Chapter 1 - A Pathway to many abilities some consider unnatural (Supreme Chancellor Palpatine)

'Are you sure?' The deep voice asked one final time. 'There will be no going back once this is done.'

"I knew someone who did." Luke cannot stop himself from replying, turning slightly to keep the other in his vision. It was possible to turn back from this road.

He had seen it happen.

'And how is he now?' The voice inquired mercilessly. 'The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be… unnatural.' The figure stopped its pace and tilted it head slightly. Luke could not see its eyes under the heavy hood, but he felt the gaze on his skin as an uncomfortable cold sensation. 'But there is no going back once you start.'

The figure reached out a hand dipped in shadows. Like fog, darkness collected around it and trailed all the way down to the dusty stone floor in a curtain of the darkest black.

'Do we have a bargain?' The voice finally asked, as the fingers on its out held hand stretched eagerly towards him. Shadows curled around it in a way that reminded him of the last smoke from a burned out fire. Smoke around something that was almost gone.

His heart skipped a beat, and his mouth suddenly felt dry. He did not want to do this… but what choice did he have?

This was the only pathway left. His last remaining choice.

He had to do this, but still he could not bring the words over his lips.

He felt a gentle tug, a pull back to the open door behind him. He wanted nothing more than to obey it. Despite the fact that he knew it would be selfish, and the fact that he knew there was nothing up there he could return to.

This was the only way, and the last chance he would get to set things right. In comparison, the price was…

Fair

He took one last shaking breath that unwillingly made his heart skip a beat, and held out his hand.

'Remember, Jedi,' The voice cautioned mockingly, as its owner's cold fingers closed around Luke's wrist. 'If you tell anyone who you really are, I end this little game, and the price remains the same.'

It did not feel like falling back into something that once was. It was nothing as comfortable as that. It felt like stone fingers closing around him and dragging him through a storm of knives. Wind that was not wind ripped against him, and blades of ice dug into his skin.

He was pulled down, not back, and the darkness became deeper and deeper.

It was hard to breathe.

Then it felt like he was thrown. The ground rushed up against him, he heard something crack, a scream, and then everything stilled. The hands were gone, and the wind died.

'Remember the rules'. A disembodied voice warned at the back of his mind. 'You only have one chance.'

Then he opened his eyes.

The first thing he noticed, aside from the stinging smell of burned metal, was another stench; almost like it, that he would recognize anywhere. Blaster fire. The hum of his lightsabre registered a second later, activated on instinct.

The green glow lightened the dark hall he found himself in.

He frowned, and lowered the green beam looking beyond it to the sea of droid parts that laid scattered all over the floor. He had come late to the party it seemed, wherever this place was. He narrowed his eyes over the green blade with an uncomfortable twist in his chest.

He was here.

It had worked.

The lightsaber was brought low to light the nearest parts of mechanics he had only ever heard about in history books, or found in ruins on his many travels.

Almost nothing of this ancient technology had survived to his own time. Even ripped apart before him, he could recognize the design. These were battle droids dating back to the clone wars. Only they all looked new, or had been moments before.

He lifted the saber over his head, casting light upon the ceiling and the many wires above. The engines hummed gently beneath his feet, and little light-bulbs of green and red blinked back to him from the dark above.

He was on a ship, he realized.

Then the ground moved, a rumble echoed all around him. Everything tilted, the parts slid past him on the floor, ramming into the wall in a deadening metallic chorus.

An explosion.

The battle was still ongoing.

He threw a look back into the dark, the meagre light from his saber revealed only a blank and empty room as far as his eyes could see. He turned ahead, to the path littered with broken battle droids and walls blackened with blaster bolts… and burned carved scars that looked like it had been made with something...

Something that could literally cut a path through steel. His eyes widened, then fell on his lightsaber.

Of course.

He took off into the dark, and left the hallway empty. He had to hurry.

There was so little time.

to be continued