darkforcerising | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Canon Anakin, AU Earth Anakin
What: Cross universe shenanigans continue - the two Anakins work on fixing a starfighter
When: now
Where: aboard the Resolute
Rating/Warnings: Probably low

Well it seemed as if Anakin was stuck back in this universe for the time being and he might as well use it to the fullest advantage. Being allowed to remain free, he set out wandering and quickly found the hangar bay. Listening to his music, he walked the perimeter a while, just looking at all the ships that were both so familiar and distant in memory for him. It was the weirdest form of nostalgia.

He stopped next to a currently-decommissioned fighter and rested his left hand on the metal hull. There was something about just feeling the cold metal against the palm of his hand. After a brief pause he started tracing a finger along the seam of a panel. It was so strange how a machine could feel so alive to him. And having twenty-four years of recent experience with the absence of that connection only made the feeling now so strong in contrast.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he noticed another familiar form working on another ship in disrepair. Without invitation, Anakin walked over.

“These were fun,” he said when he was close enough to be heard. He was referring to the Delta-7B Aethersprite-class light interceptor in front of him. “I remember them.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

His twin had a point.

“It is important. But you won’t believe me when I tell you. It’s not an easy truth to accept.”

"Do you remember asking Mom why we were treated differently from other people, why we were locked up and got to be ordered about, why other children got to play instead of work, why we got so little when the others in the household had so much?" It had been a hard, painful truth. Anakin had been just a very small boy, Shmi had been gentle and patient. But it had been many small conversations. Not one big one.

“Yes,” he said, he knew what his twin meant.

“But truths about out situation are different from truths about people we know.” He was thinking about his own feelings about Palpatine. How the man had once been someone he’d trusted, and even with years distancing him from that betrayal, it still did hurt the things Palpatine had done to him.

"Are they different? The people we know, they make our situations." Anakin isn't thinking of Palpatine. He's thinking of Dooku, of Sifo-Dyas, of other Jedi who have turned and who really knew when? Wasn't he proof a Jedi could take a Fall and no one know? He was thinking of there being a threat within the Jedi.

“That’s why it’s different. A person is someone you can blame or fight.”

He’d been avoiding making eye contact for a few minutes now, but he finally looked up. He knew his twin wasn’t going to give up.

“You’re going to be mad,” he said. He paused just a moment longer before finally saying, “Sidious is Palpatine. I’m sorry.”

No, he wasn't. There was something too important here, he knew that.

Of course, 'you're going to be mad' clenched it, and he was tensing already, bracing himself for a blow. And it was a blow, enough that it knocked the breath from him, or so it felt, and Anakin didn't even hear the small sound of protest he made.

No, that couldn't be right, he meant when he shook his head, but even as one part of him protested, another part screamed there had been something about the man, his attention, that had made Anakin uncomfortable. A part he'd learned to ignore until he barely heard it anymore, and his lip curled back in a snarl. "That's a serious charge to make."

"I know."

He tried to think of something that would convince Anakin. But Palpatine was good, so good, at hiding who he really was.

"Think about it. It fits with everything you know that is going wrong with the war. Who else knows everything the Jedi do? The Separatists always seem to know the Republic's next move. Who suggested to Padme to oust Chancellor Valorum? He was from a secretive mid-rim world, a senator with a bland reputation. Why would the Senate choose him to be the next Chancellor?"

And there was one more thing. "And he's just so interested in you." Why should the Chancellor had no business getting involved in the training of a Jedi Padawan.

Palpatine was so very good at hiding it, in some ways. But in others, not so much. Or perhaps he had just been used to children like Padmé rather than children like Anakin, who had to have a very keen sense of who was a predator of any type, and who wasn't, in order to have even lived to ten.

"Padmé manages to come up with things that work against them in the War." That wasn't a denial, quite the opposite in fact - they had spoken a few times, about how Palpatine had acted as a mentor to her as well, starting when she had been just three. And he'd been the Senator from Naboo when she was in the Junior Legislature, so they'd worked together then as well. If he really was calling the shots behind the scenes, it would take someone who thought like he did to out maneuver him.

"All kinds of reasons, someone to manipulate, mid-rim solidarity, I don't know, I was ten." And focused on Padmé, not the Senate or the Queen.

But there was still a refusal there, Anakin digging his heels in.

There were other things that made him suspicious, things Palpatine had always managed to explain away. The art and artifacts in his private office that felt so distinctly Dark they made Anakin feel a little ill to be around, explained at pieces of art or antiques he liked to collect - certainly not all of it was Dark after all. The mural in his office, a depiction of the last Sith-Jedi Wars.

"He said he knew what it was like to be an outsider on Coruscant." But even to Anakin's ears, his voice sounded weak. Palpatine's attention, both at Naboo's celebration ceremony and later on Coruscant had made him uneasy for reasons he'd never discussed, with anyone. Mostly due to shame, Palpatine had been so kind to him and Anakin had truly been suspect of his motives at first. After all his own experience with wealthy, powerful, older men who took an interest in children they were not at all related to was to assume abuse would happen. But it hadn't, at all. Palpatine had even figured out what Anakin was worried about an reassured him, hadn't even been angry with him and had tried not to embarrass him when he explained how much Anakin was misunderstanding and didn't know.

He'd been good. And had always supported Anakin, even with things Anakin had always known he could never talk to Obi-Wan about. Like his mother and what had happened.

“On Earth we call it grooming,” Anakin explained. “A predator picks a target and then starts by gaining the trust of the people around the target. Palpatine focused on the Jedi first, manipulated them into thinking his interest in you was genuine concern. Then a predator works on their target- if all the adults around the target trust the predator, then they must be okay, right?. They do this so you undermine your Intuition yourself before you have a chance to develop it. From their, they just have to let you logic away all the red flags they’re throwing up.

“He’s been manipulating you for years and the Jedi have made it extremely easy for him to do it.”

"But they didn't trust him. They thought he was overstepping. I think they thought I'd just want to leave and they could get rid of me." He knew they hasn't liked Palpatine's interference. "And he doesn't feel like a Force Sensitive." There was a desperate grasping in his mind anything to make this not true. That Palpatine wouldn't really be hurting him like this.

"Oh but he is definitely Force Sensitive. He just knows how to hide it." Anakin thought it was a twisted trick of the Force to give Palpatine just such a trick, but it made sense, he supposed, if the Force was striving for balance. How else to keep the Dark Side alive?

"He keeps his lightsabers hidden in one of the neuranium statutes on his desk at the Senate building."

"But he's from Naboo. Wouldn't the Jefi have found him when he was young?" He knows good and well Palpatine's clan is dead, save him. Young deaths and tragic accidents, all very sad. And Naboo didn't Leo a registry of its citizens so any who fled, who knew.

"Which one? Because if I'm there..."

Anakin shrugged. "The Jedi aren't really that great at finding Force sensitive children." Anakin looked pointedly at his twin. "Not born in the right hospital with the right tests given right away, they miss a lot of kids. His master got to him first."

He sighed, because this was why it was risky to tell his twin. "I'm not going to tell you until you have a better plan than indignation. Remember how Maul and his brother popped up on Mandelore and overthrew their government but then suddenly disappeared again? Remember how difficult it was to fight Savage?"

"We're several days from Coruscant, and I have Obi-Wan. And you, he doesn't know about you. It'll be fine." They time and a surprise. And Palpatine didn't know to be suspect of Anakin which would help. It had to help.

"Ya," Anakin snorted. "And Savage kicked your- my, Obi-Wan, Ventress, and Dooku's asses at the same time. And Palpatine killed Savage. In my time, even Yoda couldn't defeat him. Figure out a better plan."

Did his twin have to bring that up? "Yoda's old. And he isn't me. He trusts me right?" He wouldn't trust Yoda. But Anakin could get close, very close. "Why don't you tell me what happened?"

"Obi-Wan doesn't even know yet, and you're making plans that involve him," Anakin pointed out. "There are so many moving parts that you're ignoring because you want to just rush off and take Palpatine out right now. You've already forgotten what we were talking about just a few minutes ago- What do you think Palpatine will do with the access to the clones' passivity chip if he even gets the slightest advanced warning you're planning to go after him? Put it together, what do you think happened to Fives?"

"He's used to it." Anakin doesn't even stop to think that "used to it" and "ok with it" are different.

"People, my men, are dying because of him. We all need him gone." Lies and betrayal and a target even the Jedi can't fault him for taking it out on. He needs this.

"Fives...he knew something. I. I need Rex don't I?" Honesty he wanted Fives back. It wasn't possible but that didn't stop the want. Especially now.

"Yes, and more people will die if you go get yourself and everyone else killed." Or worse, but Anakin didn't think 'you'll go dark-side' was a good detail to drop right now.

"Talk to Obi-Wan first. Talk to Rex, get your men free from Palpatine's control."

"But that's going to take so much time. Abd you said everything the Jedi knows, he does and he didn't know about you." Just in case. It's a just in case. Sorry twin, burr Anakin gas been a slave, a tool, a thing to so many people, it's natural to act like he is, in sone level.

"Because the Council briefs him on everything they do or plan to do." Anakin leveled a look at his twin for not connecting that piece. But... he did always think better when he was doing something. Something like pulling a fighter apart and putting it back together again.

He handed over a tool, and said, "It's easier from your angle to take out this panel, can you get it?"

And then he went on to say. "You're missing the details, details you need in order to defeat Palpatine. I'm not saying don't go after him, we just need a very solid plan, first."

"Or he asks me..." Not in a spying way, of course. Just in. A complete spying way. Anakin scrubbed at his face with the palm of his hand - with only a little grime left behind - before putting his twin's device in the cockpit seat. Then he took the tool and started working on the panel. "Still, we don't want him to know about you. Not at all unless you want to jump until the fight. Or need to. Probably should have Obi-Wan toss you into the mats to make sure you remember everything. And keep a saber around. Not sure how to manage that." Artoo must have put this panel on, because it was tight and he grunted as he tried, then gave up and switched to a torque spanner.

"It's not your fault. You didn't know what he really was."

Anakin thought about fighting Obi-Wan and his last memories of the man, before showing up back in this time, were of being cut down and set on fire. And killing Obi-Wan.

"I'd prefer it if you tried fighting me." He wasn't sure how to bring up the lightsaber issue. He had both of his... the one that was exactly the same as the one his twin had on him now made things a bit weird. This whole situation was weird. But the Sith blade would make things awkward in unimaginable ways.

"I'hou've!" He'd spent years copying the typical Coruscant accent heard in the Temple, suppressing his own native Tatooine born Huttesse laced one. And he'd just lost it, anger and frustration and hurt combining to strip away layers of blending in.

"I'm not too comfortable using his saber, and I thought you could borrow mine." Not that his former Master's saber was difficult, he just preferred his own.

Anakin didn’t tell his twin to calm down, to check his anger, to be more Jedi-like. He knew that was useless and also that his twin had the right to be angry. He just said, “He uses kindness and trust to manipulate everyone. Even Yoda is fooled.”

When the new panel was off, he reached and started addressing the wires.”

“You can use your lightsaber. I have my own.” They weren’t with him, on his belt. They were back in his backpack in the quarters they’d given him to use.

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holy bad themes and gaslighting batman

Re: holy bad themes and gaslighting batman

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