"What is going on with Anakin?", Padme hurriedly asked, wondering why he would still protect Palpatine despite the revelations. The Council looked at her, promising that they would tell both of them at the right time.
"He controls the Senate and the Courts! He's too dangerous to be left alive! If you could have taken Dooku alive, would you have?"
...
Ahsoka's eyes widened. "He...killed Count Dooku?", she uttered, not believing that the Sith Lord could have fallen to Anakin anytime soon from all the times they had fought together. Anakin likewise felt the same, as his objective was to capture Count Dooku whenever possible, and never kill him.
Skywalker's face swept itself clean of emotion. "That was different—it's not the Jedi way! He must live!"
Mace turned toward the cringing, beaten Sith Lord.
He raised his lightsaber.
"NO!"
Before he could follow through on his stroke, a sudden arc of blue plasma sheared through his wrist and his hand tumbled away with his lightsaber still in it and Palpatine roared back to his feet and lightning speared from the Sith Lord's hands and without his blade to catch it, the power of Palpatine's hate struck him full-on.
"UNLIMITED POWER!", Sidious roared as lightning struck the Korun Master
"NOOOO!", Anakin shouted in complete dismay to himself, and what did he mean by needing Palpatine to save Padme?
The Jedi were shocked, horrified, and in disbelief that the Jedi Knight had done. Padme and Ahsoka could only watch in complete silence, their eyes widening in horror at what had transpired.
Mace Windu wanted to react, either by renewed anger or hostility towards Skywalker. That he was right that he shouldn't have trusted him in the first place, but he was unable to do so, as if something is preventing him to.
Depa covered her mouth with both hands in shock, fearing at what is to come for her master despite not having the best history between them.
Masters Fisto and Tiin could not believe what Skywalker just did, despite the obvious mutual distrust between the two. Yoda only closed his eyes in surrender, saddened of the outcome for Anakin. "Towards a dark path, young Skywalker had chosen"
And Obi-Wan could only watch helplessly as he witnessed his apprentice aided the Sith Lord in disposing the Master of the Order.
He had been so intent on Palpatine's shatterpoint that he'd never thought to look for Anakin's.
Dark lightning blasted away his universe. He fell forever.
Anakin fell to his knees, overwhelmed in regret and anger to himself on what he did to Master Windu. "Why?", was all that he could say.
Anakin Skywalker knelt in the rain.
He was looking at a hand. The hand had brown skin. The hand held a lightsaber. The hand had a charred oval of tissue where it should have been attached to an arm.
"What have I done?"
Was it his voice? It must have been. Because it was his question.
"What have I done?"
Another hand, a warm and human hand, laid itself softly on his shoulder.
"You're following your destiny, Anakin," said a familiar gentle voice. "The Jedi are traitors. You saved the Republic from their treachery. You can see that, can't you?"
"You were right," Anakin heard himself saying. "Why didn't Iknow?"
"You couldn't have. They cloaked themselves in deception, my boy. Because they feared your power, they could never trust you."
Anakin stared at the hand, but he no longer saw it.
"Obi-Wan—Obi-Wan trusts me..."
"Not enough to tell you of their plot."
"What does he mean? Tell me! What does he mean?!", Anakin again urged, only to be met by sympathetic silence from most of the audience.
Treason echoed in his memory.
... this is not an assignment for the record...
That warm and human hand gave his shoulder a warm and human squeeze. "I do not fear your power, Anakin, I embrace it. You are the greatest of the Jedi. You can be the greatest of the Sith. I believe that, Anakin. I believe in you. I trust you. I trust you. I trust you."
With those words, Anakin's hate for Palpatine exploded, knowing his trust is nothing more than lies that made him no different from the Jedi, resisting whatever urge he had to come straight to the Chancellor's office and end him there, not caring of the consequences any longer.
Anakin looked from the dead hand on the ledge to the living one on his shoulder, then up to the face of the man who stood above him, and what he saw there choked him like an invisible fist crushing his throat.
The hand on his shoulder was human.
The face... wasn't.
The eyes were a cold and feral yellow, and they gleamed like those of a predator lurking beyond a fringe of firelight; the bone around those feral eyes had swollen and melted and flowed like durasteel spilled from a fusion smelter, and the flesh that blanketed it had gone corpse-gray and coarse as rotten synthplast.
Stunned with horror, stunned with revulsion, Anakin could only stare at the creature. At the shadow.
Looking into the face of the darkness, he saw his future.
"Now come inside," the darkness said.
"At this point, he no longer had a choice", Mace finally spoke in a disappointed tone towards Skywalker, not feeling any sort of empathy for him despite the fact that they could still prevent all of this. "He has taken one step, and there was no turning back"
"No, he could still reject him! There has to be another way!", Padme snapped in denial, desperately hoping that there is one that Anakin could quickly think of, but when she turned to Obi-Wan, her hopes were dashed when she saw him shook his head apologetically.
After a moment, he did. On the mountain peak within himself, he weighed Padme's life against the Jedi Order.
It was no contest.
He said, "Yes."
"No ... no, no, no, no, no. NO!", Anakin cried out repeatedly, dismay and anger overtaking him as he glared at his future counterpart. "Don't do this!", he pleaded And once again, the Jedi watched as Anakin fell apart once more, to which most would feel the same as he did.
Meanwhile, Rex only watched with an obedient expression, void of any emotion as he watched Lord Sidious before him.
"Yes to what, my boy?"
"Yes, I want your knowledge."
"No knowledge of the Dark Side is worth turning back on the Jedi Order!", Obi-Wan vainly pleaded, even though he knew that Anakin couldn't hear him.
"Good. Good!"
"I want your power. I want the power to stop death."
"That power only my Master truly achieved, but together we will find it. The Force is strong with you, my boy. You can do anything."
"The Jedi betrayed you," Anakin said. "The Jedi betrayed both of us."
"You were used by him, Anakin", Plo Koon spoke in a grim tone. "All of us were..."
"As you say. Are you ready?"
"He's not ready nor he will ever be ready to serve you!", Master Fisto shouted at Sidious in the screen in anger.
"I am," he said, and meant it. "I give myself to you. I pledge myself to the ways of the Sith. Take me as your apprentice. Teach me. Lead me. Be my Master."
"Master...please..." Ahsoka begged, anguish surging through her.
Sidious raised the hood of his robe and draped it to shadow the ruin of his face.
"Kneel before me, Anakin Skywalker."
Anakin dropped to one knee. He lowered his head.
"Anakin...", Obi-Wan uttered, feeling helpless like he had when he saw the lives of Qui Gon and Satine fade before him. They were gone but he still have his brother, and he wasn't ready to lose him either.
"It is your will to join your destiny forever with the Order of the Sith Lords?"
There was no hesitation. "Yes."
Darth Sidious laid a pale hand on Anakin's brow. "Then it is done. You are now one with the Order of the Dark Lords of the Sith. From this day forward, the truth of you, my apprentice, now and forevermore, will be Darth..."
A pause; a questioning in the Force— An answer, dark as the gap between galaxies— He heard Sidious say it: his new name.
Vader.
A pair of syllables that meant him.
Vader, he said to himself. Vader.
"Thank you... my Master."
And just like that, they witnessed the downfall of Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi Knight. And the rise of Darth Vader, the Sith Lord. And none of them could comprehend on how Palpatine's machinations have got them this far.
Padme's eyes were on the verge of tears upon seeing her husband's deeds, but the question is why does she need to be saved? She did not have any illnesses to begin with, and she could easily access the Republic's finest medical equipment in that case.
"No...",
Everyone heard Anakin's wail as he sat down, covering his face with both hands in both shame, anger, grief and denial to himself with Padme and Ahsoka trying what they could to console him. The errors of their judgement came crashing down upon them, how they hoped Anakin would help the Jedi through his political connections through Palpatine, and it has only led him to a spot that the Sith Lord managed to lay down carefully and executed it in the right spot.
"Master...", Anakin spoke to Obi-Wan almost in a whispered tone, almost ashamed to address him by that title, after witnessing himself willingly abandoning both the life and family that he ever knew. "What happened to me...what was I thinking...why have I done this?"
"Anakin...", Obi-Wan tried to speak as reasonable as he could, but the conflict within his apprentice made him realize that he needed answers, now. "There is much that you have to know ... about you and the Chancellor"
Before Obi-Wan could continue, a familiar pair of holograms re-appeared merged from the holovid, with the female figure stepping over to address them. "If you wish to proceed as to what lies before you, it is imperative that you follow our instructions. It would concern both the Jedi and the Grand Army of the Republic"
Rex's eyes widened, not liking where this is going. "Us? But why?", he spoke out loud, being the only Clone present in the Council Chambers.
Immediately, the thought for Clone Commanders Cody, Wolfe, Gree, Bacara, Grey and many others were on the minds of the Council members who had fought alongside with them for so long, and they were immediately worried as to what happened to the Clones that they cared for, when no one else could.
The male hologram stepped forward. "Because if you don't ... all that you have learned here will come to waste"
...
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...
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