Wartorn

Chapter 26 - Knightfall

Author's Note: Things... get worse? Maybe. :)

~ Amina Gila

Anakin is standing on the bridge of the Star Destroyer, right after making the jump for hyperspace back to Coruscant, when he feels it.

It.

Something.

Something dark. Whatever it is he felt that's about to happen is happening right now, and he's far away, not where he's needed. The Force is crying out. Something is happening, changing. People are dying. People he knows – he can feel bonds breaking. Jedi.

And it's not from the war, because it's so many, so fast, and it's happening all at once. Anakin stumbles, hand pressed to his head, as the Force screams.

There's nothing he can do. Nothing, except try to stay upright and breathe through the chaos, but there's so, so much and he doesn't know what's happening.

Almost instinctive, Anakin finds himself reaching for the twins, for Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, the people who matter most to him. He senses... a heavy layer of fear and confusion from Obi-Wan. Hurt and betrayal and fear from Ahsoka. Leia is... scared. Luke just feels...

Different.

Dark and empty, but angry and determined at once, and all at once Anakin wishes he'd refused Palpatine's order and stayed on Coruscant with his children. They needed him, even if he was needed on the fronts, too. But something's happening back there, to the Jedi – it's happening everywhere. He can feel it as the Light blinks out, fading into darkness.

Anakin can feel it as darkness overtakes the galaxy, clenching it in an unyielding vice. And somehow, deep inside, he thinks he already knows their worst fears have been realized, that the Sith have won.

Focus. Think – he needs to contact Luke and Leia, find out what happened. Needs to make sure they're fine.

Something's happening to Rex and his boys, too. It's sudden, and he doesn't know what it is, but they feel empty, even emptier than Luke right now. Anakin forces himself steady, even if the screaming in the Force is numbing him through and through, and moves to the back.

Rex was in the briefing room. He still is, leaning on the holotable, just standing there.

"Rex?" Anakin asks, hesitantly, uncertain. He's freezing. He's going into shock, probably, because he feels numb, almost nothing at all about the fact that the galaxy as he knows it was just ripped to shreds in a blink. It shouldn't be possible, shouldn't have happened, but it did.

The Force is crying from it, from the death and darkness, but somehow, it feels like this was meant to happen, for as horrifying as Anakin might find it. It isn't something he understands, or can make sense of, but first, he needs to get clear answers on what, exactly, is happening.

"Sir," his captain replies, almost monotonously.

"Something's happening," Anakin tells him, and he knows he probably doesn't sound nearly as calm as he ought to, being their General and all. He's supposed to take care of them, protect them.

"Something's coming," Ahsoka had said right before they parted ways, and now Anakin can see it so well.

"I don't know what. There's a disturbance in the Force. Have you heard anything?" Maybe it's slightly ludicrous to go straight to Rex, as if he knows more than Anakin himself, but he doesn't know who else to turn to.

"By the directive Order 66, the Jedi have been declared traitors," Rex replies, which answers everything and absolutely nothing, "And are to be terminated."