The Fire Within

"The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.

It always wins because it is everywhere.

It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and it the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun, and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet.

The brightest light cast the darkest shadow."

-Revenge of the Sith

Matthew Stover

Lava.

It was destroying everything, calmly melting the platform that they stood on, and burning the droids who still toiled away ceaselessly, even as their circuits began to dissolve. It killed any workers left stranded on the black-glass sand, and was slowly rising up to devour the entire planet of Mustafar.

And it smoldered within Darth Vader's own heart.

As his light saber clashed with Obi-Wan's he allowed the pain of his blistering heart to fuel his strength.

She betrayed you! The one person you would have gladly given your life for lied to you!

He let out a cry of rage as he thought this. The fire within swelled.

Obi-Wan returned every blow, but not with nearly as much power, or force. He wasn't willing to kill his friend. Inside, Vader laughed coldly at his old Master's weakness.

I am not your friend anymore, old fool. I am the strongest man in the galaxy! That weak boy from Tatooine is long gone.

Darth Vader lost focus, and was suddenly realized that Obi-Wan had leapt onto a droid that hovered over the rising stream of long arm of metal that they had been dueling on was plummeting towards a fiery demise. He raced down the crumbling steel, and leaped just in time to land on a much smaller floating droid.

It ducked under his weight for an instant, before rising and leveling out. Obi-Wan held up his blade, as if that would help defend him. He'd trained with Obi-Wan for years! Vader knew his old master's every gesture, from each flick of the wrist to every single twirl of the blade.

They knew each other better than any brothers.

Together, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi had swept through the galaxy, destroying the Separatists and winning the hearts of the Republic. Anakin had battled for him, led his comrade into more dangerous situations than either could count, and had always been there to save his friend.

But now, as they soared above the seething lava, it was no more.

Anakin Skywalker was dead.

And through Darth Vader, I am reborn.

His former friend's tan garments were marked with holes where chunks of hot debris had ripped through them, and he looked less of the dashing hero and more of a desperate soldier than ever before. His dark hair was stringy with sweat, and his face covered in both perspiration and dirt.

Vader could only imagine his own appearance.

Obi-Wan shook his head sadly. The Sith Lord fumed at the disappointment so apparent in his Master's eyes.

"I have failed you Anakin. I have failed you." He felt his body shake with rage.

"I should have known that the Jedi were plotting to take over!" Obi-Wan gave him a look of disbelief.

"Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil!"

Wrong again, Obi-Wan. Chancellor Palpatine is the one truth in this entire galaxy that is so corrupted with lies and deceit. If it weren't for him, I'd still be under your influence.

"From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!"

"Then you are lost!"

No. I am found. It is you, who is lost. It is you who is unwise enough to believe the deception of the Jedi. The Jedi were traitors to peace, and traitors to the Empire.

Vader brought his glowing blade up. "This is the end for you, my master." He added sarcastically. Vader could see the emotions within Obi-Wan rise, and then-

Die.

Obi-Wan took a deep, calming breath, and enraged at the control his former master was showing, Darth Vader leapt onto the floating platform that Obi-Wan was on.

As they battled, Vader tried to understand something.

It simply didn't make sense.

How could Obi-Wan, so in love with his precious Order, continue to uphold the pathetic ideals of the Jedi, when they were was utterly devastated? How could he manage to contain the anger and resentment that must have been building inside him, and continue to fight?

It was a question that Vader had never known the answer to and one that he could never ask as a Jedi. Jedi were simply supposed to know that hatred was wrong, but even as a boy, he'd wondered what was so wrong about it.

Hatred fueled him in every duel he fought, hatred for his enemies, and hatred of failure. It gave him strength, and had made him the strongest Jedi of this and any other era.

And now, hatred made him the most powerful Sith in the entire universe.

Suddenly, before Vader could realize what Obi-Wan was doing, his old Master jumped off the platform and onto the black, glass sand. "It's over Anakin. I have the high ground. "

"You underestimate my power." It was a statement of fact, but Obi-Wan shook his head sadly, as though Vader was the deluded one.

"Don't try it."

The warning meant nothing to Darth Vader. No petty murmurings of inner peace could overpower the furnace of malice that stormed inside him. Vader leapt, bringing his blade down to counter Obi-Wan's-

And missed.

His blade met no resistance, instead, his arm and legs did.

Darth Vader tumbled through the air, landing on that grating sand. He looked up in disbelief. Obi-Wan stood over him, tears streaming down his dirt-lined face.

Vader tried to crawl away from the edge of the shoreline, when suddenly the fire in his heart, the fire that had burned inside of him for all of his life, faded, for only an instant.

An instant was enough.

In that instant, Vader understood.

"You were the Chosen One!" He struggled to pull himself away from the lava that threatened to sear what flesh remained of his legs, and away from the fire that was consuming his soul. Hatred may have been strong, may have made him the best of the best, but it couldn't defeat one thing.

"It was said that you'd destroy the Sith, not join them!"

Love.

That was why Obi-Wan stood, the victor, and he sank, the defeated. That was why Padme had come to him.

Love.

"Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in ruins!"

But hate…

Hatred was the reason Padme had stepped away from him, why there had been fear in her eyes. Hatred was why he was here, on Mustafar, on a black shore, helpless to defy a fate that he'd been doomed to since birth. Hatred was why he'd tried to kill Obi-Wan, his friend since child hood.

Love was Anakin Skywalker.

Hatred was Darth Vader.

Obi-Wan bent down and picked up his light saber.

If he'd only seen before now…

But it was too late.

The raging inferno returned to his soul, eating away at the boy who'd once dreamed of visiting every star in the galaxy, forcing the real Anakin Skywalker to hide in the shadows of his scorching heart, and bringing forth Darth Vader.

"I hate you!" Vader screamed, his mechanical hand's grip too strong for the fine sand, causing him too slip closer to the edge. Obi-Wan gave him a sad look of longing, and his eyes glared into his old master's.

"You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you."

There it was again.

Love.

It had been his undoing.

Abruptly Darth Vader's angry snarls evolved into screams of pain as his pant leggings caught fire. Vader had known pain before, but as his flesh was burned away, as his skin bubbled and blistered under the lava, he experienced new kinds of agony.

He'd become the victim of his own flames. He was as monstrous outside as he was in his charred heart.

Out of the top of his line of vision, he caught a glimpse of Obi-Wan's back as he walked away, and inside the firestorm erupted.

I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU!

Vader tried to scream through his singed lips.

No sound came.

And he hated Obi-Wan all the more.

Obi-Wan was everything he could have been, should have been. And then, in one unbearable wave of pain, Vader passed into blackness deeper than he had ever known, deeper than unconsciousness, deeper than even death. He passed into a realm of darkness so without light, that it blinded him.

Just before it took him, one voice echoed in the real world, a voice he knew well.

It was Palpatine's.

What his Master was saying, he did not know, but what he did know was that he was going to be saved.

No.

As Vader slipped into the blackness, Anakin Skywalker fought against the fire that was Vader, and struggled against the beating of his own heart.

Anakin did not want to live anymore. Not with knowing what Vader had done.

Anakin's strength faded completely, as Vader's flames burned on, brighter and stronger than ever. But Vader could not kill the boy known as Anakin Skywalker entirely. He couldn't kill him because one thing gave Anakin hope.

Padme.

Anakin could only hope that through all of this, she'd survive and raise their child. He'd come and find her. And she'd save him from Darth Vader.

She's save him from the monster he'd become.

"Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?" Vader opened his eyes, or at least, his new, mechanical eyes opened.

And there was pain.

His new view of the world eliminated all light and shadow, making his view of the world perfect.

And wrong. He took a deep breath, and listened to the harsh, metallic scraping of his lungs. The sound came again, and again, and again, bringing more pain.

Vader tried to stop, to slow down the rasping of his ruined nerves, but he couldn't stop. The machine that was his body would never let him stop.

What is wrong with me?

As another horrid breath came, he remembered.

He remembered the agony of burning upon the black shores, next to the ceaseless lava flow. He remembered his hatred of Obi-Wan. He remembered the fire in his own heart. Vader realized, with the sickening approximation of horror running through his mechanical body that Palpatine had found him.

Palpatin

No.

A voice called softly, and Vader pushed it away.

It was Anakin Skywalker, and that boy was dead.

"Yes, Master." A voice, so different from his own, spoke, but it was his voice nonetheless. It would always be his voice.

It would always be Darth Vader's voice.

NO!

The other voice inside him cried out, and Vader tried to crush the man underneath him. There was no use for Anakin Skywalker anymore, no use for anything from his past except-

Except for Padme.

"Where is Padme?" Darth Vader asked, turning his mechanical gaze upon Palpatine. "Is she safe? Is she…all right?"

She had to be.

Her heart was still beating when he'd left her; she'd been very much alive. But Palpatine did not smile.

"It seems…in your anger…you killed her." He tried to shake his head, but couldn't manage it, instead only turning to stare forward.

"I-I couldn't have. She was alive! I felt it!"

As Vader said this, he reached out to find her small beam of light in the Force, to find her comforting stream of life that was always there-

And found nothing

Padme was dead. As Vader thought this, he felt the furnaces inside of him try to burn, and fail.

In his heart, the hatred that had scorched him ever since he'd first known the cruelty of man, was dead. In his heart, the fire found no fuel to burn. In his heart, there was only darkness. For an instant, he saw the truth, only for an instant.

An instant was enough.

In that instant, Vader understood.

There was no Darth Vader. There was no furnace in his heart, eating away love. There was no Anakin Skywalker.

There was only him.

He was the one who'd succumb to his fears, and to his loathing. He was the one who'd killed the younglings. He was the one who'd killed Padme. Even if Padme were alive, she wouldn't have been able to save him, only show him the truth.

The truth was Anakin and Vader were one and the same.

They had never been two different people.

Vader realized this, and reached out to the malice within his heart. He called upon his hatred to destroy anything and everything, but instead of searing flames, he found only darkness.

His heart, once the strongest flame in the entire galaxy, was now…cold. In its place was a black, frozen rock, as barren as a moon that orbited around a dead system. Inside his heart of night, there lurked black despair and icy remnants of power.

And so, for all of his world-crushing might, it was only the room around him that suffered, not the man who deserved to die, not the murderer, not the traitor. Vader could never destroy the one who'd killed the person he'd done everything for, because that person his himself. He would never be as strong as he once was, he could only barely reach the Force, and even then, it was but an echo.

An echo of love.

An echo of Padme.

"No!" He cried, falling to his knees. And even as Vader loathed this darkness, he sank into its deep, merciful waves. The dark that had led him to such anger, forgave him, understood him, and saved him.

But even in the dark, there was pain.

Even in a suit equipped with no pain sensors, there was agony.

Part of Vader's soul would always lie on that shore, and part of it would always burn. Part of him, would always remember what could have been his. Part of him, would always know pain.

Darth Vader strode forward, enjoying the fear that he invoked from the crew men aboard his star destroyer.

After only a day, rumors had circulated back to him of what the crew speculated was under his mask. The Emperor had designed him perfectly, so that even though the truth was that the mask hid a man withering away, it inspired mystery and terror.

Only a fool would rise up against such an intimidating figure.

As Darth Vader came to stand next to the Emperor, he felt a wave of loathing wash over him for the deformed old man. He hated everything about him, from his grotesquely misshapen skin to his hideous voice. It only reminded him of how he actually looked underneath his own mask.

But even worse, he hated him because it was his fault that Padme hadn't been saved.

Vader had searched for any trace of Padme the moment he'd had the chance, and had found a medical record of Padme Amidala entered into an alien hospital, after she'd left Mustafar.

That meant that Darth Vader hadn't killed her. She had been alive, at least, alive long enough for the Emperor to save her. And that, in it self was enough to take the blame off his shoulders, and lay it squarely on his Master's.

You could have saved her, but instead, you left her behind! It is your fault that she is dead!

Even worse, their child had died with Padme. Any hope of ever seeing Padme's brilliant eyes, or her charming smile, perished with that child.

Within his black heart, Vader felt treacherous thoughts worm their way up into his mind. Internally, he smiled.

You wished to teach me the way of the Sith. Well, I've learned.

Treachery is the way of the Sith.

It would take years.

Vader wasn't even close to as powerful as he once had been, he would never be able to summon Force Lightning or fight the Emperor alone.

But there were others with Force abilities. There had to be.

Vader would find one. He would train the child. And he would bring down the Emperor, even if it was the last thing he ever did.

In his desolate heart, a match was struck, lighting a small flame. Small, yes, but enough to keep him he crossed his arms to stare out at the massive skeleton of a space ship, he imagined himself smiling.

The Republic was defeated.

The Emperor would fall too.

And he alone would take what should have been his from the start, with his apprentice at his side.

"What do you think, Lord Vader?" The Emperor spoke, and Vader guessed that he was talking about the battle station being constructed outside the view port window.

"It's…impressive, Master. What is its name?"

The Emperor cackled his horrible cackle, and held out his gnarled arm in a sweeping moment. "The Death Star. With its power we will secure rule over planets that might try to start an uprising against us."

Vader nodded.

"With its might, we will rule the galaxy."

The Emperor nodded. "And then, we shall have…peace."

The fire within Vader's heart surged, and he felt the urge to crush his Master's neck. Padme had wanted peace. This fool wanted power.

Inside Vader, the fire raged on.

Within, the fire consumed him.

Thanks to anyone and everyone who reads, obviously Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith was a huge inspiration, and depending on the response and my time I will write a chapter with him at the end of Return of the Jedi! Thank you , have a good night!