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The War has been hard on the Jedi. After three years, almost every one has Fallen, has had to be Caught a least once.
Anakin himself, well. Last he checked he was at twenty-three Falls, but he’s not convinced they didn’t lose count somewhere in the middle there; it was a bad campaign. By this point, the routine of Catching is comfortingly familiar, the process of drawing himself back to the Light becoming almost reflex.
As he is finding now.
It made sense to Fall, there in the Chancellor’s – Sidious’ – office. His mentor has always offered him advice when he is struggling. And he knows the power the Dark Side offers, is willing to bear another scar on his soul if it means Padme’s safety. He is exhausted and scared, and it was easy to lose himself in the false reassurance of the Dark.
It made sense then, but now that the initial rush of Falling is fading, now that he is away from Sidious’s stare and surrounded by his troopers, he can feel clarity returning.
And the first thing that he notices is that something about his troopers is wrong. They are used to managing his Falls by now. They know how to direct his fury to where the destruction is warranted, and how to help him regain control when restraint is needed or when the threat is passed. When he draws on the Dark, he relies on them to tell him before he goes too far. Like…oh. Like marching on his home with intent to kill all those inside.
He stops, standing in the middle of the plaza and looking up at the Temple. This is wrong. Even from within the Dark, even with Sidious’s promises of knowledge and power ringing in his ears, he knows it is wrong.
And his troopers should know too. They should be stopping him or diverting him, not following his orders blindly, in silent lockstep.
Fully distracted from his mission, he turns to Commander Appo – not Rex, he’s off protecting Ahsoka – behind him. It is Appo, but if he wasn’t so familiar with his Commander’s Force signature he might have doubted. In the force, the man’s presence is flat, stilted, showing none of the uniqueness that usually shines so brightly in his senses. A quick brush over the minds of the other troopers arrayed behind him shows the same blank focus.
Turning his back on the Temple and its tensed guards, he places his hands either side of Appo’s head, delving deeper. Darkness calls to Darkness, and he feels something shift inside the trooper’s mind. No, not mind – head. It is not Darkness like a compulsion, but anchored in something physical. A physical object directing Appo’s thoughts, supressing his personality; the situation generating Darkness not feeding off it. Anakin wraps himself around the object – a chip? – and squeezes.
Buried so deeply in his mind, Anakin feels the moment when Appo wakes up. First there is confusion. Then realisation seeps in, followed by horror, helplessness, fear, anger desperationgshamepanic… Anakin’s grip slips, the torrent of emotion cut off as the glassy stillness returns.
Anakin carefully withdraws from Appo’s mind. Appo, and presumably the others, are still present beneath whatever it is currently controlling them; good. But they are also clearly going to have the mother of all breakdowns when they are freed, and he doesn’t have time to deal with that as well as the rest of this situation. Which is… for the first time he pauses to fully consider.
The situation is: The war with the Separatists is all but won, and Chancellor Palpatine is about to declare himself Emperor. Chancellor Palpatine has revealed himself as the Sith Lord, and claimed Anakin as his Apprentice. Chancellor Palpatine has declared the Jedi as traitors, and ordered Anakin to help apprehend – kill – them. And Sidious is the one who told him to use the 501st against the Temple, except someone has been tampering with his men leaving them weirdly brainwashed and compliant… And he’s doing all this because Padme is pregnant and Anakin knows she is going to die in childbirth, and Sidious is the only one who can help him save her, because unspecified Sith magic is better than the modern medicine they haven’t actually tried or investigated properly…
That sounds rather like Anakin is being manipulated, being used. Like they all are. Even with the single-minded focus of the Dark, he doesn’t like that.
So. Anakin will deal with Sidious. And then he will find Padme and make her book a healer’s appointment. And then he will free his troopers. And then he will gather everyone together into a big post-Catching cuddle pile so he can know that they are all there and safe and he has protected them.
He nods to himself and begins leading his men back to the Senate Dome. First, Sidious.