Byss [galaxy far, far away and NFB]

[sith_happened]

First there was only light: bright, beautiful, incandescent light. It surrounded him, and bound him, and held the universe together.

I am.

Then there was awareness. He was everywhere and everything--he was grains of sand on Tatooine and drops of water in a lake on Naboo, he was the trees on Endor and the metal sneer on the Emperor's mouth as his statue crashed to the ground on Imperial Center.

...But that wasn't entirely right.

I am...Anakin Skywalker.

He reached out, trying to see his son's face, to hear his daughter's laughter more clearly...and touched glass. And Force knew Obi-Wan's ghost had been fastidious about sitting down when he'd visited, but Anakin was fairly certain that he wasn't supposed to be able to feel things quite this obviously.

He opened his eyes.

And found himself floating in a Spaarti cloning cylinder. There was only one place in the galaxy where there had been a clone left of his old body.

Byss.

One of the most intensely Dark Side planets in the galaxy.

I am Anakin Skywalker...and I am so, so screwed.

[OOC: Okay, so I'm a little evil.]

	The man approached the cylinder, cloak flapping behind him in his hurry to check the instrument panel. They had not been told to prepare for Vader’s arrival, and the first time someone shifted into a new body was always incredibly disorienting for them. He confirmed that the clone was indeed waking up, then reached for his comlink and murmured a few orders. There had been former Jedi who had wreaked havoc in the cloning center upon waking and discovering where they were and what they were expected to become. Vader'd always wielded too much influence on Imperial Center as the Emperor's apprentice and had been entirely too powerful a Jedi before he'd been turned. If this new version needed to be killed for the greater good of the Empire, well, this Dark Jedi wouldn’t be shedding any tears over it. He stared up into the blue eyes of the man in front of him and pasted on his most diplomatic and bland smile. “Welcome back, Lord Vader."
	In a matter of minutes, Anakin was pulled from the cylinder and led towards the medclinic for a complete check-up. He followed the man in front of him—one of the Emperor's Dark Jedi acolytes, no one else would be trusted to be monitoring the most important of the the Emperor’s secret cloning facilities—and kept his eyes lowered as he reviewed his options. The positive: he was alive, he was whole--something that was made amazingly, beautifully obvious every time his bare foot touched the metal floor--and he remembered all of his training. The negative: he was without clothing or weapons, and he was trapped on a planet clouded by the Dark Side in the middle of the Deep Core, surrounded by enemies who still believed he was Darth Vader. Another man would have been worried by those kinds of odds. But that wouldn't be Anakin.
	After the man read the results of the tests--medically fine, mentally...unreadable, which was strange--he handed over a set of Jedi robes. "No weapons, Lord Vader," he said, bowing his head. "Procedures, you see." Then he waited to see what the reaction would be.
	Anakin raised an eyebrow, knowing exactly how Darth Vader would have reacted. The man would be gasping, then dead on the floor. He wasn't Vader any longer. But he couldn't get out of this place without a weapon. "You dare to deny me anything?" he asked in a low voice. And almost jumped at the sound of it. It had been years since he'd heard it.
	The Dark Jedi shrugged. "As I said. Procedures."
	"And you think procedures apply to me?" Anakin asked, stepping closer and looming. He'd finally figured out how he would get out of this. He was even sure that Aeryn would approve of the plan. But he'd need help. He reached into the Force, searching for his son. LUKE! he cried, then projected exact coordinates for how to get to Byss. He smiled down at the Dark Jedi before him, all teeth, no humor. "I shall require a weapon," he said, then moved, lightning fast. A second later he was holding a green lightsaber in his right hand and the galaxy was short another evil man. "Think I'll use yours," he concluded.
	Though the celebration swirled around him, Luke had spent the better part of the night staring into the fire and brooding. When anyone asked why he wasn't as giddy as the rest of them, he blamed exhaustion, which wasn't a lie. His vision still doubled when he wasn't paying strict attention, but he thought the meddroids had enough to deal with without him coming in complaining about being a little electrocuted. So he sat and tried to process what he'd been through. He'd have to return to Fandom soon, and he wasn't even close to ready to figure out how to tell Aeryn and Rory what had happened. That Anakin was...gone. Intellectually, he knew that his father was part of the Force now and would be with him always, like Ben was. It was cold comfort. He'd give almost anything to hear Anakin's voice again. Which, typically, was when he heard his father's shout. Luke fell off of the log he'd been sitting on with an ungraceful thunk.
	Leia glanced over at him. "What's the matter?" she asked. Our dead father just called to me through the Force. But I'm not insane. Really. Even if I was turned into the human spark plug three hours ago. "Nothing," Luke replied quickly. "But I need to borrow the shuttle." "That doesn't sound like nothing," she said quietly. Luke stood up carefully, trying not to weave or pass out or do anything else that would send him immediately to the clinic. "Jedi thing," he said, kissing her cheek. "I'll tell you all about it later." She looked anything but convinced. "Take Artoo," she demanded. "And call me." Luke smiled. "I will." He ran towards the landing area, pausing frequently to catch his breath. It had been a very, very long day.
	Anakin hadn't expected the death of the Dark Jedi to go unnoticed. Unfortunately for them, Stormtroopers hadn't gotten any better at being able to stop a motivated Skywalker. Anakin cut through them without pausing for breath, then made his way back towards the cloning cylinders while reinforcements were being called in. This was Byss, he reminded himself as he went racing down the halls. So the Emperor's clones were kept to the right. And would be guarded by more than Stormtroopers. He shrugged. His life was a small price to pay if it meant the Emperor wouldn't keeping reappearing like the cockroach he resembled.
	Sly Moore, as director of the cloning facility, had been notified immediately when Vader had woken up. When the klaxons began wailing to warn the building about the unsuccessful conversion, she wasn't terribly surprised. Flanked by two Dark Jedi acolytes, she stepped out of the shadows in front of Anakin. "You've always been difficult," she said.
	Anakin's eyes flashed. "This ends now," he replied. "All of it."
	Sly chuckled. "Just like that?" she asked. "The mighty Anakin Skywalker has decided how the galaxy should fall into place." Her amusement disappeared abruptly. "I think not." She waved her hand at Anakin, then turned to the acolytes. "Kill him."
	This is not a problem, Anakin chanted to himself. Even though the lightsaber felt strange in his hand, he was three inches shorter than he'd been an hour ago, and he hadn't thought about his old style of lightsaber combat in twenty years. He lifted the weapon into his old ready stance, then attacked. He was...a little rusty.
	An Anakin Skywalker who needed a little practice was still enough of a challenge for the two Jedi who faced off against him. They circled and parried, giving Sly Moore a chance to retreat, then did their best to kill him.
	Anakin was holding his own until the Stormtroopers arrived. They distracted him just enough for one of the dark Jedi to get his lightsaber under Anakin's defenses and leave a burning gash down his face. Anakin swore. "Now you're making me mad," he said, increasing the fury of his attack. And hoped that Luke was getting close. He wasn't going to be able to keep this tempo up forever.
	Luke, as it happened, had just reached planetary orbit. He checked his readouts, then turned to Artoo, looking very confused. "This is Byss," he said. "Isn't this where all of the Alderaanian refugees ended up? It's a resort planet. Why would he want us to come here?" Artoo let out a worried whistle. "I have a bad feeling about this," he said. The comm chirped as the bureaucrat groundside demanded to know his intentions. Luke blew out a breath, remembering the hasty instructions his father had left him with, then did his best Han Solo imitation. "I'm heading for the cloning facility. They are expecting me." ...he hoped. Luke waited for the okay from the planetary officials, then repeated the landing coordinates they had given him. "Here we go," Luke said, taking the shuttle down.
	Anakin tilted his head, listening to a nudge from the Force, then gave the two Dark Jedi in front of him a small smile. "My ride's here." He reached into the Force and tipped the first Spaarti cylinder over. It tumbled into the one next to it with a loud crash. The second one hit the third, which tilted towards the fourth. Anakin's smile got wider. "I'd start moving, if I were you," he said, then knocked over half the remaining cylinders with a giant Force push. The snapping wires sparked an electrical fire. "This whole place is going to blow in, oh, five minutes or so," he concluded conversationally.
	Luke brought the shuttle down smoothly on the landing platform. "This doesn't make any sense," he told Artoo. "Why am I here? Is this some kind of dead Jedi prank?" He peered out the window. "It doesn't even look that evil." Which was the cue for the building in front of him to explode. Luke's eyes went wide with shock.
	Anakin came stalking out the door, seemingly unaffected by the destruction behind him.
	Luke glanced at the man coming out of the building. Then blinked and shook his head. His eyes had to be deceiving him...there was no way that could be...he was so young...and that scar... Luke open the shuttle doors, raced outside and stood gaping. "Father?"
	Anakin's eyes lit up as he came closer. "Luke," he said, "I think I've overstayed my welcome."
	He's alive. He's alive. Luke let out a slightly hysterical giggle as something else inside the building blew up. "Maybe a little," he said, waving a hand towards the shuttle. "Where do you want to go?"
	It wasn't even a question. Home. "Fandom," Anakin answered immediately, putting a tentative hand on his son's shoulder. "Let's go home."