Author's Note: When we watched this episode in the Clone Wars, we couldn't help but wonder: what if Anakin and Obi-Wan had reached the room where Dooku, Savage, and Ventress were fighting sooner? This fic is an answer to that question. I hope you all enjoy it! :D
~ Amina Gila
He senses Count Dooku here, Anakin Skywalker realizes as he sprints down the halls of the flagship. It is Dooku's flagship, so it's not surprising. After the death of the Sith's apprentice, Asajj Ventress, he'd gotten another. Anakin and his former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, were sent to track down the new apprentice after his killing of two Jedi, after which he'd gone to Toydaria. They nearly captured him there, but in the end, he escaped, and the chase only led them back up to the flagship.
The pair skid to a stop outside the door, just as a giant roar sounds inside. Anakin casts an uncertain look at his former master. "It sounds like an angry rancor on the loose," Obi-Wan quips as the doors slide open. They both go completely still as they take in the scene inside.
Savage Oppress – Dooku's new apprentice – throws his own master and Ventress – she's alive? – across the room into the wall with a scream of rage.
"What the..." Anakin trails off, staring. What in the name of the Force is happening in here?
With a snarl, Savage twirls his lightsaber as he charges at the two Sith who are slowly getting to their feet. Well one this is for certain. Anakin can definitely see why the Sith created the Rule of Two so long ago, and he has no idea why they decided to break it. How do they get anything done if they're so focused on trying to kill each other?
"Who do we go after?" Anakin asks in a low voice, holding his lightsaber ready in case one of the Sith attacks them first, "The Sith, the witch, or the uncaged rancor?"
Savage is practically blinding flailing his lightsaber in between the others. Dooku and Ventress both back away from him, dodging his blows. "Don't just stand there!" Ventress shouts, irritated, glaring at Anakin and Obi-Wan. In her slight moment of distraction, Savage throws her and Dooku back into the wall and again charges towards them. Dooku raises a hand, lightning leaping from his fingers and pouring into the Zabrak. He's sent flying across the room, landing on the floor a short distance away from the Jedi.
"Come on! What are we waiting for?" demands Anakin.
"We'll take him together," Obi-Wan asserts.
"I was just going to say that," he agrees.
They stalk towards Dooku side by side. The Count raises a hand, blasting lightning right at them. Anakin skids to a stop, positioning his lightsaber in front of him to block the assault. He'd been sure to learn the technique after the first time on Geonosis, though he can't suppress the stab of fear that shoots through him. They can't afford to fail this fight, and nor do they have a reason to. He has nothing to worry about.
Ventress jumps to her feet and charges at the Sith Lord. He's forced to let up his lightning attack as he whirls around, meeting her blow.
Dooku blocks Ventress' attack before spinning around and parring the strikes from Anakin and Obi-Wan. The Count moves practically in a blur as he blocks their assault, all three attacking him from different sides. At least they have him on the defensive, but he still seems to be holding his own, despite fighting three opponents at once. It's not going to be easy to defeat him, even now. There's a reason he was always considered an expert duelist, Anakin supposes.
Meanwhile, the Zabrak pushes himself to his feet again and charges, this time heading straight for Ventress. She lets out a furious scream, whirling away from Dooku to avoid getting beheaded by the Nightbrother. "You're supposed to be killing him, you mindless beast!" screams Ventress.
Savage continues to flail his lightsaber, furiously raining blows down around her. Anakin doesn't have time to pay attention as he presses his attack against Dooku. With Ventress otherwise occupied, Dooku is beginning to gain the offensive again. With every blow for both of them that he blocks, he quickly returns it with one of his own. Savage suddenly lets out a furious scream, and hurls Ventress into the wall with the Force before he charges at all three of them. Dooku raises a hand, sending a barrage of electricity into the Zabrak, throwing him across the room into the wall again.
Then, he makes a dash for the trapdoor tunnel he uses for making a fast escape, the same method he used to escape back in the incident when he nearly got ransomed to the Republic. No, Anakin's not going to let him get away. He Force-jumps across the room, stabbing his lightsaber into the controls so the door won't open.
He feels a flare of danger in the Force and whirls around in time to see blue-white lightning crackling towards him, lightning which he'll never block in time. There's a blur of red, and Ventress suddenly lands in between the two of them, blocking the attack with her lightsabers. "You can thank me later," she informs him, charging at the Sith again the moment the lightning lets up.
Dooku raises a hand, tossing Ventress across the room before kicking Anakin. He lands on the ground a distance away and hastily pushes himself back to his feet as he sees the Sith Force-choking Obi-Wan and throwing him into the wall. Anger surging, Anakin lunges at Dooku again. No one hurts his brother and gets away with it.
Out of the corner of his eye, Anakin sees Savage getting up again, preparing to lunge, but Obi-Wan and Ventress intercept him. He spins his lightsaber in between them, missing almost every attempted blow.
They seem to be handling the Nightbrother more than fine, so Anakin focuses his attention back on the Count. Their blades are clashing in a deadly dance of blue and red, neither side gaining any ground over the other right now. They have to defeat Dooku. They can't let him get away this time. It's the best chance they have, especially with the outside help of someone who's fought with Dooku for so long. It's strange to fight side by side with Ventress, who a few weeks ago, they were trying to kill. Ventress moves over to join Anakin, only to be flung across the room on the wrong end of a lightning bolt.
The former assassin leaps up from where she was thrown, running back towards the ongoing duel. Anakin continues to rain blows down on the Sith Lord, swinging lower in an attempt to get past his defenses. The Count brings his blade down to block it, but the blades clash together into a saberlock. Anakin pushes his blade back against Dooku, realizing instantly that the Count made the foolish mistake of blocking the blow too high, so Anakin immediately takes the opening, moving his lightsaber down and cutting through his wrists. The same moment, Ventress skids to a stop right behind the Count.
One of her red blades springs to life, stabbing the Sith through the back and deactivating it before the body slumps to the floor. "And now the student kills the master," smirks Ventress. She spins on her heel and bolts out of the room without another word.
For a moment, Anakin can hardly believe it. They just defeated Dooku. With the head of the Separatists now gone, maybe they'll actually have a chance at bringing an end to the war. Maybe. He looks across the room to see that Obi-Wan has managed to defeat Savage also. Both of them are dead. They won the battle, and even if Ventress is no longer anywhere to be seen, she's not really a threat anymore now that she's not working for Dooku.
But it's then that Anakin notices something else. The Force hardly feels any different than before. Even with Dooku dead along with his new apprentice, the darkness lingering in the Force has hardly seemed to shift at all. Yes, Ventress is alive, but that shouldn't affect the Force this much. And that means that maybe Dooku was never the Sith Master in the first place. Was Dooku seriously the apprentice? Unless there's other Sith out there, it seems like he may have a master who's far stronger than he is. It was already extremely difficult to kill Dooku. How will they be able to defeat this Sith Master? For that matter, they don't even know who he is, and with the death of his apprentice, who knows what he's going to do next?
And that's when a sudden thought occurs to him. "Obi-Wan," Anakin calls, "If we look through this room, we might be able to find something about Darth Sidious... assuming he exists. I'm sure Dooku's had some sort of communications with him or something."
"The droids will be coming any minute," he cautions.
"It's worth a try, if we end this," Anakin replies firmly. "Just because Dooku's dead, that doesn't mean the war will stop until the Sith are gone." His master still hesitates, but Anakin turns away, scanning the room. "With Dooku gone, we can escape the ship easily," Anakin insists.
"Very well," Obi-Wan agrees at last, moving forwards.
***
"I still can't believe the Sith Lord has been on Coruscant this whole time and no one even sensed it," Ahsoka exclaims.
"He's one of the strongest Sith known," Obi-Wan points out. "It seems as though they've perfected the art of shielding themselves completely."
As the other two talk, Anakin turns his gaze out the apartment window where they can see the Senate building in the distance, thinking about what happened over the past month. While going through all the information on the ship that they could hack into, they came across a number of transmissions from Dooku with a hooded Sith Lord. Tracing the transmission, it appeared that they were coming from Coruscant. From there, it was only a matter of tracing back exactly where they were coming from. It took some time, but they were able to figure out that Darth Sidious was, in fact, Palpatine.
Anakin is still having a hard time accepting that the one person who always seemed to look out for and care for him was actually a Sith. It makes him wonder, who else can he trust? How many other people is he close to, who are only manipulating him, when he thinks they genuinely care for him? Not to mention that he should have seen years ago. How many people could he have saved had he been looking closer? Obi-Wan insists that he was just a child, that he couldn't possibly have known since Palpatine was grooming him, but Anakin can't quite accept that. Age doesn't make someone any less smart or capable. He knows that.
With the information the Jedi had, they were able to expose Palpatine. Once that information was released, the Jedi were legally able to come in and arrest him.
With both of the Sith Lords gone, the Republic and Separatists ended up opening peace talks. Mina Bonteri – apparently a longtime friend of Padme – was elected the new head of the Separatists.
Bail Organa became the new Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, and now it finally looks like the end of the war may actually be in sight. There's still a lot of civil wars and infighting on many planets across the galaxy, but with so much chaos over the past one and a half years, it's not as though all the effects are going to disappear overnight.
"Imagine how things would be if we walked into that Sith squabble only five seconds later," Anakin comments.
"They probably would've been gone, and we'd still be at war," Ahsoka replies cheerfully, "And with absolutely no idea who Sidious is."
"Take it as a lesson," Obi-Wan quips, "Laziness can ruin the galaxy." Why is he looking pointedly at them?
"Excuse me, but who's lazy again?" demands Anakin.
"Certain padawans who don't want to get up in the morning."
"It's called being tired!"
"Did you just call us both padawans?" Ahsoka asks dubiously.
"Well, you do both act like it most of the time," Obi-Wan insists, smirking.
"Hey!" protests Anakin.
"And speaking of laziness, it's probably past both of your bedtimes," Obi-Wan remarks, eyeing the chrono.
"I don't have a bedtime. Not when we're still at war," argues Ahsoka.
"Well, you do when you're at the Temple."
"Fine," mutters Ahsoka, dramatically rolling her eyes before she stands up, heading for her room.
Anakin leans back on the couch with no intention of moving. There's definitely a long way to go before the galaxy's problems are solved, but this, at least, is a start. Maybe he can give Ahsoka the childhood she deserves, and maybe he and Padme can consider having a family of their own. Maybe.
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