Blaster fire surrounding the sisters, they stared one another in the eyes, Ahsoka's brilliant blue to Gràinne's Sith yellow.
"Why," was all Ahsoka could say. Not a question, per se, more so a statement of disbelief.
"Down!" Gràinne declared, flinging her Damascus steel blade with the Force through a ring of cultists as Ahsoka ducked, pushing away Republic troopers who began to focus their aim at her sister. Gràinne leapt over Ahsoka's shoulders and deflected blaster and disruptor fire from her. Ahsoka stood and the twins pressed their backs against one another, defending one another.
"What are you doing here?!" Ahsoka asked, blocking blaster bolts with her dual sabers.
Unleashing a furious storm into a Jedi knight charging at her, Gràinne replied, "I could ask you the same thing! I already told you why I was coming here!"
Whirling about, to dismember a cultist, Ahsoka's hood was lung back down, "I came here to let the Republic know about Palpatine's cult, and to keep them safe, HEADS UP!" Gràinne and Ahsoka simultaneously flipped above a red saber thrown their way, not one of Serpeness's, she was intimately familiar with every Darth and Lord's sabers, its owner either killed or not Force-sensitive as it never came back around again. "Keep them safe from you!" she finished having swapped places with her sibling.
"Yeah, well ya sure made a fine job o' that didn't ye?" Serpeness half-mocked, strangling a Republic trooper with the Force and flinging his body into a cultist rifleman about to blast Anakin.
In the total chaos of the battlefield, Coleman Kcaj was more than capable of holding his own. Where this Sith cult came from he had no idea but it was clearly in connection to the Sith attack on the hangar bay. He looked around him in a frantic manner trying to find a better position when he saw, her. That turncoat, that heathen, fighting back to back with an attacking Sith. Oh he recognized that vermin immediately, Ahsoka Tano. He had personally sent out her expulsion notification all those years ago. His blood boiled at the sight of her. Windu was right! Those heretics were aligned with the Sith and would seek to destroy them! With a shout amplified with the Force in his rage, he called out, "TRAITOR!" and leapt towards the Togruta twins, whose attention instantly snapped to him.
He slashed at Ahsoka, who quickly countered with a parry while Serpeness lunged into an attack with the Darksaber. Whirling to block her incoming strikes, Kcaj left himself vulnerable to Ahsoka, who was forced to deflect Republic and cultist blaster fire and was unable to press the advantage.
Serpeness hacked away at Kcaj, taking a momentary lapse in concentration to electrocute Republic troopers coming up to aid him. She sensed the anger radiating off of him, quietly giggling her to herself as she locked blades, she started teasing him, "You have so much rage in you Master Jedi! I thought you weren't allowed to feel?" Kcaj threw her back when he broke the lock, which Serpeness easily recovered from, landing on her feet a good three meters away and slicing through cultists and troopers alike.
With seven severed heads rolling towards him, Coleman remarked, "You'll pay for that." Running towards her, he prepared for a forceful slash across her stomach, which the Sith Empress readied herself to block. He was surprised however to see a lightsaber wielding Jawa catapult himself off of his Empress's head and slice downwards. His surprise did not retain for long though, as he fell dead shortly thereafter.
Poblithes looked back towards his Empress, his master, and reported whilst blocking incoming fire, "I saw Palpatine making his way to the surface!"
"WHERE?!"
"Towards the" Poblithes was quickly cut off by the sound of a Force Storm, which annihilated Republic troopers and Jedi around it, disintegrating them instantly. "That," Poblithes pointed, "that's where he is."
Gràinne hailed PT-77 again, "PT, air support at any moment now would be great!"
PT beeped indignantly.
"I get that you're still being chased by fighters! BRING THEM HERE!"
A confused beep.
"DO IT!"
Rex fired his twin blaster pistols from behind some rubble, using the wrecked statue as cover. He had to live through this, for Kara, for the kids. Blasting in rapid fire at attacking cultists armed with disruptors before they could vaporize any more of his men, he was eventually pinned down by one CAWL cultist with a Z-6 Rotary blaster canon laying down suppressive fire in his section. Hiding behind the rubble he tried to crawl around to get an angle to shoot at the gunner when a trooper stopped him, "You stay here general! I'll go!"
As he stood to run Rex shouted "No!" and the trooper was gunned down, his armor riddled in holes. Shouting into his commlink he ordered, "This is General Rex, we need an airstrike at the Jedi Temple, now!" Then he saw the furious Storm annihilating all nearby forces. "Oh, kriffing Hell. I am getting too old for this shit."
Darth Vengeance locked the Republic fighters in his sites and fired the Falcon's cannons at them, managing to take out three with one shot. PT-77 whistled at him, "We're going back?"
PT whirred.
"If the Empress needs air support then things are going really bad."
PT turned the freighter around to make another attack run on the Temple. At top sub-light speed they would arrive in five minutes.
Having been outed as Anakin Skywalker by an Orthodox knight, who Anakin was unfortunately forced to kill in self-defense, the Jedi Master was now having to stave off attacks from Sith cultists, Jedi, and republic troopers. Backing into a corner to keep his back protected he blasted a squadron of Republic melee commandos charging at him with vibroblades. Was that really what the Republic trained them to do now? Charge headlong into a Jedi with a lightsaber? Were they trying to avoid paying them by just having them killed off in the heat of battle with suicide tactics? He tried his best not to think about it as he deflected blaster bolts from every direction, from both armies, trying his damnedest to not have a complete nervous breakdown. Soldiers armored in white firing at him, the Temple in flames, was this what Order 66 was supposed to be like? He couldn't think about that now. Not if he wanted to come back home to his children, not if he ever wanted to see Luminara again. The plan was completely kriffed at this point, and any hope of escaping undetected was out the airlock. He had to survive long enough to try and explain why he was there. Of course, explaining just how exactly he knew that Palpatine's cultists were under the Jedi Temple in the first place, let alone that Gràinne's Sith Empire was going to launch an attack, that would be a little more difficult to explain. Throwing back another group of riflemen, he leapt away from his corner and took cover behind a fallen statue, nearly being shot by a surprised Rex.
"Anakin!" Rex shouted, "Shit, you scared me half to death!"
"Any idea on what that Storm was?"
The sound of evil cackling rang through the battle, freezing even the owner's own followers to the bone.
"Maybe," Rex answered. The 501st was falling back in a chaotic retreat, despite Rex ordering them to hold position at all costs. "Augh! Kriffing draftees! The CAWL are almost destroyed!"
Anakin put a hand on the General, his old Captain's, shoulder, "Get out of here Rex. If you're found with me and Snips then you'll be court martialed, probably executed. Go home, make sure your family stays safe."
"I'm not leaving you, Skywalker."
"I'm not asking," Anakin ordered, shoving him with the Force into one of the transports before the doors sealed and the shuttles flew off.
Sheev was, at this point, more aura than man. His small assault of followers may have been nearly wiped out, but the Republic was fleeing, reinforcements were coming, and the Jedi Order's on-planet supply of masters and knights was almost totally exterminated. Everything was proceeding as he had foreseen; all was working according to his design. However, he felt something. A presence he hadn't felt since, "MacGuffin," he growled in fury. The one who, by pure accident, had foiled his plans decades ago. She must have become a Jedi like her idiot sister. Storming towards the source of the presence he knew that he would have his revenge.
Gràinne's eyes narrowed beneath her helm, and she began to march towards the rival Sith's signature in the Force. Ahsoka stood in front of her, lightsabers drawn, "What do you think you're doing?"
"I will nae be denied," Serpeness replied, casually throwing her sibling aside with the Force. She would rip Plagueis's teaching from his skull if she had to, she would not accept defeat or surrender, not now. Not when she was so close. She may have only had a handful of Sith survivors, but their mission would be a success, their sacrifices would not be in vain. As CAWL fighters continued to brawl with Jedi and Sith, The Empress and Pretender locked eyes on one another. Behind her she could hear the Millennium Falcon laying fire upon the battlefield, leaving a wall of fire and death in its wake. Republic gunships also fired upon the remaining cultists while trying to evade attacks from both the ground and the Falcon as the freighter looped back around. Reigniting her Darksaber, Gràinne silently challenged Sheev for his mantle, Serpeness and Sidious snarling at one another, prepared to murder the one they saw as a rival. Sidious for his own power and vengeance, Serpeness for her child's life.