"Master Skywalker, there are too many of them! What are we going to do?"
The little boy takes a few halting steps as he says this, his cornsilk hair reflecting the halflight, the set of his shoulders the only indication of the magnitude of his fear. The Jedi children do not whimper or cry as ordinary children might, but only tilt their heads and knit their brows and wait for their instructions.
Anakin lowers himself to one knee and gently lays his mechanical hand on the boy's quivering arm. "Don't be afraid," he murmurs. He stands resolutely, turning to indicate his wife. "Go with Senator Amidala. She will take you downstairs where you will be safe until all of this is over."
Padmé smiles in what she hopes is a reassuring manner. It strikes her that, despite her own impending motherhood, she doesn't really know very much about dealing with children. The younglings regard her with skepticism, but move to follow her out of the room nonetheless. They are, she thinks, as she leads them hurriedly along the lofty columned mezzanines of the temple, the sounds of blaster fire close at hand, entirely too placid, serious, reasonable, and obedient. That familiar Jedi affect, so admirable in Anakin's master, is downright disturbing in beings so young.
Anakin pauses in the shuddering corridor, the approaching temblor of battle rocking his body, to watch the figure of his wife receding into the distance, a waist-high bevy of children gathering about her as she seems to glide, with singular purpose, away from him. Floret-like in her simple yellow tunic and bistre-brown slippers, the dark halo of her perfumed hair swaying as she walks, she resembles in this moment, more acutely than ever before, one of the fabled Diathim-Angels of Iego. Seeing her go, he feels as if he is being torn open, and his precious, soft, slippery, viscera brutally spilled.
He knows why they are here and what they must do. When they first arrived to find the oozing corpse of gatekeeper Jurokk sprawled across the temple steps under the raw, pounding, chlorinated rain, he knew at once what they were up against. But for a moment, seeing her go, he doesn't care about his duty.
Some vital filament within him shorts just then, and for a moment, he is this close to dashing after Padmé, seizing her up bodily, and fleeing from the crumbling temple with his beloved in his arms. He wants nothing more than to disappear with her into the clean, clear, quiet, halcyon void of space. He would gladly abandon the helpless younglings, the sacred Jedi Order, the hallowed old Republic, the whole doomed, corrupted, rotting, wasting, turgid, fraudulent edifice of galactic civilization itself, to whatever wretched fate, so that he might possess her-
But then his master (who is increasingly beloved to him as well) calls out to him, and the madness passes like the shadow of a storm cloud carried swiftly over land by some firm but gentle atmospheric front.
"I gathered as many as I could find," says Obi Wan breathlessly, as he rounds the corner into the hall, closely followed by a throng of senior-padawans.
Anakin nods solemnly to himself before addressing the group. "Senator Amidala has taken the younglings to the lowest level of the archives to wait out the danger. All who wish to accompany her are free to do so." He pauses, glancing around before continuing. "All who are prepared to fight, follow us."
The padawans gaze back at him, not one of them breaking rank. A scrawny, pale-green Twi'lek boy. A human girl with chocolate skin and clever, jewel-black eyes. Their faces are alight with real fear, for they understand violence in a way the younglings do not. Yet rising above this fear is a steely, shared determination. They will gladly fight to defend the only home they have ever known. After all: their heroes, Kenobi and Skywalker, have come to deliver them from evil.
Ancient stone walls vibrate with the percussive shock of a massive thermal detonation, raining grit and debris down upon their heads. The clones have finally breeched the inner gates.
"Now," says Anakin simply. He ducks through the same bowed egress by which they came in, the others following him, without further comment, into the grand, echoing foyer. He narrows his eyes as anger, that familiar pyretic ember, burns his chest. The Jedi Council have been fools. They have played directly into the hands of the Sith. And now, they are not even present to protect their innocent charges from the terrible consequences of their mistakes. The hour of their reckoning is upon them. This trial by fire, he thinks, with grim satisfaction, will decide once and for all who the true Jedi are.
There is a moment of pent silence, marred only by their careful footfalls and the rustling of their cloaks, during which the anger in Anakin's heart is joined by its trusty old companion, fear. The knowledge that they may be the only thing standing between the Jedi Order and its utter annihilation swallows him whole like one of the vicious mucksand pits of Kirdo III. But then he reaches for Obi Wan's hand, giving it an urgent squeeze, and the moment their flesh touches, sending a brilliant arc of light coruscating between them, he knows for certain they will triumph.
Anakin feels himself open up like a flower as the golden light unfurls from within him, flooding him with powers beyond anything he's ever been able to summon before. He is seized by a sudden, alien joy as, hand in hand, he and his master lead the small army of youths across the resounding marble chamber towards their destiny. Such is this burning elation, that when the first wave of clone troopers actually cross the columned threshold of the foyer to meet them, he almost feels like laughing. Instead: With a single, devastatingly graceful gesture, he draws his hot-blue saber and begins to simply cut them down.
He can feel his master beside him, similarly engaged. He is sure they have never fought so well together against a swarm of enemies. They are unstoppable. They move in perfect tandem, effortlessly deflecting laser blasts, their bodies seeming to communicate with each other on some visceral level just beyond their conscious awareness or control. He is peripherally cognizant of the padawans, holding their own against clone troopers in and around the colonnade. Once again, there is a sort of warm, pleasant effluvium over everything.
How he has needed this! When he realized what all his and Obi Wan's victories in the Clone Wars amounted to, it was utterly wrenching, almost too much for him to bear. Now he can be redeemed as a warrior, washed clean under the pelting rain of blaster fire. And moreover, he and his master can be redeemed as a team. There is no ambiguity in what they are doing now, he thinks. No strategy, no negotiation, no kriffing politics. They are simply doing their duty. They are defending innocent children from the forces that would destroy them. And they are winning handily. There could be no cleaner, sweeter victory.
The Senate is submitting to Palpatine without a fight. The Jedi council is spread out across the galaxy, in accordance with Palpatine's sinister design. Right here, right now, there is only Anakin and his master. They alone have managed to truly thwart the Sith. For years, they too were unwitting pawns of the Chancellor, but no more. Now, they will use their new powers to achieve their own purposes. And they won't have to answer to anyone but each other.
These are the giddy thoughts which race through Anakin Skywalker's head as the clones continue to come in wave after wave. The fact that these creatures were, until quite recently, his comrades in arms barely registers in his mind as he summarily destroys them.
He feels invincible. He thought he had felt that way before in battle, but not like this. Never like this. His muscles thrum with warm, golden energy. He almost feels like letting a blaster bolt or two hit him, just to see if it could even penetrate his glowing skin. He is adrift in a sea of enemies, and there is nothing but his own impossibly powerful body, and his master's similarly powerful body, always somewhere just beside him, moving with him through this beautiful, merciless dance.
At length, the last of the clone troopers falls, and the fury is over.
Anakin has no idea how much time has elapsed. He turns about, retracting his lightsaber, and clipping it to his belt. He is standing in the center of the floor, surrounded by dead clone troopers, and Obi Wan is at his side. After a beat, the padawans emerge from beyond the colonnade, slowly circling the two of them. Every one of them wears the same expression of awe and carefully controlled fear. A few are wounded, but miraculously, all have survived.
Obi Wan is still wearing only the innermost of his beige linen tunics, which does not cover his arms. His skin is glistening with sweat, and something else- That singular inner light. His left bicep, having been grazed by a blaster bolt, is sluggishly bleeding. Abruptly, almost instinctively, Anakin reaches out to cover the wound with his natural hand, willing the flesh to mend. And it does, receding and smoothing over, until the laceration is little more than a bruise. Obi Wan's clear gaze lifts, and Anakin realizes that his master is looking at him with the very same mixture of awe and fear as the padawans. He looks like he is about to pull away from the touch, but seconds pass in which he doesn't. He is either succeeding at remaining still, or somehow failing at flinching.
They have just drawn upon each other in some new, unprecedented way, causing the uncanny fissure which they have somehow created in the fabric of the Force to be prized open even further than before. There is a flash of blinding, horrible, aluminum-fire white behind their eyes, as the rushing channel of light between them screams in momentary agony, before seeming to settle, with a steady, warm pulse, into its new quantum state.
Obi Wan manages to collect himself first. "Is everyone alright?" he says, glancing around, and once again he is surprised by the almost imperceptible suggestive quality of his own voice. The padawans look to him with reverence and expectation, any wariness immediately disappearing from their faces. He wonders with alarm if his powers are somehow compelling their attention- He can't even tell.
"There will probably be more of them," says Anakin restlessly. "But maybe not for a while. We should-" He starts to turn away, and then turns abruptly back, as if he isn't sure what to do with his body now that he isn't slashing through something. "Let's go see about Padmé and the children."
Obi Wan nods, briefly closing his eyes. The adrenaline is starting to ebb away, and he is suddenly feeling exhausted.
"Downstairs, everyone," Anakin calls.
And wordlessly, (For what is to be said?) they follow.
Many stories below the surface of Coruscant, at the bottom of a flight of red granite stairs, Padmé is waiting for them, anxiously twisting the dark, satiny rope of her hair between her hands. Her glistening eyes turn upwards, and when she catches sight of them, she fairly sobs with joy. Before she can say anything, Anakin sprints deftly down and sweeps her up into his arms.
"Oh, Ani," she shakes her head against his chest. "It sounded terrible! I couldn't breath! Are you-?"
"I'm fine, my love" he says, laughingly. "Everyone is alright."
She stiffens, looking up into his lapis eyes with an inchoate little sound at the back of her throat. His voice! It is her husband's familiar voice, and yet... She peers over his shoulder to see Obi Wan standing a few feet away, and inclining his head to her in respect.
"We appear to be safe, M'lady, if only for the moment," he says, furrowing his brow.
There is something inexplicably different, she thinks, about both of them. Some ineffable quality they didn't possess just hours ago. They seem, not threatening exactly- she doesn't think for a moment they intend to hurt her- but arresting certainly, magnetic even. She has been sort of fascinated by the Jedi for as long as she can remember, but she has never before felt so plain and mortal in their presence. She takes a wandering step back from Anakin, gathering herself up.
"The younglings," she says, averting her eyes. "They're getting tired."
"Of course," Anakin smiles. "It must be their bedtime by now."
With the help of several senior-padawans, it takes them less than half a standard hour to scour the temple for pillows and blankets and food and supplies, and barricade themselves in the basement of the archives as, far above them, the blue-white Coruscant sun is setting in a garnet-pink sky.
They shower in shifts, and then, in shifts, they sleep.