In the dark between galaxies, where the stars whispered sins and death itself held its breath, the Warp reached across realities.
And from a galaxy far, far away, it plucked Darth Vader.
The Fall Through Shadows
It was during a moment of rare solitude. The Executor drifted silently over a ravaged world, the screams of rebels barely echoes now. Vader stood in meditation, letting the Force swirl around him — cold, suffocating, obedient.
But then something shifted.
The shadows bent.
The Force screamed.
Not in pain, but in fear.
He reached out instinctively — and was dragged. Not by rebellion. Not by Jedi. Not by the Light. But by something older. Alien. Hungry. Ancient.
The room around him melted, became teeth, became eyes, became truths he could not unsee.
The last thing he remembered before darkness swallowed him whole was the hiss of his own breath — fast, uncertain.
He did not fall.
He was claimed.
The Arena of Judgment
Vader awoke standing.
He found himself on a battlefield forged from emotion. The ground was scorched with betrayal. The sky bled war. Thunder echoed like marching boots across time. Rivers of molten brass wound around islands made of crushed skulls.
And before him stood a greater daemon of Khorne.
Towering, horned, eyes burning with the joy of slaughter, the creature raised its axe and roared.
"You do not kneel. Good. Let your worth be measured in combat, not in words."
Vader answered not with speech, but with ignited crimson.
The lightsaber hummed like a beast uncaged.
The Trial of Khorne
The daemon charged. Its footsteps cracked reality. Its axe fell like a meteor.
But Vader moved like death given purpose. Cold. Direct. Efficient.
The Force sang around him — not in balance, but in dominance.
He parried. He cut. He threw the daemon through a volcano of blood.
But Khorne did not test for victory. He tested for will.
The trial lasted hours — or seconds. Time meant nothing in the Warp.
Vader's armor was cracked. His artificial limbs sparked. But he never yielded.
The daemon smiled.
"You are wrath forged in discipline. You have conquered yourself. That is rare. The Blood God watches you now."
But it was not over.
The Trial of Tzeentch
In the blink of a fractured moment, the battlefield melted. Logic inverted. Vader stood inside a labyrinth of thought, where each corridor was a different memory — twisted.
He walked through a door and saw Padmé, dying again and again, blaming him.
He turned and saw Obi-Wan, victorious on Mustafar, every cut a prophecy.
Each step brought him deeper into himself.
Tzeentch's greater daemon awaited him — a creature of a hundred faces and none, reading from a book made of Vader's past.
"Do you understand now, Lord of the Sith? You have always been a pawn. First of Jedi. Then of Sidious. You dreamt of order — and birthed chaos."
"I brought peace," Vader growled. "Through power."
"And power is change. And change is mine."
A hundred futures played before him — Palpatine's betrayal, Luke's compassion, the Empire's doom.
He watched them all, unmoved.
"No fate can shackle me," he whispered.
The daemon laughed — not in mockery, but admiration.
"You are not bound by truth. You reshape it. Tzeentch marks you. The Architect shall offer you a blessing of insight."
Behind Vader's eyes, visions bloomed — battle plans beyond mortal comprehension, strategies carved in fire and inevitability.
But even then, Vader said nothing.
He simply moved forward.
The Gods Decide
Tzeentch and Khorne watched.
There was no debate.
Dual blessing was rare. Dangerous.
But in Vader, they saw perfect rage with purpose. Violence with vision. Power without mercy.
A weapon — not yet truly unleashed.
Khorne admired his fury.
Tzeentch admired his control.
Slaanesh found him too rigid.
Nurgle found him too unwilling to decay.
So the pact was forged.
In fire and fate.
Darth Vader's Thoughts
Vader stood alone again — or seemed to.
The Warp whispered behind him, but he did not listen.
He stared into a reflective pool of blood and saw his mask — his identity.
And within it… the Force, now different.
It was not just the Dark Side. It was raw Chaos.
He felt knowledge bleeding into his mind — not unlike the holocrons of the Sith, but deeper. Older. More maliciously alive.
He saw stars ruled not by reason, but by cults. Empires of madness. Gods that bled ideas into matter.
This galaxy… this universe… was his kind of place.
Law was a lie.
Balance was weakness.
Only will mattered.
And his was iron.
"I served Sidious. I learned," he thought. "But these beings are beyond even him. And I will learn from them, too. And then I will destroy what I must."
He turned his thoughts inward.
About Joker — the laughing man whose presence stank of unpredictability and undisciplined chaos.
Vader hated him.
Not because of what he was. But because he lacked direction.
Vader would not allow a clown to disrupt the order he would forge in this new, broken galaxy.
If they were to compete… then Joker would burn.
As would anyone who stood between him and total command.