3: Waltz of The Sith
Darth Vader stood on the bridge of his ship, the Devastator, as it dropped out of Hyperspace. From the ISD’s1 viewport the unnamed planet slowly rotated below and, from what Vader could make out, the world itself was unremarkable.
The world itself was almost completely submerged in water, with the only landmass being a supercontinent situated near the planet’s equator. Vader originally hadn’t understood why this world was to be colonized at all, with it being so far out on the Outer Rim that it was touching the Unknown Regions. The only value the planet held was deep within its oceans, which were to be set up for deep sea mining operations so that its metal could be used for the fledgling Death Star, another project that Vader didn’t understand or agree with.
Before Vader could muse on the world further, he felt one of his officers approach him through the Force, turning from the viewport to face the man he asked, “Have we made contact with the colony?”
The Officer in question jumped at the inquiry and stammered, “W-we have, my Lord. She has requested to speak with you at once.”
Vader didn’t respond for a moment and was about to move toward communications when the officer’s words registered. “She? The registry indicated that the leader of the colonists was a male.”
The still unnamed officer nodded his head “Yes, my Lord, that was the old head colonist, Captain Roy. According to this new leader he passed away of some illness recently and named her as his successor.”
The Sith Lord paused at that, a feeling of unease passing over him through the Force before he dismissed it. “Very well.”
Walking the short way from the bridge to the communication room was a hassle for Vader, even after three years he still hated the suit and armor that he was trapped in.
It made him taller than he had been as Skywalker, which was a plus, but even after three years of tinkering with it and trying to get the machinery to do what he wanted, he was still suffering because of design flaws.
It chaffed as he walked, and the gears and other bits of metal pinched at his charred flesh every other step. He ignored it though, as he had since his encasement within his suit, and waited for the hologram of the colonists to appear before him.
Within moments the hum of the holo projector filled the room, and before him stood the holo of a young woman, no older than seventeen and barely reaching his chest in height. The girl had long, curly hair that reached the middle of her back, fair-looking skin, and piercing eyes as well as a brooch tied to her neck, but none of that mattered to the Sith Lord.
Before she could open her mouth to articulate a greeting, Vader cut her off. “What is the situation on your world, colonists, why have I been called here?”
The colonist looked offended before she opened her mouth once more to say, “Excuse me, who are you? What happened to the nice man I was just talking to?”
If Vader’s throat could have produced an irritated growl at that moment, it would have. Instead, the Sith Lord’s right hand squeezed itself into a fist as if to choke the colonist where she stood, but he restrained himself, she was still important to his goals after all. Instead, he spoke once more, “I am the master of this ship, colonist. We have received reports of issues on this colony from your predecessor.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, “Again, why am I here?”
Vader could tell that the girl was fuming from his less-than-kind way of addressing her, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. The telltale signs of annoyance flashed through the girl’s features before she smirked, something that nearly made the Lord reach out with the Force to snap her rail-thin neck.
Before the Sith Lord could fully contemplate a proper punishment for the insubordinate girl, she began...singing.
To Vader’s ears, it was a simple song, though not sung in Galactic Basic as one would expect. It was instead sung in a strange, foreign dialect that Vader could not place an origin or planet too. What really drew the Sith Lord’s attention though, was the compulsion the song tried--and tried was the keyword--to place him under.
Vader knew many different ways to affect people's minds using the Force. The Mind Trick was one of the more subtle ways, it wasn’t forcing someone to do what you wanted, not directly. You simply influenced the target’s mind to accept what you are saying as truth, as gospel, or as an order and they would do it because they would think they thought of it.
This wasn’t a Mind Trick, to call what this girl was trying to do to him ‘subtle’ would be an insult to all practitioners of the mind arts. Mind Tricks were precise, simple, and if one had the will to do so, completely ignorable. What she was doing was none of those things, The song was trying its best to overpower his mental shields and instead of suggesting he do as she ordered, it was TELLING him to do so.
Unfortunately for her, the song was not nearly strong enough to break through his mental defenses, but thanks to his full-body suit and rigid posture she hadn’t noticed that yet. Reaching out with his mind, he noticed that the stormtroopers within earshot were all under her thrall and he quickly crushed their windpipes with a mere thought, such weak-minded fools weren’t worth keeping.
Turning his attention to the girl, he managed to hear that the song had switched to Basic at some point, and he came to the realization that the song had two parts to it, one sung in what he assumed was her native language, to enthrall the mind of those listening and the second sung in a universally understood language to give the order.
Her song finally finished with a final “Come to me.” and the holo-projector cut out, the child’s cold smirk the last thing Vader saw before it did so. She assumed that her little battering ram had worked, that it had enthralled him, a Sith Lord, to come down to her trap and spring it.
Turning on his heel, Vader stalked out of the room, over the corpses of the two stormtroopers that had dared to fall for her tricks, and towards the current captain of his ship, not that he cared to remember his name and spoke.
“You are to shut down all communications with the world below, captain. Do not open them until you get the all-clear from me.” After giving that order, the Dark Lord turned to leave towards a shuttle when the captain spoke up.
“Yes, sir. But if I may ask, what is our mission? Shall we send troops to accompany you and protect the colonists from whatever seems to be the problem?”
Vader had to remind himself that the man was only asking logical questions, not questioning him, and turned slightly, “No, I will deal with the colonists myself. They have broken Imperial law and they shall be punished for it.” Hoping that was the end of the conversation and that he wouldn’t have to kill the fool, he began walking away only for the captain to stop him once again.
“What law sir?”
The Sith Lord turned once more, “They are harboring a Jedi. For that, they must die, no troops are to leave unless called for and the communications are to be locked down. Do you understand or do I have to replace you?” With that, he used the Force to put pressure on the captain’s windpipe to punctuate his point and after receiving a shake of the head from the officer, he turned and left for the hangar.
Sonata Dusk was bored. She sat on a lockbox and watched as the humans around her did whatever menial task Aria had assigned them to do earlier.
Some of them were busy gathering supplies for the colony from the surrounding jungle, while others were busy tinkering with the colony’s defenses. None of these things alleviated Sonata’s boredom though, so none of it was really important to her.
‘Why does Aria get the cushy fun job while I'm stuck here watching hummies just run around doing chores?!’
Aria was inside the nice, air-conditioned building the girls called their home, making sure everything was “up to code” as she put it. What Aria was really doing was sitting on her nice, warm bed reading a trashy romance novel on her datapad, while Sonata sat in the hot sun. It wasn’t fair!
Sonata would have kept pouting and mumbling, but she noticed that Adagio had come out of the communications building and was heading right toward her. She quickly stood up and assumed she was in trouble, but, luckily for her, that wasn’t the case.
Adagio had a huge smile on her face, one that Sonata only saw once before now, which was when they had woken up to find the previously uninhabited world Star Swirl had left them on suddenly inhabited after a thousand years of hibernation.
“Go get Aria quickly” Adagio ordered, absentmindedly ordering a human to gather everyone in the town square “I think I just found our ticket off this rock!”
That got Sonata’s attention and without saying a word she ran off to get Aria and hoped she didn’t catch her in the middle of something indecent.
Adagio watched Sonata and then began going over the plan in her head. She had no doubt that her compulsion had worked, after all, it had never failed before on a human and it would take powerful magic to break it, something that no human possessed if the one hundred colonists were anything to go by.
Using the fact that her compulsion worked, the fool in the mask would come down from his little starship, bring them a ship and they’d use that to get off this blasted world and into greener pastures so to speak.
Sonata and Aria wanted to go back to Equestria and get revenge for the unjust banishment that Star Swirl forced on them. Adagio though, was smarter, and from the information the lead colonist had told her, the universe was just ripe for the picking, with multiple different species to use as batteries for their power and nourishment for their hunger.
Adagio’s train of thought cut off though when she heard a string of curse words and apologies coming toward her and she sighed.
“How many times have I told you to knock on the damn door before coming in!” Aria Blaze raged at her younger “sister” holding her by her ponytail whilst dragging her towards Adagio.
“I’m sorry! It opened on its own I thought you wanted me to come in!” Sonata wined grasping at Aria’s hand trying to get her to let go.
Aria’s eye twitched and she finally dropped Sonata’s ponytail once they came to a full stop in front of Adagio “How many times do I have to tell you that the damn thing is an AUTOMATIC DOOR!”
Before Sonata could respond Adagio cut the argument off with a swift “ENOUGH!” and both girls looked at her, Sonata with apologies in her eyes and Aria with rage-filled embarrassment.
“Look, Apologize later,” Adagio turned to Aria “I had Sonata get you because we’re going to have guests soon, one with a ship to take us away from this hovel and into the wider galaxy.”
Aria’s rage left as quickly as it came with a smile replacing it. “Well, why didn’t Sonata just say so?”
“I did three times you were just a meany head and didn’t listen!” Sonata stomped the ground and pouted but Adagio once again stepped in.
“I said enough!” taking a deep breath she continued “I don’t know when he’ll arrive but it should be soon, we need to get ready for his arrival. It’ll be quick and easy, lay on the magic, get his ship and then go up to that bigger ship in the atmosphere and take it over like we did the colony, capiche?”
After receiving nods from both girls she turned around just in time to see a large grey shuttle heading towards the colony from the bigger ship. “Perfect here he comes, get the colonists into position just in case Aria, I doubt our spell won’t work since I was able to compel him to come down here with my magic, but we can never be too careful.”
Aria nodded and went to do as she was told leaving Sonata standing next to Adagio by herself. “Umm, what should I do?”
Adagio’s good mood didn’t falter at her “sisters” question, instead, she just smiled and said, “Come with me of course, we have a guest to greet.”
With that, the two girls walked towards the descending ship ready to meet what they both thought was their destiny.
With a soft thud, the shuttle came to a stop, the hissing of the ship decompressing reached Vader’s ears but he ignored it, instead focusing on the three Force signatures he felt standing outside the ship.
All three were strange to him. They were strong yes, around the level of a fully realized Jedi knight before the purge, but after some study, he noticed that something seemed odd about them.
He had used the Force to study the three girls while he was in transit, and in the ten minutes it had taken the shuttle to reach the Colony their signature had gone from being on par with his former Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, to that of just a generic Jedi Knight. That shouldn’t be possible, Vader reasoned. It was possible to lose power in the Force, primarily because your power in the Force came from the connection you had with it. Your mental state, your physical body, these things all influenced the Force and your connection with it.
Before he had been encased in his suit, Vader's connection to the Force was unrivaled by any Jedi or Sith, but once he lost his limbs to Obi-Wan that connection was forever lost to him. The Ocean of Power he had once grazed with his fingertips was now nothing but a salted dead sea. It was impressive, but not nearly as impressive as it should have been.
This was what confused Vader though, these girls had their living limbs, so why had their signature in the Force diminished?
Deciding that the conundrum could wait, Vader stood before the hatch as it opened and looked down upon the three once the steam had cleared.
They stood shoulder to shoulder around the same height. The girl who tried to use her powers on him stood in the middle, while two others he hadn’t seen in the holo stood on either side of her, denoting her to be the leader.
None of them carried weapons, and all of them had strange gems around their neck. The fact that none of them carried a lightsaber made Vader reevaluate his original thought that they were escaped Jedi and the one hundred enthralled colonists that he felt in the distance made him definitively kill that thought.
Jedi don’t enthrall, that was something the Sith or other Dark Side Cults did, and he felt the Dark Side coming off of the colonists in waves.
Vader marched down the ramp, his metal boots thumping with every step until he was finally standing before the three girls.
“Welcome to our humble abode,” the curly-haired one spoke her voice once more grating Vader’s ears. “I hope your trip was well?”
Vader didn’t respond, instead, he glanced at the other two girls, the one with the ponytails exuded fear just from looking at him and didn’t hide it well, while both the curly-haired one and the twin-tailed one felt fear, but hid it.
The curly-haired one took a deep breath before continuing her platitudes “Can we ask our Savior's name?”
Vader shifted his view back to the one in the middle, letting the sound of his respirator continue to unnerve them before answering “Darth Vader.” He had expected his name to finally set them over the edge from slight fear and mistrust to sheer terror at the mistake they had made, but he was wrong.
Instead, the twin-tailed one just laughed at him “Wow, your mom must have hated you, what kind of name is Darth?”
The pony-tailed one had the audacity to look sad while the curly hair didn’t even flinch.
Definitely not Jedi.
“Well, um Mr.Darth, I am Adagio Dazzle,” she gestured to herself before continuing “and these two are Aria Blaze,” she gestured to twin tails “and Sonata Dusk.” and then ponytail.
Vader once again said nothing to this, his patience with the charade wearing thin.
It seemed the newly introduced Aria felt the same, before Adagio could continue with her platitudes she had been cut off by a sharp whisper of “Can we just charm this guy and get going? His breathing is giving me the creeps!”
The Dark Lord’s fingers twitched, spurred on by the obvious threat, but he stayed his hand curious about the attempt they would make, so instead, he watched and waited.
With an exaggerated sigh Adagio nodded to the two girls before smiling up at Vader “Well Mr.Darth, we have one more use for you so if you would please, ♫ Give us your ship♫”
Suddenly, all three of them were singing “♫Give us your ship♫” the gems on their necks all glowing brightly, the song trying to overpower the Sith Lord with its order.
Vader was surprised at how much trouble he was having resisting the Order. The first girl’s compulsion back on the Devastator was easy enough to ignore, filtered by the distance between them and the simple fact that Vader was infinitely stronger than her, but now there were three equally powerful mind-benders singing to him, trying to get into his head.
As the singing intensified and Vader felt his anger growing at the effort he was having to put out to defend against these three, he decided that enough was enough. Reaching out with the Force he grabbed hold of their throats and lifted them off the ground, cutting off the song before it could finish.
Adagio’s eyes bulged as she clawed at the invisible hand gripping her throat, ‘How was this possible?! Humans don’t have magic!’
As Vader held the three suspended in midair a blaster shot impacted the side of the shuttle, causing Vader to realize that the thralls had moved closer to his position, blasters drawn. Releasing the three to their knees he unbuckled his saber and ignited the blood-red blade.
“Mistresses you must flee! We’ll handle him!” one of the thralls grabbed the girls and pushed them back towards the colony, as the others surrounded him and his shuttle, weapons drawn.
Over the hum of his Lightsaber he heard one of the girls asking “what the hell is that!” but he didn’t bother to identify which one, instead focusing on the weak-willed fools surrounding him as his main targets fled to what they probably assumed was the safety of their little colony.
Stats
Page generated in 0.019 seconds
Total duration
1,010 users online
1,696,647 hits today, 2,151,698 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
you dun goof
These three must have been on that planet for a long time.
As much as I love to see the sirens in action, darth is going to kill ya and I feel bad forSonata
You put the sirens in this damn
Welp they're screwed
Your most welcome. Glad we were able to help out!
Also I guess the Equestria Girl variations are going to be here cuz I didn't expect the sirens at all
And Vader is once again surrounded by dead men. The Sirens better hope he finds a use for them to live.
I
too
Again, I'd advise you to run your chapter through a word processor just before posting it, they catch errors like those two.
Also since the sirens feed off of negativity Vader is a walking buffet and Chef of that stuff will it be food to the sirens or poison to them
9692115
Any recommended processors because I'm not very computer program literate XD and thanks for pointing those out.
Oh, Sirens. You better run!
9692118
I am using the assumption that the Sirens can't just suck in ambient negativity and anguish, they would have done it in EQG if they could. Instead they have to cause the Disharmony and Anguish with their songs in order to get the energy from it.
9692119
If you have access to it, Microsoft Word does a fairly good job. If you don't, you can find others online, but I'm mostly familiar with Word and the fact that alternatives exist. I could look up some later if necessary.
9692131
Ah that's the problem, I wrote the first 800 words in Word and switched it over to Docs last night out of habit, that's probably why the error was missed
One does not simply charm Darth Vader.
9692149
he's got merc treads on anyway, so his tenacity is too high for the charm to effect him
Thanks for the update.
If Ani can use his brain he might just get himself three powerful weapons to use against his master. If not? Well, it's been nice knowing the Dazlings for all of five minutes.
9692191
He doesn't know who the Sirens are, or even what they are. All he knows is there's a Jedi somewhere, and the girls are somehow controlling an entire colony. That and the fact the girls attacked first, so by the time he got to this point he's already angrier than usual and wants to kill things.
The logical thing to do IS to kill the Dazlings and head back to command, it's the safest and easiest route. The gamble would be to recruit the Dazlings, though they've already shown a lust for control, so they wouldn't be very good 'tools'.
9692231
Vader originally thought the dazzlings were the Jedi which doesn't help their case.
I do hope at least one of them gets away
9692231
Not debating that, and they will most likely end up dead, unless Palpy calls him up and stays his hand.
But the gamble could be worth it. Three untrained dark side users from some backwater? Perfect place for his own weapons.
Will he use them? Doubtful, this is seemingly early on in his time as Vader. He is short slighted and angry, but I like the Dazlings so I'm hoping.
Just came across this today, and I'm liking what I've read so far.
I do hope Vader gives the Dazzlings a chance, maybe train them to become Inquisitors.
Pretty good story. Looking forward to more.
If Vader leaves more than one of the sirens alive after what they tried to pull then Vader in being beyond merciful.
I personally hope the youngest siren survives, it would make a great story.
The Dazzlings would make horrofying Emperial Enforcers
And you’re dead now. That was literally the worst thing you could say right behind “What’s with the suit? Is your wife into SNM?” Or “Wow, you must be Father of the Year with that attitude.”
Good news for the Dazzlings is that there are plenty of people for Vader to work out most of his frustrations on and they might have enough time to suck up enough anger and fear from the colonist as he kills them to make him pause long enough to realize something really strange is going on with them. The bad news is that this is freaking Darth Vader and all that that implies. Even better is the fact that seeing them go from average jedi level power to Kenobe level power yet again might make him hold off killing them so he can try to find a way to pull off the same trick and regain his full power. Sonata is his best bet for getting one of them to submit since it doesn't take a genius to realize she just follows whoever is in charge and easier to deal with and keep occupied... I'm calling it now, he knocks out the other two and hands them over to the Emperor and convinces him to let him keep Sonata by pointing out that as Anakin Skywalker he put up with Jar Jar Binks and can handle her unless the Emperor wants to deal with the headache. The Emperor won't be able to shove both of them on a ship for anywhere but where he is fast enough at the mention of Jar Jar Binks.
9692537
I will admit...that is a much happier ending than the one i had planned
Loved the new chapter and well... I'm pretty much with everyone else in my hope that Vader takes at least one of the sirens to be an Inquisitor (or possible an apprentice like in Force Unleashed)
9692548
How is handing Adagio and Aria over to Palpatine to be tortured and experimented for years on end before he finally kills them happier than just outright killing them? Seriously, with a face like his I see rape and torture, followed by horrific experimentation, and finally allowing them to die via force lightning and that is if he is feeling generous.
And it was at this moment, Adagio realized, she fucked up.
I feel should feel sorry for the Dazzlings but their arrogance has just made their lives very painful and I don't think they are going to like Vader’s questioning or any method he will be using to get the answers he wants. Personally I think Sonata will break first and hopefully she will survive the longest.
It would be bad form to introduce these characters with a whole chapter to just to then kill them uselessly the next. Either at least one lives, they do something critical to the plot, or their deaths serve towards significant character growth, and only the first option seems likely.
9692609
If Vader is going to keep any of them, I would think he'd keep them secret from Palpatine. And if they live long enough to show that they actually care about each other, he'd keep one or two prisoner as leverage, maybe have them kill each other later to "complete their training". That's assuming he doesn't decide to train all three. Of course, Vader is likely to kill everyone else first regardless, and it's 50/50 odds at best that any one of the Sirens live from what I've heard about Vader's temper. Star Wars has a thing for misplacing hands, so no surprise if some go MIA.
9692609
who said they would be handed over to Palpatine for all we know Vader very well could see theses three as tools to over throw his master and become just that The master as the rule of two goes. The student becomes the master when the student kills the master something that had been going on since the days of the old republic thanks to Darth Bane.
9692742
hmmn, a slight problem with Vader training all three of them. with the Silth, always there r two, a Master, and an Apprentice. no more, and no less.
9692804
Palpatine doesn't care for the Rule of Two (in Legends which this is based on)
Vader doesn't either as long as it ends up helping him kill Palps
9692810
but with that boys anger issues...
9692804
All the "rule of two" people I know of break the rule, because they're Sith and don't really care about rules. To me it just seems like a lie to fool the Jedi and an excuse for the master to kill up-and-comers and rival apprentices to kill each other.
So the dazzlings are going to surrender to the empire?
The Dazzlings are here too & they tried to con Vader!?!? What were they thinking!?!?
Cant wait for the chapter where Fluttershy shows up with a bunch of rancor, kyrate dragons, and yashlimari.
9693067
You’re using Yoda to teach pre-reform, “fuck you Celestia, I’ll come back with an army!”-Sunset. The same Yoda who led an organization that recruited, trained and deployed child soldiers in a war for a corrupt government.
You might as well have used Sombra instead.
Not sure the Devastator is already around-canonically, it's the last Imperial I-class Star Destroyer to have been built before the switch to the upgraded Imperial II.
Other than that... The Dazzlings were lucky in their bad luck-Vader could have just ordered an orbital bombardment.
9693113
Technically, she's not THAT bad yet. She got worse over time... And Yoda got her before that.
9693171
I mainly used the devastator because i couldn't find a name for Vaders first flag ship
A shit the Dazzle on here
9693175
Up until 14 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) it was the Perilous, an Imperial I destroyed that year by the Free Ryloth Movement in a failed attempt to kill Vader and the Emperor. He doesn't seem to have had a personal ISD until he took the Devastator at some point between 5 BBY and the Battle of Scarif, with the ship previously belonging to commodore Tion (also known as lord Tion). This is the Canon information, for Legends gives us some more data.
According to Legends, Vader's early flagship was the Exactrix, the second Imperator-class (as the class was known in its very earliest days before the fall of the Republic) Star Destroyer to be made, early enough she was likely part of the Republic's reinforcements in the Battle of Coruscant. It's unknown when he left it, but he didn't get the Devastator until lord Tion's death a few weeks before the Battle of Yavin.
Hope to have been of help.
9693171
a Base-Delta-Zero? too over the top even for Vader, in fact, for most Imperial commanders. that colony was new, and expected to produce, destroying it would serve no purpose.
9693444
Not a BDZ, just a single shot to kill the presumed Jedi and the "traitors". Because while wiping out a planet to kill a single Jedi (as Vader didn't know there were three yet) would be more than excessive, a single shot from a main battery turret would be adequate.
9693452
would still wipe the colony, and they need that for their precious Tarkin Doctrine super weapons
9693494
No, they don't need THE COLONY, they need THE RESOURCES. They can put another colony-or just look elsewhere, they have almost an entire galaxy, and one larger than the Milky Way to boot, to take resources from.