Vaders meditatation

Vader completed his meditation and opened his eyes. His pale, flame-savaged face stared back at him from out of the reflective black transparisteel of his pressurized meditation chamber. Without the neural connection to his armor, he was conscious of the stumps of his legs, the ruin of his arms, the perpetual pain in his flesh. He welcomed it. Pain fed his hate, and hate fed his strength. Once, as a Jedi, he had meditated to find peace. Now he meditated to sharpen the edges of his anger.

He stared at his reflection a long time. His injuries had deformed his body, left it broken, but they'd perfected his spirit, strengthening his connection to the Force. Suffering had birthed insight.

An automated metal arm held the armor's helmet and faceplate over his head, a doom soon to descend. The eyes of the faceplate, which intimidated so many, were no peer to his unmasked eyes. From within a sea of scars, his gaze simmered with controlled, harnessed fury. The secondary respirator, still attached to him, always attached to him, masked the ruins of his mouth, and the sound of his breathing echoed off the walls.

Drawing on the Force, he activated the automated arm. It descended and the helmet and faceplate wrapped his head in metal and plasteel, the shell in which he existed. He welcomed the spikes of pain when the helmet's neural needles stabbed into the flesh of his skull and the base of his spine, unifying his body, mind, and armor to form an interconnected unit.

When man and machine were one, he no longer felt the absence of his legs or arms, the pain of his flesh, but the hate remained, and the rage still burned. Those, he never relinquished, and he never felt more connected to the Force than when his fury burned.

With an effort of will, he commanded the onboard computer to link the primary respirator to the secondary, and to seal the helmet at the neck, encasing him fully. He was home.

Once, he'd found the armor hateful, foreign, but now he knew better. He realized that he'd always been fated to wear it, just as the Jedi had always been fated to betray their principles. He'd always been fated to face Obi-Wan and fail on Mustafar-and in failing, learn.

The armor separated him from the galaxy, from everyone, made him singular, freed him from the needs of the flesh, the concerns of the body that once had plagued him, and allowed him to focus solely on his relationship to the Force.

It terrified others, he knew, and that pleased him. Their terror was a tool he used to accomplish his ends. Yoda once had told him that fear led to hate and hate to suffering. But Yoda had been wrong. Fear was a tool used by the strong to cow the weak. Hate was the font of true strength. Suffering was not the result of the rule of the strong over the weak, order was. By its very existence, the Force mandated the rule of the strong over the weak; the Force mandated order. The Jedi had never seen that, and so they'd misunderstood the Force and been destroyed. But Vader's Master saw it. Vader saw it. And so they were strong. And so they ruled.