ED : Chapter 19: Dancing With the Devil II

"Up until now, I refrained from mentioning what I considered to be an excessive use of the Thought Shield technique because I could easily imagine how uncomfortable the scrutiny of your fellow Jedi could become. 

Half of them obsessed with the idea you're the embodiment of a prophecy no one actually understands, and the other half hot to disprove the validity of said prophecy. 

With someone who'd spent a portion of his childhood lacking all personal agency caught in the middle of a rigid hierarchy. 

Someone I've learned is a naturally very introverted personality. Now, I begin to wonder if I haven't been enabling a troubling tendency on your part to close yourself off from everyone around you. 

Not to maintain your privacy, but to avoid natural albeit sometimes uncomfortable social situations. 

Using a technique designed to prevent the scrutinizing of your thoughts and emotions by other Force-users in the presence of someone who isn't Force-sensitive, but who you found intimidating is indicative of an unhealthy trend. 

You see that, don't you, Anakin?" The question which capped off this lecture was proffered gently, but there was iron underneath it. I'd tripped my Master's sense of responsibility for my well-being, and this was the fall-out.

Suddenly, I was sick beyond all reason of the lying. Of the refraining from revealing things I couldn't plausibly explain away as simply the result of overactive, uncontrolled clairvoyance. 

Even when it cost lives and loosed evils on the galaxy others were going to pay for. Once again, fourteen year old Asajj Ventress's scream of heartbroken rage echoed in my ears, as the sight of her tears drying about blue-gray eyes gone dead as a shark's while she buried her Master flashed before my eyes. 

Yet again, I was watching the girl who's Master I may as well have shot in the back myself shave her head and tattoo on it the names of the men and women she was going to torture to death slowly as she created her blood-drenched kingdom. 

Knowing if she'd been outmatched by an Anakin trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi since he was nine, this version of me was going to be the death of her during that desperate bid to forever replace the Master she'd lost and close the bleeding gash which went to the roots of her soul.

"Just one of the many awful things I've let happen to maintain my cover. All because I'm afraid the Jedi will stop training me if they learn there's a fifty-two year old personality in here." 

The thought actually made me hate myself, a little. How was I any different from Palpatine, really? Lying and concealing critical information so that others would vest me with power and authority. 

My silence had destroyed Assaj's LIFE! By the moral code I believed in and was willing to die in defense of, I was a killer, so my victim's next-of-kin had a right to my head. 

Fuck, I was worse than Ole Sheev, because not only wouldn't I hesitate to kill Ventress when the time came, her defeat might well end up being the reason the Council promotes me to Knighthood, sans Trials, and I wouldn't say a mumbling word to gainsay them. 

The sooner Knighted, the sooner I had full agency to prosecute my crusade again Darth Sidious, right?

"I'll save you some time, Master. This is where I tell you I was using a Thought Shield during our encounter with the Supreme Chancellor to protect not only my life, but yours and Master Drallig's. 

You'll ask me to explain how that could possibly be, because you can't square my claim with what you know to be true. 

Since I can't offer any evidence in support of this extraordinary claim, I remain silent rather than convince you I'm suffering from paranoid delusions brought on belatedly by my traumatizing early childhood. You schedule my first appointment with the mind-healers, and that's that." 

I was angry enough I noticed my song had grown horribly discordant, shrilly repetitive, and possessed of piercing notes which were actually painful, but retained just enough sense to keep my tone vaguely respectful, if quite sharp.

"Control your anger, Apprentice, or it will control you. I can feel your pain, your shame, and your self-doubt. Please, talk to me, Anakin. Whatever it is, I promise I won't simply conclude you're damaged and dismiss your beliefs. 

Tell me why you believed all our lives were in danger. I don't normally trust politicians either, but even if the Chancellor was corrupt, he's hardly a danger to Jedi Masters" Dark Woman replied in a gentle, understanding tone of voice. 

Her blue eyes seeming to plead that I trust her with whatever was carving away at me inside as she spoke.

I couldn't help the eruption of twisted, bitter laughter no one had ever heard the likes of from an innocent twelve year old. It didn't take long for that laughter to turn into sobs, however. 

I fell into the chair along the right wall opposite my Master's full-sized bed she sat on the edge of, but didn't see her reaction as I'd dropped my head into my hands. My eyes were burning as my stomach continued to cramp and twist, but nothing I tried helped me calm down.

I felt hands on both my shoulders, as Dark Woman's forehead touched my own. 

"I said something you believe to be not only wrong, but extremely wrong. Laughably, tragically, horrifically wrong, am I right? Tell me about it, please?"

"Hego Damask II, late head of the Intergalactic Banking Clan was the Sith Lord, Darth Plagueis. It was his apprentice who broke the Rule of Two established by Darth Bane more than a thousand years ago. 

Training the Zabrak assassin who Master Jinn and Knight Kenobi fought on Naboo. The blockade by the Trade Federation, the attempt on Queen Amidala's life, and the procedural stalling in the Senate by Lott Dod to prevent Chancellor Valorum from doing anything to aid the people of Naboo. 

It and so much which came before was all orchestrated for the purpose of killing Valorum's support in the Senate, and thereby manipulate Queen Amidala into calling for the Vote of No Confidence which ended the Valorum administration and ushered in the election of Palpatine as a compromise candidate. 

Palpatine, also known as the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious." It was almost unbelievable to be saying this, but now that the dam had burst, I couldn't stop and it all came out in a rush.

"I know all of this, Master, because Darth Plagueis used his mastery of midi-chlorian manipulation to attempt true bodily resurrection of the dead. Stopping that is the one thing the Force as a whole is united to prevent. 

The Living and Cosmic Force, they struck back at Darth Plagueis. Creating a Force-sensitive with the highest midi-chlorian count since the Celestials vanished from this galaxy. 

The Force didn't just make a baby with a lot of midi-chlorians, however. What good would that be in opposing Sith Lords decades steeped in their foul mastery of the Dark Side's ways?"

I drew a deep breath, then leaned back so the woman leaning over me could see my eyes as I finished.

"The Force found a consciousness who knew what had happened, and much of what would happen, if I don't stop it. if.. it put that consciousness inside the body of a fetus conceived without a father. I'm not claiming the Force spoke to me like a person. 

Just that it's been clear to me since I took my first breath that Darth Sidious would have brought about Qui-Gon's death with his assassin, corrupting Master Dooku, who'd then kill Master Sifo-Dyas to cover up the army of clones which Sifo-Dyas paid the cloners of Kamino to create from Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett's DNA using money channeled to him by Hego Damask II. 

Dooku would then lead a Secessionist movement of Mid and Outer Rim systems fed up with Republic corruption, and this would be the impetus for first Palpatine's indefinite term in office, and later ever more emergency powers. 

The Military Creation Act would legalize the Clones as the Grand Army of the Republic, with the Jedi as their commanders and generals. Beginning the Clone Wars, and ending with the betrayal of the Jedi by the inhibitor-chip implanted clone troopers once our numbers were winnowed down by the war. 

Ninety-nine point nine percent of the entire Jedi Order is exterminated, then Palpatine dissolves the Senate and declares himself Emperor. Game, set, and match, because the Sith have been actively creating this veil of the Dark Side blocking our precognition for this purpose. More than a millennium of planning, all coming to fruition, now."

I don't know what I expected. Probably being sent to the Prism, because a madman with more midi-chlorians than Yoda clearly couldn't be allowed to continue walking around. Growing stronger all the time despite his insanity. 

Maybe the Jedi Researchers would even have Master Yaddle put me under with Morichru, so they could basically vivisect me without killing me, and maybe figure out how to create more super-Jedi. Ones who weren't given to fixating on "mad delusions" concerning high-profile political figures.

"God, Dark Woman probably thinks I'm this galaxy's version of a John Hinckley Jr." The thought filled me with self-disgust, as I began castigating myself ferociously for being so damned weak I just had to run my mouth and destroy everyone's hopes.

Now, my failure was complete. Even if I could somehow escape the Temple, I couldn't fight the Jedi and Palpatine's machinations.

"You could have saved yourself a lot of pain, if you'd only remembered I know exactly what the thoughts and emotions of damaged and deranged Force-users feel like, Anakin. 

Since you are neither, and there are entirely too many alarming coincidences to dismiss what you've said, I'm forced to accept your telling the truth."

My heart leapt at these words, but the statement that followed hard on their heels tempered my elation that I hadn't ruined everything.

"You are right about no one else believing what would be considered absent considerable proof the wild story of a boy many would think has cracked under the pressure, however. 

No one who hasn't faced down as many deranged Force-users as I have would simply believe you because they can feel you're completely sane. The horror of what we're all permitting to happen is a compelling reason for people to refuse to entertain even the possibility you're right."

"It's time you told me everything, Anakin, because I'm still struggling with this. I need you to connect as many dots for me as you can, so we can move past this, and on to the what do we do about all this phase" Dark Woman assertively declared. 

Filling me with a relief so profound it made my bones feel like they'd suddenly turned to water.

I wasn't alone with the literal weight of the galaxy on my shoulders anymore.

...

I'll appreciate if you guys can throw some power stones to keep the story going.

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