Imperial Palace at Imperial City
E chu ta, e chu ta, e-kriffin'-chu ta!
Anakin curses a spectacular streak in his mind as he surreptitiously scans the throne room. Draperies of the finest Nabooian silk are bright and achingly familiar – so, Sidious hasn't abandoned all trappings of the home planet he terrorized during the Empire's infancy. Interesting.
Pedestals bearing pillaged trophies flank the throne. There's a headdress from an Ithorian high priest, a hallowed granite totem made by a Myyydril tribe of Kashyyyk.
Pretty war prizes, all in a row.
He winces, recognizing a majestic stone on prominent display: The Heart of the Guardian crystal, a sacred treasure from deep in the halls of the Jedi Temple. Anakin himself had presented the precious artifact to his new master after the extermination of the Jedi with a tremulous hand stained by the blood of younglings.
That was the first, and only, time Sidious had unleashed his wrath on him. The bolts of Sith-lightning had crawled up his flesh-arm and splintered throughout his spine, leaving him stunned and choking sulfur.
"Your loyalty is of your choosing," Sidious had admonished then, eerily resembling a demonic figure with tarnished, bared teeth. "I will tolerate no regrets, Lord Vader."
That time was my last as your willing liege, Anakin pledges from his position on the elegantly-marbled floor. He well knows that the bond he forged with Sidious can be severed only in death; apprentice or master, the Rule of Two does not discriminate.
That death, Anakin promises, will not be mine.
He takes swift inventory of his earlier handiwork, pinpointing locations where he'd hidden explosives nearly under the very boots of scarlet-robed Royal Guardsmen. Pity they'd caught on only after he'd planted nearly the entire supply from his gear pack.
The devices pack a nasty punch and can be detonated instantly, but each resembles an innocuous, pesky insect. He even improvised a slight buzzing sound to solidify the disguise.
With any luck at all, his army of miniature bedbugs will ignite this place like a legion of lightsabers, and with the same lethal results.
There are still a few flaws to be rectified. Namely, the binders, the gear bag resting on the clueless Imp standing guard and his weapon clipped to the armor of the other clueless Imp. He quietly seethes at that, itches to summon his weapon back to its rightful place, but…
Patience, Obi-Wan would advise.
Now to the task of setting the last, and strongest, explosives right under the Emperor's gruesomely disfigured nose. Suddenly, Anakin imagines his own features discolored and twisted, envisions the twins recoiling from him in horror…
No. Never.
"… seem quite… unconcerned… for a man in your precarious position," Sidious remarks, unruffled by Anakin's earlier claim to end his life. "I've threatened the existence of those you love – " he spits the word as if it is the most repugnant in his extensive vocabulary " – and yet you are uncharacteristically serene."
"It would be concerning if my wife and child were in a position of risk," Anakin shoots back, inflection appropriately enraged. "As you are doubtless aware, they did not survive the incident on Mustafar." His breath catches a bit. It so easily could have been.
Sidious turns, hands clasped in front of him in docile posture. If not for his wretched appearance, his manner would have one think him rather grandfatherly. "Naboo is my homeworld, Lord Vader. I am aware that your wife and children are very much alive." An expression that can be interpreted as chillingly paternal sends a shiver down Anakin's spine. "Twins. How… fortuitous."
Sidious extends a crooked hand toward the Guardian crystal, which rises slowly from its pedestal and floats through the air to rest in his upturned, aged palm. "I applaud Senator Amidala's survival strategy. With one Jedi unavailable, another replaced you quite nicely." His bony fingers trace the crystal's jagged contours, fingernails scraping the surfaces with an edgy whine. "Tell me, Lord Vader, what do your children call Kenobi when he tucks them in at night?"
Fleetingly, Anakin ponders the possibility of attaching the last charges to the voluminous folds of Sidious' overcoat. Decisive, powerful, messy – a just end for the duplicitous Sith.
Satisfying, too.
Anakin's face resembles an impassive mask, although loathing rises. Sidious takes an abbreviated stroll around the chamber, his too-red mouth pursing as unintelligible sounds rumble in his throat. He is an animal, sleekly prowling about a cage, but dark, kinetic energy surrounds him.
"No matter." Oh, yes, you vile Sithspawn, my children do matter. But Anakin does not speak, and it further exasperates the Sith lord.
"My friend, I am quite troubled by the journey you have taken since we last met. As I recall, the extent of the Jedi treachery was as repugnant to you as it was to me. You made certain… vows… that cannot be broken." Palm flat, Sidious wags his fingers and the Guardian crystal rises above them, hovering lazily, then proceeds toward Anakin, circling him once, twice. Goading.
"As I recall, you made certain vows, as well," Anakin replies, trading an overt parlor trick for another as he stealthily levitates a score of tiny charges from his gear bag on the guard's shoulder to strategic locations throughout the throne room. Pedestal, drapery, rug, pedestal, throne – put a good dozen there – chandelier, statuette, Sith tapestry, stairs, another pedestal. "Namely, to ensure my wife's survival, which was obviously beyond your realm of power." Deny, deny, deny; keep her safe!
"Have I not kept that bargain?" Sidious asks with gilded confusion. "Your wife lives, Lord Vader. Your children thrive in the care of their mother and your former master. I have felt them in the Force." He fairly slithers up the stairway with a veiled smile, robes slogging behind in what reminds Anakin of a coiled serpent before it lashes. "For now. I would be remiss if I did not mention that I have a legion of my finest troops and some rather ruthless bounty hunters tracking Kenobi now. He will be executed, as all traitors to the Empire must be."
Anakin's fury surges, crests, overflows before he can release it into the Force. "My wife lives because I relinquished her fate to the will of the Force! My fear, my manipulation, my hate nearly killed her!"
He feels his command slipping toward a place of dangerous intent, forces himself to breathe in a cadence mimicking meditation. In. Out. Control. He cannot succumb to Sidious' exploitation, not again. He is the Hero With No Fear. He is the Chosen One. He is –
An abrupt cackle bursts as the Guardian crystal whizzes around Anakin's body, a shimmering beacon in the dank room. Sidious' eyes grow almost fevered with amusement. "Chosen One!" Disdain drips from his mouth. "I had hoped your sabbatical brought you clarity, my boy, but you remain susceptible to Jedi deception. Allow me this enlightenment, if you will, so your mind will be clear."
Sidious clasps his hands as if in solemn prayer, yet his glare is one of unholy dement. He seems rather pleased. "You are indeed the Chosen One – of the Sith Order, not the Jedi. You were created by my master, Darth Plagueis the Wise, as the ultimate savior of the Sith. Your destiny is as it always has been, to obliterate the Jedi and restore the rightful Sith dominion throughout the galaxy."
Anakin throttles a bellow. "You really are emptying your blaster. Quite shrewd, old man, but you can't possibly think I'll believe you." Memories of a revered Jedi with silver-streaked hair and a fierce countenance flash. "Why would I trust you over the beliefs of Qui-Gon Jinn and the High Council?"
As embers of uncertainty kindle in the former Jedi, Sidious keeps his lined face a modicum of calm. "The same council that rejected its Chosen One and questioned your loyalty after you brought nothing but honor during the Clone Wars? The same sage masters who granted you grudging acceptance, but could never quite bring themselves to trust you as one of their own? Is that how a grateful entity acclaims its Chosen One?"
Sensations of that day return like a downfall of icy water: ambition, resentment, arrogant pride.
You are on this Council, but we do not grant you the rank of Master.
How can you do this? This is outrageous, it's unfair… I'm more powerful than any of you!
I'm not worthy enough. I'll never be the Jedi of their design. I don't belong, I am not one of them –
One of them. Perhaps the Force never truly intended that.
"I never told you the rest of the tale regarding my master, Darth Plagueis," Sidious continues in a tone Anakin recalls from his childhood. Warm and silky, it provided comfort from the harshness of Coruscant, the staring eyes in the Temple, Obi-Wan's criticism. "My master was an apt student of science, particularly of how biology related to midi-chlorians. For years, he worked to create a supreme dark being who would restore the Sith to glorious power. During that time, we were inseparable."
Sidious lowers his hood, lifts his head to the ceiling and inhales before leveling his gaze at Anakin, and the younger man finds he cannot avert his eyes. "Much like you and Kenobi."
The Sith senses it acutely. The darkness, dormant but opportunistic, stirs within the former Jedi, its talons unfurling; it preys on Anakin's aura of fear. Even to one accustomed to its shadowy allure, the draw is enthralling.
Aware of the looming darkness, Anakin straightens his shoulders, widens his stance as if his sheer physical prowess can deflect it. He feasts on your panic. But the binders seem to shackle him even more tightly.
"Remember, my friend, which Order braced you during your times of greatest need. You needed strength to gain retribution when the Tuskens murdered your mother. The Dark Side filled you with the power to enact your revenge. Darth Tyranus would have assassinated me during the kidnapping, yet you rescued me with your superior skills and even saved Kenobi's helpless skin."
The boy glares over Sidious' shoulder now, a defensive posture sloping his frame. Excellent. A few more well-played emotional daggers and Lord Vader's mercurial heart would once again drum only for the Sith Order…
"Tell me, my boy, what do you suppose the Jedi would have done if you'd approached them about Padme?" At the mention of his wife's name, Anakin's head snaps. He glowers as he brings his eyes into direct line with the blazing fire of Sidious.' "Would Obi-Wan have allowed such disregard for the Jedi Code? Or would you have become the Lost Twenty-First, even after all you'd sacrificed?"
A foreign mist permeates the air in the throne room, heavy enough to cling to Anakin like a jagged cloak. It feels like an extension of the damnable binders, suffocating him with its vise-like grip as he absorbs Sidious' version of his life. Shards of truth malign the Jedi brethren he so desperately wants to believe would accept him, Chosen One or not.
But he knows such a hope is the ultimate lie.
Obi-Wan would not have condoned his numerous breaches of the Jedi Code. The Council would have demanded his lightsaber and banished him in rigid defense of its ancient standards.
"You are a Sith and a sorcerer," Anakin growls, but he lacks the robust conviction that propelled him to Imperial Center in the first place. He shrugs as if to rid himself of the shadows prickling at his skin, holding fast to his chosen identity. "You forget that I know who you are, Sidious, not who you claim to be."
"As I know who you are," Sidious rejoins with a forceful clench of his hands. "Anakin Skywalker was a frightened little boy who grew into a man ruled by his fear because of the Jedi." His robes swirl as he rises quickly to his feet, advancing down the stairs until Sidious is close enough for Anakin to snap his wrinkled neck, once he conquers these kriffing binders. "Show me, Anakin," the Sith grits, eyes flashing crimson with bared contempt, "that your fear no longer defines you. Those binders were one of my master's last experiments. They will open only to the power of the Chosen One of the Sith Order. Assume your true identity and make them yield to their master!"
Reflexively, Anakin stills his hands, even though an invisible fire has ignited within them, scorching him from the inside. There is no emotion; there is peace.
Sidious' entreaty grows louder, seems to lick around the edges of his consciousness. "Search your feelings. You know this to be true."
Anakin closes his eyes, reaching for the light that has sustained him since his earliest memories of sand and slavery. There is no passion; there is serenity.
"Take your place, Lord Vader. It is the only way to save your son and daughter from the treachery of the Jedi now."
More vicious lies. There is no chaos; there is harmony.
The malice grows more intent as Sidious incites further turmoil. "You know nothing of Master Yoda's plans for your children, do you? You wouldn't, of course, as you've never been allowed passage to your own flesh."
The flames climb from the tips of his fingers upward, charring sinewy muscle and bone in their path toward his heart that pounds as if seeking to disengage from his chest. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
"Yoda intends to separate your children. They are already too powerful, too reckless, too feared by the few surviving Jedi. There is great power in your children, Lord Vader. They, too, will rise up to lead the Sith Order one day – "
"No!" Anakin roars, rising from his subservient position to full height, eyes flashing deadly auburn as his wrists snap free in a single, enraged motion. The inferno has spread throughout his limbs, consuming him in a sweep so overpowering that he can scarcely breathe. "My children will be slaves to no one!"
Before the Royal Guardsmen can twitch, Anakin has summoned his lightsaber and lunged it expertly through them in deft, precise strokes. A handful of Stormtroopers advance from all angles, but the former Jedi makes short work of their blasters, intercepting rapid fire with a blur of azure magnificence. His hands move with feral grace, orchestrating a quick defeat of Sidous' last defense, but Anakin feels no triumph in the kills. There is only a driving need to save his children, view their faces with his own eyes, reclaim them as the flesh of his flesh…
He doesn't remember Force-fastening the binders around Sidious' wrists, but the Sith lord stands before him, relishing the tumult he has sown. Sidious has always had a hunger for killing, and witnessing Vader's prowess stirs his blood-lust. This particular episode was rather efficient, Sidious muses, reminded of Vader's brutality at the Jedi Temple and Mustafar. No matter. His perversities will strengthen as he assumes the mantle of dark lord once more.
"No." Bearing a look of weary shock, Anakin clenches the hilt of his lightsaber and surveys the bodies draped in varying degrees of death around him. He wills his every fiber to remain still amid the pounding voice that commands him to turn his rage onto the very source of it. "Your darkness is not mine!"
Sidious smiles wickedly, shaking the binders so the clank of durasteel echoes throughout the chamber. "Is it not? Look about you, Lord Vader. You perpetrated this slaughter using the power of the Dark Side. You escaped the binders made only for the Sith's Chosen One. You killed the younglings, and the padawans, and the masters of the Jedi Order. You assassinated the Separatist Council." His voice lowers an octave in sinister provocation, and Anakin can hardly hold his legs steady under the smothering cascade of venom. "You are Darth Vader of the Sith Order. The knowledge and power of my master, Lord Plagueis, made it so. You are my apprentice, and you will serve your master until only death releases you."
Red, Anakin thinks dully, gazing into the twitch of Sidious' hideous eyes. Why did I not notice before I severed the hand of Mace Windu? Why did Padme see the spatter of Tusken blood embellishing my robes on Tatooine, but not the crimson drag in my eyes?
The sapphire blade of his lightsaber vanishes as he caresses the hilt, transfixed. For the first time, his eyes moisten as he relives the moment he and Obi-Wan had gingerly placed the Ilum crystal in his very hilt, then completed it with the Heart of the Guardian's amber blessing.
Until death. So be it.
Jedi. Sith. Son of Suns. Husband. Hero With No Fear. Ani. Slave. Knight. Lord. Father. Padawan. Vader.
Each title whittled a glimmer of his humanity away. He has been a slave in name and in deed, first to Gardulla, then Watto, and finally to the Jedi and the Sith. Now, when it matters most, he cannot innately remember who he was before them all, the moment he emerged, an innocent, sentinent being birthed by a brave woman of Tatooine.
Anakin exhales as he reaches for his com link. The device crackles to life.
"Artoo." His tone is clipped. Efficient chirps and whistles respond immediately.
The slightest of pauses. "Detonate the explosives, Artoo."
Silence; do droids hesitate? Then, more chirps, emitted slowly and with robotic caution.
"Yes, Artoo, I'm still in the Presidential Palace." His slip of terminology is fiercely purposeful.
Finally, Sidious seems to grasp that there is a venerable threat to his capital, his Empire, his existence. He struggles with the binders his former master created – e tu, my apprentice? Plagueis' specter seems to taunt – face contorted in a snarl. "You arrogant, cowardly fool! You are as dead as I if you set off those charges. You cannot escape!"
"No," Anakin concurs, voice resigned with numb regret. "I cannot." His eyes hold the Sith lord's as his fingers caress the com link, bringing it to his mouth with a deliberation that is his last masquerade.
Who are you? Jedi or Sith?
He cannot fathom who he is. And he cannot trust those who purport to know. If his most obscene actions define him, then he is death. He is chaos and destruction and malleable evil.
He is nothing.
His mouth curls into a wolfish grin that conveys disgust for both himself and the creature he could have emulated. "I hope you don't mind if I forgo the bow, Chancellor."
The Sith lord begins to scream, a litany of baseless threats and bargains, but Anakin does not flinch as he again speaks into the com link.
"Detonate the charges, Artoo." His voice softens, cracks. "Do it now, my friend."
He releases his mental shields, opens himself unequivocally to the light, embraces the cries of his children, whispers a final plea for forgiveness.
Before his world explodes, he hears it, a faint cry that slips into his consciousness: "Ani, don't."
It's too late.
Bedtime at Tatooine
"I know you're exceptional, my boy, but Force – " Padme closes her eyes in the vain hope her ears will follow as her son's wails echo, even louder than before, " – please don't prove all of the baby holos wrong. Walking is supposed to soothe you, not encourage decibels the Gungans would appreciate."
She would've thrown her hands up in defeat by now, but they're full with her squalling boy. Thank the Force Obi-Wan had scooped up Leia for a late viewing of the Tatooine sunset before she joined in her twin's discontent.
Fed an hour ago, no swelling in his tender gums, fresh diaper… what was the catalyst for such a tantrum? Usually an amiable baby, Luke's distress seems peculiar, his downy head thrashing in Padme's arms and eyes wide with something that resembles… dread, if such a thing can register in the innocence of a child's face.
"Oh, sweetheart," his mother murmurs, "are we into the scary-things-under-the-bed phase already? I'm not sure I'm ready for that."
They've circled the room several times now, and Luke's misery has not abated. Funny, how he cranes his head back to fix those blue, blue eyes expectantly on the ceiling as if searching for something only he can ascertain.
"No luck with settling young Luke?" the Jedi master appears in the small bedroom the twins share, Leia nestled in his arms.
As if in answer, the boy emits a cry with surprising gusto even as Padme rocks, whispers and bounces him using every technique she's honed during the past year. A galaxy-wide trade conflict, she can handle. Refugee squabbles? Putty in her capable hands. But her wildly squabbling toddler?
"Do you have any of that horrible whiskey from the cantina left, Obi-Wan? After I dab a bit on his gums, maybe the rest can soothe my misery!"
Now Leia's squirming, too. Noisily. The sounds coming from her are similar in tone to Padme's, low and pacifying, but the adults have no knowledge of what Leia's babbles mean. Nonetheless, his sister's warbles pique Luke's interest. After a bit of infant banter, the boy seems to take comfort, his cries lessening. Then, they reach stubby fingers toward each other as their language softens into something… different.
Her little ones are humming, Padme realizes. A simple, unpolished melody she often hears after she leaves them drowsy in their cribs at bedtime, tiny fingers stretched to the stars. Sometimes, she'll hear coos that blend into this refrain; always the same little song, clumsy and childlike, but oddly peaceful.
"What in the galaxy…" Padme starts, bemused, but her question evaporates as the three others in the room suddenly gasp in unison. The abrupt conclusion of the twins' song doesn't even register, because in an instant, her children are bellowing, eyes scrunched and hands clenched into fists, a sudden alarm enveloping them.
That's when Padme feels it, as literally as if it permeates her very cells. The most apprehensive chill streaks down her body, slices through the sweltering heat of Tatooine and nearly rattles her bones.
She turns to Obi-Wan, struggles to contain her confusion as her children howl against an unseen terror. The Jedi master's hold on Leia hasn't tightened, but his slate eyes sharpen in supreme concentration. Calm, center, focus, Obi-Wan directs himself, channeling his energy into a single entity seeking guidance within the Force.
When his mouth opens, it forms a single word: "Anakin."
Finis. For now.
This one made my keyboard messy. Talk about blood, sweat and tears going into a chapter. I had this crazy idea that I hadn't seen anywhere else cough, Anakin being a Chosen One of the Sith, cough and I just had to go with it. That doesn't necessarily mean it's true, because we all know Sidious' truth is from a certain point of view, now, don't we?
And, since I'm all bothered by the way I've turned my original plan on its ear, I'm interested to see how this goes over with those who have been incredibly kind enough to comment, favorite and follow this story. It started out as this little one-shot wonder and has become a mini-obsession. Thanks to all! :)