"This is a trap," Oppo Rancisis observed gravely as he slithered towards the Master of the Order.
"Knew this, we did, when we set forth," Yoda remarked sagely as he peered through the Force, ignoring Sidious entirely in all his obvious maliciousness. There was, indeed, another here, but well hidden. Then again, this Darth Sidious's rage and fury radiating through the Force was like its own camouflage for other Dark Siders.
"Sometimes, the only thing to do is spring the trap," Qui-Gon remarked grimly.
"Is that what you teach your Padawan?" Evan asked with a grunt.
"As my master did me, and his him," Qui-Gon opined calmly.
It took a moment for some to look towards Yoda, who shrugged. "Incorrect, he is not."
"Still, we need to be cautious about this," Dooku cut in. "We cannot afford to divide ourselves too thinly, if at all."
"No more than three groups," Windu stated firmly as he looked over their numbers. All but two of the High Council and a dozen more masters who had been nearby after all the commotion started.
Twenty-two Jedi Masters, and who knew how many would see another day.
"But I'd rather it be only two," Mace added on.
"A small group should remain here, in case one or both attempt to flee," Oppo Rancisis stated.
It went without saying that the group could also call in support or...get word back to the temple and the republic of their deaths.
Mace Windu nodded. "Masters Nat-Sem, Vono, Sinube, Trebor, Krataley and Dooku will stand watch here for now, while the rest of us attempt to flush out these Sith Lords."
Dooku scowled, but nodded. There was valid reasoning for him to remain here; He had old bonds with both Yoda and Qui-Gon. Leaving him out would give the smaller group an idea of the situation.
They all tensed before dark looks came over them. "Impatient one, isn't he?" Poof remarked with a frown as they sensed a most unwelcome development.
Sidious was plaguing the Temple through the Force once more.
Meanwhile
Obi-Wan winced as he tried not to stumble through the halls. The second time around, this insidious Sith's whispers in the Force were easier to handle.
That or he was just getting accustomed to having the Dark Side assault his psyche.
He truly didn't want to consider that notion too deeply.
He stopped mid-step, remembering that he was not alone. He looked back and saw that Ahsoka had fell to her knees, but was already trying to get back up.
Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps this barrage was just weaker. He hoped so, for the sake of the younglings. These recent events had been hard on them all.
He watched her for a moment, to see if she needed help. She was gritting her teeth and clutching her head, but she was slowly walking forward.
Obi-Wan vaguely recalled her, the little Togruta that had been with Anakin earlier. If the situation was anything else, he would be mentally preparing a joke or two about Anakin having made a friend so quickly.
He forced himself to focus, gazing forward towards the door of the council room. He wasn't sure what he'd do, what the point was of this still. If nothing else, it gave him a task to distract him from-
-The Temple exploding, Coruscant in ruins, vast hosts of warships filling the skies, billions dead, the survivors being taken awake for horrible, twisted, hopele-
He breathed deep as he pushed the awful vision away...and trying to ignore the siren taunting-of his own weakness
-how pathetic he was, how Qui-Gon took him on only out of pity-
He gasped as he felt a pulse in the force, through his bond with his master. He sent a feeling of gratitude to the man. The padawan laid his hand on the door, keeping himself anchored from falling back into another vision within a vision. He thought he knew what the Dark Side was before; Perhaps not entirely, but enough to resist it, to not be so easily overwhelmed.
He thought Vader's overpowering presence had validated that.
He had known nothing.
Vader was powerful, but his cold aura was little more than a minor shock compared against this truly malevolent entity.
Was this Sidious even truly a living creature, a sentient and sapient lifeform? How could something of such endless and near-mindless hatred be truly self-aware?
He shook that thought off as he sensed Ahsoka catch up with him, forcing himself to remember how to open these doors.
They slid open and the pair knew relief.
Obi-Wan breathed deep as he quickly took stock of the circular room. It was almost entirely empty. At the center sat Master Yaddle, meditating and floating with a great flow of soothing Force energy around her. There was a stern look upon her face, eyes closed with the occasional, momentary grimace.
It didn't take Obi-Wan long to put the situation together. Yaddle was trying to shield off the effects of the assault. Not just here, but the entire temple, sparing the worst of the visions on the mind. Like a great lighthouse in a mighty storm, it also steadied and bolstered the other Jedi. Like Battle Meditation, in a way.
"Skyguy!"
Ahsoka's cry brought his gaze away from the green alien, watching the youngling rush over to a body behind one of the council chairs. He moved after her and scowled in concern.
Anakin was unconscious, just lying there. If not for current circumstances, he would thought the boy had just passed out after a long, long day. Many other Younglings had, or no doubt soon would. But something felt wrong with this, with Anakin.
If the former slave passed out from the assault of the Dark Side, he should be in a cold sweat of one nightmare or another. Yet, he seemed entirely peaceful. Too peaceful.
And Anakin had braved the mental effects of Vader's March without any apparent effort. This Darth Sidious was an entirely different kind of foe, but it seemed...unlikely that Anakin would be downed so easily when he and Ahsoka were still awake.
And he was laying right here, in the Tower of Tranquility, with Master Yaddle who was acting as a buffer against the Dark Side. This should be the safest place for an unguarded mind.
"Qa iniban ar jeo?" Ahsoka asked in her native tongue.(What happened to him?)
Luckily, it was a language Obi-wan had a decent handle on. "Do go ktei," he admitted as he laid a hand on Anakin's head.(I don't know.)
He schooled his expression quickly, not wanting to alarm Ahsoka, even as a cold sweat ran down his neck. He found himself somehow glad that this mass mind-assualt, if only because he didn't have to explain the shaking of his hands.
He couldn't feel anything. He couldn't sense anything from this very, very powerful child. There was just...nothing.
But, that couldn't be right. That would...that would imply...
He tried to quietly swallow the lump in his throat.
Was...was Anakin dead!?
Meanwhile
The Jedi Masters had ascended up the side of the building, to the opening smoke flowed from. Using any conventional entrance was automatically assumed to be part of one trap or another.
Mace Windu took only a moment to look over the area; a makeshift hanger and workshop, with a great amount of damage done to the large room. Every exit from the room, save the one they used, was shut and appeared to be sealed. The exploded remains of a ship were also there, the floor beneath it looking ready to cave in. He didn't need to be able to see Shatterpoints to know that. A destroyed catwalk was splayed over the room. And all over the room was destroyed droids...some by lightsabers, others not.
And a very curious amount of lightsabers litering the floor.
"Vader spoke the truth, about the Apprentice facing the Master," Eeth Koth said with a scowl. "There is more than hate here: Betrayal, disappointment, resignation, desperation."
"How could they conceal such a conflict so well, while on the same planet?" Adi Gallia questioned with a frown.
"Shrouded much, the Dark Side has," Yoda opined, leaning down to brush his claws over a medallion of some ancient Sith warrior. He could feel the Dark Side naturally clinging to this object; A Sith Artifact. "Far blinder, than we believed, we have been."
"But they stopped fighting," Mundi stated with a troubled look. "Are we certain Vader didn't trick us, forcing them to stop fighting by sending us after them?"
"If he had, he wouldn't have warned us against coming," Oppo Rancisis stated reluctantly. It was more likely, in his mind, that this was just a final suicide mission for the Apprentice.
"The Apprentice is here, stalking our every move I'm sure," Qui-Gon noted, looking around curiously. There was no sense in playing dumb. There was no chance this Sith wasn't aware that they would know he was watching them. "But the Master?"
Yoda nodded at the student of his student, sharing his sentiment. The Force was warning him, all of them to be wary, to not let their guard down. But Yoda had been in countless battles and faced untold numbers of those that clung to the Dark Side to the Force. He knew when he was facing one, two, or many enemies.
Why did it feel like there was only one enemy right now? Was Vader correct about that? But, if Vader was correct, that implied he had been more truthful than they had suspected. Or wanted, in some cases.
Mace Windu and several others looked to Saesee Tiin. The normally reclusive and often quiet council member caught his gaze and shook his horned head meaningfully.
Windu nodded, an entire conversation having been held. Tiin's race were naturally telepathic and, to a lesser varying extent, precognitive. However, with this Sidious hurling every kind of dark vision through the Force, the Iktotchi Jedi couldn't afford to rely on any vision he might have, while here in the heart of their enemy's territory.
That said, the Iktotchi were also natural telepaths. And being a Jedi made that aspect of their biology even easier to wield.
Windu nodded discretely to the wreckage of a small ship. Tiin raised an eyebrow briefly at the idea, but complied an instant later. With a wave of his hand, the floor groaned and cracked before the ship began to skin through the damaged floor. Rancisis, Evan, and Depa calmly leaped away as the hole expanded, more and more metal falling to the level below.
An eerie silence stretched over them all, senses in all ways stretched out fully in preparation for what was to come. Lightsabers gripped firmly in hand, waiting for the first sign, the first sound of their enemy.
Yoda's ears twitched.
There was a hiss. Not like creature, no, but like air. Like a gas.
And it wasn't coming from the hole.
He, Piell, Luminara, and Mundi all sensed it in time. Their eyes shot skyward, reaching their hands up towards a disk-shaped device attached to the ceiling, sensing...something emitting from it.
In the same instant, massive streams of sinister blue lightning shot out from the center of the hole, striking at Yoda and Piell in their moment of distraction. Yoda was able to avoid it, but the one-eyed master was not so fortunate.
He screamed in agony as the attack overpowered him and sent him flying across the room. It was so fast and so strong that dodging and deflecting hadn't even been an option for the short Jedi.
Yoda's eyes narrowed as he watched his fellow council member fall, being caught by a Rodan master named Talsmi Inchern. The small Jedi was alive, for now.
Every Jedi had ignited their lightsaber the moment the Sith Lightning was cast, Koth and Mundi both keeping one hand up to contain the gas.
"He's in the wreckage!" Depa cried out, many of them reaching out to dispel the smoke-
And Sidious aided them, a pulse of the Dark Side revealing him in all his cloaked wickedness, staring up at the Jedi with unhidden hatred.
They did not once take his lack of weapon to mean he was less dangerous.
"All this, for one old senator?"
Windu's demeanor darkened as several Jedi stiffened at the voice. A voice many of them had heard at one point or another in recent times.
"Why, it almost seems unfair," Sidious said in a pleasant voice...too pleasant. So pleasant, it made one wonder, how did they ever believe it was real? With a chuckle that turned into a cackle, he removed his hood to reveal the senator of Naboo.
A bitter feeling swelled in most of them at the confirmation. If the situation wasn't so dangerous, Yoda would have ran a hand over his ancient head. How many? How many Sith Lords in disguise had he unknowing met during his near millennium as a Jedi? How long had they been lurking, so close and so directly to the Jedi. This man, this Sith, was in a position that could give him a chance to become Supreme Chancellor.
A chance like a planet being invaded by the Trade Federation.
Hundreds of dots connected as Yoda pieced together what, truly, had been going on recently. Invading an entire planet as a means to an ends, playing both sides of the conflict. All part of some larger scheme he likely only had only a vague idea of.
Sidious caught his look and Yoda could see the malice in those baleful yellow eyes, like a beast tasting freedom for the first time in decades. "Wouldn't you agree?" he asked, his voice growling into something hateful, almost inhuman. "Master Yoda?"
The Sith Lord knew what the Grandmaster had figured out.
Yoda finally conceded the truth: The Sith had changed. And the Jedi had not.
"Senator Palpatine. Or, rather, Darth Sidious," Windu stated coldly. "You are under arrest-"
"Yes, yes, I will get to you in a moment, young man," Sidious said dismissively, savoring how Windu bristled under the action. "You'll all have your chance to die. But I do have message for you, My Little Green Friend."
"Care for you tricks, I do not," Yoda stated decisively. "Trust your words, we will not."
"Even if it is the last words of a dying Jedi?" Sidious continued. He hummed, like the pleased purr of some terrible beast, as he looked over his shoulder, directly at Depa Bilaba. "Oh no, my dear. I'm afraid I have no parting words to share from your precious sister. Her voice gave out long before I could ever offer that."
Depa's grip hardened, but she did not take the bait.
"No, the one I speak of is one Ronhar Kim. A freshly minted master," Sidious mused before looking mock-thoughtful. "Or soon-to-be Master? Apologies, I can't quite recall," he said with a chuckle that would unnerve most souls. "We had so many talks, the two of us. Ever since I took his poor, late father's seat in the senate, he was quite eager to bridge the gap between the Jedi and the Senate. How did I put it? Ah, yes: Through me, you might have a voice in the shaping of the Republic. Through you, I better understand the Jedi and their ways," Sidious recited expertly, complete with humble charisma.
It was an unsubtle boast, taunting them all with the knowledge of how long he had been playing them for fools. How their own comrades ate the lies from his hands like eager hounds.
"Such a shame that he came to investigate my little quarrel with my Master; I had so much more use for that one. But I suppose that's a bit off topic. I promised you his last words. And it was this: Sheev?"
Yoda stared at the Sith Lord reveling and cackling in his own recollection of murder, treachery and torment. The ancient Jedi was unmoved by the story, watching and observing.
"Even with me right in front of him, unveiled and slaughtering his comrades, the poor fool couldn't come to terms that his humble, kind, political friend was doing something so ...barbaric as turning Jedi to ash," Sidious continued with a snicker. "So I did him the mercy of removing his sight. Along with the top of his brain, but lightsabers have never been weapons for minimalistic damage."
No one struck. No one allowed themselves to be overcome with the urge to rush their foe and fall into his trap.
Sidious hummed in displeasure. "Very well. I suppose I shall have to start this myself," Sidious said, as lightning danced from his fingers, everyone tensed for the attack.
And instantly knew something was wrong, when Sidious's attack struck at the ground in front of the wreckage the Sith Lord stood upon.
"BACK!" Tiin yelled as he, Yoda, Windu, Qui-Gon, and Rancisis tried to create Force barriers around the edges of the hole.
It was too late, however, as a great inferno erupted upward, like a great beaker igniting before them all. Several grimaced at the heat, others had to shield their eyes, but none took their senses off Sidious.
"Saud iw ri Jin'!" Sidious's voice rang out with dark, terrible power. "Titiai ki atki diâ tirji karw ki zûtaikima!"
"Sith Magic," Windu realized as the flames turned a dark, cold blue and became...alive, for lack of a better term.
The azure flames smashed against the Force shield of Qui-Gon before crashing through it with ease. The maverick master was able to leap away in time, with every connection he had to the Force suddenly going off like a warning. Without looking or thinking, he flung some debris towards where he had stood, just in time.
Sidious had leaped forth and sent Sith Lightning at the Coruscant-born Jedi, sneering as the debris began to disintegrate but safeguarded the Jedi all the same.
Mace Windu, Eeth Koth, and Adi Gallia all charged Sidious from behind. The Sith Lord didn't even look as his massive creation of Sith Flames leapt to protect him, batting away Eeth and knocking back against Windu's own shield.
A lightsaber sprung from Sidious's sleeve, turning with almost impossible grace and speed to block Adi's lightsaber.
Her red lightsaber.
"Oh, yes, you," Sidious recalled in annoyance. "The only Jedi currently using a red lightsaber."
"Shame you Sith returned, I rather liked this color," Adi returned dryly, before going on the offensive.
"I'll take that to your heart then," Sidious assured, defending against her aggressive Shem-style one handed, while the Sith Flames loomed over them like a great burning cephalopod, batting its heatless tendrils at the Jedi masters all over the room.
Namely focusing on Mundi and Luminara, but each of them had two masters using the Force to push back the Sith Magic.
Adi couldn't contain her surprise when Sidious went on the offensive. Not because his every blow was as quick and powerful as the lightning he wielded, but because he managed that while his free hand reached out to the side and sent Force Lightning across the hole, aim at Luminara.
The green skinned Jedi grimaced as she and her protectors were forced to leap away from the attack.
Mace Windu, leaping over a cold tendril of flame, scowled as their enemy's plan became clear. The Sith Flames weren't a weapon, but a distraction; something to keep them from focusing on the gas container and keeping its contents from spreading through the room, while the Sith Lord himself forced those already shielding the device to turn their attention to staying alive.
However, they weren't about to let things go how Palp...no, how Sidious wanted it to go.
Yoda used a bursting push of the Force to leap through a limb of flames safely, coming in over Sidious's head. At the same time, Luminara jumped down to the wreckage below, using it to spring toward Sidious from a lower angle, twisting and turning to avoid the flames of Sith Magic.
Sidious sneered, using a Force-empowered swing to send Adi sliding back, stunning her in time to be stuck and enveloped by the flames. The Sith Lord used his lightsaber to block the female Mirialan's rather swift and aggressive offense, his other hand sending a wave of Sith Lightning towards the Grandmaster.
Yoda glared, reaching out with one hand, forcing the force lightning to condense and be neutralized within his grasp through his skill in tutaminis. However, the Grandmaster found he had miscalculated. For while he was able to subdue the attack, the sheer momentum of it drove him back in midair. Concentrating, he brought a sheet of metal to float under his feet, giving him a platform to hold against.
Adi, meanwhile, was not faring well, the flames rushing over her and pinning her against the debris. It did not burn, no, but it was like drowning...in a vacuum. The flames were still flames in that sense, burning away all oxygen and leaving nothing for the lungs to use. If anything, it felt like it was burning what air was still within her body.
She couldn't move, couldn't rally the Force to her, couldn't-
Adi Gallia inhaled sharply as the flames were cut off by a Force-Strike from Mace Windu. He regarded her briefly, getting a quick nod to say she was still fine to fight. With that, he leapt forth. Sidious had drawn a second lightsaber, fighting off Luminara who had been joined by the serpentine Oppo Rancisis and the human Jekram Vorame. Even three-on-one, Sidious proved his speed in mastery as no blade so uch as singed his robes.
Adi firmed her lip, her lightsaber jumping back into her hand, ready to join the fray again-
Sidious smirked as he felt the Jedi activated one of HIS lightsabers.
Mace Windu stopped suddenly as an explosion rang out behind him. Adi Gallia was covered in scorch marks and gasping a wordless scream of pain, clutching the lower half of her arm, her hand completely gone with only a charred and bleeding stump remaining, the right side of her body covered in various yet lesser injuries.
Sidious took this chance, cleaving off an arm and a leg of Vorame before piercing the chest of Luminara. He leapt away, just as Rancisis nearly cleaved him in two. He smirked as he sensed someone, Saesee Tiin, trying to cave in the ground he would land upon. An admirable effort, but the horned Jedi gritted his teeth as he found an opposing Force keeping the floor in place.
Sidious sprung forth more, letting the floor collapse behind him as he sprang upon the unsuspecting Master of the Order, still facing at the injured Adi Gallia.
Or, at least, seemingly unexpected.
Sidious expected Windu to counter his attack. But he hadn't expected the lightsaber to be covered by the Force, dragging and ripping the metal off the floor to strike at Sidious's head as shrapnel. He had to admit, it was clever for a Jedi. Still, this wasn't an opponent to press upon yet.
Shielding himself from the shards with the Force, he dislodged his blade from Windu's and essentially flew up with a burst of the force in his leg, landing on a low-hanging fragment of the destroyed catwalk, sending a bolt of lightning back to Windu. The strike was deflected, but with care to avoid his allies.
Sidious continued on, leaping toward...and into the mass of blue flames.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Qui-Gon remarked as the tendrils receded into the flames, Sidious in some form of bubble in the center.
"Then let us change that," Tiin said, raising his hand as the Force enhanced his inborn telepathy, sending an entire wing of the ship wreckage hurling at the blue inferno.
It deflected off violently, but a chunk of the flames was clearly gone and not reforming, the shape shrinking minutely.
"He can't defend like that for long!" Koth exclaimed in realization.
Sidious smirked for a second as the Jedi began to hurl objects and Force attacks at the flames. It was true, this was an ineffective defense. These flames weren't meant to be used like this, having one inside them ate away at the magic sustaining them. But, for the short time they did hold up, he was invulnerable to these simp-
His eyes widened as he looked up and braced the flames, but not in time as Yoda came hurling down from overhead, unleashing a great and unending wave of the Force. The grandmaster landed, landed on the very Force pressing down upon Sidious's flames, tearing through them far, far too fast. The small Jedi stood upon his own power, plunging his saber downward into the flames, parting them more and more.
There was an instant, with Yoda halfway through to the Sith, where Sidious locked eyes with the Grandmaster. It suddenly dawned on him, what the Grandmaster had been doing all this battle, why the elderly Jedi held back and didn't commit much until now; he had been studying him, observing him and his style. Style of fighting and style of planning.
The toad had been subtly Battle Meditating for half of this fight.
It seemed that underestimating Old Fools was becoming a bad habit of his. He knew the Grandmaster was not to be taken lightly, but he didn't expect this. He supposed he should have. Yoda was almost as old as the Russan Reformations themselves. All that time, all that experience must have given the wizened Jedi a great amount of time to learn how to predict on the individual level. If he wasn't careful, Yoda might actually out-scheme him in the midst of this battle.
'I suppose you were right, Master. I do savor my minor victories too much,' Sidious conceded with a sigh, before snarling as his arms reached high, as if to claw at the air.
Every eye below looked up, toward the gas container. Or rather, the ceiling it was attached to. Metal began to twist and shudder, lurching apart as a huge slab of it was yanked free from the structure. Mundi gritted his teeth, but ultimate had to forfeit the shield as he and the others dodged the metal falling all about.
Yoda looked over his shoulder and Sidious prepared to strike and fry the grandmaster the moment he tried to send the debris away.
Sidious rose an eyebrow when he didn't.
Yoda waited until the last possible moment before flinging himself away from Sidious, and instead sent the falling chunk of ceiling towards the flame-covered Sith Lord.
Sidious grunted as he retreated to the other side of the flames, the impact of debris shredding through at least half of the remaining blue flames, the sith magic emitting a strange noise as if it were a dying creature.
To say nothing of the continued sound of the gas now leaking into the room.
"Zûtarwasi ir ri mudasoki iw surubtini!" Sidious chanted, the remaining flames flashing brightly before dispelling in a powerful burst of the Dark Side, making all the Jedi brace themselves. Sidious took this chance, diving down into the hole, away from whatever was filling the air.
"Depa, Bemic, Sahdett! Get the injured out of here!" Mace Windu called urgently. If any of their deaths were to be avoided, they needed to get them out now.
The three rushed to their injured comrades, while the other eight Jedi Masters followed him in after Sidious.
The Apprentice of Plagueis grinned in victory, pressing a button hidden on the belt of his robe.
Eeth Koth's eyes went wide as he sensed something was very wrong. "No, wait, we must go ba-" that was as far as he got before Sidious shot immediately back upwards, evading all of them and catching Koth in surprise with a Force Push to the face, with what felt like the strength of a proton torpedo.
All of the Jedi were ready to instantly follow suit, but were cut short as they saw the large hole already closing, somehow, as a substance akin to liquid-metal rapidly rushed over the gap.
Rancisis and Mundi were able leap through before the closing was complete, thanks in part to Yoda able to hold back the substance briefly, but the others were unable to follow suit before the opening was sealed.
Windu frowned, leaping to the top of the ship wreckage. There was no weakness, no Shatterpoint he could see in this substance. Experimentally, he stabbed his amethyst lightsaber into it. His eyes widened when, instead of melting, the material tried to form and expand "around" his lightsaber. He yanked the weapon back, realizing they couldn't get through. He looked grimly down at the five Masters with him, as they all realized the dark situation they were in.
They had fallen right into the trap.
And now half of them, along with the injured, were on their own against Sidious.
End of Chapter