A/N: I've done some soul searching and decided to start this story from scratch. If you read the original Dark Emperor, I deleted it and am replacing it with this story. My writing style changed from when I first published the original Dark Emperor to the present and the original story was based off the ROTS movie, this will be based off the novelization by Matthew Stover, or at least the beginning will be.

I'm also changing things up. This is completely AU, but the new canon (Thrawn (the Novel), Catalyst (the Novel) and the movie Rogue One, eventually) will be reflected here as well as the characters from those books and movie. However, the original story was mostly about Vader and Luke, this one will be more of a dark family story. I like Vadmè/Anidala stories and throwing the twins into the mix should be interesting.

I hope you enjoy it.

Dark Emperor: Chapter 1

A silvery reflective flash catches my eye as I kneel before the holoscan of my Master, Darth Sidious. The silvery reflective flash outside the window makes it look as though an elegantly curved mirror is swinging through the smoke and cinder of this hellish nightmare of a planet, picking up the white-hot river of fire that I could feel even from here.

As I kneel here pretending to be a loyal, respectful Apprentice, I'm no longer afraid. He thought he could make me just turn my back on those who I once called my friends and become his loyal servant. Truth is, I'm not with him and never was. Everything I did up to this point was only for me.

Everything I did today was only to secure the future of my wife and child. If he has the power to help me save her, then I'll help him with his plans. The Jedi refused to help, he at least offered to help me find the way to save her. However, if what he said is a lie or if he later decides not to keep up his part of the promise, I won't hesitate to kill him like I killed so many today already.

I never even thought I had it in me but when push comes to shove, I'll always choose Padmé. Even if I had to turn to the dark side to do it.

I just hope she understands when she learns the truth, I'm doing this for her.

For me.

For us.

For us and our unborn child.

Shaking off my thoughts, I continue my report. I don't need him of all people to pick up on them.

"The Separatist leadership is no more, my Master."

"It is finished then." The hologram offers a translucent mockery of a smile before he continues. "You have restored peace and order, Lord Vader."

Lord Vader.

Darth Vader.

Just that name has me feeling like I'm finally who I was always meant to be.

Me becoming a Sith Lord was my destiny.

I can see that now and Darth Vader is who I really am. Who I always was, especially when I killed those Tusken Raiders after they killed my mother and especially when I finally accepted my destiny and slaughtered all of the Jedi at the Jedi Temple.

Even the youngling's.

Maybe it was wrong of me to kill them but even they were brainwashed to serve the Order and they were of no use to me. If I didn't kill them, the clones would've or they could've been put on a transport by a Jedi and managed to escape only to have become a potential problem later on. I'd rather deal with them now than maybe- possibly deal with them in the future. I've never been known for my patience and I wasn't about to risk it with them.

I'll soon have my own youngling to worry about, I don't need to add any more to that list. If they're not mine, then they're useless to me.

Kicking myself mentally for once again going off track in my mind, I continue.

"That is my sole ambition, Master." It really is, restoring peace and order is what I've been working on for the last three years. It's what both Padmé and I have been working on for the last three years, end the war so we could be together more, instead of just- maybe a few times a year.

Something suddenly happens, but I'm not exactly sure what it is that's happening. The hologram must sense it too, for the shadow that was once a man I deeply admired, tilts his head and the mockery of a smile that was there rapidly turns into a scowl.

"Lord Vader," the shadow says, his voice no longer that paternal grandfatherly voice that I remember. It's hard even remembering this man was the same one who has always looked out for me and helped me when I was in need of guidance. He was obviously guiding me to this point, to use me. But I don't care, the Jedi used me too and I chose to become his apprentice, I never chose to become Obi-Wan's. "I sense a disturbance in the Force- you may be in danger."

I sense it too but grinning ferally to myself, I'm not in any real danger. Glancing back out the window, I see the skiff that I know so well and feel the Force presence of Padmé onboard. The only thing I'm in danger of, is perhaps being kissed to death.

And that kind of death would be well worth it.

I keep that thought to myself though and reply, "how should I be in danger, Master?"

"I cannot say," the hologram says. "But the danger is real; be mindful."

Obi-Wan could've told me as much! I mentally sneer, keeping that thought to myself as I steal another glance at Padmé's ship.

"I will my Master, thank you." For nothing!

The transmission ends and I stand back to my feet, clasp my hands behind my back and turn to look out the window as Padmé's ship comes down for a landing next to my starfighter. The sneer that was on my mind a moment ago is now on my lips and in my eyes.

You're the one who should be mindful, my Master. I am a disturbance in the Force.

Padmé lands her ship successfully next to mine and I spend a moment letting go of my hate, my anger and the fear that I once felt more than anything else in the galaxy that is now nothing more than dust under my boots. I begrudgingly welcome back the facade of the man I once was, the facade that is the man she knows.

The man that is Anakin Skywalker.

I let Anakin Skywalker's love flow through me.

I let Anakin Skywalker's glad smile come to my lips.

I let Anakin Skywalker's youthful energy bring a joyous bounce to my step and trot over to the entrance, over the mess of corpses and severed body parts.

I'll meet her outside and that is where I'll keep her, I doubt she'd approve of the redecorating I did in the main control center. And after all, there's no arguing taste.

I grin to myself and then go outside to meet my heavily pregnant but still beautiful wife.

Padmé stumbles down the ship and into my strong arms the second I arrive at her ship on the landing pad.

Maybe Master was right, something is wrong here.

Nevertheless, I try my best to soothe her. With my arms wrapped around her tightly, I bring my lips down to her hair and lightly kiss her. The smell of her is intoxicating and the feel of her in my arms- everything is right in the galaxy.

Well, almost. There is still the reason why she's here when I specifically requested and even made her promise me that she'd remain home until I returned. Last I remember, this is not home, and she's crying.

Why?

"Anakin, my Anakin!" She shivers against my chest. "I've been so frightened."

Again, why?

"Shh. Shh, it's alright." I stroke her hair and back in soothing motions until I feel her trembling begin to fade and then I cup her chin with my mechno-hand and force her to look up at me. "You never need to worry about me. Don't you understand? No one can hurt me. No one will ever hurt either of us."

"It wasn't that my love- it was oh, Anakin! He said such terrible things about you!"

I smile down at her beautiful face. "About me? Who would want to say bad things about me?" I begin to laugh without humor. "Who would dare?"

"Obi-Wan." She says, sucking all of the air out of the atmosphere with that one word. The word that is the name of my former Master, the man that's been lying to me and holding me back since he became my Master, all of those years ago. "He said- he told me you turned to the dark side. That you murdered Jedi- even the youngling's!"

Telling her the truth that I did do all of those things probably wouldn't help matters right now. Leave it to Obi-Wan to interfere with my marriage, with my life! Once I get my hands on that son of a rancor, I'll make him regret the moment he ever met me.

First things first.

"Obi-Wan's alive?" I'm barely aware of my voice dropping an octave, going colder than ice. I'm barely aware of the shiver going down the base of Padmé's spine, but she's still in my arms and I could feel it.

"Y-yes, he said he was looking for you..."

"Did you tell him where I am?"

"No, Anakin! He wants to kill you! I didn't tell him anything- I wouldn't!"

"Too bad."

"Anakin what-"

I cut her off. "He's a traitor, Padmé! He's an enemy of the state! He has to die."

"Stop it!" She demands, pulling out of my embrace and instead placing her small hands on my arms as if that'll change anything. "Stop talking like that... you're frightening me!"

"You're not the one who needs to be afraid."

"It's like- it's like-" she starts crying again, the tears flowing down her face as she puts distance between us. I make no move to change that. "I don't even know who you are anymore."

She's right, she doesn't know who I am anymore. I'm barely aware of who I am. One thing that's never changed though is my love for her, I just have a different set of tools now. One set of tools that aren't being bound behind my back.

"I'm the man who loves you." I remind her through clenched teeth. How can she ever think otherwise? "I'm the man who would do anything to protect you." Like turn to the dark side and slaughter Jedi. "Everything I've done, I've done for you!"

"Anakin-" she swallows- hard, her voice sounding smaller and younger than I've ever heard it. Horror is the feeling she gives off through the Force. Horror for what I've done. "What have you done?" Her tone tells me she doesn't really want to know. She's probably better off not knowing but she's not a baby or a child, she can handle the truth. She doesn't need me to coddle her.

"What I have done is bring peace to the Republic."

Still, she doesn't need to know all of the small details. Not at the moment, maybe later but she's heavily pregnant and I don't need her going into labor here.

"The Republic is dead." She whispers. "You killed it! You and Palpatine!"

That isn't the only thing I killed today...

"It needed to die."

Her crying becomes sobbing, fresh new tears flow down her beautiful face but instead of putting more distance between us, she cuts the distance and grabs my arms once again with her small hands that barely wrap even a quarter of the way around my biceps.

"Anakin? Can't we just... go? Please! Let's leave. Together. Today. Now. Before you- before something happens-"

"Nothing will happen!" I can see what she's trying to do but it won't work. How many times did I ask the same of her? How many times did I ask her to leave with me for a vacation? Sometimes I even asked her to leave everything behind with me.

No more Jedi.

No more Senator.

Just her and me.

What did she say each time?

You guessed it, no.

We have duties and responsibilities, she would always say.

That was her answer for everything, now the tables have turned and I can't leave everything behind, not when I'm this close to getting what I want- what I need!

And that is to prevent my nightmares from coming true. They won't happen again, not if I have anything to say or do about it.

"Nothing can happen." I continue, my voice as cold as ice. "Let Palpatine call himself Emperor. Let him. He can do the dirty work, all the messy, brutal oppression it'll take to unite the galaxy- unite the galaxy against him. He'll make himself into the most hated man in history. And when the time is right, we'll throw him down-"

"Anakin stop-"

"Don't you see? We'll be heroes. The whole galaxy will love us! And then we will rule- together." I smile at the thought of that, the beautiful vision playing out before me. Me- Emperor taking my seat on my throne before the Imperial Court, the most powerful people in the galaxy, and before the rest of the people of the galaxy as they watch live on every single HoloNet channel and my wife, my Empress, taking a seat next to me in a throne that is completely identical to my own. It's perfect. "We can make things the way we want them to be."

"Please stop- Anakin, please, stop, I can't stand it-"

Is she talking? I don't hear a single word she says for my attention rests solely on the lone cloaked figure standing on top of the ramp of Padmé's skiff. Apparently this is the danger I've been warned about by my Master, he couldn't sense it was Kenobi. Neither could I. He must've cloaked his presence in the Force and waited before making his presence known.

The first thing that comes to my mind is: she betrayed me.

And that is the only possibility I allow myself to focus on as that ice cold, pristine mountain top comes back to me and the power that comes along with it.

I'm not the man that he knew.

I'm not the Apprentice he trained.

I'm not the Jedi he fought side by side with during the Clone Wars.

I'm Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith and these two are about to become acquainted with him.

"You." I snarl, my voice going beyond even my own recognition as the dark side floods my body and permeates outwards.

"Padmé." Kenobi shouts. "Move away from him!"

She isn't going anywhere. Neither is he, nowhere except for the place where dead Jedi go.

"Obi-Wan!" She whirls about, finally noticing the invited guest. How nice of her to bring him here... for me to kill him. It would be nicer, however, if she told me she brought him instead of lying to me and pretending now to not know he was onboard the whole time. "No!"

Like me, she knows what's about to happen. One of us are about to die and that one isn't going to be me.

My focus is back on the woman that betrayed me. "You," I growl, letting her hear my anger, my disappointment. "You brought him here!"

She turns back around, her brown eyes landing on my amber, the dark side making its beautiful presence known. She shivers. "Anakin?"

"Padmé!" Obi-Wan shouts again. "He's not who you think he is! He will harm you!"

Through clenched teeth, I growl. "I would thank you for this, if it were a gift of love."

She shakes her head, backing away from me. Her voice trembles as she tries to talk herself out of this mess she found herself in. "No... Anakin-no-"

She's lied to me enough today. "Palpatine was right." Shaking my head, I continue. "Sometimes it is the closest who cannot see. I loved you too much, Padmé but you obviously don't feel the same way."

Making a fist, she reaches for her neck finding herself unable to breathe. Now she knows how it feels. I've been dying since those nightmares started again, everywhere I went, the only thing I would see and hear is her screaming for me on her deathbed but I was unable to help her. I've had to watch her die every night for the last three months and while I've worked my ass off and sacrificed everything to save her, she goes and betrays me.

Betrays me and our family.

Was Master right when he made those insinuations about Padmé and Obi-Wan being too close or was he just trying to put a wedge between us? Was I blinded by what I thought was our love to see with any real clarity? Was I simply not seeing what I didn't want to see?

I destroy those thoughts like I destroyed that dragon, grabbing them in my hand and crushing them into dust. It's no matter. My vision won't happen the way I saw it, I'll make damn sure of it by killing Kenobi.

"Let her go, Anakin!"

Obi-Wan's words go right through me. In one ear and out the other, my name isn't Anakin. I'm not the man he knew.

Anakin is dead.

"Let her go!"

"Never!"

She collapses, her feet giving up under her and she falls backwards. Using the Force, I reach out and soften the fall, making sure she doesn't hit her head or twist and land on her belly.

Her heartbeat is still strong, she's just unconscious. Unconscious but alive.

Unconscious not because of my Force choke but because of the man that used to be my Master. The man that made my wife betray me.

"You did this!" I snarl, taking my eyes off of my wife and staring down the vile Jedi. "You turned her against me!"

"You've done that yourself," he counters, walking down the ramp.

I don't even give him any warning or time, my cloak is shrugged off, my lightsaber hums to life as I pull it off my belt and thumb the activation button and jump in the air until I am a meter before him and then I start to swing.

A/N: Duh... Duh... Duhhhh...

Sorry, but this is where I've decided to end chapter one. I hate cliff hangers too but I assure you that you'll like what I got planned for chapter two and I assure you, that it'll be worth the wait. It's going to be quite a bit longer than this chapter and will have a whole fleshed out fight scene with a totally alternate ending and if you've read the original Dark Emperor, it'll be completely different.

This is going to be a Dark Skywalker story... or a Dark Vader story and this Vader is going to be really dark. This'll be a true Sith story, and this Vader will become the Sith (Force-sensitive) that he was supposed to be when he reaches his full potential (which he will reach). You may wonder why Padmé would ever want to be with this Anakin/Vader because she's made it clear that she's against him from what she said already but I've already taken that into account and have my plans for that.

I hope you enjoyed this opening chapter! If you did please follow, favorite and review! Thanks!