The Loyalty of the Dark

Chapter 36

Anakin crossed his arms, giving his children a hard look. It was the evening of the day of Zilla's reappearance and only now had Anakin had enough time to get away from the police reports—they had to come up with a story to explain why the guy had been killed by something other than a lightsaber among others since the Jedi Temple had contacted him directly upon hearing of the odd weaponry of the attacker since it was the first time a red blade had been seen in years and considering the last time one suddenly showed up, the Master of the two orchestrated the Clone Wars (with the addition of Vader and Zilla's separate sect of Sith in existence, it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility there was a third or even fourth sect which was worrying in more ways than one to all involved)—and had found the time to corner the two of youngest members of the family, which as anyone who knew the Skywalkers was well aware such a thing was easier said than done for one of the twins, let alone both.

"First off, how long have you two been able to remember?" Anakin asked, looking at them. The two glanced at each other.

"Three years," Luke finally answered, eyes moving to the floor in shame. "We think the date more or less matched with our time, but seven years back from what had been our time."

"I wasn't able to get us all the way back before the Force fully altered the timestream," Leia explained. "Or, that's at least what we think happened. Hypothetically, we should have remembered some point after our twenty-third birthday."

"Vader and Eclipse were the ones who figured it out in the first place, so honestly, we don't even know why we'd remember. Regardless, we figured there wasn't much of a point mentioning it considering everything is....different here."

"How different?" Anakin asked. They traded uneasy glances.

"Well, for starters, Palpatine succeeded in overthrowing the Republic and killing off the Jedi in the other timeline," Leia said, biting her bottom lip uneasily. "You died, and then Mother died shortly after while giving birth to us from what we understand."

"I was taken to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru to be raised out of sight with Obi-Wan looking out for me, while Leia was adopted by the Organas," Luke further explained. Anakin frowned, looking at his daughter.

"The Organas? Bail and Breha?"

The girl nodded: "Yes. That's why Eclipse calls me Princess, because I was the Crown Princess of Alderaan until...." She dropped off, eyes distant and haunted.

"Until the Empire destroyed Alderaan," Luke stated, looking up at his shocked and horrified father. "It's actually how Leia and I met. The Rebellion—the resistance against the Empire that was partially formed from the Delegation of Two-Thousand from way back when—stole the plans for the Death Star. It was this enormous moon-sized super weapon. Leia was tasked with safely delivering the plans to the Rebellion and convincing Obi-Wan to come out of hiding and help. Vader and Eclipse captured her ship over Tatooine before she could complete her mission."

"So I sent Artoo and Threepio down with them in the hopes they would be able to make contact," Leia continued, seeming to have partly recovered from thoughts of a past that no longer existed. "It would have happened sometime this year, had the Empire formed."

"And that's where I came into the picture. Artoo and Threepio got themselves captured by Jawas, and Uncle Owen bought them. Artoo, being Artoo, wasted no time in tricking me to take off his restraining bolt before wandering off into the desert in search of Obi-Wan, though I only knew him as Ben Kenobi at the time. First thing the next morning, me and Threepio went out looking for Artoo and ran into Ben in the process. That's where he took the opportunity to give me your lightsaber and tell me my father was in fact a Jedi and not a space freighter pilot as I had been told my entire life before asking me to help him return the plans to the Rebellion and save Leia.... I said no," Luke admitted, looking down and studying his lightsaber. Leia looked at him in surprise, seemingly to have never heard this part of the story before. "What I didn't know was that the Empire had sent soldiers out looking for the droids. If I hadn't left...." He closed his eyes, shaking his head. "Imperial Stormtroopers killed them. Probably me too, if I'd been there, though I'd like to think I could have stopped it, somehow. There was nothing left for me after that, so I left with Old Ben and decided to become a Jedi. We met Han and Chewie," at this Luke cracked a grin, "and they got us off the planet in the biggest hunk of junk you ever saw. We were planning to go to Alderaan, meet with Bail, but...."