"Master Yoda is out-dueling the Emperor!", Kit Fisto called out, realizing the Grandmaster's growing advantage against the Sith. "Sidious is beginning to struggle against him!"
"Confident, you must not be", Yoda advised the Nautolan Master. For all his wisdom and skill, he knew that Palpatine had plenty of tricks under his sleeve. "Settled through the lightsaber, this is not"
...
It came as the battle shifted from the holding office to the great Chancellor's Podium; it came as the hydraulic lift beneath the Podium raised it on its tower of durasteel a hundred meters and more, so that it became a laserpoint of battle flaring at the focus of the vast emptiness of the Senate Arena; it came as the Force and the podium's controls ripped delegation pods free of the curving walls and made of them hammers, battering rams, catapult stones crashing and crushing against each other in a rolling thunder-roar that echoed the Senate's cheers for the galaxy's new Emperor.
Landing in one of the Senate's Repulsorpods, Yoda had looked up to find Palpatine cackling as he levitated two Repulsorpods through the Force, before hurling it to the Jedi Grandmaster. Dodging the two pods, Yoda jumped towards another as they collided with the others. However, to his dismay, Yoda looked up to see another four being levitated and subsequently hurled against him.
"Of course, Palpatine would use another method instead...", Anakin angrily uttered out against the Sith Lord, desperately hoping that Master Yoda would still succeed.
However, Yoda did not carry any sort of enthusiasm as he began to slowly realize something. He was never meant to win against Sidious. It came when the avatar of light resolved into the lineage of the Jedi; when the lineage of the Jedi refined into one single Jedi. It came when Yoda found himself alone against the dark. In that lightning-speared tornado of feet and fists and blades and bashing machines, his vision finally pierced the darkness that had clouded the Force.
Yoda had seen the truth.
This truth: that he, the avatar of light, Supreme Master of the Jedi Order, the fiercest, most implacable, most devastatingly powerful foe the darkness had ever known... just-didn't—have it.
He'd never had it. He had lost before he started. He had lost before he was born.
The Sith had changed. The Sith had grown, had adapted, had invested a thousand years' intensive study into every aspect of not only the Force but Jedi lore itself, in preparation for exactly this day. The Sith had remade themselves.
They had become new.
While the Jedi—The Jedi had spent that same millennium training to refight the last war.
The new Sith could not be destroyed with a lightsaber; they could not be burned away by any torch of the Force. The brighter his light, the darker their shadow. How could one win a war against the dark, when war itself had become the dark's own weapon?
He knew, at that instant, that this insight held the hope of the galaxy. But if he fell here, that hope would die with him. That hope being Luke Skywalker himself.
...
Maul looked up when two clones rounded the corner and raised their rifles. Raising his arms, Maul started choking the both of them, raising them into the air as he strangled them to death.
Rex bristled at the fact that, these two were shinies to begin with. Their lack of experience in the field made them easy targets for the Zabrak Crime Lord.
Leaving one corpse to fall to the ground, Maul continued levitating the surviving clone until he made it to his destination, the hyperdrive core. Once the door opened, he tossed his passenger towards a clone guard stationed on the catwalk, sending both of them tumbling over the sides to their deaths.
When the other Clones noticed him and started shooting, Maul sprinted forwards and used the force to blow his way past them, leaving death in his wake. When a clone tried sniping him from above, he waved his hand once and forcibly redirected his aim to shoot down his comrades instead before ripping him off his perch and letting him fall.
"For someone who relies on the Force rather than the lightsaber, Maul had proven himself to be a formidable foe forged by Sidious", Luminara reluctantly commented on the Sith's tenacity in surviving against troopers bred for war.
After clearing out all hostiles in the area with him, Maul's insane grin widened as he got to work. All around him, machinery sparked and screeched as the force tore them from their housings. Alarms blared and smoke began filling the air as Maul systematically demolished the hyperdrive generators.
"This is bad...", Caleb uttered in fear, knowing what Maul had done to the ship where Ahsoka and Commander Rex were stationed. "At this rate, the ship is not going to last long"
"He would use this to his advantage to escape Sidious' clutches", Depa agreed with her apprentice. "At the cost of everyone aboard"
When more clones arrived, drawn by the alarms and damage, Maul brought his arms down, dealing a fatal blow to the generators and dropping them right on top of the clones, crushing several and sending the rest falling into the abyss when the catwalk gave out.
Explosions rocked the ship as the Venator was instantly pulled out of hyperspace. The destruction of the hyperdrive and the sudden forced exit was causing the damage to cascade through multiple subsystems of the stricken ship. The engines would tear themselves to pieces soon enough and the ship would be dead in the water, perfect time to find a way off the sinking boat.
"They were waiting for us." Rex exhaled as he watched his brethren form up in front of the shuttle. Anyone trying to get to the ship would have to go through them first.
Jesse..., Rex, Anakin and Ahsoka mournfully thought for the ever open-minded Clone trooper. Desperately, they hoped that Jesse could still be convinced despite the chip inside his brain.
ARC Trooper Jesse stood in front of the legion, waiting. Rex exhaled softly and closed his eyes, of course he'd be there ready for them. It just wouldn't be him if he wasn't.
"Oh no…" Obi-Wan closed his eyes with a small sigh.
"So what do we do? Fight our way to the shuttle!?" Rex asked, a note of panic seeping into his voice.
"There are too many." Ahsoka said after a pause.
"Besides, I don't wanna hurt them."
"…I hate to tell you this, but they don't care! This ship is going down, and those soldiers, my brothers! Are willing to die to take you and I along with them!" Rex started raising his voice and waved his hand towards the army outside angrily.
All the Jedi who fought alongside with their Clone troopers for years could not help but grimace their ultimate fate. They were not droids that are programmed, the very beings they had fought for years. They were human, and even if they all shared the same face, their personalities and friendships are what made them unique to one another.
Anakin and Ahsoka had always thought of Rex and the 501st were not just brothers-in-arms, but are brothers in all but blood.
Plo Koon looked at the 104th as the closest people he could call as sons.
Shaak Ti watched over with both pride and joy as they grew up to defend the Republic from any threat, as well as giving them motivations to succeed, akin to that or a maternal bond by itself.
Obi-Wan saw Cody and the 212th as the group that he could always count on. Shared more than a few good memories with them even.
Then his stance slackened and his shoulders slumped, looking away from Ahsoka as though ashamed by his own outburst. He didn't resist when Ahsoka reached up and removed his helmet. Rex wasn't able to meet her eyes as angry tears continued streaming down his face.
At the same time, Rex's eyes began to water and it wasn't long before he began to shed tears, realizing what he was truly made for. "My life...and that of my brothers...were all a lie...", he choked in realization.
He felt two arms circling behind him, as Ahsoka embraced him in an attempt to console him of the terrible revelation before them. "The Chancellor may have done so...but the friends that you made weren't...",
"It's killing him inside to have to fight his brothers." Padme said in a low tone
"As is ours, Senator...", Plo Koon added.
"You're a good soldier, Rex." Ahsoka said as she placed a hand on his shoulder.
"So is everyone of those men down there. They may be willing to die, but I am not the one who is going to kill them."
A moment of silenced passed between them before Rex spoke again. "So we're just going to surrender? Admit defeat? Is that it?"
"No." Ahsoka said.
"Well I don't see any other option." Rex lowered his head.
Ahsoka stared out at the army lying in wait for them as the gears in her mind churned. Slowly a plan began to take shape, it was a long shot but far better than a suicidal charge or just waiting to die in the crash. "I have an idea."
...
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