Spectre: I'm back! Sorry for the long wait everyone! I just have to get my groove back since I just finished my first semester at college, hence updates had become slow since I'm also focused at ny Seedx00 xover story. But here I am! Trying what I can to get that spark back!
If there's anything that I forget which I wish I didn't, is that I didn't include Oppo Rancisis, Coleman Kcaj and Agen Kolar, since I'm pretty sure they would side with Windu along Saesee Tiin. Also, to those who think that it's quite dumb that most sided with Anakin, they may be blind but they aren't dumb to look at Anakin that way considering his contributions during the Clone Wars, especially to those who fought alongside him.
Also to those who think I would be doing the Sequel Trilogy, sorry to say but that's a big no-no for me because Rey and the others left a bad taste of my mouth that completely threw both prequel and original timeline characters off a cliff though I could do elements such as on how Palpatine would come back.
Also take note that I used excerpts from the Revenge of the Sith novel, since it better explains the scenes than from the movie, so reading it will take longer than expected.
Chapter 28: Interlude 2.0, Part Two
Anakin kept running.
He didn't know where he was going.
He wasn't even thinking at all of what he was going to do but he just kept running, running past the Knights and Masters who looked at him oddly, asking to why was he acting like this to begin with, since it wasn't in character to say the least but he ignored the looks he received until he reached his quarters.
All this time, Anakin watched himself. His future. Committing acts that made him no better than Dooku, ranging from killing helpless rebels to murdering the people he saw as his second family and scarring Luke and all of his friends in the process.
And for now, one thing hardly mattered to him. The Jedi were right, he was dangerous to begin with, and he became the very answer to why the galaxy had been plunged into an era of darkness and tyranny, his mind clouded by the memory of the mechanical breathing that came from a monster.
The memories of him acting like a some sort of rabid beast towards Obi-Wan, to the point where the man he saw as a brother, died by his very hand to protect Luke, from his own father no less to what he had become. And later when he fought Ahsoka, something that shattered his within him. He had made a promise to her, a promise that he ultimately broke a crimson lightsaber was ignited at her.
I won't let anyone hurt you, Ahsoka. Never!
Without a thought about the world, he punched the wall aggresively that left a large dent, he wailed as he overturned a table before sliding away numerous objects at nearby shelves, his anger and frustration to himself apparently increasing threshhold, and yelling above the ceiling. As the deeds of his future came flashing before him, he heard the door open and found three figures standing there, all where taken back at the mess that he had made.
Indeed, it Padmé, Rex and Ahsoka, all of whom he figured went after him as he exited the Council Chamber. But before any of the three could say a word, they were slightly pushed back when Anakin outstretched his hand, indicating he was using the Force.
He had ruined countless lives as the Sith Lord in the future, and he didn't want anyone to be near him at that matter, especially when three people who were close to him try to help him.
"No...", Anakin quickly told the trio, backing away, pointing his index finger at them. "You stay over there!"
Ahsoka felt the conflict within Anakin, his mind already running in circles at the cruel revelation that took a toll at him. His usually kind and bright outlook was replaced by horror, anger, fear, and of grief not pointed at anyone, but himself.
"Anakin...", Padmé called out to him, her voice pained as she tried to approach him. "I know what you felt about this, but you have to know that isn't you!"
"That was me!", the Jedi Knight shouted, backing away from the three. "They were right about me. They have been right this whole time..."
"General, with due respect", Rex spoke next, trying to help in any way he can. "I agree with Senator Amidala, that man is not the man I had served under with for all these years. If that is the future, then we can still change it!"
Anakin paused for a moment, before he shook his head. "You don't get it..., none of you do..."
"Anakin, please!", Padmé persisted, with tears beginning to form from her eyes. "We'll do what we can to stop this. But please! Let us help you!", she begged, now getting desperate.
Anakin looked incredulous, "Why are you trying to help me!? I turned into a Sith! A monster!"
"You're neither of those!" Ahsoka shouted back. "Not yet, nor you'll ever will!"
"I killed you! And Obi-Wan!", he reasoned out before Ahsoka approached and gave him a hard slap on his cheek.
"Shut up!" she angrily interjected, mustering both anger and anguish as she tried to bring him to senses, her eyes beoming wattery at every second. "What makes you think you'll become him? You are not him!"
"Ahsoka...I murdered you...and everyone in the Order", Anakin choked, his voice pained and refusing to even look at her. "I know what the future can do and it holds...I tried to save my mother...", he paused, biting his lip. "And she still died..."
Now that statement caused Ahsoka to be stunned, realizing what he was trying to say. She looked at Padmé, who reluctantly nodded at Anakin's statement, giving more questions to Ahsoka and Rex in their minds. "It's true...", Padmé said in confirmation, taking a seat beside Anakin and rubbed his shoulder. "A few years ago, he had told me of nightmares that foreshadowed his mother's death, where..."
She paused then bit her lip, not wanting her husband to remember that terrible memory further. She caressed his face, his eyes red ever since it was shown before them. She wiped his tears with her fingers, trying what she could to console him.
The Clone Captain the the Togruta looked at him in pity. They just couldn't picture Anakin and Darth Vader being one person, a person who slaughtered helpless rebels, wiped out the Jedi Order, murdered Obi-Wan, tortured Leia and Han, and harmed his son mentally and physically.
And they wanted to find their answers. To stop his fall no matter the cost. "I don't mean to pry, Senator...", Rex suddenly spoke up. "But how long have you been married to General Skywalker?"
Seeing there is no point of not telling anymore, she answered. "Three years at best...just after the Battle of Geonosis"
"Why didn't you tell us?", Ahsoka inquired in a soft and sincere tone.
"I...I just can't...", Anakin replied, not looking at her. "If I did, you won't understand why..."
"Anakin, we do understand", Ahsoka firmly said, the Togruta teen placing a hand on his shoulder. "If you did tell us, we'd vouch for you at any moment. Even Master Kenobi seems to know what is going on between you and Senator Amidala"
Anakin's eyes brightened. "He does? But why wouldn't he turn in me to the Council if that was the case"
No one had an answer for that, and Rex spoke up. "Sir, if you had been honest with us, troopers within the 501st. We'd vouch for it too. Heck, Appo and the boys had been placing bets wether or not you and Senator Amidala are married or were at least more than friends"
The statement caused Anakin to chuckle lightly, to Ahsoka and Padmé's delight. "They did?"
The Clone Captain (And future Commander) smirked. "They sure did, sir"
"Anakin, we promise you...", Ahsoka said, looking at him while holding his robotic right hand in assurance. "We can work this out. We still have time to save the future. But please? Can you let us help you?"
"I...", Anakin was unsure what to say about this, but Padmé added.
"We can do this Anakin. For Luke", she told him, placing a hand onto her belly where Anakin placed his, widening his eyes as he began to shed tears. Not of sadness, but of joy, a similar feeling Padmé showed when she saw his realization. "He can still meet his father"
"And his cool aunt and uncle!", Ahsoka added, wanting to bond with their newborn baby.
"You said it, commander!", Rex stated in support for the two. The Jedi Knight looked at the three of them, thankful for all their support despite the dark future he was shown. All anger and anguish to himself had faded, all replaced by his newfound determination to change the future and to stop Palpatine.
"Rex, Ahsoka, Padmé", Anakin called out, looking at all three of them, where they knew that they had finally got to him. "Thank you..."
The Chancellor looked beyond old, looked ancient like Yoda was ancient: possessed of incomprehensible age. And exhausted, and in pain. And worse-Anakin saw in the Chancellor's face something he'd never dreamed he'd find there, and it squeezed breath from his lungs and wiped words from his brain.
Palpatine looked frightened.
Everyone in the audience could see the clever deception that he was putting up, inwardly cursing themselves onto why they were so blind at following his orders.
"So this takes place as soon as they left Mandalore...", Plo Koon observed with a frown hidden beneath, knowing his presence at Cato Neimodia. "Are we to presume that Sidious staged the attack on Coruscant to lure both Master Kenobi and Skywalker?"
Shaak Ti nodded in agreement. "If Palpatine had managed to control both sides of the war, he knows how to arrange his pieces well...", she admitted, though a part of her disliked at doing so. She carefully recalled the Chancellor's actions in the past, on how he had managed to secure powers for himself. And then she recalled on how CT-5555, or Fives, tried to kill the Chancellor that resulted of him being an unstable clone that needed to put down. Is his supposed insanity genuine? Or was fabricated when he discovered something beneath the Chancellor of who he is...
Hopefully they can provide an answer or a clue as soon as possible.
Anakin didn't know what to say. He couldn't imagine what to say. All he could imagine was what Grievous and Dooku must have done to put fear on the face of this brave good man-And that imagining ignited a sizzle in his blood that drew his face tight and clouded his heart and started again the low roll of thunder in his ears: thunder from Aargonar. From Jabiim.
Thunder from the Tusken camp.If Obi-Wan was struck by any similar distress, it was invisible. With his customary grave courtesy, the Jedi Master inclined his head. "Chancellor," he said, a calmly respectful greeting as though they had met by chance on the Grand Concourse of the Galactic Senate.Palpatine's only response was a tight murmur. "Anakin, behind you-!"
Anakin didn't turn. He didn't have to. It wasn't just the clack of boot heels and clank of magnapeds crossing the threshold of the entrance balcony; the Force gathered within him and around him in a sudden clench like the fists of a startled man.
In the Force, he could feel the focus of Palpatine's eyes: the source of the fear that rolled off him in billows like vapor down a block of frozen air. And he could feel the even colder wave of power, colder than the frost on a mynock's mouth, that slid into the room behind him like an ice dagger into his back. Funny, he thought. After Ventress, somehow I always expect the dark side to be hot. . .Something unlocked in his chest.
Mace frowned at the yet-Jedi Knight's attraction to the Dark Side, but said nothing as a means to tread carefully.
The thunder in his ears dissolved into red smoke that coiled at the base of his spine. His lightsaber found his hand, and his lips peeled off his teeth in a smile that a krayt dragon would have recognized.That trouble he was having with talking went away.
"This," he murmured to Palpatine, and to himself, "is not a problem."
The voice that spoke from the entrance balcony was an elegant basso with undernotes of oily resonance like a kriin-oak cavernhorn. Count Dooku's voice.
"General Kenobi. Anakin Skywalker. Gentlemen-a term I use in its loosest possible sense-you are my prisoners."
Seeing the Jedi-turned-Sith Lord caused them to be in a somber light, thinking if they had failed Skywalker as they did with Dooku that allowed Sidious to easily take them under his wing. Yoda closed his eyes, remembering that he tried to save his former apprentice from the path he was taking, but failed unfortunately.
Mace was frowning, as he recalled on how the woman said that things were about to fall apart by this time. And considering the current situation that Anakin and Dooku were locked to, then this would only mean one thing: to determine who is stronger by the Rule of Two.
Now Anakin didn't have any troubles at all. The entrance balcony provided an appropriate angle-far above the Jedi, looking down upon them-for Dooku to make final assessments before beginning the farce.
Like all true farce, the coming denouement would proceed with remorseless logic from its ridiculous premise: that Dooku could ever be overcome by mere Jedi. Any Jedi. What a pity his old friend Mace couldn't have joined them today; he had no doubt the Korun Master would have enjoyed the coming show. Dooku had always preferred an educated audience.
"This is a set-up", Mace deduced with a frown. "By allowing himself to be kidnapped and be rescued by Kenobi and Skywalker is all part of Palpatine's plan"
"If Palpatine wanted to have Anakin as his apprentice, why would he involved Count Dooku-", Shaak Ti thought for a moment before realizing the scenario, and the others eventually caught wind of this.
Yoda nodded grimly. "Fulfill the Rule of Two, he has. Ended, Dooku's usefulness for him, it has"
At least Palpatine was here, shackled within the great chair at the far end of the room, the space battle whirling upon the view wall behind him as though his stark silhouette spread great wings of war. But Palpatine was less audience than he was author. Not at all the same thing. Skywalker gave Dooku only his back, but his blade was already out and his tall, lean frame stood frozen with anticipation: so motionless he almost seemed to shiver. Pathetic. It was an insult to call this boy a Jedi at all. Kenobi, now-he was something else entirely: a classic of his obsolete kind.
He simply stood gazing calmly up at Dooku and the super battle droids that flanked him, hands open, utterly relaxed, on his face only an expression of mild interest.
Dooku derived a certain melancholy satisfaction-a pleasurably lonely contemplation of his own unrecognized greatness-from a brief reflection that Skywalker would never understand how much thought and planning, how much work, Lord Sidious had invested in so hastily orchestrating his sham victory. Nor would he ever understand the artistry, the true mastery, that Dooku would wield in his own defeat.
But thus was life. Sacrifices must be made, for the greater good.
There was a war on, after all.
He called upon the Force, gathering it to himself and wrapping himself within it. He breathed it in and held it whirling inside his heart, clenching down upon it until he could feel the spin of the galaxy around him.
Until he became the axis of the Universe. This was the real power of the dark side, the power he had suspected even as a boy, had sought through his long life until Darth Sidious had shown him that it had been his all along. The dark side didn't bring him to the center of the universe. It made him the center.
He drew power into his innermost being until the Force itself existed only to serve his will.
Now the scene below subtly altered, though to the physical eye there was no change. Powered by the dark side, Dooku's perception took the measure of those below him with exhilarating precision.
Kenobi was luminous, a transparent being, a window onto a sunlit meadow of the Force.
Skywalker was a storm cloud, flickering with dangerous lightning, building the rotation that threatens a tornado.
And then there was Palpatine, of course: he was beyond power. He showed nothing of what might be within. Though seen with the eyes of the dark side itself, Palpatine was an event horizon. Beneath his entirely ordinary surface was absolute, perfect nothingness. Darkness beyond darkness.
A black hole of the Force.
And he played his helpless-hostage role perfectly.
"If Palpatine had pulled the strings that well to both sides, I must confess that what he did was quite impressive", Depa admitted, though reluctantly.
"Get help!" The edge of panic in his hoarse half whisper sounded real even to Dooku. "You must get help. Neither of you is any match for a Sith Lord!"
The Jedi present rolled their eyes at the
Now Skywalker turned, meeting Dooku's direct gaze for the first time since the abandoned hangar on Geonosis. His reply was clearly intended as much for Dooku as for Palpatine. "Tell that to the one Obi-Wan left in pieces on Naboo."
"He still lived...", Obi-Wan mused, but clearly saw that Sidious also disposed of him once his usefulness had ended.
"Chancellor, Sith Lords are our speciality", Obi-Wan told the old man. In the Force, Dooku could feel Kenobi's disapproval of Skywalker's boasting; and he could also feel Kenobi's effortless self-restraint in focusing on the matter at hand.
"This time, we do it together."
Dooku's sharp eye picked up the tightening of Skywalker's droid hand on his lightsaber's grip. "I was about to say exactly that."
Dooku leaned forward, and his cloak of armor weave spread like wings; he lifted gently into the air and descended to the main level in a slow, dignified Force-glide. Touching down at the head of the situation table, he regarded the two Jedi from under a lifted brow.
"Your weapons, please, gentlemen. Let's not make a mess of this in front of the Chancellor.
Obi-Wan lifted his lightsaber into the balanced two-handed guard of Ataro: Qui-Gon's style, and Yoda's. His blade crackled into existence, and the air smelled of lightning. "You won't escape us this time, Dooku."
"Escape you? Please." Dooku allowed his customary mild smile to spread. "Do you think I orchestrated this entire operation with the intent to escape? I could have taken the Chancellor outsystem hours ago. But I have better things to do with my life than to babysit him while I wait for the pair of you to attempt a rescue."
"He is only using you, Dooku...", Kit Fisto gravely said, frowning.
"At this point, Skywalker is far from the Padawan that he had fought back at Geonosis", Luminara remarked.
Skywalker brought his lightsaber to a Shien ready: hand of black-gloved durasteel cocked high at his shoulder, blade angling upward and away. "This is a little more than an attempt."
"And a little less than a rescue."
With a flourish, Dooku cast his cloak back from his right shoulder, clearing his sword arm-which he used to gesture idly at the pair of super battle droids still on the entrance balcony above. "Now please, gentlemen. Must I order the droids to open fire? That becomes so untidy, what with blaster bolts bouncing about at random. Little danger to the three of us, of course, but I should certainly hate for any harm to come to the Chancellor."
Kenobi moved toward him with a
slow, hypnotic grace, as though he floated on an invisible repulsor plate. "Why do I find that difficult to believe?"
Skywalker mirrored him, swinging wide toward Dooku's flank. "You weren't so particular about bloodshed on Geonosis."
"Ah." Dooku's smile spread even farther. "And how is Senator Amidala?"
"Don't-" The thunderstorm that was Skywalker in the Force boiled with sudden power. "Don't even speak her name."
Some of the Jedi frowned, knowing that Anakin's attachment may have something to do to his fall. But others, particularly Obi-Wan and Yoda, saw that his attachment to the Senator was among the few things that kept him together all these years.
And whatever happened to the Senator may have been the last straw that sealed his fate as the mechanical monster they had seen.
Dooku waved this aside. The lad's personal issues were too tiresome to pursue; he knew far too much already about Skywalker's messy private life. "I bear Chancellor Palpatine no ill will, foolish boy. He is neither soldier nor spy, whereas you and your friend here are both. It is only an unfortunate accident of history that he has chosen to defend a corrupt Republic against my endeavor to reform it."
"You mean destroy it.""
"The Chancellor is a civilian. You and General Kenobi, on the other hand, are legitimate military targets. It is up to you whether you will accompany me as captives-" A twitch of the Force brought his lightsaber to his hand with invisible speed, its brilliant scarlet blade angled downward at his side. "-or as corpses.''
"Now, there's a coincidence," Kenobi replied dryly as he swung around Dooku to place the Count precisely between Skywalker and himself. "You face the identical choice."
Dooku regarded each of them in turn with impregnable calm. He lifted his blade in the Makashi salute and swept it again to a low guard. "Just because there are two of you, do not presume you have the advantage."
"Oh, we know," Skywalker said. "Because there are two of you."
Dooku barely managed to restrain a jolt of surprise.
"Or maybe I should say, were two of you," the young Jedi went on
"We're on to your partner Sidious; we tracked him all over the galaxy. He's probably in Jedi custody right now."
"Is he?" Dooku relaxed. He was terribly, terribly tempted to wink at Palpatine, but of course that would never do. "How fortunate for you."
Quite simple, in the end, he thought. Isolate Skywalker, slaughter Kenobi. Beyond that, it would be merely a matter of spinning Skywalker up into enough of a frenzy to break through his Jedi restraint and reveal the infinite vista of Sith power.
"Surrender." Kenobi's voice deepened into finality. "You will be given no further chance."
Dooku lifted an eyebrow. "Unless one of you happens to be carrying Yoda in his pocket, I hardly think I shall need one."
The Force crackled between them, and the ship pitched and bucked under a new turbolaser barrage, and Dooku decided that the time had cme. He flicked a false glance over his shoulder-a hint of distraction to draw the attack-And all three of them moved at once.
The ship shuddered and the red smoke surged from Anakin's spine into his arms and legs and head and when Dooku gave the slightest glance of concern over his shoulder, distracted for half an instant, Anakin just couldn't wait anymore.
He sprang, lightsaber angled for the kill.
Obi-Wan leapt from Dooku's far side in perfect coordination-and they met in midair, for the Sith Lord was no longer between them.
Anakin looked up just in time to glimpse the bottom of Dooku's rancor-leather boot as it came down on his face and smacked him tumbling toward the floor; he reached into the Force to effortlessly right himself and touched down in perfect balance to spring again toward the lightning flares, scarlet against sky blue, that sprayed from clashing lightsabers as Dooku pressed Obi-Wan away with a a succession of weaving, flourishing thrusts that drove the Jedi's blade out of line while they reached for his heart.
Anakin launched himself at Dooku's back-and the Count half turned, gesturing casually while holding Obi-Wan at bay with an elegant one-handed bind. Chairs leapt up from the situation table and whirled toward Anakin's head. He slashed the first one in half contemptuously, but the second caught him across the knees and the third battered his shoulder and knocked him down.
He snarled to himself and reached through the Force to pick up some chairs of his own-and the situation table itself slammed into him and drove him back to crush him against the wall. His lightsaber came loose from his slackening fingers and clattered across the tabletop to drop to the floor on the far side.
And Dooku barely even seemed to be paying attention to him.
Pinned, breathless, half stunned, Anakin thought, If this keeps up, I am going to get mad.
While effortlessly deflecting a rain of blue-streaking cuts from Kenobi, Dooku felt the Force shove the situation table away from the wall and send it hurtling toward his back with astonishing speed; he barely managed to lift himself enough that he could backroll over it instead of having it shatter his spine.
"My my," he said, chuckling. "The boy has some power after all."
His backroll brought him to his feet directly in front of the lad, who was charging, headlong and unarmed, after the table he had tossed, and was already thoroughly red in the face.
"I'm twice the Jedi I was last time!"
Ah, Dooku thought. Such a fragile little ego. Sidious will have to help him with that. But until then-The grip of Skywalker's blade whistled through the air to meet his hand in perfect synchrony with a sweeping slash. "My powers have doubled since we last met,"
"Good. Twice the pride, double the fall!." Dooku neatly sidestepped, cutting at the boy's leg, yet Skywalker's blade met the cut as he passed and he managed to sweep his blade behind his head to slap aside the casual thrust Dooku aimed at the back of his neck-but his clumsy charge had put him in Kenobi's path, so that the Jedi Master had to Force-roll over his partner's head.
Directly at Dooku's upraised blade.
Kenobi drove a slash at the scarlet blade while he pivoted in the air, and again Dooku sidestepped so that now it was Kenobi in Skywalker's way.
"Really," Dooku said, "this is pathetic."
Oh, they were certainly energetic enough, leaping and whirling, raining blows almost at random, cutting chairs to pieces and Force-hurling them in every conceivable direction, while Dooku continued, in his gracefully methodical way, to out-maneuver them so thoroughly it was all he could to do keep from laughing out loud.
It was a simple matter of countering their tactics, which were depressingly straightforward; Skywalker was the swift one, whooshing here and there like a spastic hawk-bat-attempting a Jedi variant of neek-in-the-middle so they could come at him from both sides-while Kenobi came on in a measured Shii-Cho cadence, deliberate as a lumberdroid, moving step by step, cutting off the angles, clumsy but relentlessly dogged as he tried to chivvy Dooku into a corner.
Whereas all Dooku need do was to slip from one side to another-and occasionally flip over a head here and there-so that he could fight each of them in turn, rather than both of them at the same time. He supposed that in their own milieu, they might actually prove reasonably effective; it was clear that their style had been developed by fighting as a team against large numbers of opponents. They were not prepared to fight together against a single Force-user, certainly not one of Dooku's power; he, on the other hand, had always fought alone. It was laughably easy to keep the Jedi tripping and stumbling and getting in each other's way.
They didn't even comprehend how utterly he dominated the combat. Because they fought as they had been trained, by releasing all desire and allowing the Force to flow through them, they had no hope of countering Dooku's mastery of Sith techniques They had learned nothing since he had bested them on Geonosis.
They allowed the Force to direct them; Dooku directed the Force.
He drew their strikes to his parries, and drove his own ripostes with thrusts of dark power that subtly altered the Jedi's balance and disrupted their timing. He could have slaughtered both of them as casually as that creature Maul had destroyed the vigos of the Black Sun.
However, only one death was in his plan, and this dumb-show was was becoming tiresome. Not to mention tiring. The dark power that served him went only so far, and he was, after all, not a young man.
He leaned into a thrust at Kenobi's gut that the Jedi Master deflected with a rising parry, bringing them chest-to-chest, blades flaring, locked together a handbreadth from each other's throats. "Your moves are too slow, Kenobi. Too predictable. You'll have to do better."
Kenobi's response to this friendly word was to regard him with a twinkle of gentle amusement in his eye.
"Very well, then," the Jedi said, and shot straight upward over Dooku's head so fast it seemed he'd vanished.
And in the space where Kenobi's chest had been was now only the blue lightning of Skywalker's blade driving straight for Dooku's heart.
Only a desperate whirl to one side made what would have been a smoking hole in his chest into a line of scorch through his armorweave cloak.
Dooku thought, What?
He threw himself spinning up and away from the two Jedi to land on the situation table, disengaging for a moment to recover his composure-that had been entirely too close-but by the time his boots touched down Kenobi was there to meet him, blade weaving through a defensive velocity so bewilderingly fast that Dooku dared not even try a strike; he threw a feint toward Kenobi's face, then dropped and spun in a reverse ankle-sweep-But not only did Kenobi easily overleap this attack, Dooku nearly lost his own foot to a slash from Skywalker who had again come out of nowhere and now carved through the table so that it collapsed under Dooku's weight and dumped the Sith Lord unceremoniously to the floor. This was not in the plan. Skywalker slammed his following strike down so hard that the shock of deflecting it buckled Dooku's elbows. Dooku threw himself into a backroll that brought him to his feet-and Kenobi's blade was there to meet his neck. Only a desperate whirling slash-block, coupled with a wheel kick that caught Kenobi on the thigh, bought him enough time to leap away again, and when he touched down-Skywalker was already there.
Everyone watched in silence as both Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Dooku fought in an equal stand-off, the two Jedi proving to be more than adversaries to the Sith Lord. Obi-Wan's defensive moves of Soresu synchronized well with Anakin's Shien against Dooku's Makashi, so much so that Mace and Yoda were very impressed at how they were faring so far.
The first overhand chop of Skywalker's blade slid off Dooku's instinctive guard. The second bent Dooku's wrist. The third flash of blue forced Dooku's scarlet blade so far to the inside that his own lightsaber scorched his shoulder, and Dooku was forced to give ground.
Dooku felt himself blanch. Where had this come from? Skywalker came on, mechanically inexorable, impossibly powerful, a destroyer droid with a lightsaber: each step a blow and each blow a step. Dooku backed away as fast as he dared; Skywalker stayed right on top of him. Dooku's breath went short and hard. He no longer tried to block Skywalker's strikes but only to guide them slanting away; he could not meet Skywalker strength-to-strength-no only did the boy wield tremendous reserves of Force energy, but his sheer physical power was astonishing-And only then did Dooku understand that he'd been suckered.
Skywalker's Shien ready-stance had been a ruse, as had his Ataro gymnastics; the boy was a Djem So stylist, and as fine a one as Dooku had ever seen. His own elegant Makashi simply did not generate the kinetic power to meet Djem So head-to-head. Especially not while also defending against a second attacker.
It was time to alter his own tactics.
He dropped low and spun into another reverse ankle-sweep-the weakness of Djem So was its lack of mobility-that slapped Skywalker's boot sharply enough to throw the young Jedi off balance, giving Dooku the opportunity to leap away-Only to find himself again facing the wheel of blue lightning that was Kenobi's blade.
Dooku decided that the comedy had ended.
Now it was time to kill.
Kenobi's Master had been Qui-Gon Jinn, Dooku's own Padawan; Dooku had fenced Qui-Gon thousands of times, and he knew every weakness of the Ataro form, with its ridiculous acrobatics. He drove a series of flashing thrusts toward Kenobi's legs to draw the Jedi Master into a flipping overhead leap so that Dooku could burn through his spine from kidneys to shoulder blades-and this image, this plan, was so clear in Dooku's mind that he almost failed to notice that Kenobi met every one of his thrusts without so much as moving his feet, staying perfectly centered, perfectly balanced, blade never moving a millimeter more than was necessary, deflecting without effort, riposting with flickering strikes and stabs swifter than the tongue of a Garollian ghost viper, and when Dooku felt Skywalker regain his feet and stride once more toward his back, he finally registered the source of that blinding defensive velocity Kenobi had used a moment ago, and only then, belated ly, did he understand that Kenobi's Ataro and Shii-Cho had been ploys, as well.
Kenobi had become a master of Soresu.
Dooku found himself having a sudden, unexpected, overpowering, and entirely distressing bad feeling about this . . .
His farce had suddenly, inexplicably, spun from humorous to deadly serious and was tumbling rapidly toward terrifying. Realization burst through Dooku's consciousness like the blossoming fireballs of dying ships outside: this pair of Jedi fools had somehow managed to become entirely dangerous.
These clowns might-just possibly-actually be able to beat him.
No sense taking chances; even his Master would agree with that. Lord Sidious could come up with a new plan more easily than a new apprentice.
He gathered the Force once more in a single indrawn breath that summoned power from throughout the universe; the slightest whipcrack of that power, negligent as a flick of his wrist, sent Kenobi flying backward to crash hard against the wall, but Dooku didn't have time to enjoy it.
Skywalker was all over him.
The shining blue lightsaber whirled and spat and every overhand chop crashed against Dooku's defense with the unstoppable power of a meteor strike; the Sith Lord spent lavishly of his reserve of the Force merely to meet these attacks without being cut in half, and Skywalker-Skywalker was getting stronger.
Each parry cost Dooku more power than he'd used to throw Kenobi across the room; each block aged him a decade.
He decided he'd best revise his strategy once again.
He no longer even tried to strike back. Force exhaustion began to close down his perceptions, drawing his consciousness back down to his physical form, trapping him within his own skull until he could barely even feel the contours of the room around him; he dimly sensed stairs at his back, stairs that led up to the entrance balcony. He retreated up them, using the higher ground for leverage, but Skywalker just kept on coming, tirelessly ferocious.
That blue blade was everywhere, flashing and whirling faster and faster until Dooku saw the room through an electric haze and now Kenobi was back in the picture: with a shout of the Force, he shot like a torpedo up the stairs behind Skywalker, and Dooku decided that under these rather extreme circumstances, it was at least arguably permissible for a gentleman to cheat.
"Guards!" he said to the pair of super battle droids that still stood at attention to either side of the entrance. "Open fire!"
Instantly the two droids sprang forward and lifted their hands. Energy hammered out from the heavy blasters built into their arms; Skywalker whirled and his blade batted every blast back at the droids, whos mirror-polished carapace armor deflected the bolts again. Galvened particle beams screeched through the room in blinding ricochets.
Kenobi reached the top of the stairs and a single slash of his lightsaber dismantled both droids. Before their pieces could even hit the floor Dooku was in motion, landing a spinning side-stamp that folded Skywalker in half; he used his last burst of dark power to continue his spin into a blindingly fast wheel-kick that brought his heel against the point of Kenobi's chin with a crack like the report of a huge-bore slugthrower, knocking the Jedi Master back down the stairs. Sounded like he'd broken his neck.
Wouldn't that be lovely?
There was no sense in taking chances, however.
While Kenobi's bonelessly limp body was still tumbling toward the floor far below, Dooku sent a surge of energy through the Force. Kenobi's fall suddenly accelerated like a missile burning the last of its drives before impact. The Jedi Master struck the floor at a steep angle, skidded along it, and slammed into the wall so hard the hydrofoamed permacrete buckled and collapsed onto him.
Obi-Wan felt uneasy, as this was going to be his future within short time's notice. While he had no doubts regarding Anakin's abilities, the fact that he was facing off against the Sith Lord on his own was something that he wasn't looking forward to.
This Dooku found exceedingly gratifying.
Now, as for Skywalker-Which was as far as Dooku got, because by the time his attention returned to the younger Jedi, his vision was rather completely obstructed by the sole of a boot approaching his face with something resembling terminal velocity.
The impact was a blast of white fire, and there was a second impact against his back that was the balcony rail, and then the room turned upside down and he fell toward the ceiling, but not really, of course: it only felt that way because he had flipped over the rail and he was falling headfirst toward the floor, and neither his arms nor his legs were paying any attention to what he was trying to make them do. The Force seemed to be busy elsewhere, and really, the whole process was entirely mortifying.
He was barely able to summon a last surge of dark power before what would have been a disabling impact. The Force cradled him, cushioning his fall and setting him on his feet.
He dusted himself off and fixed a supercilious gaze on Skywalker, who now stood upon the balcony looking down at him-and Dooku couldn't hold the stare; he found this reversal of their original positions oddly unsettling.
There was something troublingly appropriate about it. Seeing Skywalker standing where Dooku himself had stood only moments ago ... it was as though he was trying to remember a dream he'd never actually had . . .
He pushed this aside, drawing once more upon the certain knowledge of his personal invincibility to open a channel to the Force. Power flowed into him, and the weight of his years dropped away. He lifted his blade, and beckoned.
Skywalker leapt from the balcony. Even as the boy hurtled downward, Dooku felt a new twist in the currents of the Force between them, and he finally understood.
He understood how Skywalker was getting stronger. Why he no longer spoke. How he had become a machine of battle. He understood why Sidious had been so interested in him for so long.
Skywalker was a natural.
There was a thermonuclear furnace where his heart should be, and it was burning through the firewalls of his Jedi training. He held the Force in the clench of a white-hot fist. He was half Sith already, and he didn't even know it.
This boy had the gift of fury.
And even now, he was holding himself back; even now, as he landed at Dooku's flank and rained blows upon the Sith Lord's defenses, even as he drove Dooku backward step after step, Dooku could feel how Skywalker kept his fury banked be hind walls of will: walls that were hardened by some uncontrollable dread.
Yoda widened his eyes in alarm, noticing Anakin's growing aggressive stance against the Count.
Dread, Dooku surmised, of himself. Of what might happen if he should ever allow that furnace he used for a heart to go supercritical.
Dooku slipped aside from an overhand chop and sprang backward. "I sense great fear in you. You are consumed by it. Hero With No Fear, indeed. You're a fraud, Skywalker. You are nothing but a posturing child."
He pointed his lightsaber at the young Jedi like an accusing finger. "Aren't you a little old to be afraid of the dark?"
Skywalker leapt for him again, and this time Dooku met the boy's charge easily. They stood nearly toe-to-toe, blades flashing faster than the eye could see, but Skywalker had lost his edge: a simple taunt was all that had been required to shift the focus of his attention from winning the fight to controlling his own emotions. The angrier he got, the more afraid he became, and the fear fed his anger in turn; like the proverbial Corellian multipede, now that he had started thinking about what he was doing, he could no longer walk.
Dooku allowed himself to relax; he felt that spirit of playfulness coming over him again as he and Skywalker spun 'round each other in their lethal dance. Whatever fun was to be had, he should enjoy while he could.
"Isensegreatfear in you, Skywalker", Dooku mused with a smile. "You have hate. You have anger. But you don't use them"
"He's provoking Skywalker", Depa observed with a scowl. "What is he trying to do to him?"
"Drawing him closer to the Dark Side, he is..", Yoda admitted, seeing that Palpatine may even have Dooku provoke Anakin in using the darkness within him, not just to prove the Jedi Knight's worth, but to dispose of his tool.
He and Skywalker paused for one single, final instant, blades locked together, staring at each other past a sizzling cross of scarlet against blue, and in that instant Dooku found himself wondering in bewildered astonishment if Sidious had suddenly lost his mind. Didn't he understand the advice he'd just given? Whose side was he on, anyway?
And through the cross of their blades he saw in Skywalker's eyes the promise of hell, and he felt a sickening presentiment that he already knew the answer to that question. Treachery is the way of the Sith.
A starburst of clarity blossoms within Anakin Skywalker's mind, when he says to himself Oh. I get it, now and discovers that the fear within his heart can be a weapon, too.
It is that simple, and that complex.
And it is final.
Dooku is dead already. The rest is mere detail.
The play is still on; the comedy of lightsabers flashes and snaps and hisses. Dooku Skywalker, a one-time-only command performance, for an audience of one. Jedi and Sith and Sith and Jedi, spinning, whirling, crashing together, slashing and chopping, parrying, binding, slipping and whipping and ripping the air around them with snarls of power.
And all for nothing, because a nuclear flame has consumed Anakin Skywalker's Jedi restraint, and fear becomes fury without effort, and fury is a blade that makes his lightsaber into a toy.
The play goes on, but the suspense is over. It has become mere pantomime, as intricate and as meaningless as the space-time curves that guide galactic clusters through a measureless cosmos.
Dooku's decades of combat experience are irrelevant. His mastery of swordplay is useless. His vast wealth, his political influence, impeccable breeding, immaculate manners, exquisite taste-the pursuits and points of pride to which he has devoted so much of his time and attention over the long, long years of his life-are now chains hung upon his spirit, bending his neck before the ax.
Even his knowledge of the Force has become a joke.
It is this knowledge that shows him his death, makes him handle it, turn it this way and that in his mind, examine it in detail like a black gemstone so cold it burns. Dooku's elegant farce has degenerated into bathetic melodrama, and not one shed tear will mark the passing of its hero.
But for Anakin, in the fight there is only terror, and rage.
Only he stands between death and the two men he loves best in all the world, and he can no longer afford to hold anything back. That imaginary dead-star dragon tries its best to freeze away his strength, to whisper him that Dooku has beaten him before, that Dooku has all the power of the darkness, to remind him how Dooku took his hand, how Dooku could strike down even Obi-Wan himself seemingly without effort and now Anakin is all alone and he will never be a match for any Lord of the Sith-But Palpatine's words rage is your weapon have given Anakin permission to unseal the shielding around his furnace heart, and all his fears and all his doubts shrivel in its flame.
When Count Dooku flies at him, blade flashing, Watto's fist cracks out from Anakin's childhood to knock the Sith Lord tumbling back.
When with all the power that the dark side can draw from throughout the universe, Dooku hurls a jagged fragment of the durasteel table, Shmi Skywalker's gentle murmur I knew you would come for me, Anakin smashes it aside.
His head has been filled with the smoke from his smothered heart for far too long; it has been the thunder that darkens his mind. On Aargonar, on Jabiim, in the Tusken camp on Tatooine, that smoke had clouded his mind, had blinded him and left him flailing in the dark, a mindless machine of slaughter; but here now, within this ship, this microscopic cell of life in the infinite sterile de sert of space, his firewalls have opened so that the terror and the rage are out there, in the fight instead of in his head, and Anakin's mind is clear as a crystal bell.
In that pristine clarity, there is only one thing he must do.
Decide.
So he does.
He decides to win.
He decides that Dooku should lose the same hand he took. Decision is reality, here: his blade moves simultaneously with his will and blue fire vaporizes black Corellian nanosilk and disintegrates flesh and shears bone, and away falls a Sith Lord's lightsaber hand, trailing smoke that tastes of charred meat and burned hair. The hand falls with a bar of scarlet blaze still extending from its spastic death grip, and Anakin's heart sings for the fall of that red blade.
He reaches out and the Force catches it for him.
And then Anakin takes Dooku's other hand as well.
"He has done it!", Ki-Adi called out, though he did not feel any sense of both relief or triumph for the Jedi. Something was wrong here, and he looked at Mace and Yoda, who knew what was going to happen.
"If Dooku dies here, any chance of our future in knowing the identity of Sidious dies with him", Mace pointed out, though it doesn't really help since they already knew him firsthand.
"Taken the first step, Skywalker has...", was all that Yoda could say at the moment.
Dooku crumples to his knees, face blank, mouth slack, and his weapon whirs through the air to the victor's hand, and Anakin finds his vision of the future happening before his eyes: two blades at Count Dooku's throat.
But here, now, the truth belies the dream. Both lightsabers are in his hands, and the one in his hand of flesh flares with the synthetic bloodshine of a Sith blade.
Dooku, cringing, shrinking with dread, still finds some hope in his heart that he is wrong, that Palpatine has not betrayed him, that this has all been proceeding according to plan-Until he hears "Good, Anakin! Good! I knew you could do it!" and registers this is Palpatine's voice and feels within the darkest depths of all he is the approach of the words that are to come next.
"Kill him," Palpatine says. "Kill him now."
The Jedi Council gasped, now that they are about to witness the Jedi Knight ready to execute the Sith Lord. They needed him alive, in order to learn more about Darth Sidious.
But even now, they knew that Palpatine played his cards well. His friendship to Anakin and his political position made it very easy for him to get what he wanted for the Jedi Knight.
In Skywalker's eyes he sees only flames.
"Chancellor, please!" he gasps, desperate and helpless, his aristocratic demeanor invisible, his courage only a bitter memory. He is reduced to begging for his life, as so many of his victims have. "Please, you promised me immunity! We had a deal! Help me!"
And his begging gains him a share of mercy equal to that which he has dispensed.
"A deal only if you released me," Palpatine replies, cold as intergalactic space. "Not if you used me as bait to kill my friends."
"Bastard!", Kit Fisto finally shouted in dismay, while the rest contained themselves in expressing their resentment towards the Chancellor to who he is and what he had done to both Anakin and to Dooku.
"Scheming scum...", Depa lowly said, using all self-restraint not to have an outburst.
And he knows, then, that all has indeed been going according to plan. Sidious's plan, not his own. This had been a Jedi trap indeed, but Jedi were not the quarry.
They were the bait.
"Anakin," Palpatine says quietly. "Finish him."
Years of Jedi training make Anakin hesitate; he looks down upon Dooku and sees not a Lord of the Sith but a beaten, broken, cringing old man.
"I shouldn't-"
But when Palpatine barks, "Do it! Now!" Anakin realizes that this isn't actually an order. That it is, in fact, nothing more than what he's been waiting for his whole life.
"Anakin, don't!", Obi-Wan vainly pleaded, even knowing that he couldn't hear him. His apprentice, and his brother. Though he had avenged his defeat at Geonosis, by killing Dooku, he had placed himself as the next candidate for the Rule of Two.
And he was blaming himself. To all the failures and blunders that he and the Council had made to distance himself and of his values.
Permission.
And Dooku-As he looks up into the eyes of Anakin Skywalker for the final time, Count Dooku knows that he has been deceived not just today, but for many, many years. That he has never been the true apprentice. That he has never been the heir to the power of the Sith. He has been only a tool.
His whole life-all his victories, all his struggles, all his heritage, all his principles and his sacrifices, everything he's done, everything he owns, everything he's been, all his dreams and grand vision for the future Empire and the Army of Sith-have been only a pathetic sham, because all of them, all of him, add up only to this.
He has existed only for this.
This.
To be the victim of Anakin Skywalker's first cold-blooded murder.
First but not, he knows, the last.
Then the blades crossed at his throat uncross like scissors.
Snip
The Jedi watched in horror as Dooku, a very wise and esteemed Jedi Master, and now, nothing more than a tool to Sidious, had died right before their eyes. And no one could find solace to the fact that all chances of learning about Sidious through him had died with the Count as well.
And all of him becomes nothing at all.
Murderer and murdered each stared blindly.
But only the murderer blinked.
I did that.
The severed head's stare was fixed on something beyond living sight. The desperate plea frozen in place on its lips echoed silence. The headless torso collapsed with a slowly fading sigh from the cauterized gape of its trachea, folding forward at the waist as though making obeisance before the power that had ripped away its life.
AN:
Hopefully I managed to nail the conflict within Anakin with Rex, Ahsoka and Padmé trying to get him back to his senses. I was actually considering of Anakin to try and guarantee that Vader wouldn't exist, only for Ahsoka to stop him, but I find the idea a little to extreme.
Anyways, should I just have the Jedi watch the other scenes off--screen such as Anakin and the whole Master scenario while our group made their way back to the chambers?