"It puts the words on the paper, or else it gets the hose again" - My New Muse.
DARTH VADER
“Admiral, any word of my apprentice’s ship?” asked the black-clad sith.
“N-no, my lord Vader,” replied the shaken captain.
Vader looked thoughtfully on the admiral for nary a second and raised his hand.
“You’ve failed me for the last time, admiral.” The officer grabbed his throat uselessly as the Force enclosed around it. He labored for a breath that wouldn’t come and soon fell limp to the floor. Lord Vader turned to the fore of the Star Destroyer.
“Find where my… apprentice last was, and go there. Now,” he commanded. Two stormtroopers busied themselves while the pilots of the Imperial fleet frantically triangulated the last known coordinates of Vader’s apprentice.
“Found it, sir,” a captain spoke barely above a whisper. Vader nodded and the ship lurched ahead in a light jump.
***
The wagon rustled along the path to Appleloosa; its giant wheels creaking under the strain. The man addressed the pony sitting next to him.
“I sense something in the Force,” he said.
Trixie harrumphed. “This force confuses Trixie. What kind of magic lends itself to a non-unicorn?”
Starkillah’ sighed at the pony. Even though she lacked magical skills, she berated him on all matters which she was even less skilled on.
“How did I ever lose that duel?” he muttered. The months of his slavery had not been kind to him. Forced to be the beautiful assistant had led to some uncomfortable moments in bars across Equestria. He’d nearly forgotten that one time a stallion- Starkiller shuddered.
“Are you thinking about the time you got your face licked? Trixie thought that was adorable. He would have been perfect for you,” Trixie laughed.
“No, he would not have, and no, it wasn’t that time. It will never be that time…”
Something rippled inside of Starkiller. The Force tingled.
“My true master is here,” he thought. He said the same to Trixie.
“He’s not your true master unless he wins you from me, and I’ve won every duel I’ve been in,” she bragged. Though it had been the one duel, she never grew weary of recounting the victory.
Starkiller looked up to the sky. Though he forgot he could have called his ship at any time and merely flown off from the planet, he looked longingly for a ship. The gray pie of Imperial ships was a lovely thing to see when it rescues you.
***
“I’ve got your apprentice on radar, my lord,” a nervous admiral said. Normally he should still be happy, just having had the party celebrating his advancement in rank. The funeral of the previous had been a downer though, the admiral thought.
“Bring us in closer, and prepare my landing shuttle. I want this venture over and the Rebels crushed.”
“Lord Vader, I’m picking up other life signs from the planet,” cried an auxiliary forward sergeant.
Vader strutted up to the sergeant’s station. “Show me them.”
A video monitor flickered to life in front of Vader and the sergeant. On it were ponies.
“Is this a joke, sergeant?” Vader asked. “Do you find this funny?”
“No, Lord Vader. These are the creatures we’ve seen on the planet. And look! There is the Apprentice’s ship!”
Vader nodded. “Perhaps there is more than meets the eyes of this little planet.”
Just then a voice rang over the intercom, “Your shuttle is ready, lord Vader.”
***
“Trixie look! My true master is here to rescue me!” Starkiller exclaimed as he pointed into the darkening sky. Already it was filled with several ships of the Imperial Fleet. A small shuttle was flying down to where the two were camped.
Trixie looked up at it and got to her feet/legs/hooves/idk and hurried back into her cart.
“Hah! Now I can be back to my mean old self! Hah! Original Starkiller is here! Brooding as ever! Hah!”
“Typical Starkiller,” whispered the wind as it rolled by. Soon the wind was howling as the shuttle landed not twenty feet from Trixie’s cart. A slow dirge seemed to emanate from the ship as Vader disembarked.
“My apprentice, so this is where you’ve gone to. I should have suspected you’d leave me,” Vader chided.
“I didn’t leave you! You are like a father to me!” Starkiller yelled back.
“No… I *am* your father!”
“Noooooo!” came a voice from the cart as the blue magician burst out. “Starkiller… I am your father,” she said.
Both Vader and Starkiller gasped audibly. Vader reached for his lightsaber, but it was not to be found in his belt. He looked once again at Trixie who was holding aloft two of them, his and Starkiller’s.
“Well shoot,” he grumbled.
“Looks like I’m about to have two beautiful assistants for my next show!”