章 69: Star Wars : Chapter 69: Regret II
"Master Drallig would be impressed if he were here to witness this spectacle", Saesee Tiin spoke, his hopes placed in Master Windu at avenging their deaths and to stop Sidious.
"The Force is with Master Windu at this one...", Master Mundi spoke, placing his faith on the Korun Master.
...
Vaapad made him an open channel, half of a superconducting loop completed by the shadow; they became a standing wave of battle that expanded into every cubic centimeter of the Chancellor's office.
There was no scrap of carpet nor shred of chair that might not at any second disintegrate in flares of red or purple; lampstands became brief shields, sliced into segments that whirled through the air; couches became terrain to be climbed for advantage or overleapt in retreat. But there was still only the cycle of power, the endless loop, no wound taken on either side, not even the possibility of fatigue.
Impasse.
Which might have gone on forever, if Vaapad were Mace's only gift. The fighting was effortless for him now; he let his body handle it without the intervention of his mind. While his blade spun and crackled, while his feet slid and his weight shifted and his shoulders turned in precise curves of their own direction, his mind slid along the circuit of dark power, tracing it back to its limitless source.
Feeling for its shatterpoint.
He found a knot of fault lines in the shadow's future; he chose the largest fracture and followed it back to the here and the now— And it led him, astonishingly, to a man standing frozen in the slashed-open doorway. Mace had no need to look; the presence in the Force was familiar, and was as uplifting as sunlight breaking through a thunderhead.
The Chosen One was here.
Anakin's glove-covered robotic hand held the lower half of his face, sweat dropping from his forehead upon seeing himself in the middle between Mace and Sidious.
He remembered, his future had no knowledge on what the likes of Sidious or Tarkin had done to countless innocent people that could surely question his perspective. With that in mind, he knew his future self still cared for that monster responsible for the galaxy's sufferings, for reasons that he had not known yet.
Yoda and Obi-Wan felt that something was terribly wrong in the future Skywalker's presence, feeling a sense of dread that this is portion is but a test where Anakin's loyalties truly lie; to Palpatine or to the Jedi.
Windu sensed Yoda and Obi-Wan's thoughts through the Force. And all confidence that he still had were removed, sensing the same thought for Skywalker.
Mace disengaged from the shadow's blade and leapt for the window; he slashed away the transparisteel with a single flourish. His instant's distraction cost him: a dark surge of the Force nearly blew him right out of the gap he had just cut. Only a desperate Force-push of his own altered his path enough that heslammed into a stanchion instead of plunging half a kilometer.
From the ledge outside. He bounced off and the Force cleared his head and once again he gave himself to Vaapad.
He could feel the end of this battle approaching, and so could the blur of Sith he faced; in the Force, the shadow had become a pulsar of fear. Easily, almost effortlessly, he turned the shadow's fear into a weapon: he angled the battle to bring them both out onto the window ledge.
Out in the wind. Out with the lightning. Out on a rain-slicked ledge above a half-kilometer drop.
Out where the shadow's fear made it hesitate. Out where the shadow's fear turned some of its Force-powered speed into a Force-powered grip on the slippery permacrete.
Out where Mace could flick his blade in one precise arc and slash the shadow's lightsaber in half.
One piece flipped back in through the cut-open window. The other tumbled from opening fingers, bounced on the ledge, and fell through the rain toward the distant alleys below. Now the shadow was only Palpatine: old and shrunken, thinning hair bleached white by time and care, face lined with exhaustion.
"You are under arrest," Mace said evenly, staring past his blade, "My Lord."
The audience resisted the urge to cheer or be relieved at what appeeared to be their triumph over the Sith Lord, as a means to keep themselves out from the Chancellor's radar. But they felt respite, assurance and promise when they saw the cleae outcome of the duel.
"He has done it...", Mundi spoke out loud, his voice carrying much needed relief. "He has bested Darth Sidious"
"No, Master Mundi...", Mace interjected, observing the scenario more carefully. "Our duel does not lie between Sidious and I. It lies with Skywalker..."
"He's seen what Palpatine did to Masters Fisto, Kolar and Tiin, why would Master still side with the Chancellor on what he is?", Ahsoka reasoned out, confused as her master and Padme.
"There is much that you have not yet known that we have seen to ourselves, little 'Soka", Plo Koon professed, slowly realizing what this meant for Skywalker as well.
Neither Anakin or Padme liked what they heard from Master Plo.
"I told you it would come to this!" Palpatine's voice once again had the broken cadence of a frightened old man's. "I was right! The Jedi are taking over!"
"Treason? What does he mean?!", Anakin questioned almost incredulously, wanting to know he had not from the Council members present. He would never believe anything that came out of Palpatine's mouth after the revelation of him being a Sith Lord.
"The oppression of the Sith will never return." Mace leveled his blade. "You have lost"
Palpatine lifted his head. His eyes smoked with hate.
"No," he said. He lifted his arms, his robes of office spreading wide into raptor's wings, his hands hooking into talons.
"NO!" His voice was a shout of thunder. "YOU WILL DIE!"
Lighting blasted the clouds above, and lightning blasted from Palpatine's hands, and Mace didn't have time to comprehend what Palpatine was talking about; he had time only to slip back into Vaapad and angle his blade to catch the forking arcs of pure, dazzling hatred that clawed toward him. Because Vaapad is more than a fighting style. It is a state of mind: a channel for darkness. Power passed into him and out again without touching him.
And the circuit completed itself: the lightning reflected back to its source.
Palpatine staggered, snarling, but the blistering energy that loured from his hands only intensified.
He fed the power with his pain. "HE'S A TRAITOR!"
"HE'S THE TRAITOR!" Mace called back. His voice sounded distant, blurred, ;if it came from the bottom of a well. "Anakin, help me! This is your chance!"
He felt Anakin's leap from the office floor to the ledge, felt his approach behind—And Palpatine was not afraid. Mace could feel it: he wasn't worried at all. "I have the power to save those you love!" the Chancellor said, his voice raised aver the howl of writhing energy that joined his hands to Mace's blade. "You must choose! This isn't an arrest! This is an assassination!"
"An assassination that you have orchestrated!", Obi-Wan called out, hoping that to the very least, things would be different. "Don't listen to him, Anakin!"
Anakin gritted his teeth, finding the strength to call out. "Forget about me, Master Windu! Finish him!", he shouted, realizing that he could not place his hopes to himself in the future.
That was when Mace finally understood. He had it. The key to final victory. Palpatine's shatterpoint. The absolute shatter-point of the Sith.
The shatterpoint of the dark side itself. Mace thought, blankly astonished, Palpatine trusts Anakin Skywalker...
Now Anakin was at Mace's shoulder. Palpatine still made no move to defend himself from Skywalker; instead he ramped up the lightning bursting from his hands, bending the fountain of Mace's blade back toward the Korun Master's face.
Palpatine's eyes glowed with power, casting a yellow glare that burned back the rain from around them. "Don't let him kill me...I am too weak"
"You're the chosen one, Anakin," Mace said, his voice going thin with strain. This was beyond Vaapad; he had no strength left to fight against his own blade. "Take him. It's your destiny.'"
Skywalker echoed him faintly. "Destiny..."
"Help me!" The yellow glare from Palpatine's eyes spread outward through his flesh. His skin flowed like oil, as though the muscle beneath was burning away, as though even the bones of his skull were softening, were bending and bulging, deforming from the heat and pressure of his electric hatred. "I...can't hold any longer—"
Mace's blade bent so close to his face that he was choking on ozone. "Anakin, he's too strong for me—"
"Ahhh—" Palpatine's roar above above the endless blast of lightning became a fading moan of despair. The lightning swallowed itself, leaving only the night and the rain, and an old man crumpled to his knees on a slippery ledge. "I... can't. I give up. I... I am too weak, in the end. Too old, and too weak. Don't kill me, Master Jedi. Please. I surrender."
"The true face of a Sith...", Luminara spoke out, feeling irked at Palpatine's now-deformed appearance.
"His serene mask is all but shattered, Master Unduli", Shaak Ti agreed with her. "Behind it shows the Dark Side personified"
Victory flooded through Mace's aching body. He lifted his blade. "I am going to end this once and for all!"
" You can't—" Skywalker seized his lightsaber arm with desperate strength. "He must stand trial!"
"What?! No! END HIM NOW!", Anakin urged to the Korun Master on screen, thinking what insanity that came into his future self's mind.
"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?"
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