Three fics finished in one year! Sorry this was late, life happened. Thank your Nauze and Ahrnberg!
The Kenobi Scandal: Completed, 100k. Epilogue releasing soon.
The Queen Does Not Need to Know: Completed, 250k.
Return of the Father: Completed, Short Story.
AN: To anyone who complains about me not sticking to a single story. I'm sorry, but that's not my creative process. To my fans who found me from HP, I'm sorry but the Star Wars universe is just so much more interesting and larger and fun to write in. It's also closer to the books I am building for myself.
Laughing All the Way to London will update slowly, likely with the next Fantastic Beasts movie.
In 12 Months we are going to reach about 700k of free shared fiction for this account :D
Significant Brain Damage: Luke in the Clone Wars with Legends material utilized, On going, 170K.
The Making of Mavericks: Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, Rex, Cody, in pre-Phantom Menace timeline. On going, 51K.
The Darkness Between the Stars: AU, my only non-time travel story, Featuring Christopher Lee as Dooku, an Intelligent Villain, On going, 28K.
The Monarchs of Alderaan: Basically, a crossover between the Prequels and Original Trilogies, where mostly everyone survives until 13BBY before things start imploding and is very Mark Hamil focused, very AU, and my most original plot and characters. On going, 7K.
Chapter 18 - At War's End
Luke breathed in deeply, closing his eyes to soak in the feel and sounds of the room around him.
They had returned to the Jedi Temple, everyone knowing that the fireworks would be starting soon.
One last mad dash to the end.
Obi-Wan was staking out the Emperor, and Anakin was on stand-by in a starship.
Obi-Wan had been very certain he would run once the trial started. They had managed to keep it mostly under wraps so far that Dooku had been captured, but it was only a matter of time.
Luke and Ahsoka had had time to get showers and a bite to eat before the chaos started up again.
So just for this moment, in a room of a thousand fountains, they could breathe.
"Luke," Ahsoka said hesitantly.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. At this time of night, the room's light was set to replicate moonlight, giving her eyes the depth of oceans and making the white on her montrals and her markings glow.
She was the single most beautiful being Luke had ever met, inside and out.
She swallowed, and Luke would have given a lot to know what she was thinking.
"Yes, Ahsoka?"
She just looked at it for a long moment before saying, almost too quietly to be heard over the fountains, "I like you, Luke."
His heart skipped and he nearly tripped over his own words as he said, "I like you too, Ahsoka."
She looked away from him, her fingers tightening on the rim of the fountain they sat on, "No, I mean, I…"
She didn't finish, but Luke wasn't quite as oblivious as everyone accused him of being.
"'Soka," he said softly, reaching out to her.
She turned to look at him as he touched her cheek, the world falling away with the sound of a thousand fountains rushing around them.
When she didn't pull away, Luke did the single most brave thing he had ever done.
He kissed her.
And she kissed him back.
Darth Sidious, previously Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, should have been Emperor by now.
How had things gone so incredibly wrong?
Kenobi.
Both kriffing Kenobis.
Obi-Wan was going to watch his son die on a spike. A boy that had somehow bested Dooku.
There was only supposed to be one Chosen One, and Sidious had been sure to cripple him.
Yet Kenobi had been grooming his own heir.
A moisture farmer.
Sidious was spittingly furious.
He could not understand how Kenobi had uprooted all of his plans, all of them.
-No, Dooku's voice said over the holonet, It was his idea to bomb the Senate building. But he never intended to be there and he certainly underestimated how much firepower I would be able to pack into the foundation and dome when he let down the security for my people to get the work done.
-It was my intention for Darth Sidious to die that day, his sympathetic face wound was a mere -stroke- of luck for him.
Sidious hissed as he threw the device against the wall, the thing shattering.
He would kill Dooku, he would make the traitor beg for his death long before Sidious granted it.
But he didn't have time for that now as he rode his private elevator down to the lower levels, where a private docking centre was waiting for him.
It was going to take decades for Sidious to come back from this, but return he would. The Jedi's suffering would be his, even if he had to pick them all off one by one, he would kill them all.
Them and their clones.
That was perhaps the most amazing occurrence over the years, the clones, Sidious thought as he started his engines.
He had never expected a million duplicates of the same person, the same person genetically altered to be loyal, to be so individual…
If there was one thing that Sidious, and his own Master, Darth Plagueis, had counted on, it was the small mindlessness of people.
And they had always been right with very, very few and brief exceptions.
Yet the clones had… had become better Jedi than the Jedi, holding up all their supposed tenants without the Force even being known to them.
Darth Sidious doubted anyone would have expected, even the Jedi themselves, that the High Council would welcome the clones as equals.
Sidious hadn't counted anyone ever viewing the clones as equals. At some point, a number became just a number.
Yet he had been wrong.
Sidious changed gears on his ship. He had once been as fine a pilot as Skywalker, another disappointment.
He was readying for light speed when his ship rocked from a rear hit, and then another, damaging his reflectors and beating against his exhaust port.
Sidious had just enough time to see in his rear camera feed an image of a starship in hot pursuit behind.
He saw Anakin, the Kenobis, some clones, and Anakin's Togruta making a vile hand gesture at him as he pressed his ship into hyperspeed.
There was an ominous rattle and shaking emitting from the back of Sidious's ship that he knew could mean nothing good.
He was so furious that the Dark Side came alive inside him, a hungry beast chomping at the bit in a frenzy that made him feel nearly delirious.
If he was pursued, his foes would find themselves pursuing only their own demise.
Dooku sighed as he settled back into his cell.
He had earned himself a lifetime sentence in the highest security prison the Jedi had.
Well, he thought morosely, at least he would learn one last Jedi secret before being locked away for eternity.
When he heard the distinct sound of bodies dropping on the grated floor hallway, he knew that his time in this world would not be long.
His Master had come for him.
"Healer!" Dooku's Jedi guard cried as the sound of sabres clashing was followed by the energy burst sound of a stun gun.
Strange, he thought, no one was likely to mistake Darth Sidious as a healer. Or had they been calling for a healer?
Nor, he noted, was Palpatine known for using stunners.
Dooku rose as a young cloaked Jedi stood at the entrance of his cell, a shimmering field of red keeping them apart. She had clearly been victorious. Observing a bit closer he realized she was a Mirialan.
"Ah, a visitor," he said, "to whom do I owe such an honour?"
She pulled back her hood, "My name is Knight Barriss Offee, and I have a proposition for you, Count Dooku."
He raised a brow, "Oh? And what could a Sith Lord offer a healer such as yourself?"
"Freedom," she said without guile, "in exchange for your own."
This, was most unexpected indeed, "Freedom from what, my dear?"
"From the doctrines of the Jedi. You were right about them. What the Order did during this war… It doesn't matter that they salvage their Order, that they fell for the Sith plots at all, that they were so weak before the Senate and caused so much destruction in the name of peace..." She shook her head, "I cannot abide it."
"So, for the hypocrisy of the Jedi, you wish to become a Sith."
"No, but for all they have learned… you showed us how broken we were, you do not deserve to be killed for that, Master Dooku. The Light cannot exist without the Darkness."
He did not hesitate then as he stepped forward, saying, "We will have to run."
Time was now of the essence.
But her next demand gave him pause. She met his gaze directly, and he saw in her a sorrow that he knew all too well.
"Give me your word that you will not abandon me."
That she would take his word touched some part of him he had thought had died with Qui-Gon.
His own words came with more sincerity than he himself had expected, "You have my word, child."
Barriss slid the keycard through the lock, and Dooku was free. He called to his hand the sabre of one of the fallen Jedi. She led him through back routes not even he would have been able to find, despite having escorted many to these cells over his life.
There was not much talking as they got into a stolen deep space transport ship.
Before she could start the engines, however, he asked one last question, even knowing that he was delaying his last chance at a free life to see the stars. "Why does a healer wish to become my apprentice? What do you think the Sith could provide you?"
"I want to see beyond what the Jedi teach, beyond the reach of the Republic. I want to know the Force, I want to know its every shadow."
Dooku smiled, the Force, it would seem, still had a purpose for him after all.
"Why?" Anakin asked, "Is he the one who gets to pilot?"
"Because he's better at landing," Cody informed him as Luke pulled them out of hyperspeed following the tracker they had managed, by way of R2-D2's aim, to attach to Palpatine's ship in the ascent from Coruscant.
"Better question," Obi-Wan said as he stared at the dust ball they were approaching, "Why is it always Tatooine?"
"Maybe the planet is fond of us," Ahsoka offered.
Anakin groaned, "I'm going to be finding sand everywhere for the next few months."
Luke shrugged, "Tatooine isn't that bad, it's just boring."
"Boring," Obi-Wan repeated grimly, "That, my son, is not the adjective I would use."
Anakin turned to him, "You spent twenty years as a hermit in the middle of nowhere and you don't think it was boring?"
Obi-Wan shrugged, "I had Qui-Gon, and I lived on the edge of the Dune Sea. In that time, I have managed to get into more trouble than I thought possible on a single planet, Luke got into more trouble than any moisture farmer has any decent right to, I taught the sand people sign language, and I killed three krate dragons. How such large creatures can survive off of the occasional bantha, I will never understand."
Both Anakin and Luke turned to gape at him, as they said in unison, "You've killed three krate dragons?"
Obi-Wan shrugged, "I've done more impressive things in my life, boys, than slay dragons."
Ahsoka, Appo, Fives, and Rex laughed at that.
Several other clone ships arrived in orbit.
Obi-Wan was taking no chances, on the descent, he commed the other ships, "I want stations in every city, tell anyone who questions you that we are looking for a fugitive on Jedi business. Do not start anything, and do not engage unless attacked. I need eyes to find Palpatine but no one is to pursue him. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Sirs," overlapped over the coms.
"Good," he said, letting his senses take over and he blindly directed Luke where he felt the disturbance as the other transports went to the main cities to scope out any and all repair shops.
It really was as if history was trying to carve out rhymes.
The good thing about Tatooine was that despite Sidious's impressive Force shielding, Obi-Wan knew this planet well enough to sense the changes Sidious's presence made.
"There," Obi-Wan said, eyes still closed.
"Where?" Anakin asked.
But Luke understood him, bringing the ship down inside a ledged cave with delightful accuracy. Obi-Wan smiled at Anakin who rolled his eyes, "Okay, I admit it, he's a great pilot. Happy?"
Luke grinned, but his expression fell as Obi-Wan began giving instructions.
"Why do I-" Ahsoka began, but Obi-Wan cut her off.
"Because Anakin, Luke, and I are the closest to Sidious's power level and we are not leaving Cody, Gregor, Rex, Appo, and Fives without a Jedi when we are Sith hunting. If Sidious manages to escape, you should be able to sense him if you are paying attention. You are to get them and yourself away safely, Knight Tano."
"Thanks, General," Appo said.
"And come save us if we get stranded in the desert," Luke added cheerfully.
Ahsoka sighed, "Fine, we'll babysit the ship."
Luke gave her a smile that had a touch of warmth that Obi-Wan was not blind to, "You're on a cliff, 'Soka, your scopes could save us out in the dunes."
Anakin groaned, "The only thing worse than Tatooine cities are Tatooine frontiers."
"Hey," Luke said, "I resent that, I had a happy childhood, thank you very much."
Obi-Wan couldn't help the fondness that overcame him then as he ruffled both Anakin and Luke's hair, "Come, my little natives, I'm going to teach you how to track over the Dune Sea."
"Never something I wanted to learn," Anakin muttered as he mounted his speeder.
"Oh, but I have, Uncle Owen always said it was too dangerous," Luke countered as he hopped onto his own speeder.
"In this case," Obi-Wan said, "Owen was probably right, you attract enough trouble without taunting krate dragons."
Luke grinned, "But you're still taking me with you now."
Obi-Wan sighed.
"May the Force be with you," Ahsoka said, and then so quick, Obi-Wan would have missed it if he hadn't been watching them, Ahsoka stood on her toes to give Luke a quick kiss.
Naturally, the clones whooped.
And poor Luke was bright pink up to his ears even as he flashed Ahsoka a shy smile, "And with you, 'Soka."
Obi-Wan, to his own credit, let Anakin have the first word as they sped out over the sands under the familiar heat of two suns.
"So, Luke, how long exactly have you and my Padawan been seeing each other?" Anakin inquired.
Luke shook his head, "We aren't- I mean we-"
"I agree, Anakin, a Master should be informed of these things," Obi-Wan said, teasing both his apprentices with a single comment.
Anakin shook his head, "How do you know where we are going?"
"He's just following the angry centre of rage and violence emanating from the sands," Luke said.
"I can't feel anything," Anakin remarked.
"He's too familiar to you," Obi-Wan said.
"And can't believe I was so blind to this. You know he used to take me to the underground? That was our first meeting together, he showed me what Coruscant really was. All the while, lying about his every intent."
Obi-Wan felt his gut, "I am so sorry, Anakin-"
"Don't, Obi-Wan, we both got played, we both made mistakes. It's time we end this."
Obi-Wan couldn't agree more.
As they were cresting a dune, Luke called, "There!"
And sure enough, there was the burnt out husk of a ship.
"Good shooting, Anakin," Obi-Wan praised as he threw his senses wide, turning his speeder to actually catch sight of the Sith before going at him.
"Thank you, Master."
Luke said, "He's lucky he wasn't further out, or he would be dead whether or not we get here."
Obi-Wan disagreed, "Don't underestimate the Sith, they aren't good at dying or staying dead."
Anakin was the first to see him and dismount, Obi-Wan signaled Luke to go back around the crashed starship as Obi-Wan disembarked behind Darth Sidious's position.
Anakin, in obvious homage to his homeworld, greeted Sidious with a stream of Huttuese swears as blue and red sabres met under clouds painted with fire by the descending suns.
Obi-Wan had never truly understood how Yoda had lost to Darth Sidious, but as the black robed figure pulled a second lightsabre and stopped any attempt at shielding his presence within the Force.
Obi-Wan understood, and knew himself to be outmatched.
Which is exactly why he had brought Anakin and Luke with him.
And trained the both to be superhuman weapons of Forcely impossibilities.
"You think you can beat me," Sidious hissed at Anakin, "I broke you!"
Obi-Wan's blade skimmed the Sith's robes, causing the man, the monster, to snarl, turning in a whirl of red light, "Anakin is my apprentice, not yours!"
Anakin kept up his assault and any opening he left, Obi-Wan was there to defend him.
Sadly, even with their combined skill and power, Darth Sidious was still their match.
The Sith, after all, focused their training and strength on death and destruction.
Luckily for them, and most unlucky for Sidious, Luke was the tipping factor on the scale.
Sidious tried to Force push Obi-Wan and he snarled when Obi-Wan did not fall as a wind at his back held Sidious's intent at bay.
"You are not powerful enough for this, Kenobi," he growled, as he was forced to block Anakin's sabre attack.
"It's a good thing I have two apprentices, isn't it?" Obi-Wan taunted as Luke all but emerged from Anakin's shadow to catch the lightning with his blade whose hue matched that of the suns departing the sky.
Thus allowing Anakin to press forward.
Luke and Anakin weren't exactly opposites, but their strengths complimented each other rather well. Anakin was undoubtedly the better bladesman, even with the extra training and Luke's knack for picking up on other's forms mid duel, that didn't equate to the years and years Anakin had spent training with a lightsabre.
However, Luke had a calmer mind, he was simply more at peace with himself and the world around him, it showed in the ease of his telekinesis, much of which Obi-Wan couldn't even take credit for teaching Luke.
Whatever trick Sidious attempted, Luke was able to sense and redirect, the moon changing the tides.
Sidious bared his teeth, "Luke Kenobi, you are better than your father."
Luke's smile was cheeky, "Which one?"
Before he threw his hands out, sending sand into the Sith's face and pushing him back. Obi-Wan and Anakin converged on him, but despite his spitting sand and watering eyes, Sidious kept pace with them.
Obi-Wan wondered if the Sith were able to draw such power from pain and anger that the more you ticked them off or hurt them in a fight, the stronger they became.
That seemed sort of unfair.
But then he had brought two possible Chosen Ones with him, so who was he to judge?
Sidious was able to respond a minute later, his face dripping with sweat dusted by the Dune Sea.
Anakin might hate Tatooine, but all three of them were far more accustomed to this climate than Palpatine.
"Kenobi," Sidious said, directing his comment at Luke, "You are stronger in the Force than he is."
Luke relit his own sabre, going shoulder to shoulder with Obi-Wan as they moved as one to come at Sidious from the side, pushing him toward Anakin.
This wasn't a common lightsabre style for any form. No Jedi teaching encouraged Knights to fight so closely with another. Space was always emphasized in training because lightsabres were always as dangerous to their enemies as themselves.
But Luke had the awareness of a Master and Obi-Wan had long realized that in order to beat someone who was a master of all the sabre forms, they were going to need to be creative.
Which is why Obi-Wan hadn't taught Luke Shii-Cho, rather teaching him Soresu as his base form.
It hadn't led to any dramatic differences, as there were plenty of Knights who never mastered or fully accomplished Shii-Cho before moving on to others, but there was enough of a difference that Obi-Wan saw both the interest and wariness on Palpatine's face.
As Palpatine retreated rapidly to get away from a dual defense and lead Anakin away from them.
"It must burn," Anakin said, "to have yet another Knight more powerful in the Force than you are, one that you were never able to influence."
"Your power means nothing," Sidious said, "You are a mere vessel for the Force, you do not control it."
"You are wrong, Darth," Obi-Wan countered, "in carving out everything that makes you human; compassion, kindness, in condemning your weaknesses and fueling your rage, it is you who is empty. You can only desire power for power's sake. It will be the means of your destruction. Your life will be as your death; worthless."
Sidious deflected the two blue sabres, Luke holding back with his orange blade at Obi-Wan's side, Luke's conscious extension of his aura shielding them from any counter telekinesis attacks.
"How?" Sidious snarled, "Did you discover me?"
"The Force revealed you to me," Obi-Wan answered him.
"I do not believe you. Nor do I believe you kept your son hidden from the Sith all these years. Both my Master, Darth Plagueis and my apprentice, Darth Maul have been to Tatooine in the past. They would have sensed another of Anakin's strength. We were aware of his birth before you or your Master, and Darth Plagueis was there the day Jinn took Anakin from Tatooine."
Obi-Wan's mind spun, "Are you saying if we hadn't taken Anakin from Tatooine, the Sith still would have found him?"
Sidious smiled at him, his eyes flashing a sickly yellow, the red pits engulfing the iris like a blood spill, and his voice was inhuman as he hissed, "Yesss, the Chosen One was always meant to be ours. You only delayed the inevitable."
Obi-Wan paused, pressing his shoulder against Luke's as he pushed his emotions to the Force.
Obi-Wan had wondered why the Force didn't bring him back further in time. Perhaps it was time he acknowledged that the Force knew better than he did about what was on the line to lose and to save.
Luke snapped, "Nothing is inevitable, puke-eyes, just as the power to destroy is nothing compared to the Living Force."
Sidious's gaze focused on Luke in a way Obi-Wan did not like as he almost boredly fended them off. Although by the sweat on his brow even as a cooler breeze swept over the sands, informed Obi-Wan that the Sith's nonchalance was an act.
Obi-Wan did not let up, and he used his bonds that tied him to both Anakin and Luke to be more wary, more alert.
Before the Sith's gaze fell on Obi-Wan, "How did you know how to thwart my plans? Dooku did not betray me so early."
Obi-Wan scoffed, "Your plans relied too heavily on secrecy."
Sidious's lips peeled back and he looked at Luke, "Why were you not raised at the Temple? How can you be this strong in the ways of the Force?"
Luke blocked one red sabre as Obi-Wan blocked the other as he replied, "Because I'm not just a Kenobi."
"He's a Skywalker," Anakin said as came down on Sidious so hard, the Sith stumbled back in the sand.
Between the three of them, they had the strength to kill Sidious now, but Obi-Wan had urged them to have patience. It did not matter how strong Palpatine was, he was still an old man.
Obi-Wan wanted no mistakes, and as of yet, Obi-Wan was still holding back, pretending to be the Knight he had been twenty years ago.
Sidious scowled, "Another Skywalker?"
Luke smirked, "See two dads, one who sired me and the other who raised me. Sucks for you that Force bent reality to bring us to this evening."
Something dawned on Sidious's face even as the suns began setting behind him, "Anakin and you are nearly the same age."
"Time travel," Obi-Wan said with a smile of his own, "most unexpected, but very convenient."
"No," Sidious growled, "that's impossible."
Anakin sliced through Sidious's right wrist, and Anakin spoke as Sidious bellowed with rage more than pain, "What should have been impossible was you turning me against my family. But know this Sheev Palpatine, you will die as less than a slave. Your passing will be grieved by no one, and your remains will go uneaten by the lowests of scavengers, for the water in your veins is nothing but poison."
It was an old Tatooinian curse, one that only was used by descendants of slaves that some legends said made up the grains of sand in the Dune Sea.
Obi-Wan said the next, the Force filling him, filling his words as if he were speaking reality into being, "You will be unwelcomed by the sands."
The first sun fell beneath the horizon.
Luke completed the curse that many a slave had whispered into the unhearing ears of their Masters, "The memory of you will be less than the shadow of rain."
Anakin took Palatine's remaining duelling arm off at the shoulder.
The second sun dipped below the horizon, and it was as if Luke's sabre pulled that light from the twilight sky as his blade came around in a smooth arch; giving Obi-Wan the opening he needed to relieve Darth Sidious of his head.
It was over, finally over.
Anakin stepped over the corpse, spinning his sabre in a swirling breath of blue, he pierced Palpatine's heart and the sand beneath him.
Luke caught Obi-Wan around the waist as everything seemed to catch up to him with the impact of a star destroyer hitting a moon at lightspeed.
Anakin was there a moment later.
Obi-Wan didn't remember much of what followed after that.
He just knew that through it all both Anakin and Luke stayed by his side.
But the person who brought him back to his moment, to the here and now out of his fears and memories, was Cody.
Taking off his helmet, Cody knelt before him, and caught his gaze with a steadiness that Obi-Wan had long depended on.
"Obi-Wan, Sir, you have to breathe, the war is over now. We're alive."
Obi-Wan sucked in a deep breath of desert night air, the contrast of Cody and his brothers, Ahsoka, Luke, and Anakin being here, being alive; solid and tangible in the very place he had so long been exiled, centring him in the present.
They were alive and for the first time in his life, the Force felt clean, and clear, and bright.
Cody pulled Obi-Wan into a hug, one that first Luke then Anakin joined, holding him together as he felt the relief and the sorrow, and the arching release of dread that should have heralded the end of the Clone Wars many long decades ago.
In the desert seas of Tatooine, Obi-Wan Kenobi felt the Force come into balance.
The war was over.
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