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The ship doesn’t protest, no groaning metal, no beeping warnings, as they are pulled in.
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Obi-Wan says it’s unlike anything he’s ever felt before, but to Anakin it feels… natural.
Oh the strange and the tall glowing woman won’t give them a straight answer, which makes Anakin grind his teeth, but the Force is everywhere here.
Yoda says all living things are bound by it; this is the first place Anakin believes it.
It is unnatural in its comfort and Anakin needs to get them out.
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All the hairs stand on end of Ahsoka’s arms when the tall figure appears. He looks solid, but where appearance ends, he gives off an aura of nothingness, of a black hole.
She draws her lightsabers, where Obi-Wan chooses to speak to him. Possibly the more sensible choice, but Anakin taught her to be on the ready.
“Who are you?”
When the man speaks, like the woman, he does not answer Obi-Wan’s question. The voice is deep, but razor-thin within its annoyance.
“You have brought my Father’s replacement.”
“We were brought here through no choice of our own and now, we’re stranded. What do you mean ‘your father’s replacement?’ Who?”
Ahsoka’s lightsaber handles thrum unpleasantly in her hand. They feel cold as she is steadily soaked in rain.
Lightning strikes down nearby illuminating a grin on the man’s face.
“The storms here are quite lethal I suggest you find shelter”
With a twist and as suddenly as he appeared, the man flies off into the storm.
Obi-Wan glances backwards towards where their ship used to sit. Beyond, lies a cave.
Whatever that man was, they both know the Dark Side is strong with him. Neither needs to articulate it.
“Let’s wait in the cave until we can find Anakin and our ship and get out of here!” Ahsoka yells over the rain and the wind.
Obi-Wan nods, worried.
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The monastery offers none of the warmth or peace the Temple gives. Despite its size, it is absent of echoes as Anakin approaches the altar.
The old man sits in mediation. Anakin sits before him and waits. It is not a long one, nor does Anakin feel compelled to move about the vast chamber.
When the old man addresses him, it is genial, if brittle.
“My friend, you have come a long way. I have been expecting you.”
Anakin, having displayed enough patience for one day and fed up with the strange inhabitants of this strange place, blurts out a curt “Why?”
As with the woman, the old man ignores Anakin’s question (he can feel his eyes rolling in the back of his skull). There is less friendliness in his next words.
“You are tired of course. There is nowhere else to stay.”
Obi-Wan and Ahsoka’s whereabouts trouble him, but the selfish urge to understand why this strange old man expects him pulls at him stronger.
Besides, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka can handle themselves.
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Obi-Wan doesn’t let himself nod off. (Let Ahsoka get what rest she can, then she can have quicker reflexes for the two of them.)
Master Qui-Gon appears like someone who has fallen through a slip in the cracks. Cracks Obi-Wan didn’t remember he had seem to reopen and fill all at once.
He comes at him with a rush of questions, the student eager for the teacher to have all the answers once more. They are hurried, whispered, questions, so as to not wake Ahsoka. (A small part of him doesn’t want to share the precious time he has, however much of it there is.)
How; why?
An ancient place forgotten by the Jedi, strong with the Force; to warn them, because three ravenous beasts are hungry.
Hungry for what, Master Qui-Gon will not say, but the sad look in his eyes confirms what Obi-Wan suspects.
The cave brightens with a flash of lightening, and when it passes, it is dark again, and Master Qui-Gon is gone.
Damp robes cling. Ahsoka shudders in her sleep.
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Despite the dark, he sees the shape standing over him isn’t Padmé. (It surprises him he wakes in the first place. Usually he sleeps like the dead.)
It is his mother and a sick feeling of guilt and dread rush through him. Seven years and he hasn’t looked back once. Confessions spill out.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should have come back, I should have seen you, brought you with me.”
Anakin falls forward and catches the hem of her skirt, unable to look her in the eye, even with his desperate hunger.
When she speaks, she doesn’t sound like he remembers, “But you did what you had to. You cannot be with me anymore, but you are a Jedi. You have freedom, you have the power to make choices you did not as a child.”
They are not the words of comfort he wishes for, but they resonate, electrifying his very blood.
Anakin turns his face upwards, “But –”
“It is what I want for you, my Son. Leave the others behind: your master, your student, your wife –”
Wrenching himself away, he throws himself back, as if burned. She isn’t his mother, it isn’t his mother. A massive winged beast fills the room and blots out what light the window lets in.
The eyes flash red and it is gone and Anakin is alone in this place teeming with the Dark Side, drenched in cold sweat.
But words still echo.
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“I have not been forthright with you.”
Anakin scoffs.
The old man ignores the remark.
“It was an accident that your friends were brought here. I only meant for you to come. I cannot control my Son and Daughter anymore, but you; you whom I sense across planes and time, you could take my place here.”
“And why would I want that job?”
There are too many lives at stake.
“True mastery of the Force. I doubt few beings can ever have boasted my power. You could be one of them. See if you want it after you’ve tried it. If not, you may all leave.”
Of course he’s going to want to leave.
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It’s a dirty trick, lying, saying he didn’t want them there in the first place.
Slaves don’t have a choice for loved ones and Anakin won’t ever let himself be one again.
But he can bend the planet, the Son, and the Daughter to his will.
Pulling at the winds, the waters, the cracking bones and taut muscles of the overlarge beasts that cling to Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, Anakin centers them closer and closer to himself before snapping them outwards.
When released, everything recoils. (It even seems like the planet does the same.) Obi-Wan and Ahsoka scramble for their lightsabers, but Anakin does not let them make it their fight.
Crushing the weight of the Force down on the Son and Daughter as naturally as Anakin lets himself fall, they transform into their human forms.
The exertion doesn’t wind him.
“Leave us!” booms the old man.
The Son and Daughter surprisingly slink away. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka leave as well, though not as easily.
“Do not trust him,” mutters Ahsoka as she passes.
“You think?” Anakin counters under his breath.
Once alone, the old man speaks confidentially, “Now you see, you must stay and take my place.”
“And I’m telling you again, I’m not going to.”
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Just as easily as they arrived, Obi-Wan lifts the ship off the ground and into the sky. He truthfully has no idea how they’ll get back to their universe, but trusts in the Force to get them back somehow, the Father will let them benevolently pass.
Anakin and Ahsoka tinker with repairs in the back, though it bewilders Obi-Wan when the cockpit door snaps shut.
They weren’t having problems with it before.
As suddenly as it closed, it reopens, Anakin charges in, throwing himself at the dashboard, wrenching the controls away from Obi-Wan.
“What the –”
“The Son took Ahsoka!”
Anakin’s piloting has something to do with it, but Obi-Wan’s stomach bottoms out and he feels his blood run cold. The ship speeds after the black beast, Ahsoka tiny and barely visible in its claws.
Obi-Wan knows Anakin flies primarily on instincts, for it is impossible to make out much through the fog. That is until the tower.
Acting as quickly as Anakin had a minute earlier, Obi-Wan grabs the steering back from Anakin. Anakin flips switches for the emergency landing sequence, but it’s too late. The ship crashes and grinds into the earth for several hundred yards.
Obi-Wan feels his neck jerk forward, but fortunately, feels unbruised.
“I didn’t think you saw it,” he says to Anakin, who massages a banged elbow.
“It was a giant tower, of course I saw it,” he grumbles.
Among the ruins of the ship, in the distance, they see the Son perch on the tower, presumably with Ahsoka in his clutches.
Anakin breaks into a run towards the tower. Obi-Wan almost does the same, but yells after Anakin instead.
“We need the Father to help us, he’ll –”
Anakin stops midstride and turns back. Obi-Wan expects Anakin to yell, with all the fury on his face, but his tone is level. It disorients Obi-Wan.
“No. It’s my fault Ahsoka’s been taken. The Son wants me here for the same reason the Father does, and I’m not going to let them keep her. We’re getting her back and we’re getting the hell out of here.”
He pauses, as if waiting for Obi-Wan to argue the point.
Having stunned Obi-Wan into silence, Anakin resumes, “You can go get the Father, but if I have to do this myself, I will.”
Then, without waiting, he turns back to the tower.
Obi-Wan does not want to lose time, but he will not risk losing Anakin and Ahsoka to the Son.
He goes for the Father.
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Anakin climbs the tower alone, bitterness in his mouth.
Obi-Wan never dares for them.
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Except when he arrives at the monastery it is abundantly clear to Obi-Wan made the wrong choice. (You don’t abandon your friends – your family, not when they are in dire need.)
The Daughter crouches over the prone figure of the Father, tending to invisible, yet painful wounds.
“Who did this?”
“Who do you think?” she spits.
“He must be stopped.”
“I cannot leave my Father’s side. He will get better and stop my brother from bringing the Dark Side to all the world.”
The complacency in her voice irritates Obi-Wan enough to raise his own voice, though he’s tired. Tired of this place, tired of worrying about Ahsoka and Anakin and if they’ll ever make it back alive.
“And what if he leaves; gets loose? Runs through this universe and all the others?”
Obi-Wan doesn’t know what the Father sees in having Anakin replace him here, but Obi-Wan does know if the Son reaches their own universe, the Jedi will have a difficult time defeating him on their own.
The Daughter’s brow knits, and hesitantly, she pulls her hands away from the Father’s chest.
“There may be a way, but it will not replace the power of my Father.”
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New hilt in hand, Obi-Wan faces the Son with the Daughter.
Obi-Wan weakly threatens the Son that Anakin will be powerful enough to stop him. The Son sees right through him.
“As if any not our kind is as strong in the Force. Oh, I admit, I want him here too. He will be a very good Son himself, I daresay.”
The Son clicks his tongue.
“But he is preoccupied at the moment.”
Ahsoka. How could Obi-Wan forget? He runs from the room, the Son’s laughter trailing after him.
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The Father, Son, and Daughter, come crashing through the windows.
Anakin’s breath is ragged and blood is pumping fast from the duel. His reflexes don’t move fast enough when Ahsoka (not Ahsoka – no, Ahsoka) leaps in front of him and catches the sword meant for him.
The Father groans as Ahsoka hands it to the Son.
“You have fulfilled your purpose.”
The Son reaches his hand out for Ahsoka and this time Anakin is ready to run. He knows what the Son intends to do and he will not let him do it.
He is not fast enough and Ahsoka collapses.
He screams for release, for anger, for grief. The Son throws him backwards and Anakin hits his head on the ground.
He senses Obi-Wan moving forward, the Daughter yelling, and then the Son yelling more terribly than anything he’s ever heard before.
Anakin pulls himself up to see the Son launch himself into the sky and the Daughter crumple to the ground, the Father cradling her as she falls.
Obi-Wan already kneels by Ahsoka.
“Can you help her?” Anakin begs the Father.
“There is no Light. The Dark Side has been unleashed.” It isn’t clear if the Father speaks of the Daughter or Ahsoka.
Obi-Wan places a hand on Anakin’s shoulder.
Beyond distraught, “You have to help her!”
The Father sighs, “There is nothing I can do. There is no hope.”
Anakin bites back a rant, for at that moment, the Daughter lifts up a hand and points weakly to Ahsoka. The Father looks sadly at her and Anakin understands.
He rises and kneels between the Daughter and Ahsoka, the Father standing behind him.
“Let it be my Daughter’s last act: bringing life back to your friend.”
Anakin instinctively places a hand on their foreheads. He imagines the Father will do something and then naturally, he feels life itself run out of the Daughter: through the electronics and mechanics of his right hand to where his right arm begins in the flesh through his chest and his heart and down his left arm, out his fingers and to Ahsoka.
He waits for a heartbeat, a breath, anything.
Nothing and then – a cough.
She sits up and coughs a little harder than he would like, but it’s her.
Obi-Wan never approves, but he hugs her close.
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Watching Anakin disappear into the rainy mists, Obi-Wan turns his former student’s words over in his mind.
“If I don’t get the Father’s blessing to leave, it’ll haunt me forever.”
For so long, Obi-Wan despaired of Anakin’s inability to take responsibility for his actions. The Council’s decision to assign him Ahsoka was a great step forward, but now Obi-Wan is wary of this new, grave and solitary Anakin.
It is a conscientious Anakin the Council would approve of, and is one Obi-Wan does not like much at all.
But for the second time, he does not follow. Anakin can make his own decisions.
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Anakin means to look for the place the Father points to him, he really does, but he finds himself drawn to another.
It wasn’t something the Son said, it was something the Father said.
(Or maybe it was the Son. The two begin to look the same in Anakin’s mind.)
Power beyond what anyone else can do. Power to stop all evils and to control wills.
The volcanic heat only seems to fuel his very need for it all.
“Stay here. Stay with me and we can balance all galaxies and the Force, Light and Dark is ours for the taking,” coaxes the Son.
“And how am I supposed to trust you? You murdered your sister, destroyed Light here.” He asks the question, but doesn’t know if he wants the answer.
“I will offer you the gift of the future.”
The Son steps forward and rests an ice cold palm on Anakin’s forehead.
The vision the Son gives him is muddled, as if through smoke and rain. If Anakin achieved detachment, as the Jedi Council so grieved he could not, he would be powerful. With the Chancellor, he would enact change. Anakin tries to push through the darkness to find the others: Padmé, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka; all curiously absent, but the Son roughly jerks him back into reality.
Without them, what is life? He cares too much for the latter and defies the Council for Padmé. For power?
“Know yourself.”
“I do.”
His lightsaber does not go through the Son as easily as he imagined the sword went through the Daughter, but it does the same work.
The Son whispers something, something Anakin doesn’t understand as he falls to Anakin’s feet.
Anakin stares in almost detached indifference at the corpse.
He’s done what the Father’s asked.
A speeder descends from above with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka astride.
“The ship’s back together, let’s get out of here while we can!”
The ground shakes violently under them.
“Can’t argue with that.”
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“They were terrifying and they were incredible. Just like the creation myths they teach the younglings.”
It is gone, but Ahsoka still tastes the world’s millions of stars in her mouth.
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“Anakin’s actions were heroic and commendable. He saved Ahsoka from certain death twice and stopped the Son from coming to our galaxy and disrupting the Force.”
Yoda harumphs. Obi-Wan’s spine stiffens.
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Anakin says nothing to them.
He did what was necessary.