"I don't need him. His life has no meaning."
The words echoed in Anakin's head and something ugly raised its head somewhere deep inside of him. He had known it - he had known his father was gone, swallowed up by the dark side that even the last piece of him that made him good - the love for his family - had lost any meaning to him and still, hearing the words coming from him, his father, it hurt. It hurt more then anything else he'd ever had to endure.
Through all of it, through peace and war, through love and hate, his father had always curbed his plans around him, had never dismissed his voice and put everything aside to talk or fight or help him when he came. Even though he was dark, even though he was crazy, he had loved Anakin. And even if it had brought him more pain then anything else, Anakin had enjoyed knowing he was the center of his father's world.
Hate, he could've accepted. Strange as it sounded but Anakin had decided long ago for himself that it was better to be hated by your loved ones then to loose them. He had risked much in bringing Padme to the Sith and he was so glad she had accepted his choice but he wouldn't have acted differently if she hadn't. He had fought for his children, even knowing that if it left him that weak there was a good chance Vader would take them in and raise them himself, raising them to hate their own father.
Even Obi-Wan - Anakin wished so much he would've just killed Palpatine before he could make that blasted order, even if it meant abandoning the Jedi way, even if his Master would never forgive him for it. He had known about the order, had known about the clones but at that time Sidious' true identity had still been a secret to him. Still it had taken him great effort not to charge blindly into the senate and kill the man himself, even now that it wouldn't bring back his Master.
Anakin had accepted that by choosing to remain a Jedi, if not in name but in heart, his father might grow to hate him. He could've endured that.
But what his father was showing him now was not hatred. It was indifference and somehow, that was much, much worse.
His father did not care if he lived or died.
For a moment the eyes of the two Anakins met. There was surprise there for a second but the emotion did not quite suffice to cloud the disdain in the Sith's eyes. It wasn't a bluff. His father looked down at his weak son, force-blind and at the blade of an enemy Sith and he was disgusted by him.
That moment, something in Anakin broke.
As terrible as the moment was though, Anakin had been trained excessively to act under stress. Using the tense atmosphere that seemed to stun the two adversaries, Anakin stepped on the old man's foot behind him heavily and in a moment of surprise, rammed him his elbow in the face.
Sidious did not see that coming. Maybe the blind spot Anakin provided in the force included his future as well, maybe Sidious had shared Vader's opinion about Anakin's dismissible strength but whatever the reason, the young man managed to free himself. Out of instinct he tried to call his lightsaber to his hand only to realize that it would not come.
"He might not be much at the moment", Sidious muttered with dark amusement while Vader tensed up, ready to start up their duel again, "but with a little training, I'm sure he could surpass you, Vader."
"Don't you dare", Vader hissed coldly but Sidious merely smiled and kept talking, half turning to the former Jedi.
"You heard it yourself, my boy. He doesn't care about you. He would sacrifice your life without a second thought. You don't owe him anything. He's just going to destroy everything you love."
"As if you're any better!", Anakin shouted hotly. "Because of you, Obi-Wan is dead!"
"Are you sure that is my fault? And even if it were - don't you think Lord Vader would've had the means to save him if he wanted to spare you the pain?"
Vader looked furious but he didn't object even as Sidious turned his questioning gaze on him.
Anakin felt cold.
"Think about it, Anakin. Think about everything bad that ever happened in your life. Can you recall a single time when Vader didn't have something to do with it?"
He couldn't.
That time his best friend had died, murdered by slave traders. When he'd almost lost Padme and Obi-Wan on Geonosis. The endless nights lying awake because he had to keep so many secrets, his correspondence with his father, Order 66... His dream about Padme dying. Leaving the Jedi.
Vader had always been there, in the background.
"You are not my marionette, you are his. Aren't you sick of it?"
He was. But...
"He was there during all the bad times", he admitted, "and maybe even caused some of them. But he was also there during the good times."
Being freed as a slave. Being saved from the Hutts. The numerous times he had spared his life during the war and kept secret about (and in his own twisted way even supported) his marriage to Padme. He'd shown him how to save his wife and children.
"You say I don't owe him anything? That is simply not true", Anakin whispered more to himself. "I owe him my life."
Sidious just looked at him coldly.
"He is not even your father."
Anakin's eyes widened and he stared at the old man. "What?"
"Enough", Vader whispered, standing just a few feet away but Sidious kept talking.
"He's been lying to you for your whole life. Do you want to know the truth? Do you want to know about your true origins? Your true fate? I can tell it to you."
"I said that's enough!" Vader shouted and with a whip of red light he slashed at the other Sith who had to jump back to avoid being sliced in half.
Anakin merely stared at him. Why was he reacting this aggressively? Sidious' words couldn't possibly be true. The very notion was ridiculous. Of course Vader was his father. Who else could it possibly be?
But the Sith Lord was fuming with rage, the dark side coiling around him so powerfully even Anakin with his almost non-existent senses felt a shiver run down his spine. Why was this upsetting him so much? It was rather predictable that Sidious would try to pit them against each other. They had even spoken about the possibility before and besides, hadn't his father admitted just a minute ago that Anakin didn't mean anything to him anyway? Then why was he so angry?
Ironically, Sidious' words meant to drive the two away from each other lightened a tiny spark of hope in Anakin's chest. His father may have lost control but that didn't meant he couldn't get it back.
The former Jedi threw himself to the side as Vader summoned a true whirlwind of stone missiles, all targeted at the other Sith Lord. Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe his father directed it at him on purpose but between all the rubble suddenly flying around, Anakin spotted his lightsaber. He managed to grab it out of the air.
The chaos had evolved to a small hurricane. Most of the rubble missed Anakin (on purpose, he hoped) but he was hit a few times as well and had to seek refuge in a hole left from a ripped out senator's pod. Sidious was at the edge of the storm, trying to pile up large chunks of stone in front of him to protect himself. They were usually ripped from his grasp quite fast.
Anakin looked down at the lightsaber in his hand, then back to Sidious. He didn't have the force, he didn't have a chance against the Sith Lord. Or did he? Palpatine had been unprepared for his attack when he had freed himself from his grip. Anakin didn't have premonition on his side, the power to know when his enemy would strike next. But could it be that during to him being cut off from the force, that he was force blind as well as invisible? Maybe it didn't matter that his reflexes were reduced to human standards, if the other force sensitives couldn't predict his movements either. Sidious would still be stronger and faster then him but if he could catch him off guard, that didn't have to matter. Slowly an idea formed in his head.
XxX
"Come to me, Anakin... I can give you all the knowledge you desire", Darth Sidious said barely loud enough for the boy to hear him. Skywalker had retrieved his lightsaber but he was looking indecisively between the two Sith Lords as if unsure who to turn it on. Finally the boy took a deep breath and took a step towards Sidious.
"What are you doing!?", Vader barked out, the whirlwind of destruction around him still moving fast but not attacking.
Sidious saw the conflict in the boy, in his eyes, in his stiff posture even though he still couldn't feel a thing from him. He was cloaking his strong presence with an amazing expertise, almost as if it was unconscious, unintentional even.
"I'm sorry", Anakin whispered, giving his older self such a heartbroken look. "But you... you're not yourself anymore. I don't know who you are. I don't know anything anymore."
Sidious couldn't help a traitorous small smile. He knew he'd do it, he would get the younger Skywalker on his side at last and the stupid boy would destroy himself.
"Anakin...", Vader growled in a warning. He looked like he wanted nothing more then rip them both to shreds but Anakin was too close to Sidious already. Maybe it really would have no effect on him if his younger self died but he was certainly attached to the boy. Sidious could use that.
"I'm sorry, father...", the boy muttered as he stepped next to Sidious.
Suddenly there was an explosion of anger and hatred rolling off his counterpart. All doubts of maybe this being a setup vanished as Sidious saw Vader's reaction, heard his roar of fury. Anakin winced, taking a step back in fear. The dark side was so powerful, Sidious was surprised it didn't force the young one to his knees all by itself. The Sith Lord prepared to erect a force shield to keep the madly spiraling rubble from hitting him.
And then out of nowhere there was a lightsaber at his throat.
"That's enough", Anakin said, voice only trembling slightly. "The fight ends here."
Vader, who had been just one second away from crushing them both, halted in the middle of directing his dark power towards them.
Sidious was shocked for a moment. How could this happen? He had not sensed this coming. Skywalker's indecision and desperation had been so plain on his face, he had ignored the fact that he still couldn't feel a thing about him from the force. Vader's outrage at seeing his younger self turn against him had been real, he was sure of that but the boy... The boy had played him. Sidious had dismissed him, allowed him to get behind him and now he was paying the price.
"Stupid boy", he muttered, staring hatefully at the blue blade. "You could've killed me with that move. Now, it's too late."
He turned around quickly, his own lightsaber flashing. Then, everything happened very fast.
Anakin raised his lightsaber to block Sidious' incoming strike. At the same time Vader attacked. Being too far away he reached out with the force and commanded the very ground they stood upon, which began to move.
Sidious had a split second of warning as the force urged him to move and he stepped to the side. That forced him to break from Skywalker, who was still standing strong. Sidious turned to block the incoming spikes of sharpened metal Vader send to him. He felt that if those managed to hit him it would be over. But even as he succeeded to overcome that danger, the force failed to warn him of the one at his back. In the moment of intense battle Sidious relied fully on his force senses and when faced with an opponent, even one of lesser skill, whose actions he couldn't predict, that was a grave mistake.
Anakin reacted by instinct as he saw the opening in Sidious' defense. It wasn't the instinct strengthened from the force, it was one honed from years of training. There was just one slash, the lightsaber meant to be able to cut through steel barely feeling any resistance and suddenly the Sith's lightsaber was sailing through the air.
The sudden shock of pain prevented Sidious from reacting fast enough even as the force was screaming at him. The next barrage of spikes formed of stone hit him square on and he was thrown backwards as his body was pierced at multiple points.
Then the pain hit him. Sidious let out a screech and as he raised his arms his eyes widened in horror, seeing the two blackened stumps where his hands used to be. Hateful yellow eyes moved from the boy who seemed to be surprised by his own actions to his older counterpart, on whose face a grin was slowly spreading.
Things certainly didn't look in his favor.
XxX
AN: Alright, that was... not as hard as i imagined. Normally I have problems writing fight scenes but this one went smoothly once the inspiration hit me.
We are talking about Sidious so I feel it is entirely proper to have the duel be more about mind games and trying to talk your enemies into serving you rather then an actual lightsaber battle. I hope you enjoyed it.
Thank all of you for your nice reviews! I admit it is so much fun messing with you and leaving you hanging
You probably suspect this already but the finale isn't over. No, it jas only just begun. *evil laugh*
