The next day, Emperor Sheev Alderaan visited Mission HQ on Earth to patch things up with Ocean Elf in person, and he became acquainted with Ameh Chase and Cosima Brett, two fairies who also worked there.
During their conversation, there was an extremely loud, destructive crash.
"What the heck!?" Ameh exclaimed. Cosima made an outcry. Elf gasped and jumped up, then headed to where the sound came from.
As they all went to investigate, they heard a roaring male voice bellow, "Elf!"
That was followed by the elf shouting back "You basilisk! How dare you show your wretched face here!?"
"Oh, no, he's really gone off the deep end." Sheev said.
"Vader, or Anakin, or, whatever he calls himself..." Cosima supposed.
"None other." Sheev said.
"You killed my mother and you will be eternally sorry for breaking my heart!" Vader ranted.
His mother Shmi had been revived through the force, then had mysteriously slipped away during the night. Sheev had already informed the elf of this, and he and the fairies had only just comforted her.
"What heart?" The elf shot back. "Don't you dare try to put that on me!"
"Darth!" Sheev said sternly, "Elf was not even there when your mother died. She was gone before dinner, and your mother was with us in the dining room. that storm was yours. Elf was not there to cause it."
"But she caused it because she hurt me worse than the scrubbing!"
"Oh, don't pull that crap again!" the elf said in disgust. "Your life sucked, so did a lot of your choices, but like I said to Sheev yesterday, I don't owe you a damn thing! So ditch that freaking stupid suit, you don't need it any more, you got healed! Remember?"
"Since you are so tough, I challenge you to a light sabre dual!" Vader ranted.
"Consider it rejected!"
"Oh, look, finally something Elf is scared of!" he taunted.
"I'd rather be a live coward than a dead fool!" she shot back, with a glare. "Typical of you to be amused over somebody's fear, that's just like a dark lord!"
"I am not! Stop twisting everything I say!"
"Oh, really?" The elf pressed. "What do you call 'O look, something Elf's afraid of!' Compassion? You thrived on other people's fear, not once or twice, but over and over and over again!"
"I am not trying to terrorize you for my amusement!" Vader protested.
"Then what?" Elf demanded.
"I was trying to goad you into a light saber challenge, that is all!" Said Vader, frustrated.
"Besides there being no light sabers here, the idea of challenging such a newbie is actually cowardly on your part, Darth Invader!"
Vader yanked off his helmet and glared at the elf. Then he put it back on again. "I brought two light sabers with me, so you canot back out."
"I never accepted to begin with. Your challenge is rejected, and that's final!"
"I was counting on your sense of pride not allowing you to refuse." Vader taunted.
"Who said anything about pride?" Elf countered. Mine's already taken a terrible beating, and - "
"I fail to see how." Vader said. "You have not lost to me yet."
"That has nothing to do with it." Said Elf. "I'm not stupid, and - "
"I never said you were!" Vader retorted.
"Maybe not in so many words. But I maintain my own mind, and my life - without you in it! I'm not stupid enough to have a light saber dual with you and end up in some ultimatum situation where you get the upper hand and command me to marry you or die a burning death from your blade.""
For a few moments, Vader stood as if stunned. But he collected himself soon enough. "Elf!" he shouted, trying to menace her.
"No!" she shouted back with a glare, both hands thrown up as if she was about to let punches fly.
"May I have a look at those sabers for a moment, Darth?" Sheev asked gently, "I think I see a defect in one of them and just want to be sure."
Vader agreed, and moved through the bits of wreckage from the damage he caused, to hand the swords off to Sheev. Then he backed away from him and approached Elf, who moved away, making a motion of disgust.
Sure Vader was no longer within reaching distance, Sheev through first one sword, then the other. As they were in mid air, they disappeared.
"So it was all for nothing!" Vader ranted bitterly at Elf.
"Well aren't you the ungrateful angsty brute?" she replied acidly. "You're healed, Sidious's bad laws are about to be changed to outlaw torture, and you're just sore because I won't be your Mary Sue!"
Just then, Vader glanced at Sheev. "Where did those sabers go?"
"I sent them back to Tatooine. I do not want anyone getting hurt." he replied.
"I am already hurt! By her!"
"Oh, boo-hoo!" The elf mocked. "Look at him, always the victim!"
"Elf, Darth, enough!" Sheev raised his voice. Then he continued. "That's not the same, sir, and you know it!"
Vader looked at Sheev in disbelief. "I thought you said you were going to talk sense into her!"
"In my mistaken and muddled mind, I did say those words to you, but I ended up doing no such thing."
"Because she still will not listen! She still does not understand me!" Vader railed.
"There is a difference between understanding and actually agreeing or being sympathetic." said Elf. "Now, it's time you understood something besides drowning in self-pity!"
"I am not! What I went through was real!" Vader shrilled. I showed you to make you understand me better!"
"No, you showed me because you wanted to school me, make me feel absolutely terrible for you!"
"That is not why I did it, I even apologized for you seeing me that way!" Vader protested.
"Lip service!" Elf countered.
"When did you get so jaded, Elf?" Vader tried provoking her with mock pity, "Did you just wake up one day and turn so cynical and bitter, or did it happen slowly over time?"
Ignoring this, Elf continued. "Why don't you just admit it? You wanted to 'correct' me and make me understand it all your way, which means agree with you completely. It was like you were the school master and I was a student - and you have no right treating me that way! If it was only a matter of wanting me to help you end Palpatine, you wouldn't have brought up the subject of your precious stupid painful suit every freaking chance you got!
"Do you think I liked being in that suit?" Vader accused.
"Yes! the elf finally shouted angrily. "It gave you the means to play with my emotions so you thought you could push and pull me in any direction you pleased! What you really were going for was - marry any girl who supposedly destroyed Palpatine and pretend she did it all for you! Then you could say 'Oh look at me, I have her as my wife, she's the one who killed the guy who totally wrecked my life, now ain't that special'?"
"I do not know how you can say this after all we've been through!"
"All you put me through!" the elf corrected sharply. "There is no we, Vader, there never was - "
"Shut up!"
"And there never will be! Get it?"
"Tell her, Sheev!"
"No, sir, she has the right to tell us how she feels, since none of us we're really listening until now. Go ahead, Elf."
"Fine!" Vader sulked. "Who cares about all the pain I suffered - "
"Oh, shut it!" Elf said with a snarling shout, stamping her foot. "One more word about your freaking pain and I'll end it with a wave!"
"Never mind the waves, Elf, just tell us your experience." Sheev said calmly but firmly.
Elf took a deep breath to calm herself. "You know he stuck some kind of portal on this property that set off the security alarm. I went to check things out and found no disturbance, but ended up in and through the portal to Tatooine. Now this was between three and four in the morning over here. I didn't know how to get back, or if I could. Furthermore, I was told I couldn't go back until Sidious was gone - a man who I had thought was already dead, so that was confounding."
"Using the dark side of the force to cheat death." Vader said.
"The first person I was confronted with over there was him, and all he wanted to do was drone on and on about his stupid suit and - "
"Stop calling it a stupid suit!"
"Stupid - "
"Darth and Elf," Sheev intervened.
Elf continued, quieter, but no less agitated. "well I've had more than enough of being anxious and distressed over my loved ones having some kind of pain or condition or other. Things are finally doing well for the lot of us after so many years of that. I'm finally doing well emotionally. So I really don't want to be hearing any more about people in pain that I can't do anything about, especially stories of past pain that should've been long over. Especially from people who caused untold pain and death themselves! But Vader just kept on and on about that freaking suit and wouldn't take the hint to just shut up about it. He never went to pieces about it before, he was too busy causing everybody else pain and being smug about his sadistic exploits, - this guy tortured and murdered in the hundreds, maybe even in the thousands! So he was the last person I ever wanted to see on Tatooine anyway. So that didn't help. Even when he took me to meet Ben and Yoda, we had dinner, and the two of them explained the Sidious mission and why they wanted me for it, and they demonstrated some uses of the force which amazed me. They told me I could ask them any questions I might have. And then he - " she made a jabbing gesture in Vader's direction, "started in again with 'if you want to ask me about my suit I'll gladly tell you all about it, though it is a tale not to be told' and whatever blah blah blah - ARGH! I thought I was going to explode! How much longer was I expected to be there? How much longer would I have to put up with him jawing on and on and on - and - on, about that infernal suit and all his suffering? Would I ever get back home? Would my friends and family still even be there!?" At this, the elf sent Vader such an acid glare that if looks could kill, his face would've melted off. "No one," she said in a low menacing tone that shook with emotion, "will ever get away with doing that to me again, not even if they are someone I actually like!"
"But it was the only option - " Vader tried making his excuse again and was cut off.
Fixing Vader with a baleful stare, "Do - you - understand - me!?" the elf said in such a severe tone that even Vader finally wavered, appearing to take the hint at last.
He nodded. "Sorry." he mumbled.
"And I'm not finished yet," said the elf more quietly but still dead serious. "Even Yoda was Anakinized."
"Ana - Anakinized!?" Vader sputtered. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"How so?" asked Sheev.
"The night he showed me to my room, he made sure I would be comfortable, and his parting words weren't just 'Learn from Tatooine you will' or 'Learn many different things you will' oh, no. It was, get this - 'Learn from Anakin you will'!" She threw a punch in midair that was accompanied by a shouting growl.
"Oh, goodness." said Sheev.
"That man," she jabbed a finger in Vader's direction, "is not qualified to teach me things, I didn't wanna learn anything more from him, I'd had enough of him on that first night - and be damned if I was going to be some little cog fitting neatly into whatever part of life Vader thought he could lay out for me! He had a chance with Padme, and screwed that all up!"
"Do not bring her name into this!" Vader railed.
Elf continued, her voice took on a mocking perky sing-song tone "Well, the next day," she said as if she was narrating the cheesiest kindergarten level program ever, "I did learn something from Vader, I got to hear him scream in pain - oh, what fun! We just happened to be going by in the hospital section when that was going on. Funny little coincidence, huh?" Voice became hard again. That put me out of sorts for the rest of the day," she glared at Vader, "just as you planned it!" Tone becoming mocking sweet, "I bet that was absolute music to your ears when I came back with the message that I'd stick around to help get rid of Palpatine. That was Ben's idea, not mine! You must've thought you still had a chance with me after all. Well, it doesn't work that way, mister. and I've done some research and don't believe your sympathy ploys!"
Vader couldn't do anything to stop the flow of words that seemed to bring all his machinations out in the open, revealed for what they were.
"Ben feels responsible for that, and he is sorry about putting you through that." Sheev said.
Incredibly worked up, the elf didn't seem to hear this, and only continued her story.
"They told me it was a once a month procedure, but a couple days later they told me I should just go ahead and eliminate Sidious because Vader was being scrubbed again. That's when I really started to be quite sure something hinky was up. So, that was done, and when I came back, Abra cadabra! Vader was healing on his own. But he ordered me like some errand girl to go find a medical droid, and find him a new emperor too. Like what the heck was I going to do to accomplish that? And I'm sick of him bossing everyone around, and talking down to me with this 'I hope this will help you better understand me' crap! Oh, he hit me with that one when Ben made me give him the message about staying for Operation Terminate Sidious clone 2.0.
"I do not boss everyone around!" Vader retorted.
"Yes you do, you probably just don't realize it and neither does anyone else because they're so used to it!" said the elf, and continued with her story. "So then," she said, looking at Sheev, "suddenly you showed up out of nowhere, sir. I didn't know what to make of it. But I'll tell you something, if you had not said everyone including me would be invited to your instalment ceremony, I would've been gone from Vader's world like a bat out of hell that night!"
"So the next day, you and I brought Shmi back and we had the celebration of that and the end of a bad regime." Sheev put in.
"And my healing, do not forget that." said Vader.
"Yes, yes," the elf said impatiently, "your healing too, and that you shed your suit completely for all to see, yada yada yada! Lucky you had some duds underneath or that would've made for a really embarrassing scene."
Everyone but Vader laughed.
"That is not funny!" he bellowed.
"Then came the disastrous day after," said Sheev. I was so blind."
"Everyone was," said Elf, "Except maybe Leia. I think she and I could have really got along. Luke was definitely Anakinized. He kept calling himself and Leia 'the Skywalker twins' and though they are biological twins, Leia sees her adoptive father as more of a father and - "
"That is enough! Leave them out of it!" Vader suddenly shouted at the elf.
"You brought that on yourself!" she snapped back, then looked around at the others as she continued. "So then came the little girl, and she was carrying on for Vader like a lost puppy. I had absolutely no doubt it was more kidnapping and big mind napping going on, and what really took the cake was that ludicrous judgment thing, and then Sheev bawling me out for not orbiting around Vader like everyone else was, including that I would be breaking his heart if I didn't give a relationship a chance. It seemed like he saw nothing wrong with Vader kidnapping me from my home, a terrible violation of my most basic human rights. But he threatened to banish me for merely saying I would kill Vader if he tried that again. Then I was out of there. And that's what happened."
Then she stared impassively at Vader. "Now, understand this, Darth Invader, - *YOU AND ME WILL NEVER HAPPEN! I would rather end you beneath the waves. Besides the fact there is torture commission in your past, there is a guy in my own home world who is the only one I ever had any feelings for in that way, and whether or not he and I ever get together doesn't matter right now. But he is my type. You are not!"
Vader was seething in a state of rage and wounded pride.
Sheev walked slowly over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, then looked him in the eyes. "Darth, you're so busy being upset at the idea that you can't have Elf for your wife or even a friend. I know Ben has already tried talking to you about that. But it's clear to me that you do not love Elf, nor would you make a remotely good couple."
"Yes, I do." Vader blubbered.
The elf made a disgusted grunt and scowled.
Sheev shook his head. "No, you do not." he insisted. "You wanted to possess her, like you tried to possess Padme,"
"Stop bringing her up!"
"And unlike those of us around you lately, Elf will not be possessed. You were trying for an unhealthy codependent relationship, with Elf's role as someone who made you happy and proud, regardless of how she might feel. If you really loved her, it would not happen in just a few short days, you would have respected her wishes and stopped trying to make her feel bad about your suit. You might have even tried to understand why she didn't want to talk about it. You would not have implanted your own ambitions into our minds to use us, people she respects, to force her to give you what you want. You do not love her, you don't even love us. You want to conquer her. And Darth, this Elf will not be conquered."
"Shut up, Sheev!" Vader shouted.
"Neither will this future emperor be shouted at. I will threaten you with the same punishment I did Elf yesterday for shouting at me. Do that again, and you will be banished."
There was a deafening silence.
It was Elf who spoke up.
"I thought you were never going to do *that* again, even if it is directed at Vader this time."
Sheev grinned sheepishly at the elf. "You are right. I will never dole out such a draconian punishment for a mere shout. But at least it got his attention."
"So what is the punishment for shouting at the emperor?" Cosima asked, trying to lighten the mood.
"Other than maybe a shout back, nothing unless the shout is a deliberate act of contempt, along with some other action. And Elf, you will be unbanishable unless you turn to the dark side."
The elf smiled broadly. "Thank you! Now, I can finally make peace with you, Your Majesty."
"You are welcome, Elf." Sheev smiled back happily. "And you and your friends here, are welcome at my instalment ceremony. Please do consider that an invite. And please, just call me Sheev."
"We will come if we can., said the elf, "thank you."
"Oh, Vader's gone." said Ameh.
"I thought I saw him slink away in the trees over there," Cosima indicated the direction.