Title: Star Wars: The Fallen
Author: Daniel Edwardson
Time frame: Saga, but I want to focus on the expanded universe after ROTJ with this AU
Characters: Anakin, Luke, Obi-Wan, Leia (So far) Will update as add more.
Genre: AU based in the Star Wars fictional universe
Summary: Without giving anything anyway, the goal with this fan fiction is ultimately to reincorporate the expanded universe back into the AU Star Wars Universe. The main character, Luke Starkiller lives over 200 years after the events of a New Hope. My goal is to update this every month with at least 5000 words per update. I hope you enjoy.

Prologue: Part 1
Memorial Medical Center
Modesto, California
June: 1962

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..."

"Wait I wasn't ready."

"Seriously?" I ask in annoyance as I try to ignore the throbbing pain in my fractured shoulder and broken arm. It's bad enough this primitive planet had no bacta tanks, but were they seriously only going to give me a sling, a prescription of painkillers called ocodone, and send me on my way. The health care on this planet seriously sucked. It was also a challenge hiding my prosthetic hand, that thankfully looked and felt like a real hand. It was why I'd refused all X-Rays and resolved to heal naturally on its own.

"It's hard to write with a crushed chest and all," the young man complained as he re-positioned himself on the hospital bed. He'd told the police who questioned him that he'd been in an auto accident, but when they were gone bragged he'd gotten hurt while street racing. I could sympathize with his 'need for speed', but wrecking a Autobianchi Bianchina while driving home from the library when his car got broadsided by a Chevy Impala wasn't exactly brag worthy. His car had rolled several times before getting lodged in a tree. It reminded me of my father Anakin, who had pod raced professionally before becoming a Jedi.

I waited until he re-arranged himself in the hospital bed and managed to sit-up in a comfortable position so he could write. He now had his pen on the paper of his composition book and had scrawled the words I'd previously told him.

"I'm ready now."

"Why should I even tell you this story?"

"Because if you don't, I'll not scream bloody murder that I'm dying when you try to sneak out of here." He paused long enough to push his goofy looking glasses further up his nose and gave me his full attention. "I mean, it's not every day you meet a legitimate space alien."

"I'm as human as you are."

"But you are a human from outer-space. Do you have any superpowers, or anything?"

"It's called the Force, but I can't use my powers on this world."

"That would be like Superman not being able to walk!" The goofy kid started laughing at his own joke, but stopped when I wasn't laughing with him. "I mean, you are bona fide Buck Rogers, a..."

"What's a Buck Rogers?"

"Only the greatest space hero ever!" he yelled excitedly. "That's why I go to the library all the time, to read all the fictional stories about him and watch re-runs of my favorite episodes."

"And drive your car into trees, apparently."

The feigned expression of being insulted was priceless, but the reality dawned on him that he was never going to be a professional race car driver. But that didn't mean he was through dwelling through the fantasy world he'd discovered when I tried to lift up my pack and my lightsaber fell onto the cold hospital floor. I unsuccessfully tried to explain it was a flashlight, but he got out of the bed, held it in his hand, and tried to activate it. Of course nothing happened, because to use the weapon required the Force. He'd only given it back to me when I told him what it really was.

"You going to tell me your story, or what?" he fumed as he put his pen back down on the paper. "What did you say your name was again."

"Luke Skywalker."

"Horrible last name, what did an ancestor of yours destroy planets or something?"

"Yes, my father destroyed entire worlds with a Death Star."

He didn't respond to that and just wrote death star down on the paper and made me briefly describe the moon sized planet destroying space station that shot a solitary laser beam capable of penetrating a planets core, utterly destroying the planet and all life that existed on it.

"With such a weapon, your father must have conquered the entire galaxy!"

"No, I destroyed the Death Star by firing a photon torpedo into a ventilation shaft."

"Don't ventilation shafts by definition vent out stuff. The torpedo should have instantly been pushed back out into space."

I was about to snap back at him that he was idiot, until it dawned on me that he was actually right. "He used the Force to guide the torpedo all the way down to the Space Station's power core, destroying it before it could destroy the secret rebel base on Yavin IV."

"That is so wicked," he exclaimed excitedly, until the exertions made his chest throb painfully. He momentarily collapsed, until he forced himself back up using his elbows and resumed the position. This must of been how his father felt when he broke nearly every bone in his body when he crashed his pod racer. The black suit he was forced to wear afterward just so he could function like a normal human being.

"One quick question though, why do you not have the same last name?"

Another excellent question. This nerd that looked kind of like a shaved ewok, except for his scraggly black beard and full head of hair had the aptitude to have been a chronicler if he'd been born in one of the core worlds. "Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi hid me from my father after I was born. He changed the last name to Skywalker so that it would be more difficult for Anakin to find my. Obi-Wan rightly feared that if Anakin found me, he'd turn me to evil."

"So he was a dark father, then." He made a few more notes in his notebook. "Did you know in Dutch, Darth Vader means dark father?"

"I didn't know that." I tried to hide my irritation, but if he noticed, it didn't dissuade him from his curiosity of my story.

"I think it would've been way cooler if Anakin had disguised his identity with a dark title, emphasizing that he is the villain. You know, so that when father and son have their inevitable confrontation, he can drop that plot twist to truly mess with your head."

"Anakin is actually the hero of the story I am trying to tell you."

"Didn't you just say he destroyed entire planets with his Death Star?"

"Entire solar systems, yes," I gently corrected. "But that's the point. Anakin Starkiller started out as a Jedi who was trained by Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. He tried to restore order in the galaxy, for Chancellor Palpatine who later became emperor and bring peace to the galaxy. Anakin was so strong that not even the Jedi Order collectively could stop him."

"So Anakin turned on his own side? To his Dark Side." The young man giggled at his own witticism. He stopped when he realized I wasn't laughing.

"Anakin would've argued that they betrayed him, when the vast majority of the Jedi Order joined the rebellion."

"Nobody could stop Anakin?"

"He was more machine than man at that point, which certainly helped make him twisted and evil. But he was simply too strong in the Force and utilized technology like never before to create not just the Death Star, but massive starships called Destroyers and Superstar Destroyers to systematically crush the rebellion wherever it sprouted up and slaughter the Jedi one-by-one. The only Jedi who had a chance against Anakin was Grandmaster Yoda, but after the Jedi Order decided to fight, he chose to resign and disappeared. He was over 900 years old at that point, so when he disappeared many assumed that Anakin had killed him or that he finally gone senile in his old age."

"Obi-Wan couldn't stop him?"

"Anakin and Obi-Wan were like brothers. But Obi-Wan came the closest to stopping him. He reached out to Anakin as the Senior representative of the Jedi Council and requested a meeting to discuss peace on a remote planet called Mustafar. Anakin agreed to meet with him, but only on the condition that he came alone and was sincere in his desire for peace."

"What happened?" he asked spellbound.

"He did not come alone. When Anakin arrived, it was not just Obi-Wan waiting for him, but Queen Amidala of Naboo."

*****

"Liar!" Anakin shouted. "Why did you bring her here!"

Obi-Wan stepped forward to confront his former protégé and friend, but Padme reached out to stop him. It was a closely guarded secret that Padme and Anakin were married, which also explained why Naboo refused to join the rebellion and remained loyal to the Republic.

"Anakin, I convinced Obi-Wan to bring me here and try to talk some sense into you!"

"I have nothing to say to you!" Anakin shouted. He started to pace angrily and was squeezing his lightsaber hilt so hard that his prosthetic hand made sparks as his thumb pressed against the switch. The entire area started to tremble as the Force manifested around Anakin, threatening to create the unstoppable force that killed so many Jedi, not to mention countless millions who dared to stand against him. "Get back on your ship now and leave, or I'll do to you what I did to your lover who you betrayed me for."

Padme stopped for a moment and tried to collect herself, but the pain of heartbreak showed clearly on her face. He hadn't killed Bail Organa. Instead he crushed the man's spine using the Force, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Disabling his victims was one of the ways Anakin treated those who he wished to be vindictive too, rather than just simply kill them.

"Anakin, I am sorry I lied to you. I truly am. But at the time, I felt I had no choice."

"I loved you!" Anakin screamed. Lightning bolts slammed down all around him, the Force manifesting dangerously around him now. "But that didn't matter to you in the end, did it?"

"What I did, I did for you!" she cried out. Tears started to flow freely and no longer composed herself like the Queen she was expected to be. "If the truth had come out about us, the Jedi Order would've destroyed you. I couldn't allow that to happen."

It was forbidden for Jedi to marry and those who chose to do so were killed, along with any children that was conceived from their loins.

"That won't be a problem any longer, I killed them all. Anyone who stands in my way is dead."

"So that's it then," Padme challenged. "You've become the very thing you wanted swore to me that you wanted to destroy."

"I've become so much more than that." Anakin reached out and grabbed Padme by the throat using only the Force. Obi-Wan gasped as he witnessed the amazing display as he literally picked up Padme using only the Force and slowly drew her to him. Padme choked as he hands uselessly tried to free herself from the invisible hands that was choking the life out of her.

"Let her go, Anakin!" Obi-Wan challenged.

"Or you'll what, philosophize aimlessly with me like that old windbag Yoda. Speaking of which, you wouldn't happen to know where he's gone and disappeared to, would you?"

That was welcome news to Obi-Wan, who was grateful that Anakin hadn't killed the one Jedi who stood a chance of defeating him. At least that was until Padme had revealed the real reason she'd convinced Anakin she'd cheated on him with Bail Organa. Now everything made perfect sense and left him feeling like there was still hope that balance could be achieved in the galaxy.

"If I knew, I wouldn't tell you."

"Then we are in the same spot we've always been." Anakin let go of Padme, and she crumbled onto the ground grasping for breathe. "We've avoided this confrontation for too long, my old friend. I hoped that you'd seen the error of your ways and bend your knee to the emperor. Think of the galaxy we could create together. The Galactic Empire that Emperor Palpatine has created will bring peace and harmony to all who choose to accept it."

"What a wonderful delusion you've conjured for yourself," Obi-Wan mocked. "The vision that you serve is evil and I'd rather die than be a part of it."

"You refuse to join me, then?" Anakin activated his lightsaber and pointed the tip of his crimson blade directly at Obi-Wan's chest.

"Anakin, do you truly believe that you are the one to save the galaxy?"

"I believe I am the Chosen One, yes."

"Until now, I always believed you were the one. Now I can clearly see you are not." Obi-Wan paused before igniting his own blade, "I failed you Anakin. For that I am truly sorry."

Anakin laughed. He stepped over the prone body of Padme and advanced confidently toward Obi-Wan. "I am more powerful then you can possibly imagine old man. What chance do you think you actually have to kill me?"

Obi-Wan paused and then resigned himself to defeat and deactivated his lightsaber. He threw it down at Anakin's feet. "Anakin, I came here to save you, not fight you. Please stop this madness, and come back to the light. There is still good inside you, but you've given into the hate and clung to your anger for so long that now it is all you see. You've been wronged, both by the Jedi Order and Padme, and compelled to do terrible things for the emperor. The galaxy needs Anakin Skywalker, my brother and friend who vowed to bring peace and harmony to the galaxy, not Anakin Starkiller, a Sith Lord determined to destroy it."

There it was. It was the first time Obi-Wan had accepted the truth that Anakin had fallen to the Dark Side. Yoda had confided in him that the Emperor was the Master of the Sith responsible for turning Anakin after his failed assassination attempt, but Obi-Wan refused to believe it. Even after Anakin ordered the orbital bombardment that destroyed the Jedi Temple on Coruscant that killed an entire generation of helpless Jedi, or systematically killing Mace Windu, Count Dooku, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Shaak Ti, and so many others during the course of this terrible rebellion. Now Obi-Wan was the only Jedi Master left, leaving him with the awesome burden to rebuild the Jedi Order.

"It is too late for me." Anakin took a step closer and pressed the tip of his lightsaber against Obi-Wan's throat. "I've done terrible things. Things that are so ghastly that I barely sleep at night anymore. But I've done all those things and will continue to do whatever I must because it is what is necessary to bring balance to the Force and save the galaxy."

"But there is another path, Anakin!" Obi-Wan pleaded. "Yes, you've done terrible things. But you can make a different choice. Right here, right now. Bring balance to the Force as a Jedi and you can redeem yourself from all the bad things you've done. The reason why I came here is somewhere inside you there is still the small boy from Tatooine, who rose up to become a man, a Jedi, and went back to liberate his people from slavery during your Jedi Trial."

"And lost everything because of it," Anakin fumed. His black prosthetic suit that kept him alive was a testament to what he'd lost, where Jabba the Hutt had tried to publicly execute him by feeding Anakin to his pet Sarlaac after the pod racing crash that nearly killed. He managed to escape, but the acid ate away all the skin from his body and left him scarred for life. Anakin reached up and took off his helmet, revealing the ruin of a face that no longer looked human. "Does this look like the face of a savior to you?"

"It's the face that Padme loved. You know that to be true. Don't try and deny it."

Anger twisted Anakin's deformed features, making Obi-Wan wince as a fresh cut opened up on what was left on his cheek, making blood and pus flow freely down his neck. Just as he was convinced Anakin was about to finish him, he deactivated his blade and put his helmet back on before Obi-Wan could see his tears.

"I'm not going to kill you, old man," Anakin seethed. "But I've made my choice. I will bring peace and justice to the galaxy as a Sith. Any who stand in my way will be destroyed."

"The I'm sorry, brother. But I can't allow you to leave here alive."

Anakin gasped in pain. He looked down to see the tip of a vibro blade sticking out of his chest, impaling his heart. Anakin collapsed onto his knees, the shock on his face turned to disbelief as he felt his life slowly extinguish. His pain turned to anger as he activated his lightsaber and holding the hilt using an icepick grip, stabbed backwards, and impaled Padme in the stomach. She cried out as the blade pierced her vital organs.

Both lovers collapsed, writhing from the mortal wounds that left untreated would result in their immediate deaths.

Obi-Wan sheathed his lightsaber back on his belt and attended to Padme, who was barely clinging to life. He reached down and deactivated Anakin's lightsaber, followed by attaching his fallen friends weapon also to his belt. Even after all these years, he never had removed the spare belt clip he'd used when Anakin had dropped, lost, or misplaced his weapon and Obi-Wan had carried for him a backup.

"Come on,"Obi-Wan reached down to pick up Padme.

"No, I'm not leaving him again," Padme whimpered. "You know what you have to do now."

Obi-Wan glanced over at his friend, who was not moving, but from the slow rise-and-fall of his chest he could see he was still alive. He wouldn't be for much longer."

"I came here to save him. I don't know if I..."

"Yes, you can." Padme reached up and placed her hand on Obi-Wan's face, "Only you can. Please, go."

Obi-Wan forced himself to get back on his feet, but that didn't stop the tears from flowing freely down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry," he croaked miserably. "But I won't fail again."

With that, he was gone. He did not look back as he boarded the ship and in less than a minute, the ship took off.

Padme groaned as she slowly crawled to Anakin's side. She was dying and did not humor herself with the possibility that she'd someone survive this. It was fitting that she and Anakin would die together, coming full circle to when they'd first met each other on Tatooine. She tried to remember the young Jedi who'd overcame the odds to liberate an entire planet from slavery, who sacrificed so much of himself to make his people free. That was the man she'd fallen in love with and married. Guilt filled her as she thought of the two beautiful children they'd conceived on the hot sands of Tatooine, before he was taken by Jabba and transformed into what he became. She hated lying to him about the children, but it was the only way to keep Luke and Leia safe, save his life from the Jedi Council, and allow Anakin to fulfill his destiny.

"Anakin, I don't know if you can hear me. But I am sorry."

Padme began to cry. She hated herself for it, but at the same could help herself and as she felt her life slip away she place her hand on his chest. She could feel Anakin was not dead and that his body was still clinging to life. She was not a Jedi, but she'd known enough Jedi to see with her own eyes how powerful he was in the Force and that it seemed inconceivable that he could actually die.

She reached up and pulled off his helmet, revealing his ruined face. Slowly, she caressed down the side of his face and tried to remember him as he was and not what fate had turned him into. The cocky podracer from Tatooine who'd managed to win her heart and for a moment she remember the face of the farm boy he once was.

His eyes opened, making Padme gasp in surprise, then smile as she saw the boy she was once knew was still in there.

"I'm sorry too," Anakin replied. "I'm sorry for everything."

Padme didn't care what he looked like any longer and kissed him one last time. Anakin returned her kiss, before he pushed her off him and smashed his right fist into her chest.

"But you have something I need."
(I changed the title today to reflect the direction this story is going D.E. and made some edits)

 

Thank you for reading this story.
Please comment if you liked it and give me constructive feedback if you can.

D.E.