Work Text:
Switching places
Give your character another character's iconic death
'I am the senate.'
'A little bit of an exaggeration, wouldn't you say?' Obi-Wan remarks drily as he ignites his lightsaber.
'It's treason, then.'
In an instant, a saber has appeared in the chancellor's hand and a red blade blooms.
It saturates the room with its obscene light like a scream rending the air. Obi-Wan shivers. Behind him Tiin, Kolar and Fisto tense, their fear and revulsion shimmering through the Force.
Sheev Palpatine smiles, and with an inhumane shriek, he corkscrews through the air, taking the Jedi by surprise. His movements are unpredictable. In a wild jab Agen Kolar is pierced through.
Obi-Wan lunges forward, a wordless battle cry on his lips, but in the cramped space of the room, the arrest turns into a close quarters disaster. The Jedi get in each other's way, and Palpatine only needs to hit something.
'Saesee, no!'
Palpatine cackles as the iktotchi Jedi falls to join Kolar on the floor, chest nearly cleaved in half.
'Back up, Kit, in the corridor,' Obi-Wan orders, blocking the Sith's attempt to corner them against the wall.
'Pincer him!' Kit Fisto shouts, trying to get behind Palpatine's back.
The nautolan master abandons his preferred Shii-Cho and launches into Ataru in a bid to crush their enemy against the steel wall of Obi-Wan's defence. For a moment it looks like it might work, but the moment stretches, green, blue and red blades connect and clash, cut and parry, and still Sheev Palpatine laughs in their faces, tireless, throwing himself with abandon in forms unknown.
Obi-Wan swears as the red saber shortens his fringe, coming close to shortening his life.
What is this? He wonders, as one of his strikes to Palpatine's exposed back is deflected with a fluid twirl of the man's wrist. It's like the Sith has eyes at the back of his head and inhuman joints. How can he–
Kit Fisto screams in pain when one of his tendrils is cut off. Obi-Wan jumps to interpose himself, and is stopped mid-air. For half a breathless, horrifying second he is held there, motionless, as if in the palm of a monstrous hand. Obi-Wan Kenobi has never felt more like an insect in his entire life. The feeling barely registers before he is sent flying into the Chancellor's office.
'Obi-Wan! Get up.'
Kit Fisto gives him a bloody hand and Obi-Wan has just staggered back to his feet when they are joined by Palpatine, sauntering into the room with calm assurance. He isn't bleeding, limping, or even winded. Just like you couldn't believe him to be Force sensitive from his presence, you could not believe he has just killed two Jedi and injured two more.
'This is absurd,' Fisto says through clenched teeth, very much speaking Obi-Wan's mind. 'The order knows of your identity. We know you are Darth Sidious. Surrender now.'
Obi-Wan saves his breath, but he knows there is little point to making such demands from a position of inferiority. Palpatine laughs. Obi-Wan has never seen such naked glee or such vibrant emotion on the man's face before.
'You are the ones who should surrender, master Jedi. I think it is in my means to grant you a swift and painless death if you do. Less painful than the one reserved for the rest of your order, certainly.'
'Don't listen to him Kit, let's just–'
Obi-Wan is cut off by another invisible slap, sending him and Kit Fisto slamming into the office's window. They scramble to defend themselves as Palpatine—no, Darth Sidious—comes at them swinging. The window explodes under one of his strikes, sending glass flying everywhere.
In the chaos, one of Kit's swings hits true and the red saber disappears, sent flying in two halves into the Coruscanti night. Obi-Wan presses the advantage and Palpatine skitters along the windowsill, snark and smirks all fizzling out under the Jedi's blades.
'Now, you are under arrest.' Kit snarls.
Before Palpatine can answer, Anakin jogs into the room.
New uneasiness washes through Obi-Wan. When Anakin had come to him to report Palpatine's confidence, he had felt a turmoil of emotions. Chief among them had been relief: Anakin had been tempted, and he had refused. He had come to him instead. The horror of the reveal was particularly hard on Obi-Wan, as he is all too aware that his former padawan kept a close relationship with the Chancellor, that he saw him as a mentor of sorts.
Obi-Wan waves for Anakin to slow down, to be cautious. Just because he has refused Sidious once doesn't mean the Sith won't press his advantage again.
And sure enough: 'Anakin, I told you it would come to this!' Palpatine says in a whiny voice far from his ghoulish cries and confident taunts of not seconds ago. 'I was right, the Jedi are taking over.'
'What a consummate actor you are,' Obi-Wan says, sounding just as impressed as he feels. 'Though I suppose I oughtn't be surprised. Sith or not you're still a politician.'
'You have lost,' Kit Fisto says, 'the Sith will never return.'
'No,' Palpatine growls.
'Kit–'
'No!'
'Master!'
'No, you will die!'
Blue lightning explodes out of Palpatine's hands, radiating in front of him and catching on Kit and Obi-Wan's sabers.
'Traitor!'
'You're the damn traitor!' Kit cries, pushing against the lightning.
Anakin steps forward, his hand straying towards the hilt of his own lightsaber.
'No, Anakin, stay back!'
'I have the power to save everyone you love!' Palpatine says. 'You must choose!'
'What is he talking about?' Kit asks, groaning.
He is taking the brunt of the lightning, his green skin pearling with sweat. Yet his lightsaber and Obi-Wan's seem to reflect much of it back. It ripples across the Sith's face, warping his skin in a gruesome sight.
'Don't listen to him, Anakin!' Obi-Wan calls over the din, 'I don't know what he promised you but–Anakin! He's a Sith!'
'Don't let them kill me–'
'We're not–'
Obi-Wan feels dread rise in his gorge as Anakin palms his lightsaber. No. Not him, not my brother— 'Anakin...'
'I can't hold it any longer! I- I... I can't...' Palpatine mumbles, 'I'm weak.'
And he does look weak now, for all that he's still blasting an insane amount of force lightning and making Obi-Wan's arms vibrate.
'Help me! I can't hold on any longer!'
The lightning stops. Obi-Wan staggers back, dazed.
'Let's end this, once and for all,' Kit says, bringing his lightsaber under Palpatine's pasty chin.
'You can't,' Anakin protests, stepping up. 'He must stand trial.'
'Anakin, don't intervene,' Obi-Wan says, putting a hand on the young man's arm, trying to suffuse him with a calm he does not himself feel. 'He's too dangerous to be left alive. You've seen what he can do.'
'Kriff, you can see what he's already done! Orchestrating the entire war, leading from both fronts!' Kit Fisto spits. 'He has control of the senate and the courts. We must kill him while we still can!'
'Don't kill me! Please! I'm too weak!'
'You say that now? After all this?'
'It's not the Jedi way,' Anakin cuts in, anger in his voice. 'He must live.'
Kit Fisto draws his lightsaber back, readying a killing strike.
'I need him!'
The words are like a gut punch to Obi-Wan.
'No, Anakin...' He has him, he has... Padmé, Obi-Wan is pretty sure, and Ahsoka and so many more people still, despite the war. What need does he have of a Sith lord? Please, no, not—
But in a swift blue strike, both Kit Fisto's green lightsaber and the hand holding it disappear.
Everything goes very fast—Kit screaming, Obi-Wan letting his guard down to reach out for Anakin, to stop him. Anakin's lightsaber coming back in a terrible arc, and over it all, Palpatine's cry of POWER.
'UNLIMITED POWER!'
Deadly currents burst through the nautolan Jedi, making every one of his tendrils stand on high. Obi-Wan can't hear his screams for his own. He can see the bones of his hands, can feel every capillary in his skin rupture, every vein boil.
'Ana—'
Obi-Wan catches a glimpse of his friend's eyes then, wide, stunned, and golden. He reaches out, desperate, but he knows. He knows what Anakin couldn't have foretold. He knows what's coming.
The massive hand comes hurtling through the force. Kit and Obi-Wan, little flies trapped in a gossamer web of lightning, can do nothing as it flings them out of the window to plummet down to their death, down into Coruscant’s fathomless depths.