Shadow's Odyssey 2: The Chaos Continues
Petro came sprinting around the corner and stopped when he saw Gungi and Katooni laying on the floor.
He kneeled next to Katooni. "What happened?"
"Anakin. He took Luke and Leia. We couldn't stop him."
Anakin. With all the chaos that had been going on, Petro had nearly forgotten about him.
Gungi asked what they were going to do now.
"We have to wait and see what happens with Shadow."
Petro got them all back to bed. As stressful as the situation was, he was simply too tired to stay awake any longer.
They took Grivious's ship. The robot in question was simply standing in the hold with his arms around Luke and Leia so they couldn't escape. Anakin was at the flight controls, guiding them through hyperspace.
"Where are you taking us?" Leia shouted.
Anakin ignored the question.
"Why are you doing this?"
Anakin still didn't answer.
"What is wrong with you? If you're going to kidnap us, you could at very least explain why!"
"I'm keeping you safe."
"We can't just hide from Sidious! The galaxy needs us!" Leia argued.
"We're not going to hide from him."
Leia shot a look at Luke, who had been quiet so far. He didn't seem to be paying attention at all. His eyes were fixed on something else. She followed his gaze and saw he was staring directly at the lever for the hyperdrive. The lever was jiggling slightly. Leia could see what he was doing. She knew dropping out of hyperspace before reaching their destination was risky, but trusting their father clearly wasn't any less risky.
Luke finally got the lever to move. The ship shook violently with the sudden drop in speed. Various system alerts popped up over the dashboard.
"What?" He looked back at Luke. "What did you do? You broke the hyperdrive! You stranded us out here!"
"Then you have plenty of time to explain yourself." Luke retorted.
Petro finished explaining to everyone what had happened.
"So Anakin's working for Sidious again." Tails concluded.
"Which means Sidious probably has Padme again." Petro added.
"But why kidnap his own children?" Katooni asked.
"We are fighting against Sidious. He probably wants to get them as far away from this war as possible." Petro reasoned.
"So how do we rescue them?" Sonic asked.
"Right now, we can't." Petro shot him down. "We have no idea where Anakin took them, and we have far bigger problems to deal with."
"So we just abandon them?"
"He won't kill them. They'll probably be safe if we don't get involved. We need to keep our focus on dealing with Sidious."
Boba scoffed. "Why? Shadow's probably blown him up by now."
Bo-Katan glared at him.
"Rouge said she could stop him." Petro asserted.
"And we're just supposed to take her word for it?" Boba questioned. "The war is over. I'm just waiting for Shadow to get back here and confirm that Sidious is dead so I can go look for my next bounty."
The door creaked open and Shadow slowly stepped in. He was carrying the six Chaos Emeralds. Bo-Katan drew her blaster. Shadow walked into the middle of the room and set the Emeralds on the table.
"Where's Rouge?" Knuckles asked suspiciously.
Rouge walked in carrying the Master Emerald. "Here." She put the massive Emerald on the floor.
"Is it done?" Boba asked impatiently.
"No." Shadow answered. He glanced at Bo-Katan. "Your planet is fine." Shadow left the room without another word.
Han burst with anticipation. "So what happened?"
"Nothing important." Rouge followed Shadow but looked back briefly. "Oh Tails, can you be a dear and take apart that superweapon? It's outside." Then she disappeared.
Boba sighed. "This job is never gonna end is it?"
Anakin muttered to himself as he tried to fix the ship. Luke and Leia were still imprisoned by the impassive Grievous android.
Luke tried to get his attention. "You know a lot of the repairs you're gonna have to do are two-man jobs right?"
"I can handle it." Anakin said, not looking away from his work.
"It would go faster with two people."
"You're the reason the ship is like this in the first place!"
"That doesn't mean I want to be stranded. Do you really think I'm going to break the ship more?"
Anakin sighed. "Fine."
Grievous dropped Luke but kept hold of Leia. Luke put on a pair of work gloves and began to help his father with the engines.
"You know, Rex told me about what happened before."
Anakin did not respond.
"About how Sidious used mom as a hostage. That's what's happening now, right?"
Anakin was silent but stopped working.
"We can save her, you know. And then we can-"
Anakin whipped around. "No, we can't! Even if we do save Padme, Sidious will just come after us again and again and again! I tried killing him before, and it didn't work! The only way we'll survive is if we pledge our loyalty to him."
"He goes around slaughtering people and poisoning entire planets!" Leia shouted. "Are you really just going to let the whole galaxy suffer?"
Anakin took a few deep breaths. "When Sidious first made me his apprentice, he told me to kill my master. And if I didn't, he would kill Padme. He was my best friend. He was like a brother to me. And I killed him. And after I killed him, I spent months thinking about that moment. Wondering if I had made the right choice. Wondering, what if I was able to do that moment over, would I be able to kill him again?" Anakin finally looked at them. "But then, you two were born. And it was the happiest day of my whole life. I realized that moment was possible because I saved Padme. Because I killed my master. That's when I knew I made the right choice. So if it means protecting you, then I will let the whole galaxy suffer."
Both younger Skywalkers felt a chill at the pronouncement. Luke felt tears began to spill out of his eyes. Leia felt them in her own eyes but refused to let them fall.
"Rex was wrong about you." Luke said suddenly.
Anakin blinked in shock.
"He said that you were the best out of all the Jedi, but you're not." His words seemed to hurt his father, but they hurt him even more. Even so, Luke knew he had to say them. "You really are evil."