Chapter Text
Luke didn’t quite know how to describe the feeling in his gut as he approached Tyranus’ office. It wasn’t fear, or even nervousness. It was something akin to a vague feeling of apprehension, the type Luke knew that at the very least something was going to change today.
On the last turn at the end of a long corridor and in front of him was a tall wooden door, intricately carved with gold accents. He stopped and took a deep breath. He wouldn’t turn back now. Tyranus surely sensed his approach and Luke’s own pride held him from turning away.
He knocked.
“Enter,” a deep silky voice said from the inside. He obeyed.
There he saw a dark silhouette of Tyranus sitting at his table outlined by Serenno’s star shining from behind, which was much bluer than either of Tatooine's, if not nearly as bright. Of course Tyranus would have no problem seeing Luke squint, stuck-up bastard .
“What brings you here, Luke?” Tyranus asked, lifting his gaze from a pile of datapads.
“I would like to ask, Sir, if I could get my own lightsaber?”
Darth Tyranus probed the young man in front of him with his eyes. He stood in a perfect parade rest in his neat black uniform, raw yellow eyes watching him.
“To be honest, I was wondering when you would ask,” Tyranus told his apprentice.
Luke resisted the urge to frown or roll his eyes at either himself or Tyranus. Of course he would play coy and wait for Luke to be the one to ask, but then again he had been waiting for the opportunity for some time and it was mostly his work as head engineer that had kept him too busy to bring it up. Luke’s countenance settled on an exasperated look to convey his annoyance.
“Wait one more week,” Tyranus said after a pause, “and I will provide you with the tools necessary to construct your weapon.”
**
Luke wondered why Tyranus was taking him to the dungeon, of all places, if he was going to show Luke how to construct a lightsaber. At least the Force nulling wasn’t affecting him nearly as much now that he had experience working around it, though that particular lesson was not one that he would ever wish to repeat.
“The first step to making a lightsaber is obtaining a kyber crystal. Jedi travel to far reaches of the galaxy to obtain theirs, but we, Sith, cannot use the same method,” Tyranus told his apprentice. Luke nodded absently as he walked next to his teacher. His eyes swiftly scanned his surroundings, the only sign of his apprehension.
“Sith acolytes and other darksiders often synthesize their crystals, but natural kyber crystals taken from a Jedi are far more powerful.”
Fine. Sounds easy. He just needed to find a Jedi and get their lightsaber from them. Can’t be worse than fighting a Krayt dragon. Although Luke’s Krayt fighting experience mostly amounted to running away...or getting eaten.
“I’ve taken the courtesy of finding a Jedi for you,” the Sith lord said as they halted in front of a sturdy blast door. “Now, your only task is to kill the Jedi and take the lightsaber.”
Luke felt a faint presence behind the door. Tyranus waved his hand, and the thick door opened ominously.
Then Tyranus had the gall to shove him inside the spacious cell below with the force, the invisible push making Luke fall over indignantly.
He instinctively rolled to the side almost as soon as he fell inside, a yellow lightsaber having grazed off of the cell wall, with a ferocious looking human right behind it.
Luke jumped to his feet and stared into the face of a young human male, just a kid really, with fair hair and bright blue eyes, the same color as Luke’s. The young Jedi’s face was twisted into an expression that Luke was intimately familiar with, one of primal, single-minded determination. It was hard to compare him to Ventress and Dooku’s descriptions of Jedi, nor with the disaster trio he had met two weeks earlier.
Luke called forth the dark side within himself. He became more aware of his surroundings as his presence encompassed the room. Surroundings that included the young Jedi, who was clenching his teeth and looking about as menacing as a Jawa. Now that he was familiar with it, he could sense the young Jedi’s thin shields attempting to hide his fear.
The Jedi hesitated, his grip on the hilt of his weapon tightening.
“You are a Sith!” the Jedi exclaimed. Luke caught a sight of a braid on the right side of Jedi’s neck. A padawan, then.
“Well,” Luke replied, “I’m definitely not a Jedi.”
“Is Count Dooku sending children to do his dirty work now?" the padawan growled, holding the bright yellow lightsaber in a tense guard position.
“Says the literal child soldier, and I'm eighteen anyhow,” Luke retorted. The padawan inhaled sharply, his face a mixture of emotions.
“I’ve chosen it!” the padawan snapped back.
“Oh, did you? You could have said no as a toddler when you were surrendered to the order?” Luke asked.
“Well no, but I was free to leave if I wished. I could have chosen another path. But, I wanted peace for the galaxy. I wanted to learn how to help... And at least I'm not the slave of a mass murderer!”
Luke lashed out, and the padawan flew back crashing into the stone wall behind him with a sickening crack .
The padawan's lightsaber fell to the ground with an echoing clank, his blue widened as he looked on terrified at the Sithling’s outstretched hand.
“I am nobody’s slave!”
“Are you sure about that, Sithspawn? Or did Dooarghh…”
The padawan gasped for breath, trying to grasp at his throat, but Luke had stuck his hands to the wall.
“I am a free man serving Count Dooku for fair payment on my own free will. Say what you want, but I at least don’t serve your corrupted Senate!”
The pressure around padawan’s neck was slightly released and he desperately inhaled the air in his burning lungs.
“Republic would pay you as well,” the padawan managed to say. “Even more than Dooku does.”
Luke snickered. “As I said. Corrupt.”
With those words he closed his fist. He heard a crack. The padawan fell limply to the ground, a quick death.
Luke slowly exhaled, just now realizing that his eyes had switched to golden yellow somewhere down the line. He focused on his breath, calming the raging storm inside of him to something more akin to a soft breeze.
It felt…oddly satisfying to see young Jedi dead before him. It certainly wasn’t the first time he had killed. It wasn’t even the first time he had choked someone to death. But this had felt different. It wasn’t a slaver needing to be put down. It was barely even a mercy death to save the Jedi from Dooku’s more sadistic tendencies.
Glee flitted across Luke’s face. He wished that he had known how to do this back on Tatooine if this was the rush of adrenalin he could get from using the Force. The feeling of the life fleeing the Jedi was overwhelming and satisfying at the same time, like when he pulled trickshots with his speeder back home.
He slowly walked to the corpse, looking over it. The empty blue eyes stared into nothingness. Such a bright color. It was almost the exact shade of his own pair, a color that he saw every morning when he looked into the mirror to shave.
He was alive, standing over the dead padawan.
Now that the rush of the moment had worn off, Luke couldn’t help but curse his lack of self-control. He had lashed out without thinking. Luke had always been impulsive, but he had still been able to think about a situation logically before reacting. He didn’t want to accidentally lash out at a friend or ally for saying the wrong thing. He would have to meditate on it tomorrow.
He reached out with the Force and the Jedi’s lightsaber flew into his waiting palm. It felt heavy in his hand was Luke’s first thought as he tested the balance of the handle. Now that he was holding it, he could feel the pulsating power of the crystal inside, but it was different from the dark side. Instead of overshadowing, the power felt more piercing and simplistic, like a single bright light whose only purpose was to be seen. Was this what the light side felt like?
He shuddered. It felt too alien to him, too warm, almost disconcerting so. Warmth was necessary, but heat could lead to a far more painful death than the cold ever could. He had seen both enough times on Tatooine, with the scorching days and freezing nights. He strengthened his shields, guarding his consciousness.
Then Luke grinned; it time to show Tyranus his accomplishment. He reached out with the Force towards the door, to open it, but, like before, he couldn’t feel it. He reached inside of himself, ready to break it open with his internal power, but he didn’t get the chance because the door swung open, revealing Darth Tyranus.
To Luke’s surprise, he was actually smiling for once. It was only a slight lift in the corner of his mouth, but still…
It made him feel proud.
“You did well, apprentice,” Tyranus commended Luke’s accomplishment. The young man couldn’t help, but smile back.
Count Dooku reached into his pocket and handed Luke a triangular device, glowing red and adorned with gold ornaments. It was cool to the touch, but surging with energy.
“This is a Sith holocron,” the Count told his apprentice. “If you can open it, you will find instructions on how to build your own lightsaber, and of course you can use your prize as a template.”
Luke nodded, eager to absorb all the knowledge.
“But now, come with me. There is a lesson I need to teach you personally.”
**
Jilet Mon-Tegu had always been bad at meditation.
Her bountiful pessimism combined with a natural affinity towards the unifying force resulted in many visions of the worst possibilities. As a result, Jilet avoided meditation like a Hutt avoided a bath.
However, since the Clone Wars began, she had spent more and more of her free time in her quarters connecting with the Force to try and find some semblance of peace.
Instead, she found only chaos.
The Force screeched and rang. She could hear the sound of every shot fired, from cannons to blasters, from clones and droids alike, blending together into a high pitched drone, a wall of noise that dug into her head, slowly wearing at her focus.
But it didn’t affect her infamous stubbornness. Since Rome had been missing in action (or MIA as she heard the troopers refer to the situation) for nearly two weeks now, she became desperate for the force to give her some clue of his whereabouts, some reassurance that he would make it out alive.
Jilet lowered herself onto the plain meditation mat and centered herself on the quietness of her room. Slowly stretching her senses outwards to encompass the whole Jedi Temple, studiously ignoring the deep growling that seemed to drown the whole planet of Coruscant, she stretched past it and lit her consciousness drift as she once again searched for the familiar low humming of Rome’s force signature.
She could only get a vague impression even when she tried to reach through their bond, but she persistently continued to reach out as the hours ticked by.
It was almost time for Temple lights out when the Force finally reached back with the faint sound of Rome’s force signature, faint and dulled but still reaching out through their bond. It was unsteady and raspy; he was in danger!
Jilet tried to focus on Rome, but her efforts were being blocked out by the same thing that had kept her from feeling him before. Except, there was something else in the way as well. Another Force user, whose signature sang as loud as a Jedi master’s, but harsher, more chaotic. It almost completely drowned out her vague impression of Rome.
There was a clanking then a gagging noise. Rome’s signature began to fade, grow shakier and fluctuating rapidly. It began to screech in one final attempt at living.
And then it was gone.
**
The Count set a swift pace and led Luke out of the dungeons. The Apprentice’s mind wandered back to the cooling corpse of the padawan, left in the cell. But it wasn’t his worry anymore.
Dooku halted only when they reached his study.
When they entered, Count Dooku gestured towards a thick rug in the middle for Luke to sit on it. The young man dropped on the soft rug and crossed his legs. He still held the Jedi’s lightsaber firmly in his hand. And to his surprise Dooku sat across him.
“Now that you’ve acquired a kyber crystal, you must make it your own by bleeding it.”
**
Tyranus smiled inwardly. Skywalker was faring well so far and his performance in the cell was truly exceptional. And, to his surprise, Dooku realized he was proud of Luke. The boy, no, the young man had appeared at his doorstep being mistaken for the other Skywalker and he’d grown somewhat fond of the youth.
He led them to his study, Serenno’s star shining right through the window, enlightening a spot on the thick hand woven rug. The Count gestured to it.
“Seat yourself, Skywalker. Take your meditative position and place your prize in front of you,” he instructed Luke. He stood there, his body throwing a shadow on the light spot where Luke sat. Right there, in his shadow. Like a good submissive apprentice he should be.
But Luke Skywalker wasn’t like that. He had a strong personality, ability to stand on his own, challenging both Ventress and Tyranus when he needed and wanted. And it was surprisingly refreshing. And what was life to a Sith, but a challenge? The master was supposed to challenge their apprentice, make their way hard to test them thoroughly, but an apprentice was supposed to challenge the master back; eventually in the fight to the death.
Luke looked expectantly to the Sith Lord. Tyranus was just standing there, his hands behind his back, studying him and making him nervous. Tryanus quietly marveled at the young man. His force presence shining like a star, eclipsing those who got to close. It’s light untouched by the events of not even half an hour past. Not touched by death.
“Close your eyes. Focus on your surroundings and then on the lightsaber,” Tyranus ordered his apprentice.
Luke frowned inwardly, making sure to keep his emotions behind a thick wall of concentration. He didn’t need Dooku doubting him right now. He was puzzled. He’d gained the crystal, and the saber had been perfectly fine before but it hadn’t been Luke’s . He savagely tore into the saber’s hilt and the metal gave way with a sharp snap. The entire thing shattered, leaving the yellow kyber crystal floating before Luke, taunting him.
“Now, you need to make the crystal bleed. It won’t work for you otherwise. Focus on it, all your negative emotions, your power and will. Tame it, bend it, make it yours.”
Dooku’s voice cut through Luke’s concentration, and Luke fought to not cringe as the crystal wavered in front of him, obviously sensing that he was not its owner.
Then he reached out to the crystal and to his surprise found a firm shield in the Force, surrounding the tiny glowing thing. It was defending itself, Luke could sense the shield strengthening.
He attacked, his mind engulfing the shield, pressing on it, searching for a way in.
A crack appeared, which he used to force himself in.
Suddenly, he was no longer on Serenno.
**
A sharp pain in his mind as the crystal struggled against him. But he wouldn’t be deterred.
He knew the place. The small building on the surface, endless sands around. The Homestead. And there, in front of the main door two charred bodies. He didn’t need to ask to know who they had been. His heart froze, breath hitched. Then rage filled his core. Who could do such a thing? Who had done it? Who killed Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen? He wanted to find them, to rip them apart.
But he would not. This was only a vision. And for a moment, he paused, looking around the sands, the Homestead, the twin sunset of Tian and Garto blazing down on the landscape. Would he ever see them again? His family, his home? Or had Serenno become his home?
But this was a vision. The crystal forcing him to see things he didn’t want to. The warmth swirled in his chest, so hot it felt freezing.
A screech. High pitched, tearing through his years, his mind, white in front of his eyes.
Silence. His ears were pulsing, he could feel his heartbeat in the throat. What will he see?
He opened his eyes. Red. Like a drop of blood. His. The crystal broke under his will, submitted.
Something touched his shoulder. A hand. Firm reassuring grip. “You did well, apprentice.”
Luke reached out and the blood-red crystal settled into his palm. Energy crackled between him and the rare gem. Dooku’s hands tightened ever so slightly on Luke’s shoulder and Luke closed his fist around the kyber crystal.
“Luke, you are growing quickly under my tutelage. I’d expected this process to be a long one, but I see that you are ready for more, my apprentice.”
Luke grinned at the praise and nodded solemnly, recognizing that Dooku wasn’t quite finished.
“From this moment forward, you will be known as Astramortis. You still have much to learn, my apprentice.”
With that, Dooku turned away, facing the ever present window that gave such a spectacular view of Serenno. Luke started to rise, but Dooku was still not finished.
“You have a crystal. Now you must make a case for it. A way in which your lightsaber may be powered. It is your life. Your weapon. The way in which your power flows.”
Luke resisted the urge to roll his eyes as Dooku paused. Assuredly for dramatic purposes.
“I’ll forward general lightsaber construction files to you as well as blueprints. I will want to see it when you are finished, Astramortis.”
The dismissal was clear. Luke, now Astramortis, stood and left the room cradling the crystal. His crystal.