"But I cannot give you this gift, my friend. You must take it. It is all around you, only waiting for you to call it into your control. But you must call it, my friend. You alone."
His Master's voice was barely a whisper as he leaned in close, his finger raking a line through the blood on Luke's cheek.
"Call it to you. You alone can end this."
With a flurry of cloth, his Master stood and walked away, and he knew that nothing would stop him from leaving. And he knew that when he left...
The door ground shut and the lock fell home and the guards around him closed in.
No...not again...no more.
--No more--
Anger and fear welled up within him and the Darkness answered it, potent and familiar, tracing through fiery spoor burned into his mind through weeks and months of torment--
And he didn't push it away. He didn't hold back. No accident this, no momentary slip. He opened himself to it, opened his mind and his soul, let it channel through him--
Infallible clarity; the knowledge of absolute, unconditional power. No restrictions, no consequences. Waiting to be used, asking for direction, screaming for release--
The air charged; like the moment before lightning strikes...
The force-pike thrust in toward him--so slowly; so very slowly, as if time itself bowed to the Darkness. Luke twisted and easily caught the blunt tip. It discharged into his hand, but the shock was contained within the Darkness; the pain was still there, but it didn't matter any more. His anger pushed past it, narrowed to absolute focus.
He channeled the Darkness toward the man holding the pike; threw it into him, ripped out in every direction at once. An organic sound like tearing silk, like water exploding--a deluge of scarlet rain.
And the man was gone.
Still the Darkness poured into him, savage and unshackled, and he gave it focus, head snapping up, eyes wild.
He rolled, pulling his feet under him as they scattered, the power coursing into him, unstoppable now. Giving life to ripped muscles, pulling broken bones together. Power to slough off any injury, to burst through exhaustion and pain, to see past sight. He could sense their fear and it only fed his desire for revenge. He didn't look, didn't need to. The Darkness raced at the speed of thought, jumping from man to man, from corpse to corpse. The warm scarlet mist spread and spattered; on his skin, on his clothes, in his hair.
He ripped through them like a tornado, like wildfire, every last shred of control given up to the raging power.
Violent retribution, cold and hard and merciless. The air hazed with it, his lungs filled with it; copper taste as warm ruby rain settled out from the air.
When there was only one left alive, hammering the door for escape, he paused...
And turned slowly. In the bloody mask of his face, his eyes shone cold and blue, ice in twilight.
With absolute calm he wrapped the Darkness about the guard, drawing the man's eyes to his own, holding him transfixed for several seconds, giving him time to realize.
Then his eyes hardened and the Darkness hardened and he closed it in so slowly, pressing on lungs and bone and fragile tissue, holding contact with those terrified eyes until the life within was crushed.
He turned and walked away, the multiple 'cr-ack' as he collapsed the Darkness completely in on itself pulling the slightest twitch of a satisfied smile to bloody lips.
He sat very still on the only chair, possessed of the distant calm of a trauma victim as he looked, strangely detached, at the carnage about him, the walls wet with staccato trails of deep scarlet, the metallic tang of raw blood still in the air.
Somewhere deep inside his conscience shrieked in horror as he let out a trembling breath, momentary realization buzzing through him, horrific in its consequences--
But he called the Darkness to him and it soothed like a balm, smothering the scream within...;
Oh, but it had felt so good.
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Palpatine stood in the shadows of the corridor, transfixed with the relish of utter gratification, achievement of this final, long-anticipated goal. Such power; such tormented agony released. It was a transcendental moment, surpassing his every expectation, fluid and wild, savagely poetic, undeniably enthralling.
It had taken his fallen Jedi less than a minute to slaughter them all.
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Luke sat silently in the chair, tired and wired, surrounded by Darkness. Potent.
His Master entered the cell, his sense ecstatic, fiery with conquest, drunk on the raw power which swirled about them, intensity magnified and expanded as it ricocheted and recoiled between them.
Now. Now he understood why.
His Master walked toward him through the carnage, laughing lightly. Bone-white fingers raked through Luke's hair, leaving caustic trails of Darkness behind them; power drawn to power.
"You were born for this moment, my friend. If you ever doubt, remember this. Remember what you are capable of. Nothing is beyond you now." Strong fingers closed tightly and his head was yanked back. "Nothing except me. Understand that."
It was made as a statement of absolute fact...but the Darkness whispered his fear. Whispered the truth.
Luke held eye contact with his Master for a moment, considering... Then he blinked, dropping his gaze in submission. For now. "I understand."
He felt abruptly, indescribably tired; his body sagged. His pain, so easily willed away, now washed over him in waves. His vision split and blurred as his breath came ragged.
But he waited.
He wanted desperately to rest, to sleep. But he waited...
He would wait as long as was required of him.
--Rest now, Dark Jedi--
With absolute relief, absolute calm, Luke fell back into the Darkness, let it smother him completely, gave himself into its cold embrace.
Distantly, he felt his Master's hand on his cheek, sensed his laughter in his mind.
Then that too was gone, and only the Darkness remained.
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To be continued...
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Chapter 20
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CHAPTER TWENTY
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Exhausted beyond all conscious denial or acceptance, Luke slipped willingly down into a state of merciful unconsciousness which freed him from cold, harsh reality, and so was unaware as others whispered into the room, hushed footsteps dragging scarlet smears across the blood-spattered floors. In the still silence they gathered about him and with infinite care lifted his inert form to carry him with quiet deliberation from the carnage.
Palpatine paused alone a moment longer, loathed to relinquish the rapture of the moment. First blood was always an enthralling, enrapturing moment--total surrender of rational reason to raw emotion, powerful and empowering. But this, the culmination of so long and desperate a struggle, the fracture point, the pivotal moment when all previous beliefs and convictions fell away, this had been...like art created--sublime. Worth every second of denied fulfillment.
The boy was the realization of everything that his father should have been; raw potential ascended. Without compromise, this time. It was at once terrifying and exhilarating, to bend such power to one's will. To control it and not have it control you--destroy you. Like taming a tornado; elemental, empowering.
Only now was he grounding after the high of his feral Jedi's spectacular fall from grace.
Finally he could move forward and train the boy in the ways of the Sith. Make him everything his father should have been--would have been, had Kenobi not cut him down.
His father...
Palpatine sighed wistfully as he finally walked from the cell, the silent little procession gone now. He walked slowly to the waiting turbolift, lost in consideration. It would be interesting to try to keep them both, father and son. To hold them both, and play them against each other until one of them finally snapped.