Multiples - Vaderkin in ROTS

Chapter 1 - Beginning

Author's Note: This, sadly, doesn't start out terribly father-son centric but after the initial blah-blah boring plot introduction, everything gets purely fluffy and chaotic. ^-^ This is basically the story of how Obi-Wan gets bullied into having five sons because he was a tad too reluctant about having one. :') Apologizes if this is kind of... dark sometimes, but I promise everyone hugs before the end. ^-^ I honestly expected it to turn out a bit lighter than this, lol.

I'm trying to keep the... serious mental-health issues out of this but seeing as there's five embodiments of mental health issues around, it only goes so far.

PS: I think the reason Vader is being so light is 'cuz the other Anakins are light and it's all he can feel, plus the Force is much lighter. :)

Also, this is a gift for InsertSthMeaningful on ao3, and this is for the SW Father-Son Appreciation Gift Exchange. :)

This fic is three chapters. The second chapter will be posted on Monday, and then, the last one on the following Monday. :D

~ Rivana Rita

Obi-Wan knew something was off in the Force when they first reached the Invisible Hand. They just arrived at the room Palpatine is being held in when... he realizes something is wrong. Very, very wrong. He doesn't know what, but something is about to happen.

He feels the Force flare, suddenly, and then...

Then, he hears four resounding thuds. He feels another sudden presence – no, more than one. Obi-Wan looks around sharply. Someone who looks disturbingly like a padawan version of Anakin crashes face-first onto the floor, and another who looks like... Anakin did when they first met nearly faceplants with a yelp and awkwardly catches himself, hastily scrambling upright.

And the other two... are disturbingly identically looking cyborgs, black in both color and the Force. One has landed awkwardly half-sprawled on his back on the floor – he's the lighter of the two – and the other crashes into a wall and catches himself on one knee before he can faceplant as ungracefully as Anakin's other disturbingly look-alike.

What disturbs him the most is the way the younger two feel identically like Anakin did at those ages in the Force. It should be impossible, but the wide-eyed look on Anakin's face implies that he feels the exact same thing. They're like echoes of him in the Force, except equally strong.

And the other two... one feels darker, though something about his presence is familiar, and he's almost as bright as Anakin, though dimmed by darkness. The other is... similar, but strangely broken somehow.

The cyborgs are looking at each other the moment they stand, and Obi-Wan looks back to the others. "Anakin?" he asks slowly, confused, because this can't be right.

Five heads simultaneously turn his way.

Oh, no. No. This cannot be happening. He can already feel an instant migraine forming.

One Anakin is enough of a headache. And Obi-Wan would do anything for him, anything at all, but that doesn't make him any less exhausting. He has no idea how he would handle five of them – seeing the way they all reverberate with Anakin's Force presence. The padawan is the same as Obi-Wan remembers from the beginning of the war.

Both cyborgs lack Anakin's brightness and strength, but they are still the same, only they burn with darkness instead of light, somehow. One of them, the one with a distinctly younger feel, seems darker somehow, while the other feels... strangely lost and broken. How any version of Anakin could end up like that, he has no idea. And the youngest boy is... wild and brilliant though closed off in the same way Anakin was when they first met.