=== Nira ===
For several long moments after the psychic shockwave had torn the Warp incursion apart, the chamber remained frozen in stunned silence. The air still shimmered faintly with the fading residue of unimaginable power, and even the Grey Knights, warriors who had spent their lives facing the horrors of the immaterium, stood in quiet awe of what had just transpired.
The newborn cries of the twins were the only sound that broke the stillness.
The doctors moved again at last, their shock giving way to urgency as they wrapped the infants in sterile cloth. One of them carefully lifted the boy while another cradled the girl, both children squirming weakly.
Nira stepped forward, her heart still racing from everything she had witnessed. She reached out and gently took the boy from the doctor's arms.
He was impossibly small.
After everything, the destruction of worlds, the battles fought in fire and blood, it felt almost surreal to be holding something so fragile. His tiny fingers flexed against the cloth as he continued to cry.
Behind her, Padmé stirred weakly.
The former senator's breathing had become shallow and uneven, each breath seeming to take more effort than the last. The color had drained from her face entirely, leaving her skin as pale as Nira's, and damp with sweat.
"Padmé…" Nira said softly as she approached the bedside.
Padmé's eyes fluttered open.
For a moment they struggled to focus, drifting across the ceiling before finally settling on the bundle in Nira's arms. A faint spark of recognition appeared, followed by something warm and gentle despite the immense exhaustion weighing her down.
"My… baby…" she whispered.
Nira leaned closer and carefully placed the boy into Padmé's trembling arms. Padmé cradled him weakly against her chest, her hands shaking from fatigue as she looked down at the tiny face gazing up at her.
A faint smile touched her lips.
"Luke," she murmured softly.
Her fingers brushed the infant's cheek with delicate tenderness. "His name is Luke."
The second doctor approached quietly and placed the newborn girl into Nira's free arms. She was slightly smaller than her brother, her cries softer but no less determined as she wriggled beneath the cloth.
Nira once more approached the bed and gently lowered the girl into Padmé's free arm.
Padmé's tired eyes filled with tears as she gazed at her daughter.
"Leia…" she breathed.
"Leia," she repeated faintly.
The doctors continued working around the bed, their voices low and urgent as they attempted everything they could think of to stabilize her failing body. Instruments beeped erratically while medicae tools moved quickly from one hand to another.
But even to an untrained eye, the truth was painfully clear.
Padmé was dying.
Her breathing had grown weaker with every passing moment, her pulse fading despite the doctors' frantic efforts. The strain of carrying and birthing the children had taken everything she had.
Padmé's gaze shifted from her children to Nira.
Slowly, she reached out with one trembling hand and gripped Nira's wrist with surprising strength.
"Promise me something," she whispered.
Nira leaned closer immediately, her voice unsteady. "Anything."
Padmé's eyes searched hers desperately.
"Don't… let them take my children," she said, her voice breaking. "Don't let the Imperium turn them into weapons… into killing machines."
Nira froze.
Padmé tightened her grip, tears spilling freely down her pale cheeks.
"They deserve… more than war," she continued weakly. "More than fighting and death… please…"
Her voice faltered as exhaustion threatened to drag her under, but she forced herself to keep speaking.
"Watch over them," she begged. "Raise them… protect them… as if they were your own."
Her strength was fading rapidly now, her fingers slowly losing their grip as her breathing grew shallower still.
"Promise me…" she whispered again.
Nira's eyes burned with tears as she clasped Padmé's hand firmly.
"I promise," she said quietly. "I swear it."
Padmé looked at her for one final moment.
Somewhere deep in her tired eyes, relief finally appeared.
Her gaze drifted down to Luke and Leia one last time. A faint, peaceful smile touched her lips as she watched them breathe.
Then the light slowly left her eyes.
The monitors beside the bed emitted a long, hollow tone.
Padmé Amidala was gone.
For a moment no one in the room moved.
Then the babies began to cry.
Their voices rose together, small and confused cries that filled the chamber where their mother's life had just ended. The doctors lowered their heads solemnly as they stepped back from the bed, the battle to save her finally over.
Nira reached forward slowly.
With trembling hands she lifted the children from Padmé's lifeless arms and then gathered them close against her chest. The two infants squirmed and cried in her embrace, seeking warmth and comfort in a world that had already taken so much from them.
Nira held them tightly.
"There, there…" she murmured softly, though tears were already streaming down her own face. "It's alright… you're safe."
She rocked them gently, trying to soothe their cries even as her own heart broke.
For a long moment she stood beside the bed, holding both children close while staring down at the still form of the woman who had entrusted them to her.
Padmé's face had gone peaceful in death, the pain finally gone from her features.
Nira's vision blurred as the tears came harder now.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered hoarsely.
Her shoulders trembled as she cradled the infants protectively against her chest.
And for the first time since the chaos had begun, Nira allowed herself to weep.
=== Darth Vader ===
Pain was the first thing he knew.
It surrounded him like fire, pressing in from every direction, clawing into his mind until there was nothing else. There was no sense of time, no memory of how he had arrived there, only the agony tearing through what remained of his body as machines worked relentlessly around him.
Darth Vader tried to scream.
The sound that came from his throat was barely human.
The surgical chamber was vast and sterile, illuminated by harsh white lights that reflected off polished metal walls and surgical instruments arranged in precise rows. Mechanical arms hovered above the table where his broken body lay, their tools glinting as they carved, scraped, and cut through his damaged flesh.
The worst of it was his face.
Where once there had been the strong jaw and determined features of Anakin Skywalker, there was now only charred devastation. The lower half of his face had been burned away and torn apart during the final moments of the duel on Mustafar. What remained was blackened flesh and exposed bone that the surgical droids were now painstakingly removing.
Vader's body convulsed against the restraints holding him to the table as the machines continued their work. Every nerve screamed in protest as burned tissue was peeled away and replaced with synthetic grafts and prosthetic structures.
A skeletal framework was lowered toward his face.
The droids worked methodically, attaching the artificial jaw piece by piece. Cold metal pressed against what remained of living tissue, linking into nerve clusters that still carried sensation. When the first connection locked into place, the pain exploded through his skull with such intensity that his vision went white.
He screamed again.
Across the chamber, behind a large pane of observation glass, Wilhuff Tarkin watched the procedure unfold.
He stood with his hands folded behind his back, posture perfectly straight as the surgical team below struggled to rebuild what remained of the man who had once been the Republic's greatest hero. The screams echoing through the chamber did not disturb him in the slightest.
To Tarkin, he simply didn't care.
He had known Palpatine better than almost anyone in the Republic. Their relationship had extended far beyond the public political alliance others saw. The Chancellor had trusted him with knowledge few others possessed, intimate details of his long-term plans for reshaping the galaxy.
Tarkin knew exactly what Palpatine had intended Anakin Skywalker to become.
And now the boy had ruined it.
He watched as another mechanical arm lowered the prosthetic limb toward where Vader's left arm had once been. The stump had been cleaned and reinforced with surgical implants, leaving only the final attachment remaining.
Servos whirred as the artificial arm connected with a series of metallic clicks.
Electric current surged through the interface as the new limb linked with Vader's nervous system.
The scream that followed rattled the entire chamber.
Tarkin's expression remained unchanged.
He understood Skywalker's strengths better than most. The young Jedi had always been a prodigy, immensely powerful in the Force, beloved by the Republic, admired by soldiers and citizens alike. His popularity alone would make him an incredibly valuable figurehead for the new order that would rise from the ashes of the old Republic.
But he also understood the man's weaknesses.
Anakin Skywalker was impulsive, emotional, and reckless. And… not particularly intelligent.
Tarkin knew he would have much work ahead of him shaping the broken warrior now being forged below. Someone would need to guide him. Someone would need to ensure that the power now gathering around him was directed properly.
Heavy black armor plates were brought forward next, each piece fitted carefully over Vader's ruined body. Mechanical braces locked into place along his spine while life-support systems connected to his chest and throat.
The final component was the helmet.
The polished black mask descended slowly from above as the surgical table began to rise. The droids secured it around the artificial jaw structure and sealed it into the armor with a final metallic click.
The chamber fell silent.
For a moment there was nothing.
Then the respirator activated.
A harsh mechanical inhale filled the room.
Vader's chest rose as the new lungs of the suit forced air through his ruined body.
Another breath followed.
Then another.
The table lifted fully upright, releasing the restraints that had held him in place during the procedure. Slowly, the towering figure stepped down onto the cold metal floor for the first time in his new form.
The armor felt heavy.
Every movement sent waves of pain through what remained of his ruined face.
And the visions of Padmé would not stop.
Her face appeared again and again in his mind, pale and frightened as he remembered the last time he had seen her. He saw her falling, heard her voice calling his name, felt again the sickening certainty that he had lost her forever.
No matter how hard he tried to push the memory away, it returned.
Padmé dying.
Padmé suffering because of him.
Padmé gone.
Something inside him broke.
Vader threw his head back and screamed.
The sound that erupted from the mask was monstrous, a mechanical roar filled with anguish, rage, regret, and a grief so deep it threatened to tear him apart from the inside.
The Force reacted instantly.
The chamber exploded outward as invisible power surged from him in every direction. Equipment shattered against the walls. Surgical droids were ripped apart and hurled across the room like toys. Consoles imploded under crushing pressure as metal twisted and crumpled beneath the unleashed fury.
The observation window above cracked violently as the shockwave struck it.
Tarkin did not move as he simply watched.
Vader's scream echoed through the chamber as the Dark Side poured into him like a flood breaking through a dam. Every ounce of pain, every fragment of grief, every burning ember of rage inside his heart was seized by the Force and twisted into something far darker.
The air itself seemed to darken around him as the last pieces of Anakin Skywalker shattered beneath his anger.
The Force bent around the towering figure in black armor as if acknowledging something inevitable, something that had been building for years and had finally reached its conclusion.
The darkness crowned him.
He was not an apprentice, nor a servant.
But its heir.
===
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