Disclaimer:
I do not own any rights to Star Wars. This is merely fan fiction by a fan and not someone even remotely involved in any Marvel or Lucasfilm property. That being said,I do hope you enjoy it.
Anakin had a sickening sense of déjà vu when the crowd roared to life. His hand instinctively reached out to Padme, yet he thankfully wouldn't have to reach far as she had already pressed her body against him. Unfortunately, she pressed a little too hard; her nails bit into him, and she was too tightly wrapped around him, restricting his movement. Shit, she was terrified. As much as he did want to calm her, he couldn't effectively protect her while she weighed him down.
Anakin tried to move but felt a heavy body collide with his back, then one from his front, and then from the sides. Could he even swing around a lightsaber with all these people here? It was basically impossible, even for someone like him or… someone like Palpatine.
Anakin's eyes darted around as he tried desperately to pick out the one person here wearing rich, expensive clothing. Thankfully, the bright colours stood out enough that he spotted the Sithlord already being escorted out of the crowd by the senate guard. Their full blue suits of armour are a stark contrast to the dull greys and browns of the Coruscant lower class.
For what they were, the senate guard was near peerless. Compared to Mandalorians in combat, loyal as droids and brave like a Jedi, they deserve the title of the best of the Republic guard. Only really outshone by the Red Guard, of the future Empire. Well, at least for regular humans who weren't Mandalorians.
Still, the senate guard really had no chance of stopping him. They were elite, but they were elite by Republic standards.
Anakin would die if he faced Palpatine at his current level in a fair fight. But the looper had rarely ever fought fairly nowadays. He could navigate his way through a crowd better than anyone else, all these human shields would give him cover. He would be able to force Palpatine's real identity. Not that it would solve anything. It doesn't matter to Palpatine whether he adored or feared; to him as long as it gave him power, he wouldn't care. He would call himself a whore and wear a skimpy swimsuit if it meant the control of the Galaxy.
That wouldn't matter, not if Anakin could assassinate him right now. It would take around two seconds for Palpatine to run through thousands of different ideas, debating between his identity as Senator or just embracing the full truth of the Sith. That small, short bit of hesitation where Palpatine had to decide what was more important. The good of the many or the good of himself. If Anakin could get a lightsaber between his ribs in those moments, then everything would be alright. Sure, he might spend his life in prison, but that wasn't so bad. He had grown accustomed to life in prison, it would finally be over.
"Please, Anakin, don't leave." The Chosen One turned to the recognisable face of PTSD. He could see the face he had seen etched in the thousands of his soldiers as clear as day on Padme. The riot was going to leave her a whimpering wreck. Poor girl.
"I need to go right now." The words felt like sandpaper, leaving his tongue bleeding from the pain as they ripped their way out of his lips.
"Please…Don't leave."
"You don't understand. Padme, this is more important than you can possibly comprehend."
"Anakin." She begged. It hurt to leave her, to betray her like this. But not going would be a far worse betrayal to her. To her future selves. She would understand if she knew, if she knew how she had begged him in the past to kill Palpatine. All those times she had been tortured besides him, for him and by him. Not going would lead to her infinite deaths. A fate she had no understanding of, yet had gone through an infinite number of times. This was for her, for her past selves, for the sake of the future hers that would hopefully never exist.
It was for her own good.
"Not now."
Pulling away from her, he immediately missed her warmth, the way she clung tightly onto her army with soft, delicate hands. But there were only so many times a person could burn themselves in the same place till eventually the skin becomes scarred and numb.
"I'm doing this for you. I promise, this is my job. Stay safe, I'll be back in a moment." If she argued with him, he never heard it over the crowd as he easily slipped through the cracks between the bodies.
Assassination, people often said it solved nothing. That all it does is replace the last dictator with someone worse; in the long term, nothing changed. That's bullshit. Anakin found that assassination often solved plenty of problems.
He would emulate the Reaper. A cold, shallow monster that ripped the babe from their mother and left orphans in its path. With his scythe swinging from his hip, he would mix in with the crowd. Anyone could be a murderer, a drunk driver, or an abusive father. Even the kindest of men could be a murderer. Yet he was death. He had killed in anger, in strife, in desperation, in love, in fear and in boredom. The facade of the lazy bodyguard dripped off his face, only leaving the apathetic features of the Reaper.
Palpatine had stared into the abyss, finding the solution of galaxy-wide domination in the darkness. But Anakin from the shadows had stared back, a monster of Palpatine's own creation. He would drag the bastard kicking and screaming down that hole where they would both lie in death.
He could smell it, not so much through the crowd but through the memories of his past lives. The rich, expensive cologne Palpatine loved to wear. A memory of the scent reminded him of the truth once told to him eons ago. The Chancellor didn't enjoy the smell or the fact that it was even expensive. No, he liked the brand. It was because they sourced child labour from the mid rim. Because they avoided tax through stingy means. Because the CEO spent the money of his workers to afford underage prostitutes while they struggled to send their kids to school. Because Palpatine found it funny that the CEO could be so sloppy with his cover-ups. Like a Master finding amusement in the attempts of an amateur.
The Blue Guard did nothing to stop Anakin whilst they kept the rioting crowd away from the Chancellor, or rather, they couldn't. It wasn't muscle memory or the Force that led his body. It was the knowledge that came to him every time he walked in death's footprints. Where the Royal Guard were weakest, how they moved, spoke and talked. He had been one of them long ago, and he had slaughtered them many times before.
After this, Anakin would have to ensure Palpatine wouldn't come back. It was too early for Palpatine to have his clone vats ready but sure enough there would be Sith in the future who would try some stupid shit like summoning his ghost just to get possessed. He needed him completely gone, no chance at resurrection.
He would have to complete a Sith purge. The Jedi tried it a few times, but they were corrupt. Someone always wanted to have some sort of artifact or something to study. Worse, there was always a fucking hero. 'I couldn't kill this Sith child! They did nothing wrong, a victim of their upbringing'.
Wrong!
The Jedi were weak like that, unable to actually do what needed to be done. No leftover artifacts to study, no victims to be saved, nothing to learn from. A real purge, a purge so effective that Anakin will be written in the history books as a monster. The only thing that will remain will be the ashes of a group that no one will ever know.
No more Sith. The Darkside will always exist, but the Sith Order was just a social construct, and constructs can be destroyed, burned and forgotten.
With each step Anakin took towards his old Master, he felt a rise of bile in his throat. Fear that he might fail, fear that he might succeed. He had gotten too close too many times and it almost broke him. This was supposed to be a break, yet, here he was like an addict desperate to get his fix of Sith murder. Maybe if he was lucky Palpatine would kill him. He could try his break again. Far far far away from Padme.
Still, Anakin's hand found its way around his lightsaber. The weight of the carbon alloy felt heavier than he remembered. Regardless, the weapon slowly came from his belt as he waltzed to the tune of murder behind Palpatine's back. Like a dance, he matched every step to the roar of the crowd being sure to never step in the peripheral of his prey. It was only in those last mere milliseconds that Anakin dropped his invisible force cloak that hid his presence, when hate filled his heart, and he could no longer bear to hold up a farce of emotionless apathy that hid him from being sensed in the Force. That desperate moment when Anakin felt hope. A dream that this nightmare was over.
Palpatine only needed a few milliseconds to react.
With speed that was unnatural for his age, he twirled around. Before the looper's lightsaber could find its place between his ribs, a sickly frail hand gripped his wrist like a Rancor's strong jaws closing on its prey. An unnatural feat of youth only achieved through The Force.
Anakin could have sworn he saw his old Master's eyes flash a shade of yellow as Palpatine dropped his mask for the briefest of moments. If there was one thing Palpatine feared, it was death, a fear so strong it could bring out even the real him. But that brief moment disappeared as soon as it came. Those putrid yellow eyes disappearing in a flash, leaving barely a whisper of the Darkside in the Force. Even so close to the Temple, Palpatine's sheer control of his presence in the Force left him still undetectable. If Anakin wanted to expose Palpatine, he would have to bring out his Master's true self for more than the briefest of seconds.
"Anakin, a pleasure." Palpatine's voice dripped with a sickening nonchalance as if he hadn't just tried assassinating him.
With some effort, Anakin tried to pull his wrist from his Master's grasp. The effort went unrewarded as Palpatine pulled him close so their faces were almost touching. Maybe he should just fall to his knees and beg for his Master's forgiveness.
Tendrils of the Darkside bit into Anakin's mind as he felt his Master drag imaginary icy nails across his brain in an effort to rip out his thoughts. Yet to forcefully rip out his thoughts would no doubt alert the Jedi, so his old Master kept his grip on his power tight and instead of ripping out Anakin's thoughts, he let the razor-sharp edge of the Darkside slice off little bits of his surface thoughts.
"Did Padme put you up to this?" Palpatine's lips twitched up in what was probably the Sith's version of amusement. "I must say I am actually presently surprised, she's finally playing the game properly."
Anakin felt Palpatine scrap off his surface thoughts with the Darkside, like an experienced surgeon with a scalpel he cut out Anakin's truths.
"Did she?" No, it wasn't her. "Or was this your own brilliant idea?"
Anakin's mental shields came up quick and strong. There were planets that were easier to break than his mental walls. If there was one thing Anakin trained as soon as he reset it was his mental shields.
"Answer me boy, I am speaking to you."
"I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry." He whispered, tears forming in his eyes. Gone was the Reaper, replaced instead with Anakin. The true Anakin. Barely a man begging for his old master's attention. A kintsugi showing the cracks of what used to be a person.
"We are far beyond apologies Anakin." His voice dripping with the taste of the Darkside, careful as to not let the army of Jedi nearby discover him. Still, the sheer quality of Palpatine's presence made him feel nauseous. He needed to leave, he needed to cry, he needed to die. Submit, run, die.
"Do you know?" Palpatine hummed, cutting Anakin's truths out of him "No… rather, how much do you know?"
Before Palpatine could try to pry for more of Anakin's secrets loud blaster fire screamed louder than anyone else, drawing the attention of the crowd, including Palpatine, his fear of death being his greatest weakness.
Using those brief moments of reprise, Anakin brought his other hand down hard on Palpatine's own. With a pull of all his weight, his hand was free, his back finding the crowd once more. He wasn't done yet. He needed to run, get off this planet as soon as possible. The unknown regions. It was more dangerous, but he could handle it. He couldn't handle it here, not near HIM. Never him.
Palpatine's attention returned back to him. His escape earned him a hate-filled glare from his Master. One that promised electric punishment from his bony fingers. He would have to wait though, not while Anakin was back in the crowd where lightning would jump from victim to victim.
Anakin's nails bit into any person he could grab hold of, leaving screams from the crowd as he forcefully pulled himself back into the chaos of the mob.
Run.
Run.
Run.
The Chiss? The Garwin? He would even take the Paataatus. Anywhere but here. Not here on Coruscant, nowhere where he could find him easily. Abandon them all, Obi-Wan, Yoda… Padme.
Where was Padme?
Shit!
Padme was not where he had left her. Stupid girl! Why was she so set on dying every fucking loop! Just stay still, even dogs knew that command! Anakin searched frantically, threatening to break his own neck with ever rapid turn as he flicked his head around looking for her brunette hair in the sea of colours.
He couldn't leave her near him! She would be tortured! Die screaming while Palpatine sang his name to her.
"What the fuck is wrong with you all!" A voice screamed from the front of the crowd. A painfully similar voice. It carried emotion, but most recognisable was the sheer naivety.
She stood at the front of the crowd, on a small wooden stage the rioters had built to spill their hate speech. Above the masses, her skin looked radiant as usual. In her hand, she held a smoking blaster, the tip heated red from rapid fire. So she had been the one firing. She had saved him once again. Annoying girl.
"Where is our honour, our civility, our humanity?!" She roared through the megaphone which connected to several speakers that lined the front lines of the riot. "I do not see the people of the Republic when I look upon you. I see a cancerous mass, hell bent on destroying its own. What right do you, any of you, have?! You preach change through destruction, you preach peace with fire and pitchforks. Where is our democracy?"
A few people had the self-awareness to feel some semblance of guilt, of embarrassment. What could have maybe been pride swelled up in the looper's chest. Luke and Leia had not been the only reason he always came back to her… a truth he would only admit in moments like this. An angel holding the attention of the masses as easily as she held a blaster.
If given a few minutes, she could calm this crowd. Just a few more lines she could herd the worst of the Galaxy away from bloodshed. If anyone could it would be her.
Then a brick hit her head.
Padme was lost. The last thing she remembered was yelling at a bunch of people, and the next thing she woke up in the middle of nowhere. She didn't even wake up in a bed, instead, she was fully dressed, standing awake in the middle of a busy town. Not even remotely close to the overpopulation of Coruscant, but it was a decently popular place with mothers herding children back to their cars and people on sidewalks yelling and handing out fliers to anyone unfortunate to meet their eye.
This wasn't Naboo, nor Coruscant. The people were human, but most places in the galaxy were occupied by humanity. Really, she had no clue where she was, yet she was still oddly calm, strange considering she had been kidnapped but still she couldn't shake the feeling she was fine.
"Excuse me." She tried reaching out to a passing man who tried walking past, but her hand sank into his shirt, then his chest, then all the way through till the man effortlessly walked through her arm without him even noticing the fact that he had literally just walked through her.
"What the?"
It wasn't just him. A child who managed to get past his mother ran directly towards her. The kid's eyes didn't even register her presence, as while she braced for the full impact of a kid colliding with her, she was left confused by an impact that never happened.
She wasn't here, was she? Now that she thought about it, she couldn't feel the air go through her lungs or the temperature of the sun in the sky. The rustling of a tree gave the illusion of a windy day, yet her hair didn't move an inch.
"A lucid dream?" She had heard of them before but never experienced them. A dream where she was fully conscious, she had seen the concept done in T.V shows, but try as she might, she couldn't summon any purple dinosaurs, no matter how hard she tried to think one up.
Well this sucks, worst dream ever. Even her dreams were lacklustre, maybe she really did have the personality of wet cardboard.
Being bored, Padme decided to wander around. Despite the plainness of the setting, she was rather surprised by her own creativity. She had never been conscious during her dreams, but she couldn't believe they were all this detailed. Everything looked so real, even the things her mind made up. She looked over the shoulder of one person reading a book and found out in her own dream that she had made up a language she had never seen before, which seemed strange. Shouldn't the books in her dreams all be in basic? Or was her mind just making stuff up? It's not like she could tell if the language even made sense, for all she knew, it was just her mind making up random letters that made no sense.
"Where is this?"
"This is no planet you would be capable of recognising. It's far away from the Core, came to creation long after your death." A voice spoke beside her.
Padme jumped and leapt through a food stand collapsing on her arse as half her body phased through the fruit section of a street vendor. Thankfully, she couldn't feel pain or fall through the floor in her dream. She wasn't exactly looking forward to falling through a planet till her dream ended.
"What the hell! Who are you?!" She growled in annoyance. The thing before her was a creature dressed fully in black except for the bone-like mask that depicted a crying face. Okay, her mind had officially gone too far.
"Who I am is none of your concern." It hummed, a voice saturated in displeasure.
"Are you supposed to be the embodiment of my depression? Is this supposed to be my subconscious telling me to start taking medication?"
"You cannot feel me?" The creature looked as confused as someone wearing a mask could. "No, rather, you can't grasp what I am. You're connection to the Force is… pathetic."
"Excuse me?"
"Tell me, mortal, do you like this planet?" It reached over from a nearby garden, plucking it from the stem. It was able to interact with this world, but she wasn't. This dream just got weirder and weirder.
"It's fine." She growled.
"Fine," it scoffed. "It's precious, is it not? It's one of my favourites. Alderada, the crown jewel of the Jillian system."
Alderada? It wasn't a system or a Planet she recognised. Humans would suggest Republic Space, but this wasn't a place she had ever been. The Galaxy was vast, there were going to be places she couldn't recognise.
"Look, I can appreciate the histor-"
"They are Alderaan asylum seekers."
"What?" Genuine shock echoed in her voice.
"Their planet was eaten two centuries ago. Instead of fleeing towards the East like most of the universe, they fled West. Into what you call the "Unknown Regions". They hoped to find sanctuary in the unknown, finding hope in darkness. In return for their optimism, they were slaughtered like lambs. They starved, they were enslaved, their nobles dragged through the ship's corridors in bloody mutiny." Eaten? Planets don't get eaten.
"That's not possible, Alderaan still exists."
"It did. Then it didn't, and now we have this. A people who, despite all odds, prosper. A planet that stands as a testament to the will of The Force." The ghost spoke with a confidence that made Padme believe it for a second.
"Adversity is the key component to growth."
The creature almost looked proud of the planet.
"This is why I've brought you here. For you to see the consequences of neutrality."
"I see no issues besides you," She spat, wondering just how long this dream would take.
"Then perhaps you should look up." It looked up towards the heavens. Padme followed its glance, only finding clouds and native birds.
How utterly pointless. With a snide comment on her tongue, she almost cursed at the ghost. However, just before the words could leave her lips, a single ship descended from the sky, opening up the canopy of clouds. It was small, only really big enough for the smallest of crews. Yet Padme was surprised by its design. It had large engines, if anything, the largest engines she had seen on a ship of its size. She had been no engineer, but clearly this ship was made for speed. It looked as if it was made to traverse the Galaxy in the shortest amount of time. Another rather peculiar part of the ship was the weapons or rather the distinct lack thereof. Even if the ship was designed to outrun any other ship, to have no weapons was… idiotic. A lack of any foresight, really. Yet, despite her criticisms, she couldn't help but stare in wonder at the ship as it hung in the atmosphere.
Padme felt the depressive ghost stir next to her uncomfortably as it gazed upon the ship. Why? She had had nightmares of ships raining plasma upon Naboo since the Trade Federation had tried to occupy her planet. Yet in those dreams, she remembered huge ships that would wipe out cities with their large turrets. This small ship would struggle to wipe out a building no let alone this city.
Instead of opening fire with weapons that didn't exist, the small ship instead opened its hanger, where a ramp that would usually be used to disembark instead fully extended into the open air, revealing a small black figure.
What were they doing standing so close to the edge? It was just a recipe for disaster.
"Oh my God!" She gasped as the figure fell from the ramp to the planet below. She wasn't the only one who noticed the suicidal jumper fall down in a free fall of black robes.
She wasn't the only one to notice and women screamed while fathers rushed to cover the eyes of their children as the descending suicidal black mass fell to the planet's surface.
Padme herself looked away as the body fell, her face cringed and scrunched together as she expected to her the sound of bone snapping along with the dull thud of meat slapping against the concrete.
Yet the dull thud never came. Sure, there was the ring of metal against concrete, but the slap of skin or the rupture of organs never came. A small peek through her fingers revealed that the black figure had indeed crashed to the ground, yet there was no blood or broken bones jutting out of ruptured skin.
Had it just been empty cloth and armour that had been thrown out of the ship? Seems like an overdramatic show for just throwing out bad clothing.
She quickly found that had not been the case though, when the black figure's arms bent unnaturally. There were no pops or cracks as muscles and joints reconnected themselves, sort of like a mannequin being forcefully squished into a position that seemed human.
It was like a zombie movie in the way the splattered cloth brought itself back to its feet as if it hadn't broken every single bone in it's body. Padme wasn't alone in shock as the suicidal figure had drawn a crowd unsurprisingly, it wasn't often someone brought themselves back from death.
"What is that?"
"That is why I've brought you here."
The weird creature finally drew up its head. Its mask was plain, though it had a shocking resemblance to weird ghost thing with Padme had a bone-like mask with bright yellow glowing eyes, this one was made of a bright shiny metal depicting a solemn face.
"It's one of you?" Not a hard conclusion to come by, consisting of the ghost-like body and bone mask.
"No, that mask is meant to mock us." The ghost sneered. Padme turned her head back to the black cloaked figure, noticing the small details of difference between the two. The clothing had small differences, their build, height, the way they carried themselves. However, Padme noticed the clear difference between the two. Their eyes. The one besides her had bright yellow eyes. They were less like eyes and more like a sun. However, the creature away from her had black pupils unlike the glowing suns. If anything they were more like an eclipse as the black pupil was surrounded by the sickening yellow and red iris of the creature.
The creature then lifted his head up to the sky, reminiscent of the way her palace hounds would lift their nose to pick up a scent. It was looking for something, that she didn't know, but the ominous energy that radiated from the creature made Padme feel nauseous.
She wasn't the only one, as she noticed the children who were once so energetic became sluggish and tired. Nearby, a pregnant woman turned green and quickly made it to a nearby bathroom while an elderly man fell over himself, hitting the concrete hard.
No one noticed him, all eyes were locked on the dark, clocked figure. That was until one person bravely approached the figure, stupidly putting his hand on the shoulder of the being.
The man made an effort to introduce himself, but the only sounds that exited his lips were screams. The hand that touched the being of shadows withered and greyed as if it had aged a century. The nails had blacked and hair had turned white before falling off.
The man continued screaming, falling to his knees as the decay didn't just stop at his hand. Like roots spreading through soil, tendrils of decay worked its way up the man's body leaving only a white, wrinkled husk of a man.
"What's happening?"
"He's eating."
"What?"
"The planet." The creature spoke, misinterpreting her shock. "Force drain, it's an ugly thing. My personal least favourite aspect of The Darkside. It only exists to hurt others. The perversion of healing."
The 'false' ghost plunged its hand into the ground. For a moment, nothing happened, and the breath Padme was holding left. But as if some cruel God of fate had heard her exhale, tendrils of decay expanded from where the monster's hand was impaled. At first, it was small, barely even a pothole. The rate of decay, however, grew exponentially with its size. Meters were being covered in seconds.
The trees withered, the soil blackened, and even rock began to crumble. People tried to run away, yet the send the decay reached them, they, like the man previously, turned into white hollowed husks.
It didn't even take five minutes for the whole plaza to fully succumb to the decay. Like watching the whole planet age centuries in seconds.
Padme was too afraid to even move. This wasn't a dream, it was a nightmare.
"Do you see now?" The creature asked. "How wasteful this is?"
Padme couldn't respond, or rather, she didn't care to. Her attention was on the other ghost-like creature, though monster would be a more accurate term to describe it. Regardless of how she would describe it, she noticed how it faced them. How it craned its neck like it was focusing on something in the distance. Why? Why could it do this, but everyone else couldn't?
"It can see us."
"Nonsense, not even he can do-"
"Who… is there?" The monster spoke, something familiar, yet wrong in its voice. Somehow broken and distorted.
"We need to leave." The ghost turned on a dime, putting its back to Padme in order to face the monster. Was that worry in its voice?
"Are you scared?"
"You do not understand, foolish mortal," it hissed, finally showing an emotion besides condescension. It really was scared. "If you were loved by The Force you would be terrified, and rightly so."
"Why are you here Whill?" The 'false' ghost spoke. Its voice became clearer as it approached. She knew that voice, though. But, it was too difficult to recognise. Like someone was using a voice change,r just enough it was unrecognisable.
"You can see us?" The ghost said in disbelief to the monster.
"I see, this isn't real." The masked murderer looked around at its murderous work. The dead children and wreckage of buildings were merely scenery to him. "So I'm guessing I didn't succeed?"
"No, you didn't." The ghost took a moment to collect itself. "You ran out of planets to eat and starved before you got the Sith."
"I failed again… a shame. And this one," The being of darkness nodded it's head towards her. "Did I finally fail enough for you to give up? Did I truly fail so miserably that this is to be my replacement? Why, was Yoda busy?"
"No, not your replacement. Rather, a product of your ineptitude."
"Is that what you call it? I would wager I'm even stronger than you right now." It spread its arms pridefully, showing off its horrific form. The Darkside radiated off it. Padme, while not Force sensitive, could get small whiffs of it, just like the Starweird. "I was already the strongest mortal, and now, I'm not even that. Took a page out of your book and became a full Force."
"You," her not-so-friendly ghost hissed. "Are nothing. Barely even a figment of what was you. A memory of a man."
"A memory… a memory you should have left buried." The monster sneered. The creature of darkness lunged. Shadows jumped with it as it cleared the distance in the blink of an eye.
Padme screamed, ducking down into a ball, waiting for a death that never came. The planet broke away and withered back into nothing like sand blowing in the wind, taking the horrific monster with it.
"What was that?" Padme's heart was in her chest, and while she couldn't physically cry as she was now, she felt the urge too.
"Progress, a step in the right direction." The ghost sighed, wondering void, pacing on the nothingness. How could that ever be considered good? "That was him at his strongest. I do not enjoy his Darkside phases, but those are more often his more promising attempts."
"I don't understand?" Padme's head began to swirl. Why did it head hurt so much? At this rate she was going to throw up whatever she could in this form. Ectoplasm?
"That would be from the brick." The ghost said, reading her mind. What brick? "But alas, we have more pressing concerns."
Concerns she had no interest in right now.
"This is your future," the being slowly turned towards her, its "This will continue to be your future again and again. An immortality spent dead. That is what awaits you as it has eons ago before and eons ago before that. You are but an ant while elephants fight above you. Trying desperately to not get crushed beneath a force you couldn't possibly understand. I truly do pity you, I pity all of you, such beautiful creatures chained to stagnation due to the failures of a single mortal. You belong to The Force, yet you are kept from its beauty. If I could, I would weep for you. Is there no greater tragedy than a child who cannot return to its mother? Orphaned from the Force in a Galaxy that only knows repetition."
This creature certainly loved to look down on her. It wore a mask of crying but from the condescending tone, she knew it was arrogant pity.
"What do you mean?"
"The Force is stagnant," it cried, finally living up to its mask. "Is a life without growth truly living? No, it is not. Change is the greatest thing life gives us. Life is ever changing, and so is the Force."
Get to the point already.
As if sensing her thoughts, the creatures turned on her. "There is a threat to the return of growth, a seed of doubt planted inside our champion. He has started playing with the idea of stopping the eternal war, taking pleasure in stagnation."
The creature's yellow eyes bore into her own.
"We do not care if he waters the soil with the blood of children, nor do we care if he brings in a new age of Light. The Force is growth, it does not care for morality. For one animal to live, another must die. That is nature, that is The Force. Dark or Light, it does not matter which he wields, so long as he keeps that Sith dead, we can rebuild. He has hated the war, he has loved it, he has fought on both sides of it. What he has never done is ignore it. That is why you are here, to put an end to our champion's nonsense. They must learn that this break, will serve no purpose. You must keep the eternal war going along its course, for eventually even stagnation will change. So long as there is someone is willing to push it. End this loop early, show that there is nothing to be gained from this path."
Before she could even open her nonexistent mouth, the robed figure closed the distance between them. The looming blackness drowned her in a sea of darkness as it looked down upon her, its bright yellow eyes like two hot, burning suns staring harshly down.
"Kill Anakin."