"This isn't over. Even now, my daughter is a threat."

Hearing the spirit of Valkorion, Vaylin smirked, her eyes burning an even more furious fire colour with the dark power she dominated. "Oh Father, you know me so well."

Calling on all the dark power that lay in her being, she unleashed the Force in a malevolent storm of purple energy outward from her body, caring about the consequences as the same insane disregard she usually did. The ground began to shake, the earth rocked and the building was wracked by irreparable fractures and cracks that spread like wildfire from her feet and up the walls. She focused on nothing but pure, unhindered destruction. She had come too far to fall to her father's puppet.

Gazing skyward, she screamed, both at the Outlander and her mother and brother. "THE ETERNAL THRONE IS MINE!"

The Outlander fought their way through the dark storm, managing a reply over the turbulence she had created in the room that she was the pinnacle of. "This isn't about the throne. It's about stopping you."

Before she knew what was happening, a burning agony ripped through her lower torso, beneath her bosom. A blazing lightsaber had been driven through her chest, exiting her back with next to no resistance. Her power exploded outward in forceful blast, hurling the Outlander away the instant after they extinguished their saber. Then the Force deserted her, taking away her unchained strength.

Shaking, her hands pressed against the hole through her torso as she swayed on her feet, disbelief at her own fast approaching death painted on her face as she gazed at the mortal wound. She fell, only for her hated mother's arms to wrap around her, cradling her close as tears ran down the older woman's face.

"I'm so sorry Vaylin."

Was she really? Or were these just soft words to try to worm her way back into her heart? In all honesty, Vaylin didn't know. She just wanted the pain to stop. Where was the hot, all-devouring fire of the Force? Why had it deserted her?

"You abandoned me…"

Her heartbeat began to ebb slightly.

"I never meant to abandon you. Hurt you."

Arcann knelt next to them, only the unconditional love and kindness she'd known when they children in his tortured, repentant cerulean eyes. Then she'd been locked away on Nathema, and forgotten it. Until now. "Vaylin, Father can't touch you any longer. You can be free. Just let your pain go. Forgive yourself."

"You say that as if it were easy." She coughed, bloody breaths wracking her body, and Senya shifted her closer.

Breath came slower, and more agonisingly. Her blood flow was reducing in rate.

Her brother pulled back her hood, unveiling her once blonde, now brown hair. Then she felt his touch, warm and full, his right hand caressed her cheek. She couldn't remember the last time he'd touched her, skin to skin.

"It's the hardest thing in this life."

Here he was, her brother Arcann, humbled and remorseful, and all because of their mother and whatever she did to change him. But she did not know, yet… liked… this new person behind the scarred face, how he knew just what to say, how he understood and loved her, and held no disdain or rejection for her. She wanted it, more of that kindness, she wanted to feel it in a way so deep that she could never lose sight of it. She wanted to be like him, more than ever, to feel that connection with people. With him. But she wasn't deserving. She didn't want it! She didn't need it!

The beating of her tortured heart was rapidly degenerating, sluggish and erratic. Then it sped up for the next few moments, unstable and uncontrollable.

Blood trickled from her mouth, down her chin as a coughing fit overcame her, and she forced out two desperate words, once again the little girl full of suffering as she convulsed in her mother's arms, the seizure beyond any restraint.

"... Get away…"

He took her hand, flesh on flesh, and held it close to his scarred face. "It's alright Vaylin, you're safe. You're loved."

"We'll never let you go again." Senya promised her as her brother's lips touched her hand.

Her heart returned to a murderously slow but irregular crawl. Her end drew near.

The last of her life was bleeding away from her, she knew it too. The fiery light of darkness in her eyes faded, and her own tearful cerulean eyes saw the galaxy for the first time since Nathema. Then, as she lay in her mother's arms, her hand held by her brother, she saw him.

Dressed in his black and gold trimmed trappings of Zakuul, the same love he'd always had for her clear in his blue eyes, Thexan stood behind Arcann, seemingly wrapped in an aura of yellow light. Her left hand, free and laying on the floor, lifted with all the strength she had in her now weak body, and she reached for him, like the blonde little girl who'd reached for her brother.

"Thexan…"

The contractions of her heart was almost nonexistent.

"He's waiting for us, he'll take you home." Her mother told her gently, stroking her hair.

Thexan smiled, and reached out, their fingertips touching. Just a little further…

Her heartbeat stilled, ceasing entirely. She was gone. Her free hand hit the ground with a small, hollow thud, and her clutching grasp on that of her brother fell slack. Her eyes were glazed over, motionless.

Vaylin was once and truly dead.

"May Izax have mercy on your soul." Senya whispered, holding her dead daughter as close as she could.

Arcann didn't fight the tears that came, and cradled her hand to his chest. "I love you Vaylin. Farewell."

Then the Force came rushing back into her, lighting up every nerve ending, every cell of her body with an excruciating agony, as if all the lightning she'd produced in her life had been turned back on her all at once. She writhed once more, pure Force energy converging on her, as if the supernatural force was wrapping her in its embrace, forcing her heart to start, and beat once more. But her family wouldn't let go of her. She wanted to scream at them, tell them to get off her, but she couldn't form a single cognitive thought, even if she had wanted to do so.

In a flash of energy, she was ripped from her mother's arms, torn from her brother's hand and hurled through the energy conduit of the universe. Before she even knew what was happening, she was face down in soft, loose dirt, bombarded by hellish heat and tasting black earth.

With all the strength she could muster, she rolled onto her back, and shuddered her head to look down.

The hole caused the Outlander's lightsaber was still there, but she was resisting the pull of death now, if barely, clinging to life by the most fragile of threads. Her absolute fear of dying, of losing who she was once again, and her pain, that had reached the deepest of depths, was keeping her alive, keeping her from succumbing to the mortal wound as she lay in the ash-smelling earth, on the brink of death. Her hand crawled up from the dirt, pressing against the wound.

Looking up as she clutched the stab wound, she found herself on a volcanic world, the skies obscured by a huge cloud of black ash that dominated the planet. This was a hellish place.

Then she heard the sound of lightsaber combat, blade upon blade.

Dragging her almost useless body to the ridge with one hand, she looked out over the lake of lava, she saw two blue blades clashing. One of the wielders was entrenched in the Light, and the other was seeped in the Dark, some small light left inside. As the hovering platform passed the bank where she lay just behind the rise in her excruciating state, just out of sight, the man of Light leapt to the shore, landing several metres away from her, not knowing she was the other side of the hill, watching. He called out to the other.

"It's over Anakin! I have the high ground!"

"You underestimate my power!" The blonde man, called Anakin, declared in a voice dripping with rage and hate. The man in light robes realised what he was going to do as she did, and tried to warn him off.

"Don't try it."

Anakin leapt high, lightsaber in hand as he disregarded the warning, and a blue blade swung fast and strong.

He tumbled down the incline, left arm and both legs severed by the other's single, resigned stroke. He came to rest on his front, not far from the edge of the lava lake. The man of Light extinguished his weapon, and she felt grief and betrayal from him. The dismembered man's eyes burned like her's had until now, and the sorrowful victor let out his emotions.

"You were the Chosen One! It was said you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!"

He turned and went up the hill, picking up Anakin's dropped weapon as he paused and turned back. He gazed into the eyes of the man consumed by the Dark Side, and received what was surely a verbal blow to the gut.

"I HATE YOU!"

As the one limbed man tried and failed to drag himself up the hill, the earth she'd landed face first in and tasted slipped between his fingers, denying him the purchase he sought.

"You were my brother Anakin!" The bearded man told him, the pain evident in his voice as he cried out. "I loved you."

The man called Anakin screamed as his torn clothes caught fire from the proximity to the lava, and the one who called him 'brother' looked away, having seen more than he could bear already. The defeated Sith was set ablaze entirely, his hair incinerating, his skin burning and his flesh melting. To her, it was disturbing yet morbidly fascinating to behold. She'd never watched a man burn.

The man who now carried two lightsabers, one in each hand, hurried from the bank, and did not sense her as he climbed the hill. Unseen by him, she rolled down the hill when she slipped, but stopped short of the burning Sith. He was still alive, mutilated but alive. She touches his burnt head, unnoticed by him. And the only thing in his mind was… revenge, for the Jedi turning his pregnant wife on him.

The Jedi put the two weapons on his belt and traveled and climbed back up to landing pad that adjourned what used to be a mining facility by the looks as she followed him, unnoticed. He was greeted by two droids, a white, blue and silver astromech and a golden protocol droid. Boarding the silver ship there, he checked on a clearly pregnant woman, who asked if the Sith was alright, but didn't get an answer.

The man, now clearly a Jedi, went to the cockpit to fly the ship, and Vaylin concealed herself in a closet, her dark signature in the Force more or less a void due to her being almost empty of the energy that bound the universe together.

'I've survived worse tortures than this.' She thought to herself, calling what she could of the Force to hold off her end. Mental tortures, she had been to the depths of despair, beyond even Arcann or her mother. This was her worst physical wound however, but she wouldn't allow herself to succumb, she feared the end too much.

She'd spare the woman the knowledge that this Obi Wan as she'd called him had relieved Anakin of his legs and non prosthetic arm. As much as she enjoyed cruelty, she couldn't reveal herself before she healed. It was her belief that, once healed, she would regain her power.

They arrived at a moon called Polis Masa, she overheard the name from the protocol droid, and the pregnant woman was taken to immediate attention.

Dragging her all but dead body off the ship, was immediately found and given medical attention that she so desperately desired. Her body was stripped to her undergarments and submerged in a bacta tank, one of incredible potency. Between the Force and the substance that had apparently replaced kolto, if her spirit were in her body she would literally feel her wound knitting back together, cell by cell, her body regenerated instead of producing scar tissue. However it had drifted out.

She walked on the plane of the Force, and approaching the surgery room she gazed in to see the pregnant woman was giving early birth that had been induced. She could feel the woman's life being sapped out of her from afar, across the galaxy. She could see the children. Twins, a boy and a girl, and they were both strong with the Force, incredibly so, but it was lessened by them being premature by 2 months. Within moments, their mother was dead from her life being drained from her, and they were orphaned, the man who she was certain was their father being dismembered and had burned on the volcanic world.

She reached further, and touched the children. Their connections to the Force were unbelievable!

Focusing on the twins, she knew what she felt. She wanted one of those children. And as her reign as Empress had shown for the most part, Vaylin got what she wanted, one way or another.

She took advantage of the overbearing dark state of the Force, she walked close to the Jedi once more, this time observing the conversation this Obi Wan had with a green alien Jedi called Yoda, and a Republic Senator named Bail Organa. The boy would be taken to his family on Tatooine, a desert planet in the Outer Rim if she remembered correctly, and the girl would be adopted by this Bail man, and taken to Alderaan, a political world that was among the first to be subjugated under her brother's 5 year tenure as Emperor.

She retreated back to her healing body, seeing it from the outside. She would take the boy, he would be easier to get to. She smiled in her astral body, the fire of the Dark Side returning to her eyes, a new thought in her mind now. 'I always wanted a son for an heir.'

Committing the baby boy's signature to memory, she focused on healing, drawing on the Light Side as she rarely did. She only used it to heal herself and control her power. The Dark Side served all her other needs.

She emerged, fully healed without a mark, from the tank a week later, dressed herself, mended the damage to her clothing with the Force, and forcibly took a shuttle. The moment she had the ship, she headed straight for Tatooine, no stops, no delays. She called the energy of the Force inside herself, refilling her strength as a way to pass the journey through hyperspace. The travel took a couple of hours, and her eyes came to rest upon the dustball of a planet.

She sneered at it, and landed where she felt the purest part of the Force on this tainted world, that being fairly far away from the nearest civilization, a moisture farm. It was night when she reached the homestead, and she found a Skyhopper in the garage.

Tearing out the fuel tank with the Force, she ruptured it, soaking everything but herself in the flammable liquid. The slick substance parted around her feet, a clean path upon which she walked.

She found a man with a blaster protecting a cowering woman who held the crying infant she sought. Her burning eyes pierced his as she disregarded the meager weapon pointed at her, he couldn't hurt her even if he pulled the trigger and his aim was true. She had enough of her substantial power to defend herself.

"Who are you?! What do you want?!" He demanded.

"I am Vaylin, Empress of Zakuul, and you have something that belongs to me. The boy is mine, now give him to me!"

"I won't let you have Jinn!"

His cry was followed by him pulling the trigger at the same time as she raised her open hand. The Force responded to her will, seizing the bolt of red energy a foot from her chest as she glared at him as if he was stupid, which he was to attack her. With a wave of her hand, she tossed him aside and slipped past the bolt, advancing on the woman.

Her fingers twitched and the woman released the baby to clutch at her throat. Vaylin floated the greatly premature Jinn into her arms and she cradled him properly, releasing the woman whom she was choking but keeping the blaster bolt frozen in place.

She turned on her heel and walked away at a leisurely pace, marveling at how comfortable he was with her, little Jinn had stopped crying the moment she took hold of him. The slick fuel continued to part for her to walk, sloshing back to how it was after her like she'd never been there as she climbed the steps. She looked back at the terrified couple who regarded her fearfully, and she smirked wickedly back at them.

"A man who causes the death of himself and his family is no man at all."

With that, she released the blaster bolt, and it flew, striking the fuel-covered wall, setting the whole homestead ablaze in an inferno that took only a second to engulf it all. Vaylin walked away from the burning ruin, both her and the sleeping Jinn's faces illuminated by the orange light that was matched by her burning eyes beneath her hood.

"Onward, to Zakuul, to the Eternal Throne that is rightfully mine."

Feeling the disturbance in the Force that screamed out to him, voices screaming as flames consumed them, Obi Wan summoned his lightsaber and rushed out of his residence, mounting the speeder he had brought and going at full speed to Owen and Beru's moisture farm. However, as he draw near, he knew he was too late.

The whole homestead was burning, the flames were tall and smelled of speeder fuel. The couple were long dead by now, he had failed them. Jinn was here a week and he'd already been taken.

The presence of the Dark Side was here too, but not that of Anakin or Palpatine. No, this was something not seen in thousands of years, something far more potent.

"Forgive me Master Yoda, I've failed to protect the boy."