Darth Vader: Shattered Galaxy

Chapter 5

It all happened so fast. The quaking gave barely any warning before the ground beneath them began to violently rip itself open. They all ran and leaped, the Force guiding and speeding them along as the ground collapsed into an ever-widening chasm, swallowing trees, animals, and all else unlucky enough to fall in.

The dirt crumbled beneath Anakin's foot before he could make the next jump.

Qui-Gon grabbed him and tossed him further, ahead of the collapsing surface.

But he nearly went tumbling down as well.

The Dark Woman stopped and used the Force to make the vine of a falling tree grasp the Jedi Master and hurl him to relative safety.

She was fully aware of Darth Vader using the Force to keep the piece of earth below her from crumbling for a moment before she sped off.

Anakin nudged a falling tree away from falling on Vader.

There was no time to stop and think, only mutual survival in this sudden disaster.

Without the Force, they would never be able to stay ahead of it, the quaking was so fast and intense that it would have swallowed small cities entirely.

On and on they went until, finally, it stopped.

It had lasted less than two minutes.

But in that time, where once was a dense forest, now was a canyon. No, a sinkhole rather, Vader realized. It stretched out in all directions rather than cleaving into the ground. It was massive too.

He looked out and saw that they were all spread out.

The Dark Woman was on the opposite side of him. Skywalker, Kenobi, and Jinn were all off at different spots to his right.

He looked down into the canyon. He couldn't see the bottom. It was only an empty blackness.

He searched the Force, the Dark Side, but felt nothing. Nothing but it hanging over his shoulder, peering down into the abyss with him.

Something felt very wrong about this.

"Vader!"

He looked up, towards Kenobi who called him. He could see Anakin backing away from the edge, some of it still crumbling away.

"We'll meet up with you ahead!" Obi-Wan said, waiting until Vader nodded before heading into the forest as well.

Vader lingered long enough to share a look with the Dark Woman, who narrowed her eyes at him before departing as well.

Vader conceded that, after Sidious had unleashed a Force Storm on Coruscant, he didn't blame the Dark Woman for suspecting him of being able to cause a Force Quake.

That said, as he ventured into the forest as well, he found himself troubled.

He had been on this planet in the future, in his own timeline. He had made the trek to the ruined city before. There was no groundquake and certainly no chasm like what he had just seen formed. Could he have misremembered the event? Possibly. It was years ago, and a lot had happened since then.

But this planet didn't feel like it had in his timeline. There was something...more to it, a blanket of some strange feeling even the Force could not help him place.

He was fully aware of ripple effects and accepted them as an inevitability of time traveling. He changed things, and that would change other things in reaction.

But what could have caused this change?

He was brought out of his pondering as he felt a presence approaching. He was somewhat surprised by who. "Skywalker? Where are the others?"