Darth Vader left nothing living behind when he walked from the main room of the control center.
Casually, carelessly, he strolled along the hallway, scoring the durasteel wall with the tip of his blade, enjoying the sizzle of disintegrating metal as he had savored the smoke of charred alienflesh.
"This isn't me...", Anakin lowly said, hatefully glaring at his manical future. "Just stop!", he begged.
"Gone, the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker was", Yoda mournfully professed. "Consumed he is, by the Sith Lord, Darth Vader"
The conference room door was closed. A barrier so paltry would be an insult to the blade; a black-gloved hand made a fist.
The door crumpled and fell.
The Sith Lord stepped over it.
The conference room was walled with transparisteel. Beyond, obsidian mountains rained fire upon the land. Rivers of lava embraced the settlement.
Rune Haako, aide and confidential secretary to the viceroy of the Trade Federation, tripped over a chair as he stumbled back. He fell to the floor, shaking like a grub in a frying pan, trying to scrabble beneath the table.
"Stop!" he cried. "Enough! We surrender, do you understand? You can't just kill us—"
The Sith Lord smiled. "Can't I?"
"Anakin, please stop!", Padme begged, not wanting him to further fall from his sanity to become a complete maniac.
"We're unarmed! We surrender! Please—please, you're a Jedi!"
"You fought a war to destroy the Jedi." Vader stood above the shivering Neimoidian, smiling down upon him, then fed him half a meter of plasma. "Congratulations on your success."
"The sadism of a Sith...", Mundi said in complete horror at the cold-blooded murders of the Separatist leaders.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes, wiping a few tears at seeing how far his brother had fallen, how he had broke Qui-Gon's promise to him. "Forgive me...Master...", he tearfully uttered.
He looked behind him, his crimson-yellow eyes were visible to the galaxy for the galaxy to see.
Yoda's ears lowered, realizing he was too far gone to be convinced.
Ahsoka was already crying as she saw her Master's complete fall to the Dark Side, where she felt two hands embraced her and she looked up to find Rex in anguish, still trying to find solace of all of this.
The Sith Lord stepped over Haako's corpse to where Wat Tambor clawed uselessly at the transparisteel wall with his armored gauntlets. The head of the Techno Union turned at his approach,
cringing, arms lifted to shield his faceplate from the flames in the dragon's eyes. "Please, I'll give you anything. Anything you want!"
Depa finally had the courage to bring Caleb over to her arms and shield his eyes, unable to bear seeing the war hero of the Clone Wars to become a genocidal maniac of a Sith Lord.
The blade flashed twice; Tambor's arms fell to the floor, followed by his head. "Thank you."
Darth Vader turned to the last living leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Nute Gunray, viceroy of the Trade Federation, stood trem-bling in an alcove, blood-tinged tears streaming down his green-mottled cheeks.
"The war...," he whimpered. "The war is over—Lord Sidious promised—he promised we would be left in peace... "
"His transmission was garbled." The blade came up. "He promised you would be left in pieces.''
"His fall is complete..", Mace finally spoke up, as if his tone indicated he was right all long. "No matter how much you try to defend him, he is a Sith Lord with nothing to care in the galaxy but power"
...
"When was the last time you saw him? Do you know where he is?"C-3PO's photoreceptors registered the Senator's flush as she lowered her eyes and said, "No."
Three years running the household of a career politician stopped C-3PO from popping back out and reminding the Senator that Master Anakin had told her just yesterday he was on his way to Mustafar; he knew very well that the Senator's memory failed only when she decided it should.
"Padme, you must help me," Master Kenobi said. "Anakin must be found. He must be stopped."
The Senator wasn't sure whether or not her refusal to help Obi-wan. She knew that Anakin had to be stopped, but her future knew no better. But she didn't want the two of them to fight one another because. of her, and the mere thought was already a dagger pierced to her heart.
Anakin only held a hand onto his wife's, wanting to provide comfort of the troubling times they are going through.
"How can you say that?" She pulled back from him and turned away, folding her arms over the curve of her belly. "He's just won the war!"
"A war orchestrated by the Sith, Senator", Windu corrected her.
"The war was never the Republic against the Separatists. It was Palpatine against the Jedi. We lost. The rest of it was just playacting."
"Just as Maul had said back at Mandalore..." Shaak Ti recalled the hollow reminder that they went through.
"It was real enough for everyone who died!"
"Yes." Now it was Master Kenobi's turn to lower his eyes. "Including the children at the Temple."
"What?"
She wouldn't have believed him..., Anakin thought. For what is worth Padme, you. have to help Obi-Wan...
"They were murdered, Padme. I saw it." He took her shoulders and turned her back to face him. "They were murdered by Anakin.''
"It's a lie—" She pushed him away forcefully enough that C-3PO nearly triggered the security alert then and there, but Master Kenobi only regarded her with an expression that matched C-3PO's
internal recognition files of sadness and pity.
"He could never... he could never... not my Anakin..."
"He...he gave up everything for my sake...for our son Luke...", Padme sobbed, realizing the lengths he had went through since the trauma of him losing his mother.
Master Kenobi's voice was soft and slow. "He must be found."
Her reply was even softer; C-3PO's aural sensor barely recorded it at all.
"You've decided to kill him."
Master Kenobi said gravely, "He has become a very great threat.
At this, the Senator's medical condition seemed to finally overcome her; her knees buckled, and Master Kenobi was forced to catch her and help her onto the sofa. Apparently Master Kenobi knew somewhat more about human physiology than did C-3PO; though his photoreceptors hadn't been dark to the ongoing changes in Senator Amidala's contour, C-3PO had no idea what they might signify.
At any rate, Master Kenobi seemed to comprehend the situation instantly. He settled her comfortably onto the sofa and stood frowning down at her.
"Anakin is the father, isn't he?"
Mace and the rest of the Jedi, sans Anakin who was shocked at the revelation, turned to Obi-wan in utter disbelief, realizing that he had willingly withheld this secret from them. "You knew, Master Kenobi?", Windu demanded an explanation from Obi-Wan, who remained firm at protecting his brother.
"The Jedi are known to keep secrets from its members", Obi-wan proclaimed, his resolve not faltering. "I do not see anything wrong keeping mine as a Jedi from the Order either"
Padme held onto her tears, trying to find the strength to make any sort of excuse to dissuade him from going after Anakin. But he continued.
"I am not blind, Padmé. Though I have tried to be, for Anakin's sake. And for yours. Anakin has loved you since the day you met, in that horrible junk shop on Tatooine. He's never even tried to hide it, though we do not speak of it. We… pretend that I don't know. And I was happy to, because it made him happy. You made him happy, when nothing else ever truly could."
Padme's whimpers turned to sobs as she learned how much Obi-Wan protected them even if what Anakin did was against the Code they had followed loyally.
Anakin turned to Obi-Wan, tears threatening to leave his eyes as he learned of what his Master had been hiding from him. "Master...why didn't you tell me? That you knew all along?"
Obi-Wan could no longer hide it, as he held his apprentice's shoulder. "I have done so, not as a Jedi. But as a brother. And not just for you and for Padme, but to the Jedi and the Republic as well..."
Obi-wan turned to leave, not before looking back at her, in sorrow.
"I'm so sorry"
...
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