DARK ENDING

All his fear and anger and desperation were released in one moment as Anakin raised his lightsaber with a shout, the blue blade whirling around in a wide arc – and rushed down onto the unmoving form of Darth Vader. The Sith gave no cry of pain, no sound of protest. His voice was forever silenced as the blade came down on him.

Anakin stood over the lifeless body of his father. His lightsaber had stabbed right through his heart, killing him far quicker then maybe he deserved. His eyes were staring at the ceiling now, empty. Just as empty as Anakin felt in that moment with nothing but dark power to fill the hole.

He had to do it, he tried to tell himself, it had been long since overdue. It was the only way...

Anakin looked back at the unconscious form of his Master. It was surreal. He was the last man standing in a vast empty space. There was no applause, no army rushing in that he had to fight his way through, nothing.

With a sigh Anakkin stepped forward and used the force to lift up the Jedi Master. He carried him all the way down through the building and still there was no security coming to arrest him. The young man felt as if he was in a trance as he entered his transport. They had already entered hyperspace when Obi-Wan finally woke up.

"What happened?", he wanted to know once he had realized where he was.

"The Emperor is dead", Anakin said tonelessly. "We're on our way back to Tattoine."

"Vader... is dead?" Obi-Wan sank back in his seat, his helmet meeting the wall with a metallic sound. "Good riddance."

XxX

Darth Vader found himself floating in a white landscape without ground and without horizon. He was surrounded by thick white mist. Realizing he was most certainly dead, Vader unconsciously searched for any blue force ghost to meet him. Instead he noticed distinct shapes forming in the mist. He could make out vague faces, some human, some not, some smiling, some crying, some twisted in anger, some peaceful and serene. They were the thousand faces of the Living Force, whispering all at once, an indiscernible buzzing in his ear.

The rush of the battle dying, Darth Vader calmed down and a small smile grazed his lips. He might be dead now but his family was alive. Padme and the children were safe as was his mother. Even his little Padawan Ahsoka had a promising future ahead of her. Sidious was dead and he had repaid Obi-Wan for his betrayal. He had reached every goal he had set himself in this life.

"Thank you", he said to the thousand faces. There was nothing else to say. This life had been a gift to him. The force did not give him any hint if it was happy or sad about what he'd done with it. It was his choice and the force accepted it.

Slowly Vader felt himself tire and his eyes closed. He felt his own mind dissipate. This time there would be nothing left of his identity in the netherworld. His spirit joined the force and his face became one of many in the swirling mist.

XxX

Anakin and Obi-Wan barely talked on their way back. Anakin couldn't help but think how easy it had been. His father had wanted him to kill him. That made him furious; how was he to prove that he had overcome the man, how could he prove his strength like this? He felt like having stepped into one last trap, played his role to end without ever glimpsing behind the curtain. He had won the match when his real enemy had been the game master.

Back on Tattooine Padme was relieved to have him back but Anakin didn't react to her hug. He felt cold, so cold even her warmth couldn't reach him. When he told them what happened she tried to cheer him up, not quite finding the right words. It was Shmi though who bore the strongest reaction.

"Oh Anakin", she said with such a look of desperation and sadness, "please tell me I have misheard. It cannot be true! You said you wanted to bring him back to the light, how could you do something like that?"

"He..." Anakin's mouth was dry. "He tried to kill Obi-Wan. I... I had to do it." But that was not true. He didn't have to, he'd had the choice.

"He had to be stopped!", the young man called out, angry at his own thoughts. "He would've enslaved the whole galaxy, he was mad with power!"

"But to kill him! Anakin, oh Ani you have to idea what you've done!"

"I did the right thing!", he screamed, shaking off Padme when she tried to calm him. "He was a monster!"

Shmi gave a sob. "You don't know what you're talking about, Ani. I loved him just like I love you - how could you do this to me, to you?"

"I did it because I hate him!", Anakin roared. "He always tried to manipulate me. He turned Qui-Gon, he hurt Obi-Wan and he threatened to take my children from me. Everything bad I've ever done, I've done it because of him. Now I am finally free from his influence!"

Shmi couldn't answer anymore, she had sunken on a chair, her face buried in her hands as she sobbed and cried. Her grief only made Anakin even more angry. Dark power was curling around him, begging to lash out at the woman. It was only Padme's calming voice speaking to him that held him back. His wife lead him away. Obi-Wan went to see a medic while the couple retired to their room.

"I can't believe she's crying for that bastard!", Anakin cursed when they were alone. "He was sick, he was... he was crazy, no better then Sidious!"

"Still she loved him", Padme said very quietly. Anakin turned towards her and the woman flinched back when she saw the yellow in his eyes. Suddenly he was upon her, his intense glare piecing her as he held her with a strong grip. His lips crushed onto her mouth and she gasped at the rough treatment, the fierce passion.

"I've done it to protect you", he growled against her neck, planting kissed across her throat. Her husband had always been a bit possessive but this was too much. "To protect everyone."

His hands wandered under her dress and Padme let out a whimper when he squeezed just a bit to hard.

"Anakin... Anakin, please stop." She struggled in his grip until he let go of her with a growl.

"What now!? Are you going to judge me as well? You were the one who said you never wanted to let him anywhere near our family!"

"Yes but - Anakin, please, you're not yourself! Just calm down, you don't look well."

"I am fine, thank you", he spat out.

"Ani..."

But he swatted away the hand that reached out for him.

"Maybe you should stay away from me for a while if you find me that disgusting", he sneered and abruptly left the room.

Not even once had he asked to see his children.

XxX

They stayed on Tattooine for two more days. Ahsoka had been called away before Anakin and Obi-Wan had returned and the tension was thick between the two force users and the women. Shmi was quite obviously grieving. Padme was refusing to let Anakin see the twins when his eyes had that disturbing color, thought that didn't make much of a difference as her husband didn't seem all that interested in seeing them anyway. Instead he spent a lot of time with his former Master, the only one who wholeheartedly supported him in his decision to end Darth Vader. They had a couple of sparring matches to get back in shape or vent their anger.

On the third day though their routine was interrupted by a large group of droids marching up to the manor, lead by General Tarkin who Anakin knew from the Clone Wars. They were quite loudly announcing themselves, demanding to see Anakin Skywalker.

"Dammit, how did they find us?", Anakin asked, peering through a window. He had quite a good idea what these people wanted here.

"Ani, I... I'm sorry", Shmi said, walking up behind him. "I called them. I... It can't go on like that!"

"What... Mother you... you betrayed me!?", Anakin growled. In his anger his hand wandered to the hilt of his lightsaber immediately.

"Ani, please! You have no idea what you've done to the galaxy. I had to do it, I-"

But Anakin had already drawn his lightsaber, the blade igniting just as the door was forcefully opened. The general entered and Anakin was ready to jump and behead him with one strike when unexpectedly the man gave a light bow to him.

"Master Skywalker, Sir, it is good to see you in good health. I am here on behalf of the Emperor to bring you back to Corusscant."

"The Emperor is dead!", Anakin snapped irritably. "I don't think he can command anything anymore!"

"That's right", Tarkin said, his gaze carefully passing over Shmi. "However, your honorable mother has presented to us the Last Will and Testament of your father. He has named you his heir and as per the law of the Galactic Empire, this means you are to take his place on the throne."

"I... what?"

Anakin felt stumped, he had never expected that.

"Anakin", Shmi said, "there is nobody left to bring peace and order back to the galaxy. All the senators and council members are either dead or in hiding. Your father may have lost himself during the last few years but he had good plans for this galaxy. You are the only one who can fulfill his vision."

Slowly Padme stepped forward as well. "Your mother is right, Anakin. The war has burned out the people. The core worlds are facing financial ruin. The galaxy needs someone to settle the endless disputes and bring back stability. With no one to lead them, the Separatist worlds will fall to the mercy of the capitalists, all fighting each other over territory and money. And the Outer Rim - Tattooine - without the continued support of the rest of the galaxy, everything good that has been build up here will crumble again. Without anyone to protect them, criminal gangs will spring up everywhere, waring each other over who gets to be the next Hutt."

"You are the only one seen as strong enough thorough the galaxy to take the Emperor's place", Tarkin cut in, looking quite sour that he had to admit it.

Anakin didn't want to have anything to do with that title. But this position would give him all the power he needed to right the wrongs of his father, to make the galaxy the perfect place that he had always wished for for his family.

"Alright", he said at last, "I will go with you."

XxX

Thus Anakin Skywalker became the new Emperor. Padme and the children moved with him to Corusscant to help settle the state of near riot the planet was in. His wife was very adamant in that he would use his power only to bring back stability and then release it. But the more time passed the more problems arose and though a new senate had been elected, he found it so much easier to just pass his bills himself instead of waiting for those stupid politicians to finish their debates.

Together the couple tried to get the poor Outer Rim planets the help they needed, which quickly caused the former Separatist leaders to speak up as the money was taken from their pockets. Never having liked those greedy bastards and having no real experience with economy issues, Anakin ordered their execution in a fit of anger. Padme wouldn't speak to him for days after that and when he refused to apologize, eventually she took the children and moved to Naboo to her family.

Anakin meant to give her the time she needed, instead focusing on the planets rising up in protest of the judgment. He sent out Obi-Wan with a small fleet to deal with them and the dark Jedi was all to eager to wipe out the 'Separatist scum'.

Things went downhill from there. Darth Maul had taken over the New Sith Order, essentially conquered Malastare and then launched an attack on the small planet Dagobah. At first Anakin had ignored what went on in that part of the galaxy until he was informed that the remains of the Jedi order had been hiding on Dagobah. Maul, Feral and a dozen of their best acolytes had killed every Master, Knight and Padawan they could find. The order had been heavily damaged from the loss of the council members and Master Yoda and though it was a long and hard battle, eventually the Sith won. The majority of the Jedi in hiding however had been the younglings that had been saved from the temple. They were assimilated into the Sith order, turned into recruits of their own.

Ahsoka was being sent as a representative to try and work out an alliance between the Sith and the Empire but with little to no success. The Zabraks refused to recognize Anakin as a leader, furious that he had dared to murder their Master. They even spread propaganda, depicting Anakin as a traitor and murderer. Eventually Anakin snapped and drove his former Padawan away, forbidding her from ever coming to Corusscant again as long as she was in cohorts with the Sith.

A month later Obi-Wan raided the base on Malastare with a fleet of Star Destroyers. The Sith had long since relocated but the Emperors new right hand had no problem venting his anger on the population of the dugs inhabiting the planet instead.

Anakin rarely ever saw his family. When he did Padme was cold and reserved and never failed to ask how long he still planned on being Emperor.

Years passed. Anakin missed Luke's first steps and Leia's first words. When he visited them he could feel their light shine so bright and it hurt his senses that were clouded from the dark side. He had never managed to get rid of it ever since that day.

Three years after the declaration of the Empire, Padme told him she wanted to divorce. Anakin was so furious he used the force to choke her while Luke and Leia were sitting in a corner and crying. He tried to apologize afterwards but Padme was afraid of him and she wanted him gone. He tried to appease her but when he woke up in the morning he learned that she had packed her things, took the children and left the planet.

Furious, Anakin organized a search for her but she remained hidden. There was only one place that could shield her in such a way he wouldn't be able to find her or the bright presences of her children. Thus Anakin was convinced she was hiding with the Sith and he doubled his efforts to find and wipe them out.

Over the next five years, Maul organized a full sized rebellion, an army with dark Jedi and Sith Acolytes as generals. Padme had indeed gone to the one person she trusted and felt would and could help her, which was Ahsoka. The Togruta had lost more and more of her light as she was forced to side with her cruel former Master-turned-Emperor or the Zabrak who had slaughtered the remaining Jedi to further the strength of his own order. In the end she had stayed with Maul. She did believe that what Anakin was doing to the galaxy was bad and it was her duty to fight with the rebellion but above all she was unable to fight her growing feelings for the young Sith Lord.

Meanwhile Obi-Wan Kenobi became the symbol of Anakin's hatred, spreading out chaos and destruction against his enemies and hunting down the Sith.

The Empire grew but so did the rebellion. The New Sith Order was changing locations every few months and there were many planets who supported them and offered their help. Whenever Anakin had found their base, they would already be gone before his fleet could reach them. At the same time the order would use hit-and-run tactics to wear out the Empire. They would strike precisely at their most important facilities and bases. What Anakin didn't know was that there was a little girl who had visited the imperial academy on Corusscant, a girl that was such a bright mind, a little genius really that she was taken in with a special division of the Imperial army and work as a technician and spy. She was still very young and so her security clearance wasn't very high but she was often working on terminals that stored highly decoded secret information. It was ridiculously easy for Bells to overcome those securities and she send everything she found right to Darth Maul.

Anakin had long since forgotten about the peculiar little girl he'd met on the Star Destroyer and Bells made sure never to cross his path personally. She had no presence in the force and thus it was hard for Anakin to find her even if he had considered searching for the leak in his security on such a low level rank.

Bells of course hated Emperor Skywalker fiercely for killing her Master, that wonderful being she had felt an immediate connection to. She wanted him dead so badly and that was why she did everything to help Darth Maul and provided him with information.

There came a day when the Supreme Commander Kenobi conquered another planet formerly of Separatist allegiance and in one of the destroyed old bases they found the plans for a gigantic battle station. Kenobi brought the plans to the Emperor. Skywalker at first was unimpressed with the technological monster but it had happened to him so often that a planet would fight off his fleet, the population essentially sacrificing themselves in order to allow the Sith hiding amongst them to flee, he couldn't deny that it would be so much easier to wipe out his enemies if he could jump out of hyperspace with that battle station and just blast them all together.

Thus the construction of the Death Star began.

Luke and Leia Amidala grew up with their mother Padme. Their first few years were spend on the run, traveling with the rebels from one planet to the other. Padme didn't have the heart to tell her children her father wasn't with them because he was too busy running a tyranny. She told them that their father had been a Jedi but that they had not been able to be together because his order had forbidden it. She lied and told them she had left him without telling him she was pregnant so as to not ruin his career and now she didn't know where he was. It wasn't because their father didn't love them that he wasn't with them, he simply didn't know about them. As a result the twins very much wanted to go out and find their father one day and it frustrated them to no end that their mother wouldn't even tell them his name.

When the twins became ten years old, Maul approached Padme and insisted the twins be trained as Sith. They were more then old enough and they needed strong recruits. Padme refused. She had seen what the dark side had done to her husband and she didn't want her children to use the force at all. It almost caused a falling out between her and the rebels. In the end Ahsoka found a compromise. The twins entered the Sith Academy and where taught by her and Qui-Gon's ghost but were except from the Sith classes until they were at least eighteen, that was, legal adults. While Luke was doing fine, Leia with her passion showed a talent for the dark side and as all her friends grew stronger using it she was quickly frustrated with the limitation. She also began to resent her mother for refusing to tell her about her father and using the force she quickly realized that her mother was lying about not knowing where he was.

In a fit of youthful rebellion, Leia left the order. She tried to talk Luke into going with her but the boy had developed a deep connection to the light side and it whispered to him not to go.

Leia went on her search alone but just a few weeks later was captured by imperials. They found out she was an acolyte of the New Order and she was brought in front of the Supreme Commander Kenobi. He used the force to invade her mind, torturing her and found out about the location of the base as well as her origin. While the base once again was warned beforehand, Kenobi did bring Leia in front of the Emperor. Realizing that this was her father, Leia was quickly talked into taking her place as imperial princess and also Skywalker's student. Later when Kenobi's injuries eventually caught up to him and he fell in a battle with Darth Maul, she took his place as a leader of the imperial army. In order to hide her youth so she wouldn't be given trouble by older generals, Leia disguised her self with a helmet that had been expertly crafted by Skywalker to allow her night vision, a breathing mask against poison and other things.

In a show of galactic karma, ten years later a green eyed, young and attractive technician hacked into the Empire's most secret files and managed to secure the plans of the recently finished Death Star. She had taken great risks in doing so but what she didn't know was that it had been a trap set up for her. Leia was able to identify her as the spy and the young woman was forced to flee. She managed to get the plans to a nearby rebel outpost using a loyal little droid as messenger but she herself was unfortunately captured. The outpost just so happened to have Luke Amidala in charge, who immediately took a liking to the beautiful girl depicted in the holographic call for help. He quickly formed a plan to rescue her, not knowing that on the Death Star where she was being held, the Emperor's new right hand who was in fact his long lost sister, was awaiting him.

And the rest, they say, is history.

XxX

AN: And we are done! The light ending was planned from the beginning but then I thought hm, what if Vader died without Anakin ever finding out the truth about his origin? If he didn't want the Empire to fall immediately, he would have to take his 'father's' post but then he'd clash with Padme. I began to write and then I thought: oh the irony of having Kenobi in his suit take Vader's canon role, I couldn't pass that up. From there it went on until the galaxy became a mirror image of the canon story. In short, it became everything Vader had originally wanted to prevent. The Skywalker family would be ripped apart, fighting itself, Padme probably dying in a random stormtropper attack, his children fighting each other to the death... dark ending. Very dark. But oh so fitting! It shows that even if you're a morally schizophrenic Sith Lord, if you decide to chose dark instead of light, that means suffering. For everyone, including yourself.

(wow, I even smuggled a piece of wisdom in here in the end)

There will be no sequel (though I do realize that especially the dark ending invites one to write it. I won't but I put it up for adoption).

My next fanfiction is already at the start. Tidal Wave is going to feature Luke and Starkiller meeting long before New Hope. How is Vader going to handle two brats as diffrent as day and night?

At last, special thanks to Khalthar for his beta work and everyone who's been supporting me until now. You are great!