Chapter Text
Dyslexia: We die like men because language disabilities were spawned in Hell too ;D
Prologue
“Good!” the Emperor praised him, “Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfil your destiny and take your father's place at my side!”
Luke looked at his father's mechanical hand, then to his own mechanical, black-gloved hand, and realized how much he was becoming like his father.
It felt like his entire life had been preparing him for this moment, this decision.
Luke stepped back and hurled his lightsaber away.
“ Never ,” his voice felt bigger than himself, as though others lived through him, as if the Force itself were speaking to through him, “I'll never turn to the dark side. You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”
The Emperor's gleeful expression fell before twisting into rage, his yellow eyes glowing in beneath his hood.
Whatever this creature was, Luke doubted he had ever been human.
The Emperor returned, “So be it... Jedi .” He raised his arms toward Luke, and Luke, standing tall, braced for a blow.
“If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed.”
Blinding bolts of energy, lightning broken from the tide of the Force shot from the Emperor's hands toward.
Luke tried to redirect it with the Force, and at first, he was half successful, but after a
moment, the bolts of energy overcame him with such speed and power, Luke shrank back from them, his knees buckling.
“Young fool…” the Emperor crooned to him over the crackle of electricity that felt as if it was shredding his being as it burned his flesh, “only now, at the end, do you understand.”
He was going to die.
He had failed.
Again.
He tried to hold on, tried to call to the Light in the Force around him, for help, for a reprieve, for a way to face this death without bowing before evil.
“Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side. You have paid the price for your lack of vision.”
Luke’s strength ebbed and he writhed on the floor against unbearable pain, reaching weakly up toward where his father stood watching.
Just watching.
Neither moved by love or hate. A father not fit to be called a father, as Leia would argue.
Luke groaned, even now, unable to give up hope on this man he longed for so long to know, “Father, please. Help me. ”
Darth Vader did nothing.
Hope died in Luke’s heart as the Emperor spoke, “Now, young Skywalker...you will die.”
It happened so fast, Luke was not aware of the power he called to himself as the Emperor turned, a ruby light igniting as the lightning cut off.
“Father, no!” Luke yelled, his own blade skittering to his hand as Darth Vader, once Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker thudded to the ground in two halves.
Luke didn’t think, didn’t acknowledge the pain he still felt from the lightning as he as his own lightsabre did the same to Darth Sidious.
The look of returned glee on the Emperor’s face was Luke’s only warning as he was confronted with agony unlike any other.
His vision bled away, the Force, the Darkness embracing him as he died.
Luke couldn’t even have named how it happened, all he knew was that death did not stop the agony it only heightened it.
The Emperor’s voice chased him through an impossible knight, an endless night were all things that died folded at the feet of all the things that could have been, -Give in, young Skywalker.
“Never,” Luke said without voice as he fled, following the glimmer of distant stars.
-I will unmake you, Sidious hissed, I who sired your father through my power will unravel you both, as if you had never existed. I need you not for my plans.
Luke reached for the nearest light, the surest path, and Vader was with them once again, only it wasn’t Vader, it was Anakin.
A light blazing against the darkness.
Sidious laughed, his voice growing more real, more tangent, “I made you!”
Anakin screamed, fighting wildly but with no direction, he didn’t understand who or what was attacking him.
In his panic, Anakin drew the Dark into himself.
Luke bellowed, “ No! Father, don’t-”
But it was too late for him, the darkness corrupting him like lava bursting through stone.
No! Luke’s soul cried out as he tried to wrap himself protectively around that dying star.
Luke fell through the Force as all he knew went supernova, Sidious’s wail of rage was drowned out by a dimly familiar voice shouting, “General Skywalker!”
Chapter 1 - Skywalker
Rex watched Anakin drop to the dark ground, his back bowed as he screamed, struggling against an unseen foe.
“ General Skywalker!” he and his brothers called.
But Rex kept calling, dropping to his knees in the black soil.
General Krell just stood there, staring down at their General with wide, horrified eyes.
Rex reached out to him.
“Don’t touch him!” Krell bellowed as Anakin’s body went slack and the event that Rex had seen far too many times and would continue to see for as long as he might live unfolded before him.
The light left Anakin’s eyes as he gazed unseeingly up into the stars.
Obi-Wan’s knees buckled and his Commander caught him around his waist.
“General Kenobi!”
For a moment, Obi-Wan allowed himself to grieve, just a moment, pressing his cheek against Cody’s shoulder as the bond between himself and his apprentice shattered on the heels of agony Obi-Wan knew no kin too.
Anakin was dead.
And he had not died peacefully.
Leave it to Anakin to fight the Force on the subject of death.
Obi-Wan’s heart broke.
This was worse than losing Tahl or Qui-Gon, so much worse.
Anakin had been his charge, his brother.
Obi-Wan had failed him, failed even to teach him to welcome the Light rather than fight it and risk succumbing to the Darkness.
Obi-Wan would have given up then, let whatever befall him, fall.
But Obi-Wan was not alone, he had thousands of lives depending on him.
He straightened, leaning on Cody’s strength to regain his feet.
The war went on.
Ahsoka cried out.
Barriss was jolted from her seat as Ahsoka covered her face as the tears began to fall.
Asajj Ventress who had been plotting against her old Master felt a ripple of Darkness overtake the galaxy.
She walked away from Mother Talzin, knowing that the Sith had won and going against them now was courting death with certainty.
Count Dooku felt a wave of Darkness flood his senses and he smiled.
Victory was theirs.
He felt a distant darkling light.
His Master’s old apprentice, the Darkness whispered to him.
Dooku left to seek him out.
Darth Sidious was sitting in his office, letting himself bask in the Dark that had overtaken the Light.
Anakin was dead.
Died from succumbing to the Darkness.
It would now only be a matter of time before the galaxy bowed before him.
He sensed Dooku, and strangely, his old apprentice, Darth Maul who he had long believed dead.
He saw Dooku’s intention to after him, and Sidious had no intention of stopping him.
Let them kill each other.
Nothing mattered to Sidious anymore, the Dark was inevitable, and he was its leader.
“General Skywalker,” Rex said, his head bowing, it wasn’t supposed to end like this.
Yet one moment, in which would have sworn his general was dead, and the next, Anakin sucked in a sharp gasping breath. Turning on his side, he began to cough violently. His entire body shaking, before he once again fell still.
“Don’t touch him!” General Krell bellowed, before kneeling on the ground himself to turn Anakin over.
His eyes were closed this time and Rex could still see Anakin’s chest rising and falling.
“I have to get him back to the Temple,” Krell said as he gingerly lifted the man into his arms, and turned back to the transport he had just arrived on.
Rex didn’t rise, worry eating at him.
“Sir?” Fives asked.
Rex straightened his helmet and rose.
“We have a war to win,” Rex called to his men, “For General Skywalker.”
The call was repeated, and Rex shoved his fears aside to focus on the task at hand.
They won Umbara with surprising speed, yet Obi-Wan felt as if he had nothing.
Anakin was dead.
As he scaled the steps, and did not turn as he heard armoured feet running up behind them.
Unlike Cody, Obi-Wan didn’t turn to greet the 501st officers.
Obi-Wan didn’t have it in him to give comfort nor be comforted.
Anakin was dead.
Obi-Wan did, however, look up to meet Kit Fisto’s worried gaze.
Kit spoke first, “Krell brought him back to the Temple. He was there through all of it. Obi-Wan, we think Skywalker was attacked by Dooku’s Sith Master. Yoda doesn’t believe Dooku would have been capable of a thing like this, no matter how far he has fallen.”
Obi-Wan shook his head, “What does it matter? He’s dead.”
Kit frowned, his black eyes seemed to stare all the way through Obi-Wan and he felt the other Council member’s Force presence sweep over him.
“Obi-Wan, Anakin is alive, but he has yet to waken and we don’t know wh-”
Obi-Wan reached out to grab the other male’s shoulder, “What do you mean, he’s alive?”
“He’s with the healers now-”
Obi-Wan didn’t pause to listen as he ran to the healer’s ward stretching out with his senses.
He couldn’t feel Anakin, couldn’t feel the bond between them.
But he trusted Kit to not play such a cruel game on him.
He found Ahsoka first, she was being kept outside the room. Her friend Barriss holding her hand. Her blue eyes told him that it was bad.
No one stopped Obi-Wan from entering.
Anakin was on the bed with no signs of physical injury, though he had been supplied with a breathing mask.
Mace was standing over him, Yoda at his side.
“What happened?” Obi-Wan demanded, reaching for Anakin’s good wrist to feel his pulse himself.
Anakin’s Force presence felt…
It was like looking at light through an old broken bottle.
Dim light, with bright cracks.
Obi-Wan’s breath caught, it was a type of injury he had never seen before.
Yoda nodded, “Hurt, he is. Know what will become of him, we do not.”
“How?” Obi-Wan asked. How had this happened? How was this possible?
Rex was allowed in, as were Fives, Appo, and Cody.
“We were greeting General Krell and he just- it was as if he were fighting for his life.”
“I thought he died,” Fives said directly.
“But he woke up,” Appo added on, “he came back.”
Obi-Wan’s heart squeezed, why hadn’t he felt Anakin come back? Was what remained of him, even him? Even capable of coming back to life?
Or was he going to live the rest of his life as a vegetable? What in the Force could have done this?
The sanitized room suddenly felt too small.
“Breathe, you must,” Yoda cautioned him.
Obi-Wan inhaled, wrapping his hand around Anakin’s and reached out again through their bond, ignoring the damaged end and reaching for the life inside of his Padawan.
Reached for the Light, as if he could coax an ember to take flame.
Minutes or years passed, Obi-Wan felt Anakin’s pain, his terror, but beneath that, was…
Anakin’s eyes opened.
Obi-Wan could have cried as he touched his Padawan’s face.
Anakin frowned up at him, “Ben?”
Obi-Wan froze, the happiness draining from him as Anakin gazed around him in confusion.
He was in pain, pain without name or being.
There was only Darkness.
The last seeds of Sidious were breaking him down, chipping away pieces of him.
But he was never alone in the Force.
A light reached out to him, familiar and warm and constant.
The Force will be with you , always, that Light whispered to him.
And the Sith fled from his hope, from that promise and actuality of Light.
Luke was still pretty sure he was dead, even as he opened his eyes.
Expecting to see a ghost, Luke was rather surprised to see a physical man with reddish-blonde hair and beard.
“Ben?”
It felt like Ben, even if the armoured man didn’t look much like him.
Luke relaxed a bit, until a deep voice boomed beside him, “Welcome back, Skywalker.”
He flinched back from the stranger glowering down at him with dark eyes. Ben steadied him at the shoulder even as Luke ripped the mask from his face and asked, “Who- who are you? Where are we?”
The dark man’s brows rose and he rocked back on his feet a bit, “You don’t know who I am?”
“No?” Luke answered, looking around the rest of the room frantactly, and panicked when he saw the stormtroopers behind Ben.
Gathering the Force to him, he threw his hand out, gritting his teeth through the feeling of shoving himself through broken shards of glass as he threw the stormtroopers back. One of his arms felt far heavier than it should have been he mused as he pulled Ben behind him whil struggling to his feet.
Finding his feet, he took guard before his old friend.
The Empire couldn’t have him again.
But the stormtroopers didn’t raise their weapons, but their empty hands. One took off his helmet, tossing it aside as he called, “General Skywalker!”
Luke froze, his mind struggling with conflicting information. Finally, he settled on what the Force was telling him, “Rex?”
It didn’t look like Rex.
But the man nodded, his voice thick with relief as he answered, “Yes, Sir.”
The other men took off their helmets too and with small variations, they all had copies of the same face, despite the fact that they were completely different within the Force.
“Clones?” Luke asked, struggling to comprehend as a migraine formed behind his eyes. “What’s happening? Where am I?”
He tried to remember, tried to think.
“Where was I?” he asked, letting himself sit as the world began to spin.
He didn’t feel good.
Ben knelt beside him, “Anakin-”
“My name isn’t Anakin,” Luke snapped, angry for a reason he didn’t understand. He covered his face with his hands. “But I should know that name… Why am I angry?”
There was a long silence.
Eventually, Ben said, “ You are Anakin.”
Luke shook his head, but even as he did, his memories flowed between his fingers like water. But he was certain that he was not Anakin.
Or at least certain he did not want to be Anakin.
“ No,” he said.
“Then who are you?” the dark one asked.
Luke wrapped his arms around his knees, curling around himself, some sense holding him back from giving these people his first name. He tried to follow that feeling through the Force, but the Force was dark.
So much darkness.
Finally, Luke answered, “Skywalker.”
A shuffle of feet, claws on tile, a wooden staff.
Luke looked up to see… “Master Yoda?”
“Hmmm…” the little green Master hummed, “Remember me you do?”
“Of course, Master.”
Yoda’s brows rose, he looked healthy, Luke noted, even as the goblin said, “Remember me you do, but not your own?”
Luke frowned, before turning to the well of sadness beside him, “Ben? I remember Ben, how could I ever forget Ben Kenobi? I’ve always known him.”
Ben frowned at him, “Anakin, my first name is not Ben.”
Luke paused a moment, it took longer than it should have, but then he recalled it, “Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
Obi-Wan’s smile was a bit pained, but he nodded, “Yes, Padawan. And you are Anakin Skywalker.”
Luke flinched and opened his mouth to say his true name despite the warning in the Force.
But a young Togruta entered the room then, Rex standing to catch her around the waist to stop her from approaching.
“Anakin!” she cried.
Luke blinked at her.
“Are you alright?” she demanded.
He frowned, and shook his head, “No- I, I don’t know where I was. Something… I lost to the Sith. I… I failed.”
He looked at Obi-Wan and Yoda, “I am so sorry, Masters, I failed you.”
Obi-Wan wrapped his arm around him, “You haven’t failed, Padawan. You’re alive.”
Luke leaned into him, “I shouldn’t be.”
All he could recall was the flash of red and green light, of blue lightning… pain, anger, agony…
Darkness.
He should be dead.
Someone had died, died twice, and it had broken Luke. His attachment had led him to failure just as Yoda and Obi-Wan had warned him.
“Where was I?” he asked again.
“Umbara,” Obi-Wan answered.
“Umbara?” Luke repeated, “Where is Umbara?”
He was pretty sure that’s not where he had been.
But memory was a slippery thing and the Force seemed to be falling in around him.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan asked slowly, “Do you know where you are?”
“No.”
“Do you know who she is?”
Luke looked back at the Togruta and answered, “No.”
“I’m your Padawan,” the female said, outraged.
“What is a Padawan?” he asked.
Her expression fell, and she took a step back, “A Jedi Apprentice.”
He frowned at her, “But I’m not a Jedi Master.”
Luke was pretty sure he wasn’t even a Knight yet.
She blinked at him and Obi-Wan kept asking questions, “Do you know who they are?”
He asked, indicating the clones.
Luke shook his head, “Only Rex, I never met any of his brothers.”
There was an even deeper silence as everyone frowned at him.
An elderly twi’lek woman knelt beside him then, stepping from the corner Luke hadn’t been paying attention to.
Stupid. He was more disorientated than he had realized.
“Young Skywalker, you are in the Jedi Temple,” she said kindly.
Luke gaped at her, “There is a Jedi Temple!?”
She paused, her brow pinching even as she asked mildly, “Why does that surprise you?”
He closed his eyes, “I don’t remember. Why can't I remember anything?”
“I am Healer Che, we are going to discover that together. Whatever happens, you aren’t alone, Knight Skywalker.”
He nodded.
“And I am sorry, but I need to ask you just a few more questions,” she continued.
At his nod, she asked, “Where are you from?”
“Tatooine.”
“What is your mother’s name?”
He shook his head, “I don’t know.”
He never had.
“When did you meet Obi-Wan?”
“When I was a kid.”
“Do you remember Master Qui-Gon Jinn?”
Luke frowned harder, “Hasn’t- isn’t he- I mean he passed on.” He ended lamely, not wanting to hurt Obi-Wan who already radiated with sorrow.
“You know we are fighting a war?” she asked.
He scowled, “I’m a General, of course, I know that.”
He was pretty sure he hadn’t been a General long, but he had earned it.
She nodded, “Against who?”
“The Empire,” he said, exasperated, he wasn’t entirely sure what his name was, where he was, where he had been, or what was happening, but he could never forget what they were fighting against.
The majority in the room seemed to disagree with him, however.
“What Empire?” Obi-Wan asked.
Luke turned to him in astonishment, then gestured to the troopers before remembering they were clones and not stormtroopers.
Although he supposed there were still clones working for the Empire.
Luke recovered, “The Sith, we are fighting against the Sith.”
The clone with orange on his armour crossed his arms, “Did you think we worked for the Separatists?”
“The Separatists?” Luke repeated, the word hitting a bell, but only dimly.
“Yes,” Rex’s brother said, “the Separatists, in the Outer Rim-”
“What are you talking about?” Luke demanded, “It isn’t the Outer Rim strangling the life out of the galaxy and forcing everyone into submission. It’s the Core. The danger is on Coruscant, that’s where the Sith are.”
Again, the room filled with silence.
Rex spoke slowly, “Sir, we are on Coruscant.”
Luke paled, and breathed, “No…”
He turned on Obi-Wan, frantic, “We can’t be here! They’ll kill us! We’ll never escape!”
He tried to stand and Obi-Wan gripped him by the shoulders, “ Anakin , breathe, we are safe-”
“No!” Luke exclaimed, “I can’t lose you again!”
“Anakin! We are safe, this is our home. There is no Empir-”
“You don’t understand!” Luke pleaded, his panic mounting, “They’ll kill us! We’re the last! They’ll kill us!”
“Who will kill us?” Obi-Wan asked as gently as he could even as he struggled to keep Luke from pulling them to their feet, “Why would we be killed on Coruscant?”
“Because it’s a death sentence!” Luke shouted, black spots chasing across his vision.
“What is?” Ben asked, his eyes wide as he searched Luke’s face.
Luke felt a needle in his neck, and the panic faded, even as he said, “To be a Jedi…”
He slipped back into the darkness and discovered an uneasy peace with consciousness.
Obi-Wan held his unconscious Padawan slumped in his arms, meeting Yoda’s worried gaze.
Che was holding a tranquillizer and Ahsoka stood frozen where Rex held her back from her injured Master.
“Well, that could have gone better,” Appo remarked into the tension.
Obi-Wan’s grip tightened around Anakin, “What’s happening? What was he talking about?”
“His memory is damaged,” Che said, “I’m not even certain he knows who he thinks he is.”
“In one other, seen this, Have I,” Yoda said gravely.
“Who?” Obi-Wan demanded.
“Master Sifo-Dyas,” Mace said, “his visions of the future drove him mad in the end.”
Dread overcame Obi-Wan and he could hardly speak around the lump in his throat, “But this… this was too fast. Anakin has visions, but not like that. He hasn’t said anything-”
“An attack, this was,” Yoda said, “much healing he needs. Guidance, he needs. Your Padawan again, he is, Master Kenobi.”
“What about me?” Ahsoka asked.
“Separate you shall remain,” Yoda said not unkindly, “A danger to himself and others, Skywalker is. Walk closely to death he does, if lose balance further he does, recover he will not. An unfit teacher he is now.”
Ahsoka shut her eyes, then tore away from Rex, running from the room. Barriss, who had been waiting by the doorway, followed after her.
“How likely is it that he can recover?” Obi-Wan asked, “That he’ll regain his memories?”
“Uncertain that is,” Yoda said, “More real his vision than his memories seem to him.”
Che translated, “Which isn’t a good sign, but he was panicked, give him time to recover. For the fear to fade.”
“Only then can more we learn,” Yoda said.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes, and wrapped the light around himself and Anakin, the answering light in Anakin glowed stronger.
You are not alone, my Padawan.
Stronger still the light grew, giving Obi-Wan a shred of hope to hold onto as he waited through the night.
AN: So partial but major amnesia for Luke and the Force being decidedly unbalanced. Thoughts, reactions, orcas, or ideas?