"You are under arrest, my lord!"
The words caused Sidious to seethe with unbridled rage, but at the same time, terror. He had lost…he was on his back, his hands raised feebly, a lightsaber blade to his throat…
But Anakin Skywalker had come. Sidious swiftly took on the mantle of Palpatine once more.
"Anakin!" he cried desperately, forcing as much strain and panic into his voice as he could. As if he had any other way of saying anything…
"I told you it would come to this! I was right!" He gestured to the towering Jedi, speaking as fast as he could before Windu could silence him. "The Jedi are taking over!"
"The oppression of the Sith will never return!" Mace Windu bellowed down at him. Palpatine flinched…could he be speaking the truth?
"Your plot to regain control of the Republic is over!"
Was it? Would it end…his whole life…the centuries that the Sith had planned this…it was all to fail? No…
"You have lost!"
Palpatine shook his head this time, feeling the shame and fear inside of him turn to a mindless, savage rage.
"No…" he whispered, feeling Sidious rise again, feeling his anger tear through him. "No, NO! You will die!"
His hands had moved up, and he felt the Dark Side surging within them…
And Darth Sidious unleashed it.
Brilliant bolts of lightning cascaded from his fingers, slamming into the Jedi Master. Sidious felt the thrill of victory, but the Jedi was catching some of the bolts on his lightsaber…
And he began pushing forwards…
And the lightning, so powerful as it was, began arcing backwards from the blade…
Sidious screeched in pain as his own lightning struck his face, ripping into it…no, no! He would not lose…he needed Anakin to come…
"He is a traitor, Anakin!" he howled.
"He's—the—traitor—ARRRGH!" Windu groaned as bolts struck him as well.
Sidious felt himself pressing harder, struggling to keep that blade back…the Jedi was pushing hard, and if he stopped the barrage…
He felt his face changing.
The Dark Side powers that he had been using to keep it in place, to hide from the Jedi the results of the energy consuming him, were failing. Under the barrage of his own lightning, without any support…the face of Palpatine was slowly vanishing…
It was melting, becoming the face of an old man, like an ancient corpse…
Bane's Bones, he would die if this kept up! He needed Anakin now…
"I am your pathway to power!" Sidious wailed. "I have the power to help save the one you love!"
Mace Windu pressed harder, but in the brilliant flashes of lightning, Sidious could not sense what he felt.
"You must choose!" he moaned, as his face withered even further. "You must—stop him!"
He was pleading now, but he had no choice—he was going to die!
"Don't listen to him, Anakin!" Windu growled, gritting his teeth against the pain.
"Help me!" Sidious pleaded, feeling his strength begin to ebb. "Don't let him kill me! I can't…hold on any longer!"
He forced the blade back, but the bolts were weakening….
"I…ahhhhhh…ahhhhhh…."
The bolts stopped, and Sidious felt his head fall to the wall. He was exhausted…the pain and energy exerted had completely drained him.
He moaned softly, feeling for Anakin with his mind…
"I can't…I give up! Help me!" He touched Anakin's mind…
And felt, suddenly, the storm of confusion within his mind. The confusion…the fear.
And nestled within that massive cloud of fear, he could sense the anger…but the confusion was surrounding it, holding it back…but if it was released…
It was a bottomless well for the Dark Side.
All he needed was to release it.
The boy's fear of loss was the key…
"I am weak!" he moaned. "I am…too weak! Don't kill me! I give up! I'm dying! I can't…hold on any longer…."
"You Sith disease!" Windu spat from above him, clearly sensing the surge of triumph from Sidious as he felt the barrier weaken. "I am going to end this once and for all!"
Sidious felt his own fear fill him now…rushing in like a mist into a globe, filling it, expanding it…
"You can't."
There was a long pause, a tremor in the Force. Sidious looked over to Anakin, saw Windu do the same, slightly…but he met Anakin's eyes…
And, though Anakin did not meet his, he could see the anger…and the fear…and the barely contained aggression…
"He must stand trial!"
Almost! Sidious almost had him—he was in his grip…
"He has control of both the Senate and the Courts!" Windu bellowed. "He's too dangerous to be left alive!"
Sidious's fury was all but quenched by his terror. He sensed it from the Jedi…
He was going to kill him!
"I'm too weak! Don't kill me! Please!" he wailed thickly.
Do it, now…now!
"He must live!" Anakin screamed.
Windu raised his blade.
"Please, don't!" Sidious moaned. "Please, don't!"
Now, fool, now! Stop talking…
"I need him!"
Was that it?
"Please…" he whispered. "Don't…"
The violet blade began its descent.
NOW, SKYWALKER!
"NO!"
There was the hiss of a lightsaber blade, and as Sidious raised his hands in a vain attempt to block the blow, there was a flash of blue light…
And the purple blade flew away, out of the window, into the night.
An agonized, glorious scream rang out into the night.
Sidious felt the pain from the Master, saw his arm, severed at the elbow.
The anger, fear, and aggression surging from the Jedi, augmenting the Dark Side like ion fuel to fire…
And he felt the confusion from the Master…
And the fear.
And feeling that fear, Sidious felt his own vanish as if it had never existed.
Beneath it lay what had been hidden…the anger, the rage…
But from the Jedi, he felt…
"POWER!" Sidious screeched, throwing a hand out and letting the full force of the Dark Side leave his fingers.
They struck the Jedi Master, and this time he had no lightsaber to deflect the bolts. He had no way of stopping them, no way of turning them.
All he could do was scream.
Jedi Master Mace Windu screamed in agony as lightning bolts covered his body. He stood there, and Sidious felt the Jedi's life leaving him…he was using the Force to keep himself from falling, but Sidious pressed the attack harder! The Jedi would die! Skywalker was his!
The Sith were triumphant!
"UNLIMITED POWER!"
And the Dark Side overwhelmed the Jedi.
Whether he died then or his Force strength simply gave out, Sidious did not know, nor did he care.
Mace Windu was thrown out of the window, sent to plummet, a blue-burning body, the hundreds of stories to the ground below.
The Sith had their revenge.