Vader's Reckoning

He was falling. And he finally realized that much. But that fall? Floating while getting smashed at the same time, that crazy combination of everything happening all at once. Time didn't wind on. It twisted and splintered. It was like it was winding in on itself like some aged reel of tapestry. And then like the Force was working its magic for players in style, Darth Vader simply appeared.

Booted feet hit hard on solid ground. Barren red rock country stretched before him with red skies churning around him. There was sulfur in the air that reeked of death, full of stories of thousand of betrayals hanging like fog. He didn't even need to reach in for the Force to know exactly where he was.

Korriban.

But something was wrong on that planet. It was much more living than anything he'd ever known before. Perilous with power that'd lain buried at the heel of his own Empire. There was raw power of the Force now wild and unbroken not just hushed whispers of ghosts in crumbling tombs. There was power in his ears screaming like Mustafar had screamed while he was dying on its blackened shore.

Whatever was wrong was wrong for certain. There was a twist to it. There was a bad vibe to it.

Fists curled in on themselves reaching in for the Force, casting it forth like a fisher casting in for netting in shallow waters. What he found gave him pause. The galaxy was changed. Not by hair's breadth but in a wholesale rewrite of everything. Even the stars with their positions in the sky overhead was all wrong.

It hit him all at once like that. Not his time. Not his war. Not his Emperor.

He was in the past.

The Dark Lord of the Sith was not freakin' out. Panic was for weaklings and deathbeds, he completely understood that. Instead, he composed himself and thought of things he already knew.

He'd studied the past, all of that he'd learned from Palpatine himself. The Old Republic. The Sith Empire at its zenith. All of these crazy warlords and all of that backstabbing going on. He was aware of all of the big players of that age—Naga Sadow, Marka Ragnos, Darth Malgus, Darth Marr. He knew how things went in the Sith Council and how power was utterly fleeting here, much like life in general. The powerful survived while weaklings got discarded like garbage. If he was going to survive and remain on top, he needed to move now.

And yet it was like the Force was opening him like some ripe fruit, and he was shown it. A vision. Nah, more like absolute truth.

Padmé.

Her face. Her eyes of hers all wide and shiny with fear. The instant she was gasping for air on Mustafar, where he thought he actually killed her. And that was all just a pack of fibs from some black-robed snake. Sidious. Palpatine. His master.

Vader watched it all play out in a horribly cruel manner. The Sith Lord didn't take her out with lightning or with the Force, but with that sneaky, vicious poison blended in with how he distorted Anakin's love for her. He'd arranged for her death to cut off Anakin Skywalker from the last shreds of humanity he'd ever have. And like a complete fool, like a child, he'd marched right into the monster's trap. It was all choices on his part, all wild need to save her that let Palpatine play him like a puppet on strings to make everything go exactly how he'd planned.

In his mind's eye, he'd see himself bowing to his master. A slave. A mess.

Hate churned in him, thick and poisonous, to overwhelm him. But you know what? Hate was power. And power gave him a sense of purpose.

He wasn't Anakin Skywalker now. He was Darth Vader.

He whirled around, cape billowing in dry Korriban wind. The Sith around these parts would not know him. Not yet. But they'd fear him for damn sure. And fear was all that truly mattered.

He needed in. He needed to get in on things. The Sith Empire was all about players of power, and he didn't have time for second guesses. He'd have more power in the Dark Side than all of these goons even dreamed of having. He needed to strike at someone—one of the members of the Council, perhaps—someone he could pluck from history and take their space.

A duel was coming on. Blood was going to flow. And when it was all through, they'd get one thing clear in their heads:

Darth Vader had arrived on the scene.

And the Sith would bow to him.

He eventually paced through the corridors of the Sith Academy, his steps sounding like a plodding drumbeat on weathered stone. He didn't ask for directions. He didn't need to. The Force permeated every part of this facility, holding with it all of these people's hopes for greatness before him, the ghostly nagging whispers in his mind like maddening phantoms. But he didn't mind their ghost stories. Just yesterday's people. Minor players in yesterday's story. He was only in it for the living.

Sith Acolytes sensed him before even hearing him coming. Cloaked figures stood frozen in the black corridors, their heads cast to the floor, their bodies shuddering like the air was just far too dense. They didn't confront him. They didn't demand to know him. They simply parted like water before him like he was something irresistible. They all knew by now that he was more than some Sith. He was more than anyone. He was raw power in black that screamed inescapability.

They dropped to their knees. Not because he forced them to, but because they realized that much on their own.

But the Sith military? Yeah, they didn't get it so much.

As he appeared in the command center, several of their officers and Sith Lords lined up in precise formation in front of some hulking figure. Darth Vengean. He had learned of him, in the records from before. Warmonger, hard guy, guy whose entire schtick was raw unadorned conquest. Back in another lifetime, in another body, in another mind, Vader might have thought that kind of approach was badassed. Today he just regarded him as a roadblock.

Vengean turned around, his red and black uniform blazing in the faint red lights. He locked eyes with Vader's mask, a sneer creeping onto his face.

"And who," he spoke in that booming voice that shook through the hall, "are you?"

Vader remained mute. He stepped forward, causing all of the officers before him to shiver in fear.

"You have no sigil," Vengean went on as he stepped off of the platform himself. "No mark of House or of Order. You must be stupid or lost or something."

Nothing but silence from all of them.

Vader reached floor level, glaring at Vengean like he was some ordinary object. He let that silence hang for so long that people grew numb from it. Eventually he spoke.

"I am Darth Vader."

It was like the Force itself was responding to that name.

Vengean's face curled in disgust. "Never heard of a Vader."

"You will."

He dropped that threat like it was not even that much of a threat, discarding all that usual Sith theatrics. Vader wasn't in for that kind of game. The bargain was easy enough to see through to: power only comes through trial by fire, through battle, through bloodshed. So yeah, definitely going to be some bloodshed.

The sneer on Vengean's face grew even more pronounced. "Then let's see if you have what it takes to ride with us."

The Sith Lord was moving quick, much faster than anyone was even capable of noticing. There was a flash of red lightsaber in his hand, cutting hard like he was going to bisect Vader in two.

But Vader didn't move.

With quick wrist-flick of force, the strike was halted in mid-swing, hilt locked in some unseen grasp. Vengean snarled, straining muscle on force that he couldn't see, but it was for nothing. Vader tightened. Vengean's own lightsaber was wrenched from him and deactivated, taken away like a toy from child.

Then Vader acted.

One step. He waved his black-gloved arm in an arc of circle.

Vengean went flying.

He hit stone wall with vicious crunch, crumpled to floor like discarded doll. Blood seeped from lips, ribcage was crushed, he was gasping to get breath in. He tried to scramble to his feet, tried to summon strength to him, but that black shape loomed over him, fear-inspiring and inexorable.

Vader reached for him with his hand, and Vengean levitated upward, gasping for breath and digging at throat.

"I was apprenticed to the greatest Sith to have ever lived," Vader spoke in icy tones. "You are nothing."

Vader's hold tightened. Vengean neck spine flexed, then snapped.

And that was all.

And so he dropped Vengean to floor like so much baggage. There was silence in command hall now. Officers and lesser Sith Lords watched in frozen fear, not daring to move or even to breathe.

Then he turned to face all of them, filling room like storm on horizon.

"Anyone else have need to challenge me?"

And all of them fell to their knees at once. Officers, Sith Lords, acolytes—whatever your terms for these things. There was some confusion in getting through to the military at first but now finally they finally understood.

Word spread quickly soon thereafter.

Darth Vengean's demise was not a happenstance—it was an epiphany. A creature of such strength had emerged from nothing, a Sith Lord with no history, no home, no tie to the Empire's boundless network of schemes. And yet, he had killed one of the most formidable among them like he was a desiccated corpse. The aftershocks of his being echoed through the Force, rippling outward like an earthquake through the pillars of the Sith Empire.

Sith and Jedi both felt the disturbance. The Coruscant Jedi meditated, unsettled by an omen they could not identify, a darkness deeper even than anything to which they were accustomed. Sith whispered among themselves in furtive tones, torn between dread and awe. All their power, all their drive, not one of them could flee what the Force had screamed into the very heart of them:

Something greater had come.

And now, the Dark Council was demanding an audience.

Vader faced the imposing, massive gates of the Sith Citadel on the planet Dromund Kaas, the vibrant hub of the Sith Empire. Storms boiled above, sky a turbulent whorl of black and purple, spiking with the unleashed power of the Dark Side. The gates creaked opening before him as if pushed by forces unseen. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to stare at the ancient, massive statues of Sith Lords, nor at the crimson banners bearing the Empire's emblem. Such was inconsequential. There was only power.

Inside, the Dark Council chamber waited in ambush.

The chamber was a large, cylindrical bowl of darkness, illuminated solely by the crimson glow of holocrons and the metal sheen of durasteel thrones. Twelve sat upon them, the Empire's most powerful Sith, each master of his own domain. At their center stood Darth Marr, untroubled and unruffled. Darth Ravage, his features twisted in distrust. Darth Thanaton, his eyes sharp with calculation. Others glared at him openly, their own designs endangered by his presence.

And above them all, unseen but omnipresent, stood the Emperor.

Darth Vitiate's will oppressed the chamber, a heavy burden. He did not physically occupy the room, but his presence dominated the space, an amorphous, age-old hunger. He had devoured entire worlds, brought thousands of souls to power his existence, and now his interest turned toward the enigma that had shattered his council.

"Darth Vader." The Emperor's voice was a whisper, a bellow that resounded through the Force itself. "You have slain one of my council. You have disrupted the balance of my Empire."

Vader remained on his feet. He did not bow. He did not bend his head in submission like the inferior Sith. He stood tall, his armor black as obsidian against the storm. His breathing heated the air, steady, unshakeable.

"I did what a Sith would have done," Vader said, his tone even and unyielding. "I seized power."

A ripple of unrest spread through the council. Some resented his arrogance. Others were intrigued. But all were forced to feel the raw, unstoppable power emanating from him. It was not mad or uncontrolled. It was refined. Checked. A storm contained within one will.

The Emperor remained silent for an eternity. Then, without warning, the Dark Side burst forth, its grip snapping around Vader's very soul.

A possession.

Vitiate's strength, an emptiness of boundless hunger, stretched out to devour him, to drain him dry and use his body as armor. Dozens of Sith Lords had been vanquished prior to this approach, their wills shattered as the Emperor devoured their very being.

But this time, there was a difference.

Vader didn't hesitate. He didn't struggle. He merely stood while the Emperor's will crashed against him like a tsunami—and broke.

The room trembled. Statues crumbled. Holocrons flared wildly. Members of the Dark Council recoiled as the presence of their Emperor recoiled, something which had never happened before.

Vitiate was powerful. But Vader more so.

The Dark Lord of the Sith had been born in fire, forged in treachery, and tempered in relentless suffering. He had been shattered, a nothing, and survived. He had been a servant to the most powerful Sith ever to walk the galaxy, the second-in-command of one whose own machinations had outlived even beyond the very destruction of the Jedi Order itself. He had tried the abyss, and he had returned. In the end, Vader was a movie villain and these characters were non canon, copies of Vader and Palpatine.

"You are powerful," Vitiate grudgingly admitted. No praise, but admission. "More powerful than I had anticipated."

Fists clenched by Vader, hidden beneath his cloak. "You will not try again."

A hesitation. And then—laughter.

Not from the Emperor, but Darth Marr.

"Perhaps we've wasted too much time bickering over relics and traditions," Marr mused, his voice tinged with something rare in a Sith: respect. "Perhaps what we need is a warrior who understands what true strength is."

Thanaton sneered. "Strength without knowledge is—"

"Enough." The Emperor's voice cut them all off. He did not rage, but spoke with something far more deadly—thought.

"There is an empty chair on my Council," Vitiate said. "You have earned the right to fill it."

Whispers passed through the chamber, but none was bold enough to protest. Vader had done exactly what the Sith Code demanded. He had taken what was his by force alone.

And thus Darth Vader became a member of the Dark Council.

Yet even as he sat, he was not there.

He sensed it in the Force. His presence here in this past—or perhaps some other past—was rewriting the future of the galaxy. His choices here would resound forward, altering everything. The Empire. The Jedi. The War. Palpatine.

Had he traveled back in time? Or had he plummeted into something else? A parallel reality in which history was eerily the same but pliable?

It didn't matter.

What did matter was what came next.