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The end of the Republic was an achievement eclipsed only by the destruction of the Jedi Order.
And the Senate? The Senate applauded and cheered as he tore apart their democracy. What did it take to put such a thing into place? What did it cost?
Thousands of years, a goal passed from master to student; billions of lives, plans upon plans upon plans all laced together so incredibly intricately that they were almost an identity themselves. One mistake could cause it all to crumble to ruin—there could be never be such thing as leaving something to chance—it was perfection or failure. There was no in-between and no space for compromise. Do or do not (and wasn’t that ironic?) because there was only one Sith Master and he had to resurrect an entire Empire from dust and memory. There was only one Sith against thousands of Jedi, against the entire galaxy. Who would believe it was possible to win again those odds?
No one.
But Sidious had won. Sidious had defeated them all.
That’s what he was—that’s what he meant— and now he had an Empire to rebuild.
There was no one to challenge him now, the shattered remains of the Republic would soon be swept aside, soon be decimated by one who knew what it was to be one against many. It was a legacy he had learned from, a legacy he had defined, and there would be no complacency from him. It was more than a lesson learned—it was a lesson ingrained into his very roots. It was what he had come from. Sidious was no spoilt aristocrat peering down from gilded towers, unsure of what it meant to rise from the dirt. Sidious had not been born the most powerful man in the galaxy and it had never, ever, been guaranteed.
Only prophesised.
There was no one to challenge him. But no one to know either— no one to know just who, and what, he was, and why his plan had been a masterstroke. Sith meant nothing to those fools he had tricked, meant even less now to all of those dead Jedi, and there was no one but Sidious to appreciate just what he had done.
No one except Vader.
There must always be two, he thought, a Master and an Apprentice.
Vader had been the jewel in the crown of his achievement, would be the proof of it throughout the years, and would be the ultimate symbol of the Jedi’s irrelevance. He was the only one to truly know what Sidious was. He was the only one left to truly understand.
He was Sith now.
And it was time to make sure it stayed that way.
The medical quarters on his ship were barren bar their one patient. They’d been able to stabilise him, encase him in protective armour, replace the limbs and, only after, drug him to numb the pain. It had to be beginning to wear off. Vader had been sleeping since they had left Mustafar, but now Sidious could feel his mind stir, a curious little fluttering in the Force. He stretched out his senses towards him, felt him muddle his way to full consciousness. Then the pain hit like a shockwave. The rage that followed grabbed at the Force and twisted, effortless, instinctive, and Sidious hissed a breath at all the possibilities such power presented.
The ship they were on, hurtling through space, suddenly felt entirely too small. So easy to rip apart if only one of them, one of the two Sith, him or Vader, thought to reach into the Force and tug. It was exhilarating. It meant it was time, time for the next stage, time to seal the deal. Sidious took a moment to prepare, carefully hiding any element of calculated planning from being sensed in the Force, and then left his own quarters to made his way towards his apprentice. The medical quarters were sealed, locked tight, and only he had the codes. Vader was too precious to be left unguarded.
Vader was sitting up when he entered, helmet swivelling to watch him walk in. It must be new for him, the suit, but the boy would soon adjust.
Sidious began with a calculated misstep.
“Anakin—”
“Don’t—it’s not my—it’s no longer my name.” That deep voice still hitched with Anakin’s weakness.
Good.
Sidious nodded, not even risking the imprint of a smile in his mind. “Vader then.”
“Yes.”
He had wanted the boy to confirm that himself.
The Force was tight with his pain. Sidious found it invigorating.
It was impossible not to sense him, impossible to block him out; he felt the maelstrom of pain and anger and fever madness reach a crescendo, crash, and then screech up again. It was elemental. Sidious let it wash over him like a cool sea breeze, refreshing and invigorating. There was nothing quite like that first aftermath of someone who had fallen, nothing quite like that first surge of dark side fuelled madness—and there would never be anything quite like it again. It was still up to chance what would emerge.
He was off kilter, confused and disorientated. Vulnerable.
Now was the only time Sidious would be able to lie to him as boldly as he planned to. It had to be done right.
He held up his hand without a word, let Vader focus on the tiny object held between thumb and forefinger, allowed the confusion to build and build and then—
“It was in your shoulder. It was active when we cut it out.”
Vader didn’t flinch, couldn’t really, not with the helmet, but he recoiled in the force like he had been struck. “It was removed. Ob— they said they removed it. I have the scar.”
Sidious did not pretend to think about his answer. He gave no appearance of pity or overexpression of sympathy. They were beyond that now. “They lied.”
Vader stared at him. “I—”
It was easy to interrupt him, easy when it was obvious he didn’t know what to say, and Sidious stepped forward and dropped the slave chip into Vader’s prosthetic hand. “Why take it out? They never trusted you—why not leave it in?”
Sidious had been holding onto that chip for more than a decade, knowing Vader would be able to tell if it was fake. It had been very hard to get.
The tremor in the force, the way the room started to shake, told him that the effort was worth it.
Vader didn’t appear to notice. That black gaze was rivetted on the chip. When he spoke his voice was very small—as soft as the vocoder would allow. “He didn’t activate it on Mustafar.”
Kenobi.
He’d hoped Vader would pick up on that. He had hoped to distract Anakin Skywalker’s keen mind with the obvious, glaring, question. If he did this right he’d justify Vader’s mistrust in the Jedi, set their crimes back a decade—make it personal. Answer this well enough and he’d never think more on it, never begin to start questioning it again. It would become an old wound, a painful truth, and he’d never quite be able to puzzle through it. Not unless someone pointed it out, drew his attention to it and, well—who else was there left who knew Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader, well enough to start poking holes in Sidious’s story?
If he answered this well enough Sidious would be that much closer to having him forever.
“Kenobi? Ah yes, I can see why he wouldn’t.” Sidious did not have to fake the disgust in his voice. “I suppose he would have thought it beneath him to employ such underhanded tactics. Even with everything at stake.”
“Uncivilised.” Vader agreed softly.
His presence in the force was muted now, the room had stopped shaking, but there was an odd lull. The ebb of the tide before a flood or the hush before a hurricane. Sidious’s ear drums felt like they would burst from the pressure of it. There was something exquisite about the taste of betrayal, something so fine in the fact the Vader still had enough of Anakin in him to be betrayed. It had been the point, after all, of turning him—to see him shaking from the aftershocks of his previous life meant all those vulnerabilities were still there for Sidious to use. Vader was more Anakin Skywalker than the man had ever allowed himself to be as a Jedi.
That pain meant power, meant Dark Side and Sith and, most importantly—it meant Vader believed him.
Excellent.
He let himself pause, let it drag as if he was gathering his thoughts, but Sidious knew exactly what he was doing. He’d planned meticulously for this. “The Jedi never trusted you and they never accepted you as one of their own. They wanted you exactly where they took you from—they kept you a slave. They would have continued to do so had we not destroyed them. Do you really think they would have allowed you to leave the Order?”
Vader stared at him. He could feel the weight of that gaze from behind the mask.
“They couldn’t have stopped me.”
“Oh?” Sidious smiled viciously but, carefully, without condescension. “You think any of them were really your friends? You think any of them would have defied the Council for you?”
Think of Ashoka, Sidious thought, think of how they threw her to the wolves.
Even Obi Wan had stood aside.
He could tell Vader was thinking the same, could tell that every doubt he’d ever had cause to suppress was rising to the surface and screaming its outrage. And, oh, there were so many. Sidious had made sure of that. Caught in a haze of pain, of skin scoured from his body and limbs hacked off by one who had been his brother, Sidious knew it was very hard for logic and truth to prevail.
The lie had to be sold now. And it had to be sold perfectly.
“I had always—” Vader cut himself off, voice hardening. “They still couldn’t have stopped me.”
“You think they’d have let you go freely?”
Vader said nothing, looking at the slave chip in his hand. It’s existence undeniable. The Force was alight with tension—with indecision and confusion. Vader believed him about the chip. Now all he had to do was open his mind to some other possibilities.
“They could have killed you at any time. They would have killed you if you tried to run.”
The light to the left of Vader shattered in a shower of sparks. Cracks inched their way across the window like spiderwebs and this was a window meant to survive space. Just a little bit more and it would shatter, suck them both out into the darkness and crush them. But Vader had pulled most of his reaction back, reigned his inexhaustible power in with the instinctive restraint of a Jedi.
But instinct could be rewritten.
“They betrayed me.” Vader said finally. His hand curled slowly around the chip.
Sidious examined him carefully. So much of this had to be done by implication, so much of this had to allow Vader to make these connections himself. The wrong word could ruin it all.
“Long before you fought back, yes.” Sidious encouraged.
He was silent a long time. “Is that what I did?”
The question was a dangerous sign.
This close, with his attention so riveted on Vader's presence in the Force, Sidious could almost hear children screaming. He took his time answering, the pause was almost leisurely, and he allowed himself a puzzled frown. “You see it differently?”
Vader didn’t reply. After a minute of waiting, Sidious filled the silence.
“They were weak and useless and needed to be destroyed to pave way for something better.” Vader still didn’t reply, didn’t even move, and Sidious continued. “Did they fulfil their mandate? Did they protect everyone? Or just when it suited them? They betrayed you, used you, tricked you again and again, and would never have let you leave.”
They’d have stolen your child right from its cot, Sidious didn’t say. He didn’t think he could get away with that.
“We can create something better, something stronger.” Vader said slowly. He sounded far away, almost as if he was absently recalling a dream, a memory, a wish he had made long ago.
“An Empire.” Sidious prompted, pleased.
This was the true masterstroke. Any idiot could get someone to fall, oh yes that was easy, but to get someone to stay fallen? Now was the time to seal the deal, to ensure that Vader would be loyal always. Those betrayals and loose ends and ripped, trailing, ties to the light had to be dealt with and dealt with fast. He could not allow Vader time to think. He had not picked a stupid, weak apprentice and he would not be so foolish as to underestimate the boy. Not even now. Not even when wounded and half dead with the pain of it. No. He would never underestimate him.
That was what the Jedi had done.
Sidious was no Jedi.
He had always been exceptionally aware of Anakin Skywalker’s abilities; had spent a great deal of time planting ideas, encouraging, isolating his future apprentice, and he was not about to undo over a decade of careful manipulation now. Not when everything he’d ever wanted was within reach. He’d always been fond of the scalpel, over the hammer.
This was where the true work began.
“I—” Vader paused and then the words tumbled out. “Was it a lie? This whole time you were the Sith Lord we were searching for. The war, the Separatists, all of it, it was all you. The Jedi—”
“Still needed to be destroyed.” Sidious had not expected this question so soon, but he was pleased that it had been brought up. Better to tackle it now. Better to bury it with the rest. “They did try and kill me. I simply struck back. It is the way of things, is it not?, and I am a Sith. We are Sith. I wanted this Galaxy to be mine and I took it—the war, the Jedi, the Separatists—I used what already existed to my advantage. Must I remind you of Dooku? Of all the Jedi who fell throughout the war? Of all the little conflicts and all the times ‘good’ men did terrible things in the name of what they believed in? I may have been pulling the strings, but I cannot be blamed for every choice. Or every life taken. The way in which the Jedi steadily took more and more power was never because of me.”
It had been one of the most beautiful parts of the war – the things men would do to each other for the cause they believed was just. All he had to do was set the stage and watch them tear each other apart. Nothing he’d planned would have come to pass if not for that. What was a whisper here and there? What was a—
“Padme.” Vader flinched even as he spoke her name, a visceral reaction that rang through the Force like lightning.
Ah. Yes. Her.
“She was never going to understand what needed to be done,” Sidious was very happy that she had died. “but I would have let you have her, had she lived.”
It was almost true. It was something Sidious had created a multitude of contingency plans for. Ultimately, though, he had never had to use a single one.
“Let me?”
Ah. He had misspoken in his haste. No matter.
“You know what I am.” Sidious replied. “You know someone like me would find a threat like her uncomfortable. So, yes, I would let you have her.”
Vader was silent for a moment and Sidious knew this was the closest he’d yet come to losing him—this was the more visceral wound, the deeper cut, and it went without saying that Vader was reliving the moment he had killed the woman he loved. When he’d killed the child she carried. It would have been better if he had also killed Kenobi, but Sidious would not waste time on could have beens. Kenobi could come later. Now, though, now, Padme’s death was like a weighted stone. It was tearing him apart with the sheer agony of what he had done and, oh, was that glorious. It was even better than what Sidious had planned; a mistake Vader could never take back, a guilt that would never fade away. What a powerful memory this pain would come to be. It was a wound that was never, ever, going to heal.
Kenobi would be the same.
Every good memory, every laugh, every word, was now a source of never-ending pain and hate and loss.
Why else would Sidious have allowed him to be trained a Jedi? Why wouldn’t he have stolen him away as a child to train in secret if he thought that love was a risk, a true threat? No. All it could ever be was an opportunity. To cause more pain, to tie Anakin Skywalker to the Sith more deeply, and to ultimately turn him against the Jedi. It had been a vulnerability he’d not hesitated to exploit—in the Jedi too, their compassion for any pathetic lifeform, their foolish bonds with mere clones—and he’d played it so masterfully it had only been able to end in betrayal. It had been the only way to make it mean something. To make it truly last.
There was only one way to truly ensure the knife would twist deep enough to matter.
Sidious had let him love them first.
And out of them all—Vader had loved Kenobi most of all.
Look at the gift it had given him now! The work had been done already, the slave chip being the extra nudge needed to drown out any remaining doubts. Sidious could sense it all, wrapped up in the miasma of Vader’s force signature, the depth of feeling for the man who had hurt him so very badly. It was grounding him in the dark. It was fuel. Sidious could feel it—all of that love, twisted up and torn apart, was going to become the foundations of an incredibly powerful Sith.
“She wanted to have the baby on Naboo.” Vader said absently, his voice wistful and sad. There was a longing in his tone that made the force sing with something like mourning. He glowed with an agony that was suddenly far too subdued for Sidious’s liking. “I should think she’d like to be buried there.”
“I should think so too,” Sidious said calmly, careful to hide his intent as he found the words that would inspire rage rather than tired grief. “provided we can locate her body, that is.”
Vader’s fist clenched so hard the metal groaned under the strain. He didn’t speak.
“Kenobi must have—”
“Don’t say his name.”
It was snarled out, fury spiking and climbing, and the pressure in the room seemed to increase again, until he felt his ears pop, and then further until they started to really hurt. Good. Very good. “Rest assured, my friend, we will find her.”
Instead of answering, Vader tilted his head towards the glass, staring out into the darkness of space as if he could see beyond the stars. Light reflected off the eyes of the mask, empty sockets seeming so soulless and cold despite all the rage that Sidious could feel boiling beneath. It was a visage the galaxy would soon know to fear. Sidious didn’t want a broken apprentice, a regretful shell; he was going to show Anakin Skywalker just how much better it was to be a Sith. He was going to enjoy his triumph—enjoy it with someone who could truly understand what he’d done—and he was going to take the Jedi’s precious Chosen One and make him the ultimate symbol of his victory.
He was going to prove to him just how trapped he’d been as a Jedi.
But first Sidious must close the deal, so to speak. There would be more to do, of course; more lies, more careful nudging to push him even deeper into the dark, and more fuel to keep that rage burning nice and hot. Vader had been forged, but he had not been refined yet. First, Sidious must ask what was possibly the most important question; now, while they were talking about Padme. It was time to tie off the most glaring loose end, and hope that he had done enough—
“The power I promised you,” Sidious offered softly. “to keep people from dying. When would you like me to teach it to you?”
This was the moment.
It felt like the Force was holding its breath, like the whole galaxy had stopped and turned to look, drawn like moths to a beacon without knowing why, and Sidious knew that if this went wrong, he’d have to kill Vader.
And quickly.
Because the power he’d offered him didn’t exist. And Vader could never, ever, find out.
Vader tilted his head in consideration, still dizzy in the force with pain fuelled lethargy, focus shifting wholly to Sidious with the unerring weight of something that had never quite felt human. The weight of that regard was crippling. It pinned Sidious to the spot as surely as if he’d been a butterfly, nails through his wings. Even with the agony of Vader’s wounds, the aftershocks of Falling, the careful foundations of lies decades old, Sidious was suddenly not quite sure if it would be all enough. The possibility of failure was exhilarating.
“No.”
The Force seemed to sigh, the galaxy turned away, that intense focus slid back, and Sidious could breathe again.
“No.” Darth Vader said again, opening his clenched fist to show the slave chip crushed to dust in his palm.
“I no longer have need of such a power.”