Palpatine did not deny it.

"Listen to me," he implored. "Don't continue to be a pawn of the Jedi Council!"

The lightsaber at his throat did not move.

"Ever since I've known you, you've been searching for a life greater than that of an ordinary Jedi," he continued. There was no fear in his tone. "A life of significance, of conscience." He turned his back to Anakin. "Are you going to kill me?"

"I would certainly like to," Anakin spat through gritted teeth. He saw now how easily he had been played, every word he had said playing right into the Sith's hands, and he hated Palpatine for it with a pure, vengeful hatred. But to kill him now would be murder…

"I know you would," murmured Palpatine, his words cutting through the air like a knife. "I can feel your anger—it gives you focus—makes you stronger—"

Don't tempt me, Anakin thought furiously. "I'm going to turn you in to the Jedi Council," he said. "They will decide what to do with you."

The fact that he was speaking in this way to a Lord of the Sith hit him for the first time. Was this a trap? Did Palpatine mean to attack him as soon as his back was turned? The Sith's next words only confused him further.

"Of course, you should," he said approvingly. And then: "But you're not sure of their intentions, are you?"

"I will learn the truth," Anakin said, deactivating the lightsaber. "You cannot blind me with your lies any longer."

Palpatine nodded. "You have great wisdom, Anakin," he said, that faint, knowing smile still at the corners of his mouth. "If you had known the power of the Dark Side, those that you loved would certainly live still."

Roughly, Anakin brushed past him and went for the door, waiting tensely for Palpatine to strike with every step. Now that the Sith's wall was down, Anakin could sense the Dark Side surrounding him, but no animosity came from it. He reached the door, and then Palpatine spoke again, casually.

"And what of the vow you made to your mother? How can you help but fail in all that you do if you do not use half your power?"

Anakin froze. "How do you know about that?" he asked tersely. Palpatine chuckled.

"I was there on Tatooine when you disobeyed orders and ran to her. In fact, I watched as she died."

"No."

"You would not have seen me, of course," he said. "I was quite certain of that. I could have reached out and touched her—and I could have saved her." He really laughed this time, a hard, cold sound. "But then, why would I have done that, when it was I who put her there in the first place?"

There was suddenly a loud pounding in Anakin's ears. His breath grew fast and shallow. "Don't say anything more," he warned Palpatine, in a voice that trembled with rage. "Don't say a word—" It was a lie, he told himself, just another lie. He has no power over me now.

"It was on my orders that Count Dooku influenced the Sand People to kidnap your mother. I knew that all you needed was a prod in the right direction, and your thoughts would take you to the Darker side of the Force." The satisfaction in his voice was obvious. "And I was right, wasn't I?"

Don't do it, don't turn around, don't, don't—

With a cry of wrath, Anakin whirled, his lightsaber raised to kill. Such was the force of his blow that it would have cut Palpatine in half; instead, all it did was sizzle against the red blade that blocked it. In that instant he saw the triumph in Palpatine's eyes, and Anakin only hated him the more for it.

"Go on, Anakin," hissed the Sith. "Kill me—if you can."

His only answer was to lash out at Palpatine's head, but his blade was halted in midair. In that same instant the Sith waved a hand, and something heavy slammed into the back of Anakin's head. He stumbled backward, dazed, and just barely managed to block Palpatine's lightsaber before it came crashing down on him. The awful absurdity of his situation hit him then: what chance could a Padawan possibly stand against a Sith Master? Palpatine had laid the trap, and Anakin had walked willingly into it. He could have told someone, but now there was no one to warn the Republic of the danger it had brought upon itself.

Palpatine's next blow came with fantastic force, so that it almost knocked Anakin off his feet. "Your anger burns you from the inside," he goaded him. "I can feel it, waiting to be loosed. You cannot defeat me without it, Anakin."

Panting for breath, Anakin ignored the taunts as best he could. Every part of him now was concentrated solely on survival, but his fighting had gained a sort of hopeless desperation, and all Anakin could do was keep telling himself, Thirty seconds and someone will come through that door. Twenty seconds—ten— And when no one came, he would start over.

"Give in," Palpatine whispered, and somehow his voice could be heard even over the hum of the clashing lightsabers. "Think of them, Anakin, think of Obi-Wan, think of your mother. For once, you can take what you really want, without the Jedi Council's permission."

Anakin's limbs were weakening fast against the massive strength that Palpatine bore down upon him with; it was like being hit with a hammer, or slamming into a giant wall of rock.

"What I really want," he replied through gritted teeth, "is to see you dead!"

He swung his lightsaber again to strike, but Palpatine twisted his red blade, and Anakin's weapon flew wildly out of his hand, jabbing a ragged hole in the wall before hitting the floor several feet away. Anakin made a move toward it, but Palpatine was quicker. Lightning shot from his outstretched fingers, and before Anakin had time to move a muscle he was thrown back against the wall, crying out as horrible, searing agony split across every inch of his body. Screams for mercy tore from his lips, but the lightning came unchecked as Palpatine jabbed his fingers savagely in Anakin's direction, until he had almost passed out from the pain.

In the moment afterwards, there was utter silence. The air was completely gone from Anakin's lungs—it was all he could do to keep breathing as he watched Palpatine from across the room, entirely helpless. Slowly, Anakin tried to push himself to his feet, using the wall as a crutch, his limbs shaking uncontrollably; Palpatine did nothing. At last, he managed to stand. Palpatine strode toward him and held the glowing lightsaber blade under his chin, but it was a pointless gesture: Anakin could not have moved of his own volition if he had been forced to. It was all he could do to remain upright.

"It is not over yet," Palpatine said softly. "The Dark Side is a powerful master, Anakin—serve it well, and it will reward you."

"I'm not a murderer," Anakin spat with the last vestiges of breath in him.

"It appears I underestimated you, then," Palpatine said, almost mournfully. "It is a shame—it seems a waste to destroy such promise."

Now, when the veil was lifted, Anakin wondered how they ever could have failed to see what was right in front of them. The pure, black evil glowing from Palpatine's eyes burned so strongly that it seemed impossible that Anakin could have looked into those eyes hundreds of times before and never once seen it.

The Jedi will know, he thought, hope bursting suddenly inside of him. They'll see me—they'll recognize a lightsaber wound—

But Anakin had forgotten that Palpatine was no stranger to picking up others' thoughts. The Sith chuckled.

"In that you are correct," he said. "But there will be no more Jedi when you are discovered. Look at this." With his free hand Palpatine took something from his robes, something very small and metallic. "This is a transmitter, set to an encompassing frequency. When I press this button, a message will be sent to every last clone in the army, and they will obey the Order I prepared for them as soon as they were created." The Dark Side around Palpatine was swirling and pulsing fervently, as though it were laughing in triumph along with its vessel. "Before the night is gone, every last Jedi in the galaxy will be dead, by the hands of their own soldiers."

Anakin had gone numb; he could not even feel his heart beating. His dearest friends, his closest companions, his teachers, his guides, hundreds of students who were only children—Palpatine would murder them all.

"This is the dawning of a new era," the Sith cried. "Today will be known as the day that the Jedi fell." His gaze met Anakin's critically. "And you, the Chosen One, who was said to bring balance to the Force—you have failed them dismally."

He pressed the button.

"No," Anakin breathed helplessly, but it had already been done. He stared at the transmitter, frozen with shock, willing time to reverse itself or for this all to be a bad dream. But the horror gave him strength—sudden adrenaline surged through his veins, and Anakin swiftly called his lightsaber to his hand, only for his weak stroke to be blocked yet again as Palpatine caught the blade above his own.

"The Jedi are no more," said Palpatine cruelly. "You are beaten. You have lost."

But Anakin shook his head stubbornly. "Not yet," he managed.

He did not bother to try another futile battle, knowing that he could only fail. But in what he did, he moved quickly, knowing that Palpatine would catch him at it in only a moment. Anakin shoved as hard as he could on the hilt of his weapon, forcing it past Palpatine's blade—and just before the Sith understood what was happening, the lightsaber had already penetrated his chest.

Palpatine swayed on the spot, a look of shock in his darkened eyes. Anakin waited tensely, almost expecting him to recover—but then, in what seemed to be a miracle, his eyes went blank and he slowly crumpled to the floor.

Anakin wanted nothing more than to sink to his knees and fall into dreamless, peaceful sleep, but the knowledge of what he had to prevent kept him on his feet, despite the shock that threatened to overwhelm him. He fumbled with shaking fingers for his commlink and set it to Windu's frequency.

"Hello?"

"Master," Anakin gulped frantically. "The clones, they're on Palpatine's side, you have to be careful—"

Windu's voice was, understandably, puzzled. "Anakin, what are you talking about?"

"It's Palpatine!" Anakin cried. Hysterical tears were running down his face. "He's the Sith Lord, he's the one that trained Count Dooku, and he ordered the clones to kill every Jedi they could find, just now! They're sure to attack the Temple, so you've got to be ready, you've got to tell them—"

"Anakin, are you all right? Anakin!"

But Windu was too late. Anakin Skywalker, tired beyond comprehension and still fighting off the effects of the Force-lightning, had collapsed onto the ground. The commlink fell from his limp fingers and rolled to a stop next to the corpse beside him.

In unconsciousness, time either seems to pass very swiftly, or it does not seem to pass at all. The latter was Anakin's experience; were it not for the interminably bright morning sunlight streaming through the window, he would have sworn that he had been out for seconds. What woke him, however, was not the sunlight, but rather a loud, piercing scream that seemed to physically jolt every bone in his body. Anakin jerked; the noise ended as the screamer ran out of breath, then immediately began again.

Somehow, he mustered the strength to sit up, and then instantly regretted the move. His arms and legs were miserably sore, and he had a pounding headache; Anakin reached up to touch the back of his head, and his hand came away sticky with blood. It was then that he looked up for the first time, to see the Bothan who had first accompanied him through these halls—and whose name he had never learned—shrieking at the top of her lungs, obviously in the throes of hysterics.

First things first: Anakin pulled himself up to a standing position, waited a moment for his legs to start working again, then walked slowly over to where the Bothan stood. Her eyes on the Palpatine, her screams never ceasing, she hardly noticed Anakin until he hit her smartly across the face. She gulped and choked for a moment, then seemed to get a shaky hold of herself.

"Wh-what happened to the Chancellor?" she asked, looking from Anakin to Palpatine and back again.

"He's been killed," Anakin answered unnecessarily, hoping she wouldn't make the connection between him and the lightsaber sticking out of Palpatine's chest. "Contact the Jedi Council; tell them to come as quickly as they can."

Fearfully the Bothan nodded and left the room, looking back over her shoulder as she did so. As soon as she was gone, Anakin took his lightsaber from the ground and clipped it back on his belt, and then sagged against the wall, trying to take stock of all that had happened and understand what it meant.

Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was a Sith, a traitor to the Republic. The Jedi would believe him certainly, but the Senate might not be so easy to persuade. Anakin was shrewd enough to realize that he stood on dangerous ground; he could just as easily be accused of Palpatine's murder as hailed for the Republic's salvation, and only the testimony of the Council could save him. For, if they confirmed the fact that the clones had actually attacked them while under Palpatine's orders, there was nothing the Senate could deny.

Force, the clones! Anakin's eyes, lazily drifting shut, now snapped open. He had forgotten all about Palpatine's last threats in the dull, bleak aftermath of battle, but now they came rushing back to him. He had warned them as fast as he could possibly have done so, but what if he had been too late?

The Bothan came rushing back into the room. "Sir, I tried to contact the Council, but the only people there were a bunch of children," she said. Anakin's mouth suddenly went very dry. The Council room was where younglings went in case of an emergency—not many could fit inside, but the chamber had the benefit of a lock which only a Council member could undo after its activation. If younglings had been sent into the Council chamber, then the attack must have taken place after all…

"Did they say anything?" he demanded. The Bothan shook her head.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said helplessly. "They were too frightened to make any sense."

Anakin buried his head in his hands, sinking down against the wall until he was on his knees. If only he had called sooner, if only he hadn't fainted like a girl, he could have averted this disaster. But the thought reminded him of another hope; looking around for his commlink, Anakin found it in a fold of Palpatine's robe. He took it gingerly and tried Windu's frequency.

Nothing happened.

In terrified frustration, Anakin was about to throw the commlink against the opposite wall as hard as he could when he heard the sound of several footsteps coming his way. He looked up, to see the entire Jedi Council standing before him, Master Yoda at their head.

His heart leapt, and he tried to stand. It was much harder than he'd thought it would be, but Windu strode swiftly toward him and gripped his arm, giving Anakin something to hold on to.

"You're hurt," Windu said concernedly, helping Anakin toward a chair.

"Not really," Anakin said as he sat. "It's just a scrape, I'll be fine…" It was then that he noticed that the wrist of his left hand had begun to swell, and was in the process of turning nasty shades of purple and green. Anakin could only surmise that he must have twisted it wrongly during the battle. "Oh…yeah, I guess so." It hadn't hurt before, but now that he noticed it, the injury had begun to throb painfully, tender to the touch.

"We'll find a med droid to bind it," Windu promised him, kneeling by his Padawan's side. "Anakin, what happened?"

Everyone in the room was waiting for his response, even the forgotten Bothan assistant. Knowing it was important, Anakin forced himself to remember everything about last night.

"Palpatine started talking to me after you called—he knew what you'd asked me to do, and he used it to make me feel guilty. He started telling me things. About the Dark Side, about what it could do. He said that only using the Light Side of the Force was…narrow, and dogmatic, and that he could teach me more about the Force, things that you wouldn't tell me." Anakin took a gulp of air, uncomfortably conscious of everyone's eyes upon him. "That was when I figured out who he was. I told him I was going to turn him in, but then he told me…" Anakin's voice trailed off ashamedly. He could have told Windu, had they been alone, but this was like admitting his faults to the world. When he continued, it was in a very small voice. "He told me that—he'd been responsible for my mother's death—and I was so angry at him I couldn't help myself."

Anakin looked into Windu's eyes for the first time, pleading for understanding. "I didn't mean to fight him, I swear I didn't, but I just couldn't bear it. He said he watched her die."

Windu's hand moved to Anakin's shoulder, a slight but comforting gesture. "It's all right," he said softly. "Keep going."

Anakin shrugged. There wasn't much more to tell. "We started fighting. I thought I was going to die, but then he told me what he planned to do—about the clones, I mean. He had a transmitter that would tell all the clones to attack whenever he activated it—and he did, right in front of me." He looked downward. "And that was when I killed him."

Windu started visibly; it was the only time Anakin had ever seen him outwardly perturbed. Master Eeth Koth stepped forward and put two fingers to Palpatine's cold neck, then looked up at Anakin, surprise shown in his eyes. "Well done," he commended Anakin quietly.

Uncomfortable, Anakin ducked his head. "I tried to warn you, but I guess I fainted," he mumbled, then caught his breath sharply as he remembered. "You're—you're all right, aren't you? Everyone's all right? Was anyone killed?"

"We sent out an emergency message to all Jedi units as soon as we got your message," Windu assured him. "We didn't have much time, though, because they attacked the Temple almost as soon as we'd finished sending it."

"But everyone's all right?" Anakin repeated anxiously. Apparently deciding there was no point in holding back anything, Windu shook his head.

"Not everyone," he said unhappily. "Some of the younglings—the ones who couldn't make it to the Council room in time—they held their own, but at least three are dead. We haven't done a full count yet. A few Knights, too, but no one's sure who they are. We came as soon as the fighting was over, and we sent another message, telling the Jedi who were in other systems to report back as soon as possible so we could know they were safe."

Windu's eyes fell again to Anakin's bruising wrist. He looked over at the Bothan in the corner.

"Is there a med droid available?" he asked. The Bothan nodded and, anticipating his next order, went to fetch it. Windu pushed himself to his feet, standing beside Anakin's chair.

"Before the Order of the Sith was nearly destroyed," he said, in a voice that the twelve other people in the room could hear quite clearly, "the only qualification for becoming a Knight, as you know, was to kill a Sith. Times have changed; that is no longer our way. But Anakin has accomplished something that very few Masters can claim; therefore, I make a motion to the Council that he be allowed to skip the Trials and become a Knight of the Jedi Order."

Leaning steadily on his cane, Master Yoda nodded. "Doubted you before, the Council has, young Skywalker," he said, not one to mince words. "But proved us wrong, you have. Agree with this motion, I do."

"Aye," said Adi Gallia, speaking for the first time, and the word swept across the room. Ultimately, the decision was unanimous; Anakin was to be the one of the first Jedi in a thousand years to become a Knight without taking the Trials.

No sooner had the vote been finished than the Bothan reentered the room, closely followed by a medical droid. With a soft whirring noise, it made its way over to Anakin and waited expectantly. Tentatively, Anakin held out his arm, and the med droid pulled a bandage and some bacta seemingly out of nowhere and began treating the injury. Anakin hissed in pain as his wrist was splinted; on the other side of the room, he could hear his Master talking quietly to the other Council members.

"You had better go back," Windu said in a low voice. "I'll take him with me later."

The Council left, sans one of its members, and Windu walked over to where Anakin sat, wincing with pain. At last, the med droid ceased its ministrations and exited the room, to Anakin's great relief.

"What do we do with that?" he asked awkwardly, nodding in the direction of Palpatine's body. Windu looked thoughtful for a moment, then spoke to the Bothan.

"Make arrangements for the funeral," he ordered. "Make it elaborate, make it grand, and expensive. Can you do that?"

She nodded, frightened, and scurried out of the room once again. Anakin pitied her; she had had a very trying morning. Windu turned to him.

"Ready to go?" he asked. Anakin nodded and stood, walking beside his Master as they went toward the hangar.

"Elaborate?" he repeated confusedly. "Master, he was a Sith—he deserves to be tossed into a hole!"

"No man is one thing only," Windu said as they walked into the open air. "He was a Sith, but he was also Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, for good or for bad, and as such he deserves respect." He climbed into a nearby speeder, and Anakin sat down beside him. Over the noise of the engine as the speeder took off, Windu had to raise his voice. "Besides, it will save a lot of trouble in the long run. I'm not excited about the investigation that I know the Senate will initiate: it'll be bad enough explaining to them why you killed the Supreme Chancellor. I wouldn't want to be the one that told them I threw him in a hole as well."

Anakin gave a little laugh, then fell silent. Windu looked at him again.

"Something's troubling you," he said. "What is it?'

Anakin had no desire to speak, but he couldn't hide his worries now. He stared down at the plush red seat, determined not to look at his Master. "He—Palpatine—he told me things that the Dark Side could do. Things that couldn't be done with the Light Side of the Force. And I—I believed him."

There was a pause.

"Things?" Windu questioned. Anakin swallowed. Now that he said them aloud, they sounded so silly, so ridiculously impossible, but when Palpatine had said them, they had all been true.

"He told me that…somehow, I could bring Obi-Wan and my mom back to life," he said quietly.

"Anakin," Windu began, "Nothing in the Force has the power to—"

"I know, I know!" Anakin moaned, his head falling into his hands. "But you don't know what it was like, listening to him—I knew he could do it. He made me believe it." He looked up at his Master, wretchedly scathing. "He told me what I wanted to hear, and I ate it up and begged for more. I know you think I should be Knighted because I killed him, but it wasn't like that! It wasn't because I was stronger than him or—or anything like that! I was just mad that I'd believed his lies so easily." The question that had been haunting Anakin's mind ever since he had woken up was finally voiced. "How can I be a Jedi Knight if I can only defeat my enemies when I'm angry?"

Windu waited a long time before answering, his eyes on the sky in front of him. Anakin was grateful for the silence; it gave him time to breathe. At last, Windu spoke.

"First of all," he said finally, "It is true that the Dark Side is able to accomplish things that the Light side of the Force cannot do. But it is in no way more powerful; it is faster, easier, but relying on an emotion for strength is very dangerous indeed. And in the end, you will end up losing your soul to it." He paused again.

"Secondly, Anakin—there is more than one sort of anger. You have fought with both, I believe, and don't try to deny it. I have seen you give in to selfish rage in the past, and use that as your weapon. But there is such a thing as righteous anger, and it is that, I believe, which you used against Palpatine last night. That too," he admitted, "holds its perils, but it is far less dangerous than the anger of the Dark Side, because it is selfless. You fought because you disliked being misled, because you had a desire to know the truth and were thwarted, and because he gave you hope in things you wanted desperately but could not have."

To Anakin's utmost relief, it made sense. He felt the painful nervousness in his stomach dissolving, and he leaned back against the seat.

"I would warn you, however," Windu continued, "not to become too heavily reliant on that sort of anger, either. Both are addictive, to some extent."

Anakin nodded, but he knew that his was a personality easily roused to wrath. "I'll try," he offered. Windu nodded.

"I suppose that's all I can ask of you," he said—but he sounded pleased. There was one thing more, however, that nagged at Anakin's thoughts.

"Do you think—" he began hesitantly. "Do you think that he really was there, on Tatooine, the night my mother died?" He gulped. "Do you think…he really did kill her?"

But Windu only shook his head. "You cannot ask me that, Anakin," he said. "I have no way of knowing, any more than you do. It's possible—that's all I can say. There are some times when we have no way of knowing the truth."

Anakin nodded resignedly, and was thoughtfully silent for the remainder of the short trip.