Saga A Broken Shadow Reborn (TFU AU - Starkiller/Darth Vader *COMPLETED!*

It was like being hit by a mass of darkness with a column of red death. The Sith Lord's lightsaber strike smashed Galen Marek to his knees before he could move back. Belatedly, the former Sith turned Jedi knew that the other had used one of the Kaiburr Shards as a new focusing crystal for his weapon. But that was all the time he had for thought, and it was too much time such as it was.

A round-house leg cracked into his sore ribs and he toppled to into the swirling dust and debris that once made up the tiles of the Jedi Council Chamber floor. Galen coughed and gagged at the pain: feeling something warm and caustic burn through his throat. His body just let him get grudgingly to his feet as the contorted glowing eyed face of Vader slammed his lightsaber down at Galen again. The Jedi managed to parry it two times and move back.

But the larger man was faster. The augmented red lightsaber kept crashing jarringly -- cracklingly -- into his own. It felt as though his own arm was crackling along with it into an awkward angle. The blows kept knocking his sword-arm back. It was as though his arm was ripping itself in increments from its socket from each blow. He didn't even notice the fist before it was too late.

It plunged into his abdomen hard. Galen fell forward, but managed somehow to slip under the Dark Lord's legs. He pulled his own out: trying to tangle and trip his enemy as well.

Vader's feet stomped, crushing the ground where Galen once was, resisting all of his leg-grappling. Galen rolled away and felt the singed smoke wafting off of his torn white robes. Vader was suffused with whatever the red lightning was. Galen had never seen it before, but it somehow felt even more brutal than ordinary Force lightning. Even as he stood up to bring his blade to counter another swift blow from Vader, he could still feel the red snakes of it -- most likely from Vader's fist -- still burning through him.

Galen unleashed a Force-augmented punch: hitting Vader in the ribs as well. The Sith jolted, but kept his blade lock in place. Galen punched him again. And again. The other's abdomen was hard. The Jedi began kicking him as well: only to have the Sith counter his legs with his own kicks as well. Finally, Vader roared and Galen found himself thrown back by a telekinetic blast into a wall. Debris crushed into the Jedi's bruised and battered back and black spots appeared in the corners of his sight again.

He was breathing hard. Galen reached into the cold focused part of him again and released his lightning. The blue energies crackled from his hands into the Sith. Vader also held out his hands. Roaring, multi-tongued red lightning sped out of his fingers and met Galen's own attack. Crimson and dark azure lights vied against each other. Sweat began to pour down Galen's grimacing face and burning back as the Dark Lord began to walk forward. The other's assault only intensified.

Galen's arms began to shake. Vader kept coming closer. His power was immense: a raging torrent of pure hate through the Force. The Jedi knew -- at that moment -- that the other was going to completely overpower him. He drew on the Force as his strained arm found itself going limp at his side. Vader laughed cold and harshly -- leering madly -- as Galen found himself holding up one arm against Vader's two blasts of lightning. He forced his damaged arm -- screaming in protest -- into his vestments.

Suddenly, Galen took out the object from his robes and brought both it and his lightsaber in front of him: immediately terminating his lightning. Now the red lightning crackled against and into two azure energy blades. Vader's red eyes widened for a few moments and the lightning dissipated just enough for Galen to let the energy blades absorb the dark energies fully.

Galen stood up: holding both lightsabers. There hadn't been much time after his battle with PROXY and the damage his original saber received, but at Bail Organa's suggestion he had visited somewhere first. At least, now he knew why they had been given to him. Vader's eyes seemed to li

 

Six Months Later

An old man tended his garden in the Jundland Wastes. Even this far into the deep desert that was all of Tatooine, he could still sense the changes of life that made up the Force. People were celebrating and brawling in Mos Espa, and Mos Eisley and the other cities in the sand. He could feel them: perhaps all the more so because of his isolation here.

He also wasn't a fool. He knew why they were in festivities. If he closed his cerulean eyes for a few moments, which he tended to do a lot more these days, he could sense that same jubilation and breathless uncertainty throughout a Galaxy that was no longer dominated by the Dark Side of the Force. The old man had breathed a slow sigh of ... he didn't know. Relief? Sadness? Perhaps some uncertainty of his own?

Now he sensed something else coming towards him. Once, long ago, he would have been cautious of this presence. There was only one or two other strong Force presences on Tatooine: one of them a rebellious, though bright and earnest one that he swore he would never let anything happen to -- at least not as far as he could or anyone could help it -- while the other had come back home with bitterness and anger in his heart and he had no choice but to defeat and drive him away so many years ago.

The old man also knew that this particular focused presence would have once been grim, cold and as focused as the weapon that cut down so many of his brothers and sisters so many years ago. Now, he sensed something else entirely.

He got up to his feet and brushed off his beige and brown robes to meet his visitor. The white-robed figure walked slowly, but surely through the dunes from his landed custom-made Imperial transport ship. The old man put his brown hood over his grizzled white-haired head: knowing exactly who he was going to meet.

Even now, he still found it strange that the young man dressed in Jedi funerary robes. He wondered sometimes if he was still mourning the life he could have had, or if it symbolized a rebirth. They met under the setting twin suns.

The young man -- Galen -- spoke first, "I'm sorry it took this long to get back to you."

"I understand," the old man told him, "I can see you had a lot of healing to do."

The young man, even with his head covered, still showed signs of intense but healing burns on his skin. He moved his face away, "I also had some unfinished business on in the Deep Core and Kamino to deal with."

The old man noticed that the younger one would often develop a strangely formal yet matter-of-fact tone now, "Nothing too troubling, I hope."

Galen shook his head, "Not anymore," he took two objects out of his robes, "Thank you for lending me these."

The old man nodded -- ignoring the other's now grudging tone -- and took the cylinders, both of them so similar and yet so different, "You needed them far more than I. But you are welcome."

Galen Marek nodded and was about to turn away.

"You know, don't you," the old man said.

The young man paused, "Yes. You even ask questions the same way he did."

There was a long pause between the two of them.

"I'm --" the old man started, but Galen raised his hand.

"No. Don't," he turned an intense gaze on him, "I fought training simulations of you and him. I dueled him my entire life and I should have seen it. It also makes sense. Palpatine would never have wanted to injure him as badly as he'd been."

"He became a real threat," the old man said quietly.

"And you let him live. You could have finished it, Kenobi. You should have finished it," the young Knight looked like he was going to say more and then shook his head, "Never mind. You will just say it was all the will of the Force, like Kota. I did what I had to do. No more and no less."

"If I had known he would have taken a child and --"

"As I said, Kenobi," the other interrupted again, "You had your chance. So please drop it."

The old man looked down at the ground. They stood there like that awkwardly for a few moments.

"You know, I always wondered why he was the way he was, when I learned how to shield m

 

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