Complete Circle.

[Maple Harte]

Six months after Ahsoka Tano's departure...

Anakin Skywalker had been in the air before the others, having sensed her. Particularly, the blow across her face, and everywhere else. Not constant, not enough to kill. Not quickly at least. The blows came intermittently.

The other Jedi had noticed how tight his jaw had gotten, the way his mechanical hand clenched as he heard of the attack underway. The attack where Padme lived...

He could see the fires rising up from the tower as his interceptor sped towards it. There were no clones. Every clone in the vicinity was currently under attack, along with their patrol bases. It had been surgical. One minute, green across the board. Next, every single alert system in the temple went off then shut down. No one could find Obi-Wan.

He was alone.

It did not matter. He was the chosen one. And anything that tried to hurt Padme would be hurt by him.

Anyone in those apartments who started shooting wouldn't last long.

"Artoo, switch to auto-pilot, keep trying to contact Obi-Wan!" Anakin ordered the trusty little blue and white astro-mech, who beeped back on the pilot console affirmatively.

The cockpit hatch opened and the dark-clad Jedi Knight and among the greatest heroes of a wretched and bloody conflict that had dragged on far too long leapt out of his starfighter into a night sky and onto a landing platform as his ship passed by low, activating his lightsaber as he landed.

Never get between Anakin Skywalker and the person he loves. He'll always pick who he loves.

Always.

The tall, handsome Jedi's blue eyes scanned the landing area. No hostiles. No real intelligence on who the enemy was. Wasn't Confederacy. He'd have heard the roger-rogering by now.

He moved forward quickly, he sensed them, their life through his connection to all things. Hard, steady resolve. Like many of the clones he had fought beside and led into battle with Ahsoka--

He stopped himself from thinking of her. It was too painful, watching the disillusionment on her as she had left.

Yet another person this wretched war had taken from him.

He could not do anything about that. All he could do was protect who he still could.

That is, if they didn't kill her first.

He had one advantage. At least, he thought he did. No one knew he was married to her.

But the frequency with which he sensed her being hit. It was like some demented bell ring, meant solely to torment. Someone was just...hitting her.

He struggled to suppress his fury, felt the blackness within begging him to slaughter as he had on...on...

Anakin pulled away from the memory of Tattooine.

His steps were heavy as he moved toward the life in the building on a floor above him. He sensed no urgency from his enemies. Just...quiet acceptance.

The security in the place had all been murdered, including the clone honor guard the chancellor had established there recently. The red-armored clone troopers lay dead where they had been slain, some by blaster wounds and others...

Others by lightsaber.

"Huh. Maybe it 'is' Confederacy." Anakin thought out loud, kneeling down to examine the bodies. He tried to pick up some trace of Dooku, wondering if the rotten old bastard had grown a pair and decided to come knocking on the Jedi's doorstep for a change. Nothing. Whoever killed this man didn't feel like Dooku. But then again, by Anakin's own admission he was no Quinlan Vos.

Anakin went through the elaborate engraved passages of the Senatorial Apartments. The lights were out, blaster and lightsaber scouring were everywhere. The cuts were all designed to kill, not maim. No prisoners. Not Grievous. His cuts were messier. Way messier.

He took the service stairs. The ones he normally took to remain unseen to reach Padme's--his--home.

He suppressed his fear. If they wanted her dead by now, she would be...

But he did not know how long that fact would hold out...

Meanwhile...

The armored blow to Padme's jaw made her spit blood as she lay on the ground, bruised and bleeding, with two black eyes and a swollen face, purple on one side. The lights in the apartment were out. Only fires from when the invaders had blown through the wall.

They were Mandalorians. Mandalorians in white armor, all designed exactly the same. She heard Fett clones among the voices.

"That's enough." One of them said to the Mandalorian. "Skywalker just arrived."

The Mandalorian that had been hitting her turned, regarded her for a moment, then rose up, grabbing her by her pony-tailed hair, dragging the bruised, white clad woman to one of her apartments luxurious recliners.

She sat there in a daze, bleeding onto the fabric. When she had learned Anakin had been coming home she had gotten so excited she had put on the outfit she had been wearing in the Arena on Geonosis. She had cleared her schedule.

She had even heard his voice on the comlink, though she realized in hindsight there were so many ways to fake a voice. Especially one's like her husbands. To her displeasure she had heard one of her aides mockingly pretending to be her husband just the other way, and though she loathed how exaggerated the impression was, even she had to admit he'd gotten the voice dead on...

A faked voice was the least of her problems. They were using her as bait for her husband. Why, she didn't know. But she half expected either her husband or Obi-Wan to come crashing in any second now.

"Hey, boss is here." she heard one of the Mandalorians speak. She craned her head weakly to her left, watching as the door to her apartment hissed open.

He strode in, as tall as her husband, garbed in black leather, with a blacker duster with a mesh pattern that had a hood thrown over a masked face that had a breathing apparatus attached to the outside, making it resemble a primitive gasmask with angular lenses.

The breathing was a slow, automatic light hiss, intake having a slightly higher pitch. The hiss almost wasn't audible.

The black garbed figure strode past his men who stood at attention as he passed by, heading towards her.

"You kept hitting her regularly, like I ordered?" He asked, his voice a low, ragged electronic growl. It was not a baritone. Not deep and commanding. Just gutteral, with a hint of the metallic to it.

Padme focused on him, her head shifting as he moved, pulling up an expensive-looking chair and sitting across from her. He folded his arms.

"Look how old you've become."

"I...I would've thought..." Padme struggled to get out, desperate to stay conscious.

"Thought what?" The figure asked calmly, observing her marred and battered features.

"I would have thought only Count Dooku could be so bold."

"He wishes he were this bold."

"An attack on the Senatorial Apartments." Padme coughed, flinching as she shifted to be more comfortable. The sofa was bloody now. "They'll hunt you all over the galaxy for this, whoever you are. You won't get away with this."

"And what do you suppose 'this' is, old one?" The black garbed figure asked.

"I'm not even forty." Padme replied. "So why do you say I'm old?"

"By old I mean your ways have become a relic. You're the last of a dying breed: A politician that believes what they preach. Democracy!" The figured gestured exuberantly. "Peace in our time! Equality! Is this not true?"

The battered woman nodded weakly.

"I knew it was. How about justice? How are you on that?" The figure asked pointedly.

"I believe in justice." Padme affirmed, unsettled by the near silent, automatic hiss of his breathing.

"For everyone? Everyone deserves justice, right. Everyone?"

"Of course."

"What about murderers? You believe murderers should be brought to justice?" The figure asked.

The battered woman stared silently at the black garbed figure, the flicker of nearby fires illuminating her savaged visage, its wounds reflected from the lens of her captors gas mask.

"Why are you asking me this? Who are you?"

"Answer the question."

"Yes. Yes. I believe murderers should be brought to justice..." she got out.

The figure regarded her silently for a moment.

He pulled out a small, disk shaped holoprojector from his duster.

"Justice, huh?" The Figure asked playing the recording.

Padme, her hair matted and bloodied strained, staring at a blue image of her husband.

He'd still had his Padawan braid back then. He was so passionate, so full of...something...something that had completed her. Something that drew her like moth to light.

He was swinging his lightsaber. She first thought it was some record of a training session. That was, until she saw that look on his face.

She'd really only seen that look once. It was a look of crazed hatred. Anakin Skywalker was the most wonderful heroic man she had ever known. She would never regret loving him.

But when she saw the tusken in the recording being decapitated, she knew she would always regret this. This one part of him.

The recording went on, the hum of his lightsaber powering through the screams of tusken men, then the shriller ones of tusken women. On and on the vicious chops and hacks, Anakin's pained screams of fury and anguish and perhaps even insanity ringing in Padme's ears, making her eyes water in sorrow as his dark side bared itself. Before the blade could cut through a pregnant tusken women, the black garbed figure stopped the recording.

The image froze on a perfect shot of a screaming Anakin Skywalker in mid swing, face twisted into an inhuman mask of rage and heartbreak. He didn't even look like he knew where he was.

"Given the lack of surprise on your face, I'm going to have to assume he told you, didn't he? Unexpected." The Figure said in growl that somehow managed to sound amused all the same.

"Please..." Padme pleaded. "The Republic needs him. The Galaxy needs him. I need him."

"I forget, you never saw this. Up to now, you had the benefit of disconnect. As long as you didn't have to see it, it didn't really count, did it. And besides, who's gonna cry over a few dead savages and their brood, right?"

Padme coughed as a spasm of pain attacked her ribs.

"What do you want me to say? You act like Viszla long enough...it comes back to haunt you. Not saying its right, but..."

"Fair is fair." The figure finished.

"He wasn't himself. His mother had just died in front of him. They tortured her to death. He had a laser sword and the power of the Force. It was a perfect storm."

"Shall I continue to the part in the recording where he butchers the tusken younglings?"

"Who are you? Are you working for the Confederacy?"

"If the Confederacy knew what I have on Anakin Skywalker I dare say I could perhaps even tempt Dooku himself to part with his lightsaber for it. But no. I'm not."

"Then who--"

"I'm someone who knows Anakin is unworthy of his destiny. But more importantly, I'm someone who just plain knows." The man asserted, switching to a recording of him kissing her at their wedding.

"I never understood what it was he saw in you." The man asserted. "I mean, its not that I don't see the beauty--well, not right now obviously. But you know what I mean. I'm sure you're lovely and talented and intelligent, but still, I see nothing remarkable in you that I have not observed in a hundred other women, politician or not. What is it about you that drives him to insanity?"

"You could destroy us easily with what you have on that recording. Why go to this trouble arranging this?"

"Because," the Stealth Sensitive said as he rose with a flourish of his duster. "I have my eye on the future."

He turned to one of his men. "Has he begun his attack?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. We wait." The man said, pulling out his lightsaber. Padme glimpsed rough, blackened alloy on a design eerily similar to her husband's.

"You a fan?" she asked, gesturing weakly to his blade.

The man was silent for a moment, glancing with what seemed to be introspection at his blade.

"I'm a refinement." He answered finally, waiting for the fighting to start.

 

[Maple Harte]

The white armored Mandalorians waited expectantly for their guest. Their blasters were trained down the darkened hall.

"Are the stories true?" One of them asked.

"Its true. All of it."

"Any chance we can stop him?"

"No." The other Mandalorian answered. "But we signed the contract. We knew."

"Yeah..." the other Mandalorian trailed. "We did."

The air seemed to go still. They all focused, scanners having already detected his figure in the darkness.

He was the very image of strength, a frame honed by years of brutal combat, often with his lightsaber has his only protection, and first recourse of action. His dark brown cloth and leather robes his preferred choice of attire these days.

But today...

Today...


...he did not need his lightsaber.

On this day, his fury at feeling any sort of harm come to his wife, was threatening to escape frome the cage within, and if that happened he knew he would lose control, knew he would kill all of them. They had stopped hurting her. Apparently, they were satisfied he had shown.

"One chance." he spoke in a tone that threatened to become a snarl, like the one in his heart. "Throw down your weapons and stand aside."

Anakin heard the whine of their blasters powering up. His handsome face stretched into a grimace mixed with a glare of death.

"I said move." he uttered darkly.

"OPEN FIRE!"

The blaster bolts sang through the air, a crescendo of tibanna powered death and focused light. The Mandalorians fired in bursts, hoping to overwhelm him with sheer volley fire despite his fame at Form Five.

But they didn't understand...

Nothing would keep Anakin Skywalker from his hurt wife. Nothing.

They lost track of him in the glare of fire, it was only when one noticed Anakin had not dropped from the hail of fire that he realized why.

The bolts had stopped, in mid-air. Anakin simply stood there with his glare of death, the red light of the bolts illuminating a face with a jaw that had muscles working underneath.

He raised his gloved hand...

...and the dozens of blasterbolts, frozen in front of him turned around, frozen streaks of glaring red energy now prepared for their sources. The Mandalorians tried to move, but the Force and Anakin's barely under control fury holding them in place.

He felt cold inside as he clenched his mechanical hand, and the blaster bolts released, hitting everyone who fired, and he stepped forward, seeing from a distant part within there were still dozens more Mandalorians ahead. But he had to get to Padme. He didn't really notice the dozen more blasters trained on him, save to crudely make a back handed motion that was almost primate-like in its execution and violently slamming the dozen bodies attached to those blasters into the ceiling as what remaining lights exploded as he slowly, deliberately, walked by them. A twitch of his eye sent two blaster bolts back into the legs. A blaster was pulled out of one Mandalorians hand by an invisible grip and fired into the chest of three others, before its owner was hurled into the wall by something invisible and seething as Skywalker continued his slow pace, the glare of death never leaving his eye, blasters being crushed as he walked by, their owners slammed into the floor seconds later...

Meanwhile...



Padme could here the blaster fire through the floor and walls though the fact she could not hear that familiar hum and the blasters were still firing non stop...how...how upset was her husband?

"You have to stop this. You're throwing your men's lives away. He won't stop. You can't stop him." the senator coughed painfully.

"The Phantom Legion of Mandalore is made up of Mandalorians with terminal conditions. Doesn't matter if you waste 'em. They were like clones before it was cool." The Stealth Sensitive replied off handedly.

"All you are doing is bringing out the worst in my husband."

"Your husband doesn't need me to bring out the worst in him, it comes out on his own." The Stealth Sensitive replied.

He turned to the woman he had ordered beaten, chuckling for a second.

"Though I have to admit, I'm not helping."

"What do you want?"

"I'm not that stupid, Senator."

"What do you have against my husband?"

The Stealth Sensitive wheeled around and seized her by the neck.

"He is a fraud. And by covering up his brutal crime, so are you." he snarled, before releasing her.

Padme coughed violently.

"We...we aren't frauds..."

"You are speaking to the man who caught you both red handed. Even you just said what I have is enough to destroy you. You're frauds."

"Anakin Skywalker is a hero who has saved the lives of countless innocent men, women, and children. You cannot judge everything about him just on that one act---" Padme protested, even as she winced from her ribs hurting.

"Then why did you conceal this crime?" The Stealth Sensitive asked, hearing the blaster fire start to die down, but the yelling and screaming continued.

Padme closed her eyes, hoping her husband would feel her desire for him to show restraint. But even she knew her husband would need convincing.

"Because I knew what happened on Tattooine wasn't him." Padme answered. "Because Anakin...he was capable of so much good. He wanted to be capable of so much. I...I couldn't destroy that."

"Did you never worry this scenario might come to pass?"

"All...the time..." Padme coughed, somehow feeling her enraged husband get closer. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. She didn't know if she could stop him from killing them all. She wasn't sure she wanted to stop him.

"Did you never think about the cost? To yourself? If it was exposed? Did you never fear the cost to your reputation?"

"That the former Queen of Naboo had a secret, stormy romance to the greatest hero in the galaxy? No." the Senator chuckled darkly, in spite of the pain. "But I feared for his. One of the reasons I'm thankful to have deep pockets."

"So even seeing him at his worst, you are still willing to stand by him? Well, can't fault a woman her loyalty, I suppose." the Stealth Sensitive chuckled. "But what you are choosing to protect is abominable."

"Who are you?" Padme repeated in irritation. "You're no...no blackmailer. No soldier of fortune. If it was money you wanted, you would not have resorted to this. You want something else...what?"

"For now, that's very simple, Senator." The black garbed figure laughed in a dry passionless fashion. "I want to give you back to your husband."

"He's a good person--"

"No he's not." the man with the disguised voice replied, but the former queen heard the seething beneath the words.

"You hate him."

"I hate that of all the people the destiny of the Force could have chosen to manifest through, it manifested through a fraud. An unreliable fraud who will disappoint everyone the first chance he gets."

"You don't know that."

"I'm sorry, have we not been discussing the very evidence of the fact that in his darkest hour he betrayed his oath? If that isn't a sign he isn't going to crack when the strain becomes too great, tell me what is? Look what he's doing to my men. He's furious. He's ready to butcher us all just over one woman. Just like on Tattooine.

The thuds throughout the passage beyond the front door, of bodies being violently flung against walls, where like the footsteps heralding the approach of an angry rancor. It might as well have been an angry rancor.

The Mandalorians took position with one blaster emplacement set up on the far end of her luxurious home. C-3PO stood inactive in one corner, deactivated. The strange man in black had specifically ordered the droid not to be harmed.

The Stealth Sensitive checked the chronometer on his wrist.

"Should be here in another five seconds."


Outside the hallway.

Anakin did not change his pace as he walked through the passage, the scar on his eye black from the red blaster fire, whose bolts kept turning into other directions. Several phantom legion members had their armor simply warp and tear off them before being flung into the ceiling. The others were finally retreating in desperation, though it was not a panicked retreat. That was the thing Anakin had noted as he walked forward. None of them panicked. He offhandedly felt the sickness the diseases eating some, but he was most interested on the fastest way to get to his wife, which was a straight line through them. No grenades. They were just harass and delay him, and send a message: I'm not afraid to throw men in your way and I have plenty to do it with.

This angered Skywalker. These Mandalorians were letting themselves be fodder. He wasn't even tired. And with Ahsoka gone Anakin had little reason to play nice. He didn't feel nice tonight. Someone had hurt his wife.

He finally reached the front door to his home, the Mandalorians having fired to the last, even as he swatted them into the walls and floor with just his mind.

His temper was at its peak as he ripped the door off its fastenings and propelled it forward, tearing it in half as he stepped forward in the cloud of dust and smoke created, breathing hard, cybernetic fist clenched tight with wrath. He didn't see anyone else first, just Padme. Saw her bruises, her blood.

Not losing his death glare, but his voice softening considerably though Padme could still hear the deadly edge in his voice. It was the same rage she had heard on Tattooine. He was there. One thing taken to far and he would murder all of her attackers.

"Senator." he breathed, summoning a semblance of jedi control. "How badly are you hurt."

The hooded, black-garbed figure clapped loudly.

"My sincerest admiration. All that back there just now and you still have the presence of mind to maintain this charade. Attention to detail...one of your strengths."

"Anakin...he knows..." Padme breathed, before coughing in pain, the sight of which made him rip apart the turret emplacement with a twitch of his finger. The Phantom Legion in the room leveled blasters at him.

"Knows what?" Skywalker asked, lightsaber gripped in his mechanical hand.

"He knows about us...he...he knows about Tattooine.

A quiet "What?" escaped his mouth, blue eyes shifting to the man in black.

The Stealth Sensitive played the recording, played it in full. Every wretched, horrific second of it, watching Skywalker get pale.

"That...that's impossible..." he breathed. "No one else was there that night. No one else. I...I looked." Anakin choked out quietly.

The black garbed figure sat next to Padme, enraging Anakin further, but making no move.

"We would be honored if you would join us." the Stealth Sensitive offered with a flamboyant gesture of the hand.

 

[Maple Harte]

Anakin stepped forward, all his prior rage and confidence gone, numb and shocked. Someone knew. Someone knew his bloody secret on Tattooine. And now they were exploiting it. He had always figured if it were anyone who could find out the truth it would be Obi-Wan. Or Mace. Mace first. Then Obi-Wan.

"You look nauseated, Anakin." The Stealth Sensitive noted happily. "I always thought you'd start blubbering excuses but you're keeping quiet so far. Trying, no doubt to scramble your brains for an explanation. Maybe the recording is fake? Thats one explanation. But you know its not fake, do you? You both know it isn't. And besides, even if that recording is faked, this conversation isn't."

The Stealth Sensitive pulled out a datapad and hit the play button.

"They're animals and I slaughtered them like animals!" The near feral voice of Skywalker raged from the datapad. "I hate them!"

"To be angry is to be human. That's that self serving drivel she told you that day. Easy to believe though, huh?"

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"I am a man who is cursed. A bad seed. A failure. A man who knows if he had the kind of power you have, he would put it to better use than you could. But I didn't win the genetic lotto, like you did." The Stealth Sensitive explained, coughing a little as he got up, moving stiffly. "But I was compensated none the less. Compensated with this one chance."

"Chance? To do what? Beat my wife?! Invade our home and pass judgement on us?! Don't play games with me! You want something. What is it?"

"For now? To make you squirm. And to prove how unworthy you are. You're willing to risk everything for this woman. I get that! But thats all you care about. Being a Jedi is just a title to you now. You like the reputation. The authority. But you want none of the responsibility. Not really."

The Stealth Sensitive took a few steps towards Anakin, and the Jedi Knight saw a lurching limp in his walk.

"I want you to answer me something...if you had to pick between her and the Jedi Order...who would you pick?"

The question stunned Anakin. Offended him really. Being a Jedi was important to him...it made his mother proud. But Padme...

All his achievements would mean nothing if he didn't have her smile to look forward to at the end of it all. They had meant little to him personally even before he had won her affection. He enjoyed the saving lives part though. That was one solid, concrete thing he appriciated of his gifts...he could help people.

"Any answer I'd give you would no doubt be the wrong one."

"Not necessarily. But a lie would anger me. Pick."

"Padme." Anakin said quietly, almost under his breath.

"See? You can be honest...when you have something to lose, that is..."

"If you touch her again, YOU DIE!" Anakin snarled violently, making a nearby vase shatter with pure rage.

"I'm not going to hurt her. Promise."

Anakin seized the black garbed man by the throat, feeling the built in, near silent respirator pump hard and sputter as he lifted him up. The Phantom Legion leveled rifles at him but the Stealth Sensitive held up his hand.

"Its okay! Let him vent. His wife was just beaten, we've dirtied their apartment and he does not yet understand what's in store."

"I won't betray the Jedi, whatever you are after."

"That's okay! I don't want you to. You know what I want?"

"I'm all ears."

"What I want..." the Stealth Sensitive hissed. "Is for you to stay away from your wife."

Anakin stared. For a moment nothing was heard but the sound of the Stealth Sensitive's respirator breathing. His grip tightened. The respirator sputtered more and the black garbed man jerked.

"Why?"

"To prove to you...and to her...just how weak she makes you."

Anakin wanted to laugh, but was too enraged at the sight of his hurt wife. "She's not going with you."

"Of course not. You would only hunt me that much harder than you already intend. No doubt Padme would make trouble, find some ingenious escape I had not anticipated and then my evil lair blows up. I know how this works. No. I want her and you simply away from each other. No written communication or otherwise."

"You are a fool if you think you can keep me from her."

"Oh, not forever, certainly. I know this will only delay you so long. But it will give me time to formulate my demands more concisely. This show of force is simply to demonstrate I am capable of having you fought in order to impose my will. And now, before we leave, I would like to show you just how far my reach extends..."

Anakin heard snapped fingers from his captive and he saw a Mandalorian move towards the blasted in hole in the wall.

Anakin's eyes widened as an unconscious Ahsoka Tano was dragged in, hefted bodily over the shoulder by her captor. His stomach went to his throat as the Togrutan was dumped on the luxury sofa next to Padme.

"Ohhhh, this is awkward. What do you suppose will happen if I tell Ahsoka? Better, how about I show her what you did?"

"No!" Anakin hissed in sudden fear, both for his former students life and the idea of her finding out the truth.

"Or...even better...how about Obi-Wan?"

Anakin went numb as he suddenly felt his master being dragged through the blasted open wall. The bearded, white robed Jedi Master had his face bruised even worse than Padme's. He was just as unconscious as Ahsoka.

The dark robed Jedi Knight turned to his "captive" in helpless fury. The Stealth Sensitive pulled the man's arm from his throat after a few moments with no resistance.

The black garbed man regarded Anakin impassively for a moment.

"Sargent." He called to one Legionnaire. "Pull out your pistol."

A Mandalorian close by pulled out his blaster, leveling it at the three on the couch. The Stealth Sensitive took it.

"Here's a first example of why you are unworthy...your thought process." The Stealth Sensitive explained, pointing to them.

"Think real hard. Who's expendable on that couch? Nothing but dead weight?"

"Don't do this." Anakin pleaded. "I thought you said you wanted me to stay away from Padme."

"Oh relax, I'm not going to make you kill them...just shoot one in the knee. Shoot the one you can live without. If you don't...I do."

 

[Maple Harte]

The Jedi Knight stared at his strange foe. "You said you weren't going to hurt Padme." His voice sounded quiet though it still brimmed with fury. The Stealth Sensitive felt Anakin's power, a hairs breadth from coming down to crush his body, holding back only out of the mutually assured destruction that would result.

Anakin turned to the sofa where three of the people he loved most in the world sat, in danger. Because of him. Guilt scarcely described what ran through him at the moment as he pointed the blaster at them...

"I'll give you a minute to decide." The Stealth Sensitive patted him on the shoulder playfully. "But, before we do..."

The Stealth Sensitive lurched toward the deactivated Threepio, switching the golden protocol droid on. His photo-receptors flickered on.

"Oh no! The Senator! I have to warn her!" The droid whined in his high pitched, slightly snobbish voice, as he relived one of his last memories before shutdown. Anakin had never understood why he had programmed him with that voice. A mystery as unanswered as that, ultimately of the force itself.

"Welcome back to the party." The Stealth Sensitive growled, surveying the droid.

The droid took a few alarmed steps back. "You! You're the one who destroyed the wall! What have you done with Senator Amidala?"

"Come, Threepio, You're just in time." The dark figure explained pulling the droid with him by the arm.

"How rude!" The droid sputtered indignantly before it became fully aware of what was going on.

"Oh dear...what...what is this? What are you doing you...you lunatic!" Threepio sputtered as he beheld Padme on the sofa.

"Master Ani--"

The name caused a snicker to erupt from the Stealth Sensitive as well as a few of the white armored Legionnaires.

"Threepio, did they damage you?" Anakin asked, glad to see his old creation in spite of the situation.

"I was shut down by these brutes as soon as they poured into here, Master Anakin."

"You created him from scrap, right? Programmed him personally? Why...that makes him the closest thing you have to a son!" The Stealth Sensitive hissed maliciously. "Threepio, I want you to stand by that sofa...and watch the kind of man your creator really is."

"Watch?" The droid turned to the Stealth Sensitive and then to Anakin. "Watch what?"

"Threepio just...do as he says..." Anakin said in a hoarse voice, eyes wet and haunted.

The droid noticed the pistol in his hand. What amounted to horror in its droid brain built to subtle electric dread racing through its very core. He turned to Anakin's captor.

"You demented little thug!" the droid said in programmed disgust. "What do you gain from this? Pleasure?"

"Threepio...I take very little pleasure in this." The Stealth Sensitive growled at the droid.

"That you take any at all says too much of you!" The droid said snappishly, taking a step forward before being held back by Anakin.

"Heh. Guess he likes Padme too." The Stealth Sensitive chuckled as the droid was forcibly moved next to the sofa by some of the Legion. The Jedi Temple, obscured by fires from the very building they were in, glimmered in the distance through the open air docking pad for small shuttles.

"So, Anakin, times up. Which one? Who's the dead weight to you?"

Anakin stared at him in pure rage.

But, after a moment, he pointed it at Obi-Wan's right shin.

"See? You'll throw the people who made you what you are overboard first before you even think of letting harm come to those you value most. Shoot him and get it over with." the dark garbed man snapped.

The droid, who had been moved and held forcibly in place by the Legionnaires, unusually hostile even now, which was something that had caught Anakin by surprise, saw Anakin raise the pistol.

The droid stopped struggling for a moment, and the Legionnaires, who had been a hairs breadth from blasting his head off, relaxed their grip. This was a mistake.

The droid faked tripping as Anakin fired, knocking a legionnaire's head down into the bolt's path. He jerked as the bolt pierced his visor, knocking free a flashbang. Everyone, Anakin included, scrambled as it went off, blinding and defeaning all of them. Then the shooting started.

Barely able to see, barely able to think, and completely focused on avenging his family Anakin gave a snarl as he spotted the Stealth Sensitive staggering back up. His blue lightsaber went active but as the blaster bolts came he moved closer to the sofa as the fire came from all directions, slapping bolts back at their sources with his blue blade of arcing plasma until the volume of fire increased to the point that it was no longer possible. But he had marked the Stealth Sensitive for death, evidence or no. No one. Touched. His family.

Anakin Skywalker smiled as the dark figure at last pulled out his own blade, and Skywalker noticed it was an all black copy of his own. A blade with a dark green aura slipped out of the hilt with a hiss as the Stealth Sensitive charged.

 

[Maple Harte]

Dark Green clashed against Dark blue as sabers met, though the warriors of The Phantom Legion never stopped firing on Skywalker.

The Stealth Sensitive's wheezing could be heard through the hissing squeals of the plasma blades. His blow against Anakin's was weak, labored. The footwork had been sloppy. If it wasn't for the fact that in between fending off the hooded man's attacks he had to swat away the swarms of blaster bolts aimed not only at him, but his wife, his master and his former apprentice, he likely would have had the man's number in under a minute. This hooded stranger was very odd, Anakin thought, past his desire to crush him. But he had expended much of his strength reaching Padme...he'd been so seized by fury at his wife being hurt he hadn't been able to think straight. He was actually somewhat weakened at the moment, was not as fast as he would normally be, so much slower in fact that a bolt actually got past an otherwise stellar defense and grazed the top of his shoulder, and only his fear for Padme and his friends kept him from flinching and leaving a fatal opening in his defense. But so many bolts were coming from all directions he couldn't even move. But that wasn't his only problem. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan still hadn't woken up. Whatever this nerfherder had dosed them with must have been powerful. They wouldn't be able to help.

Padme was still concious however and she was desperately pulling Obi-Wan and Ahsoka's heads lower towards her while ducking against the sofa herself.

The Stealth Sensitive lunged crudely with a series of heavy swipes, staggering awkwardly, like a Padawan undergoing the first few days of Form One training, but the lunge gave away his style to Anakin: Form Six. Niman. Preferred by Consulars.

But he wasn't even that good with it. His application was crude. Slipshod. Dooku would have gotten him even quicker than Anakin, who still managed to fend off the swipes, even with the blaster bolts.

But he had that numbers advantage...and as much as Anakin could defend, he was getting more and more tired. His Force rampage had been impressive...most impressive...but his unthinking rage had cost him. This stranger had played his hand well...not only where the bolts coming from all directions, they were coming in such high volume he couldn't reflect the shots back to their source, only bat them away from him and his family.

Padme stretched to the armrest over Obi-Wan's body in the deluge of bolt, flicked a hidden switch between the actual seat and the rest itself and out popped a blaster pistol of slim, silvery build. Padme began shooting the Legionnaires behind her, felling some though others dodged and tried to fire back, only to be shot through the visors by her. The battered woman turned her pistol to the one she was certain had battered her face and shot him in the groin in the melee, then shot at others who tried to aim at her.

Anakin at last got the room necessary to both start deflecting shots back at his attackers and press his assault against The Stealth Sensitive, who gave ground with every blow from the still enraged Skywalker.

Skywalker's fiery heart screamed for the death of the man, but he needed him alive to see if there were any copies of that video with a quick interrogation. Then he'd kill him...he was too dangerous to be left alive. He could bring both him and his wife down: This was pure self preservation. He didn't even try to pretend it was anything else. If it had just been him on the line, he might have tried resorting to something other than killing. But he would never risk Padme's future. Never. The hooded man was headed for an unmarked grave. Anakin was good at lying. He'd just make up a story of the guy refusing to surrender. Guy had a deadly weapon anyway and he had attacked and tortured a Senator: Didn't look like he had any intention of surrendering anyway. Who wouldn't buy a lie that he hadn't surrendered?

Of course, He had to actually defeat him first.

The more he reflected a shot back at an attacker, and the more Padme fired, the more the Legionnaires regrouped closer to their leader.

"Enough!" The masked, hooded man commanded, the automatic hiss of his breathing apparatus non-stop in a way that irritated the Jedi Knight, and got under his skin for reasons he could not explain. "I will deal with him myself."

Anakin was in no mood to smile at such a boast as the soldiers stopped firing.

"Don't kid yourself, whoever you are..." he snapped, guarding with his blue blade. "You're no Asaaj. You're not even a Maul."

He could tell the man was having trouble correcting his gait, Anakin could tell that black suit was concealing other disabilities.

"Not trying to be..." the Stealth Sensitive wheezed in clear pain, and Anakin grew highly disturbed when he saw his own murderous visage reflected in the lens of his attacker's almost gas-mask-like faceplate.

"Besides, why would I want to emulate such failures...when I could emulate you?"

"If you're trying to imitate me...I think you got a few details off..."

It was The Stealth Sensitive's turn to chuckle through a pained wheeze while the Legionnaires kept their aim on Anakin.

"I'd tell you to give it...time...but you're running out of it..."

Anakin snarled and bounded towards him...but the man vanished and his blade hit nothing but air.

Anakin instantly went to guard, backing off. He couldn't hear the hum of his lightsaber. He closed his eyes, trying to sense him...but it was no use. He was gone in the Force.

A crack across his jaw, followed by what felt like a kick to his rib-cage sent the Jedi flying backward.

"Anakin!" Padme screamed, firing into the air where Skywalker had been attacked. Her eyes darted to an impression of feet on the carpet and she fired at the space above it, only for the shots to be deflected silently by the invisible man, knocking the pistol out of her hand with a silent swipe of an equally invisible lightsaber, followed by an invisible elbow to her face that knocked her cold.

Anakin, who had hit the floor, stunned, knew it was no ordinary form of Force Cloak...nor was it a stealth field...you could not move that fast in either...nor was one's presence in the Force concealed as well during a cloak. It was always one or the other.

It seemed this man was an exception. Anakin began to immediately reassess his chances. He couldn't hit what he couldn't see, and he could not defend against what he could not sense.

Padme had found an excellent workaround though...

Anakin sprang up, spotting his indentations on the carpet and swiping violently at the space above them. He felt his blade impact on the invisible one, and Anakin pressed the assault driving his invisible foe backward with a rough shove and then following up with a heavy vertical slice designed to destroy his defenses.

The Stealth Sensitive however mananged to drive his elbow into Anakin's ribcage, before smashing the side of his own invisible head into the nose of Skywalker, who stumbled back as the invisible man inflicted a light shiim strike on Anakin's saber arm. Anakin cried out and dropped the blade, which deactivated and was then subjected to a kick to the temple from a boot, which knocked him for a loop.

The Stealth Sensitive decloaked, pointing his dark green saber at Anakin's throat. He force pulled Anakin's saber to his waiting hand, holding both in a scissor configuration to Skywalker's neck.

"As I told your wife..." The hooded man hissed weakly. "I've been compensated by the Force in other ways..."

 

[Maple Harte]

"Seize him..." the Stealth Sensitive wheezed, and Phantom Legionnaires seized Anakin by the arms and dragged him away, tazing him as Padme was also dragged away, being punched in the face by a gauntleted hand. Anakin was in too much pain to do anything except watch as he was electrocuted by the Mandalorians.

"That's enough..." The Stealth Sensitive hissed limping away from the captive Jedi. "We've been here long enough...don't want to bruise her too badly. She needs to be intact, after all..."

He looked at Ahsoka.

"Bring her though..." the masked man hissed in his metallic voice, knowing Ahsoka was already awake for the past second, as well as Obi-Wan, though they were both faking still being unconscious. Obi-Wan was the patient one. He would not move until The Force told him too. Ahsoka took after Anakin; She was already planning to attack.

Either way, it played into his hands.

The Stealth Sensitive turned just enough, hiding his intent, just enough to let Ahsoka think she had an opening. She did, but only because he had foreseen it.

Ahsoka sprang off the luxurious, glorified couch towards him in a controlled leap with the Force.

Moving to intercept wasn't easy for a man who was nearly crippled without even this relatively simple he was clad in. But he managed, though the effort to catch Ahsoka during her jump by the throat in mid-air made him wheeze all the harder, his reinforced legs struggling to take the strain and balance as he caught her and slammed her to the ground, drawing a high caliber revolver just as Obi-Wan moved, and firing right into his chest. The crack of the gunshot was louder than the horrible scream from Anakin's throat as he watched Obi-Wan slump back in shock, gurgling blood, his plain, simplistic robes already soaked red.

"OBI-WAN!" Anakin shouted, horror replacing the rage on his features. He dared not move from the chokehold the Legionnaires had on him though as the Stealth Sensitive pointed that same handgun right at Ahsoka's face, coughing as his boot pressed on her throat.

"I guess I'm a liar then." The Sensitive joked. "Miss Tano! We would be honored if you would join us!"

Ahsoka reacted with the Force, swiping the handgun away and Force pushing him off her. As he had planned. He dropped Anakin's lightsaber so she could get to work hacking apart his guards. So far, everything was going like clockwork.

The execution of the plan still hurt though...

The Sensitive slammed painfully into the wall above him and he felt the harness that allowed him to walk crack a little in the middle, sending warning readouts to his hud. He felt the drugs release into his system, preventing him from feeling the incredible pain that would have followed as a group of Legionnaires covered his retreat as Ahsoka flipped up, force pulling Anakin's saber to her hand as he fled the room, the others keeping their chokehold on Anakin and a beaten and bruised Padme as long as possible. Ahsoka, though the weapon she used hadn't been built for her hands acquitted herself well as she batted away the bolts coming from all angles. Threepio, who had been trying to keep out of the line of fire throughout all this, grabbed a blaster pistol that had cluttered to a nearby expensive nubian table and tossed it to Padme, who caught it and fired into the faceplate of the Legionnaire choke holding her, then shooting the one holding Anakin down.

The injured Knight, reeling from the tazing still, quickly felt that pain replaced by a cold determination to catch the Sensitive at all cost. A Legionnaire opened fire but Anakin, in a rare display, deflected the bolts first with one palm, then the other, before telekinetically ripping it out of the pale armored Mandalorian's hand.

"Are you kidding--?!" The Legionnaire complained before Anakin shot him.

"No." he answered, shooting the men behind Ahsoka, mildly disgusted at resorting to blasters. Obi-Wan was right...they WERE uncivilized. Ahsoka fought off the Legionnaires as they retreated from the apartment.

Obi-Wan...

A twitch of his cybernetic hand and the Legionnaires remaining were slammed at high speed into the walls. Anakin went to his friend, his brother, almost his father, bleeding badly. Padme was already there putting pressure on the wound, the seating soaked. He needed a medevac in the next fifteen minutes or he was becoming one with the Force whether he was ready or not.

Deep, crushing guilt hit Skywalker as he remembered that all of this was his fault. His secrets were now hurting everyone around him. Obi-Wan could die...

Anakin was going to crush that masked stranger to a pulp.

"He's mine..." Anakin spoke in a low voice, quaking with fury at the sight of his mentor's blood. The ceiling cracked from his anger. He turned to Ahsoka, who was staring at him like she almost didn't recognize him.

His face softened. But only for a moment as he got his emotions under control. "Snips?" he called out gently, voice and eyes filled with lingering pain as he held out his hand.

Ahsoka tossed him his saber.

"Master Tano!" Threepio exclaimed, the golden droid walking up to her in his characteristic shuffle, photo receptors splashed with Mandalorian blood. He held up a familiar cylinder with an emitter that was wide and connected by a stem like part to the rest of the tube. Obi-Wan's saber.

"One of the soldiers had this clipped to their belt when they brought you and Master Obi-Wan in earlier. Do be careful..." Threepio begged her.

Ahsoka took it, hesitantly, as she looked at Anakin.

"Like old times, Anakin?" The Togrutan asked, a hard look in her eyes that hadn't been present before. Anakin didn't miss the fact she was just calling him Anakin now. He would never quite forgive the council for believing so unquestioningly that she had been responsible for those horrible crimes, only to have Barriss be exposed as the traitor. Anakin didn't hate Bariss. He only mourned that such a promising young Jedi had thrown away everything they were for the sake of of some misguided extremism. And more that she had taken Ahsoka down with her in the process. What had she been through since leaving? Had she been eating well? Was she safe? This was what raced through an emotionally wounded Anakin's mind as she asked.

"Yeah, Snips..." he breathed back quietly. "Like old times..."

Ahsoka snapped on Obi-Wan's blade, just as Anakin snapped on his.

"Senator..." he said tersely, hating that he couldn't comfort his injured wife, not even by calling her by her name. "Keep that pressure on Master Kenobi's wound...he loses any more blood--"

"Just get the bastard and end this..." Padme breathed, steely determination peaking through her bruised and bloodied features. Anakin nodded and he and his former padawan raced out to catch the Stealth Sensitive.

"How come he and his men didn't try and escape through the docking platform?" Ahsoka asked as she raced down passages filled with broken corpses, shuddering as she sensed her former master had been responsible for this culling.

She'd seen him go through droids like nothing. She'd never seen him go through people like this.

"Too obvious...he's got something planned..." Anakin said, still in that quiet, subdued tone.

"Who is this guy?" the young Togrutan asked, her face twisting at her confusion at tonight's events.

"I don't really care..." he growled as he stormed forward, gripping his blade so hard with his cybernetic hand its frame threatened to be crushed. "We can find out after he's dead. He shot Obi-Wan."

NEXT: ANAKIN SKYWALKER VERSUS THE PHANTOM LEGION.