Invader Syndrome Ch. 73 (Star Wars AU) (Patreon)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: The truth.

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How long had it been? She knew not. All she truly knew was that she was terribly, horribly alone. Her entire existence, she’d had her father and brother at her side. For all his abrasiveness, her brother had been her brother and she had loved him just as much as she’d loved her father.

But they were gone now. And she was all alone. She was-

“I see now why this universe is the way it is. It happened long before I arrived, didn’t it?”

Ashla raises her head to find that in her sorrow and despair; she has missed the arrival of another. She is no longer alone… but the one who has come upon her is strange. He should not Be.

Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One, looks down at her with a frown on his face, as if studying her carefully. However, his eyes are the yellow-orange of her brother’s ilk and he feels as he should have become in the future… Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith.

“My memories of this place were locked away until now. But coming back here, arriving on Mortis… I find myself whole once more. I remember everything that happened the first time around… and yet, nothing like that happened in this universe. Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka Tano never visited Mortis in this universe. Or rather… they never got the chance to.”

His words only confuse her further, so Ashla reaches out for understanding. It comes in fits and starts, her own power rebelling against her, fighting her every step of the way. Darth Vader grunts as he’s forced to take a step back the more power she draws upon, the very air itself shaking and trembling with her exertion.

Finally… she Understands. Her eyes narrow as she looks at the Sith Lord before her in an entirely new light.

“You do not belong here.”

He does not have to ask what she means by that. Nor is he under the mistaken impression that she means the planet they both reside upon. No, when she says ‘here’… she means this reality. He is… out of place and a long way from home.

“I disagree.”

Ashla blinks at his simple refutation of her words. When she looks at him incredulously, more shocked that someone would dare disagree with her statement of fact than anything else, the Sith Lord simply shrugs.

“I was sent here by my Force at the end of a life filled with mistakes and regrets. And I see now that I was sent here because this universe had need of me.”

Ashla scoffs.

“Need of you? This universe has no need of a Chosen One any longer. There is no balance to be maintained. It is broken forevermore.”

Rather than explain himself, Darth Vader looks around for a moment, frown returning to his face.

“Yes. I can see that. You were the Daughter… what happened to the Father and Son?”

A shudder runs through Ashla’s body, her eyes fluttering in agitation. For a moment she wants to turn her vast, endless power onto the Sith Lord in front of him and erase him from existence for even daring to ask such a question. She has no desire to relive the memories.

Except… someone should know, no? It’s been just her for so long now. She’s been so lonely. And now… she isn’t. A part of her rebels at the thought of going back to that state. To that idea of being alone. She must… no, she will let this interloper linger for a while longer.

However, to keep him engaged she must answer his questions, no matter how much she hates to do so.

“… They are gone. Dead. My brother slew our father with the Dagger of Mortis. I slew my brother. What you see before you is the result of these acts of fratricide. I am the Daughter no longer. My brother was not the Son by the time he passed. We were merely Ashla and Bogan… two halves of a whole that can never be made whole again.”

There is more to it than that, of course. She simply doesn’t want to say any of it. Unfortunately, her guest is not inclined to let her keep things simple and short.

“The Dagger of Mortis… but how? In my universe, the Father stabbed himself with the Dagger after you were accidentally killed. It removed the Son’s power, leaving him vulnerable enough for even a mere mortal like me to end him. If the Son killed the Father with it, should not the same thing have happened? A break in connection?”

Ashla purses her lips, forced to think back to that time. How long ago had it even been? Years? Decades? Centuries. She knew not. All time had bled together, until it was nothing but passing moments, one after another. And yet, when she focuses… she remembers everything clearly. Too clearly.

“My brother learned of that. How we were only powerful thanks to our father. He learned of his weakness and found it… intolerable. I know not the details of what he did, but he captured me first, using me to lure our father into a trap. There, he performed a ritual… and used the Dagger of Mortis to carve our father’s power out of him, taking it for himself… and for me.”

Even back then, Bogan had loved her so. Sick and twisted as his love was, he had shown it when he’d slew their father. He had usurped their progenitor… but he had also made sure to bring her with him. No more would their father act as a stopgap between them and their respective power.

Of course, Ashla hadn’t cared that their father stood above them. She had never minded that they were beholden to him above all else. He was their father, after all. She was not grateful to her brother for ‘freeing’ her from their father’s supposed ‘tyranny’. She was simply heartbroken.

“I see… and then you killed him and became like this. Or the other way around, perhaps.”

Ashla lets out a soft laugh at the Sith Lord’s oversimplification of things. And yet, she does not move to correct him. An oversimplification is vastly preferable to him knowing the truth. Because no, it was not as easy as all of that. She did not become like this merely because her brother killed her father. She was not that weak.

In the aftermath of her father’s death, Bogan had ‘freed’ her… but still had her at his mercy. The Dark was ascendant and the Light was waning, and so despite them both being powerful in their own right without their father’s interference for the first time in their existence… her brother was still more powerful than she.

He had used that to keep her contained, and ultimately when she had not ‘come around’ to his way of thinking, he had decided she needed to be ‘persuaded’ to do so. The torture that had followed could have been months or decades, Ashla did not know.

What she did know was that it was relentless and unending… and ultimately all the worse because it was her brother doing it to her. Her brother Bogan, who she had always loved through thick and thin, through his worst rages and largest tantrums. Her brother, who even with the death of her father, she still had loved.

He had broken her, twisted her, and turned her love for him into something Dark. Eventually, after who knew how long, Ashla had succumbed.

Only, it did not give her brother the follower that he wanted. He expected her to join him, to exult with him in their shared Darkness. How could she though? After all that he had done? After what he had made of her? No… Bogan had underestimated the monster he was creating.

Ashla had fallen into rage first over despair, seizing the Dagger of Mortis herself and slaying her brother right then and there. She had killed him and in doing so, become him. But not just him, because he had in turn usurped her father… and so Ashla was the only one left. Broken and twisted and oh so Dark, she was all that remained.

The Dagger of Mortis had disappeared in the aftermath, flowing into her with Bogan’s death. As if its only purpose was to remove two of the three of them from the universe and once one remained, cease to exist as well. Even if she wanted to end herself, she could not. Without the Dagger, she was not powerful enough.

All of this goes through Ashla’s mind in the face of the Sith Lord’s simplification of events. She says none of it though, simply staring at him wordlessly for a long moment before dipping her head.

“… Yes.”

It is all he needs to know. He does not need to know the details of her suffering to understand that her current state is the reason the universe is the way it is. Perhaps that is why the guiding power of his original universe sent this interloper here. To join her and keep her company. Now… is that not an interesting idea?

“You should not remain here.”

… What? Ashla looks at him in blatant confusion. Here is where she must remain. Here is her home.

“This place isn’t healthy for you.”

The very idea is anathema… is it not?

“No… no, I cannot leave. Mortis is where I belong. I am contained here, at the very least.”

But the Sith Lord scoffs at that.

“Contained? Your very corruption has darkened this universe forevermore. The galaxy is shrouded in the Dark… and that shroud can no longer be lifted.”

No… surely… except part of her already knows he’s telling the truth. When she reached out to gain Understanding of Darth Vader himself and his existence, she gained Understanding of the universe as well. He’s right, as loathe as she is to admit it.

“This universe is doomed.”

Her despair is met with a scoff from Darth Vader, and a shake of his head.

“Far from it.”

Staring at him with incredulity, Ashla growls.

“The Light has been extinguished! The Dark is not merely ascendant but has won and will reign supreme forevermore. Are you truly so foolish that you cannot see this is the end of everything, slow and inexorable as it might be?!”

Vader looks back at her… unmoved.

“If there is a fool here, Ashla, it is not me. The Dark is not the end of everything. Not so long as I stand here, ready to fight. You believe that your brother was the only example of the Dark… but he was merely the worst of the Dark. Look at you. Dark though you may be, you have sought no dominion over everything. You have no ambitions.”

Ashla opens her mouth to speak but finds she cannot find the words. Was he trying to argue that her state of languishing in despair was fine, somehow?

A frown spreads across his face even though she hasn’t said anything.

“I can tell I am not explaining myself well. Allow me to show you what I mean then. Allow me to show you what I have accomplished in your universe.”

He steps forward and before she can react, has his hands in hers. Ashla gasps as he draws her to her feet, the first time she’s stood in who knows how long. As she rises, he projects at her, giving her… everything.

She’d already known most of it, of course. It had come with her Understanding. Except only now does Ashla see that her Understanding of Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith… was incomplete. It did not come with HIS feelings and desires. It did not come with his full breadth of emotion.

This… this does. She feels as he felt. She experiences what he experienced from his perspective. His conquest of the galaxy has been swift and uncompromising. He has not hesitated to remove his enemies from the board and take control in the aftermath.

However… in doing so, his intentions are different from those he has acted against. To call them pure would be ridiculous. Even Darth Vader cannot pretend to be pure of heart. And yet… he cares so much more for those around him than the likes of Darth Sidious ever could. His Empire is not for the sake of his vanity and selfish pride as Sidious’ would have been. No, his Empire is because he truly believes it will lead to a stronger future for the galaxy.

She also sees his perspective on the reorganization of the defunct Jedi Order and the Nightsisters. Bringing those who had once touched the Light together with those who had practiced the Dark without malice or hate… or at least, without too much malice or hate.

Darth Sidious had embodied the worst of her brother’s excesses. Darth Vader, meanwhile, embodied the best of her brother’s few moments of clarity. Strength and conviction. An iron will to use his power to better the galaxy as he saw fit.

It’s too bad she can’t let him leave. She refuses to be alone again. She… she needs him here.

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A/N: Remember to Vote, leave a Like, and let me know what you think!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S3dAsmXYz-ZkLreEp0hof9zyKuS3-BproNpfP-3xelQ/edit?tab=t.0