed the cold reconditioned air of the ship’s interior on his melted skin. The molten pain of his limbs had been eased by the constant administering of hypos of stimulants and pain-relievers. He could feel his grip on the force slipping as his body began to spasm. His lungs suddenly ceased to take in air but there was a peaceful acceptance of this within him. He could sense the presence of the end at hand and prepared to accept his fate. The clone medics desperately used their field kits to stabilise him but his body continued to fail until…until…

An all-consuming darkness. No time. No space. No life. No presence of the force. He could feel his awareness of himself fading….

“No, my apprentice, return to my side.”


Blasting through the pitch his eyes opened to see his master above him nodding slowly and approvingly.
He gasped desperately to draw air. Slowly returning to his virtual coma he could no longer feel or sense the all-consuming agony of his injuries. He was aware of a light hazily creeping into the cabin through the portside windows. A grey, battered mournful light from the raging storm outside. Razor sharp blasts of lightning reflected through the window and he reflexively winced at their intensity feeling every watt of energy within their tremendous bursts tearing into his eyes and stripping his nerves. His master sat opposite him wearing an unconcerned look of complete confidence. He was inserting data cards into a comm pad and instructing the clones to transmit the contents to his personal chambers and to make ready the medic droids at their station. As the trooper passed him to take the pad to the cockpit he caught the briefest glimpse of a curious design on it’s screen. A black, glaring terrible skull. With this he lapsed backwards and fell into limbo.


“There hasn’t been a day in the past ten years I haven’t thought of her.”
Before he could see it he could hear the soft, tranquil lapping of waves upon the shore. Sharpening and coming into focus he turned to see how purely and simply beautiful she was in her wedding gown. Her hair in exquisite curls with the gown flowing gracefully from her shoulders to her delicate waist and down in a motion as natural as a waterfall to her feet where it gathered in a golden pool. Her eyes looked on him with awe and wonder and he knew that his were indeed filled with this same heady mixture. The sensation of lightness intensified through the force and his inexorable connection to her made him feel completely lost within her and all without became irrelevant and unnecessary. Nevertheless a voice echoed darkly through his dream…
“Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed that is.”
What could they possibly know of the essential and inherent beauty of his feelings for her? Their misguided code held no meaning for him. Only the sight of her perfect vision of goodness held any truth for him. The wonderful moments of absolute peace amongst the plains of Naboo where they had become as one. Where they had attained a connection that no other JedI could ever understand. He realised now, though, that she was slipping from him. Panic and terror seized him. Her face became indistinct, unrecognisable. He struggled fiercely to bring her features back to focus and clarity but something dark was gathering around his horizon. Gazing down he saw his prosthetic hand begin to form skin once more and gradually to draw more and more strength to it. He was whole again! In wonder he returned his eyes up only to be faced with the elder warrior who had stricken him so. Dooku’s wizened lines stared with a blissful malevolence irradiated by the scarlet glow of his powerfully elegant Sith scimitar. Without a trace of emotion the blade came down inevitably upon his newly reformed hand and scythed it from him and slowly, agonisingly slowly, saw himself repelled from the ancient Dark Lord and smashed mercilessly against the rock. Now slumped he felt the loss of his arm anew and screamed at it’s hateful inevitability. Dooku’s withered features began to fade but he could yet hear his taunts dragging into the shadows.


Rain was smattering around him and stirred him. He could see nothing but for the ravaged skies above torn by the lightning that beckoned destiny onward. A sense of deep foreboding gripped him and he suddenly realised that a cataclysm was somehow approaching yet even through the force could not hold onto any real sense of what to fear. Only a deep unease and uncertainty had replaced his absolute vision of the future and all was mist and shadow. He reached to the force to bring him again to his dark centre of peaceful certainty but could not attain the focus. With the effort of this he felt something seep from him, leak from his very soul and, in desperate confusion, passed into the darkness beyond the raging, electric blue of the Coruscant sky.


“You have hate, you have anger but you don’t use them”
The old fool Dooku returned to his vision. His impossibly graceful lightsaber techniques becoming ever more strained against the savage onslaught of Anakin’s unbound hatred and thirst for vengeance. Dooku had had no conception of the level of Anakin’s power and was destined to be destroyed. He understood this now. Even as he witnessed in his vision Dooku’s arms fly from him and the sparks of his tattered, burning clothes fluttering to the ground becoming embers and turning into ash. So this was to be the Dark Lord Tyranus’ fate. He too could only face expulsion to ash. Consumed by his rage he caught the scimitar and paused. This puzzled him now but he soon came to realise that it was once again the foul code of the passive, hypocritical JedI that had spared Dooku’s life for those final few seconds. Dooku’s confusion and pleading glare had sickened him. He could see Palpatine beside him watching with a hesitantly sadistic gaze as his playthings faced one another.
“Do it”
So ended the apprenticeship of Tyranus. His wretched head hit the floor with the finality of not only his end but with the dismal tolling of imminent fate. All was now ashen and black. No light could survive in the void that had been cast into him. He allowed himself to be consumed ever more by it’s cold embrace and revelled in the freedom to give reign to his desires and dark cravings. Something was changing and he felt this as surely as he felt the pang and flash of the ache which jarred him to consciousness.


Above him were the bitterly strong lights of a medical bay. Slowly and agonisingly looking around himself he could see various medical droids with terrible appendages scuttling with great purpose and intensity to and fro in the small confines of the bay. He could see many tables with prostheses laid upon them and a mist from the atmospheric processor rolled around the stark floor of the dreadful place. Across from him reflected in the panels of a view screen he could see his master passing instructions to two of the droids who returned with more instruments even more terrible than the others already present. With the return of the two droids who had been so instructed by Lord Sidious began the procedure. He gazed down the length of himself to see the spindly droids with awful red optic sensors approach him with blades and begin to slice at the remaining bone in his severed legs. With a scream that split and bled the night and shattered the viewing panels the transformation had irrevocably begun. Instinctively he threw his remaining arm out and smashed the droid nearest him splintering it. The droid fell uselessly backwards with a light fizzing of circuitry. He witnessed the droids attach a titanic machine’s leg to his devastated limb and with that one more roar of firestruck wrath rent from him before he was lost to the mist.


“Do not hesitate, show no mercy. Only then will you be strong enough with the dark side to save Padme.”.
The overwhelming conformity of the clone legion’s synchronous marching reverberated through the ancient halls of the temple where once he had so contemptibly meditated on the abject and bankrupt JedI code. He strode forward with a deadly single-minded purpose. They must all perish for their lies and betrayal. They had turned on him and they would reap the bitter harvest this brought them. He would neither pause nor pity. The blade that had been wielded as their ally would be the source of their ultimate judgement. His master had shown him the power and nature of the dark side and they could not stand against it. It would be all too easy to cut a vicious blue path through their home of treacherous conceit. None shall bear any resistance to his will.
For an almost infinite moment as he ignited the shimmering blade he could hear the distant voice of Anakin Skywalker imploring him to spare them.
“Look at them, they are children! NO!”
As he consigned Anakin forever to the remnants of his foolish past he raised the blade and with a commanding sweep began to massacre the padawans. This order must fail tonight. These wretched younglings are the future of this corrupt and detestable sect and must be eliminated. He carved through them and watched with a dispassionate rage as their bodies crumpled and their severed heads and limbs rolled desperately from their fallen shells. Their ends would enable him to save the life of Padme and he could not live without her. His master wished the betrayal of the JedI to be punished and so it would be. Not one shall be spared his dark thunder. The JedI will perish this night. Entirely consumed with this icy rage he felt himself pulled back and away from the ruined bodies of the children. Pulled back into a darkness which welcomed his desolate heart. Pulled into a black, frozen sheath of half-life.


As he regained his sight a mask was lowered from the extension ahead of him. Blood-red optics flared to life as it sank onto his face with a gentle sighing of electronics. Another piece was sealed on him from behind and an air-seal formed around his newly implanted synthflesh. For the briefest of moments he gagged and choked and then air began to flow from the vents around his parched and blistered lips. He gratefully inhaled it finding the cool mixture flowing into his lungs provided a relief. He gazed through the red hemispheres and could not focus for a moment. Everything became clear as the gaseous air mix circulated in his suit and the control system took over fully. His sight cleared and he looked into the mist ahead as he felt the table raised and a sudden jolt as he became upright.
“Lord Vader, can you hear me?”

[BigBadDaddyVader]

So if anyone has any thoughts or comments on this i would appreciate all feedback.:bye:

[Cydon]

Well don't everyone comment at once...

I'll comment after I've read it.

[BigBadDaddyVader]

I didnt think it was THAT boring................:chortle:
Anyways all thoughts will be apprecaited.Cheers!

[Zedekk]

Wow! great story telling. I am truly impressed. I want more.