A/N My mistake. I realized how much I had accidentally left out of the last chapter. This one is only the second-to-last. After this, I'm planning on having an epilogue. Oh, no, wait. I might have another chapter before the epilogue, explaining what happened to Dooku after this chapter. And thank you, Fell Dragon, Ellenlome, and Phoenix Red Lion for your reviews.
Dooku watched the three Jedi arguing about Wookies, and smiled. His Padawan had changed, he was sure. But Qui-Gon had obviously been a good master to these two men. The trio clearly loved each other very much, and he found it difficult to believe that he had truly wanted to deceive them. But there was no going back.
He knew the scene that would await them after they returned to Kenobi's apartments. And he knew, better than anyone, that he could never explain to them what had truly happened to lead up to what they would see there. He could never tell them that the Sith Lord Anakin had killed had only been a hologram. A convincing hologram, yes. A hologram that took very intelligent people to make, yes. But a hologram none the less.
And worst of all, he could never tell them that he was not a Sith. That he had not become the apprentice after Maul's death. That he, of all people, had existed on the Dark Side solely to help his master capture the boy, Ani Skywalker.
They would never understand why. Qui-Gon had always been stubborn in believing in the Council, in the good of the universe. He would never believe that the Council, the Republic, the Jedi, the universe was evil. He would never understand that it had always been the Sith, the Dark Side, who were good. He would never admit that his master was right about this. And his friends would follow him.
Dooku snapped out of his thoughtful daze with a start. They were at the apartments. Time to disappear.
"We're back!" Obi-Wan called, entering his apartment. He stopped in shock, seeing the scene before him.
"What is it?" asked Qui-Gon, shoving himself through the door after his friend. He too stopped, staring around at the room wide-eyed.
"Hey, let me in!" complained Anakin, unable to see over Qui-Gon's head. Neither of the older Jedi moved. The Padawan stubbornly began shoving his master out of the way, inch by inch.
"What's going on?" asked a female voice from behind him. Anakin turned, and, to his relief, saw Taun We approaching, with Padmé, Jar Jar and Boba in tow. All three seemed unharmed, so Anakin didn't waste time before explaining the situation to them.
"They saw something in there that shocked them, and now they won't move."
Taun We laughed pleasantly. "You just have to know how to deal with them, Anakin. Watch and learn." She turned to face his master, who was still blocking the door very effectively. "Qui-Gon! Move!" she shouted. Jolted out of his daze by the sound (and volume) of her voice, the Jedi obeyed.
"Thank you," said Anakin, and started to enter, but stopped in shock at the scene before his eyes.
"Don't make me yell at you," threatened Taun We, and Anakin moved aside, still staring. This time, all four made it through before gasping in horror.
All the furniture was overturned. The rug had been tossed carelessly onto the sofa, and the windows were broken, assumedly by the chairs that were missing. Glass was scattered across the room, and lightsaber marks charred the walls. Partway through the room, bits of the ceiling were on the floor. Doors were hanging off their hinges. Everything had been broken, and the scenes in the parts of the other rooms they could see were just as bad.
But the worst part of it all was that, in the middle of the room, one of the boys was lying on the ground, his back to them. It was impossible to tell if he was still alive. The other boy was missing.
Anakin, snapping out of his shock, hurried over to the child on the floor and turned him over. It was Luke. His face was bloody, and he appeared to have been thrown across the room with the Force. But Anakin, placing his hand gently on the boy's neck, felt a faint heartbeat. He was alive.
Qui-Gon stretched out with the Force, sensing for any residue the attacker might have left behind. His eyes snapped opened as he realized what had happened. "Sidious," he growled, and turned to ask his old master something. But Dooku was gone.
Cursing angrily, Obi-Wan re-entered the room from another part of the apartment. "Ani's gone," he snapped, glaring around the area.
"Of course!" exclaimed Taun We. "He took him. Sidious knew he should have tried to turn Anakin when he was younger. Now was his chance."
"Where would he have taken him?" wondered Qui-Gon.
"Ex-squeeze me, but can't yousa just lookin' at the Force-y thingy?" asked Jar Jar.
Everyone stared at him. "What?" demanded the Gungan.
"Jar Jar," whispered Obi-Wan, looking shocked. "You're right."
"And you admitted it," pointed out Qui-Gon.
"Today is full of surprises," finished Padmé.
Obi-Wan glared at his friends and closed his eyes, reaching out with the Force to sense the entire building. He could feel Anakin and Qui-Gon joining him after a moment's pause, all three Jedi searching for the missing child and the Sith.
It was Anakin who found them. "He's in his apartment," the youngest of the three said, opening his eyes suddenly.
The two older Jedi double-checked and headed out. Anakin paused a moment and turned to Padmé. "Can you take him to the Healers?" he asked, indicating Luke. She nodded and gestured for him to go.
It took barely two minutes before the three of them reached the building, not even noticing Taun We trailing hurriedly behind them, having left the care of Luke to Jar Jar and Padmé.
Obi-Wan knocked on the door, earning him disgusted looks from the others. He grinned ruefully, although to Palpatine, opening the door, it must have simply looked toothy.
"Yes?" the Chancellor asked politely, to every appearance seeming to be a man woken from his sleep. Qui-Gon suddenly remembered that it was about two in the morning, but dismissed that as irrelevant.
The foursome shoved past him, ignoring the old man's sleepy protests. Working quickly, they split off so that each of them was searching a different room. Only Anakin remained, seeking the boy in the first area. Palpatine seemed to have backed into a corner, terrified of the Jedi. They were content to leave him there.
"Anakin, look out!" came a sudden cry from the other side of the room. Obi-Wan had finished his search and was heading for another room when he caught Palpatine raising his hands, looking malicious. He 'remembered' from his visions what had happened to Mace Windu after he had been caught in that same trap.
Blue lightening shot out of the Sith's fingers, quickly blocked by an instinctive move from Anakin's lightsaber. The lightening deflected, dancing across Sidious' skin, oblivious to his cries for mercy.
But that distraction didn't last long. The lightening tapered out, leaving a disfigured and panting man in its place.
If Anakin had thought that that would be the end of it, he was wrong. Sidious grabbed at something on his waist and held it out. As he flicked it on, the Jedi saw that it was a lightsaber. Now they were certain he hadn't been sleeping.
Sidious sliced his lightsaber in the direction of Anakin's neck, only to be blocked by the Padawan's own lightsaber.
But Obi-Wan didn't see this. After the lightening had ended, he had hurried off into another room, listening hard. Had something been banging around in there?
Sidious and Anakin's lightsabers were locked in a fierce battle. They seemed to be evenly matched, each one blocking every move the other tried. Neither appeared to be tiring, but both knew it wouldn't last forever. This would, eventually, become an endurance test.
Anakin desperately thought back to every lesson he could imagine learning from Qui-Gon. The one that kept popping into his head was that everyone has an advantage in every battle. One just has to find it. That didn't help much, as Anakin had never been very good at finding his advantages.
"Unleash your anger," Sidious hissed. And then Anakin realized something. Taun We had been wrong. The Sith didn't want Ani. He didn't want to train and raise a child. He wanted a man who had already been trained in the ways of the Jedi, and only needed to have his values readjusted. Ani had been bait. And Anakin had fallen into the trap.
But that was also his advantage. Sidious didn't want to kill him. He wanted an apprentice, and apprentices do you no good if they're dead. Anakin was the only one in this battle who was actually aiming to kill. And that was how he planned to win it.
Anakin raised his lightsaber high over his head, leaving himself open for an attack. Sidious automatically swept his weapon into the open spot, before twisting it away quickly, remembering not to kill this boy. But in doing that, he had moved his lightsaber away from his body, allowing Anakin to thrust his lightsaber right into Sidious' heart. And that was exactly what he did.
Just as the body hit the ground, Obi-Wan emerged from another room, supporting a sick-looking Ani. He started to tell his friend how he had found the boy, but stopped when he realized what was going on.
"I found… Oh, Anakin. Are you alright?"
Anakin gave him a tired glare. "Well, what do you think?"