This book is a fanfiction and in no way associated with George Lucas, Lucasfilm, or Disney.
The world of Mustafar writhed in fire. Lava surged through the blackened arteries of the earth like the lifeblood of a dying god. The sky was a furnace, torn open by vaporized stone and ion storms. In that heat, two Jedi clashed—not as master and apprentice, but as titans of a broken age.
Their sabers howled with every collision—blue against blue. Their faces, once familiar, were now masks of pain and fury.
Obi-Wan Kenobi fought like a man clinging to a memory. Anakin Skywalker fought like a god tearing off his chains.
On a narrow platform above a rolling lava river, Anakin pressed the assault. Every movement was precise, unrelenting. Obi-Wan was slipping. The wounds were not all physical—his mind, once sharp with the clarity of the Force, was fraying.
“You can’t win, Anakin,” Obi-Wan gasped, deflecting a strike. “This path… it leads to ruin.”
Anakin’s blade arced down. Obi-Wan caught it—barely—and staggered back.
“It leads to peace,” Anakin spat. “I ended the Sith. I ended the Jedi. The Force belongs to me now.”
Obi-Wan’s heart twisted. “The Force belongs to all of us.”
“No,” Anakin snarled. “The Force betrayed us. It let Sidious rise. It let the Order rot. It watched as I bled for a council that feared me.”
They clashed again—sparks dancing across their robes. Obi-Wan’s stance faltered. Anakin moved like a storm, feeding off the rage burning in his chest.
And then, it ended.
Anakin ducked low, pivoted, and struck. Obi-Wan’s saber flew from his hand and landed in the fire below. His knees fit the durasteel.
The world spun.
Anakin stood above him, Lightsaber ignited, his face lit by the fury of the lava. But the killing blow never came.
Instead, Anakin deactivated his blade.
Obi-Wan blinked, blood trickling down the side of his face.
“You’re not… going to kill me?”
Anakin’s voice was calm now. Almost gentle. “You’re not my enemy, Master. You never were. You were just… afraid.”
Obi-Wan wheezed. “You don’t understand what you’re becoming.”
“I understand perfectly.” Anakin said. “I am the balance. I destroyed Sidious, and now I will build something better.” He knelt beside Obi-Wan and offered his hand. “You taught me everything I know. I need you, Obi-Wan. Not as my master.”
He looked up into his former teacher’s eyes. “But as my equal.”
The silence was immense. Obi-Wan stared at the hand; at the face he once called brother. He looked past the golden eyes, the raw power, and saw… conviction. The kind that couldn’t be reasoned with. “You want me to follow you?” He said slowly. “I want you to help me reshape the galaxy,” Anakin replied. “No more Jedi. No more Sith. Only strength. Will. Order.” Obi-wan shook his head. “You killed the Jedi.”
“No,” Anakin said softly. “I freed them. From their prison of tradition. From failure. From the illusion of peace.”
“And if I say no?”
Anakin’s voice grew colder. “Then you die. And the galaxy forgets you.”
Obi-Wan looked out at the fire, at the graveyard of war machines, of droid parts and scorched metal. He had lost everything. Satine. The Order. His faith. His family. Now, the only one left was the boy he had failed to save.
He took the offered hand.
Anakin smiled.
The last senators of the crumbling Republic stood in stunned silence as the great doors opened. Cloaked in black and deep crimson, Anakin Skywalker entered the chamber flanked by silent royal guards—no longer a Jedi, not merely a war hero.
His presence eclipsed the room.
“I stand before you not as a tyrant,” he said, voice echoing through the high-vaulted hall, “But as your deliverer. The Clone Wars are over, The Sith are gone. The Jedi have fallen.”
He raised a gloved hand. “And from their ashes rises a new galactic order.”
He stepped aside, revealing the man beside him. The senators gasped.
It was Obi-Wan Kenobi—now clad in dark robes trimmed with ash-gray leather, his beard trimmed, his eyes shadowed, distant. The once-golden peacekeeper now stood silent at Anakin’s side.
“Some call him a traitor,” Anakin said, “But he chose peace. He chose vision.”
He turned.
“From this day forth, the galaxy shall know him as Darth Solus.”
The Lone Flame.
The city-world of Coruscant had not known silence in a thousand years,
Its spires pierced the clouds, its skylanes buzzed with ceaseless motion, but now—now the planet trembled. The Senate Rotunda was vacant. The Jedi Temple smoldered, broken towers jutting like shattered bones from the mountainside.
Above it all, the Imperial Palace—the former Chancellor’s complex—had been reformed.
Flags of deep crimson and black unfurled from the highest towers, bearing no sigil but a single circle, divided—half light, half dark. The symbol of balance, the symbol of Vader.
Inside, a throne of black alloy waited in a chamber of minimalist design. No ornate trappings. No grotesque Sith statues. Just clean lines, sharp light, and silence.
Anakin sat in the center of it, clad in armor laced with obsidian and silver trim. No mask, no breathing apparatus. His face was visible. Human, scarred, radiating power.
Around him knelt the twelve chosen: remnants of the war, elite clones, rogue Jedi, and former Separatist commanders. Each had sworn loyalty to the Unified Order.
The doors opened with a hiss.
Darth Solus entered.
Once Obi-Wan Kenobi, his transformation was still settling. He walked with practiced calm, but his eyes no longer shimmered with idealism. He had accepted this role not from hunger—but from resolve.
“I’ve finished surveying the Core systems,” Solus reported. “Most planetary governors have pledged loyalty to the new Order. Resistance is sporadic.”
“Let it stay that way,” Anakin said, rising. “We don’t crush resistance. We convert it.” Solus tilted his head. “And if they won’t?” Anakin’s expression darkened. “Then they become ash.”
There was no need to argue. The time for debate was over.
In the rusted belly of a medical freighter, hidden deep in the debris field of the Jabiim system, a woman screamed.
Padmé Amidala gripped the edge of a cot as the droid midwife made the final incision. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her breath shallow. She had survived Mustafar—but the trauma of betrayal, of watching her husband destroy the galaxy she fought for, had not passed.
“Healthy,” the droid announced. “A boy and a girl.”
Padmé’s hands trembled. “Luke… Leia…” The babies cried. She smiled through tears. And then she collapsed.
A cloaked figure stepped toward from the shadows. Bail Organa. He caught the children gently. “We don’t have much time.” Padmé stirred faintly. “Promise me… they’ll never know…”
“They won’t,” Bail whispered. “They’ll live… and he will never find them.”
Outside, the freighter’s engines came online.
Only two beings moved in the ruins of the once-hallowed halls. One was small, cloaked, and aged. The other—taller, horned, moving like a shadow.
Yoda stood in the crumbled meditation chamber, his face etched with sorrow. Darth Maul stood beside him.
They had found each other not long after Order 66—Maul burned by Sidious’ betrayal, Yoda shattered by the death of the Order. Now, they were unlikely allies, drawn together not by philosophy, but necessity.
“Failed, we did,” Yoda whispered.
“The Jedi… the Sith… both were fools,” Maul growled. “Now Skywalker builds something else. Something worse.”
Yoda turned. “Stop him, we must.” Maul’s eyes narrowed.
“Then we hunt the Empire’s heart.”