Saga Reverie (Vader and Starkiller Vignette *Spoilers I'm afraid*)

Title: Reverie
Author: darth_treyvah
Timeframe: TFU
Primary Characters: Darth Vader, Galen Marek
Secondary Character: Palpatine
Genre: Angst, Reflection, Vignette
Summary: Darth Vader contemplates his former Apprentice while standing over his fallen corpse.

Darth Vader's respirator wheezed dangerously amid the smoke and ruin of the Emperor's chamber on the Death Star, but for the first time in ages he completely ignored this empirical fact of what was left of his existence.

The boy lay on the floor in front of him. Steam still trailed off of his shredded clothing from his Master's Force lightning and the explosion that followed it. The Dark Lord ignored the fire-crews and maintenance staff around him as he contemplated the body of the Apprentice he had cultivated for over a decade in the shadows.

Starkiller -- his weapon, the extension of the Dark Side, of his will had dared to raise his lightsaber against him. The boy should have been thankful. All those years ago, on Kashyyyk, he could have killed him -- killed him just as he did his father and the rest of the wretched Jedi he came across. No, he could not have killed him back then.

He should have killed him.

Darth Vader's newly freed skin ached from the pummeling of telekinetic force he took before, and could feel the air stinging scarred tissue in shattered armor. He could barely stand on the exposed crude cybernetic leg that, without its covering, could just barely hold him up. His bones even ached from the boy's Force lightning -- energy that he had always managed to repel away from his body with the Force or his lightsaber blade. Up until now, only Palpatine had been able to hurt him this badly with the technique that his body would never be able to generate on its own.

Only up until now.

Yes. That day on Kashyyyk, he should have killed the boy who dared to take his lightsaber from him. If he had only known about him before, he would have subdued his father and made him watch as the last hope he had was forever extinguished from him. Then he have killed him. Slowly. If only his farseeing abilities had gone that far to see what the boy would become -- how powerful and skilled he would be ...

He certainly wouldn't have wasted him on merely gathering his Master's enemies together in one spot.

Darth Vader thought about the pain and the humiliation of being thrown into walls by this boy the age of a Jedi Padawan, of having his lightsaber, the very one he taught him to build cut into his armor and exposing his weak and scarred flesh to the shame of the outside world again. He thought about the lightning that burned into him and the objects that were crushed on top of him. And then -- he thought about his helmet being torn off like a cancerous gangrenous blister, revealing his pale, scarred bald head. It was such an emasculating feeling. It reminded him of the cripple that he truly was.

He almost hated Starkiller for that. Almost.

The Dark Lord's anger was ebbing quickly, and in what was left of his heart he knew that it had only been half-hearted at best.

Once, long ago, had his old Master not defeated him, Darth Vader would have easily destroyed the impudent young fool lying in front of him now. He remembered Starkiller's agility, and the power of the Force that burst from him in quick and efficient bursts of death. The Dark Lord could still see the blurring movements of his lightsaber dancing through the darkness of the Death Star, and the training room in the Executor.

His Apprentice had been the perfect weapon. He blinded a Jedi Master with the savage cunning of a veteran guerrilla fighter. He had killed an insane Jedi Master and his automatons of garbage. And he destroyed Shaak Ti, one of the few Jedi Council members left in the entire Galaxy. The Dark Lord had never wanted Starkiller, and he had been honest about this fact. That the only truth was that treachery was the way of power. Of the Sith. He named him for his purpose -- the only purpose he thought he would ever have in this Galaxy of constant war and death. The st

 

Great job!

 

Very, very good!

 

Thanks. I wasn't entirely sure if this would work out. I wanted Vader to go one way, but he seemed to want to narrate this himself. I think it's better that way.