Star Wars: Purgatory

Chapter Three: Execute

Lord Vader returned to his Executor-Class Star Destroyer. On board the titan sized ship, he made his way to his Meditation Chamber. There he took a seat in a black leather chair and had the egg shaped doors close around him. Inside, a metal hatch opened and joists with circlet descended and latched on the top of his helm, removing it. The pale bald head was riddle with scars, purple veins, and burn marks. Vader felt the room pressurize and then he took off the front of the mask, exposing amber eyes, a wrinkled nose, and face both pale and broken with scar tissue. This was the image he hid from his subordinates, one of torment, that existed as much on his flesh as ij hus soul.

The Dark Lord lowered his head, as the room swam with the Force, he began to channel his hatred, hatred for the Jedi, for the Rebellion, for himself. His self hate greatest of all, able to summon strength to endure the perpetual pain he was in physically and emotionally. Thus his suffering became a tool to tap the dark storehouses of power and hunt down those who refused to venerate it, and bow to the might of the Empire.

His ambitions had turned. They had been to save her, now to serve. He had nothing left but The Void, and loyalty to the only one left from his past, his Master. It was because of that bond, formed between teacher and pupil, that kept him steady, not devotion to the dark side, it had already failed him, failed to save her from death. Now all the Force was to him was a tool to keep the Imperial hierarchy in check, hunt down enemies of the Empire, and to maintain his bond with his Master. If he could have made a different bargain, he would have, but now it was too late, he had fallen too far, lost too much, and all the time he heard Master Yoda's maxim in his head,

"One you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."