Chapter 28: Coursant

The returnship was part of a large parade of ships for each system they passed they were treated by a large armada of ships celebrating the end of the war and many of them join in on the journey home.

Finally, they arrived at Coruscant and took a shuttle down to the senate. Waiting on top of the senate dome, for their trip had been thoroughly reported on, was the senate. They were waiting for the end of the war and to welcome back their fellow senators into the senate.

The greeting was loud as people cheer and clapped each other on the backs and in many cases sending the person to the ground. For the first time since the war's beginning, the Jedi were also part of the greeting. To dispute the senate's official objection for them going without their approval, the senate was still relieved that the situation had been handle and also knew that it would destroy their reputation with the public and the separatist if they didn't act like it had been there idea all along.

It was Bail who ran over to them holding the official peace treaty and requesting their signatures. Even Dooku, who had been persuaded by his old Jedi master, agreed to sign the treaty. Normally the signing of an official peace treaty would be done in the senate dome, but in the excitement, everyone had seemed to have decided to forgo traditions to sign the paper as quickly as possible and bring an end to the war. Even the separatists were caught up with there fellow senators and were lining up to sign the piece of paper against Bail's back who as a sign of his earnest had offered his back as a writing surface.

Finally, all except Mina had signed the paper. As she came up and took the pen from a fellow senator she called for silence from the crowd. "Thank you" she called to the group. "I cannot express the joy I feel knowing that this day has finally come. Both sides have suffered greatly from this war, why even myself has lost my husband and I know that each one of us has lost a least one person we love in the war." Heads nodded in agreement. "I will like to take a moment to thank the Jedi. Cheering erupted at that. For all that they have done to bring about the peace including rescuing my colleges and me from warmongers. I will especially like to thank the young man who led the rescue." She grabbed Luke from the crowd where he had to disappear and brought him into the center where poor Luke nearly fell over when everyone within reach started to clap him on the back. "This Jedi lead a team into an impossible fortress and despite all the obstacles we face he kept a cool head and lead us out of the citadel. I doubt that anyone else could have done a better job. So thank you young Jedi, you have the gratitude of the newly rejoin republic, a stronger republic. We couldn't have done it without you."

The group cheered. Then out of nowhere a dark presence burst through the force that surrounded the top of the building. The malice was so potent that even the nonforce sensitives became unease and stepped away from the cause. Soon a spot was clear with councilor palatine standing in the center. He didn't look like palatine, he face was twisted into an intense glare, his eyes were glowing yellow. Before any of the Jedi could react palatine raised a hand. As if hit by an invisible boulder Luke was thrown across the landing. The senators all screeched and push themselves to the far edges off the landing, trying to stay as far as possible from the fight.

Luke didn't get up. Instead, he lay there gasping as if the same invisible boulder was now resting on his chest. You ruined everything stormed the creature that once was the supreme counselor. Decades of planning of scheming and you fell from the sky and ruined all of it. He pulled out from under his cloak a red lightsaber and marched over to Luke preparing to end the young grandmaster's life.

He raised the blade and brought it down. Instead of a soft thud of a blade hitting flesh, there was a loud kressh sound as it was met with another blade. A purple blade.

All eyes turn to the figure who was wielding the purple bade. It wasn't Mace. It was Padme.

"Leave my baby brother alone Sith" she shrieked at the Sith as she threw him back several feet.

Luke took the respite to get back on his feet and pull out his green blade. "I thought we been over this Leia," he said to his sister. "I'm the older brother, I'm the head of the order."

"Jury still out" was Leia's response as she pulled out the elaborate hairpiece. It fell to the ground where it was quickly followed by high heels. When Leia cut long slips into the dress to allow her to move, the transformed was complete. She no longer looked like Padme her mother but Leia, Jedi, and the moon of the chosen one prophecy.

She lit her second lightsaber and launch her attack. Luke quickly followed soon.

It was quickly clear to Anakin that unlike when Luke teamed up with Galen to take on grievous, where they fought separately, Luke and Leia worked together. The seemed to take teamwork to the next level, the way that one would bloke an attack meant for the other and how the other knew they would and thus ignore the threat to their life. They were truly in-sync as if they share one mind.

There fighting style though was quite different. Luke's seemed to be random, a mixture of multiple styles without any clear favorite and he used a single bland lightsaber. Leia though used two blades and seemed to have created a hybrid style that was a perfect blend of Ahsoka's and Mace's style. Ahsoka, for knowing Ahsoka, she probably trained her, and Mace for the anger that like his father, she generated. Mace had created a fighting style that took the anger that was generated from a fight and control it, turned it into a weapon to be used against the enemy. It was a technique that Anakin had always wanted to learn but could not control his anger enough to use it.

That wasn't just it though. There was something else going on that Anakin couldn't put his finger on. He studied his twins, that was still a strange thought that he was still trying to digest. But they weren't the first twin Jedis he had met and while the fighting as one wasn't uncommon for twins, there was something else going on. Something completely alien to him.

He studied the two's force signature's and most importantly their emotions. Leia was a controlled fury but Luke was nothing. He seemed not to be giving off any negative emotion, control, or otherwise. That wasn't possible. All Jedi felt negative emotions when fighting, it was a cause of the fighting, of wanting to harm the person. An empath like Luke should be overwhelmed with anger.

Anakin watched Luke as he swiped at Palpatine. There, for a split second, he sensed anger. He followed the anger as it was drawn from Luke and into…Leia. Anakin stared in amazement. Leia had taken Mace's technique to the next step. Not only was she harnessing her anger but she was taking advantage of her twin bond to help herself to Luke's as well. She took Luke's anger out of him.

Was that the secret to the prophecy. Why despite being equals in power his son was able to be the chosen one? Because unlike Anakin whose anger acts like fuel for his powers, making him lose control, his son had his sister, the moon to absorb the anger and channel it. Allowing his son to truly shine like a sun.

The Jedi and senators all watch the fight between the three. The twins seemed to have settled into a strategy to both conserve and try on that Sith. One would attack with the blade while the other would stand back and tried to use the force to contain the old man. When the one with the blade was about to be cut down, the one holding back will attack, allowing the slightly beaten one to back up and provide force assistance as they caught their breath.

It was only a matter of time before the two were victorious against the Sith. And there wasn't any sort of openings for someone to intervene as Mace was trying to find. He never did like to stand on the side of a battle.

"Oh-uh" called Satine. Everyone around her had jumped. Not having expected anyone to talk and perhaps forgetting that the rest of the new order was still there.

The rest of the new order wasn't even looking at their leaders' battle with a Sith. They were all cluster around Sabine on the edge of the landing. "What is it," asked Galen. "What is your vizor picking up."

"Clones. The entire Coruscant home guard. They are heading to the Jedi temple and I don't think its to check on them. I think Palpatine has activated some sort of last resort. If he was to fail he could at least take out the temple."

Ezra snorted "no problem the Jedi can handle the clones and could probably do it without many casualties." At that moment the sunlight was temporarily blocked as giant separatist landing craft flew overhead, making there way to the temple.

"Those are droid assault vehicles," said Sabine. "Each one contains an army of droids and can deploy them at incredible speeds."

"So. This is a problem."

"No worries" shouted Galen smacking a fist into his palm. "There are three of those and three warriors among us. We can take one down apiece."

"And leave the clone army to take the temple" was Sabine's dry response. "Or did they slip your mind."

Galen deflated slightly. "We could still take them he pressed on. But not without high clone casualties."

"I don't want to hurt them," said Ezra. "Rex told me about their chips. It's not their fault, they a literally being mind control."

"Well, we can leave them to the Jedi in the temple. The casualties won't be as high as with us."

"Isn't there a way to take them out without harming them. Like some sort of computer code."

"Your the computer expert if there was a way you would have said it!"

"I'll do it" shouted Alina over all the noise. Everybody turned to her. "What I can do it" she defended. "My people are all about stopping conflict without harming people. I can stop the clones without permeant damage."

"Are you sure?" asked Sabine. "You never had to take on an entire army before."

Alina's response was to do something she had never done before. She removed her cloak. Alina was still decked out in her yellowish-orange attire. Only now it was in the form of a long sleeve blouse and poofy pants that reminded some of them of a sultan look. The only real difference was her face. Her eyes were close, protecting them from her self defense so that they could see her for once. Pale skin and black hair. Her cheekbones appear sharp with eyes that were bigger and oval shape like a cat.

Alina smiled at the group. "I do prefer for you guys to do the confrontation. But I am capable of defeating an enemy without fighting them and without harming them. I have much experience with incapacitating someone thanks to all of you being such terrible patients. How many of you did I wrestle to the bed and knock out or paralyzed."

The group flinched remembering the few times their pacifist healer had gotten scary. Now there was no doubt in anyone's mind that she couldn't handle herself.

"Alright" shouted Galen turning over to stare at the droids ships that were now getting ready to land. "New Jedi Order now is the time for us to show the Sith that we are not to be trifled. We will destroy their armies and burn them to the ground. Wahh-hooo." Galen leaped off the skyscraper to land several miles down on top of one of the ships.

Silence as everyone including the remaining members of the new order stare at the crashing ship. A large explosion shook the ground.

"Everyone else in favor of the stairs," asked Ezra.

"Agree" was Alina's reply as she began to walk away.

"Hey when Luke and Leia are busy I'm the one in charge" whined Corran. "I should have been the one to give the great pre-battle speech."

"Like anyone can complete with Galen when he gets in one of his moods" pointed out Sabine.

Galen

Due to his impression of a meteor, Galen was the first to engage in combat. He landed on top of the nearest ship, sending the thing from a controlled descent into a free fall. Still, a majority of the ship survive the crash and began to deploy its droids. Galen let it. He sat on top of the ship, legs swinging off the side as he waited for all the droids to assemble and surround him.

"You're probably wondering why I let you deploy instead of taking out your ship in-flight," asked Galen as if the droids were capable of such a thought. "Well, there are two reasons. One I wanted your power cell." Galen smashed a fist into the ship coming into contact with the electric currents immediately. Instead of frying him as they did to all others, Galen absorbed the power, electric sparks began to dance all across his skin. It was why his code name was Starkiller because he could absorb energy such as a star and send it flying in any direction he wanted. "As for why I wanted the power. Well, you see I'm a mostly reform Sith. There is one teeny-tiny habit that I haven't quite break yet." He raised his free hand, a majority of the electricity focus on his fist. "I really like making my opponents dance." He threw electricity at the group. Several droids shatter, those nearby jumped when the lightning almost hit them.

Galen let out a cackle sending bursts of lighting into the group "dance dance."

Alina

Behind Galen, Alina was the next to reach her goal. Out of all the new order members she had proven to have a knack for flying. Instead of taking stairs or plummeting to the ground, she flew over until she made a little bit rough landing in-between the temple and the clones. From experience in their own time against stormtroopers, Alina knew that the clones vizors didn't protect them from her eyes. The first line of troops went down, clutching their heads and twisting their bodies as if they didn't know which way was up anymore. Once they fell they no longer blocked the brother behind them from her eyes.

It went on like this for a while, line by line the soldiers fell, whatever mind control that was being used on them had made them just as intelligent as a droid. It never occurred to any of them to try to fire over their brothers and hit her before they could meet her eyes. Something that Alina was thankful for, but it wasn't enough. They came as a wave, despite Alina's ability to bring them down, they still manage to surge forward with their numbers alone. Alina was forced to step back several times already. While this was working it wasn't going to stop them fast enough, eventually, they will reach the temple.

Plan b then. Alina force jumped above the group, landing into the center of the group. The clones all turn towards her. Alina ignored them as she pulled out finger cymbals, her castanets. These were not the same ones that she had given to Ahsoka months ago to help create a healing sound that would quicken her broken leg's recovery. These were slightly bigger, requiring both hands.

"My serious apologies," she told the clones "if its any constellation it's temporary." She clanged them together. The sound was strengthened by the natural harmonics of the force, sending out a wave of sound around Alina and shattering any inner ear within reach. Alina was safe for she has remained in the eye of the storm. The clones were not. They all fell to the ground grabbing at their heads. A few tried to stand up only to vomit.

Alina winced at the sight. The inner ear was in charge of balance. When it was rupture like the clones were the only result of trying to stand up was becoming nauseous. It was a last resort among her people and only to be used if facing an army. The reason why was that while the damage wasn't permeant it did hurt and could take two months for a person to recover. It was about as far as a pacifist was willing to go to defend themselves.

"I'm really am sorry," said Alina again, not like it would any good, the men couldn't hear her. "But I can heal you guys up so it won't take as long to recover. Just as soon as your chips are removed." She jumped back as one clone almost vomited on her.

Sabine

She adored her jetpack. She would take it over air-walking or falling (or whatever Galen called his stunt). It wasn't as fast as the two but she could maintain control unlike the others and she just felt like a bad-ass Mandalorian whenever she used it.

Sabine followed her target ship down to the ground. The droids were just being deployed when she landed and immediately they fire on her. Sabine pulled out her two pistols and began to take shots at the group as she rushed them. When she got within reach she switched one pistol out for a lightsaber. Sabine wage war against the droids for a while before she was forced to admit that a one-woman approach wasn't going to work.

Sabine switched tactics, diving behind an abandoned hovercar as she opened her bag. None of her usual bombs were big enough to cover the entire army. But maybe with a few modifications, she could combine a few of the tiny bombs to make a large one.

Sabine quickly open the bombs and began to slice them together, using the force to maneuver the hard to reach wires and also using her slight pyro-kinesis to blowtorch some of the metal together. As a weapon, her pyro-kinesis wasn't much, but it was handy when she could be her own blowtorch.

When her creation was completed Sabine launch into the air, using her jetpack and threw her new bomb into the center.

Ka-boom. The entire area boomed as the bomb exploded. When Sabine looked down she saw no droids, just a burn mark caused by the bomb. But instead of being black like all burns, since the bomb that caused it was Sabine, the fire had mixed with the paintballs in the bomb to create an orange and neon blue smear. The same colors as Sabine's current hairstyle.

Sabine smiled at her handiwork I always did feel that Coruscant lacked color.

Ezra

Ok, so Ezra thought that everyone was serious when they mention taking the stairs. By the time he got off the elevator, fully expecting to beat all the idiots who choose the stairs, he had discovered that a majority were already fighting their armies.

Cursing his luck he went after the first free army he could find. They had already landed and were fully deployed with a mixture of droids and not just the battle droids, but assassin ones along with the bendable gymnastic ones that were supposed to reflect the Ataru form that many Jedis used. Ezra wasted no time and threw himself at the larger assassin. Once on top of the droid's shoulders he plugged in his wrist computer and took control of it, ordering it to fire on its fellow droids. He then moved onto the next one, his goal, to sew chaos as the confused droids turn on one another.

Eventually, the droids decided to ignore their corrupted brothers and focus on taking him out before he could corrupt anymore. The circled him with blasters raised. Ezra swiped his lightsaber in a full arch taking out the droids that surround him. He then sent potshots at the droids, when he wasn't busy using the saber form of his lightsaber to reflect the droids shot. The droids were not prepared for his lightsaber/blaster weapon and were unable to keep up with the changes.

What did it though for the droids was when they were close to capturing Ezra, he would pull out his pocket watch and focus slowly in it. Then he was gone. He would appear further away as if time had frozen for the droids but not him. The group tried to keep up but whenever they discover Ezra's location in the crowd, he would vanish. He continued to do it until finally, he reached their ship where he locked himself in. The droids surround the ship and began to open fire on it until a new command came in. A new command that was given by the control computer on the ship. All assault droid ships had one whose job was to rely on commands from the high command to the droids assigned to the ship.

Someone from inside the ship had hacked the computer and instead of giving the droids the higher commands in was giving the droids some new ones.

Roger was having a nice relaxing cup of oil, standing far away from the battles either on top of the tower or on the street.

"Captain!" Roger jumped in the air as a canopy of voices sounding just like him address him from behind. "Ahh don't shoot" he shouted at the droids.

"We will never shoot you, captain," said the head droid.

"captain? Me?" Asked Roger.

"Yes, sir new orders from the top. Follow all orders given by Roger, the battle droid."

Roger didn't know what was going on but he kind of like having his men. "Well, I guess I could teach you guys a thing or two, like how to make blue milk pancakes."

"Sir yes sir."

"But before I do that there is one thing I have always wanted to do." Roger climbed onto the nearest car so he stood above the droid. "Crowd surfing." He dropped onto the crowd of droids and found himself being carried off by them.

Corran

According to Corran's calculations, the droids wouldn't reach the temple for quite a while. Meaning that there was no reason to rush. Corran was the final one on the ground and like all but Galen, his droids had enough time to assemble and began there approach.

As calmly as ever Corran stepped in front of the approaching droids, taking off his green Corellian cloak, neatly folding it up and placing it on a nearby surface. He pulled out his lightsaber and took the opening stance for the Makashi.

He weaved through the droids, years of memorizing battle reports and blueprints of droid machines had allowed him to know exactly where on each droid he should strike to take it out. A keen sense of the battlefield allowed him to plan his strikes so they took out more than just once. It wasn't flashy like the others and it did take him longer, but eventually, Corran reached the ship wherewith one strike to the command computer and the droids shut off, waiting for further instructions that would never reach them.

Corran returned to the top of the senate where the twins were still fighting, figuring that the others could handle the cleanup and the twins may need backup.

He was greeted by Dooku. "Impressive" admitted the older man. "I didn't think that the Makashi could be used in a melee format. Its usually only good in one-on-one combat."

Corran preened under the rare praise. "Perhaps for those who are simple-minded. But to two masters such as us, we know that the true power of the makshi comes from the mind and the ability to read an opponent so that all you need is one strike to disable them. Any more is just barbaric."

Dooku grinned at that. "Too true."

Luke and Leia

The twins had fallen into there pattern of one attack and one backup and recover, then switch. They had stopped attacking at the same time to conserve their strength which meant that the battle could last hours with neither side giving an inch. It would have if not for one error, one mistake that messed up the whole flow of the battle. Luke fell. It was more like a stumble through and was capable of getting back up to strike again. Only Leia didn't see that. All she saw was Luke's fall before throwing herself at palatine. For a second Palpatine hesitate, not sure who was attacking him. A second of confusion on all sides was all that it took for Leia and Luke to cross sword right through Palpatine.

The three stare in confusion at where the two blades met through his chest. Then Palpatine let out a howl. The twins were thrown back by an explosion of anger and dark into the force. They pulled themselves to their feet in time to see Palptine collapse onto the ground, his body starting to decay right in front of them as if the dark side was eating his flesh.

The wind howled for what felt like forever as the twins cling to each other weathering the worst of the blast until finally, it began to settle. It took several more minutes of peace before the twins were willing to open their eyes. All that remained of Palpatine was a soot outline.