STAR WARS: The hunt for KENOBI

Vader's obsession

"It is only a matter of time before he is found. I will stop at nothing! He will pay for what he has done." Vader exclaimed.

"Everything will soon be set right." The dark lord promised.

"Have faith, my love. Everything will soon be set right."

His voice was deep with anger and determination. He was hungrier now more than ever for his vengeance.

The Emperor was standing in Vader's medical chambers, looking at his crippled apprentice inside the bacta tank that was tending to his scars.

  "Is that so, Lord Vader?" He rhetorically asked with an agitated look.

Vader looked at his master. "He will not survive our next encounter. This, I can assure you." Vader promised.

  "Yes, Lord Vader. I believe you mean what you say. But saying something, and doing something is entirely different, my friend." Sidious replied.

  "Obi-Wan Kenobi is a far lesser being than you. In skill and in power. To have defeated you once and escape you a second time is... concerning." The Emperor explained.

"I believe you have failed in your task because you still harbour Anakin Skywalker's feelings. I believe that the Jedi you were has hindered you." He said.

  "Anakin Skywalker is dead." Vader replied sternly.

He normally spoke in a calm and respectful manner to his master, but he was enraged. So enraged.

  "So you say." The Emperor began.

"If you were fully detatched from your past, Kenobi would be dead, would he not?" It was a rhetorical question.

  "Your hatred is a gift, but your obsession is a debilitation. It has clouded your thoughts, left you... weakened." The Emperor stated.

He sounded almost sad to Vader. Disappointed, surely.

  "Sometimes, I wonder if Anakin Skywalker truly is dead." Darth Sidious lamented.

Vader stared deeply at Sidious.

  "I have given you everything I have." Vader said.

It was in a sad tone. Almost broken. In fact, it was totally broken.

  The Emperor had looked at him and smiled. "Have you? Because I feel if we compare what we have given, I have been far more generous."

The Emperor could sense Vader's rage and confusion.

"I've given you a world!" The Emperor began, opening his arms out. Speaking about Mustafar.

"I've given you the power of the dark side, gifted you a great deal of my knowledge." He explained to his fallen apprentice.

"I have gifted you a suit that keeps you alive."

"And tortured." Vader interrupted with contempt strong in his modulated voice.

The Emperor's smile faded.

"Does it not strengthen your connection to the dark side?"

  Vader said nothing. His lack of words was enough of a reply for the Emperor.

  "Let us not forget, apprentice, your arrogance put you in a position of needing to wear that suit." The Emperor spat.

"All of your potential, wasted." The Emperor paused for a moment.

"I will not deny you have become a truly powerful Sith. And your power continues to grow, but your potential was limitless!" The Emperor exclaimed.

"Now... it is not."

Vader bit his tongue. He was desperate to answer back with a question about how Sidious had failed to deliver his promise on cheating death to save Padme. The need was strong, but he held his words back.

"Yes, master." Vader replied. Closing his eyes, letting the bacta deal with his wounds.

It was a crushing blow to reality. Hearing that his once limitless potential had become limited. The words stung more than his wounds.

"Lord Vader, I understand your disappointment with your failure to kill your old master. But you must learn to overcome your past." The Emperor instructed.

Vader was seething with anger. But his master was correct.

When it came to Obi-Wan, he had lost sense of reality. He had failed in areas that should've been trivial.

"You..." Vader stuttered. "You are right, my master."

The Emperor smiled.

"I have been too... distracted. It has weakened me." Vader acknowledged.

"Unless Kenobi makes his appearance known, consider him forgotten."

The Emperor grinned at his apprentice. His putrid rotten teeth showing. "I'm glad to hear, my apprentice."

When the Emperor had left, Vader was alone, held together by a hoist to keep him in place inside his bacta tank.

"There's still good in him."

"She was wrong."

Vader had told his master the truth. He would move on from his obsession with Obi-Wan. He would become patient. Over the course of the next decade, the obsession would nag away at him in the back of his mind, but he would bide his time, learn patience and become the perfect Sith Lord he was destined to be.

He would go on to kill Obi-Wan Kenobi on the Death Star. Shortly before discovering that a young boy, his son, Luke Skywalker, was alive and responsible for the destruction of said Death Star.

To be concluded...