Author: TemporaryUniverse
WC: 1,175 (2,845 Total)
He woke in a cold, empty room, bound to a table and head pounding. His memory took a minute to return to him, but when it did…
Palpatine was the Sith Lord.
It made a terrible amount of sense. Sith craved power and control, and where better to get it than the office of the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic? But that meant… the war. A fake war, with Sith playing both sides. A trap.
He tested the padded cuffs holding him down, but they were sturdy, without any give. Trying to open them with the Force, he found he couldn't access it more than his surface level sense. Force suppressants, then. Not good. This was not good in so many ways.
What could Palpatine possibly want with him?
The door opened, and Obi-Wan realized he might be getting answers soon enough.
Palpatine was cloaked in black, his face shrouded by a dark hood.
"Master Kenobi. The thorn in my side. I am going to enjoy this."
Obi-Wan felt a chill run up his spine.
"Why am I here?" He asked.
"Do you know how often I have tried to kill you? How many assassins I have sent? How many missions I have manipulated? And yet you survive, each and every time." Why? What was so special about Obi-Wan that the Sith would want him dead so fervently?
"So why keep me alive now? I am at your mercy."
"Because, now, you are… useful." A sliver of dread shot through him at that. Nothing good could come from being useful to a Sith Lord.
"I will not help you. I am a Jedi." Obi-Wan leveled a glare at him, tilting his chin defiantly.
"…And I am a Sith, Master Kenobi. Lord Sidious of the line of Bane. I have spent many years studying how to break Jedi." Palpati—Sidious grinned, not his usual harmless, grandfatherly smile but one of malice and hatred. How in the universe had no one managed to see his true nature? How could they—how could he have been so blind?
Sidious laid a cool hand on his forehead and Obi-Wan held back a shiver. Then he felt it. A creeping tendril of Darkness slithering into his mind. He gasped.
"Get out of my head," he gritted out, trying to push it away. It dug its claws in and he clenched his jaw in pain.
"Come now, Obi-Wan, this will be so much easier for you if you don't fight it." Sidious pressed harder, more tendrils wriggling their way in, tearing at his shields viciously and he went rigid, desperately attempting to hold in a scream. It escaped from him anyway, but he was too far under to notice, too busy fending off the relentless Dark, but it was like smoke, seeping through whatever cracks it could find, impossible to keep out. He pulled the Force around himself, hiding within the Light, but Sidious ruthlessly pursued him, prying at the faultlines left behind by Zigoola, ripping him open for the Dark to enter. He struggled to reinforce his shields against the onslaught, but he was steadily overwhelmed. The Dark crept in and he drowned in the fear, pain, anger, and hate that was not his own. With one last burst of effort, he gathered his remaining strength and shoved the Sith from his mind.
He opened his eyes to see Sidious furious and wiping blood from his nose. A matching trail of blood trickled into his own beard and his body ached as though he'd been trampled by a reek. He hastily tried to repair the damage, patching the holes and cracks that were beginning to show.
With a scowl, the Sith Lord put his hand back on Obi-Wan's forehead and resumed his attack. He struggled against Sidious' power but he was no match for the Sith, weakened as he was from weeks of battling the Dark Side. His mind yielded far too easily, Sidious penetrating his shields and then needling to the very core of his being. Obi-Wan thrashed against the restraints, his back arching and his muscles spasming, his mouth open in a silent scream.
The Darkness engulfed him.
He fell.
Down.
And down.
Into the black nothingness.
He opened his eyes and wished he hadn't. The barren landscape stretched out before him, dark and red and rocky. Zigoola.
The Temple dominated the horizon before him, looming into the starless sky like a monolith, imposing and deadly. He could already feel the cold settling into his core, spreading through his limbs and sapping his strength without the Light there to protect him. For several long, agonizing moments, the only thing he could do was stare in horror. It had been another vision. The destruction of the holocron, the rescue, the week of recovery, Palpatine. It hadn't been real. He was still trapped on a broken planet, slowly being driven insane by the whispers of the Sith. A defeated noise tore from his throat as he sank to the ground.
Die, Jedi. Die, Jedi. Die, Jedi.
He curled up, covering his ears as though he could stop the voice from reaching him.
He thought of Anakin, who he would never see again. Who he had failed so utterly. He'd never been able to teach him balance, how to find peace. He'd never been what Anakin needed, never been loving enough, too strict and exacting. Too harsh. Too distant. Too adherent to the Code and Jedi tradition when Anakin was anything but traditional.
Anakin could go on without him, he thought. Might even be better for it. He remembered the early years, when Anakin chafed at the restrictions of the Jedi and Obi-Wan had grieved his master for longer than he should. The fights in their rooms, Anakin shouting that he wished Qui-Gon had lived instead, that he would have been a better master, before storming out. So angry and volatile. But he was right. Qui-Gon would have taught him better.
Besides, he had Padme. And Ahsoka.
Ahsoka. She was just a child. A child fighting a war, commanding a legion, learning things no child should ever have to know. Obi-Wan had failed her as well.
He just kept failing people.
When he died here, would he see Qui-Gon again?
Die, Jedi. Die, Jedi. Die, Jedi.
He needed his lightsaber, but when looked, it was gone from his belt. Bail. He'd given it to Bail. Where was he?
"Bail?" He called out, the sound eerily loud in the emptiness. "Senator Organa?"
He'd been looking for Bail, in the dream. Obi-Wan had gone to his offices, but he hadn't been there. He wasn't here either, and that meant… that meant…
Die, Jedi. Die, Jedi. Die, Jedi.
Was this real?
He stood, looked at his leg, and saw the wound there, from his own weapon. When he dug his fingers into the burn, it didn't hurt. It should hurt.
Not real.
"Not real," he said aloud, rearranging his perceptions.
Sidious was in his mind.
He looked up at the Temple and started walking.
Thank you for reading!