FicWad

Obi-Wan Kenobi loves the Force and he loves Jedi Order. The Jedi are his family, his life, and he truly believes that they are all, at the deepest level, of one mind, one heart. But there have been times when he has been surrounded by his fellow Jedi and has felt his chest growing tight, his breathing becoming weak and shallow. Sometimes, for no reason at all, he has felt like a river stagnating, dying, crying out in pain from under the weight of a pollution so filthy and tainted with corruption that he wants nothing more than to gag and heave until he is finally empty and pure once more. And there have also been times when he has passed through the Temple halls, staring while stranger after stranger in brown robes pass by, serene, their hearts full of light, when in his sight the eyes of his Jedi brethren have appeared to be as dead as dry, smooth stones. These feelings of alienation and suffocation have plagued him, off and on, since even before he became Qui-Gon Jinn's Padawan learner, though they were far more rare during his years in the Temple crèche. Until the Sith had come back into the open and Qui-Gon had spoken openly of the taint of their Dark Side nature upon the Force, Obi-Wan had simply had no idea what it was that he was feeling or even that it was anything other than a product of his own morbid fancy - yet another sign, or so Obi-Wan had simply assumed, of how deeply flawed and how utterly unworthy he was of ever becoming a true Jedi. So he had ignored it as best as he could, banishing it all to the back of his mind with hours upon hours of meditation and even longer hours of endless repetitions of the most intricate and physically taxing katas.

When he first became aware that it was the Force itself he was feeling, fetid and tainted with darkness and all but screaming because of its suffering, Obi-Wan had been stunned and sickened. However, in the aftermath of their disastrous mission to negotiate with the Trade Federation for an end to the blockade of Naboo and their subsequent rescue of Queen Amidala, he had been unable to bring himself to speak of it with his Master, leery of their strained and apparently rapidly fraying relationship. Instead, after their return to Coruscant - with Amidala and Anakin in tow - and before their scheduled debriefing before the High Council, he had gone to Master Yoda for advice while Qui-Gon conferred privately with his own former Master, whom he had never bothered to introduce to Obi-Wan, for some unexplained and inexplicable reason. Rather than helping him, though, Master Yoda had simply looked at him, with blank and faintly puzzled eyes, a disappointed frown wrinkling his face, and told him, "No such sickness you speak of, do I sense. Understand what it is that you seek I do not. No imbalance within you is there. No disturbance within the Force. Confused by your behavior, I must admit that I am."

Somehow, the fact that it was Yoda who was mistaken, and not Obi-Wan, provides much more comfort that he has ever dreamed such an occurrence ever could. He doubtlessly wouldn't have thought of it at all, if not for the glimpse he'd caught of what was going to happen soon regarding that taint and the remark Anakin had made to Bant about Yoda's odd interest in him. Obi-Wan explains as much to Anakin and the others, silently passing along thoughts and various fragments of memory through the network of bonds that tie the four of them together. The more he communicates, the sterner Dooku's face becomes and the more obviously displeased the scowl upon Qui-Gon's face grows. Anakin, on the other hand, simply becomes deeply, dangerously still. Obi-Wan would be concerned for the continued well-being of the other ten Council Masters, if he were not, himself, so outraged.

"Within the past few generations, more and more younglings, Padawan learners, and even full Jedi Knights have been breaking down, falling into trances they cannot wake from or suffering from psychotic breaks, their souls flooded so full of contamination from what the Jedi have deemed the Dark Side that they inevitably fall irretrievably to the Dark Side. The heads of the High Council has long kept quiet about this, just as they have purposefully kept quiet about the fact that the ability of the Jedi to use the Force has, overall, been weakening, diminishing, more and more obviously for much of the same amount of time. The few among the High Council who know of these things have kept them secret not only from the Senate and the Republic at large, but from their fellow Council members and all of the other members of the Order as well," Qui-Gon quietly admits. "In an attempt to comfort me, Yoda broke his own counsel and told me of these things after Xanatos fell. Strangely enough, I was not comforted." His mouth quirks into the thin shadow of a bitter smile. "There was an incident, after I took Obi-Wan as my Padawan. When Xanatos died, I felt the corruption of the Dark Side so strongly that I feared the Force itself was hurt, sick unto dying. I constantly felt sick and suffocated, crushed between the proverbial irresistible force and immovable object, whenever I was within the Temple. I wanted so badly to just take Obi-Wan and run, run as far and as fast as I could from the Order . . . " Qui-Gon shakes his head regretfully. "I, too, begged for Master Yoda's help. He reacted as though /I were the one ill, as if I were a danger to myself and others. I was forced to report to a Soul Healer for almost a month's worth of useless sessions, to avoid being labeled unfit to care for an apprentice. In the end, I simply had to learn to accept the fact that there was something terribly wrong and that the Council could not see it. I learned to wait and to watch for a way to share my knowledge. After I met Anakin and the Sith attacked us on Tatooine, I was certain that the Council would have to admit that there was a very real danger - both to us and to the Force. On the way to Coruscant, I contacted them while you were sleeping, Obi-Wan, and begged for them to not only listen to me but to actually hear my words. I acknowledged that the Council is strong in the Unifying Force whereas I have always been strong in the Living Force, and I begged them for their aid, their unity, against this danger. Council Masters are supposed to be the best, the most compassionate, the wisest, and the most clear-sighted of all the Jedi. Yet, they have always looked upon what is strongest and truest within me as flaws. I was not fighting them. I was not trying to pick a fight with them. I was asking them for their help. So many times, I have stood before them and spoken my heart's truth, only to be met with scorn and questions. So many times, I have spoken to them, believing that I must be following the Code, if not precisely in word than surely in spirit, only to feel the disappointment and impatient contempt of Yoda and Mace and the other Masters like a blow between the eyes. I have always striven to do the utmost that I can. I have always done what is in my nature. I am not defiant. I am not reckless. I am just . . . not like them. And I never truly have been." Qui-Gon's mouth twists into a bitter smile. "I am so different from them that it has always been as if I were speaking an entirely different language than they, regarding the High Council's interpretation of the Code and the will of the Force, so little have we ever been able to understand each other." Qui-Gon shakes his head slightly and then shrugs, sighing. "Of course, they barely listened to me at all and they refused to comment upon what I was saying - though their disbelief was fairly evident. I was told to have patience and to present my report to the Council in person, as soon as possible after landing on Coruscant. I believe you all know what happened, afterwards."/

"An inevitable chain reaction of disasters. I never should have allowed the Council to send you alone. I should have known that neither the Council nor the Republic would willingly act until it was already far too late." Dooku frowns so severely that Qui-Gon actually reaches out and strokes his fingers along the ridges in his former Master's forehead, smoothing them away. Although Dooku relaxes under that touch, discontent and sorrow are still manifest in his voice. "It is difficult to pinpoint precisely when things went irretrievably wrong. But I suspect that it did not come about until after the Code ceased to be only a guideline, when it become a choke hold on the Order so strong that only those with the most rigidly orthodox and unbending outlooks on the Force and the Code or a masochistic love of conflict could easily sit upon the Council."

"Little wonder that Sidious fixated upon gaining his allies and potential apprentices with Anakin and those like him, who for one reason or another were not identified as being strong with the Force until they would have been thought too old for Jedi training," Obi-Wan shakes his head and sighs, his eyes full of sorrow. "How many others are there still like that out there? Anakin is not the only one the Jedi have failed. We must find them. All of them. We must find them and train them to use their gifts wisely, show them there is something more to the Force than Jedi servitude or indifference and the siren lure of darkness and power and rage that fuel the core of evil so many think of as being the Dark Side," he says determinedly, eyebrows rushing together in a frown of concentration. "We would be no better than either the Council or Sidious, were we to do otherwise. The new order of Force-users we create must truly be open to /all/."

"And that/," Anakin notes, very quietly indeed, "is why /you are the Chosen One, Obi-Wan, and not I. You will bring balance."

"We will, love. /Together/."

"Yes," Anakin simply agrees, nodding once.

A few moments later, they are standing outside of the Council Chamber. Silently, Dooku offers his right hand to Qui-Gon, who takes it and offers his right hand to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan takes it and offers his right hand to Anakin, who takes it and squeezes it tight. Linked together physically as well as mentally, they all take a deep, calming breath, centering themselves within the Force as well as within their love and trust of each other. Then, moving as one being, none of them attempting to hide the changes that the Force has wrought within them any longer, they step forward, to the doors.

***

Resisting the urge to either heave an enormous sigh of frustration or to start tearing out handfuls of hair, Bail Organa patiently continues to attempt to piece together everything that's happened since the attack on Coruscant, especially within the past handful or so of hours, at turns recording and relaying useful information regarding the brief and unsuccessful attempt to raze the Jedi Temple back to the Senate and receiving and passing along information from the Senate to Gate Master Jurokk regarding the contents of the various security and other more clandestine holorecordings and audio recording devices in the Senate Building. For some strange reason, he cannot quite shake the nagging feeling that there's something about either what happened when Obi-Wan and Anakin confronted the clones or about the way that the two stopped the clones from razing the Temple that's being deliberately kept from him, but no matter how delicately or persistently he tries to get more detail out of either the Gate Master or Commander Mark, neither one ever tells him anything that one or the other hasn't already said.

It would be an incredibly frustrating process if Bail weren't so thoroughly befuddled and enthralled by what he is being told - namely, that Palpatine was indeed the Sith Lord Sidious and nearly slaughtered Jedi Master Mace Windu, who is quite often considered the finest 'saberist in the Jedi Order, but that Obi-Wan and Anakin not only managed to hold Sidious off but also to decapitate and dismember him quite neatly, evil Force-lightning and all; that the spirits of Jedi Masters Qui-Gon Jinn and Dooku, who apparently returned to the side of the Light before Sidious forced Anakin to deliver a killing blow to the Count of Serenno on the Invisible Hand, have not only found a way to retain their identities and return, manifesting on the physical plane, through the Force, but that they also joined forces with the Jedi in the Temple to effectively shield almost the entire Temple structure from the several brigades of clone troopers sent to raze and sterile it; that Obi-Wan and Anakin managed to safely fight their way through the mass of clone troopers to where the commanders were, without killing a single trooper in the process, and that Obi-Wan managed to make them stand down and return to their senses with nothing more than the power of his own voice; that the four of them, Dooku and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan and Anakin, gave the Council a grace period of two hours before they said they would report to the Council about how they had learned about Palpatine and accomplished all of these things, which they are apparently still doing; and that the Senate is quite busy formally reversing every change that had been made to the Constitution and to Coruscanti law and tradition ever since Palpatine first came into power, disengaging and recalling the Republic's troops wherever possible, waiting for Bail Antilles to receive word of and respond to their offer of the interim Supreme Chancellorship, and broadcasting and rebroadcasting all of this information - as well as all of the currently available proof - regarding the events of the past day over the HoloNet and getting it into all of other the various news outlets and media that they possible can, so that the citizens of the Republic and the remaining Separatists will all know what the Jedi have learned, what happened when they tried to arrest Palpatine, who really was Lord Sidious, and what the Republic is doing and planning on doing because of all of that.

Meanwhile, the clone troopers who took part in the abortive attempt against the Temple aren't wasting any time, either. While squads of troopers are purposefully bustling about the Temple, helping set things to right and generally giving the entire Temple - with the exception of the Archives and the Council Spire, which are both off limits - a thorough scrubbing down, their commanders and elite ARC commandos are busy organizing the materials that will be needed to effect repairs on the fire-ravaged walls and soot-damaged interiors of the north wing. Other minor instances of damage to the Temple structure - most of them caused by benign neglect, rather than the efforts of the clones - are already being seen to, the focused attentions of the clones causing the gradually increasingly ravaging effects of time and weather to vanish from the walls of the Temple. There is so much activity that it is, thankfully, relatively easy to find enough things to fully occupy Bail's attention, otherwise he fears he would not be able to simply keep patiently waiting for enough time to have passed for Obi-Wan and the others to finish reporting to the High Council and come back down out of the Council Spire.

Seeking to distract himself further, so he won't worry about his longtime friend - and has he really known Obi-Wan for twenty years now? It doesn't truly seem that long a time, although sometimes it certainly feels as if he has known the remarkable Jedi the better part of his life - Bail strikes up a conversation with Commander Mark, listening attentively to the extremely articulate clone as he thoughtfully draws an analogy between the Jedi and the clones: the former ushered by symbiotic midi-chlorians to serve the Force; the later grown and programmed to serve the Galactic Republic.

***

Doubtlessly as a result of his many years of friendship with Qui-Gon Jinn, Jedi Master Mace Windu has long believed that it is something of a cosmic joke that sunrise and sunset on Coruscant should inevitably always be so spectacular. The planet essentially has nothing left of its natural splendor - except for the tourist trap of the artificially preserved Western Sea, with its carefully created and maintained islands, and the meticulously planned and nurtured splendor of the mainly off-limits "nature preserves" covering the twin peaks of the Manarai Mountains. Such a world, a world that has, in its own way, become just as artificial as the enormous enclosed and entirely man-made (or droid built, etc.) self-contained bases that are so liberally scattered along the uninhabited (and otherwise uninhabitable) stretches in the pathways of all the major galactic trade routes, should not provide a setting for such a majestic display of natural grandeur. Qui-Gon had always been slightly put off by it, claiming that it seemed to ever so slightly mock the Jedi belief that the beauty of the natural universe is irrevocably tied to the presence and intensity of the Force, that all encompassing and all pervasive energy field that connects all things and is supported by all living things. This uneasy sense of discontent is one of the few things Mace has always wholeheartedly agreed upon with Qui-Gon.

The Force is extremely strong within the Jedi Temple, of course, flowing to and from and throughout the many thousands of individuals who make their home within the Temple complex, to whom the natural power is just as real and physically present as an living, breathing entity. The Force is also quite strong on the city-planet itself, if in a slightly different manner, existing as an almost visible emanation generated and supported by the many billions of beings who inhabit Coruscant. Yet, Coruscant itself is an entirely dead planet. Nothing lives on Coruscant that isn't either sustained artificially or through the extensive use of materials brought to the city-planet from other systems. Galactic City lives and thrives largely because of the self-contained ecosystems constructed within the massive towering buildings that cover over most of the planet. Almost everything on the planet, from clothes to packaging and machinery, is recyclable. Should the vast network of machinery - such as the complex network of filters and pipes that distribute, reclaim, purify, and reuse the water that is pumped away from the polar ice caps and the vast underground caverns in which much of the planet's original supply of ocean water has been drained and stored for future use or the atmospheric dampeners placed in orbit to scrub and help convert the unimaginably excessive amounts of carbon dioxide that Coruscant's approximately trillion being population generates into the atmosphere each day - that supports and allows life to continue to thrive upon Coruscant ever fail, then all life on the city-planet, from the deepest depths of the largely ignored and certainly uncharted underlevels all the way up to the atmosphere-piercing plush government offices and extravagant penthouses owned by the elite of the ecumenopolis, would inevitably come to an end.

In the aftermath of battle, the morning is darker than usual, as though some indefinable gloom, some shroud of mourning, obscures everything or the orbital mirrors that focus the light of Coruscant's distant sun into bright daylight have somehow been damaged or dimmed with the dirty brownish-gray haze of smoke that still shrouds much of the cityscape, despite the torrential downpour of the recent storm. However, the actual sunrise this morning over Galactic City has been especially stunning: more than enough particulates from the many fires and the not yet at an end rain of debris from the orbital battlefield still remain in the capital planet's atmosphere to splinter the light of its distant blue-white sun into a stunningly gorgeous blazing prismatic smear across its multilayered clouds, the bright rainbow of colors lingering from that sunrise lessening the gloomy effect of the day's dimmer light.

Mace Windu's body aches all over, he cannot seem to get fully warm, and, despite the best efforts of several of the Temple's most accomplished Healers, his head is one continuous throb of pain. Frankly, he wishes that the Separatists could have at least destroyed those blasted orbital mirrors, while they were busy trying to destroy everything else. That sickeningly glorious sunrise makes his blood want to boil and the pain in his head spike sharply into agony. The Korun Master feels dangerously on edge, and no matter how many calming breaths he takes, he cannot seem to keep himself from feeling anger.

Of course, the fact that all nine of the other currently present Council Masters - four of them physically within the room and the rest present via holoimage - are behaving as if they suspect he is deliberately lying to them in an attempt to either mislead them or test their patience just might have something to do with that.

The vast transparisteel-enclosed circular Council Chamber overlooks Galactic City, and the view is supposed to give the Jedi Masters who sit upon the Council of Twelve a sense of perspective for the government that the Jedi all serve. However, given the fact that they currently no longer know who or even what has been heading that government - not to mention who or what might be heading it now - the view of the scarred skyline within the soot-smudged curve of the Council Spire's window ring provides quite a bit more distress and distraction than actual comfort. Thus, unsurprisingly, conflicting currents of roiling energy swirl and clash all over the Council Chamber.

Traditionally, the decisions of the High Council are reached through quiet contemplation of the flow of the Force, all twelve of its members meditating on the Force while also considering whatever issue happens to be at hand until all of the Council is of a single mind as to what to do regarding the particular matter that happens to be up for discussion. However, this tradition was already being occasionally broken when Mace Windu had first been elected to his Council seat - a seat that he had, at the time, fully expected to go to his challenging friend, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, whose legendary diplomatic talent and power within the Living Force had far outstripped any and every thing that Mace had felt he had to offer the High Council, himself - and it simply did not outlast the violent return of the Sith. More and more, the Korun Master finds that he is less able to remember a time when the Council Chamber truly functioned as a haven of peaceful contemplation and easy serenity. In the, by turns, all too short and far too long years since the explosive outbreak of the Clone Wars, outright argument within the Council Chamber has become much more the rule than the exception. However, such argument does not normally center itself about the words of Mace Windu, the (technically unofficial) secondary leader of the High Council and second-in-command of the entire Jedi Order, lower only than Master Yoda within the hierarchy of the Order. He therefore feels an extremely powerful sense of kindredness with Qui-Gon Jinn as he once again forces himself to pause, take another deep breath, and then slowly let it back out again.

In typical Windu fashion, though, the Jedi Master continues to radiate his customary image of cool aplomb, unshakable dignity, and almost grim seriousness, betraying nothing of the many troubling thoughts and even more troublesome emotions seething beneath the tranquil surface of his exterior. Only someone very, very familiar with the Korun Master might have noticed that the hands he currently clasps together near his chin are clenched just a little bit too tightly and that his breathing, however carefully regulated, is still not quite as measured as it normally is. His eyes - dark and liquid and actually quite beautiful, in an almost surprisingly soulful manner - are trained not on any of his fellow Council Masters but rather on the highly polished surface of the fantastically etched bronzium-sheathed dome crowning the nearest of the other Temple spires, its reflective surface collecting and dispersing the dim but slowly growing strength of the reflected rays of the sun. What he actually sees, though, is something altogether different. Widely acknowledged throughout the galaxy (in the Republic proper as well as within Separatist-controlled space and the technically neutral Outer Rim territories) as the second-in-command of the Council of Twelve and one of the most successful and formidable of all the Jedi commanders - a General whose sheer brilliance the clones often favorably compare to that of even their beloved General Kenobi - Jedi Master Mace Windu is a man who (despite a few personal misgivings on the matter) is best known for his steely pragmatism, his expansive wisdom, and his skillful diplomacy. Yes, he is also a legendary fighter - rightly known as one of the finest 'saberists ever known to grace the Jedi Order - but he is, first and foremost, a diplomat, both by training and by nature.

He is not, however, feeling particularly diplomatic at the moment.

And no matter how many calming exercises he runs through or how strenuously he tries to shift his thoughts to other matters, he cannot seem to stop seeing those last few moments from the fight with Sidious, just before he lost consciousness, which is most unfortunate, seeing as how that specific memory does absolutely nothing whatsoever to encourage a calm state of mind.

A Jedi does not dwell upon the past. It is foolish and more than a little dangerous to think too deeply upon the should-haves and the if-onlys of life. However, all things considered, perhaps he can be forgiven if, just this once, Mace Windu thoroughly wishes that he had, when faced with the conundrum of a late and apparently vanished Bail Organa, taken his original impulse - to go to the Senate Rotunda and seek out the Chancellor to ask about (and observe the man's reaction to the knowledge of the fact of) the missing Senator and Prince of Alderaan - and simply decided to meditate on the problem for a while, rather than rushing off half-cocked and getting himself into the middle of a confrontation that he had clearly had no business being in the middle of.

Force take it, if he could just find some way to reconcile what he saw and heard and felt, in the Rotunda, with everything that he had thought he had known, up until then, about the Force and reality in general, including some very specific ideas he had held about two certain Jedi - !

Every time he closes his eyes, he sees the face of Obi-Wan Kenobi as it was, just moments after he had so calmly and irrevocably destroyed one of the few remaining intact pillars holding up Mace Windu's world with just a few words: "Anakin is not the Chosen One, Master Windu. He is the Sith'ari./ I /am the Chosen One." That luminous youthful face - all of a sudden seemingly willingly smooth-shaven, for the first time in almost a decade and a half - with its radiantly calm features is so like another memory that he holds - of a certain five-year-old youngling, dancing at night within the Bendu Remembrance Wheel with an ignited, fully-powered, fully-operational, multi-crystal lightsaber, his serenely smiling features almost fiercely beatific in the vibrant glow of the peculiar indigo luminescence of the wheeling lightsaber blade, bright wide eyes washed so darkly blue that they were almost as indigo as the strangely tinted blade of the lightsaber itself - that the vision brings with it the strangest sense of dislocation, as if time has somehow been bent out of true, turned about in its track and looped, as if that mysterious, eerily powerful youngling and that dangerously bright, eerily tranquil presence within the Rotunda are one and the same being but that some other person entirely - remarkable, yes, and powerful enough, but in no recognizable or even imaginable way comparable to this other shining being, so calmly dancing through moves that would defeat Mace even on the best of his days, so serenely naming himself the Chosen One of Jedi prophecy - has existed within the Order as Obi-Wan Kenobi all the rest of the time in between, as his colleague and even a fellow member of the High Council. Every time he sees that face, he feels the bottom drop out of his stomach, and the sensation that grips him is precisely what he imagines it would feel like if the world were to suddenly and for no discernable reason simply drop out from underneath him. He sees that face, and he feels as if he were falling.

He feels as if he were falling forever . . . or perhaps down into forever.

There had really been no time, between learning what he had about Palpatine - about Sidious - and being forced to fight for his life, for him to in any way truly deal with that new knowledge. Similarly, there had been no real time, between hearing Obi-Wan's voice and being struck unconscious, for him to even begin to try to assimilate those words. It is entirely possible that it is a physical aftereffect of being struck with the Sith Lord's Dark lightning that accounts for the reason why he is so cold, why his head hurts so abominably, and why his entire body aches. Of course, it is also entirely possible that it is a reaction to recent extremely traumatic events and the fact that his body rather understandably wants to go into shock, in light of those recent stressful events. If he stops to think about it, Mace Windu understands - if only in a purely abstract manner, as if from some far distant vantage point - that what he has experienced has changed him, has broken something within him. Quite possibly badly. Maybe even irreparably. If he were to take the time to truly examine himself, he would doubtlessly know which one it is, for sure. But he's not entirely certain that he could remain functional, then, and the other members of the Council - particularly Master Yoda - had been quite insistent upon hearing his report, though they currently seem far less interested in what he is trying to say than they are focused upon their own personal worries and pet theories as to what in Sith hells has been going on . . .

Half a standard year after the Clone Wars first began at the Battle of Geonosis, Mace Windu was able to end the terrible Summertime Wars between the Korunnai and the Balawai, which had been decimating the people of his homeworld for almost thirty standard years, in the Battle of Haruun Kal. However, in order to do so, he had essentially been forced to stand by and watch, helplessly, as his own former Padawan learner, Depa Billaba, fell irretrievably to the Dark Side (the comatose former Jedi is still lying in a Force-shielded room, a virtual prisoner, in one of the private suites in the Healer's wing). The sensation that he had suffered from, afterwards - as though he had been violated, a part of his heart, his soul, ripped away by the roots, bloody and jagged, leaving only a bitter broken-open hollowness to echo emptily inside - had been terrifying, to him. Never before had he come so close to actual despair, all of his certainty regarding the necessity of this terrible war, the rightness of the battle to preserve the Republic, deserting him along with his serenity and his strength. Had it not been for his anger, the darkness would have claimed him then just as surely as it had claimed Depa. Yet, paradoxically, because of his anger, the darkness had almost won. Mace Windu has suffered more shame and regret and felt more pain because of that, because of his many failures on Haruun Kal - despite the fact that the planet was "saved" from falling to the Separatists - than he ever before would have believed to even be possible. And yet now the sum total of all that pain is as the merest pinprick, compared to the agony he suffered in the instant his heart made sense of the meaning of the words he had overheard, as he so desperately ran for the Chancellor's innermost office, the words that had labeled Palpatine, the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, as none other the elusive and insidious Sith Lord, the last true Master of that Dark brethren, Darth Sidious, himself.

There are those who believe that Jedi Master Mace Windu has nerves of durasteel and a heart as hard and cold as the space-kissed ceramic armorplast-plated hull of a duranium starship. Depa, most certainly, was one of them, there at the end. At the moment, it is surprisingly difficult to convince himself that there is not anything he would not do or give, in order to regain that legendary unshakable cool, even if only for a little while - just long enough, say, for him to finish making his report before the nine other currently present members of the assembled High Council without either shouting at them or breaking down and sobbing. He cannot recall a time when he has ever felt quite so helpless as he does right now. Or a time when he has ever felt less like a Jedi that he does, at this very moment. Though, strangely enough, there is a moment from Naboo, just after the planet's liberation from the invading droid armies of the Trade Federation - when the funeral pyre for Qui-Gon Jinn had been lit and Mace had been faced with the awful sight of Obi-Wan Kenobi's utterly empty glacial-gray eyes, coldly and lifelessly staring straight through and beyond a brokenly sobbing Anakin Skywalker - that offers itself up for consideration as the next best (or perhaps worst would be more appropriate?) thing. It is an entirely unfamiliar and wholly distressful sensation. Completely and utterly unlike him, alien to everything that he is and believes, as Mace Windu, Jedi Master and second-in-command of the High Council, not to mention one of the most celebrated warriors and highly decorated Generals of the Republic . . .

Force, the Republic . . . the Galactic Republic has literally been run by a Dark Lord of the Sith for the past thirteen years and they were all so blind that no one ever even once guessed - !

A fine tremor momentarily wracks Mace Windu's hands, unnoticed by all save Mace himself and perhaps also Master Yoda.

Determinedly, the Korun Master takes another deep, calming breath, attempting to still the shaking in his hands before it can become serious enough to be more noticeable. For such a small and simple thing, it proves to be an enormously difficult task to accomplish. The Council's obvious discord upsets him greatly, almost as much as the depressingly downward trend of his own thoughts. In truth, Mace Windu feels adrift - extremely tired and even more lost, unanchored and rootless in a world where seemingly everything he has thought he has known has suddenly proven to be if not entirely false than at the very least untrue, or not entirely right. His carefully nurtured sense of aplomb and straightforward, almost cynically matter-of-fact persona seem so far away from what and where he is now that it is entirely possible that he will never again be able to shelter within their protective space. He can feel a weight upon him, a ghost weight, the heaviness of the person he had once thought himself to be - and now no longer is, or could ever again become, not while in possession of such terrible and inescapable knowledge - perched upon his shoulders with all the proverbial weight of the galaxy, trying to bow him down. The tiny quiver in his hands and the ever so slightly vibrating tension in his arms is as much a telltale mark of the unremitting pressure of that phantom weight as it is an actual reaction to the direction and composition of his thoughts.

Mace has given up many things over the course of his life, quite a few of them willingly and most of them in conjunction with his perceived duty to the Jedi Order and the galaxy at large, and a vast majority of them within the space of the past few years, when the Clone Wars began, on Geonosis. He is well aware of the fact that the years have changed him, have aged him, and up until quite recently he had always simply assumed that those changes were for the better, that he has indeed been growing wiser, with the passage of time. Yet, now all of that wisdom has soured, and all of those changes, all of his many sacrifices, seem twisted and warped, obscene japes made at the expense of his own ignorance, his own unknowing (but no less terrible for that) hypocrisy, his own fervent need to believe in the justness of his calling, the righteousness of the Jedi Order - its Code and its calling - in its interactions (and often lack thereof) with the galaxy at large. He has broken many promises, postponed and then mislaid many dreams, his once shining ideals becoming first stained and strained before at last being entirely compromised by the passage of time, his once brilliantly bright vision for the future lost, over time, to the creeping diseases of tedium and rot. It is this realization, coupled to the knowledge that everything he has sacrificed, all those bright dreams and still brighter hopes, has been given over in the pursuit of a carefully protected existence (he cannot call it a life, for it is not anything so free or so good as that) within the proverbial ivory towers of an institution that, it now seems, may very well be founded upon a lie - the very same lie that has so utterly destroyed his understanding of the galaxy as he knows it, of the Galactic Republic and all it encompasses, all it entails both within the solid world of the physical and the far more ephemeral but no less powerful realm of the ideal. Little wonder that his flesh is cold and prone to tremors: a lesser man would have already shattered utterly beneath such a weight. Most men - most Jedi - would be reduced to whimpering balls of mewling pain.

Yet, because Mace Windu, in spite of everything that he has suffered, is not like most men, any more than he resembles most Jedi, when he speaks, his words come out powerful and clear, though his voice seems to bristle jaggedly with furiously ragged edges.

"Allow me to make myself perfectly clear. For the last time, no/, I did /not go to the Senate Building with the intention of attacking Palpatine. Nor was I aware of the fact that the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic was a Sith Lord. I had a meeting scheduled with Bail Organa and when he did not show I went to the Senate Building in search of information regarding his whereabouts and condition. When I arrived, there was a Jedi shuttle docked at the Chancellor's private landing platform. The Force screamed to me and so I ran to answer its call. I heard Master Kenobi screaming and Palpatine shouting about murder and traitors, and I also heard Jedi Masters Qui-Gon Jinn and Dooku declare Palpatine the Sith Lord and command him drop his lightsaber and surrender immediately. I engaged him in combat when the door to the Chancellor's private office exploded and Palpatine - no, Sidious - burst out of the room with an ignited red lightsaber in hand. I engaged him with Vaapad and was barely able to hold my own in the battle, eventually disarming the Sith by destroying his lightsaber. Sidious then attacked me with Force-lightning. I could deflect the barrage but I could not keep him from forcing my lightsaber back towards me. It was inevitable that I would die by my own 'saber unless the situation changed, and so I called out for help. I thought that I could sense Anakin Skywalker's presence and, as I have said, I had heard Obi-Wan Kenobi's voice earlier, screaming within the Chancellor's private office, and so I asked them for their aid. Master Kenobi was quite specific about referring to himself as the Chosen One and to Anakin Skywalker as the Sith'ari - and before you question me again, no/, Masters, I am /not aware of what significance this title might hold, though the root of it clearly seems to be Sith. In any case, Sidious did not react well to Master Kenobi's pronouncement, and his attack on me increased dramatically, to the point of being overwhelming. His evil struck me and for an instant it was as if nothing lay between myself and the Sith Lord's darkness. The following moment, I saw what I can only describe as the semi-opaque, semi-transparent, blue-tinted, light-haloed, Force-strong figure of a very young Qui-Gon Jinn, seemingly leaping out of nowhere and nothing but the storm itself to catch me as I was about to fall off of the window ledge, lifting me and carrying him effortlessly as he dove in through the broken window. I also saw the similarly semi-transparent, semi-opaque, light-haloed, blue-tinted, Force-strong figure of an extremely young Jedi Master Dooku, calmly blocking and redirecting half of the barrage of Sidious' twisted Dark lighting with the dark green blade of a lightsaber whose like I have never seen before while also simply . . . bodily absorbing the rest of the attack into himself without so much as flinching away from its unnatural power. And before you ask me again, no/, I do /not pretend to understand how or to know why a man who was killed on Naboo over a decade ago by a Dark Lord of the Sith has suddenly reappeared among us. However, it seems clear to me that the same reasons and process are also most likely responsible for the return of Jedi Master Dooku to us. I firmly believe that the being once known as Count Dooku, Lord Tyranus of the Sith, perished on board the Invisible Hand because of the actions of our esteemed colleagues, Obi-Wan Kenobi and most especially Anakin Skywalker. In any case, Master Qui-Gon brought me to safety well within the confines of the room and then he dropped me. The last thing that I saw before I lost consciousness was Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker standing together, shoulder to shoulder, lightsabers held at the ready. There was a light on them that came from within them and the Force that made me feel as if I would be struck blind if I continued to look upon it and them. They were and yet they were not themselves. I cannot explain it beyond that because I do not understand what it was that I saw. Unfortunately, Masters, I cannot, in good conscience, attempt to elaborate on that explanation as I only caught the barest glimpse of the two, standing together, before I was knocked unconscious. And no matter how many times you all wish to tell me yet again about how you saw the two of them - Kenobi and Skywalker - kissing outside the Temple, the simple fact of the matter is that Master Kenobi has made it eminently clear that he does not and has never indulged in sexual or romantic activity of any sort and he was telling the truth every time he spoke of this." Mace pauses here, momentarily, to take another calming breath, attempting - and, for the most part, succeeding, thankfully - in resisting the urge to yell at his fellow Jedi Masters and members of the High Council. The utter mortification he had suffered, when he had wrongly accused Obi-Wan of pursuing an inappropriate relationship with the young Jedi Master's own former Padawan learner, Anakin Skywalker, and Obi-Wan had wasted no time - and bothered not at all to treat him with anything even approaching kindness - in setting both him and the matter straight, simmers near the surface of his mind, almost like indignance, almost like anger. Behind his eyes, though, Mace Windu is able to conjure, quite clearly, the wholly disturbing and yet entirely misleading closeness of the two young men, especially while in the midst of some private communion/communication - as they were that time when he stumbled across them, meditating together in the Temple gardens, in that variation on First Form (Anakin had been fifteen, Obi-Wan twice his age, and Obi-Wan had been comfortably balanced, sitting up upon his knees, which were spread wide to allow Anakin, who was also kneeling, but resting back upon the legs that were folded down underneath him, in between Obi-Wan's spread thighs. Anakin had already been taller than Obi-Wan, so the fact that Anakin was sitting back upon his heels while Obi-Wan was up upon his knees had given more stability to the position, allowing Anakin to rest more comfortably, more securely, within the snug circle of Obi-Wan's arms. The variation to the position had made sense, and yet . . . Anakin's hands were tangled up in Obi-Wan's robes, as though trying to find their way within the layers of fabric, clenched so tightly so that he was crushed up against his Master's chest and torso, and Obi-Wan was holding him with his left hand, wound about with Anakin's Padawan braid, spread across the back of Anakin's head, cradling it and the boy to him, with his right arm circling across his Padawan's back and pressing him firmly up against him. It had been . . . disturbing. And they had held that position for an extremely long time - almost four hours, while Mace Windu watched with his heart in his throat - before Anakin Skywalker's hands had finally tightened convulsively in his Master's robes, a heavy sigh escaping him. A few moments later, their eyes had been open and they'd smiled at one another, Obi-Wan tugging affectionately on Anakin's Padawan braid. However, Anakin had responded by reaching up, sliding his hands into his Master's hair, and then tugging, gently but insistently, until Obi-Wan had bent his head down to him, until Mace had not been able to tell whether it was their foreheads or their mouths that were touching and the bottom had fallen completely out of his stomach for fear that the two were kissing.), and then again, that time when the two had been practicing together in the salle, only a few months after the Clone Wars had first begun, and had been so very free with touch, so very close with one another, all throughout the session. (They had even ended that session in an eerily similar pose, Anakin raking his hand possessively through Obi-Wan's hair and Obi-Wan answering by wrapping his hand with Anakin's Padawan braid, tugging until the boy ducked his head down and their foreheads touched. They had held that pose, with their foreheads touching, for so long that Senator Amidala had gasped out loud, sure that they were about to kiss.) Because he is able to remember these moments, and the entirely inappropriate and inaccurate light they had cast upon the relationship between the two Jedi, Mace is much more easily able to restrain himself from taking his fellow Council Masters to task out of sheer exasperation. "Whatever it is that has happened, whatever the Force has done to them, it seems quite apparent to me that it all occurred within the past few hours and I am quite positive that Master Kenobi has most certainly not been breaking the law of this Order with his own former Padawan learner, at least not previous to those events!"

However, at this sternly delivered proclamation, Agen Kolar, Saesee Tiin, and Kit Fisto - who all very clearly saw Anakin Skywalker kiss an apparently willing and eager Obi-Wan Kenobi and who are all quite certain they know what it is that this kiss must mean - immediately erupt into a flurry of protests and counterarguments. The blue holoimages of Plo Koon, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and Coleman Kcaj all seem determined to add their own interpretation of the event - which they have all seen several times, thanks to the transmission of several holorecordings of the kiss, a fact that galls Mace Windu, who has yet to be shown even one of those holorecordings, since the rest of the Council had been too impatient to hear his report to bother waiting long enough to show him any records of the events he had missed out on, while he was unconscious - while the images of Stass Allie and Shaak Ti simply frown and shake their heads, visibly confused and no longer even attempting to hide their discomfort or discontent with the entire subject. Of all of them, only Master Yoda seems to be having no trouble retaining his calm, silently sitting in his chair and apparently fully prepared to simply wait for the rest of them to argue themselves out before he will offer his own understanding of the recent bewildering events. Before this has a chance to happen, though, the doors to the Council Chamber suddenly fly open.

The four Council Masters physically present in the Temple at the time the clone troopers were commanded to execute Order Sixty-Six have all had an opportunity to see and to observe Masters Dooku and Qui-Gon from a fairly close distance, as the two Force spirits helped rouse and organize the Temple inhabitants before the clones could begin their attack, and those Council Masters have been able to share these observations with their hologrammic counterparts in great detail. However, those four same Masters have only been able to view Obi-Wan and Anakin from out of the Temple's windows and on some of the various holorecordings of the truncated attack, when the lingering darkness from night and the recent storm as well as the smoke from the fire engulfing the Temple's north wing combined to effectively mask almost all of the differences that the full embrace of the Force has wrought in them. Of the ten Masters who have gathered within the Council Chamber to discuss what little they know of recent events while waiting for a proper explanation and accounting of both the sudden attack on the Temple and its precipitous thwarting, only Mace Windu has gotten a close look at Anakin and Obi-Wan, and both glimpses he caught in the midst of his battle with Sidious were brief, confused things, the first sight half subsumed within his gift and the last vision half swallowed by pain and the darkness of swiftly approaching unconsciousness. Though the Korun Master knows that there is something that has changed about the two Jedi - and in a way so obviously and staggeringly powerful as to inspire terror and awe in nearly equal parts - Mace Windu has not even come close to guessing, much less understanding, how fundamentally different that change has left Obi-Wan and Anakin. As for the other Council Masters, well, whatever they may or may not have been suspecting or hoping, it certainly has not been . . . this.

Beauty. Light. Beauty and light inextricably and inexplicably entwined and somehow made flesh in forms that are similar to and yet are not quite the same - those inexplicable but undeniable differences only heightened by the fact that both Jedi are wearing strict high formal Jedi robes, workday linens and leather and blends of wool and cotton replaced entirely by heavy raw Aeien silk, lighter weight and more finely woven (but still noticeably textured in the nubby pattern of slubbed raw silk) raw Ottegan silk, and almost airily light-weight and finely woven raw Lashaa silk, as well as incredibly soft brushed wool, all in shades of gold-touched beige and ecru and cinnamon-brown and deep, rich chocolate, their tunics and tabards hanging loosely around their thighs and practically touching their knees, Anakin's garb shockingly pale when compared to the normal black and near-black of his normal Jedi uniform - and as those of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker.

Jedi are servants of the Force. Jedi are protectors of life. Jedi do not, as a rule, have much time to appreciate an individual's physical beauty or to cultivate such beauty in themselves. Jedi do tend to be enormously fit and athletic, if often in a slightly understated fashion, given the way that the Force moves through them to help them accomplish the various staggeringly improbable physical feats that the Jedi are known for. Because they live so often within the bright and loving embrace of the Force, Jedi also tend to age slowly and gracefully. Given their innate gracefulness and self-assured calm, Jedi quite often tend to be compelling, even charismatic, beings. But Jedi are not, in most cases, thought of as beautiful, at least not in the way that most sentient beings regard beauty - as something that causes physical desire. Jedi tend to be chaste beings, and even those who do occasionally indulge in more sensual pleasures are extremely discrete and careful about it. Jedi do not advertise availability. Thus, most sentient beings wrongfully assume that the Jedi Order either strongly encourages or else simply requires chastity of its members outright, and normally very few individuals ever try to challenge or to test this assumption. Jedi are generally - though understandably far less often, of late, given the war and the efforts of the Sith - thought of as honorable and good and just and even powerful beings, but they are not normally thought of as beautiful - even when they actually truly are. Jedi themselves, while they are certainly taught to understand - and most often will quite capably recognize - the aesthetic underpinnings of ideas of beauty and its ideals for literally thousands of different cultures among hundreds of different sentient species, in the main, as individuals, quite simply honestly do not tend to react or to even notice beauty in the same way that others of their specific species would and do. Between all of the many restrictions placed on them by tradition and the Code and their training, most Jedi just don't learn how or else they soon forget how to simply automatically be able to see and to recognize and to feel pleasure at the sight of beauty.

Thus, being suddenly faced with beauty so stunningly obvious that it's impossible not to notice it or to immediately and involuntarily react to it would be an enormous surprise for just about any Jedi, especially if said Jedi were expecting something else entirely, something much more comfortingly familiar. For the ten Jedi Masters on the High Council who have been waiting - some more obviously anxiously than others - for some sort of rational explanation for the seemingly inexplicable progression of recent events, it is just as shockingly unexpected as the actual attack on the Temple was. Unfortunately, the sudden presence of such distressingly unforseen and unavoidable beauty also feels rather like a dangerous attempt at distraction, perhaps even an actual attack in the form of a thinly disguised temptation, given that the sight of such beauty automatically and universally invokes feelings of undeniable pleasure, a certain wistful longing, and unvarnished awe, entirely regardless of the species of each viewer or the many years of Jedi training that should have rendered such reactions impossible. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are mesmerizing to behold - unmistakably, indisputably, and seemingly quite irrationally beautiful. They are so physically changed - though it is startlingly difficult to pinpoint precisely what it is about them that's truly obviously different instead of merely somehow subtly altered, as if by careful and methodical polishing or refinement - that they hardly seem to be the same two Jedi who have so steadily become increasingly famous over the course of this terrible, bloody war.

Master Yoda's response is actually almost understandable, given all of these things.

Almost.

Yoda nimbly leaps to his feet in the center of his chair, eyes wide with alarm, and grimly snaps, "Jedi Masters! Protect these, you will!"

The identical simultaneous responses of Jedi Masters Mace Windu, Agen Kolar, Saesee Tiin, Kit Fisto, Plo Koon, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Coleman Kcaj, Stass Allie, and Shaak Ti are swift enough and unthinking enough to be disturbingly reminiscent of the clone troopers, whenever they are given a specific command protocol by means of a word/phrase that has been hardwired into them to trigger an involuntary response - normally one that overrides all independent thought and demands automatic obedient action, as with the command protocol for Order Sixty-Six. In this case, though, it is ten of the most highly thought of and widely regarded Jedi Masters in existence, beings who are generally universally considered to be the most powerful and wisest of all beings in the galaxy, period, who obediently and immediately respond. The Force shivers with the power of their response - a Force-power unlike anything that Obi-Wan or Anakin have ever seen before. A wave of power seems to arise from within, cling to, and also expand outward from each Council member, so much power that its presence can not only be sensed through the Force but can actually also be perceived visibly, as shimmering coronas of light wreathing each Jedi Master. Even the blue holoimages of the five Masters who are not physically present in the room gain indistinct, wavering halos of light. The sudden surge of intense Force power is incredibly loud and the amount of Force pouring into and out of the ten Council Masters surprisingly extravagant for whatever it is they are trying to do . . . at least it seems that way until the waves of energy suddenly surge together, snapping shut like a series of overlapping and interlocking shields to form a barrier between the incomplete ring of Council Masters and Anakin, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Dooku, visible as a blazing wall of brilliant light cutting them off entirely from the rest of the room. Despite the overwhelming brightness of the corona of light blazing from the Council Masters and walling them off, though, the four Jedi whose sudden entrance into the room precipitated the call for this "protection" can still see all of the Council Masters clearly. Obi-Wan and Anakin do not realize what it is that they are seeing, but Qui-Gon and Dooku recognize what is happening, and they are both appalled and furious over this knowledge. In the following instant, the other two realize why.

The interlocking shield of multicolored light swiftly pulses out from the ten Council Masters and slams shut around them, encasing the four of them inside a bubble of vividly colored light - the expected greens and blues and even violet shading inexplicably towards a bright blood red hue, a hard yellow-gold glitter disconcertingly reminiscent of the Sith Lord's eyes, and, even more distressingly, also containing wide swathes of a dark negativity disturbingly reminiscent of the color of Sidious' evil Force-lightings - whose presence is clearly meant to cut the four of them off from the flow of the Force entirely.

Emphasis, thankfully, upon meant/, since first of all Qui-Gon and Dooku are Force-spirits and, therefore, quite simply cannot be separated from the Force, /ever/, and, moreover, Dooku and Qui-Gon were not mistaken when they told Obi-Wan and Anakin that the Force would remain with them always now, never to be parted from them by unnatural means or the actions of others and continuing to grow with them so long as they continue to accept both its will and their love for each other. There is perhaps a half a heartbeat in which Anakin and Obi-Wan's perception of the Force gains a quivering, uncertain cast, as of something viewed through water or some other similar, non-solid obstruction; however, their connection to - and, therefore, their ability to use - the Force never even so much as flickers. And of course the shield cannot even touch the burning cores of pure Force energy that reside within Qui-Gon and Dooku. Still, for whatever reason - and most likely the reason is that he doesn't even bother trying to check, since in all honesty it probably never would have occurred to the powerful old Master that such a shield might not be able to hold them - Master Yoda doesn't seem to notice that the shield isn't working. In fact, the wizened little Master gives them a grimly victorious smile and smug nod, at which Qui-Gon Jinn, thoroughly incensed, all but snarls, "You presumptuous, insufferably arrogant incompetents!"/

In the next moment, the Force actively floods all four of them with energy, power that they have not yet even thought of reaching for, making the Force's will in the matter quite clear.

Smiling grimly, as one, the four take the same step forward - into and through the shield, shattering it instantly in a shower of sparks that vanish into nothing and stagger the ten members of the High Council who are arrayed against them.

And then things become very interesting indeed.

***