Death is inevitable. Anakin had learnt that lesson an eternity ago.

  Yet, only from tear-soaked eyes can one truly see what remains of the looper through the fire and brimstone of broken worlds. An entity who brought the Galaxy to its knees again and again and again, the strongest of all mortals. Even without their knowledge of their previous lives, the pure essence of the Dark Side, which rippled through The Force, carried a truth that even any Force-sensitive could sense.

  Vader has arrived.

  Vader could only see red, smell seared flesh, hear screams, feel the heat radiating from his lightsaber, and taste the fear of all those near him through The Force.

  Against the wave, he would have been trampled. But with it, he carved his way through the screaming water. One swing sent limbs flying, another bisected three men at once. He followed the rhythm of death, dancing over the corpses he left. Mercy was a luxury, one that Vader had no concern for.

  Before Anakin struggled to make a meter through the crowd, now, Vader marched unopposed. The smart tried to run away, the idiots thought they could stop him, and the unfortunate didn’t even realise him till it was too late. No matter their choice, it didn’t matter. They all died the same, screaming under the superheated plasma of his lightsaber.

  There was no talent to Vader’s massacre, sweeping wide and fast, it was impossible not to hit your target. Due to the size of the riot, Vader became a meat grinder as more and more men were pushed into Vader’s blade from the waves of the populace. Instead, Vader’s focus was on his feet, careful not to trip over the pile of corpses and severed limbs building up at his feet.

  He couldn’t stop. His movement flowed with the wave of the crowd keeping him from being pushed down by its current. Stepping past a now fatherless boy, he continued to cut his way through the ocean of men, his mind slipping into his thoughts as his body flowed through the motions of murder freely. Like a musician playing a song they’ve played thousands of times before.

  If the price of Padme’s life was the orphaning of children, then he would pay the price she wouldn’t herself. Besides, what fucking idiot brings a kid to something as dangerous as this. Vader was saving the kid from a life of pre-teen drinking and political extremism.

  More and more people fed the human furnace that was Vader as he approached the wooden structure where Padme had been. It hadn’t even been a minute yet, Vader’s internal counter estimated his kills somewhere nearing eighty. How long would Vader have till Anakin reeled back his leash? It wasn’t like the looper to lose control of himself like this? He was usually in better control, perhaps he wasn’t as calloused as he thought. Something to work on in the future.

  He strutted his way up the wooden staircase. Lightsaber in hand, he slammed it down into a body who, in their rush to climb up, had tripped, pinning them to the wood, screaming as their lungs liquified from heat, setting the wood below on fire. Someone at the top of the stairwell turned, no doubt hearing the screams of another man’s lungs melting. First a face of confusion, then realisation, fear. He raised a broken beer bottle up, prepared to hurl it at him, yet a Force pull from Vader sent him flying down the stairs, meeting a waiting lightsaber which greedily separated his lumbar vertebrae, cutting through his body like a hot knife through butter.

  In the screams and confusion, Vader thrived. Death incarnate, he weaved through bodies, leaving charred corpses in his wake. The bodies began to litter the wooden stage, which threatened to break from the weight of all those clamouring up it, yet still more lambs lined up for the slaughter. He was nothing if not a diligent butcher.

  More and more men added to his kill count. A mere drop in an ocean of blood. He was a river, and they could not swim against his torrent. The stairwell was covered in bodies, acting as a barrier to stop more soon-to-be corpses from piling up, adding to the walls of cooking meat.

  His rhythm of death was reaching its climax as he approached the group of filthy men clamouring over what was HIS!

  They threw her bleeding head around, looking for jewels, gold or the feel of her soft skin. These men were sick and pathetic, deserving of the pain and death he would inflict upon them. For it wasn’t their greed, lust or anger which were truly unforgivable. It was their ignorance. The fact that they thought they could touch HIS Padme. He had killed her, destroyed her planet and enslaved her people. He had made her cry, scream and wish for his death. He had manipulated her emotions for his own personal gain again and again, lied to her in ways she was blind to. With the amount of betrayals he had built up over the years, her back would be bloody with the knives he had left. The kindest thing Anakin could do for her would be to let her go.

  Vader would not allow that.

  She was HIS! That was a fact of life, just as much as gravity, a truth Anakin would pretend was a lie, but could not deny it as much as he could deny the ground beneath his feet.

  The loops took away his training, his power, his experience, but it would not take his knowledge. It could not take his knowledge. How to dig deeper into the Dark Side, how to wring the most of the filth out from his current potential. So while Vader could not incinerate them with Sith lightning, he instead reached out into the Dark Side and let the purest form of it wash over him. Palpatine may have been the greatest Sith, but Vader was the greatest conduit of the Dark Side and he let all those who opposed him know.

  With all the strength his current body could muster, invisible hands reached out to one of the men, selfishly indulging in looting his Padme. Fingers bent backwards, bones pierced through skin like spears, rib cages shattered like glass. An orchestra of flesh and bone wrapping around itself in unnatural ways could be heard as what used to be a man was now a ball of flesh compacted by The Force.

  Anakin had used the Dark Side in past runs, he was always so cold and calculating. He took no pleasure in his necessary evils. This, though, this was a work of art only Vader could achieve.

  The others, now reduced to cornered rats, either threw themselves off the stage into the rampaging crowd below or at him. There had been eight picking at Padme’s body like vultures, seven after he squished one like a bug, four after three threw themselves into the ocean of flesh below. Before, the mob had felt immortal, an unstoppable force. However, now Vader had taken their confidence and crushed it beneath his boot. Leaving only the individual. Separated and weak, fear had stripped away what used to be an unrelenting wave, revealing the droplets that weakly fell against him.

  The first man died when Vader closed the distance, beheading him with a backhanded swipe. The second collapsed after Vader kneed him in his groin, allowing Vader to plunge his lightsaber deep into his chest. The third and fourth tried to drown him in blaster fire, but when their blasters were gripped by invisible hands, they were forced to pull the trigger, facing each other.

  A gasp brought him out of his bloodlust. It seemed Padme had more fight in her than he gave her credit. Taking a knee next to her, he saw how much damage the men had done. Her ears were a bloody mess as they tried to forcefully rip out her earrings, her neck was red and bruised from them ripping off her necklace. Her clothes were all ripped and torn, but thankfully nothing worse than a ruined shoulder. In her nails, he saw blood and fabric, showing signs of fighting back. Good.

  Examining her face, he could tell that the wound the brick left was mostly superficial. It must have hit her at the vertex of its flight, when velocity was at its lowest. Still, she was bleeding quite a bit, but she was still conscious. She was most likely suffering from shock rather than brain damage.

  The nearest hospital was currently several thousand people away. Worst, he would have to go against the tide. No, it wasn’t worth the risk, instead, he would have to take her to the only place equipped with medical equipment that didn’t require becoming the worst single mass murderer in the history of the Galaxy. The Jedi Temple.

  From high on the stage, Vader could see where the line was drawn between Coruscant police and Jedi against the crushing horde. Tear gas, high-pressure water and a small force of Jedi, the fates certainly weren’t making this easy for him. Then again, he had broken Kuat’s shipyards, survived the bloodbath that was The Landing Of Kashyyk, and left shattered The Siege of Chandrila. Compared to that, this would be child’s play.

  Invisible hands cuddled Padme gently, lifting her delicately into the sky. She would not die today, not yet, the death addicted woman would have to wait till later. For now… she was his. Anakin would take control soon, Vader could tell. His rage while hot couldn’t last long; soon, the cold calculating darkness of Anakin would reel back his leash. How long had it been since Anakin last lost control of him? Why had his grip loosened this time? This loop?

  He wasn’t so much a split personality, but rather just a characterisation. Compartmentalisation. He was Anakin’s excuse. Like how you are a different person while on holiday. However, instead of mimosas and beaches, he was death and the Dark Side. He was still the same person, Vader knew this in his heart, no matter how much Anakin wished he could blame Vader for his sins. But he was simply a creation whenever Anakin lost control of the Dark Side.

  Ugh, how could Anakin be so careless? The other-half of him knows that the Dark Side is at best self-sabotaging, it would never be enough to defeat Palpatine. Vader rolled his eyes at his own carelessness. The looper would eventually bring the Dark Side back to its knees, till then, he would have to make sure everything was under control. Starting with Padme.

  Leaping off the stage, he carried Padme beside him with the Force, leaving her floating above the crowd while he landed in a sea of rioters. Tear gas and the smell of whatever liquids people let out while being tasered burned his nose. He was blind with all the chemicals in the air and bodies, closing his eyes and holding his nose was the only way he could bear the assault on his senses.

  With a twirl of his lightsaber, bodies were cut down like wheat, falling at his feet with dull thuds, looking up at him with dull eyes. They could join the rest of the dead, judging him. There would be plenty more of them before he was done.

  Without sight, he let the Force guide him. The Dark Side whispering in his ears to make the road easier by reaping the fools who blocked his way. Anakin, ever the nihilist, would have considered it, but Vader didn’t hesitate. The smell of burnt flesh added to the cacophony of fumes, it was enough to make a Rancor wince.

  Narrowly ducking under a powerful blast of water which sent people off their feet, Vader grabbed a man who stood a little too close in order to use as a human shield from the stunning rounds. The closer he was to breaking the line, the worse it got. Plunging his lightsaber into his human shield, Vader was starting to enjoy it less and less. Death should be a show, not this boring display of a slaughter.

  The sound of broken teeth against his elbow made Vader almost miss his metallic limbs. How he hated touching people. Kicking one final person over, he finally made his way to the frontline, meeting a row of riot shields and stun bolts. The Force screamed around him in the chaos, his own nervous system trying to pull him back.

  A clear no-man’s land had developed between the rioters and the police as stun bolts and Molotov cocktails were exchanged between the two groups.

  Vader couldn’t be stopped. Much like a chain, a shield wall was only as strong as the weakest link. Once there was a gap, the tsunami of rioters would push through. As if the riot shield wasn’t there, the lightsaber pierced through the poor man unlucky enough to be the one to face him. With a strong kick, the corpse fell, and with it, so did no man’s land. The wave pushed forward and with it Vader took Padme who floated by him deep into his chest protecting her as the stampede flooded the opening.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  The wave crashed over him as Vader did his best not to be swept by its tide. His plasma blade found flesh but the more he cut the more that kept pushing forwards. Kill, slaughter, murder, it all became dull as the masses blurred together. He didn’t need to kill every single person on Coruscant, just long enough for the police to reorganise. Although, considering how sore Vader’s arm, they were sure taking their time.

  By the time the police had pushed back the crowd, they found Vader, hunched over Padme like a protective mother. The only reason Vader wasn’t a convulsing wreck, foaming at the mouth, was the lightsaber in his mouth.

  His ears were ringing too much to hear the words but Vader could read their lips enough to tell they were calling for Jedi, unsure what to do about the situation.

  In seconds a painfully familiar Jedi approach, his powerful presence following the man with the purple lightsaber. Master Windu. If only Vader had a few more minutes. He could try plucking one of those harshly judging eyes right out of his skull.

  “Windu,” Vader scowled. The Jedi had always been a difficult enemy in his Dark Side runs and a trying ally on his Lightside ones. If there were a few certainties in the loops, it was that Windu and Vader would never get along.

  “Anakin Skywalker, you are under arrest.” Just a few more steps. But in this body could he do it? Anakin had been training in his off-time, but the boost the Dark Side provided would only be enough to kill the escorting Jedi. Blasted Vaapad. Perhaps Vader could attack the police, let the wave of rioters through. Let them both be crushed by stopping boots. It certainly was tempting, but Windu wasn’t some idealistic Jedi who wouldn’t be above doing what was necessary. He would put the deaths of the civilians he killed under Vader’s name.

  “I hope she was worth it.” Vader scowled as he felt Anakin tighten back his leash. Idiot, they should have just overdosed in a Hutt brothel, actually make this break worth something instead of this clear hypocrisy.

  Sunlight burned her eyes, snaking its way past the blinds to attack her eyes. Curse you, Coruscant Prime! Stupid Sun. Hissing like a cat she clawed the blankets that covered her up to her chin before turning violently to the side in order to protect her delicate eyes from the cruel light.

  From squinted eyes she saw a man beside her sleeping on a chair. Anakin?

  No, the man was older, had a small beard attempting to grow on his face and several bags under his eyes. Obi-Wan. In the quiet she noticed how gorgeous he was. A shame the Jedi couldn’t accept relationships, Obi-Wan would have been quite popular. The man alone was with her in the room, although he slept soundly in a chair beside her bed. He really was handsome. So why was she so disappointed that it wasn’t Anakin?

  No! Why should she care about him? Not after he left her in the riot alone!

  Still, she bit the inside of her cheek looking at Obi-Wan when she knew it should have been Anakin waiting for her. Annoying bastard. Where was he, if not next to her? She frowned at the lack of Anakin, now being accustomed to the presence of her personal Jedi. She wanted him. If anything just to yell at him for leaving her.

  Slowly, Obi-Wan began to stir next to her. His heavy eyelids began to shutter open. Exhaustion was etched into his face.

  “You’re awake?” He said in surprise, Though he didn’t look too awake himself.

  “Yes,” she nodded. Her head felt like hell but she was awake. A painful throbbing came from the right side of her head. Weird.

  Regardless, her eyes darted back to Obi-Wan who went from tired to shocked to confused. His mind was racing a million kilometres an hour while hers barely dragged along.

  “That’s um,” Obi-Wan fumbled over his words. could tell his thoughts were “annoying.”

  “Annoying?” She pursed her lips, raising a curious brow.

  “What? No, well yes. But it’s good you’re awake.” He quickly corrected.

  “It just complicates things.” He whispered under his breath. “Do you remember what happened?”

  “No,” she lied.

  She did remember it. She remembered the clawing at her clothes, the ripping at her earrings, the tearing of flesh. She had been awake for it all. Lifting a hand up to her earlobes, where she felt the scabbing of what would soon to be scar tissue.

  When did she pass out? It hadn’t been long after Anakin had rescued her. Though to call it a rescue would assume he didn’t abandon her in the beginning. Speaking of her terrible bodyguard, where was he?

  “Where is Anakin?” She cringed. Okay, not as natural as she would like.

  She wasn’t the only one as at the mention of his name Obi-Wan seemed to physically recoil.

  “Anakin is,” words continued to fail him. “Indisposed right now.”

  “Indisposed?” She repeated the doubt in Obi-Wan’s voice.

  It took a moment for Obi-Wan to open his mouth again. Lies formed and died on his lips as she could see him contemplate his next sentence.

  “Padme,” his voice took a sombre tone. “I have to suggest that you stay away from Anakin.”

  “Why?” Her brows furrowed.

  “Anakin is not suitable to act as your security. He is untrained, immature and does not understand the finer aspects of democracy. If you wish to have a Jedi escort, then the order can provide one. One with actual training.” The words came out of his mouth like a script.

  “Is that the real reason? Or just what your higher-ups told you to say?”

  “No, the truth is that you two are addicts. Addicted to each other.”

  “We are not in love!” She squealed with none of the authority a Senator should have.

  “No, not in love. Addicted. To love is to find a part of you that was missing. To complete you. Anakin isn’t something you are missing, but rather something you want. An excuse.”

  “Excuse me.” She sneered, feeling her heart in her chest, her growing embarrassment dying quickly. Why was she blushing so hard?

  “We all crave what we can’t have. To the poor, it’s wealth. To the lonely, it’s love,” His own eyes fell to his own palms. His fingers caressing an invisible hand he couldn’t hold. “To the rich… what can you give those who have everything?”

  His eyes flicked to her.

  “The answer is still the same. A Princess, forced to be perfect, a woman trapped in a tower of her own prestige. When suddenly, a knight in rusted, muddied armour arrives. He swears, he drinks, he kills without care. Some CEOS do cocaine, some royalty buy prostitutes, some hire their addiction as a bodyguard in order to drag her away from that pristine tower of perfectionism.”

  “Anakin is in his most vulnerable state right now, the last thing he needs is someone who enables him for her own entertainment.” He continued, cold blue eyes stared at her own.

  “How dare you,” The air left her mouth as a whisper, but the anger clung onto her words.

  “It’s not all your fault. Even Jedi understand temptation. However, this for your own good.”

  “My own good?” She scoffed. “Keeping the one person who keeps me safe is a strange way to do that.”

  “Does he?” Obi-Wan bit back. “He’s taken advantage of you, Padme. He claimed to protect you but when you needed him, he wasn’t there. How many scars will it take for you to learn that some people just exist to hurt?

  What did he mean by that? His eyes were focused on her face, quite common during a conversation. Yet, the way his eyes lingered on a certain part spoke of an unuttered sentence. There was more he didn’t want to say.

  Her hands darted to the clock next to her. Her interest in the reflection rather than the time. In hindsight it would’ve been smarter just to have let her curiosity die.

  Her face was ruined. No, that wasn’t exactly the case. She wasn’t horribly scarred, a far cry from any sort of disfigurement. However, she did have a long scar running from the right side of her forehead down to her cheek. It was hideous. What used to be her chef-d'oeuvr was now a wisp of what it once was. She was no idiot, she knew deep down in her heart that most people voted for her because she was gorgeous. It was why she spent hours before the mirror, why she spent abhorrent amounts of wealth on exclusive brands. That is all gone now. People might claim it didn’t matter. But she knew she was ruined. It would be a miracle if she won the next election now. She was cracked now.

  “I know you think Anakin is a good person deep down, someone capable of change… I’m afraid you’ve been misled.” Obi-Wan continued. His voice carrying an annoying sense of pity.

  “Get out.”

  “Padme,” the Jedi gave a pained sigh.

  “Please.”

  “Padme,” he whispered once again. Despite his protest, he tiredly pushed himself back up, wobbling slightly on not yet awoken legs. “Leave him alone. It’s for the best of both of you.”

  With that he left her alone to bury her head in her sheet.

  “That wasn’t honest of you.” Plo Koon said watching as Obi-Wan came out of the Naboo Senators room worse for wear. The Kel Dor had been waiting patiently outside the room, carefully watching as the masses walked by. He probably should have just let Obi-Wan walk by him, but the young man looked worse then he ever had before. Where was the rebellious brat Qui-Gon had taken in?

  “The ‘best for the both of you’, part.” He continued, taking a moment to approach Obi-Wan. The man reeked, even for human standards.

  Not unsurprisingly, between the riots and own personal issues the poor man was being stretched thin. He was a ghost of the man he used to be. What would his Master think of his old Padawan had he still been alive? Would he be angry at his failures to keep Anakin from the Darkside, or would he pity the tired man forced to choose between dunking his hand in boiling water or fire. The Kel Dor couldn’t help but think the kindest thing to do would be to ship him off to the far rim where he could finally get some sleep. The Jedi which Plo Koon loved were slowly dying, the people he had saved time and time again were now outside the temple walls screaming for him to be punished for a crime he didn’t commit.

  “It was for her own good.” Obi-Wan scowled, annoyance radiating off him.

  The fact that Plo Koon had intentionally ambushed him clearly was not doing much to help his mood after dealing with the Senator. In Plo Koon’s experience, Senators were by far the worst part of being a Jedi. Give him a hundred pirates and he would still have more fun than an afternoon guarding a pretentious slob at a Senate meeting.

  Regardless, Obi-Wan took a moment to steady himself before continuing.

  “You felt him. He fell to the Dark Side, he is no longer the boy he was.”

  “Perhaps,” Plo Koon admitted, thinking back to the boy. Was the Dark Side always so thick? Obi-Wan was the only one who had ever fought a Sith, he knew the Dark Side better than most senior Jedi.

  What a cruel sensation it was. A cold fire was perhaps the best description, it didn’t make sense. But then again, that probably was the intention. The Dark Side wasn’t meant to make sense, it was unnatural. A perversion of nature. Just standing near Anakin had felt like he was standing before a wildfire with tongues of the heat turning icy upon licking his skin. So much emotion… yet so cold all at the same time. The Dark Side truly was strange.

  “Although, last time I checked, people don’t slaughter their way through a riot just for anyone. In desperate times, even the Jedi are not without fault. If he hadn’t intervened, she would be dead, made into a martyr by the very people who trampled her to death.”

  “He could have done it with the Light!” Obi-Wan cried. “He didn’t have to fall!”

  That was the true tragedy of it all. Kill a man in single combat before an adoring crowd and be hailed a hero. Kill the same man with poison or while he sleeps and you shall never be able to wash away the shame. A lesson the Jedi are taught when the lesson on how to kill finally comes up.

  All Jedi are taught to kill. In their line of work it was unavoidable, a fact that all Jedi would have to accept. The diplomatic approach, while always sought, is rarely the one people prefer. Especially the Republic Senators who are starting to treat Plo Koon more and more as some sort of hired hitman rather than a Jedi. Still, when a Jedi kills, they must do it following a code of honour.

  To kill to protect, to do it with honour, and to always seek to disarm first.

  The crime of Anakin wasn’t his massacre, but rather his method. The Dark Side. So feared, so unknown, so easy to villainise.

  “He saved the girl.” Plo Koon tilted his head.

  “He doomed himself!”

  Ah, there it was. The truth of it. In saving Anakin’s loved one, he had forced Obi-Wan to lose his.

  “I promised Qui-Gon I would protect him, now he sits in a cell waiting to be executed.” Obi-Wan looked at him with such hatred Plo Koon worried. The Human Jedi looked at him with such a mixture of emotions it made the Kel Dor’s head swirl. It wasn’t like Obi-Wan to lose control of his emotions so easily.

  “He is likely to just be imprisoned, the Republic, while fond of its executions. Not the Jedi.” Plo tried calming him, yet when the words left his mouth, he couldn’t help but wince. That didn’t come out right.

  “Not helping.”

  “I suppose not.” He admitted.

  “You’ll have to pardon me, Master. I have to figure out how to keep my promise to my Master whilst not committing treason.” Obi-Wan left without a word, taking his stressful and confusing emotions with him.

  Some part of him wished he could tell him it would be alright. Yet, a liar was something he wasn’t. Qui-Gon, why did you have to die? The man would be loving this, seeing the Jedi get cornered by the people, cheekily whispering that he was right all along. Admittedly, Plo Koon hadn’t always seen eye to eye with the man. He was too fond of his criticism of the Jedi, often going out of his way to spite the council, leading to more work than necessary.

  Plo Koon’s eyes fell to the doo,r which kept the woman who had turned the people against the Jedi, who turned the child believed to be the Chosen One to the Dark Side. Who, admittedly, would be better off dead.

  This woman was the cause of all the Jedi’s problems. Her death would certainly be an easy solution, after all, she was the face of this anti-Jedi movement. How easy would it be to tell the public she died in the riot?

  Too easy. That was the problem; Plo Koon would never kill an innocent woman in cold blood. But, the Jedi are a far cry from the pure image that the public was led to believe. At least, what they used to believe. Nowadays, the Jedi would struggle to walk down a street without getting spat on. How the mighty do fall.

  Without Anakin, the Nabooian Senator’s vulnerability was just too alluring. A shame, Plo Koon would have liked to speak to Anakin one last time. He would have to visit him in prison, the most likely outcome of this sham trial.

  May the Force be with you, Anakin; he would need it.