My New Empire

The New Empire. It was a noble sentiment, but one that he had little faith in. He wasn’t the first to utter those words, to think that a return to the old ways was the path to the future. But Hux wasn’t so sure. 

There were elements of the Empire that were important– and, indeed, the whole idea of an empire, in its purest form, was precisely what the First Order stood for. But the Empire had failed, and he didn’t intend to repeat their mistakes. 

He nodded. He could assemble a team. He could call in a few favours– from royal families he had dealings with, a few old friends. Even those he had.. lost contact with, over the years. He could get politicians, he could get military. He would be proud to represent what the First Order could be, what he had been working for for so long. But he couldn’t lead the political front, and it worried him to know that he would have to step back, and leave choices to people with more.. expertise than him. 

“I can have a team assembled by the end of the day, ready to meet with you, to make a plan. I can have dignitaries visiting as early as next week, provided we are prepared to receive them.” His mind was reeling. Did the First Order need an Embassy? Would they need ambassadors? It wasn’t something he had ever considered. He hadn’t been trying to be part of the New Republic, he had thought himself above that. And now, suddenly needing to formulate a government– before their victory– it was a strange concept. 

“My lord–” he wasn’t entirely sure how to say it. “Should I make the Supreme Leader aware of your plan, or would you prefer to keep it..” he paused, choosing his words carefully. “Off the books, until it is in motion?”

“If you inform Snoke then I’ll have your head.” Vader quipped casually, as if he were merely discussing the weather. “By the time this is over, I intend to wrest the entire First Order from his control as well. Foolish, decrepit, old man... Trying to be the next Palpatine in the same way that my grandson is trying to be the next me. It’s pathetic.”

Vader sneered as he blatantly voiced outright treasonous thoughts. But what did he care? Snoke was below him. A pale imitation of his former master. Snoke inspired no true terror. Not like Sidious had... But even the horror of the Emperor had lessened over time. It was hard to be afraid of someone who he had so easily killed.

“Assemble this team. Recruit who you wish, although I have final say in who is trustworthy or not. If I find any lacking...” The consequences went unsaid. Needless to say, any untrustworthy recruits would not be leaving that room alive. This was a delicate matter. There could be no leaks.

𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐇𝐈𝐒 voice alone could stop the petrifying feeling that had set in the moment her eyes laid on him. There was death all around him. Where once he’d been one of the great protectors, the destruction now clung to him like the air would fill the lungs; one no longer seemingly able to survive without the other. It was how it seemed and it terrified her to the core. Suri struggled, with each breath that her own lungs took, shaky as it could be, with the mere idea of taking in the reality of this all.

A step was taken, backward and away from this.❝ — No, why? ❝ His words had fallen on deaf ears; her body refusing to consider what he was saying. Suri was no one; just one of the many, many people who’d come to aid the Jedi. In her case it had been a choice of her parents and now she served the Jedi order and the republic that it sought out to protect. With how it seemed, that republic was now falling as much as the order itself.❝ — Please,… ❝ The struggle for words continued. There was so much she wanted to say and yet she felt as though fear itself had become one with her.

More steps as she stumbled away from the chaos in front of her. Surely the archives would hold; would they? Or perhaps that location would only cause more harm? There was no force to guide her; she only ever had herself in that regard. Her mind screamed for her to run and then she was, or so it felt. Everything about her screamed with an intend to survive and make it out. Get out, call for help ; but oh, who would listen?

The more she stumbled back, the more he marched forward. He kept an even pace with her, keeping the distance just as it had been when they met eyes. No more, no less. She would not escape him. She could not. How could anyone hope to escape the Hero With No Fear?

Except, he was the Hero of the Empire now.

Anakin ignored her pleas, a first for him, but one he was rapidly becoming more acquainted with. Something was wrong with this girl and he intended to find out what. Why had the Force brought her to his attention when so many initiates fell to his saber and it had been silent?

The fallen Jedi reached out, brushing her mind. She did not stand a chance. Anakin was no avid mind reader, but he was a fully fledged Jedi Knight on the cusp of genuine mastery. With this non-force sensitive, it was child’s play. But what he saw... horrified him

Which, considering the circumstances, were saying something.

➤ ANAKIN SKYWALKER.​

𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐃 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒; her whole life could have been summarized that way. Her life had been dedicated to being a supporter of the Jedi and their teachings; a life well spend among those who carried the knowledge of the ancients. How many things had she encrypted, how many deciphered in her time since childhood? The numbers have become a thing she no longer dares to remember and her childhood is something she no longer sees as her own but something sacrificed for a whole other objective.

A day like any other and yet for once there is noise in the distance; noise so disturbing it unsettles her to her very core. Screams can be heard echoing in the distance and it causes her to move and face whatever terrors are being cause to those who walk the halls of the Jedi temple. What she sees her eyes cannot fathom; there is denial and refusal to understand the destruction outside the doors of the archive. Death flows along the ground, fills the air and yet she keeps going. Why, oh why would she? Suri’s feet have taken on a life of their own, to carry her around the corner and toward the source.

But the source is worse than anything she’d have ever imagined; a face distorted by the anger and the shadows that seem to have taken over. It is a face she’s seen before. A great confusion settles in her, mixed with the terror of what reality she’d found herself in. ❝ — No, no. No. ❝ Her world no longer makes any sense and her body has long given up on moving.

They fell so easily to his blade. It was almost disappointing, in a disturbing way. The temple guards was the difficult part. Those sentinels of the Order were highly trained and well coordinated. Far too reliant on ceremony, though. Easy to surround and mow down with blaster fire.

So it was that the 501st began their illustrious careers as Jedi killers.

Anyone with a modicum of talent and skill was somewhere off in the galaxy, fighting against droids... And now their own troopers. What was left at the temple were scholars, younglings, and those otherwise useless on a battlefield. Easy picking for one such as him. Body after body fell in his wake, lifeless and one with the Force. It screamed at him, but Anakin ignored it.

No... he was Vader now, right? He didn’t quite feel like it...

Anakin sensed the girl’s fear. It wasn’t masked. One of the temple’s many non-force sensitive occupants. Tasked with keeping this most holy of places up and running. He tilted his head, blue eyes regarding her curiously. His new master had said nothing about the staff, but he had given the orders to kill them all anyway. No witnesses.

And yet, he found himself inexplicably drawn to this young woman, no older than he was, gazing at him with such terror. Understandable. He was in the midst of slaughtering the entire Jedi Temple.

“Miss me with that possessing people bantha fodder. I don’t want to live forever.”

Because I get the eerie sensation that he was not being metaphorical.

Ah. So it seemed that he would have to kill the upstart darksider after all.

“He would dare...” Vader growled out. His fists clenched tightly, even as he embraced his grandson. The room around them began to shake, durasteel cracking, circuits exploding all around them. It was a calm rage, made all the more dangerous because of it. His mind was clear. The Sith knew what he must do.

Vader pushed his grandson away. Not completely, just enough so that he could see the face of the child that stood before him. For although his grandson was but a man in age, he had still not passed his own Trials. To him, Kylo Ren was still but a learner, akin to a padawan.

This... might change that. This was a Trial in its own right.