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."
...
Hey guys I would really appreciate it if you could throw some power stones to help elevate the ranking.
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release, you can join my p atreon :
p atreon.com/Darkness013