[Closing days of 14BBY]

[Surface of Coruscant, Coruscant System, The Core]

The Dark Side began to roar in the distance with each death, and there were many deaths taking place this day on the ancient world that served as the galactic capital in most times of history. For the first time in millennia, since the Sack, war had truly consumed the system and planet, as Jedi and would be Sith clashed upon its surface and in its orbitals. Of course, few of the would be Sith could be truly called Sith, for that was the will of the figure wreathed in the Dark Side of the Force amidst the broken ruins of the Temple District, Power flowing through his body and soul. This figure was a True Lord of the Sith, of the Lineage of Bane, and the Dark Side answered his call.

Insanity and savagery had taken hold on the uppermost levels of the great city world as the old, traditionalist, order that had submerged in the Light fought against the new, progression, of the Dark without restraint, the strings pulled, and violence unleashed. Armies descended from the skies, enslaved clones of a distant warrior fighting for democracy…answered by armies emerging from the depths of freeborn citizen soldiers fighting to slay that democracy. The long peace, its cruelties and inequalities, now came crashing to an end as one human sought elevation and the bonds that had held back Change were broken. As was the way….the Force had set them Free of their fear.

At its heart stood Darth Sidious, the mask dropped, the power unleashed as lighting illuminated the skies above the Temple District, shattering starfighters and starships alike. Like moths drawn to a flame of darkness Jedi charged towards this foe amidst soldiers loyal to causes many amongst them found contradictory or confusing if they had time to debate amongst them. Now they fought and died for those contradictory beliefs alongside millions of others, who believed similar yet opposing viewpoints and were violently inclined to disagree with others. It only required a little push…

And the Force answered easily, enjoying/hating/loving/rejoicing in the story/deaths/lives/futures/endings unfolding.

For the one that saw himself as the puppetmaster was merely an actor on the larger stage, even as he directed fleets of warships that fought and died in the orbitals above the world he would claim as his own. Was destined to claim by right of conquest…

Something stirred within the Force. The Balance….shifted…amidst the nightmares and dreams unfolding.

Puppets danced with and without their strings as blades of light clashed on the streets, crimson on blue and green, but Darkness in the hearts of those claiming the Light, and Light in those serving Darkness. Chaos. Confusion. The Force in Conflict.

In the skies the so-called Sword was drawn forth again, a great beam of energy issuing forth to try destroy the star fortress serving its enemies. Lashed out and intercepted by other sentients willing to die for their cause, souls alight with righteous fury and self-belief. Gone was the hesitant pacifism of mere years prior, instead replaced with a fanatical self-belief and belief in their idealised Republic. The efforts of the so-called puppet master pushed both ways, the enflamed passions affecting all and any. Many wished him dead, and all living sentients were felt through the Force, made themselves and their desires felt through the Force. And they wished the Enemy dead.

At all costs.

So, they would do what needed to be done, in the name of a dead yet still alive Galactic Republic. In response to the firing of the Sword hundreds of warships, formed around a wedge of super-heavies, charged towards the weapon alongside landing ships. Warships clashed, often smashing together in ramming manoeuvres as countless unseen and unremembered acts of valour and cowardice took place for the amusement/horror/fear/remembrance of the Force. Soldiers and sailors charged through gaps gouged into depths of the so-called superweapon as ships crashed into it, their security teams and droids breaching and seeking to get inside to capture or destroy.

Even as this occurred the Eye and the Anvil clashed, two great asteroids converted into mobile fortresses with engines strapped unto them. Hyperspace was interdicted and distorted as the weapons were unleashed upon each other, as millions died as Star Destroyers clashed alongside tens of thousands of starfighters, corvettes and frigates. Turbolaser fire illuminated the skies of the world below as more and more ships arrived into the system charging forth to battle upon arrival. All for the trap the puppet master would layout, as fleets from Alsakan and Corellia were drawn in…and then savaged in brutal but focused fleet engagements. For this was as that Sith had Foreseen, delving deeply into the Dark.

The Sword fired as it was lost, destroying ships as it went, the attackers now the attacked as more Kuati vessels charged into try retake it as on the surface a crimson blade slew Jedi and soldier alike in battle with growing joy and fury. Students and teachers turned terrorists and now militia attempted to swarm militia formed of immigrant workers and those backing the dictatorship, dying in droves as padawans and knights went mad with the pain around them. The Trap was more than one trap, insidious in its nature for the unprepared, and, despite all their learnings, there were many unprepared amongst the so-called warriors of the light. Amongst tumbling skyscrapers and buckling layers as massive warships crashed into the surface millions of tiny, personal, battles took place as everyone lost track of the battle.

Even the one who believed he had won as the fleets of proud Corellia were decimated, as Alsakans forces were driven into a trap within a trap and butchered. For he had underestimated the Will of his foes. Of the loyalty, or lack thereof, of the Darkness he professed to both Wield and Serve. For the Force IS Conflict, and others could understand the Code of the Sith, and Force had set them Free in their desperation. Death came to Alsakans finest, their fleets being smashed, as their proclaimed allies also died as their star fortresses smashed into that of Kuat's above the world that wasn't quite its capital…

Not anymore.

Not in the eyes of the ancient rivals to the capitol world.

Not to desperate people with dangerous old knowledge they barely understood at hand.

Defeat was unacceptable. Yet the lynchpin of their enemy lay before them….

So, with broken chains and coldly serene hearts they began to move. As their fleets died, as the victory of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine over Coruscant beckoned, a blow was decided to be struck. Because best the blow be struck here rather than over worlds that mattered to them, like their homeworld. Victory had been denied to them, and like petty younglings deprived of their toys they would break them rather than allow their allow others to play with. That these toys were a world of billions of sentients that they hadn't performed a full census since times before their recorded history…

Didn't really matter to them anymore. It did to their soldiers and generals. Who the puppet master had just slain in battle, and whose soldiers they were slaughtering. Now the reins had been taken by others, that, in other times, would have eagerly served a man named Emperor and be monsters in his name. But, here and now, in this time that was….they were still monsters, but ones with no taint of the Darkness, no corruption set into the bones, but instead a burning belief in the cause they served. A belief and lack of morals, because they had been unleashed, their chains broken so as to save the Republic they were told.

Then, into the Coruscant system, in the skies above the world an ancient vessel inside a larger modern vessel emerged, darkness into darkness, death coming. From a dead world it had been recovered, where it had been unleashed by a Galactic Republic against its enemies….The Sith. And now, above Coruscant, capital of a Galactic Republic, the barely restored weapon was, once more, unleashed upon….The Sith. If it was alive some sense of satisfaction would exist within the machinery as the weapon was unleashed against the so-called Eye of Palpatine and gravity, space, and hyperspace began to warp and twist.

Not only space and dimensions above and below, but the ships and sentients that existed within that space, gravity spiking as ships and starfighters went out of control, crashing into each other. In the skies of Coruscant vessels from largest Star Destroyers to small freighters often 'fell' upwards, or found their hyperdrives activating and deactivating, often destroying themselves in the process. Others 'rose' into the surface layers of the city-world, crashing in fiery detonations as bitter old sentients unleashed their petty fury upon one greater than them, upon one they had been destined to serve once upon a time. Something that shifted in the Force itself as it screamed in response…

Through a mirror darkly, to the mocking silent laughter of the Darkness, the Hero in the eyes of the galaxy raised up his fiery sword, howling defiance at the weapon set forth to slay a world. Even as the world ending weapon was deployed, as the orbital defences and stations were torn asunder, before the eyes of billions upon billions, the so-called puppet master and hero saved his world. Power manifested, Sith Sorcery as Sheev Palpatine, Darth Sidious wield power unseen in millennia, lighting crackling as the storm engulfed the skies and orbitals of the world as he feed upon the deaths, seeking to save himself. Crushing the deployed power of the superweapon that was causing sentients, machinery, ships, and even massive buildings to rise to orbit, smashing the weapon with his power, a hero to the galaxy…

Cracckktooommmmmmm

A martyr to the galaxy as an anti-tank round slammed into his back, incinerating the Hero who had died to save the Galactic Republic…

Darkness boiled forth from the great well where a temple once stood.

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