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Force-sensitive twins have long been a poorly studied phenomenon. There are simply too few of them to ever do comprehensive research on the topic. While it is well documented that they typically have strong Force Bonds with each other, much beyond that isn’t well known. It is simply too hard to tell what is an aspect of them being twins and what is an aspect of who they are as unique people.
So, Obi-Wan did not understand the full implications of the decision to separate Luke and Leia. He had perfectly justifiable logic in thinking that they would be safer if they were hidden in different locations. What he did not know is that, in the history of the Jedi Order, no pair of Force-sensitive twins had ever been raised completely apart in that manner.
As twins, they had just spent 9 months in constant contact with each other. Their entire world only had the two of them in it. For 9 months, they became accustomed to each other’s presence both physically and in the Force. They had a vague sense of their mother and father, but upon their birth, they also had the sense that these people were lost to them. They only had each other.
That’s why it was so traumatic for them to be pulled apart. No longer would Luke feel every time Leia kicked. No longer would Leia feel every time Luke waved his arm. As they were pulled light years apart, they reached for each other both physically and in the Force. They could not find each other physically, but they could find each other in the Force. And so, they clung to that connection.
Unbeknownst to their guardians, their Bond deepened beyond anything previously known. Their minds swirled and blended together, becoming one. If they had been adults before connecting this deeply, the differences in their experiences might have been able to keep their senses of self separated. But, these were infants. They had no sense of self. Not outside of each other. And so, their minds flowed together freely until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
Externally, no one saw anything. They were infants behaving like infants. There was no one watching both children to see that, when one cried, they both cried, when one laughed they both laughed. As they grew older, the parallels remained. They took their first steps within seconds of each other. Spoke the same word as their first word. Decided at the same time that they hated the same vegetable.
For the Twins, they did not realize anything about themselves was special at first. Even as they started to learn that the people around them were actually people, they didn’t understand that each person was only one person. It wasn’t until Leia made an off-hand reference to her “other body in the desert” that they realized something was wrong.
If you were to ask Bail, he just about had a heart attack when Leia gave the first obvious sign of Force-sensitivity. But nothing else came from it, so he wrote it off as a solitary fluke or maybe just a vague vision combined with an active imagination. He had no way of knowing that the Twins had seen his fear and taken it as a lesson that they should keep their dual lives a secret. They never spoke of it again and let everyone believe that they were two individual people and not simply a single conglomerate mind with two bodies. It was very easy to convince people of this when they were half a Galaxy away from each other. No one connected a Princess’s uncanny knowledge of technology and piloting with a backwater farm boy’s uncanny knowledge of Galactic politics. Once they met in person, things became more difficult.
Obi-Wan saw Luke try to hide his recognition of his sister. He correctly guessed that Luke had seen her through the Force but underestimated the extent of this. Obi-Wan asked Luke if he had seen the Princess before, perhaps in a dream. The Twins went with that excuse and allowed Obi-Wan to believe that Luke had simply dreamt of Leia. Obi-Wan might have been able to see what was actually happening if he saw the two together, but he unfortunately died before he got the chance.
A smuggler by the name of Han Solo got the dubious honor of witnessing the reunion. Of course, he had no idea how significant of an event he was seeing. For the first time in recorded history, a single mind that had been raised in two bodies separated for 20 years was being properly reunited. If he had been given the choice, he probably would have declined because, even what little he did see, freaked him the fuck out.
Han did not notice anything amiss during the initial reunion. After all, they were in the middle of a firefight and a daring escape from one of the most powerful military installations to ever exist. Han was too distracted by the fight for survival to notice the odd harmony between the two. What details he did notice, he wrote off as teenage infatuation with only a little bit of jealousy.
It wasn’t until they had escaped and destroyed the pursuing fighters that things went off the rails. With a moment of quiet, the Twins took the chance to really look at each other. They had never truly gotten a chance to see either body from the outside, so this was a first for them. They tried to play it off as simple glances at each other. It didn’t work.
The lack of excitement also gave Han a chance to look at them more closely. What he saw did not sit well with him. Though the two tried to play it off as nothing, he noticed too much to ignore. The way they tapped their foot in unison. The way they would tuck their hair back at the same time. The way they would both turn their heads at exactly the same time to glance at the same sudden noise. The most disturbing thing was how they looked at each other. Not like a pretty boy and a pretty girl meeting each other for the first time, but like someone trying to preen in a mirror without anyone noticing.
The Twins insisted there was nothing going on and Han did not push. He was willing to write it off as weird Force bullshit, ironically only being comfortable with the Force as an explanation for something when someone wasn’t trying to sell him on the idea. So, Han reverted to the closest thing he had to normal, he flirted with the pretty girl in front of him. In a very Han “I’m a scoundrel” way, but flirting. He was unsurprised that Leia responded with sass, but was surprised that both Luke and Leia smiled all through it. A corner of his mind noted that he had developed a bit of a friendship with Luke already and that this might have helped Leia’s opinion of him through whatever Force bullshit they had going on, but the rest of his mind told that corner to shut up and be quiet.
Upon arriving at Yavin IV, not everyone was so willing to brush the weirdness aside. Princess Leia was a well-known figure in the Rebel Alliance and so many people had already met her several times and grown accustomed to her mannerisms. To see this new recruit apparently copying her as best he could was not taken well. To some extent, it was seen as almost adorable that he would idolize her so much as to mimic her mannerisms. But even the less observant people noticed that he mimicked the Princess a bit too well. A fact that the Princess pointedly ignored.
However, there was an extra layer of confusion that got thrown on the pile. One man on the base knew Luke from before and Biggs Darklighter insisted to anyone who asked that Luke was behaving the same way he always had. The two had grown up together and Luke was certainly no different than he had ever been. To Biggs’ eyes, Leia was the one mimicking Luke instead of the other way around.
Those concerns were put aside due to the imminent attack by the Death Star. All able pilots were put into fighters and sent into space to confront it. None who knew the Princess well were surprised when she insisted on flying herself, but they were surprised when she insisted on having Luke be assigned as her wingman.
What followed was the greatest act of coordinated dogfighting the Galaxy had ever seen. Two fighters moved in perfect unison, almost as if they were being controlled by a single person. Complex maneuvers perfectly timed to support each other. No TIE Fighters stood a chance against them.
Even Vader found himself outmatched. Against a single skilled pilot strong in the Force, he would have the upper hand. Against two that were so well coordinated… he was overwhelmed. Without any knowledge of who was in the fighters, he had to resort to guesswork. The only conclusion he could reach was that, like Obi-Wan, another Jedi had survived and had taken a padawan. One who was also a skilled pilot and strong enough in the Force to perform a temporary joint battle meditation.
Upon returning to Imperial holdings after the battle, Vader poured through lists of unaccounted-for Jedi to see who it could possibly be. While going through those lists, he could only find one that fit. A Jedi Master who was a skilled Jedi, powerful in the Force, and an experienced enough teacher to be able to train a student on his own. Plo Koon had been reported dead when his fighter was shot down by clones, but no body had ever been recovered. At the time, it had been assumed that his body had been vaporized in the crash. Now, Vader knew otherwise.
Orders were sent out to be on the lookout for a Kel Dor operating with the Rebel Alliance. Likely accompanied by a younger partner. Tremendous amounts of time and resources were dedicated toward finding a man who no longer existed.
This was amusing enough for Plo Koon’s consciousness to temporarily emerge from the Force where it had been resting. Master Koon appeared before Commander Wolffe, the last surviving clone loyal to him. After convincing Wolffe that he was not, in fact, a hallucination, Master Koon explained the current state of Imperial Intelligence. Though he was only told of the Twins in the broadest terms (“a pair of highly skilled Force-sensitives”), Wolffe found the situation equally as amusing. Without being asked, he understood why Plo’buir had appeared before him and swore to do everything in his power to drop as much evidence to support the Imperial theory as possible. Chuckling heartily, Master Koon bid his old friend farewell and disappeared back into the Force.
Back with the Rebel Alliance, people gradually became used to the odd symmetry between the Twins. Every time they were questioned on their connection, they deflected by insisting that they had no idea what people were talking about. As far as the Twins knew, they were still successfully convincing everyone that they were completely normal humans and definitely not a single person in two different bodies. The matter was eventually dropped by most people and just became one of many odd personality quirks that the Rebels accommodated.
There were only two people who still suspected something deeper than an odd personality quirk. Han had kept up a steady routine of sass-flirting with Leia and felt as though he was slowly moving in the direction of something more serious. However, the closer to serious he got with Leia, the more Luke would randomly fall into a sass-flirting mode with him. Han became accustomed to gently reminding Luke that he was Luke and not Leia. After a few times of Luke actually glancing down to double-check that this was true, Han pulled the same line on Leia. Leia, of course, was pissed that she fell for it, but Han was too stunned to take advantage of that fact. After both (all three?) had calmed down, Han getting the Twins to second guess which body they were talking to him with became a regular part of their sass-flirting.
The other person was Mon Mothma. The former senator had been a good friend of both Bail and Padmé and, since Bail’s death, was one of the few people who knew of Leia’s true heritage. Also, as someone who had watched Leia grow up, she was one of the few people who knew the Princess enough to recognize just how eerily similar Luke was. She also was one of the few people that Leia respected enough as an authority figure to be able to actually insist on a frank discussion. Mon decided enough was enough when Luke slipped up and called her “Aunt Mon.”
“I’m not angry,” Mon insisted, “but I’m not fooled either.”
The Twins stood before her with innocent expressions on their faces. Expressions that might have been convincing if they were not identical. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Leia.
“I knew many Jedi before the Republic fell,” said Mon. “I know they were capable of doing things that many thought impossible. Such as speaking to each other through their minds.”
Two pairs of eyes widened in unison.
“I also know that your father (yes, ‘you’ plural) was a powerful Jedi and it would be no surprise if you took after him in that way.”
The Twins looked at their shoes sheepishly. “We’ve never talked about it before,” said Leia.
“It didn’t seem safe,” said Luke.
Mon sighed. “How long have you known you were Twins?”
The Twins shrugged. “I think we’ve always known,” they said in unison.
“Always?”
The Twins nodded. “It’s like asking how long you’ve known you had a left and right hand,” said Luke.
“There’s always been both hands,” said Leia.
“The right hand holds the control stick,” said Luke.
“The left hand holds the throttle,” said Leia.
“The Leia body does politics,” said Luke.
“And the Luke body does farming,” said Leia.
The Twins frowned. “Or, I guess mostly piloting now,” they said together.
Mon blinked several times to clear the bemused expression from her face. “You feel like one person?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” the Twins said in unison.
Mon proceeded to instruct the Twins to brief their battlefield commanders of their connection. Even if they weren’t comfortable announcing such details publicly, their communication might prove invaluable in a fight. The Twins agreed, though they insisted on limiting the details. The command staff of the Rebellion was told that they were both Force-sensitive and could share information over long distances, but they were not told just how deep that connection ran.
The Twins tried to tell Han their full story. After all, they were growing close to him as both a friend and maybe more. Han refused to listen. It only took them mentioning they were connected through the Force for him to loudly proclaim that he didn’t need to know how their space wizard magic worked. That earned him a few weeks of the Twins only speaking to him through Chewbacca.
Chewie, for his part, assured the Twins that Han meant no malice by his comments. He insisted that Han was simply nervous around things he didn’t understand, and he didn’t understand many things. The Force and human females being among them.
The Twins thanked Chewie for being such a good friend and promised that they’d forgive Han eventually. When Chewie suggested that perhaps Han feared that his desire to kiss Leia (and perhaps go further) was matched by both Twins, they assured Chewie that any romantic attraction came only from Leia. Probably. Most likely. Certainly, no kissing at all would happen if Han kept being so rude.
“It might be a while until any kissing happens, then,” Chewie said with a laugh.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Galaxy, Wolffe was carefully planting rumors about a Kel Dor engaging in rebel activity. Occasionally seen with a younger Togruta. Wolffe picked the species for Plo Koon’s fictional companion on a whim. He remembered how his Plo’buir had doted on Ahsoka and loved mentoring her, so it was with her in mind that he crafted a fictional padawan.
What Wolffe didn’t realize was just how effective that detail would be, once word reached Vader. As the intelligence reports streamed in, Vader became convinced that Ahsoka had teamed up with Plo Koon and the two were conspiring to bring down his Empire. After all, Anakin had taught her how to fly, so it only made sense that Anakin’s old padawan would be one of the only people who could out-fly Vader. He swore he would find them, kill Plo Koon, and then take Ahsoka as his apprentice, just as she should have been all along.
When conflicting reports started coming in that the pilots were a young pair of humans that were rising to prominence among the Rebel leadership, Vader paid them no mind. He dismissed the reports as Rebel misinformation. He didn’t even bother to read them closely enough to see the names in the report. A shame on his part, because if he had been just a little more patient, he would have seen the name Skywalker attached to one profile and a picture that resembled a young Padmé attached to the other.
Of course, Ahsoka had mixed feelings when she discovered her name and out-of-date image slapped on wanted posters throughout the Galaxy that were crediting her with destroying the Death Star. On the one hand, she was happy at the obvious failure of Imperial Intelligence and how it took pressure off of the real heroes who had won that victory. On the other hand, she was not happy at how hard it became for her to lay low and run her own operations.
Ahsoka’s feelings changed when she tried to track down the source of this misinformation. This eventually led her to Wolffe who, for his part, was very surprised that Ahsoka was still alive. He apologized for dragging her into things, but he explained how the spirit of Plo Koon himself had come to him and asked that he further an erroneous assumption the Imperials had made. Wolffe was quite happy to spend his old age on one last mission and Ahsoka agreed to join him.
So, Ahsoka began to operate more openly. A few daring raids of soft targets made a huge difference. Targets that weren’t important enough to be heavily guarded, but targets that could easily be sold as part of a larger plan. Add in a few comments about Plo Koon being involved, and reports of the two of them raiding Imperial bases started flooding the intelligence networks. When she had a chance, she sent a discrete message through Rebel communications apologizing for taking credit for the Death Star.
The Twins felt a lot of relief at not having Imperial agents and bounty hunters chasing them. It gave them the freedom to grow into their leadership role more naturally. Odd similarity aside, no one in the Rebel Alliance could deny that Luke and Leia were effective. They were strong fighters, skilled flyers, intelligent tacticians, and charming leaders. Playing on Leia already being a Princess of Alderaan, some started calling the Twins the Prince and Princess of the Rebellion.
The two denied the titles. Aside from a drunken night with Rogue Squadron where they insisted Leia was the Prince and Luke the Princess that is. The logic, as they explained it, was that Leia had already been a Princess, so now it was Luke’s turn. To a drunken Rogue Squadron, that made perfect sense. However, in the morning, they all agreed that it was drunken nonsense. Han briefly considered using it as an excuse to call both of the Twins “Princess” but then his mind immediately rebelled at the thought and shoved any notion of having the same moniker for both twins into the dark recesses of his unconscious mind.
Instead, Han stuck to carefully sass-flirting with the Twins. This proved to be a double-edged sword for him. The good news was that he was able to provoke Leia into angrily kissing him. The bad news was that he was able to provoke Luke into angrily kissing him. After careful consideration, Han decided that this was not an ideal arrangement. For one, he could tell that only Leia really enjoyed kissing him and Luke was more just sometimes forgetting that he wasn’t Leia. Secondly, Han was pretty sure he was only attracted to women and only wanted to kiss Leia. He was at least 90% sure of that.
So, Han hatched a plan: Operation “Find Luke a Girlfriend.” Or, as Chewie called it: Operation “Han is an Idiot.” The idea was that, if he could find a cute girl to point Luke at, maybe it would distract Luke from accidentally kissing him and he could move to stage “more than kissing” with Leia. If that failed, maybe he’d at least have company in dealing with the confusing presence that was the Twins.
The Operation didn’t go well. Not that there was a shortage of women who might be interested in Luke. Those were easy to find. All one had to do was shout into a random barracks “Does anyone want to date Luke Skywalker?” and there would be a line of women (and a few men) volunteering. No, the problem was getting Luke to react to any of them.
It was getting slapped by Leia that made Han realize the issue. It wasn’t that Leia had slapped him because of trying to get Luke a girlfriend. In fact, that wasn’t even remotely close to the topic they had been arguing about. What started as a calm conversation about supply chain logistics optimization turned into a heated shouting match. Said shouting match led to Leia slapping him. Not a serious slap (he’d seen her knock men out with a punch before), but just enough to sting.
No, it was the fact that the slap was followed by a passionate kiss before Han even had a chance to react that gave him his revelation. Leia thrived on confrontation and Luke was very similar to Leia. Luke needed a woman (or possibly a man not named Han) who would sass-flirt with him and provoke him into passion.
Unfortunately for Han’s master plan, the Twins chose that very week to start seeing ghosts. Obi-Wan appeared before them and told them to go to a swamp. Well, technically he told them to seek out a Jedi Master on the planet Dagobah, but the Twins recognized that as being a planet of mostly swamp. Leia had learned about it in a Galactic Geography class as a kid and it stood out to the Twins because of how it was almost the opposite of Tatooine.
Obi-Wan also apologized for not recognizing what they were before he died. Being one with the Force gave him the perspective to recognize the connection. Maybe, if he had lived a bit longer, he would have recognized it upon seeing the Twins together. But he never got that chance.
Regardless, the Twins informed the Rebel Command staff that they would be dropping off the grid for a while to seek out a Jedi Master. The Twins were wished well and asked to hurry back as soon as they could. They also said goodbye to Han and Chewie, which led to an argument, a kiss, and then another argument before Chewie pulled Han back and wished that the Twins would have the Force with them.
Landing on Dagobah was an odd experience for the Twins. First, the planet was surrounded with a fog that seemed to penetrate into the Force itself. Second, despite their skills as pilots, they managed to land in a thick body of water and barely escaped their fighters. Third, after they made camp, they were assaulted by a weird frog man who dug through their gear looking for food.
However, the Twins felt something odd from the frog man. They were so used to feeling each other through the Force that it had become second nature to them. When an outside presence started probing their presence, they noticed.
“Master Yoda?” Luke asked the frog man.
“Mmmmm, yes. Master Yoda, I am,” said Yoda. “Noticed me in the Force, you did.”
“It was…strange,” said Leia.
“Like getting poked in the brain,” said Luke.
“Notice, most would not,” said Yoda.
The Twins shrugged. “Be here, most would not,” they said.
Yoda laughed in response. “Come! Come!” He waved at them to follow him as he started to hobble away. “Your training, we will begin.”
Meanwhile, Darth Vader was angry. That was kind of a perpetual state of being for him, but he was more angry than usual. He had been making great progress in pinning down Plo Koon and Ahsoka when the Emperor recalled him to Coruscant. So, Vader stomped his way into the Imperial Palace for an audience with the Emperor.
Here, the Emperor admonished Vader for wasting time on a wild gundark chase. The Emperor had been reading intelligence reports and thought that Vader had been fooled. He dismissed the stories of Plo Koon as false and called Ahsoka an unimportant girl of trivial power. If Vader was angry before, now he was enraged. That was his apprentice who the Emperor insulted. A woman who Vader had personally molded into a weapon. He saw any insults to her ability as a personal insult to himself.
If he was a little more patient, he might have waited long enough for the Emperor to tell him about the Luke Skywalker who had emerged in the intelligence reports. However, Vader was not a patient man. So instead, Vader, in accordance with ancient Sith traditions, killed his master in a fit of pique.
Vader rapidly consolidated power. This meant ensuring that the Imperial command structure swore personal loyalty to him. Elements of wavering loyalty were purged. The Emperor’s pet superweapon projects were canceled and those resources were retasked to building large numbers of conventional munitions. The Empire was temporarily weakened because of it, but Vader’s personal power had never been greater. He devoted all available resources to capturing Ahsoka and left only minimal forces to fight the rest of the Rebellion.
This shift in Imperial leadership was a massive boon to the Rebellion. For one, having Imperial forces withdrawn from hunting their operations gave the Rebellion more breathing room to establish long term bases and conduct their operations. But, it also sent a wave of defections toward the Rebellion. Many were Rebel sympathizers who feared being caught in Vader’s purges. But a few were those who held personal loyalty to the Emperor and knew that they were the targets of Vader’s purges.
The Rebellion sent all new recruits through a basic screening. Those who convinced the recruiting officers that they had been Rebel sympathizers all along were quickly welcomed with open arms. Those who did not were put through more thorough screening to determine how much they could be trusted with. This process was designed to err on the side of caution and to put recruits through the more thorough review process in the case of any uncertainty. There were some true Rebel sympathizers who had been too good at hiding their feelings in the Empire who found their lives gone over with a fine-toothed comb, but there were also a handful who were loyal to the Emperor but successfully sold themselves as Rebel sympathizers.
One such person was Mara Jade, the Emperor’s Hand. She had produced a reasonable-sounding backstory that passed a cursory review and convinced the Rebellion that she was a low-ranking maintenance tech from Alderaan who had been too afraid to flee after her planet was destroyed. No one looked closer to notice how her backstory had only been crafted after the Emperor’s death.
They certainly didn’t interrogate her enough to learn that she could still hear the echoes of the Emperor’s last command to her. At the moment of his death, he had pushed a psychic message to her stating, “YOU WILL KILL SKYWALKER,” accompanied by an image of Vader striking him down. Mara didn’t know how she was going to pull off assassinating Darth Vader (aka Anakin Skywalker), but she knew that she had a better shot at it with the resources of the Rebellion at her back instead of hiding from Vader within the ranks of the Empire. He knew who she was, so one look at her and she would be dead.
While the Twins were not at a Rebel base during this upheaval, Han was. He found himself in charge of getting a cohort of the new recruits settled into their new roles. In particular, he was organizing the new maintenance techs assigned to the hanger where the Millennium Falcon was typically parked. This is how he met Mara Jade.
Mara was doing her best to keep her head down and not draw too much attention. However, she could only stand so much annoyance from the other maintenance techs. She refrained from violence, but she did not refrain from a few choice cutting words. Han noticed and, for a moment, Mara thought she might have blown her cover. But, Han simply smiled and said, “I need to introduce you to my friend Luke.”
It was several months later that the Twins returned, now full Jedi Knights. Yoda had been very happy with how far they had progressed on their own. He proclaimed them already masters of some aspects of the Force and that he just needed to round out other areas of their training. The closer he examined their connection, the more he realized just how well they had trained themselves in mental discipline from a young age and also how much their connection gave them emotional stability. It made Yoda question everything he had known about how emotional attachment affected Jedi.
Yoda also deemed the Twins ready to hear the full story of their birth and their father’s actions. He told them of how their father was once a powerful Jedi, but how he fell to the Dark Side out of fear of losing his loved ones. Yoda cautioned the Twins against succumbing to the same fear. They responded that they had experienced such loss. They lost Owen and Beru to stormtroopers. They lost Bail and Breha to the Death Star. They hadn’t let that break them and they didn’t intend to let future losses break them either. If they did, they would only disrespect the memory of their loved ones.
Yoda approved of their attitude and said that they had much wisdom for how young they were. He charged them with defeating Vader and the Emperor. Most likely in combat, but if the Twins could drag Vader back to the light, that meant that they were greater Jedi than even Yoda could hope to be. Yoda failed to keep Anakin from falling, so if the Twins could recover him, they would have corrected Yoda’s greatest mistake.
The Twins were also given the task of rebuilding the Jedi Order. Yoda told them that he could feel that they would do better than him. That the New Jedi Order would lack the flaws of the Old Order. There would probably still be flaws, as no mortal being is perfect, so fewer flaws was all he asked for. He didn’t tell them how to do this, simply that they should do what they thought was right, especially in the light of how Yoda described his own failures.
So, the Twins returned to the Rebellion ready to take the fight to the Sith and defeat both Vader and Palpatine. It was somewhat of a surprise for them to learn that Vader had already taken care of Palpatine. So they had only one target to remove, and once Vader was dealt with, the Rebellion could finish the job of building a New Republic.
In the meantime, they settled back into their role in the Rebellion. Mostly helping run the base, but also participating in the occasional mission. It didn’t take long for them to meet some of Han’s new friends.
“Luke, this is Mara Jade,” Han said. “Mara, this is Luke Skywalker.”
To the surprise of all involved, including Mara, she launched herself at Luke in an attempt to stab him with a knife that she had hidden in her belt. When the knife was knocked out of her hands, she tried to strangle Luke. The whole time, she could hear the Emperor’s last command pounding in her head. “YOU WILL KILL SKYWALKER! YOU WILL KILL SKYWALKER! YOU WILL KILL SKYWALKER!”
However, Mara was no match for the Twins. They were able to quickly subdue her. More importantly, they could sense that Mara had a compulsion placed on her mind that had forced her to act. They shuffled her off to a holding cell where they were able to talk her down long enough to insist on calling Luke by the last name Naberrie. They then set about doing what they could to deprogram Mara. A painful process for all three, but one that eventually made Mara cry with relief. She wasn’t free of the command, but they were able to at least fixate it on Vader enough for her to live her life.
Meanwhile, Han was grinning like a loon. He had hoped that Mara would be enough of a spitfire to catch Luke’s attention, but this was more than he had even hoped for. He turned to Chewie and said, “Time for Phase 2: Now Kiss.”
“You mean Phase 2: Han is Still an Idiot,” Chewie responded.
“Everything is going according to plan,” Han said.
“It’s a stupid plan.”
Han folded his arms and glared at Chewie. “Alright wise guy, what would you do?”
“Romance my mate like a normal person,” Chewie growled.
“That’s what I’m doing,” Han insisted.
Chewie refused to elaborate further on how weird Han was being and Han refused to elaborate further on how weird the Twins were. Chewie didn’t think it was his place to tell Han that simply taking all three bodies to bed was an acceptable solution to the Twins being one person. Especially not when Han refused to consciously acknowledge that fact. If Han wanted to turn the relationship into a complicated polyamorous one under the guise of avoiding polyamory, who was he to judge?
When Mara was finally released from her cell, she was much more subdued than she had been before. But the Twins threw themselves into helping her come out of her shell and find out who she was without the Emperor telling her what to be. Han gave his wholehearted blessing to the process, though he did his best to steer things to let Luke take the lead. Whenever one of the Twins needed to be pulled away from Mara, Han did his best to make sure it was Leia who was pulled away.
Mara, of course, was a very observant person. She was also trained somewhat in the Force, limited as her training was. So she was quick to realize that there was something strange about the Twins. The odd synchronicity they shared was painfully obvious to her. What else was obvious was that Han seemed to be aware of it, even though he didn’t say anything. Mara certainly noticed how he was sweet on Leia but was subtly pushing Luke in her direction.
When she had the chance to talk to him without the Twins present, Mara confronted Han about it. Han still refused to speak about the Twins’ connection in detail, but confirmed that they were strange in a unique and charming way. He also confessed to trying to set up Luke and Mara because he thought that she might be Luke’s type. “Is it working,” he asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“What’s to decide? I thought you’d have to sell it to him.”
“He’s annoying,” Mara said. “Annoying in a kind of charming way, but annoying.”
Han nodded. He had similar feelings about Leia. “Well,” he said, “if you do decide, give me a head’s up.”
It was a few weeks later that Mara made her decision. Most of her interaction with the Twins had been spent between Force training and making plans to kill Vader. Mara insisted on joining such a strike mission, but the Twins were worried that she wasn’t ready yet.
“Damn it, Farmboy,” Mara shouted, “I have to be there!”
“You’re not ready,” Luke yelled in response.
“What, do you think I’m weak?”
“No! We just don’t want to see you get hurt!”
Mara and Luke glared at each other for a few moments with Leia adding her own glare from the other side of the room. Then the corners of Mara’s lips twitched upwards. “Fuck,” she muttered. “Han, heads up.” Then, she grabbed the lapel of Luke’s jacket and dragged him off.
It took Han a moment to catch up to her meaning. “Oh,” he said quickly when his brain finally kicked into gear. “Leia, they might be awhile. We should give them some space. There’s plenty of space in the Falcon, if you want to join me.”
“What do you-” Leia started before her face turned bright red. “I see,” she said quietly. “You knew she was going to…”
“I knew it was on the table,” said Han.
“And you would like to take care of…my end of things?”
“It’s on the table,” Han repeated.
Leia hesitated, but then her blush deepened and she started breathing faster. “Our bunk is closer,” she said as she grabbed Han’s lapel and dragged him out of the room as well.
This left a bemused Mon and an exasperated Chewie alone in the briefing room. Mon turned to Chewie and asked, “What just happened?”
“Operation Han’s an Idiot has been successful,” Chewie responded.
“I see,” Mon said.
“I really hope I don’t,” said Chewie.
While this was happening, Vader raged at his intelligence staff. Since he had seized power, there had been no sign of Plo Koon or Ahsoka. What he didn’t know was that, since their main mission was to act as a Red Herring and distract him, once the full attention of the Imperial war machine started bearing down on them, Ahsoka and Wolffe had gone to ground. No need to attract more attention when it is already focused on you. The locals on Mon Cala had been more than welcoming, and so the two were “hidden” on the beach at a tropical resort. The resort staff assured them that they had a line into Rebel communications and would let them know if they were needed anywhere.
Eventually, Ahsoka was contacted by Rebel Command with a plan. They needed her to lure Vader to a remote location where a strike team would kill Vader. Ahsoka protested, saying that even the best assassins would be no match for Vader. She was quite surprised when she was told that, instead of assassins, it would be Jedi that would confront Vader. She agreed to the plan on the condition that she be allowed to join the assault.
The first phase of the plan was for Ahsoka to stage a raid on a small Imperial base on Endor. Remote and inconsequential enough for it to be impractical for a large force to respond. But Ahsoka would allow her obvious transport to be destroyed and she would then retreat into the forest. Vader, confident that she was trapped on the moon, would respond with all haste. Too quickly to bring a substantial force with him. There, he would expect to find Ahsoka and an elderly Plo Koon hiding in the forest. Instead, he would be ambushed by Ahsoka, Luke, Leia, and Mara.
The plan worked perfectly. Vader’s overconfidence and lack of patience proving to be his greatest weaknesses. Meanwhile, the strength of camaraderie, teamwork, and friendship among the Rebels proved to be their greatest strengths.
Vader was, of course, rather surprised by the group that confronted him. “Where is Plo Koon,” he demanded.
“Master Plo has been dead for decades,” said Ahsoka.
“He’s been rather active for a dead man,” growled Vader.
“A trick,” said Ahsoka. “We just showed you what you wanted to see.”
“No matter,” said Vader. “Join me, Ahsoka. Together, we shall rule the Galaxy as master and apprentice.”
“I’m afraid that isn’t the plan,” said Luke.
“It’s not too late for you,” said Leia.
Vader simply stared at Ahsoka. “And who are these poor fools you’ve doomed?”
“Luke and Leia,” the Twins said as one. “Son of Padmé and Daughter of Anakin.”
“LIES!” Vader screamed. “Skywalker died with his family!”
“No,” said the Twins. “You are Anakin Skywalker.”
The last part of the plan had been discussed thoroughly. The Twins were hesitant to trigger Mara’s brainwashing this way. But, Mara insisted. She knew it was the best chance to clear the Emperor’s voice from her head once and for all. One last moment of discomfort, and she would be free.
So, when the Twins declared Vader to be Anakin Skywalker, Mara allowed the brainwashing to take control of her. Vader was caught by surprise. There was no spike of malice or intent from Mara to warn him of the coming blow. The Twins held his attention both physically and in the Force. The mental defenses of the Twins were so intricate and strong that they consumed his entire attention. One moment he was screaming at them while trying to tear into their minds through the Force. The next moment, a lightsaber pierced his chest. As he sluggishly tried to respond to the attack, Ahsoka removed his head.
Ahsoka and the Twins mourned his death. They mourned that Anakin could not be saved and that he had to die as Vader. But they also celebrated their victory. The Sith were defeated and the Rebellion could now proceed with dismantling the Empire. It would be a long journey, since they expected every Moff and Admiral to proclaim themselves the new Emperor. Decades of struggle awaited them. But, for the first time in years, the idea of rebuilding the Republic seemed like more than a dream.
Mara’s emotional state was completely different. She was free of the Emperor’s last command. She was free of Vader’s intent to purge rivals. For the first time in her life, she was free. She wanted to explore the Galaxy. Not as an assassin, but simply as a woman. It was the only way she thought she could figure out who she was as a person.
The Twins were sad when Mara said goodbye, but they made her promise that she would return. Regardless of who she found when she found herself, they wanted her in the New Jedi Order. As a fellow Jedi, if nothing else, but as something more if she wanted it.
Han was sad to see her go for other reasons. He was nervous that without Mara to distract Luke, his attention would turn back toward Han. Chewie began to prepare for Operation: Han is an Idiot II, Electric Boogaloo, but the Twins assured him that it was unnecessary. While their time having both Han and Mara was short, it gave them the perspective they needed to understand that there was at least a little bit of difference between the Twins. Even if that difference was a simple physiological hormonal difference in how the body affected the mind. To Han’s great relief, they promised to only show more intimate affection to him with Leia. If they really needed to, they would find a new partner for Luke. The options were numerous, but for now, they would wait for Mara.
In the meantime, there was work to be done. There were still Imperials to fight, a Jedi Order to resurrect, and their new friend Ahsoka. The last of which, the Twins had many questions for.