Star Wars: Dark Angel, Scarlet Dragon

"Lobotomy is an ugly word. It is a minor surgical procedure. They are in no pain, I assure you. Of course, we don't allow them the same level of intellect or sense of independence as those who joined us freely. They are assigned directly to the Imperial Armed Forces. Not as stormtroopers, of course—we wouldn't waste such Force talent. They are division commanders, technical officers, tacticians, pilots...and all of them forever and fiercely loyal to the Sith Galactic Empire."

The thought of his Jedi made into mindless killers...Kyp Durron, Corran Horn, Kyle Katern, Alema and Numa Rar...

He felt bile crawl up his throat.

No, no, he refused to believe it. They were too strong in the Force. They were Jedi Knights.

"What happens to the strong ones?" he growled. "The ones you can't bend or stupefy? And don't tell me there aren't any. There are. Like my Jedi Knights."

Lylla looked at him, strangely, then walked over to him on the floor. She crouched down to meet his eyes. "We send them home, Luke."

"LIAR! You never sent my Jedi back to me—"

"I didn't say whose home," she said. She put up her hand before Luke could lash out again. "We send them back to THEIR homes, where they originally came from. Safe and unharmed. They live out their days as they see fit."

Luke bowed his head, shaking it back and forth. "You're lying. I know you're lying."

Lylla narrowed her eyes, then barked at her guards, "Lower your shields. Now." They obeyed, and Luke was suddenly flooded by the Force around him. Lylla leaned into his face. "There, no blocks, no shields. Now tell me I'm lying."

He didn't want to touch that psychic wasteland in her head, but he dared. He sighed. "No, you're not." He glared at her. "But you're not telling the whole truth. You're hiding something."

Lylla leaned her elbows on her knees, dropped her head, and blew a sigh of aggravation. She then stood up, and put out her hand. "Captain. Your lightsaber." The captain of the guard stepped forward and set it in her hand. She then stepped back two paces and tossed the saber on the floor, directly in front of Luke. "Leave us." She turned over her shoulder when she was not immediately obeyed, and saw the unease on their faces. "I said leave." She was obeyed.

As the last guard left the cell, Lylla turned back to Luke. She straightened herself to her full height and loomed over him. "This conversation is growing tedious, and I won't continue it any longer. Because this war between us ends, today. Right now." She stepped back and gestured to the lightsaber. "There. Take it. My guards are gone, I am entirely unarmed and Force-blind, and I have no idea how to use that thing." She smiled a bit. "Take it. Kill me."

Luke gaped at the weapon in front of him. Lylla watched his hands shake and his lip tremble. She reached up behind her head, and began undoing the fasteners of her skullcap. "Take it," she repeated, starting a slow circle around him. "You've dreamed of this moment, haven't you, Luke? You never even hoped to have an opportunity like this. And you're hesitating?" Her voice grew softer, darker. "I took everything from you. I killed your beloved sister. I killed her son. I hunted you down like an animal for thirteen years. I kidnapped your friends. I unleashed the plague that killed the Wookiee Chewbacca and his entire race. And I drove your sister's husband, your best friend, to drink himself to death in a rat hole on the Smuggler's Moon. That's what you've told yourself over the years, that's what you believe." She stopped before him. "And I was the one that kept your father trapped in the darkness. I seduced him, I sank my claws in him, and then I used him. Isn't that what you think, Luke?" She peeled the skullcap off her head and neck, and adjusted her one long braid. She crouched down, then forward to her knees, then onto her hands, until her face was just shy of his. He noted the wisps of hair that had loosened under the hood, how they framed her face, and that scent of rose filled his head. "Take it, Luke. Cut off my head. Avenge them all." She leaned in even closer and whispered, "The Knight will never have another chance to slay the Dragon."

His thin tether of control snapped, and Luke was on her like a starved predator. Grabbing her by the throat, he threw her on her back and jumped on top of her. The lightsaber shot from the floor to his hand. He held her down as he ignited it, holding it high and pointing the tip right at her throat. She didn't even try to fight him. His hand shook. He looked her in the eyes. The reptilian slits of her pupils widened, slowly, into a normal circle, then expanded further until her eyes were black as...The Dark Side. It was there, in those bottomless pits.

"Luke," Lylla whispered. With one hand she covered his hand around her throat, and reached up and touched his cheek with the other. "Why do you keep fighting it? What do you possibly have left to fight for? It's over." She lifted her other hand and cradled his head, all the while ignoring the laser's tip at her throat. "Please. Come home. All will be forgiven."

It spoke to him, wrapped around him. "Don't do this," he pleaded, his hand trembling even worse.

"What am I doing, Luke? Voicing the truth? Telling you something you've known for years, only you were too proud, too stubborn to accept it?" She ran a thumb under his eye. "This is your father's vision, come to life, HIS Empire, all of it. You are a part of this; it is your birthright, your destiny..."

He swore he could hear, in an eternal distance, the voices of angels raised in dark song...

"This isn't the way it was supposed to be," she said, a catch in her throat.

Oh Force, Force...please...

"The blood of Vader belongs in the House of Vader."

Stop calling, stop singing to me...It hurts...

"He didn't want it like this."

"SHUT UP, LYLLA!" he yelled. He switched off the lightsaber and leapt off her and scuttled away. But then he looked down, and saw the beginnings of an erection.

Lylla flipped to her hands and knees, and crawled over to him. "It's not what you thought it would be at all, is it? You expected your mind to be filled with horror and screams and fire. But that didn't happen. Quite the opposite." She stopped before him. "It's beautiful, Luke. You felt it. It manifests itself differently with every person, molds itself to you. It knows your wants, your desires, your needs, and offers you all of it. And the power? It's..." Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment before she snapped them open. "The Dark Side has been waiting for you, Luke. And you ran from it, shunned it, when all it wanted was...to love you."

He pulled his legs in front of him to hide his privates, and clutched his knees. He couldn't stop trembling. "You're repellant."

She ignored it. "I could tempt you with power, riches, entire armies at your command. But those things never meant anything to you. So..." She tilted her head. "I offer you something else."

"What?"

"Comfort. I offer you comfort. A soft, warm bed. Food, anything and everything you like, whenever you like. Warm clothes. Medical care. Simple things, things everyone takes for granted, until they no longer have them. Like you haven't for the last thirteen years." She tilted her head. "Have you ever been in love, Luke?"

He looked at the floor, and ground his teeth. "No."

"I could give that to you." He recoiled, and she slit her eyes when she saw the revulsion on his face. "Don't flatter yourself. I have no intention of taking you to my bed. Regardless of what you think of me, even I have limits, Luke Skywalker." She shifted to sit on her hip, lifted a knee, and set her elbow on it. "I can give you any woman in the galaxy. Anyone. Anyone you want, from a princess to a lowly bar dancer. Flesh, sweet and supple. Warmth. Beauty. Someone to fall into every night in that soft, warm, clean bed...the ultimate comfort." She sighed. "What man in your predicament, or in his rightful mind, would refuse?" She watched him intently, and her stomach fluttered with excitement as she watched his face change from desolation to...consideration.

"What about my Jedi?" he asked.

The bait was cast. "They are welcome, Luke. Perhaps as your personal guard?"

"Now why would I need a personal guard?"

"Because it is only fitting that the Emperor's Second and Supreme Military Commander have one."

He gawked at her for a moment, then laughed. "I thought you weren't going to offer me power."

"I'm not. I giving you a job," she said, toying with her long braid. "You didn't think I would let you have all of this without you working for it, did you?" She began to rise. "After a while, you may even come to enjoy it."

"After you've seduced me to the Dark Side, is that it?"

She came to her feet, and regarded him for a moment before saying, "My seduction is finished. You are already standing at the threshold. All you need to do is...fall." She came toward him. He watched with tired, desolate eyes. Lylla bent before him, and cradled his face once more. "Stay here with us. Take your rightful place." She traced a fingertip along his eyebrow. "The Emperor...he longs for you, Luke. Longs for your guidance and wisdom in the Force. Let him...know you."

"HE'S NOT THE EMPEROR!" Luke yelled.

But Lylla didn't flinch. "Not officially. But in a few hours he will be." He watched her lip tremble. "You show such hatred, such venom for your own flesh and blood, and you still think you aren't already touched by the Dark Side? Please Luke. Let's be a family, the family you never had, the one you have craved all your life. You think us cold, ruthless, calculating. But we have hearts too." She bit her lip, controlling the emotion now welling within her. "It was for you, Luke, all for you. And him. Please. Come home."

He looked at her, his face twisted, until he could no longer hold back. He flung his arms over his face and dropped his head into his knees, and sobbed. Lylla adjusted to her knees, and slowly wrapped her long arms around him, cradling him against her chest. "That's it, Luke," she sang into his filthy hair. "Just let it go. Come to us. Just fall...just fall..." She continued to rock him like a child, feeling his body shake with sobbing...no, not sobbing.

Laughter.

The smug contentment melted off her features, and she pulled back and looked at Luke, who giggled, disturbingly, while his crystal blue eyes bore into her skull. "Oh, Lylla," he finally said through pained breaths, "You're good, I'll give you that. But you're not that good."

He didn't know what he had exactly said to provoke such a reaction from her, but she recoiled from him as though he were on fire. She seemed on the verge of losing control, and he relished every second of it. "What is this?" she hissed.

"It's me, Lylla. Anakin Skywalker's son." He spoke through his laughter. "Did you really think it would be so easy? Do you really think I don't know you?" He began to get on his feet, regardless of the agony. "You don't love me, Lylla. You hate me down to your rotten soul. And don't EVEN try to convince me Leia's death was an accident." He limped toward her. "You marked her the second you discovered who she was. Because then it became clear to you. Then you understood why her very presence filled you with such terror and hatred, you understood why every time you saw her face, it made you insane with jealousy. Because she was the very image of her mother." It was his turn to loom over her. "You never had the pleasure of killing Padme Naberrie, but you could kill her daughter. Your own husband's child."

Rage mottled Lylla's porcelain skin. "That little BITCH was NOT Darth Vader's child!" she hissed. "She was..." Her face twisted, "hers."

"And I'm hers too." Again, a sardonic chuckle. "You could kill Leia and destroy her family. But me? No, you can't kill me, no matter how much you want to. You had to turn me, seduce me, bend me to your will, completely and totally break me. THAT would have been far more satisfying anyway. Your revenge against a woman you never even met." He laughed a little. "A woman who's been dead for forty years."

With startling speed, Lylla came to her feet, stepped into him, and slammed the back of her closed fist up and across his jaw. Luke reeled back, but did not fall, catching himself on the wall. Laughing again, he ran his hand across his mouth, and looked at the blood. "You're pathetic, Lylla." She answered him by shoving him against the wall and pinning her elbow across his throat. Raising her hand in front of his face, she made sure he had a good look when she flexed her palm and five durasteel claws sprang from her gloved fingertips. She reached down, and Luke felt the unmistakable prick of sharpened talons cupping his scrotum.

He waited. Lylla was breathing heavy, almost panting, her mouth smeared in a snarl, her white eyes blazing, furious. She squeezed a warning. Luke didn't flinch. "Go ahead," he whispered. "Do it. If you can't turn me, you'll mutilate me, is that it? You tried to buy Leia through deceit and manipulation. And when she wouldn't give you Jaina and Jacen, you killed her. That's the way it always is with you, Lylla. Give with one hand. Stab with the other." Lylla let out a furious shriek, jabbing her arm even harder into his throat, and the talons punctured a little further. In spite of this immediate danger, he coughed a laugh. "Go ahead. But don't you dare take your eyes off me while you do it. Don't you dare look away while you're castrating his son."

Lylla's hand began to shake against his testes, and he watched a thread of saliva drip from her bared teeth. With an anguished yelp, she lurched off of him. She stumbled over to the Jedi trap, and slammed her fists into the console. She fought for every breath she took as her heart hammered in her chest.

Luke fell back onto the wall, catching his own breath. He pulled the Force into his body, easing his pain, and lightly touched his privates, checking for damage. He watched her for a moment before he said, "We can never kill each other, Lylla. That's his covenant with you and me. You know that."

She sighed through her heavy breathing. Eventually, she straightened up and turned over her shoulder. "I cannot turn you, and I cannot kill you. Then we are at an impasse, it seems."

Luke nodded. "So it seems."

She nodded as well. "Very well." She turned to face him, and folded her hands before her. A moment passed before she said, "When you mentioned revenge before. Yes, I want revenge. But you were only half right."

"In what way?" he asked.

"You said I wanted revenge against your mother. But she's not the only one."

"Then who else?"

"You."

He frowned. "I think I already know that."

"No, you don't." She walked toward him. Not threateningly, casually. "You think I hate you simply because you are Padme's son? Please, I'm not that shallow. No Luke, I hate you because..." She stopped in front of him. "You took him away from me."

He blinked. "What?"

"You took him away from me," she repeated, emphatically and bitterly. "You sent him away, and replaced him with...a stranger." She looked at the floor to hide her moistening eyes. "And I didn't even get to say goodbye."

Luke gawked at her, his jaw slack. "Is that why? All these years, everything you've done...that's why?"

"That's not enough?"

"You...you really did love him?"

She looked back up, glaring at him from under her brow. "You think of Sith as evil. You cannot let yourself believe there are shades of gray, even within the dark. You Jedi think you know everything about perfect love, but you've never even come close." She bore into his skull with her frigid eyes. "I built an Empire in his name. I killed trillions of people for the sake of his legacy. And before that...I did things that would have given the sturdiest warriors nightmares for years. All of it for HIM. And long after I am dead, House Vader will rule the Sith Galactic Nation for millennia." She sniffed. "So yes, that is why I tormented you for thirteen years. That is why I destroyed everything you loved. You took him away from me. So I took everything away from you."

Luke pressed himself further into the wall. "Lylla. You're a monster. You're not human."

Her lids fluttered. "You just figured that out?"

He limped toward her. "How do you do it?" he rasped, squinting at her. "The Dark Side...it's all around you, but...you can't use it. But you can...draw it...it doesn't seduce you—"

"I seduce it, you mean?"

"Yes." He swallowed. "What are you, Lylla?"

She stared at him, strangely, and he once again saw the slits of her irises ripen wide for a fleeting second. She then set her palm on his chest and murmured, "I am your angel of mercy, Luke." Leaning in, she softly kissed his filthy cheek, then stepped back. She picked a thin comlink out of her glove. "Bring the med team in." The stone doors screeched open again, and Luke watched Lylla's guards accompany several med techs pushing in a repulsor med-bed. Still looking at him, she ordered, "Tend to him."

Luke didn't fight when the techs assisted him onto the bed. In spite of himself, he sighed in relief and exhaustion as his head hit the pillow. Surgical-gloved hands roamed over him, inserting needles and attaching tubes to his limbs. He scarcely noticed as the softness of the mattress drove him to distraction.

Still, he forced his eyes open. "What are you going to do with me, Lylla?" he whispered.

She came to the side of the bed, and laid a palm on his scarred brow. "I'm going to mend your injuries. Then I am going to serve you a feast, more food than you have seen in thirteen years. Then I will give you a ship. And then...I will send you home, Luke."

"Home?" he rasped. "What do you mean 'home'?"

"I mean wherever you want to go. Anywhere. Once you leave Coruscant, you are free, and you will never see me again. I will even provide you any amount of credits you will need."

"I don't want your money."

"Very well. But the former is satisfactory?"

Luke blinked a few times, trying to keep focused, but the sedative dripping into his vein was already taking affect. He was just tired, period. "Yes, it's satisfactory."

Lylla gazed at him. She tenderly brushed stray hairs of his slick brow, and nodded. She then stepped back and nodded to the doctor. He stepped forward with a hyposyringe in his hand.

Luke recognized it, even through his blurry vision. "What is that?"

Lylla sighed, "Unpleasant."

Luke struggled, but realized that in his stupor, he hadn't noticed that he had been strapped to the stretcher. He grunted in protest as the doctor sank the syringe into his arm.

At first, nothing. But then...came the nothingness. A silent plague, slow and black and heavy, oozed through him, and he felt death...but not his death. Then cries came...billions of them, and yet just one...screaming through his limbs and body, dying...but he was not dying...

The Force was.

"Lylla!" he shouted hoarsely, fighting with everything he had left against his restraints. "What are you doing? What's happening to me??" He was met with cold silence. "LYLLA!"

She waited until he tired himself before she answered him. "Scientists had worked for centuries trying to isolate the genome of the ysalamiri that rendered a Force-user powerless. They came up empty-handed every time." She shrugged. "Seems they just weren't looking close enough. They only looked at a biochemical level. They didn't think to look sub-atomically. Until now. We cracked the code."

What little color Luke had in his face blanched away. "No...no...you can't do this, Lylla. You can't do this!"

"I'm freeing you. Freeing you from a destiny you never wanted. Freeing you from the very name of 'Skywalker' itself. Freeing you from...all of it." She tried to touch his face, but he jerked from her caress. She went on anyway. "At this very moment, the remainder of your Jedi are undergoing the change as well. And like you, they will be given ships and supplies to take wherever they wish. But unlike you, their minds and memories will be erased." She stepped closer into him. "I told you the war between us ends today. I cannot kill you, and I cannot turn you. So this is the only way. You give me no alternative."