It's What Goes On In Here That's Hard (Star Wars AU Fanfiction)

Chapter 1. The Dark Lord

"Beware the Dark Side....."

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These words found their way into Luke Skywalker's mind as he navigated the maze of white halls in Cloud City. He was confident he could find Han, Leia, Chewie and Threepio without coming upon any mishaps or worse, all he had to do was find them. Easy enough, right?

Luke continued on, avoiding detection easily for the white corridors were empty of any life besides himself and his loyal astromech droid R2-D2.

As they came around a bend Luke heard footsteps and quickly pulled back. Drawing his blaster and peeking around the bend he saw a small gathering of Stormtroopers led by a man in armor, he looked familiar although Luke couldn't be sure. But what was curious about this group was that they had a strange slab of stone, with the outline of a man encased in the strange rock, Luke however was too far away to see the slab clearly.

As they walked out of view Luke crept forward and looked around the bend, curious as he poked his blonde head out to see. Suddenly the bounty hunter came back and shot at him, having heard Luke thanks to the sensors in his helmet. He hit the wall Luke hid behind before retreating, deciding his cargo was more important than a lone Rebel.

The bounty hunter was gone as fast as he had appeared. Luke frowned contemplating whether to chase after the bounty hunter, Artoo beeped and chirped, pushing against Luke's leg sounding rather upset. Luke placed a gentle, reassuring hand on his droid, trying to calm the astromech when he heard marching. Luke headed in that direction.

Leia and Chewie were being escorted by Stormtroopers and a few Cloud City officers. One of them saw Luke's shadow as Luke came around the bend.

Laserfire erupted from the Stormtroopers, peppering the white halls with charred blaster marks whilst Luke took cover.

He peeked around the bend to see Leia getting pulled along. Leia saw Luke and started to fight. "NO LUKE IT'S A TRAP! IT'S A TRAP!" She cried desperately as she and a struggling Chewie were pulled through a door and then all was silent.

Luke bit his lip and went forward, Leia had just warned him of a trap, what should he do? Luke sighed and reached out with his feelings, he felt nothing but his instincts seemed to be screaming for him to run, to find Leia some other way. But what if he waited to long and Leia ended up getting tortured or killed. No he couldn't, wouldn't let that happen.

Luke edged towards the blastdoor, it opened and Luke stepped inside. Artoo followed only for the door to shut before he could follow Luke inside.

Luke found his way onto an elevator and was promptly taken up into a large, strange chamber.

The room was lit by red lights from the floor while dim blue lights faintly glowed in the background. There was a dark aura about this place and mist fogged Luke's vision as he began to sweat, he felt the cold darkness, like what he had felt on Dagobah.

A mechanical breathing suddenly filled the room, chilling Luke to the bone. But as he turned around to see the black silhouette of Darth Vader, images of Ben getting cut down came to his mind as well as the vision of Han and Leia in pain. The chill was quickly replaced with determination as the young boy put his blaster away and walked towards Vader.

"The Force is with you, young Skywalker. But you are not a Jedi yet." Darth Vader said darkly. His mere presense could scare a rancor to death, but his voice, his voice could send fear into the hearts of even the most noble of men and women.

Luke did not let this get to him though, he could feel the Force, he had accomplished much over the years, by himself and at the teachings of Ben and Yoda.