Chapter Text
The feeling of wrongness in the Force permeates the air everywhere here, but what strikes Darth Vader most is how familiar it is. He felt this feeling once, only years ago.
A lifetime ago. It hadn't truly been him who felt this. It was Anakin.
He knows what this disturbance in the Force is, and he knows what it means. But it doesn't make any sense. They killed Abeloth during the Clone Wars. It had been shortly after Mortis when she broke out of wherever she was, freed after the death of the Ones. But they had stopped her.
So, why does he sense her now somewhere close?
The planet houses an Imperial facility, and people have been dying everywhere at random, until almost the entire base was obliterated. Vader was in the area, and Sidious sent him to investigate the cause.
The Dark Side burns through him, eagerly lapping up his constant pain and anger and hatred – he no longer thinks he's capable of feeling anything else. He doesn't need to feel anything else, to be a Sith. (So why does he still want to?) He crosses the ground swiftly, towards where he can feel it strongest, drawing the Force to him. He always has to move fast – or he'll never want to keep moving again. If he stops, or starts walking too fast, there's a very high risk he'll offset his balance and snap his leg off.
It's only been two years since... everything happened, and he's still adjusting to being like this – this thing. If that's even possible.
(He doesn't actually know what he looks like. Doesn't want to. But he knows he looks like the monster he is.)
The Force suddenly surges, and a creature starts rising out of the ground in front of him. She's squid-like and creamed colored, with long tentacles extending from her body instead of limbs and hair.
Her presence screams with wrongness in the Force, the same way it did a lifetime ago. It feels as though he's in a time loop, reliving something that's bringing back his past when he least wants it.
(Especially when this time, he's here to face it alone. Last time –) But before, he never had the Dark Side as his ally.
"You," Abeloth hisses, swinging a tentacle for him, and he activates his lightsaber in a flash, slashing at it. Drawing the Force to him, he hurls her back. She skids across the ground... at least a short distance.
The Force whips around her violently, crashing into him, throwing him back before he can stop it. He hits the ground painfully, instantly trying to clammer back to his feet, but it's nearly painful enough to make him stop breathing entirely – not that that would be his choice, but it's taking a moment too long.
"You were gone," Vader intones, as he drags himself back to his feet, sensing more than seeing her advance. (His eyes don't work the way they used to, anymore.)
"I was," she agrees, voice coming out more as a hiss, "And now I am not. The galaxy will burn for what they have done to me, and this time, you will not stop me."
Vader draws the Force to him again, ready to lunge forwards, except she tries to throw him again. He instantly delves into the Force to block it, deeper than he's done in a long time – and now, he doesn't have to worry about his heart stopping from the strain of it, not that he would care if it did. He can feel her fighting back against it, and for all that he may be more powerful in the Force, she's still unquestionably more skilled. She's had millennia to learn, after all.
Both of them go flying, and he lands on his back again, smothering the strangled cry that nearly escapes him. But Abeloth is already in motion, leaping for him. Before he can stand, she's towering over him, trying to pin him down with the Force.
Fear and anger claw through him as he struggles against the hold – he's not this weak. He will not fail to destroy this creature. He cannot fail his master. Ever. How is she even alive? It was pure chance when they defeated her before.
Obi-Wan had –
No. He banishes those thoughts harshly from mind. Memories of lava and fire and never-ending agony white out everything, the moment he even thinks that name. Sometimes, it feels like he's always trapped in that moment, always. Forever. He'll never be free of it, and the pain sparking sharply through his back only reminds of then. Of the fire crawling across him, as he reached out blindly for –
For the help that would never come. The betrayal was even more choking than how he couldn't draw in a single breath as was. Couldn't hear his own scream past the unimaginable pain, and –
The Force latches around him, holding him down. He shouldn't have let himself get distracted.
"You have changed," Abeloth observes, "I can feel your pain, your hate. You did not feel of this before."
"Anakin Skywalker is dead," he hisses. It's what Sidious tells him over and over, and... It's true. Anakin was good. Even if he was also weak.
Vader is a monster, a – a thing. And powerful. (Power that wasn't strong enough to save Padme or his children. Power that wasn't enough for Obi-Wan to even care to grant him the mercy of death. Power that wasn't enough for him to know if Ahsoka or Rex survived.)
"You know the true pain of loss," she continues, ignoring his remark.
He snarls, lashing out violently, enough to push her back, but standing up is far more painful. It's as angering as it is shameful that he knows he's only... able to get upright now because she's not actively fighting him. "You know nothing of me."
"I know you lost everything that made your life worth living," she replies, "I do not come to mock you. I know that pain. And I will spread it to the galaxy. Join me, and you can release your hatred. Together, we can watch the galaxy burn."
For all the anger and grief vibrating through him, every moment of every second, feeling like it's burning what's left of him inside out, he could almost be tempted. But what purpose would that serve? He is loyal to the Empire, to his master. He does not destroy senselessly. Even Sidious would never stoop to such a level. "No," Vader replies harshly.
"So be it," she snarls, suddenly furious again, "I do not need your help. I will do it alone as I always have, as you discard your chance to not be alone." With a snarl, she sinks back into the ground, though he knows she's only twisting forms somehow with the Force – he has no idea how – until there's nothing left.
It leaves him feeling oddly shaken – he's not faced an opponent he can't defeat as Vader. Except his master – both of them – but that's different. (He harshly shakes the memory of that lightning crackling across his already raw skin, only moments after the surgery had been over. He can't look at his master without remembering that and... other such moments, anymore.)
And he failed to defeat Abeloth. His master will not be pleased.
What's worse is he doesn't know how they will defeat her. But he has done the impossible before. She will find he is not as easy to injure and manipulate as Anakin may have been. She will not escape. She cannot.
"You discard your last chance to not be alone..."
***
"The situation is serious," Master Nema reports over the hologram. Anakin listens to the information, more than a little disturbed. He's never heard of anything like this before, of all the major threats they've encountered throughout the war. It shouldn't be possible.
"And you believe this may be connected to the disturbance we sensed?" Windu presses.
"I do."
That... explains the severity of it, to a point. Shortly after Mortis, everyone sensed a massive disturbance in the Force, but they haven't seen anything out of the ordinary, until right now.
Master Nema has found countless cities dead or missing with few survivors on the planet she's on, trying to give the people relief supplies after the Republic just re-took control of their planet. Anakin has no idea what could be causing this, but it's... beyond strange, especially considering that, on the planet, the Force apparently feels wrong.
"Go there immediately, and see what you can find, Skywalker," Windu orders, "You are the closest reinforcements we can send her."
Anakin offers a "yes, master" before the connection breaks. That explains why they thought it important enough to pull him off Umbara, even if he doesn't like leaving his men like that. Still, whatever this threat is... If it's able to affect the Force so strongly, it may play a far bigger role than winning Umbara ever could. He just hopes his boys will be alright.
"Why would someone be attacking those villages?" Ahsoka wonders, braid swishing by her lekku, as they head to a shuttle, preparing to leave. Unless needed otherwise, they'll just go alone. He'd rather leave all the troops he can on Umbara for now.
"It may be... something the Separatists left behind," Anakin muses. They do things like that often enough.
"But why would it make the Force feel wrong?" Ahsoka objects.
And that is a question neither of them can answer. Something is very wrong here, and they must find out what as soon as possible.
***
Anakin senses the sheer wrongness in the Force as soon as they're coming down through the atmosphere, towards the site of the latest... deaths.
Most of the area has been reduced to smoldering ash, some of the buildings partly destroyed, but it's obviously not droid damage. Anakin can't quite say what it is, except that it looks like senseless slaughter. The Force feels wrong though, and he reaches out, trying to see if he can determine why. It feels like – there's something here that shouldn't exist, and that doesn't make sense because he's never sensed anything like it before.
"It really does feel wrong," Ahsoka mutters, lips pursed in a frown, "Like it shouldn't exist."
"Yes," Anakin agrees,
But the Jedi waiting for them isn't Nema. It's... a familiar, young, black-haired Zabrak.
He hasn't seen her in two years, but he still remembers her. "Mill?" Anakin asks, surprised.
"Master," Mill greets, perking up, a small smile crossing her face. She's grown a lot, he notes. She's not the same little youngling she once was, even if she's still small.
"This is my padawan, Ahsoka. Ahsoka, this is... Mill Alibeth. We met on my first mission after I was Knighted." He still remembers when she'd helped him save Obi-Wan on Cato Neimoidia. And most of all, he remembers her last words to him.
"You don't always have to be the sun-dragon." The sun dragon that's powerful enough to protect everyone.
Ahsoka nods. "What's going on here?"
"Master Nema and I showed up after the last attack," Mill replies, turning away, leading them through the collapsing structures, "We were delivering relief supplies when we heard the rumors of it." A small frown tugs at her lips. "I keep feeling death, but we never get there fast enough."
She's always been good at picking up on emotions, and Anakin knows it must be... hard for her to be in this kind of violence. For Anakin, he's just used to it. He always has been – he never lived anywhere where there wasn't violence. "Where is your master?" he asks.
"She's helping evacuate the survivors. I can take you there," Mill offers, and they hurry off in search of her.
Anakin doesn't know why he has such a bad feeling about this. It feels like something is about to go very wrong.
From the way Mill keeps glancing around, he thinks she can feel likewise. She suddenly stumbles a step, pressing a hand to her head.
"What is it?" Anakin asks, urgently.
"Something is wrong. With Master Nema."
"Where is she?" Ahsoka demands, and they bolt, desperately weaving their way in between the buildings. The tension in the Force is steadily growing with each passing moment. It feels like the universe is running backwards, centered in one particular spot.
They finally come to an abrupt stop in the middle of some buildings where people still are, to see Mill's master just standing there. Something about the perfect normalcy of the gesture instantly sets Anakin on edge, though he can't say why.
"Master?" Mill asks, moving closer.
"I see you've brought the reinforcements," she comments. Why does her tone sound so strange?
From the odd look on the youngling's face, Anakin can tell that she feels likewise. He throws a silent, warning glance to Ahsoka, cautioning her to be careful. "What is the situation?" Anakin inquiries, anyway. It feels like there's someone else here, someone unimaginably powerful, but he doesn't see anyone.
"I would have thought Mill already updated you on that," she responds, turning away.
All three of them look at each other, oddly.
"Are you... alright?" Mill asks uncertainly, taking a few steps towards her.
And that's when the danger in the Force flares.
Anakin doesn't even have a second to yell in warning, before a Force blast catches them, hurling them back. It wraps around their necks before they have the chance to get back up, a strange un-human cackle escaping Nema.
"What – are you doing –" rasps Ahsoka, and –
Anakin has no idea what's happening to the Jedi Master, but he has to stop this. They can't be about to die here and now like this. Anakin struggles to gather the Force to him, despite the stars starting to swim in front of his eyes from lack of oxygen. He lashes out half-wildly at her, slamming a Force-wave into her as hard as he can, but her grip only falters for a moment.
But at least it's one moment long enough.
That somehow scares him more than anything else, as he lands unceremoniously on his knees on the ground, next to the other two. Because, of course, there are Jedi Masters far more skilled than he is, but in terms of sheer power he's never... faced one who's able to so easily counter him, as though it were nothing.
Not that he's ever tried either, but something about how she's using the Force feels strangely unnatural.
Nema laughs again, raising her hands, and the buildings around them suddenly start crumbling and collapsing.
What?!
Mill's eyes widen in shock, and Ahsoka instantly whips out her lightsabers, lunging forwards. Anakin reaches out with the Force, trying to stop the damage, but it's too widespread, and he can feel the lives rapidly disappearing into the Force as the structures collapse, crushing the people inside. And what?!
Is this how the place was destroyed?! But that doesn't make any sense!
"What are you doing?" Ahsoka demands, stalking towards her.
Anakin would, too, except he's trying to keep the buildings from collapsing, and it's requiring more focus than he can –
"They will know the pain of loss," Nema snaps, any amusement on her face suddenly gone.
"... What?" Mill asks, wide-eyed with shock and confusion.
"And so will you." Nema lets out another loud cackle, before suddenly collapsing to the ground, motionless.
"Master!" Mill cries, sprinting to her side. Ahsoka instantly joins her, although a little more warily, keeping her lightsabers ignited in case of an immediate attack.
Slowly, Anakin tries to disentangle the half-way suspended buildings, lowering them to the ground, before hurrying to join them.
Nema isn't moving. She feels... totally lifeless. Dead. Gone.
And he has absolutely no idea what just killed her, but memories of Ahsoka being mind-controlled on Mortis rise unbidden to mind. That's exactly what it was like, ending the exact same way.
Why does he suddenly have the very bad feeling there might be a connection between Mortis and this, even though he has absolutely no idea what such a connection could entail?
"She's gone," Anakin says quietly, checking again for a pulse and finding nothing.
"But..." Mill's voice shakes slightly. "How? What –"
"I don't know," he replies, softly, reaching out to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. As if that would be enough. "I do not understand what happened, but there is something more to this. She was not in her right mind."
"Like... Mortis," Ahsoka agrees, a slight twitch in her expression as she obviously remembers... that. It wasn't easy for her afterwards, knowing she had tried to kill Anakin and was helpless to stop herself. But she'd had to learn to trust herself again quickly. There was no other way, in war.
Mill is still sitting in shock, frozen. The pain is too sharp and sudden to fully sink in yet, and it hurts, to see her like this. She was so... innocent, once. So was Ahsoka, though. That always changes with time, especially with the war.
The Force suddenly surges with warning again, and Anakin's on his feet instantly, except he doesn't see anything. He feels it instead. A nearly smothering, powerful presence – it's not as strong as the Ones, but it's still somewhere close – suddenly slams into his mental shields.
He staggers back a step from the attack, a strangled, surprised noise escaping him. The attack hits him again, throwing him to his knees – literally – as he struggles to force it back, drawing as strongly on the Force as he can.
He has no idea what this thing is or what it's trying to do to him, but if anything, it feels like it's wrapping around his presence, trying to rip it out.
"Master!" he hears Ahsoka yell, panicked, but it sounds far away.
The presence clawing at his mind feels bitter and angry and hurt at once. It feels of the Dark Side too, but at the same it's not all that. Not only, at least.
Not that he has the mind to analyze anything right now, as he struggles to fight it off. His vision is whiting out from the pain of it, but he keeps stubbornly forcing it back, no matter how many times it pushes against him, struggling to break through.
And then, finally – he has no idea how long it's been – the presence pulls back.
But the danger isn't gone, because he can still feel it twisting violently close, even if the mere act of opening his eyes hurts too much. His head is pounding like someone split it in half with a lightsaber. Or maybe like it's on fire.
He hears the sound of buildings collapsing and shattering again, and that's enough to force his eyes open anyway, in spite of how difficult that is. Everything around them is collapsing and crumbling, and an invisible force flings him and the other two into one of the collapsing structures.
Anakin lashes out instinctively with the Force, wrapping it as a shield around all three of them before they can be crushed. He feels them falling, feels the force of debris hitting his Force shield, but through sheer stubbornness he keeps it up strongly.
Finally, everything starts to settle, and he feels a hand gripping his arm. His body hurts everywhere, somehow, and voices are still filtering in from a million miles away.
He can feel something being lifted off him with the Force. "Master?" Ahsoka calls again.
Anakin blinks, opening his eyes to take in the dark surroundings. Ahsoka's feather-like touch brushes against his forehead for a moment before she pulls back. Mill and the Togruta are crouched next to him, faces pinched will worry.
"Are you alright?" Mill queries, shakily.
He tries to push himself up, but pain spears through his side – where some piece of debris hit him hard – and he slumps back to the floor. It's his head that's really making it hard to move, though. "We must find a way out of here."
"What was that?" the Zabrak asks.
"I do not know. It is of the Dark Side, but not... a Sith." At least he doesn't think it is.
"The building fell on us," Ahsoka points out bluntly, glancing around, "We'll have to dig our way out without crushing ourselves instead."
Anakin reaches out with the Force, nudging at the structure – but what hits him full force instead is the death that surrounds them. They need to be out there helping, not trapped in here. "We may do it, carefully."
They work on nudging the structure together, pushing it back enough to allow sunlight to stream in. Ahsoka gives him a hand, helping him to his feet. He has little desire to lean so much of his weight on her as they clammer back out into the open, but there's nothing else he can do right now. The pain in his head is likely going to take quite some time to go away.
He doesn't feel that sheer wrongness in the Force so strongly out here anymore, so whatever that being was seems to be gone... at least for the moment. Ahsoka helps him to a sitting position on the ground – even if he definitely has no desire for that either – crouching next to him. "What do we do now?"
"We must report to the Council."
"We don't even know what that was," Mill reiterates, and he doesn't miss the slight shake in her voice. Her master just died. And she's...
Anakin reaches out, gently taking her hand. She squeezes it back, tightly, and he can feel her pain spike. "We will be fine. So long as we are together."
It's an echo of the same words Obi-Wan said on Mortis. He can only hope that it's true.
***
Forget them being fine if they're together. Once, Anakin had been foolish enough to believe there was such a thing as family for him at all. Any memory of the past whatsoever is gutting – it's easier to think of it detached, as a lifetime another lived. It's true, anyway.
Vader pushes the thoughts of Ahsoka – and Mill – from mind, as he crouches in front of the hologram, to call his master. Kneeling like this is nearly agonizing; he's relatively convinced it rips open whatever of his skin is currently extra sensitive, but it's not as if there's anything he can do about that. It'll heal as much as it can when he's put in bacta again.
(What he would do to feel something other than the rough cold of his metal and leather armor, or the bacta around him.)
"If this is truly her, you must find her and destroy her," Sidious orders, when Vader finishes explaining the situation. He seems more taken by surprise at the development than anything else.
"It will be done, my master," he replies, dutifully.
Except now, he doesn't know where to start. There's nothing he can do until Abeloth chooses to reveal herself again. Or... yes, there is.
Letting his pain and fear and anger and hate fuel him, drown him, he sinks deep into the Force, reaching for that point of sheer wrongness in the Force, letting the Dark Side lead him to where it is. He can feel her anger at being found, but he pushes forwards anyway, pinpointing her spot. She'll be gone by the time he gets there, but at least it gives him a lead on where to start.
Vader doesn't wait, instantly heading to where he sensed her. From there, tracking the more recent traces of her Force signature is far easier.
He is well-aware of her ability to generate avatars of herself – and mind control people – to throw him off her tail, but he follows the Force's nudging on where to go and what to do. She's trying to escape the planet now, and he doesn't know which of the fleeing ships she's on, but he leaves a tracking beacon on each of them, and then, he waits.
Wherever she's going now, he will find her. He will not fail this mission.
Now that he's in his ship, mediating alone, he can't shake the strange feeling that everything around him is shifting, changing. The return of Abeloth is unnatural, and it's disrupting... whatever it was that was supposed to happen now.
He doesn't know what that means, but something is going to change. (He won't dare say that it feels like something better. He no longer knows the meaning of that. Certainly, he won't dare wish for it.)