Lelouch's mind was a battlefield. A storm of fractured thoughts and clashing wills waged war within him, each wave of forceful intrusion met by his own steely resolve and the shadowed laughter of a being that should not be. He could still feel it—the moment the Force had broken through the carefully placed restraints in his mind, an all-consuming presence tearing through layers of his consciousness with an intent so absolute that even now, in the aftermath, his very being trembled under its lingering weight.
And yet… he was here.
That fact alone meant their trap had worked.
The plan had been elegant in its simplicity yet horrifying in its implications. A command—an order woven into the very fabric of his mind—had been set like a hidden dagger, waiting for the Force's touch. He and Tzeentch had prepared for this inevitability, but there had been no certainty, no guarantees of control once the moment arrived. Neither of them had known what form the Force's influence would take. Would it simply overwrite his will, turning him into a mindless executioner? Unlikely. Would it set into motion a series of events that would inevitably force him into confrontation? Possible, but improbable given the sudden nature of their gambit.
The likeliest outcome—the one they had counted on—was that the Force would peer into his mind, examine every corner of his thoughts, and press the correct buttons just hard enough to ensure he acted as its agent, obliterating the abomination before him. And then? It would take its time to withdraw, subtly reshaping his thoughts over months, perhaps years, molding his rationalizations until he came to believe that the destruction he wrought had been entirely of his own making.
A slow, methodical domination.
Even now, as he clawed his way back to awareness, he could feel it.
A pressure—immense, cosmic, beyond comprehension. The aftershocks of its touch left him dizzy, barely able to comprehend where he ended and where he began.
Then once again, came the pain.
A sharp, blinding pain—like lightning splitting his skull in half. For a moment, his vision blurred as memories surged forth. The oppressive force, the crushing weight, the sheer inevitability of its inevitable will… and then—blackness.
And now—a voice.
A voice like rusted chains and shifting realities, a voice that was more than mere sound.
"Welcome back to the land of mortals."
Lelouch's breath caught. That voice. He knew it. He had heard it so many times, whispering, laughing, guiding and misleading all in the same breath. And yet, something was off. It felt too close, too intimate, as if it had bypassed the space between them and lodged itself directly into his mind.
A towering figure manifested before him in the void of his thoughts—a monstrous entity of ever-changing forms, a thousand eyes blinking in and out of existence, a swirling maelstrom of color and madness. Tzeentch.
But the voice…
Lelouch frowned. It wasn't truly speaking.
The realization sent a ripple through his already fragile grasp on reality.
"It's because I am not talking—at least, not in words you can comprehend."
The words rang inside his mind, and yet they carried no sound. They were intent, raw and unfiltered, shaped into something his limited consciousness could grasp.
"I am conveying meaning, and you are receiving it in the manner that is most comfortable for you. In time, even words will become a burden. And then—then we will truly be able to converse."
There was something… eager in its tone.
Lelouch's eyes narrowed, his thoughts sluggish but sharp enough to catch the meaning behind the words. Before he could voice his skepticism, the being laughed—a soundless, vibrating distortion that cracked the very fabric of his mental space.
"I am."
The eldritch god gestured toward its own head with an amusement that felt almost human.
"Try to keep yourself contained, little emperor. The only thing keeping your thoughts inside your skull is this god. Keep calm, and whatever you do—don't blink, don't breathe, and do try not to move too move once you open your eyes."
Lelouch stared, puzzled. His mind, usually so quick to process and dissect, faltered under the sheer alien nature of the command.
"Why—"
Another laugh, this one carrying a ripple of raw chaos, as if the very act of questioning amused the god beyond measure.
"Then again… perhaps it's worth seeing the chaos that would ensue should you wake carelessly."
And with that, the mental space collapsed.
The void shattered into an infinite cascade of spiraling fractals, each one flashing with images, memories, glimpses of the past and future colliding into one another—and then, abruptly, silence.
Lelouch's eyes snapped open.
His body remained motionless, every muscle coiled, every fiber of his being resisting the immediate urge to gasp, to move, to confirm that he still existed in the waking world.
He remembered the warning.
So he remained still, a statue amidst the unknown, his mind racing as he began to truly see where he had awoken.
Darkness stretched beyond the limits of Lelouch's sight, an expanse so vast it felt like he had been cast into an endless abyss. Yet it was not true darkness—it was absence.
Where once the cosmos had sprawled with infinite brilliance, where countless stars had burned with ancient fury, there was now but a mere fraction.
And those that remained…
They were familiar.
His mind worked quickly, drawing upon knowledge ingrained in him from years of study and conquest. Their positions, their formations—this was the Skyriver Galaxy. The Empire's domain. The cradle of all that he had shaped and ruled.
But nothing else remained.
Beyond its swirling arms, where once countless other galaxies should have stretched into infinity, there was only emptiness.
A singular, staggering thought echoed through his mind, tinged not with fear, but with fascination.
'Just… what happened?!'
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Lelouch was taken aback—not by the scale of destruction, but by the sheer audacity of it.
And then—laughter.
It was not spoken, nor was it heard. It was something that unfolded in his mind, like an ancient joke being revealed across the ages, rippling through existence with a knowing amusement.
"We ascended," came Tzeentch's ever-shifting voice, equal parts delighted and matter-of-fact. "Though, in becoming the Force itself, in merging with the vast, untamable energy that shapes all things, your mind teetered on the brink of oblivion. The scale of such power—it was simply too much... well... for you."
The words coiled around Lelouch's thoughts, threading into his consciousness like strands of fate being woven into the grandest of tapestries.
"And so, as it disappeared from your sight… it ceased to exist."
Lelouch's fingers twitched, his mind reeling at the implications.
"Such is the power of the Force itself."
Tzeentch's tone carried no reverence, no awe—only amusement.
"It binds all things—dead and alive, past and present. And in simply closing your eyes… poof. It's all gone."
Lelouch's expression tightened, his skepticism evident. Slowly, he raised a hand, gesturing toward the distant, swirling form of the Skyriver Galaxy, the only remnant of what had once been an infinite cosmos. If all things had disappeared upon his awakening, then why had this remained?
Tzeentch's presence in his mind gave a mental shrug.
"I couldn't very well have us start over from nothing."
"Imagine the boredom of watching you stumble, learning to warp reality on such a scale from scratch. So, I borrowed your senses, your connection to the Force. Out of all the universes the Force reaches into, this was all I could save—a single galaxy."
A single galaxy.
Lelouch's thoughts churned as he truly considered the weight of that statement.
This was not merely destruction—this was an unmaking... though he wondered how the cause and effect were impacted? The light of those stars was suppossed to travel for million of years, and yet it was gone. Did that mean that the past was changed, or was it simply subconciously selective... something worthy of further experimentation. Though he looked down on the concept of attempting to change the past, something only someone who did not have the courage to live with their choices would do, he also realized the tempation of it if one had nothing worth living for. Either way, just because he saw it as such, it didn't mean any potential future enemy would think the same. Countermeasures were necessary.
Anyway, the entirety of reality, all that had ever existed beyond the borders of Skyriver, had been erased from the fabric of existence itself. Not burned, not crushed, not scattered—erased.
The Force could do this?
No. Not just the Force. He had done this.
Or rather, his perception had.
He had blinked.
And so… everything beyond his 'view' at the moment had ceased to exist.
Tzeentch let out a hum, something between delight and satisfaction.
Lelouch's thoughts sharpened.
"How much do you know?" he asked, his voice low.
"How much do I know?" Tzeentch echoed, feigning consideration. "Knowledge is a slippery thing, Emperor. To know something is to fix it in place, but I exist in a constant state of change. That being said…"
A flick of its hand—a movement that seemed to ripple across space itself—
And suddenly—
Lelouch saw.
A strangled breath escaped his lips as his vision shattered into everything.
Everyone.
Everywhere.
A quintillion voices, faces, every place, from every point of view, more, much more, just as many shifting fates, even if only an atom apart, collapsed into his mind at once. He saw battles erupting in the Outer Rim, men dying in trenches before they even realized they had been shot. He saw the spiraling corridors of the Emperor's palace, where echoes of whispers spoke of prophecy and treason. He saw a child being born in the lower sectors of Coruscant, his cries carrying the weight of generations yet to come, and he saw those generations as if they were right there, past, present, future.
He saw the threads of all things—
And for that momentary 'sight'...—his mind nearly cracked.
A violent, unbearable heat tore through his skull, the sheer impossibility of perceiving all of reality threatening to melt his consciousness into oblivion.
A guttural sound forced itself from his throat as his body convulsed.
And then—it stopped.
The visions vanished, the weight lifted, and he was left panting, his breath ragged as if he had been drowning and only now surfaced for air.
Tzeentch chuckled.
"It's merely a feeling."
The laughter was neither cruel nor kind—simply entertained.
"I am currently intercepting all the… let's say, 'extra' senses you now have access to."
Lelouch, still gripping his temples, cast a sharp glare at the chaos god.
"You could have warned me, but then again... I;m not really surprised you didn't."
"And miss such a reaction? Though in all truth, I expected your mind to collapse, this was a long shot amongst long shots. Should I say you are lucky?"
Tzeentch's amusement was palpable.
"And the possibility of me remaining a broken minded husk was also tempting, wasn't it?" Lelouch mentally exhaled sharply, forcing his body to steady.
"A happy accident... should we call it... if such a case was to come to pass? What's a harmless prank among partners? Surely you don't hold a grudge?" The amusement was almost palpable.
Turning his head, a smile that could almost be described as disturbing found itself on Lelouch's face.
"Hmm... If such an event came to pass, it would be simply because I only amounted to that much."
Amusement resonated from the chaos god. "You just don't disappoint."
"However, do keep this warning in mind. This is the burden of beings who are not born into omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence... of any scale." Tzeentch continued, gesturing vaguely. "If you let yourself believe you are dying strongly enough, well… you may erase yourself entirely. The burden of power, I'm afraid."
Lelouch hummed, neither accepting nor rejecting the words. Instead, his mind turned.
"And what of the Warp?" he asked.
There was a pause. Then—Tzeentch let out an approving hum.
"A good question," it mused.
The shadows of its form shifted, its many eyes blinking in sequence as if considering the inquiry in great detail.
"In many ways, the Warp and the Force share more similarities than differences."
A wave of unseen energy crackled between them, forming strange, incomprehensible shapes before dissolving once more.
"Aside from the means of application… I struggle to find any truly meaningful differences."
Tzeentch's voice lowered, the weight of its next words pressing into Lelouch's thoughts like a revelation being whispered by the gods.
"Both twist reality to bring about the desired result. As the most basic tampering with the warp may have been labeled as simple sorcery, do not be fooled, reality is being warped to produce but a disappointing result in most cases. As is the case with the most basic of force abilities.While it might just seem as "simple", it is reality warping to those who know to discern it. What you did to the universe, they imitate at a scale they can handle. All that limits them, in both cases, is the vessel, and the will."
Lelouch's expression remained unreadable, his mind absorbing the implications.
"And as with everything, as you change it, it resists. Its why a force users body aches the more they impose their will through the force, and should their body transcend mortality, they encounter another threshold, a much higher one, when they directly contest with their will, their very soul... and now... you are that very will, the very one every Force user will be contesting with when they attempt to impose their reality through the force... but you are no longer a neutral force."
"I can allow them to push it as far as their bodies allow without putting a starin on their minds, even beyond that point, should I decide to lend a hand."
"In time, you will be able to reshape reality as you desire, though technically you are able to even now..." a thought was shared as they stared at the empty expanse..."...though in the meantime, be mindful as any strong reaction might inadvertently make my control slip and destroy whatever is left."
There was a time when Lelouch would have killed nearly all of the world's population for such a power... but that time was long since passed. Even when he eventually mastered his new powers, he could seldom think of scenarios that would require it within this universe. He had built his Empire through deception, killing, conquests... and while he could create a perfect one, with no flaws, no suffering, no death, he quickly realized the sheer pointlessness of it. What would people do, what would give meaning to their existence, if they could not strive to improve themselves and anything around them, if death was not behind them to remind them of the possibility of failure.
Perfection if real, was a curse, the curse of a dead end with nothing else in sight... but as an idea, as a goal, as an ideal, it gave people something to strive towards.
These musings were further from where he stood at this moment. For now, there were more pressing matters.
Such as the simple, undeniable fact that they were the only ones left in existence... and how exactly his worshipers had perceived these events... yeah... how a bunch of extremists had perceived the disappearance of most of the universe... and what could his resident chaos god have whispered in their minds using his voice...
A.N: Did any of you notice who Sors Bandeam was in the previous chapters, thought it would be fun to see a what-if since they survived. He is actually the youngling that came forward during the attakc on the temple and asked Anakin in the movie about what they were going to do and then was... well. When i was thinking about adding some random names i remembered that part in the movie and i liked the fact (despite it being staged) that he stepped forward immediately. Either way, I believe that after another "Memoir" type chapter or two, we visit another unvierse. I already have smth in mind, but, as always, i welcome your ideas, whatever universe you might think of, even if i dont use it, it might spark an idea in my brain. Anyway, ignore my ramblings, its late, hope you guys enjoyed :)