Chapter 105: Opposition

The Republic, bolstered by the tremendous victory at the Battle of Coruscant, had believed that the Separatists were over and done, had rejected talks of peace in favor of victory, had thrown out negotiations in exchange for an unconditional surrender. They had dispatched their best fleets, their strongest Jedi, the most elite of their clone forces to begin sweeping the galaxy in search of General Grievous and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the might of the Grand Army of the Republic led by General Anakin Skywalker crushing every once of opposition they had faced as they stormed Separatist worlds and brought them bact to the Republic, and reasonable leadership was installed to govern the newly conquered planets. True, they stayed away from major Separatist strongholds, the shocking defeat on Felucia still fresh in their minds, but with each conquest, the galaxy came closer and closer to order. Kenobi's claims of a massive fleet seemed to be a bluff after all, the tattered fleet merely having been patched with a handful of new ships and by Star Destroyers stolen from the Republic forces they miraculously managed to defeat.

And then the Mandalorians came.

From Ryloth to Felucia, they swept out of what was formerly Hutt Space like a violent swarm, millions and millions of ruthless Mandalorians pouring from their Empire to rush to the aid of the large swaths of Confederate Space that bordered their territory. Despite their might, the Republic was spread thin, and against the sudden, ferocious attacks of the Mandalorians, the Grand Army was forced to retreat, lest they face complete destruction, allowing the Death Watch to reclaim the territory that Skywalker had spent the last month and a half securing. Mand'alor Bo-Katan was proving to be a very different leader than her sister had been, a woman who offered ultimatums instead of compromise, a warrior, not a diplomat, that shot first and would later investigate the bodies to find any answers she may have needed. The sudden onslaught against the Republic, spread thin in their confidence in their victory, exchanging strength in number for covering a wider area that appeared to offer little in the way of resistance, was brutal, without remorse and compromise.

The Death Watch was formidable, and the clone soldiers of the Republic found themselves faced with a fighting force that was intimately familiar with their combat, their tactics, and it was used against them with devastating effect. What was worse was the proud Mandalorian history of being the finest Jedi killers the galaxy had ever seen, and these soldiers had been trained to do exactly that. The Mandalorian's first sweep ended in the deaths of nearly fifty Jedi, and for an Order that already saw their numbers lower than they had been in a thousand years, it was a devastating loss. It was only after the retreat back to the safety of Republic Space that Bo-Katan Kryze laid down her ultimatum: in the name of her sister, the Mandalorians would defend those that sought peace, and if the Republic wished to act like thugs and respond to talks of peace with acts of war, Mandalore would treat them the same way as the criminal cartels that they had extinguished.

With the threat of a new war on their hands, one they could not win, the Republic army stood stationary at the edge of Republic Space as they awaited their orders from a Senate that couldn't agree on what to do next. After having fielded an absolutely furious call from an Anakin Skywalker that was nearly frothing at the mouth in his rage, Chancellor Palpatine sat in the elongated conference room, his hands steepled together, as he listened to the fool leaders of the Senate debate and argue. When he was Emperor, things like this would not be a problem. As it stood, this could be easily worked to his advantage. More war, more chaos, more indecision did nothing but further his plans, but the swift, devastating brutality of the Mandalorians was far greater than he expected. Darth Lumis, as always, had outdone himself. His press for peace, while superficially appearing to actively sabotage the Sith imperative, had come at exactly the right moment, for in the Separatists' weakness, the Senators saw an opportunity for peace to be won, not through compromise, but through victory, and winning the war was far more appealing to the petty, greedy senators than simply seeing it end.

Of course, not all saw it this way. He watched as Senator Amidala stood before those gathered, fervently arguing her case for peace with a particularly stubborn Dug from Malastare. She had been at it all day, and had won a small coalition to her side of those that wished to reach out to Obi-Wan and see if peace was still possible, despite the current hostilities, and the threat of a Mandalorian war was making many open to the idea, though it wasn't enough. Not yet. Amidala's confidence in Kenobi's willingness to speak after the Senate had so quickly rejected his offer said she knew more than was letting on, and Palpatine's eyes roved over the girl, tuning out what was being said in favor of intense focus on this troublesome upstart. She had her uses, of course, and she was an integral part of his plan, not just to weaken the Senate in preparation for his rise to power, but in the continuing corruption of Anakin Skywalker.

Thanks to Lumis' continuing influence, the girl had quickly become more useful to him alive than dead, and it seemed that her mere presence could sent Skywalker into a fit of Dark Side fueled rage and possession. He'd have to keep her around. One vergence was difficult enough to control, but two could spell doom for Sidious if he did not secure the leashes tightly around the necks of the Force nexus' that were Skywalker and Lumis. They very well may come to destroy each other, but keeping Padmé Amidala in his grasp would stay Skywalker's hand for fear of losing her, just as the madness of Darth Lumis kept the young Sith Lord from the focus he needed to wield the blade of the Dark Side with the touch of a Master, as he had been so close to doing before. It was a delicate balance, but it was one that he had walked before, and would continue to walk.

He had briefly considered forcing one to slay the other, keeping the victor to serve as his apprentice in the Empire, but he quickly discounted that when he discovered that he could bind both vergences to him, one controlled by his fear, and the other by his madness. He would have them both, two vergences in the Force, converted to dark purpose and slaved to the will of the Sith. There would be nothing that could stand in his way, not even the Force itself, deprived of its precious balance when Anakin Skywalker fell to the Dark Side. The Force, like everything else, would bow to Darth Sidious, and if it didn't, if it somehow came to resist, it would be made to by the mighty vortex that Skywalker and Lumis would create, their very presences funneling the Force exactly where Sidious would direct it, a black hole too powerful for even the Force to escape.

Of course, there was the possibility that one would kill the other, which was fine as well. The result was the same, balance disrupted by the fall of the other's counter, but the power which Sidious expected to draw from two would be reduced. It was not ideal, and he hoped to avoid the outcome, but if Skywalker's lust for revenge was too great, it would become necessary. Lumis had come close to killing Skywalker during the battle of Coruscant, and would have had Sidious not been present. Skywalker was young, unaccustomed to the Dark Side, but he drew upon it anyway. The vast increase in his power unbalanced him, and it would have spelled his death were the Dark Side to drift to the stronger, balanced pull of Darth Lumis, as it so often did. The Dark Side was drawn to Lumis, would flee to him to aid the prodigious youth whenever he called, but with Sidious present, the Master sitting in quiet control of the darker pulls of the Force, he prevented this, kept the Dark Side from slipping out of Skywalker's unbalanced, powerful grasp, allowing it to soak deep within him and sink its claws into the vulnerable Jedi. It evened the playing field enough to keep both men alive long enough to get out, and with that, Skywalker's fall was certain. Lumis didn't notice, of course. He had been consumed with insanity at the time, and the fury of his wrath kept his focus on the man he wanted dead, not on the silently shifting undercurrents of the Force. It was, in a word, perfect.

Palpatine's eyes narrowed when he looked at Amidala. Something was...different. He looked at her closely again, and leaned back in his chair, a thin, amused smirk on his lips when he noticed the slight distention of her stomach through the tight, form fitting gown she wore. It was barely perceptible, hardly noticeable, but this, coupled with the recent bouts of illness that had been striking her the previous months could only mean one thing. She was pregnant. Talking with Lumis, it seemed, could not be delayed any longer. It would be difficult, but they would have to meet, and soon. It seemed the war was swiftly going to be drawing to an end, and with the Jedi desire for peace conflicting with the Republic's cries for war, it seemed like it would be sooner rather than later. They had much to plan, much to discuss.

Palpatine drew the meeting to a close. They were talking in circles anyway and nothing was getting done, which was just as well. The longer the Senate took to decide what to do about the Mandalorians, the more angry Anakin Skywalker became, and the strain on the boy would push him closer and closer to doing something reckless, something dangerous, something to pit him against the Jedi, not just in a familial fight, but in a permanent break. When he made him a Sith Lord, it would help control the terrifying power of Darth Lumis as well. Skywalker seemed to have the ability to draw Lumis into fits of insanity, and it was this mental instability that was keeping his powerful apprentice tame. He knew he was mad, and had been clinging to the Master for stability, and while such dependence was not befitting a Sith Master, it was expected of an apprentice. The last thing he needed was a clear and focused Darth Lumis, backed by an army of millions of Mandalorians, to rise up against him. Sidious believed he could still best the unstable boy, but only just, but the battle between them would tear the galaxy to pieces, along with the carefully crafted Sith imperative. The tatters of a galaxy couldn't be repaired into the strength of the Empire he wanted. No, they needed to be united, and Skywalker's presence gave him the means of keeping Lumis in check.

When he returned to his apartment at the very top of 500 Republica, he dismissed his guards, walked into the room, and found it cold, his breath coming in visible puffs before him, and he slowly walked through the room, his vision in the darkness perfect, the Dark Side slaved to his command. He stopped when he looked at the large, circular living space to see a man sitting in his chair, hands folded politely in his lap, a broad smile on his handsome face and golden eyes peering at him from the depths of the shadows.

"Hello, Master," Lumis drawled, suddenly hissing at the sharp pain in his mind as Sidious sharply rebuked him, and he laughed almost maniacally at the thrill of power fueled by the pain.

"What are you doing here?" Sidious growled, his eyes darting up into the corner where he knew the security devices were installed, and his grip on the apprentice relaxed when he saw that they had already been deactivated. Lumis had always been cautious.

"I happened to be in the neighborhood, Master," Lumis continued, standing from the chair and offering it to the Master. Sidious did not move, but his eyes lit with understanding of the implication.

"Amidala." The sly, upturned smirk on his apprentice's face said everything he needed to know. "She's pregnant. Were you aware? I ask because I didn't know until today."

"I knew..." Lumis continued slowly, shuffling toward the Master and kneeling before him, his shaky hands gripping the hem of his Senatorial robes, and Sidious put a hand on his apprentice's forehead, touched his mind with the Force, and hissed when he felt the Dark Side raging, the beast within him pacing and roaring and snarling with hunger, contained, but only just barely. It was perfect, exactly how he wanted him, exactly how he needed him were he to introduce Skywalker as a replacement for the other apprentice that Lumis had killed. He pushed in to rake through the boy's mind and was met with pain, searing and immediate, the flames so bright they burned and obscured nearly everything within him. It wasn't ideal, but he could still work with this. He didn't expect Lumis' insanity to be so deep, so complete, but at least for now, he maintained a tenuous grasp on reality.

"Were you thinking of telling me about this?" he growled, his hand gripping the thick blond hair, his anger expressed through the Force, not because he was actually angry, but to test the reaction of the apprentice to the Master. Lumis did not disappoint. He whimpered, his shoulders shaking slightly and his head bowing as far as he could, supplicant and needy for the Master, for direction.

"Master, I..." he whimpered, swallowing hard to wet his dry throat. "I only just found out myself, managing the war is...far more difficult than I anticipated. Dooku was my superior in matters of ruling."

"Yes, he was..." Sidious drawled, pulling the apprentice close to him and smirking as he felt the man almost keen from the contact. "Which is why he needed to die anyway. He would come to challenge me, but you, Lumis, will serve me in the shadows while I rule."

"Yes, Master."

Sidious released his apprentice and moved to the chair that Lumis had vacated and sat, breathing deeply as he looked out one of the long widows that overlooked the sprawling city of Coruscant, and a moment later, Lumis knelt beside him, and the Master could feel the student pulling at him through the Force, dark, greedy hands seeking stability. His hand in Lumis' hair once again, he pressed in hard with the Dark Side, the pacing beast within the young Sith crying out in outrage, in pain, in wicked, glorious hatred for the Sith Master, the apprentice convulsing and groaning at his side while Sidious assumed control of his madness. A moment later, and the feral beast had whimpered, laid down in its submission, and Sidious felt the young man moan in relief as the Master calmed the fury within him.

"Tell me about my new apprentice," Sidious said, and Lumis looked up at him with tired, questioning eyes. "Amidala's child."

"A dead end, Master," Lumis said softly, leaning back against his Master's leg and sighing in satisfaction. "Skywalker got there first. The child is his."

The Master's interest was piqued. "Skywalker is a Force nexus," he slowly explained, delighting when the Dark Side within his apprentice snarled in jealousy. "His child could come to be as powerful as yours was." Smouldering embers under the scorched, burned earth of Lumis' mind suddenly caught fire, small flames fanned by grief, and a short, manic laugh was quickly cut by a pitiful whimper as he grabbed the hand that wasn't twisted in his hair. A small smirk came to Sidious' lips as he looked down at the insane man. This was a grief that would never cease, and through it, Sidious could control his apprentice.

"When I said it was a dead end, Master," Lumis gasped, drawing strength from Sidious to contain the flames, "I meant it, and not because the child isn't mine. The child doesn't have the Force." Kenobi gasped when the hand tightened in his hair, the Dark Side suddenly seem to crack with lightning in a sudden, vicious storm. Sidious was displeased.

"Are you certain?" he growled dangerously, but didn't allow his apprentice to respond, violently pushing the man to the ground in disgust, his arms and legs crossing in his chair as he glowered out the window. He knew Lumis was right. Had she been with a powerful child, he would have sensed its conception, would have detected the unique presence of a Force sensitive within her, but he had to look with his eyes to even see that she was with child, and if he could see it, than he would have known if a powerful being grew within her. There was nothing. The child was normal, and it disgusted him, certainly diminished the value of Skywalker as a progenitor of the Sith. He would have to be certain that Lumis stayed around. The man had proven that he was able to produce powerful children, and he was an eternally lustful youth. He could burden hundreds of women with his prodigious children, which would be needed in the Empire.

"Padmé and her child, Force sensitive or not, still have use to us," Sidious hissed. "If need be, both can be used to manipulate him into action or inaction, and the trouble this will cause him within the Jedi makes this useless child worthwhile."

"...I understand, Master."

"We need to coordinate our efforts, my friend," Sidious said softly, watching as the apprentice slowly lifted himself to his feet. "We are not yet ready for the Empire."

"Why, Master?" Lumis snarled, his eyes narrowed in impatience. "Dooku is dead. The Confederacy may yet limp along for a time, but for what end? The Separatists are defeated, let's end this."

"Patience, Lumis," Sidious said softly. "We are not yet ready to execute the Jedi. We will be soon. Very soon. Do not forget the purpose of our revenge."

"...the Jedi," Lumis sighed. "The extermination of the Jedi, Master."

Sidious nodded. "With the end of the Jedi Order, the Empire will rise, and to truly kill the Jedi, we must destroy the very memory of them. Executing them will be easy enough, but if we tarnish their memory, nobody will look back fondly on the time of the Jedi."

"I understand, Master."

"Very good." Sidious leaned back in his chair and relaxed. "The groundwork has been laid. Soon enough, the Jedi will come to betray the Republic. Let Skywalker lead the charge. Let him lead the Jedi to their own destruction out of his hate for you. I would have the Jedi be the architects of their own demise, and Anakin Skywalker is perfect for this task."

Lumis slowly nodded, slowly knelt before the Master. "And after, Master?"

"When his use to us has expired, you will end him." Sidious grinned when Lumis whimpered, almost sobbed in his relief.

"Thank you, Master..."

"Will your Mandalorians follow you?"

"Where ever I ask, Master. Into the heart of a sun, if I asked." The Master nodded, his eyes to the ceiling as he considered his options.

"I will continue to make the Republic stand in the way of your peace. Build your forces and continue to fight. Allow your Mandalorians to continue to play peacekeeper to the insignificant. When the time is right, we shall form an alliance with the Mandalorians and have them join us in crushing the remainder of the Separatist dissenters. Is Bo-Katan reasonable?"

"With the right touch, yes." Sidious nodded his approval. "To do all I must, Master, I will need to stay in the Outer Rim so I can keep the war going."

"I agree. Now that you are the leader of the Separatists, meeting will be far more difficult. I will contact you if our direction changes, but otherwise, we shall be rejoined in the new Sith Empire." Lumis bowed deeply and turned to go when the Master quietly said, "Wait." He turned and looked at Sidious, inhaling sharply when he saw the Master's eyes piercing yellow in the dark with hunger and power and greed. "You have discovered immortality," he said. It wasn't a question. Lumis swallowed hard.

"...yes."

"How." Kenobi winced at the harsh tone, looked down at his hands and found them to be shaking.

"Through the Force, Master," he said slowly, "I can sense all life, every presence of every being, as can all those who feel the Force. It is...nothing special." Sidious hissed in frustration, and the Dark Side reared back, violent and angry, and bore down upon the apprentice, forcing him to his knees, and Kenobi gasped in pain and anguish as he felt his control slipping, the blood in his body beginning to bubble and boil under the furious heat of the Force.

"How, Lumis."

"Master, I find the Force, I sense it in others and I...draw it within myself. I-I do not have the skill to teach, Master, and I would certainly not presume to teach you!"

Sidious scoffed and released the boy, the raging of the Dark Side easing back into peaceful calm as the Master watched his apprentice slowly rise, gasping softly as he recovered from the pain. From what Lumis had described, the task was immeasurably easy. There must have been something more to it, but if the student had discovered it, certainly Sidious would have the skill to replicate it. He watched Lumis for a moment as the man struggled, the swell of pain weakening his tenuous control, his shoulders shivering and shaking with the strain. Slowly, Sidious began to feed pleasure into the man, watching Lumis go from painful twitching to moaning mess. It would have been without point to end this session on a poor foot.

"There is knowledge and power beyond your imagining in the holocrons I keep," Sidious said softly. "When we see each other next, I will show them to you as...appreciation for this exchange of knowledge." Lumis bowed deeply, and Sidious smirked when he felt gratitude, appreciation and loyalty pouring off the man.

"You are too kind to me, my Master..."

"Go now," Sidious whispered. "There is work to do."

Lumis bowed to excuse himself and swept from the room, exiting the Chancellor's apartments with his hood drawn and silently entering the elevator, waiting peacefully for it to take him to his indicated floor, his body still shaking from the pain and pleasure his Master had inflicted upon him. The elevator hissed open, and he quickly strode across the hall, a few quick taps on the console by a door granting him access, and he walked inside the dark recesses of Padmé Amidala's apartments. He casually walked past C-3PO, nonchalantly waving his hand in the direction of the droid, and it shut off without a word. He could sense Padmé within her bedroom, her presence calm and restful in the embrace of sleep, but he didn't go in to disturb her. Instead, Obi-Wan say upon the ground, his legs crossed, his eyes fixed before him, and within a moment, all the unsteadiness dropped from his hands, his shoulders ceased shaking, and the Dark Side purred within him, satisfaction seeping through his entire being as he smirked in triumph.

"And you left the Jedi for that?!" Kenobi rolled his eyes as he closed them, and sunk into the Force, the shores cold, the waters calm, and Qui-Gon Jinn stood next to it, his arms crossed over his chest and tapping his foot impatiently. His image was crisp, clear, and almost, almost looked as though he were not made of mist, almost seemed as though he wouldn't simply fade away if the wind blew. Still he could not contact the others. Still he could not manifest outside the currents of the Force. Obi-Wan's presence was like a beacon, and Qui-Gon had spent a fair bit of time tethering himself to it. He had tied himself to Anakin as well, but his wrathful student had severed the connection in his fury and pain, as if to cut himself off from an old life, a part of himself he no longer felt connected to. It was, in a word, very Sith.

"I left the Jedi for the Dark Side, Qui-Gon. I left them to join the Sith so I could learn true power, and I left them to get away from you." The ghost looked at him for a long moment, and then began to laugh uncontrollably. Obi-Wan glowered, his jaw clenched with tension and anger, but he was resolved to put up with it. After all, this was his new reality. "It is not funny."

"Yes it is!" Qui-Gon said between breathless gasps. "It's funny because now you're stuck with me! Forever!" Kenobi cursed under his breath as he touched the waters, visions rippling across its surface, all things he had already seen. Slowly, Qui-Gon sat beside him, the laughter gone and his face drawn and somber. "...you were right about it all. There's a Sith Lord in the Senate. Everything, all of this is driven by him." Obi-Wan nodded. "You need to tell the Jedi, you need to warn them."

"The Jedi are already dead, Qui-Gon. There's no stopping it now. And even if I could, I wouldn't. Your Order is broken. You saw that long before I, and you were vilified for it, called radical and extreme for following the will of the Force instead of the will of your Republic masters."

"...and because of it, the Jedi now follow the Sith Master." Qui-Gon growled in frustration, his hand running through his hair. "You're right," he said softly. "You're right about all of it. This is the will of the Force. The Jedi Order is...corrupted. It needs to begin again. The Jedi haven't followed the will of the Force for so long, they have forgotten how, or they would have felt the change toward darkness."

Obi-Wan slowly nodded, reaching out with his hand and passing it through Qui-Gon's ethereal body. Though it looked like mist, it felt...warm. Comforting, like the Force in its purest form. "Sidious can conceal his presence, but I was a Padawan. If the Dark Side wasn't the will of the Force, none of us could have slipped under your detection. Not even my Master. Maybe you wouldn't know who, but you'd be able to feel that something was wrong. The Force is striking back against the Jedi," he said softly, running his hand through the waters, the ripples changing the images to the blackened, burned field of dead Jedi. "This is the future, Qui-Gon. The will of the Force has been ignored by the Jedi in favor of serving a corrupt and greedy Republic. The Force can only take so much before it lashes out, and this is it. It's time for the Jedi to pay."

Qui-Gon was silent for a long while, watching as Obi-Wan flipped through the images, carefully examining each one, closing his eyes and quietly muttering the Code of the Sith under his breath to focus himself. "It sounds like the twins," he said softly, and Obi-Wan looked up at him in confusion. Qui-Gon touched the waters, mimicking Kenobi's motions, and the rippling of the waters simply cleared the visions away. Rolling his eyes, Obi-Wan touched the water's surface, bringing the water to stillness before he ran his hand over the surface, and the image of the twins appeared. Qui-Gon flashed the unamused Obi-Wan a sheepish smile.

"You Jedi can't do anything right," Kenobi mumbled. "No wonder you're all fated to die." He paused. "Sith hells, Qui-Gon, you can't even die right!"

"I've always been a disappointment..." he muttered. "Your twins, Obi-Wan, focus. Your Master can't sense them, just like the Jedi can't sense the Sith. That means something."

"Don't think the meaning is lost on me, Qui-Gon, I understand it." He took a deep breath and looked at the image of the children. "My Master has done something, or will do something that is making the Force snap back at him."

"Could it be Anakin?" Qui-Gon asked, and Obi-Wan bit his lip and looked away.

"...I don't know. You and I have manipulated the kriffing hell out of him. If I wasn't invaluable to him before, I sure am now. Honestly...I was expecting the visions to change." He placed his hand on the water, the ripples changing the images rapidly, too fast for Qui-Gon to see them all. "But they're all the same. Maybe he was never going to abandon me. Maybe insanity really has made me paranoid."

Qui-Gon hissed dismissively and instinctively reached up to pull at the Padawan braid that had long since been cut, his hand instead phasing through the Sith's head, and Kenobi shivered, glaring at the Jedi. "You don't believe that any more than I do. I'm not helping you defeat your Master on the whims of a madman, you are right about all of it." Obi-Wan said nothing and looked back at the waters and the visions that slowly ran through them. Qui-Gon had been helpful, loathe as he was to admit it. The spirit had come to him after Kenobi had been touched by Padmé's twins, and he came with a plan. They would do together what neither could do alone. They would begin to deceive Darth Sidious. The madness was easy enough to fake, but his mental state was not, something Qui-Gon was able to shield against with the furious blinding of his own presence. Together, they found a way to lie to Sidious without him knowing, so they hoped, and it had seemed successful. Kenobi got everything he wanted out of Sidious.

At least, that's what it appeared. Sidious would be loathe to part with him now, especially after he learned how Kenobi kept himself youthful. It was instinctual, of course, something that could not be taught, but had to be felt, and Kenobi suspected that if Sidious had the talent for such, he would have discovered it a long time ago, and mounting frustrations with his inability to accomplish it would keep Kenobi indispensable to the Master. It certainly didn't cut Skywalker out of the equation, but it was a step in the right direction. When the Force's work was done, when the Jedi all lay dead, when calm, peaceful darkness and order through Imperial strength took hold, the revenge of the Sith would be complete, and Sidious' role would be at an end. Obi-Wan would kill him, and he would rise to be the Master of the Sith, raising a thousand, thousand Force sensitive men, women and children to follow the will of the Force into the depths of the Dark Side. A new Sith Order would be born, one that learned from the Sith and Jedi that came before them. All in their own way ignored the will of the Force, and all of them had perished. The way he saw it, there was only one way forward. They would follow the will of the Force, and they would never fall again.

"I'm sorry..." Qui-Gon said softly, and it snapped Obi-Wan out of his thoughts, his eyes settling on the vision in the water of the dead Jedi. Qui-Gon was looking at it as well. "How I handled Anakin, I-" He stopped and bit down on his lip, shook his head, and began again. "My handling of you was...unworthy. You deserved better than a Master that put the whims of the Force above the needs of his student."

Kenobi scoffed. "You going soft, Jedi? You almost sound like you regret taking Anakin in." The spirit shook his head.

"I don't regret bringing Anakin to the Jedi. I regret how I treated you. There were so many conversations that could have gone better, so many talks we should have had but didn't." The Jedi sighed heavily and looked sidelong at the Sith Lord, a man that, had he done better, could have been a Jedi Master far greater than what now sat on the Council. "Things are different here," he said softly, indicating to the realm of the Force they sat in. "I see things so much clearer, things make so much more sense than they did when I just blindly followed my instincts. We were always destined to come to this, Obi-Wan, and perhaps you were always meant to fall."

"Because of Skywalker," he said softly, but the Jeid shook his head.

"I don't think so. You are a vergence in the Force, Obi-Wan, but you weren't always. The Force made you a nexus after you joined the Sith. You were made to counter something else." Kenobi opened his mouth to protest, but quickly closed it. Qui-Gon was right. Perhaps, because of Anakin, the Force made him fall, made him a nexus to serve as the balance to the light, but now, Anakin was falling, and had perhaps begun his fall long ago, if his brother Owen was to be believed. Obi-Wan inhaled sharply when the idea struck. Anakin may be a vergence, may have the most potential of any Jedi ever, but he was also stained with darkness. The Force worked in mysterious ways, far more than Kenobi could ever comprehend. Who was to say that being a vergence made him Skywalker's counterpoint by default? It made them similar, yes, but not necessarily opposites. And there was a brighter light in the Jedi Order than Anakin Skywalker, one so strong, so powerful, so bright that no darkness could touch it.

Kriffing Qui-Gon Jinn.

He didn't know, perhaps would never know, and maybe it didn't matter in the end, but Kenobi had fallen because of Qui-Gon, Skywalker was falling because of Qui-Gon. Everything, everything hinged on him and his miraculous survival on Tatooine. The pulse of the Dark Side strong enough to draw the attention of the Sith Lord Darth Maul, enough for him to miss his killing blow when a Jedi Padawan had embraced the darkness for the power to slay an enemy far greater than himself. Qui-Gon's life was bought with Obi-Wan's fall. He was the factor that the Force was balancing out. Qui-Gon's survival was a mistake, and a Force that flowed freely toward the Dark Side corrected it, balanced it by delivering Obi-Wan into the hands of the Sith. The darkness may have had Darth Lumis, but the light had Qui-Gon Jinn, the immortal Jedi, so one with the Force, one with the light that he could not be killed.

And now Qui-Gon was dead.

...sort of.

Obi-Wan groaned as he clutched his head. In hindsight, all of this made sense. Even his elevation to Force nexus coincided with Qui-Gon's rise to immortality, and he had felt the Force change, shift when Dooku had struck the Jedi down. He had assumed it was because of Anakin's plunge into darkness, the vergence of light becoming one with the Dark Side, which greatly upset the balance that he and Skywalker had established. It all fit too perfectly, but he couldn't grasp what any of it could mean. His rise mirrored Qui-Gon's exactly, much better than it ever mirrored Skywalker's. He and Anakin had always been similar. Too similar, perhaps, travelers on the same road as opposed to those that walked upon opposite shores.

The meaning, though, was lost on him. His counterpoint had died, or at least left the realm of mortality. The shift in the Force he felt may not have been Qui-Gon's death, but Qui-Gon traversing the gap between them, shedding the constraints of mortality to cross the breech and stand beside one he was always meant to oppose. The question now, was how would the Force seek to balance this?

"I stand opposite you in the Force," Obi-Wan said lifelessly, and Qui-Gon nodded.

"And now we stand united."

"And with your death, the Force has moved Skywalker to the Dark Side." He growled, the water disrupting under the wrath of the Dark Side that rose in response to the Sith Lord's confusion. "Where in all the Sith hells does that leave me?!" Qui-Gon didn't have any answers, and he was beginning to feel nauseous. With a groan of frustration, Kenobi slipped back into himself and dragged his feet into Padmé's room to lay beside the sleeping woman and coax the twins out of hiding. He was missing something, and perhaps the warmth of their touch would lend him the clarity he needed.