A/N:So I'm back, and the climax continues! IRL has been taking a lot out of my free time lately, but it's not going to keep me from finishing this story.
Disney owns Star Wars. They have control. They keep you safe. They are your hope. They have control. They keep you safe...
No one on Coruscant would ever forget the moment Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was exposed as a Sith Lord, least of all the Senate; indeed, almost all of them would claim—in what many saw as a rather amusing attempt at saving face—that of course they knew all along, that they were just about to call the Jedi, that they had been working against the man in secret the entire time.
Padme Amidala would remember none of that. All she would be able to recall was the public holonet displaying a security feed of the Chancellor's office, a billion missing puzzle pieces clicking into horrifying place, and a terror—Anakin, don't die. Please, my love, come home to me—that gripped her heart and wouldn't let go. Even so, fear was never something to stop her from action; as soon as the red lightsaber activated and the duel began, she immediately began issuing orders to her staff and security, knowing full well that a man like Palpatine—if her new estimation about the depths of his malice were accurate—would never allow the Republic to survive him without a parting gift or two to remember him by. Quick messages were sent to known allies and friends in the Senate—Take your loved ones and flee while you can, trust no one, if the worst should come to pass we will have to organize as quickly as possible—as well as orders to prepare her ship for immediate departure. Leaving without Anakin made every bone in her body feel wrong, but so many lives were riding on the outcome that she couldn't leave to chance.
As she continued packing and issuing orders, her eyes were drawn back to the holoscreen. Stay strong, Ani. Don't let him win. You can do this, I know—
The thought was interrupted by an LAAT transport zooming right up to the balcony, armed clones surging out of it and headed straight for her.
Anakin was many things, but unaware of his own potential he was not. In fact, that was one of many things that, in retrospect, contributed to his arrogance; he was the most powerful Force wielder in recorded history, and he knew it. But power alone meant nothing against an enemy with skill, experience, and power.
This lesson was driven home rather bluntly as his duel with Chancell—no, just Palpatine—began. In spite of his age, the sheer strength and speed behind the man's attacks was almost beyond belief; Anakin, for all his mastery of Form V's physical power, found himself genuinely staggered by several blows. And that didn't even take into account the deadly surges of lightning sizzling from his enemy's fingers and the brutal telekinetic shoves attempting to thrash him about.
He's better than me. All this power I have, and it's mostly untapped, but he's far more attuned to the Dark Side than I am to the Light. His power is awakening while I've let mine just sleep... Obi-Wan was right, I was lazy...
As the two locked blades, Anakin saw a terrible smile form on Palpatine's face. "Foolish boy. Your pitiful strength is no match for the power of the Dark Side."
Anakin attempted to kick the man away to give himself some distance, but to no avail, as Palpatine's speed closed that distance once again almost before he could blink.
"'A Jedi, now and forever'? Pah! You are angry. You hate me. You never belonged with them, and you never will!"
"Shut up." The exposed Sith Lord was shoved violently back by a display of power that surprised even Anakin, and yet the man landed on his feet with little effort.
"Good, good! That is the Anakin I know, the Anakin you are, whether you admit it or not! Stop pretending, boy! Give in to your anger!"
As the fight went on, Anakin found himself under pressure unlike any he had ever felt before; part of him even began to consider Palpatine's taunting words. If I don't think of something quick, he'll kill me. Maybe he's right... the Dark Side is too powerful, he's too powerful. I pushed him back with that last Force shove, and that came from anger, didn't it?
He stopped that thought in its tracks, but it wasn't easy. What truly horrified him was that somehow that thought felt strangely alien, and yet familiar—as if someone else, some other version of him, had said it in his voice. The idea of that voice winning worried him more.
Dammit, he's toying with me! The only reason I was able to push him at all was because he let me, to make me think the Dark Side had more power. I should have trained more. I shouldn't have been so arrogant. I could have tapped into everything I have long ago, but I'm so used to already being stronger than others that I couldn't imagine someone else approaching that. Ahsoka, Padme, Obi-Wan, Kevin... I'm so sorry. I tried.
The despair ate at him more and more as the fight continued, Palpatine hammering away at his weakening resolve with cruel words that accompanied every savage blow.
Obi-Wan felt his former padawan's growing despair spike as he finished sending out the evacuation order, and he wasn't the only one concerned, as evidenced by a frightened Ahsoka entering the room in a rush.
"Master Skywalker's in trouble! We need to help him—"
"I know, Ahsoka. Panicking won't save him, though, and you're not ready for that sort of battle."
"But—"
"NO BUTS!" Obi-Wan said, using a tone he hadn't spoken in since Anakin left his tutelage. "You'll be needed here, Ahsoka; help with the evacuation. I'll go to Anakin."
Ahsoka frowned in worry, but nodded all the same and ran off to aid the rest of the temple.
Be strong, Anakin; you are not alone. And you never will be.
As Kenobi rushed to aid his former student, the rest of the Council—along with some of the other senior Jedi at the temple—went to the holocron archives to gather what they could to ensure the preservation of the Order's most vital knowledge. It was there, deep in the oldest archives, where no Jedi had set foot in centuries, that yet another complication was discovered: an ancient device, black and red in color, with an aura of darkness surrounding it.
"What is this? It looks like a Sith artifact, but the quarantine archives are on the other side of the Temple."
"A mystery its origins are, Master Koth," Yoda said, staring in genuine worry at the artifact in question; idly, he wondered how the Jedi could have fallen so low as to fail to notice such a thing hiding under their own noses for so long. "But a mystery to me its functions are not; seen it in the older records I have."
Jedi archivist Jocasta Nu approached, her face white. "As have I. Force, but I had hoped such things were gone forever from the galaxy..."
"What exactly is it?" asked Koth.
The aged woman, Jedi though she was, still required a couple of seconds to summon her courage to speak. "Its name is lost to history, but it is essentially a device that absorbs and stores dark side energies; every time a Jedi in this temple has ever flirted with dark thoughts, however brief, it has stored the residual energies. At the same time, its presence increased the tendencies toward those dark thoughts in Jedi with less control over their emotions, an effect which would have increased exponentially the longer it had been absorbing the energies. Considering its location, it must have been here for at least 800 years, perhaps longer still... but all of that pales in comparison to its true purpose."
"When activated it is, unleashed at once the full might of the dark power within will be; enough to obliterate the entire Temple and half the Temple district, the explosion will likely be. Contain it we must."
Jocasta Nu turned toward Yoda in desperation. "How can we do that? If the device has stored that much power..."
"There is one way: the Wall of Light," Windu stated. "It has not been performed since the ancient Jedi used it to seal away the dark Jedi Exar Kun; the power of the Light has since diminished, however. We will need nearly every Master in the temple, Council and otherwise, to contain its power and prevent it from activating. As for the newer knights, the padawans, and the younglings... they must continue to evacuate without us. The future of the Order will be in their hands, sooner or later; let us pray for the second option."
Within the chancellor's office, the battle continued to rage. Anakin was under no delusions at this point; it was clear to him that he lived only because Palpatine allowed it, because the man still sought to take him for an apprentice. To Anakin's horror, the parts of him that Palpatine was speaking to—his deepest fears, his growing frustration and mounting anger—were beginning to listen, and as a result he felt his focus on the Light begin to slip further and further. Only one thought kept the darkness away, one thought alone...
"Heh. Your thoughts betray you, boy. You love your wife, don't you?"
The shock of those words startled Anakin enough that Palpatine was able to send him flying into a wall with a powerful telekinetic surge that left him pinned.
"Don't... don't you touch her..."
A cruel mockery of sympathy crossed Palpatine's face. "Oh my! Harm her? Why, Anakin, I would not dare touch the woman you love. Of course, there are ways of dealing with people that allow for a less, physical approach. For example, imagine clone troopers assaulting her luxurious apartment, slaying all within... and incapacitating her with a poison of my own creation."
The horror that ran through him chilled him to the bone. "No. The clones would never do that..."
Anakin could feel the blood draining from his face as the fake frown quickly became a truly sadistic grin. "Who do you think ordered their creation? Deep within each and every one is a trigger that will make them my slaves the moment I speak it! I did not anticipate you discovering my identity so quickly, but I could sense the Order's growing suspicion, so I sent a trigger message to some of the very clones you yourself brought with you to Coruscant. In the event of my exposure, they are to immediately attack your wife's penthouse and carry out my will upon her! Sith Alchemy is one of my many talents, my young apprentice. Once my poison courses through her veins, she will enter an endless sleep filled with nightmares beyond imagining from which she will never wake. There is no antidote, and no cure... save for one: Sith Alchemy. Only through the Dark Side can my poison be cured, and I will never do so! Submit to me, become my apprentice and learn the ways of the Dark Side, so that you might one day learn enough to save your wife!"
Each and every word was an agony for Anakin, and his resolve slowly began to slip as his anger slowly rose in spite of his failing will. "I'll... I'll never... I'll n-never join you..."
"Oh, but you will. Because every lesson you learn from me is one you might use against me later, to cure your wife, to avenge her suffering at my hand. If you refuse, she will suffer every moment of every day until her death, and there will be nothing anyone can do to stop it! There is no escape, my young apprentice—for you, or anyone!"
Anakin felt something in him begin to shatter. Padme, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... I can't let you die...
"ANAKIN!"
Suddenly, he felt his broken spirit piece itself together at the sound of a new voice; both men turned to the source to see no less than Obi-Wan Kenobi standing in the doorway.
"Don't listen to him, Anakin. Padme is safe!"
Palpatine snarled, returning his glare to Anakin. "He lies! By now your wife is—"
"I swore to protect Padme, Anakin, and I meant every word! The troops he sent are freed of their conditioning—Kevin saw to that! They're bringing Padme to the Negotiator right now!"
Anakin's relief overcame every question Kenobi's words brought up; explanations could come later. For now, all that mattered was that Padme was safe. The fear that had nearly swallowed him vanished, banished by the power of hope and love; those feelings were visibly having the opposite effect on Palpatine, who lost the ability to hold him to the wall and was forced to step back.
"If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed! No more holding back; now, you face my full wrath! KNOW THE UNLIMITED POWER OF THE DARK SIDE!"
Suddenly, the two Jedi were bombarded with wave after wave of darkness, darkness so black and devoid of light that it seemed to defile every inch of the place in the most obscene and abominable aura either of them had ever felt. The very air felt filthy and wrong, and soon the entire room had been consumed by the vile power emanating from Palpatine—now well and truly unveiled, as his new wrinkled and demonic complexion showed—until only their two small Light Side auras remained.
Surrounded by this evil power, Anakin held on to every good feeling he could—his pride in Ahsoka, his brotherly bond with Kenobi, and most of all, his undying love for Padme—and with the aid of his brother in all but blood, the true battle began.
Sorry for how short this is, but again, IRL is hounding me and IRL must always come first. Keep your hats on, there are only a few more chapters to go!