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Prometheus Revived

Summary:

Luke Skywalker saves his mother's life by building her a new body. FemVader/FemAnakin AU.

 

Notes:

There will be numerous content warnings in these notes, so please be mindful of them. You read this at your own discretion.
Also, I wanted to explain how I came up with the idea for this fic. I remembered the Force-healing scenes from TROS and the implications those had for those in the OT and PT. I hate the ST, by the way. Thinking about that while listening to the Ghost in the Shell soundtrack and talking with my Creepy Hollows purchases let me explore quite a few “what-ifs.” I know 3D printing isn’t to the stage it is in the fic.
Anakin is a woman in this because I am T-R-A-S-H for Rule 63’d main characters. I like characters like me. If you don’t like it, don’t read. I think the character makes way more sense as a woman. The terrible directions George Lucas gave Hayden Christiansen in the PT have nothing to do with that opinion. (Seriously. That wasn’t sarcasm.)
This is the first fic I’ve written in two years. You’ll see I’m rusty.
Please enjoy. My apologies for any mistakes I didn’t catch in the editing stage. I do not own Star Wars.
Also, to anyone who tries to plagiarize my fic, I am under the protection of Hecate and Santa Muerte. I don't know why you'd want to, but if you do, you're dealing with them.
-DarthStrawberryShortcake

Chapter 1: Mana Du Vortes

Chapter Text

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Before the Soul Transplant; Two Weeks Before the “Awakening”

---

The creation of a human body via artificial and non-cloning related means had proven to be surprisingly simple. Once funding had changed hands and non-disclosure agreements on behalf of the scientists to the Rebellion (now on their way to becoming the dominant political entity in the galaxy) had been signed, the process was quickly underway. The hardest part was waiting for the organs to be constructed.

The successful recreation of Anakin Skywalker was dependent on five factors:

  1. The retrieval of Darth Plagueis’s holocron. Apart from the process he used to create Anakin in Shmi Skywalker’s womb, he documented the steps that successfully transferred his soul into other vessels. The holocron also included his hypothesis that this would be a way to save someone’s life if their body were still in decent condition. The should would be allowed to leave, and then it would be guided back into the body. 
  2. The quick-thinking of Luke Skywalker. He gave his mother no time to rest or speak during their escape from the Death Star. She was going to survive, and he used the Force to heal some of her alveoli to make the breakdown of the suit less fatal. He was not aware of those specifics, of course. 
  3. Viable stem cells made from remnants of Darth Vader’s scarred body. Given that Anakin’s former cyborg husk still bore its wisdom teeth, the team was able to extract their pulp to create induced pluripotent stem cells. They were fed into one of few organ printers in the hands of the Rebellion. Alderaan had been the major medical center of the galaxy, and most treatments for organ regeneration had happened there. It was their best hope, as Anakin was slipping fast despite Luke’s interference, and Kamino had yet to be raided by the Rebels.
  4. The money of Princess Leia Organa. Apart from funding the scientists and the rapid construction of the medical site in their chosen location, it was Leia who funded the search for documents relating to Anakin’s past life. Specifically, she found Clone War medical records and photographs that demonstrated what her mother looked like at the age of twenty-two. It was a miracle these were discovered, as Vader had most of them destroyed. The age was chosen because it was the most recent time her mother identified with her true self. It wouldn’t do for her soul to reject the body simply because she couldn’t identify with it. That was something Darth Plagueis stressed in the holocron.
  5. The willingness of the ghost of Anakin to forego the afterlife to do whatever her son needed.

The final touches were being added as Luke readied himself for what came next. He had meditated and fasted for three days to be mentally and physically clean enough to perform the procedure. He watched as the dermatologist finished inserting donated hair grafts, most with their individual hairs still attached, into holes punctured in the epidermis of his mother’s new scalp. She resembled any member of the human species across the galaxy. The new body was still attached to life support, but that was going to change when the soul was placed. He wondered who was doing the more difficult work. He would have ruled on the side of the scientists, but now, with his mother’s fate in his hands, he wasn’t so sure.

They had come so far, and one mistake in transplanting the soul could cost everything. Everything about his mother’s new body had been regenerated or donated except…

---

The Awakening; The Present

---

“My eyes.”

She rolled the handle of the mirror between her hands. The eyes she was referring to stared at an area on the floor between the audience members to her awakening.

“My eyes,” she said again. Her voice was flat and monotone, like she was still unsure of her new capacity for controlling it. It was devoid of any joyful emotion and was reminisce of the robotic, synthesized voice she left behind. “Those are my eyes.”

She stopped rolling the mirror and instead took another look. Her facial expression remained the same as she processed more of the visual information in her reflection.

“You even got my cleft chin.” She ran the tip of her tongue along her Cupid’s bow. “And I have lips now. They’re a little bit bigger than I remember them.”

The young Jedi standing near her let out a breath he was not conscious of holding. The holocron had warned him of the potential side effects of tying a soul to a vessel that the soul could move. The difficulties in getting the soul to adjust to their new vessel were astronomical compared to the difficulties incurred with simply tying the soul to a portal in an inanimate object. There was always the risk of the soul becoming trapped in the vessel because they were unable to inhabit it as they had their original body. In which case, his mother would be alive but in a near comatose state, unable to do much for herself except perform autonomic functions. This was what she had been doing in her old body since the Death Star's destruction. She would have had to undergo euthanasia to release her soul. The fact that she was sitting up and talking coherently assuaged his fears.

She turned her head from side-to-side, enjoying the increased mobility and the ease at which bone vertebrates moved compared to cheap, mass-produced cybernetic enhancements. Left. Right. Left. Right. From there, she picked up the ends of her hair and ran them through her fingers. “My hair has never been this long or this healthy.”

“Do you want to try walking around?” Healer Yantha, the Togruta standing next to him, asked. Though she was doing her best to hide it, Luke could feel her excitement at watching her creation. It was certainly her greatest success. If it hadn’t been for the non-disclosure agreement, Healer Yantha would have become a household name when news broke. She, a Rebel princess, and a rogue Jedi had forced the soul of a galactic warlord into a body made from computer-generated tissue. Who wouldn’t want to know about that?

Anakin nodded. She lowered her feet onto the floor, pressing into the balls and heels a few times to be sure of the sturdiness of her legs. Her white medical gown fell from around her waist to her knees when she stood. It was this, combined with the dark circles that had permeated the skin they grafted and the unkempt hair from being on the medical table, that made Luke realize how closely his mother resembled the mental patients he’d seen on the Redemption. Those ready to be shipped out to institutions in the Outer Rim. Shell-shocked. Ridden with physical ailments. Oftentimes the victims of brutal torture. Her soul had resided in the body for two weeks. Yet she had taken on the image of the person she had been in her previous form. Healer Yantha had remarked the day before she was worried the skin was not fitting well enough around Anakin’s face. Deep down, Luke knew what was causing the sudden baggage to develop. It was why he outfitted the cell. Darth Plagueis said nothing about the baggage accumulated by a soul not going with them to the new vessel. 

She took three small steps forward, situating herself between Healer Yantha and Luke. She then brought her feet together and observed her toes wriggling against the metal floor. They were unable to locate a picture of his mother with her legs showing, so they gave comparison shots of both his and his sister’s legs to the plastic surgeon. They created the limbs based on AI-captured commonalities and DNA data. They were positive they got their length and the size of her feet correct.

“Do you have a full-body mirror?” Anakin asked, this time more quietly but with hints of relief in her monotone voice.

Healer Yantha looked at a medical droid, which took that as its cue to wheel in a mirror as tall as Anakin. It was also here Luke realized how short his mother was compared to her cyborg self. She gave her body a once-over before putting her hands on her knees and bending forward, taken in by the ability. She rolled her left shoulder away from her ear, and then her right, and then the left again. Her joints were fine.

Standing straight, she lifted her gown to examine what resided beneath. Luke bit his lip and looked away. Anakin’s breathing became more hitched as she regarded herself.

“Is- Is there something wrong?” Healer Yantha asked, taken aback by the move Anakin made as much as Luke was.

“I’m missing a scar,” she replied. She released her grip on her gown, and the edge fell to her knees once more. “I’m missing all my scars, but everything else is present. I don’t know what I was expecting. Of course, it wasn’t going to be there. You can look at me now, Luke.” She turned to the healer. “I want to be alone with my son.”

Healer Yantha and Luke exchanged a glance.

“She won’t try anything,” he said. “We established that.”

“I wish I had some of your quick-thinking skills in my past life, kid,” Anakin said when the door closed behind Healer Yantha. She examined what she looked like from each side. Her gown twirled around her thighs with each turn. “Keeping me in limbo for this? You’re lucky your actions matched with the instructions in the holocron.”

“Do you like it?” he asked. Her body language and Force signature still showed no signs of positive emotion.

Her gaze was focused on her eyes again. Her right hand found its way onto the center of her chest, and her pointer finger tapped her collarbone in a rhythmic fashion. He realized she was counting each breath she took on her own. “It’ll work.”

That wasn’t a reply I was expecting, he thought. “I wish we could have gotten the body put together sooner.”

She waved her hand at him. “Don’t be. I never believed I would ever see the face I see staring back at me again.” She sighed. “How sensational.”

“Are you connected?” he asked. That was the important question he and his sister had been worried about. The midi-chlorian tests were promising, but it wouldn’t do for the results to contradict his mother’s abilities in her new body.

She nodded. “I’ve known your sister was watching me from the hidden window in the wall behind you ever since I woke up.” He felt a sense of surprise course through Leia. The mirror in front of Anakin began to roll back into its hiding place on its own, abandoned as quickly as it was summoned. “It’s nothing like when I was younger, but it’s better than what I had.”

Good! Leia said through their Force-link. She’s proven it. Now, let’s get her into her room before she does something to someone.

Hold on, Leia. She said she wanted a moment alone.

“You aren’t under arrest.” He could feel his sister’s Force signature moving. “I wanted to remind you. There’s very little paperwork linking you to this location, and even that is considered off-record. You know how your suit was disposed of. As far as the Rebels know, we’re both researching ways to help bring the Jedi back to guard the New Republic.”

The door opened, and Leia Organa walked into the room. Anakin’s jaw clenched when she acknowledged the identity of her daughter. She had denied any Force sensitivity the princess had when she was on the Death Star before the Battle of Yavin 4, labeling it a projection of her emotions regarding the capture of a Rebel leader. She repeated that to herself as many times as it took for herself to believe it.

“He’s right,” Leia began. “We’ve kept this a secret. And to elaborate on that, you are in our capture, but you are not under arrest by any civil authority. The only conversations raging about you across the galaxy are conspiracy theory-related.”

“I can tell you where all of the secret bases and weapons facilities are.” Anakin seemed more guarded with Leia in front of her. She was already guarded. The memory of their most prominent encounter had been brought to the forefront of her mind. Anything she wanted to say to Luke was tossed aside. Leia’s cries from encountering the torture droid had been the only ones to resonate with her, and yet, she had not withdrawn the droid. Pity.

“Good. Luke, make a list and take the woman to her living quarters. She’s done here.”

---

Five Months Earlier

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While the remnants of the Rebel squadron deployed on the forest moon of Endor, including Han and Chewie, were busy partying with the Ewoks and making a mess of Imperial supplies, the Skywalker twins were staring dumbstruck at an armor-clad figure gasping for air. Luke begged his mother through their meager Force link to stay alive as he started up the Emperor's private shuttle. As he drove out of the burning space station, he ruminated on whether he had done the right thing by asking that of her. A moment of his weakness- his naivety, no doubt. 

“She survived that?” Leia couldn’t bring her focus away from her mother’s pale face. What could have happened to leave a human being that scarred she didn’t want to think about. She had been in numerous battles where she had sustained injuries that generated scar tissue. But this was… different. “It’s hard to believe someone could live behind that mask for so long.”

“I really wouldn’t call it living,” Luke quipped. “And just barely. Her signature was almost non-existent. I was worried she would just disappear like both of my masters.”

Leia scratched the back of her neck. “So, if I’m hearing this correctly, our mother is now enemy number one of both the Rebel Alliance and the Empire?”

“Hm.” He adjusted the collar on his robe. He decided against closing the flap that had fallen open during his Death Star battle. “If word gets out that she’s still alive. I don’t have any doubts that that may happen. I don’t know where else the security footage was sent and stored. I imagine there’s a database somewhere with everything that happened. But even if they could turn it into propaganda against the Rebels, it’s not like people are interested in hearing it. Not with the destruction of the second Death Star and the death of the Emperor.” He sighed. “I guess one way to bring balance and order between two groups is to be hated by both. Gives them something to agree on.”

"There could be trackers in the suit." Leia focused on the control panel in the middle of her mother's chest. Her back grew rigid at the thought of what else may be hidden in that outfitted contraption. "Knowing the Emperor, he would have wanted to keep track of his pet. We've got to get it off, and we've got to get it off fast."

Luke propped his elbow up on the edge of the window and ran his thumb along his brow. "I know. I have no idea how we're going to do that." 

“I know one thing: she’s not as scary when she’s unmasked,” Leia remarked. “She’s not as imposing. Just vulnerable. Is she considered a prisoner of ours?”

“Depends on the person you ask.” He watched as his mother tried to turn her head. She had been slipping in-and-out of consciousness for hours. “To the Rebels, sure. But to the Empire? She’s the worst defector in their history.”

She scoffed. “A defector? A military defector? Is that what we’re calling that?” She pointed into the medical room.

“Do not talk about our mother that way. Considering the circumstances, yes. She killed the Emperor and saved my life. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”

She looked down at her shoes. Dirt from the forest floor had made her once shiny boots dusty. “She’s far from being totally redeemed.”

“I never implied she was," Luke said. “Don't put words in my mouth. She isn’t the same person who tortured you and Han.” 

“But she hasn’t proven that.” Anakin stirred slightly on the table, causing Leia to look back up at her. "Maybe to you, but not to me." 

“She told me after she killed the Emperor that I was right. I was right about her. There was good in her. There is good in her. Do you doubt me?”

She looked her brother in the eyes. “It’s not you I doubt. It’s the sorry excuse for a droid.” Even that sounded cruel in Leia's ears, but she had to be honest about the person she and her brother were discussing. 

“Quit talking about our mother like that!” He clenched his eyes shut. “Look, we can argue about this later. Right now, we need to get her out of that thing.”

“Why are you bothering to save her, anyway?” She genuinely wanted to know. From his hand, to claiming ownership of his soul due to their blood relations, to her killing of his old Jedi master, Luke didn’t have many reasons to stand up for the woman. This was true regardless of her being his mother. “What good is this going to bring you? Or her?"

---

The Present, Only Later

---

She wasn’t exactly sure which planet they had taken her to. Perhaps she had been cognizant of where the medical facility was while she was still a spirit walking the fine line between the here and the beyond, but she had forgotten. A good portion of her time as a spirit was being blocked by her new brain. The passage to the room they assigned her brought her by no windows. The place felt like it had undergone an exorcism of some kind; she once heard stories of Jedi Masters being called to do that for citizens plagued by demonic entities. She could tell she wasn’t on a ship. The whirring of the engine, usually heard subtly throughout, wasn’t present in the areas she had been to. Her connection to the Force in this room was weaker, but it was not totally depleted. The room had to have been custom-built for housing her if her “resurrection” had been successful.

At least, in the moments she thought were the last of her mortal life, she felt like she had been set free from her chains. First, it had been being a slave to Watto. Then, it was dealing with the dogma of the Jedi Order while juggling her obligations in the Clone Wars. And before she “died,” it was being the lackey of Palpatine and the secret laughing-stock- the wheezing court jester who never cracked a joke- of the upper echelons of the Empire. Although, she did feel the latter was deserved. She was captured, and she was guarded. Her son had escorted her from the medicinal bay in handcuffs and with his prosthetic hand tight around her arm.

It was the nicest cell she had been in. The bed was minimalist in design, but the sheets and pillows were soft. A quick push on the mattress revealed it to be Scarifian memory foam. She owned such a bed in her home on Mustafar, but she never slept in it. The mask made reclining nearly impossible. It was a purchase she made because she had the funds, and the mattress was readily available to her. A bench of a similar color was situated nearby. A panel on the wall allowed her to control the temperature and the lighting in the room, as well as play music through two speakers hidden somewhere near the bed’s headboard. There was no connection to the HoloNet, however. Both the bed and the bench were bolted down. The door to the en-suite refresher was in front of the bed. She wondered if the twins had put this together themselves to avoid the risk of construction crews discovering their operation. 

They gave her a white shirt with matching trousers to change into, since she told them she wasn’t fond of the gown. There was yet another mirror in the room, and she could look at her new body more closely. The reflection was unaltered by the thick layer of sonic-proof glass in front of it. She didn’t pay as much attention to the details of her form as she should have in the hospital. Restored movement had been what captivated her there. Her body was supposed to resemble a twenty-two-year-old’s, and in many respects it did. It was the eyes-always the eyes-that caught her off-guard. They were her old eyes but with new corneas. Attached to the new body, they seemed cloudy, strained, and ancient.

Old wine put into new wine skins. That was a parable she remembered from her time in the Order. She remembered remarking to the Jedi Master that told her that parable why the Order bothered to keep telling it. No one uses wine skins anymore, she said. 

It was a privilege just to run one hand over one of her arms and feel human skin as opposed to cold metal. It was a privilege to watch the tiny hairs change direction across her skin with each swipe. It reminded her of the grasslands on Naboo Padmé adored so much. She enjoyed it despite the sense of being undeserving choking her and making her chest feel too heavy to lift. That sensation wasn’t anything new. It was pathetic.

Mother, please don’t do this. I can save you. You don’t have to die.

Okay. She wouldn’t. And she didn't.

Mother, I’m going to find a way for you to be comfortable. I’ll set you free.

Okay. She warned him not to get too attached to her and drive himself over the edge.

Mother, I’m working on a way to save you. My sister is, too. We found the holocron. Just have a little more patience with me.

Okay. She trusted him. It took a lot for her to remain in a place he could reach her. The Force beckoned her to join it. It was a good thing she had spent some time in her original body being defiant of authoritative voices. It was also a good thing she was the Force's chosen. It let her get away with a tiny bit more. 

Mother, we have something for you. Just sit tight, and I’ll guide you to your new body.

Okay.

This was what she got in return. The best gift she had ever been given gave her the second. She was still upset about that scar, though. She thought it ugly in her previous form. She had a feeling her son would ask about it at some point, if he couldn’t deduce what it was. Even still, he’d be unable to figure out why it was so sentimental to her, outside of the usual reasons. The crescent moon was a reminder of the one natural and good thing she did in her life.

This was all very unnatural.

Her lips trembled, and she observed the world becoming triangularly fragmented from her tears. She was a chronic user of eye drops when she was Darth Vader. Her tear ducts had melted away on Mustafar, and even if she could cry, she couldn’t do so unless her mask had been removed. By the time she went from the scene of whatever brought up a traumatic memory to her meditation pod, she usually had beaten back any emotions that threatened to spill forth. If she hadn’t, her cries were almost inaudible due to the condition of her larynx. Someone who came upon her would have assumed she was having issues with her respirator. More attention would be directed her way.

She pressed a finger to her tear duct and watched the resulting tear drop fall down her hand. It got smaller as it left parts of itself behind. “Everything works.”

---

---

Healer Yantha stood on the balcony overlooking the lava river flowing in front of Fortress Vader. Lava poured from cracks in the surface the way blood oozes from non-cauterized wounds on a battlefield. All these tiny, sporadic cracks joined the monstrosity flowing before her. Mining droids skated across its bubbling surface, unimpeded by the heat and the brightness. 

Such a dreadful place to live, she thought. Yantha had been standing there for five minutes, but the heat singed her skin, making it feel pricked and puffy. Her robes now needed to be washed of soot and sweat. She went to the planet once as a Padawan, and she made a vow to never return unless a return was unavoidable. Technically, she came back to Mustafar under her new identity, adopted for her own protection.

She became a healer for the Rebel Alliance after she survived her encounter with Vader on Malachor. The gig was up on Fulcrum. Mon Mothma and Ahsoka knew this. Desperate to do more, and with the knowledge of hiding her Force signature she gained before Order 66 was issued, she completed the studies she began at the Jedi Temple’s Academy at the Rebel base on Yavin 4. Just as she learned battle strategy in the Clone Wars, she learned medicine by pouring over wounds, building on the textbook biology knowledge of the Jedi. 

She hadn’t recognized her. Ahsoka had given her all to this assignment, regardless of the implications, and she hadn't recognized her. Certainly, her facial markings had not changed that much over the course of two decades. Certainly, she could remember the more mature voice she used when they encountered each other on Malachor. Certainly, the remnants of their previous Force bond became activated when she was nearby. Her shields were not that strong. They were weak compared to what Anakin had cracked in the past. No matter. Anakin was dealing with being alive in a non-augmented human body again. She imagined the tension she felt in the princess was going to come to a ferociously ugly head in the coming days. Whether the destruction of the remaining Imperial hideouts would be enough to reduce the fallout was a hazy point in the Force. The bitterness that rolled off Leia Organa when her mother first sat up in the hospital was strong enough to make Ahsoka nauseous.

Her pager buzzed. Luke Skywalker was asking her back to her post. She took one last look at the molten, depressing landscape and went back inside the castle.