A/N: I'm going to be completely honest here, I had started this story as a fun thought experiment, a minor hobby to waste time with when I didn't have schoolwork. That's all it ever was. So, when I see messages asking, "When are you going to update?" it doesn't kick me into gear, it discourages me. It reminds me of just how little time or creativity I have, and it makes this story feel less like a labor of love and more like a chore I have to get done or else people will be mad at me. I will finish it, but in my own time. I know I keep saying that, and it doesn't alleviate anybody, if anything it just pisses a lot of you off, but I am running on empty. I have tiny snippets I want to see happen but no way to get there. I'm trying, but I am limited. I have no more ideas, I am burnt out from my final semester at college, and home is a complete nightmare. I'm sorry.
Windu marched up the steps of the Senate dome, robes flying about his body, hood pulled over his head. He knew what had to be done, even if he was the only one who knew it. In order to save the Republic, it had to be suspended, temporarily of course, reforged, improved upon. It was too far gone, crawling with Sith agents, Palpatine loyalists, Reformist sympathizers, and it was rotten to its core because of this. A Senate Commando tried to stop him but was immediately cut down by his lightsaber. Nothing would stop him from saving the burning world. Rebuilding it, better. Few commandos stood down as he ordered them, but he gave them their chance, if they refused then they were in league in the bad actors hell-bent on destroying the Republic and the Jedi. It was their own fault when they were cut down. Behind him, the 187th Legion marched in solid column formation, silent, masked, an all-encompassing aura of duty. They knew what must be done. After the emergency order by the Senate and the attack on Coruscant from both underground and off-world invasions, most complied with Windu's latest command and any who refused were either arrested or shot by their comrades. They had lost so many fellow soldiers in the Battle of the Temple, and when it was released that popular general and Clone War veteran Rex, who most legions still retained a quiet respect for, had fallen in the fighting, it swayed public opinion towards war once more, and the Senate placed Windu at the helm of the GAR. Windu finally had all he needed to save the Republic from itself. Now, it was time to purge the Senate of Sith sympathizers and Palpatine Loyalists. The men followed their general. Nearly the entire Senate was now under suspicion and was to be arrested or killed trying. They knew what had to be done, and kew what was to come the instant they heard the words "Execute Order 67."
Men, women, humans, aliens, Senators, servants, interns, screaming in terror or protest. These and blaster bolts, with the occasional lightsaber strike, sounded throughout the halls of the Senate as the Purge, the Final Purge, the True Purge, took place. In government buildings across the galaxy, in politicians' homes, in army barracks, the same sounds could be heard. A handful of Senators off-world at the time were able to escape, but few indeed. Senator Hera Syndulla sent a message of warning to her father Cham shortly after receiving the news that when she exited hyperspace around Ryloth a small fleet would be waiting to arrest her. Exiting hyperspace early she redirected her ship and fled toward the only place she knew would be out of the Republic's reach, at least for the moment, Mandalore. Chancellor Sinube stood in furious indignation and a twinge of fear as he was being led towards Windu, more than a few bodies on the floor, some seeming to have been lined up and executed on the spot, no trials, no evidence. His eyes met Mace's, hatred radiating from both. "Tera is spinning in his grave." The, now former, Chancellor was shoved against a wall, and one semi-courteous trooper offered him a blindfold. A single death glare from his general was all it took for the trooper to stand down. He heard the shots, and then black. Now, the Republic was Windu's to rebuild as he saw fit, as it truly needed.
Chuchi was playing with her new son, who Barriss and Aayla had brought back from their attempts to find Yoda. They had named him Minch, and anyone who met him instantly fell in love. She was singing a Pantoran children's song to the giggling toddler,
"Oupa ry in sy ou Gord
A-a-oo, A-a-oo, A-a-oo-oo-a
Hy lyk nes 'n regte Lord
A-a-oo, A-a-oo, A-a-oo-oo-a
Ritte-tit, ritte-tit kyk die stof
Ritte-tit o die pad is al te rof
Ritte-tit, ritte-tit om die draai
Ritte-tit, moenie by die deur uitwaai
Hoenders, eende uit die pad
A-a-oo, A-a-oo, A-a-oo-oo-a
Oupa ry in derde rat
A-a-oo, A-a-oo, A-a-oo-oo-a"
She eventually noticed Barriss out of the corner of her eye, she was smiling, leaning against the doorframe, glasses sitting on her nose cutely. Smiling back, she remarked, "It's been so long since I've held a baby." The new mothers shared a kiss and Riyo handed Barriss Minch, who immediately cooed and chittered in delight.
"Yes, I know you're having fun," Barriss cooed back, "But it's naptime. You can play with Mommy later." Bouncing Minch in her arms as she held him close to her chest, she carried the baby into a darkened room they had repurposed for him.
Riyo sank into the loveseat as she watched Barriss's hips sway into their baby's room. Nothing, no Sith warlord, no political rhetoric, no racists or homophobes, nothing could ruin this moment. No matter what she had her family, she had her wife, her two adoptive sons, and for the past few years she could honestly saw that she was finally, truly happy. When Barriss eventually came out and joined her, she leaned against the Jedi's shoulders and quietly muttered, "I love you."
"I love you too."
Ahsoka meanwhile was about ready to tear her hair out if she had any. Anakin Skywalker and Anakin Bonteri were both about to drive her insane for very different reasons. While her former Master was trying to drone on and on about possible preparations for war, all while tripping over himself and coming close to a complete breakdown, her son was in one of his moods and kept saying "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?"
"WHAT?!"
"I love you."
Sighing in an amused frustration she picked up her eight-year-old and hugged him tightly, "I love you too." Looking up at the holographic images of the other masters, she could see they were all trying not to think of their families. Even Master Ti had settled down with the clone Grievous chucked at her face all those years ago, ironically named Chuck.
"Can you think of anything else Obi-Wan?"
"A few thousand planets to rally against the Republic and the Sith?" Kenobi answered, half-seriously, "If Windu somehow manages to interpret you two fighting the Sith as being part of them, then maybe we would be safe. We can't stand a chance otherwise. We'll have to go into hiding."
"Oh, right, so they hunt us down one by one," Kit Fisto remarked.
"It's our best chance of survival should anything happen," Aayla argued with her husband, hopefully adding, "Besides, maybe seeing how Skywalker and Tano fought to save the Temple managed to appease him, and he'll just leave us alone."
Master Koth entered the room, having skipped the first half of the emergency Council meeting. "I'm done."
"What?" Luminara asked in shock.
Without another word, Koth pulled up the holovid of Senator/Grand Master Windu's address to the Republic only hours before and turned round, making to leave the complex and go into hiding forever.
"Fellow denizens of the Republic, it has now come to be self-evident that the Republic as it currently stands cannot withstand the internal and external threats it faces. Enemy armies came unopposed to our capital planet itself, only being driven off by the GAR after untold amounts of lives were taken and damage unleashed. Not only were these barbaric invaders unopposed until the bitter end, but they were aided by forces sheltered within the Republic, hiding in the Coruscant underground."
"What?" Anakin asked in disbelief, "That isn't what happened at all!"
"Ani, hush!" Luminara quietly chastised.
"As such," Windu continued, "I have been forced by a coalition of members of the Senate to see an end to these treasonous forces within our very government, and have been granted emergency powers, which I accept reluctantly and will relinquish at the first opportunity."
"Well, this doesn't sound familiar at all," Obi-Wan muttered in his typical sarcasm.
"The Republic suffered thousands of deaths during the assault on our homes, I lost a great many people, Jedi and non-Jedi alike, who I had grown to call friends. Men and women, soldiers and officers of the Republic, whose families have been left behind to deal with the tragic loss of their loved ones. No less than five thousand people, men, women, and children have been counted among the dead, among them several veterans of the Clone War, including General Rex of the 501st Legion."
"No," Ahsoka barely whispered.
"This horrific attack can only be seen as a declaration of war by this new Sith Empire, and their allies both here and on Teth. I swear to you that we shall not stop, we shall not rest until every last traitor and every last Sith in the galaxy have been hunted down and eradicated. My first act as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic will be to declare a week of mourning for the fallen, and then we prepare for war. I would not ask any citizen of the Republic to do anything I personally would not, and as such I will be both commander-in-chief and general on the ground with the men in white. I assure you; I am not another Palpatine and any seemingly extreme measures taken will be only temporary. Our democratic institutions have been the foundations of our society for millennia, and have always held firm, no matter the threat. Now, just as before, we will not let Sith Imperialism encroach upon our very doorstep, we will not allow those motivated by greed to sell our Republic into a thousand years of slavery again. We will stand strong, and we will emerge victorious in this war, a war to bring an end to all war in this galaxy. Together we will drive the invaders back to the pathetic rock they call home and do to them what they have done to billions of others."
Windu drones on and on, he had certainly mastered that element of politics, the art of using a great many words to say nothing at all. Yet, the only thing the Council heard was "War" and "Teth." Wordlessly agreeing, the Council knew at once that their taste of freedom and happiness had past, Anakin sent out the order to all Reformist Jedi to flee, sell their belongings and take their families into hiding. Abandon the Complex, await further instruction. They had drafted the holo decades ago, hoping and praying that they would never have to use it, most of the Council remained the same, a few different faces, even their own were far different. Voss was still alive then. Anakin nodded at the rest of the Council, and then pressed the button, a singular tear rolling down his right cheek as he did so.
Gràinne had been meditating to try and coax the spirit of Plagueis to give her the secret to healing her child, granting her eternal life, yet he seemed reluctant to tell her, their prophesied Sith'ari, what he knew. What possible reasoning he could have she did not know or care. "Plagueis," she coaxed, "You knew of the Sith'ari, you saw evidence that it was I, yet you refuse to grant me this one desire."
"For a Sith to want immortality, not for herself, but for another. It is..." the ghostly figure paused, trying to find the proper word to convey the irony of the situation, "odd. My former apprentices both saw my research as a waste of time, a waste of our power, as I could not grant immortality to myself-"
"I don't care," was all she had to say on the matter, "Teach it to me, now."
"I can give you the ability to save her body, but it may or may not save her mind, as you seek.
"NOW," the Empress demanded.
"As you wish," reaching out to her, the phantom of the Muun touched his ethereal fingers to her forehead, and they meditated, knowledge pouring from the vessel that was Darth Plagueis the Wise into Darth Serpeness, Empress of Talamh. "What I discovered was that the Dark Side could not give the gifts I sought. It required knowledge of the Light and twisting it into forms unnatural. To service me. To service, us."
"Show me, Plagueis, Master of Eternal Life, Conqueror of Death."
"Not Conqueror. Cheater. To conquer death is a power I was never truly able to discover, but to cheat it, mayhaps for millennia, that is the true Secret of Plagueis."
Bursting into her daughter's chamber and utterly terrifying the maids who cared for Aislinn, Gràinne looked deep into her child's vacant eyes. Eyes which just months before were full of joy and love, if irritation with her mother's insistence to study the Sith arts instead of taking the vows as she wanted, were now completely blank. She held back her tears, there would be plenty of time for much happier ones in a few hours. "Aislinn? Do you know who I am?" Aislinn's face was blank, then turned aggressive as she bit her mother's right hand, hard, drawing blood as her fangs dug into the skin. A short cry from the sudden pain later and Gràinne was prepared to finally heal her little baby. First, she knocked her out with a minor Force push on the brain. No lasting damage at all, barely even a concussion, a minor tap against the skull to slip her into unconsciousness. She looked down at her daughter's form, resting. Like nothing were wrong. Soon, nothing would be. She had slaughtered billions on her way to achieve this goal, from the Unification Wars, to Zygeria, to Coruscant, and she laid her hands on her baby's head, cradling her into her lap. Aislinn looked so peaceful. Closing her eyes, Gràinne began to meditate and her hands, much like Barriss's all those years ago in her husband's hospital room, began to glow blue.
Leia and Mina were wailing on one another in their duel, lightsaber blades clashing and bathing the courtyard in light. While Leia was taking up more Jedi duties and in particular helping to train her youngest sibling, Mina had just gotten hired on at the cafe they frequented, and Mina wanted to celebrate with a bit of sparring. Locking sabers with her opponent, she glanced over to where Jinn was sitting, meditating. "Seriously?" she thought, "He's not paying the slightest bit of attention?! I wore a skirt this short specifically for him!"
Taking advantage of Mina's lapse in attention, Leia swept her legs out from under her, which caused Mina to tuck and roll as Leia brought her blade crashing down into the ground. As the Togruta-Human woman leapt to her feet, slashing at Leia's head as her saber was down. Quickly turning the parry, Leia took Mina by surprise with a Force Push that sent her careening into Jinn, knocking the wind from both of them as a handful of masters who were watching them chuckled.
Jinn, trying his absolute hardest not to say or do anything stupid as Mina was currently laying on top of him, felt his commlink vibrate on his wrist. Much to his surprise, he saw that his father had shaved his beard. "What?" He called out, "Hey, Sis! Come here! Dad shaved!"
The two women immediately dropped their duel, and came towards him, having never even seen Anakin without a beard at any point in their lives save the occasional holo or recent history lesson, "What?"
"This is Master Anakin Skywalker of the Jedi Council on Teth. My co-Councilors, Kit Fisto, Obi-Wan, Quinlan Voss, Eeth Koth, and Luminara Unduli,"
"Oh wow, this holo is ancient!"
"Shut up!" Leia chastised.
"have collectively decided that Teth is no longer safe for us. The Coruscant Jedi have made it clear that they intend to exterminate us for our way of life. We can't stay here. I implore you all, take your families and go into hiding. We will communicate any further action later, when it is safe to do so. Go, now. We don't have much time. Flee for your lives and those of your loved ones. Until then, seek shelter from anyone you can trust. When next we come into contact our Order may be on the brink of extinction. May the Force be with us all."
The next several hours were a blur of panicked packing and scrambling, thousands of Jedi grabbing their bags, their spouses, and their children to flee in terror. A Twi'lek toddler was sitting in the middle of it all crying for her parents as Leia tried to comfort her. Jinn chucked Spleens into her carrier, despite the Loth-cat's protests, and helped the Bonteris pack their shuttle, he and Mina both trying and failing to say the words they both wished to speak and hear. Ahsoka desperately hugged Anakin and Barriss, for what may have been the last time they would ever see each other alive.
"Obi-Wan and Satine are going to hide on Mandalore," Anakin said, "We'll try and find out if my step-brother on Tatooine is still alive. What are you two going to do?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, for now we're just going to find Petro, then get him and Minch as far away from Republic space as possible," Barriss replied.
Ahsoka hadn't even thought that far ahead, "I don't know," she muttered, barely holding back her tears, repeating "I don't know, we just need to get into hyperspace now."
"Force be with you Ahsoka," Barriss attempted to comfort.
"And with you both."
The trio boarded their vessels with their families and took off, abandoning the world they had called home for twenty years.
All across the galaxy, Republic stormtroopers were breaking in and burning down any Reformist-owned properties, killing Jedi, their friends, their families, even the children who their Jedi generals declared as "too old" to be incorporated into the True Order. The galaxy's denizens cheered them on for it. What relatively few clones were still left alive and refused to comply were immediately retired, imprisoned, and/or "disappeared" under "mysterious" circumstances. Windu extinguished his amethyst blade as he stood over the mutilated body of a clone who called himself "Echo," and motioned for the troopers to fan out, scour Coruscant for any more traitors.
"Yessir!" the soldiers obeyed, immediately departing the residence of the dead clone and his executed or imprisoned family.
Windu walked through the house, setting his commlink on the dining room table, pushing the highchair aside with the Force. Four blue holograms of Jedi came up, their faces covered by their hoods, cloaked and armored forms dressed in black with double-bladed sabers at both hips. "Shadows, what have you found?"
"The planned hiding places of no less than three dozen Schismatics," one, a Mirialan female with diamond tattoos trailing down her cheeks like tears, responded, "Including the traitors Skywalker and Unduli."
"Good. You will personally assemble a team to go after them and see to it that they are brought to justice. I want the rest of you to keep searching. I want them found, all of them."
"As you wish, Master," the Mirialan, a recently knighted padawan of his, replied in obedience before the transmission was cut off. Windu eyed the scorch marks on the walls as if they were the most interesting things in the galaxy, the internal threats had to be neutralized before the external ones could be brought to their knees.
Two days. That was how long Gràinne had been kneeling beside her child, nurses and Séamus came in every few hours, unnoticed, to place water and honey on both sets of lips to keep the pair hydrated and fed. Gràinne had never seen such complex systems as the nerve endings in a Togruta/human hybrid brain before in her life, but the phantoms of Plagueis and Dooku guided her hands as she worked on her daughter's mind. Finally, the light emitting from her hands dimmed, they were almost... done. The mother came out of her trance and gently nudged her daughter, trying to wake her.
"Mmm... Mam?"
"Aislinn?"
"Mam?" Aislinn's eyes widened in sudden panic, "Where am I?! What's going on?!"
Gràinne simply hugged her daughter, "You're ok, you're safe. You're safe and you're well."
"Mam, I-"
"Ye want to be a nun, I know, and I'm fine with it. All I care about is that ye're healthy. My sweet baby girl."
Now Aislinn was confused, "Who are you and what have you done with my mum?"
Gràinne simply laughed, bringing nurses and guards to storm the room, shocked at the sudden liveliness of their Empress. "I couldn't be happier. I love you, Aislinn."
"I love you too Mam."
"Uhm, E-Empress?" a pit droid beckoned, "My deepest apologies for disturbing you,"
"Unless we're being attacked it can wait!"
"That's just it, milady. The Republic has declared war."
Gràinne's smile immediately dropped, and Serpeness replaced her helmet, "So be it. I want every scrap of information you can find, and bring me the prisoners, roughed up but alive!" with this order she turned to leave her daughter's room, spirit still leaping for joy at her healing but hampered slightly by the news of an impending attack. She was shown the public-frequency holo her spies had transmitted to Talamh of Windu's announcement. "Hm. So the Jedi morons have decided to build themselves an empire out of the ashes of their Republic. I fail to see why they would attack me though, considering I saved them from their former would-be dictator."
"As you say, my Empress, they are nothing but morons," a sycophantic follower replied.
"I do not pay you to grovel and be my echo, Duke Angus of House Stuart."
"Erm... y-y-you don't pay me at all."
Ignoring his comment, "Assemble the Dark Council, or what's left of it. Have the election results come in yet?"
"All but one seat is filled Your Majesty. A seemingly unbreakable tie."
"No matter, that is more than enough. If Windu sees the breakaway Jedi as our allies, then it is time to make this mythical alliance real."
"Yes, my Empress."
Empress Serpeness turned to leave for her chambers, "I must meditate. See if any spies can contact the Jedi Schismatics."
"Were you not meditating the past two days, Milady? We need your guidance now more than-" the Duke immediately felt pressure on his throat. His eyes widened as he struggled to breathe, trying desperately to get in even a single breath. Falling to his knees he looked up desperately at his Empress, clutching his throat.
She turned to face him, revealing herself as the reason he was being strangled, with only her forefinger and thumb coming ever closer together, "You are not to question me, or my methods. Is that clear, Duke?" Releasing him she turned away, receiving a salute from her guards and returning it in kind.
Ahsoka watched the Skywalker and Offee-Chuchi family shuttles go into hyperspace, little Anakin in her husband's lap as she tried to figure out where to program the navi-computer. Shaking her head, everywhere she could think of would surely be swarmed by the Republic forces by the time they got there, their home on Onderon likely already burned to the ground. Punching in random coordinates just to get away from Teth before it was inevitably attacked. As the stars stretched into beams of light giving way to the blue waves of hyperspace, she got up to meditate in her and Lux's quarters. Ï don't know what to do, or where to go. Please, help." She closed her eyes and completely gave herself in to the Force.
"Gràinne." She said simply, opening her eyes to find her sister sitting across from her on the opposite end of the galaxy.
"Ahsoka."
Ashoka wanted to scream at her, try to hit her with her lightsabers if that was even possible, she hated her with every fiber of her being. If it wasn't for Gràinne none of them would be in this mess right now, but all she could say was "Did you get what you wanted?"
"Aye."
"Do you know how much it cost us?"
"Everything, and for that I'm truly sorry."
"No, you're not."
"You're right. I'm not. Mostly because it would have happened anyway. Really Ahsoka you need to stop trying to blame me for all your problems."
"You led the attack on the Temple! You attacked Coruscant, not me! Why should I be punished for everything you do?!"
"Why did you help me? Why were you on Coruscant that day at all? We both wanted Palpatine dead, we both thought it would leave the galaxy at peace, and we all could go about our lives. That didn't happen. But thanks in no small part to you, your niece is alive and well."
"And now Windu thinks we're allies and is trying to massacre us to try and get at you."
"Like he needed a reason? If my spies are correct, he was looking to peg anything and everything on ye."
Ahsoka lowered her gaze.
"We need not be adversaries, sister."
"Don't call me that."
"Fine, but whatever I call ye won't change the truth. Like it or not we're siblings." She tried to probe into Ahsoka's mind, taking minor advantage of the lapse in her Force Shields, "You haven't told your kids about their dearest auntie? Have ye?"
"Leave them out of this!"
"Fine. Just know that I offer shelter, to you and any Jedi who wants to run. Windu wants to think we're allies, fine. We can be allies."
Ahsoka simply scowled.
Gràinne, however, smiled. "You know the coordinates. I'm sure we both have much to learn."
The connection broke off, leaving Ahsoka to simply question what Gràinne meant by her final statement, "'We both have much to learn.'"
She reentered the main cockpit, finding that Lux and Anakin had left, but Mina was sitting in his seat watching hyperspace go by. "Mom? Where are going to go?"
"Mina," Ahsoka paused, closing her eyes and swallowing her pride, "Kriff, I'm going to regret this. I just know it... but it's all I've got." She looked back up at her daughter, "It's about time I introduced you to your aunt."
Djarin Kenobi awoke in his bunk at the Mandalorian Academy. His peers singled him out for his parentage, but it mattered little to him. Of course, they drew on his face while he slept. Kriffing permanent marker too. As he scrubbed one his larger bunkmates, shoved him aside, "Hey Jedi, your parents are wanted criminals now!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Playing the holo as they shoved him around, Djarin was kicked in the gut and fell to his knees, the wind knocked out of him as he heard his parents be declared traitors to the Republic, which Mandalore was never a part of so their status in the Republic shouldn't even matter, but all that these bullies were concerned with was another reason to beat on him. He was going to graduate next semester anyway, and be free of these idiotic meatheads. Probably try to ask out that cute redheaded girl he had had his eye on for the past months at graduation. He felt a boot in the back of his skull.
"Come on Jedi, what kind of Mandalorian doesn't know how to fight?!"
"Come on Jedi!"
"Come on Jedi!"
"He's as much of a coward as his mom is!"
"Come on Jedi!"
He knew better than to fight back. Fighting outside of drills was strictly forbidden, if also encouraged. During drills? No limits, not even killing and maiming were really off the table.