The Imperial city is the seat for the "Immortal" Emperor Vader. Few remember the time of the force, when jedi were the protectors of the senatorial regions. Fewer still are certain that the Emperor used to be something even resembling human. None know that Vader himself is a Force user. Vader has become something of a God to the realm, unkillable, and possessing of a powerful aura of fear and immovable constitution. [img]http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp118/darthire/Sithtemple.jpg[/img] The church of the Force, once a powerful symbol in the old republic, has been shattered and eroded down to a few squalling fanatics and millenia tested individuals. The force is a forbidden subject, and children with the aptitude are hidden away, or killed. The ones hidden were hunted down by Vader himself, having slain the Inquisitors the previous tyrant had placed in the Imperial army. Vader grew more powerful in the dark side with every kill, his hatred bringing forth a yearning for the ancient teachings of the sith, and their ghost possessed holocrons. [img]http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/d/dd/Sith_Holocron.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20101007181905[/img] Armed with new knowledge and power, Vader enhanced his clumsy suit, using the force and kestral tachnology to create semi-biotic limbs and exoskeleton, permanently grafting the new armor to his flesh. His new body was fitted with such enhancements as intravenious synthetic adrenaline glands and liquefied kaiber, to inject him with essence constantly, keeping him and his ancient body alive far beyond his natural years. The plating itself was formed of solid beskar from mandalore, impervious to lightsaber cuts or force manipulation, among other weaker things. Truly, Vader had found the immortality that his old master had promised to seduce him to the dark side, but still he could find nothing to bring back his wife and children. [img]http://orig00.deviantart.net/4557/f/2016/001/1/4/super_vader_with_red_flaming_lightsaber_by_dqsanchez-d9mb96s.jpg[/img] Centuries of monotony and fearful peace passed, with only a few minor and easily crushed "new rebellions" to break the silence. Then, in 452 A.B.Y. A force storm of immense size struck the Tython system, reminiscent of one that had been created thousands of years ago by the birth of the original Jed'daii. Vader immediately left at the behest of his holocrons, promised that whatever had sparked this storm, it would be powerful and revolutionary. Whatever it was, he needed to bring it into his grasp, or destroy it, lest it turn on him and destroy everything he had built. And so... Vader went to Tythos... [img]https://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/swtor.gamepedia.com/thumb/4/49/Tython.jpg/250px-Tython.jpg?version=90fcc16878332a4c5f8f945fc2ca58d1[/img] Buuk We'motaraa was a simple Cathar Farmer on the nearly obscure planet of Tythos. Tythos had a long and rich history, but one that was long forgotten as most of the information pertaining to the planet was force-related and therefore destroyed in the "Purge of Wisdom". Folk tales still passed down in some families, speaking of the Jed'daii, and the Sith, both of whom had made that planet their home at one time or another. Remnants of the ancient sith Race, a species that the group had gotten their origins from still lived on the planet, with their red skin, and shifty attitude, they weren't well received by the local populace, but were a necessary part of the economy. Buuk himself was not too worried about local politics, or even galactic politics for that matter. So long as he and his beautiful wife Neb'uruu could live in peace with their coming child, he was happy living outside of the city on his humble but sustainable homestead. [img]http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/c/c0/Lawquane_farm.png/revision/latest?cb=20120903163640[/img] "K'tar Enuyo Buuk! Val'emys sin vinyi!" Buuk looked toward where the call goodbye had come from. His farm hand Tea'Po was waving at him in the distance, beginning his walk home before the storm hit. The boy had been helping him settle the livestock, and had even helped prepare the home for his wife, who was expecting their child at any moment. "Val'emys sin vinyi Tea'po!" Buuk yelled after him, seeing the boy turn around and wave back, smiling. Buuk purred as he began the long walk back. His land covered several acres, the fire-cane that he grew tall and silhouetted in the setting red sun, casting a pattern of shadows across the ground and his fur covered skin. he scratched his mane, thinking about names for his new baby daughter, an honour traditional for a new Cathar father. Then he heard it. Lightning struck in the field, instantly setting the flame retardent cane ablaze for a few short moments before fizzing out in the mess of oxidized sugar juice. The storm had hit. Sudden, and unrelenting. Winds picked up at a rate Buuk would not have believed had he not been digging his clawed feet into the earth to fight being pulled off his feet. He scrambeld best as he could, practically on all fours, towards the farmhouse in the distance, barely able to see his ancestral home in the dust being whipped up by the dry knives of wind beating him down. It was two hours before he reached the threshold, stepping over the splintered cane fence that had been blasted low. Lightning struck the rod atop his house repeatedly, making the durasteel bar glow white hot white and bend unsettlingly. He entered the home to the sound of a mewling new kitten, crying at the assault she was born into. Buuk was a father... The storm lasted a full day. Buuk, his wife, and baby Nul'ara huddled together in the basement of their home to wait it out, only being able to guess to the source of each disturbing sound of destruction above. The storm had begun to settle down when Buuk heard Tea'Po's voice above... "K'KATAR! BUUK! NEB"URUU! K"KATAR VOSN NE-" The screaming of his young farm-hand was cut short by an inexplicable burning hiss, loud and sinister. Suddenly a feeling of cold dread washed over Buuk. The boy had been telling him to run. His claws instinctively lengthened, and his shoulders hunched in anticipation of a threat to his wife and child. The alloy door whooshed open forebodingly, a black silhouette visible against the darkened sky where the roof of his demolished home should have been. Then... a breath. Loud and rasping, enunciated and dramatized by a deep vocoder. The fear Buuk felt intensified, and his shoulders fell, his eyes grew wide, his claws, retracting... he immediately felt the urge of submission wash over him in the presence of this... monster... "Buuk?" his wife whispered. The seven foot tall suited creature reached out a black metallic hand in what seemed to be a mild pinch in the air. It puzzled Buuk for only a moment... then the hideous cracking and ripping of flesh behind him made him spin in place, a moment too late to watch his wife crumple to the floor, over their child. [img]http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11/113883/3193959-8949445402-14253.jpg[/img] His rage renewed, Buuk turned on the creature, claws extended, legs tensed to pounce. But somehow, the other had approached him with graceful silence in the time it took him to turn around. he had no time to utter a single word before a crimson red light had cut into his lungs, burning his organs with every second it remained. He stayed standing there in shock for about five seconds before weakening, sliding to his knees, and passing the lightsaber through his shoulder and crumpling to the ground. His last sight before slipping away into darkness was of Emporor Vader holding his child up in one fist, staring at it as though in contemplation. "Nul... he whispered with his dying breath, trying to make out his daughter's name... "Nul'..." Null saw all this as though an imprint on her closed eyelids. Breathing deep she watched as the force revealed to her the death of her mother... her father... then rapidly changing images... Vader carrying her to his dropship... training with him. A sudden memory struck her from about ten years into training as his apprentice... they were practicing with the stun-sabers in one of the old training rooms in the Imperial palace, once the jedi temple of the old republic. "Master... why do you never remove your mask. Doesn't it make it hard to breathe?" Vader stared at the child silently for a few seconds, his laboring breaths caught in surprise. "I am scarred youngling. My body was destroyed by my dearest and oldest friend when he betrayed me and left me to die. Then I was scarred yet again by the lightning the previous emperor attacked me with before I killed him. Let that be a lesson to you to never trust anyone. It is a weakness no one can afford, and one I will punish you greatly for." "Has anyone ever seen your face?" The quizzical girl responded with. Vader suddenly seemed very tired. You could not see his face, but the way his body drooped was very expressively less affirmed. "My son..." He responded, before walking away. Leaving her to clean up the training room. In a spark of dawning realization, the young Null knew that his armor was now permanent, and his mask would never be removed again. For anyone. The vision changed, the force showing her the face of a boy... maybe twenty, clad in all black, the bodysuit reminiscent of jedi robes. His eyes had the glistening light of a soul slowly leaving its body, and a black gloved hand reached out to touch the young man's face. "Father..." The boy whispered... "Your face... let me see Anakin... once... let me see my father... your eyes..." Null saw Vader then, his mask similar but not quite the same, the armor so foreign to what she had lived her whole life seeing him wear. "The face you will see will not be your father's..." "Maybe... but I... can die believing... I saw it..." Vader looked at his gasping son, the gash across his chest seeming to deepen as he spoke. Hesitantly, Vaders hands reached for his mask. Lifting the dome, and then peeling off the respirator and vocoder apparatus. The vision blurred, preventing her from seeing the scarred and pocked face, focusing on the eyes of Luke Skywalker... "You're wrong... Your eyes tell me... my father is still there..." [img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/c1/c8/8a/c1c88ad279dbe6e39628b879735677c9.jpg[/img] And with that he fell limp. His head rolling back in Vaders remaining hand... reminding him of the way his mother had died... in his arms at the Tusken raider camp. The mask fell to the floor and footsteps clacked across the metal floor. The Emperor Palpatine descending the steps into the maintenance units below his throne room. "Good." The Emperor croaked. "Good. You have done well. The last of the jedi is dead, the rebellion is soon to die outside our window. This is the dawn... of peace in our new empire." Every word struck Vader like a stone. The voices of every person he had ever loved and killed echoing in his head... voices swarming the mind of the listening Null like bees in a nest... "Ani... Little Ani?" "I tried to free her Ani..." "You were my brother Anakin! I loved you!" "Anakin... you're breaking my heart" And suddenly they were silenced, replaced by one voice... "You're wrong... Your eyes tell me... My father is still there..." [img]http://i.stack.imgur.com/eFjlo.jpg[/img] The face of the emperor suddenly turned to a scowl as he sensed Vaders rising emotions. Vaders unsevered prosthetic hand reached out before the old man could react. Vader lifted Palpatine into the air and screamed pathetically with almost no voice, his mask still on the floor. His burnt tear ducts began shedding blood from the corners of his eyes, spreading throughout his retinas and making him see red as the emperor gasped in his hold above the ground. Palpatine's hands raised and lightning flashed forth from them, burning Vaders face with fresh searing rends. Still screaming, Vader smashed the emperor's skull into the metal ground, the pistons in his arm groaning audibly from exertion. The lightning stopped after the first strike, but Vader's arm malfunctioned, and he couldn't move his hand to let go of the now-dead Palpatine. Over and over he smashed the ancient skul into the ground until it caved, dropping from his paralyzed hand in nothing more than a bloodied pulp. He screamed at the cieling, the gravelly weak sound tearing at Null's heart as she watched this broken man, someone she had always known as immortal and God-like, fall to the ground and sob blood. [img]http://i.imgur.com/phgX1rd.jpg[/img] And it was like that... the vision faded. Null's eyes popped open and a cold sweat dripped from her fur, her ears aching from the strain of listening to imaginary sounds, her heart pounding in her chest. She lowered herself from her hovering meditative position and walked to her bathing quarters, leaning over the sink and staring into the mirror. She saw there a different woman than the heartless killer who had looked into it this morning... something had changed... was it permanent? What did it mean... and why did the force reveal this to her now? A beeping noise signaled a comm transmition incoming from her side table. She quickly rinsed her face and fluffed it in a towel before pressing the answer button. An image of Moff Borge appeared above the receiver. "Emperor Vader has ordered you to the throne room." She nodded and quietly responded. "Inform him I'll be right there." The Moff nodded his pudgy face in a way that accentuated his double chin. "I'll let him know." [img]http://th07.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2014/012/2/2/commission__cathar_by_gone_batty-d71y4is.jpg[/img] After the transmission ended, Null took one more glance in the mirror to look again at this different person she was seeing. As she undressed from her training clothes and got into her uniform she pondered it. It's not the fur or the face that has changed... she decided, stepping out into the hallway toward the throne room... It's the eyes... [img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/66/89/62/6689626b8ca823cfe491ad6eb9fac5c8.jpg[/img]