#Mace Windu is so done

[susanoosama01]

Ahsoka made the tiara with the 501st and the 212th.

After drawing this, I just couldn’t help it :'D

[lbibliophile-sw]

Case Closed

Also on AO3 @foxquinweek - day 3: "Technically it wasn't on fire" "Of course it wasn't on fire! You completely blew it up!"

“I thought I told you two that this mission is highly sensitive. I thought I told you to investigate quietly. I thought I told you, explicitly, not to set any fires, metaphorical or literal. So please explain to me why the Senate Dome is half blown up!” 

“It’s not our fault, we were careful.”

“Only, when we went to investigate the Chancellor’s office, someone else was already there –” “– in the middle of the night, mind you –” “– on a holocall with Count Dooku –” “– while wearing an ominous hooded black robe –”  “– telling him all our military strategies  –” “– and being called ‘my Lord’.” 

“Then he saw us and drew a red lightsaber –” “– so Fox shot him –” “– and the Chancellor blew up.”

“To clarify, the figure with the bad cosplay was Palpatine. He didn’t just explode spontaneously.”

“…tell me you at least have evidence. Something we can use to justify this?”

“Of course; we’re professionals. We finished the rest of the investigation first.” 

[amariaamaris]

Of Spite and Planned Assassinations (Chapter 1)

Oh my gosh, this took me way, way to long to update/add more. Spring finals felt like they came out of nowhere and my summer class piggy-backed onto the tail end of spring. Anyway, for anyone interested this is my wip about Mace Windu being yeeted back in time by the force with zero explanation. I'm also going to be posting on AO3, so after this post - if I remember - I'll be posting chapter updates with a link and a quick little preview. Anyway, that being said here is the whole of chapter 1: Of Ire and Lifedebts.

Mace Windu has two hands.

Two hands that are actively shaking from the after effects of sith lightning.

He’s not on Coruscant… He's not on Coruscant.

Instead, Mace Windu, The Master of the Jedi Order is in the middle of a forest and he has no clue what planet he’s on. He would also appreciate it if his head would stop throbbing as spikes of pain splinter through his brain.

Mace finally, shakily pulls himself to a standing position and slowly takes in his surroundings. Trying to get a better grasp as to where he is and where he should start walking to find some civilization.

He reaches out to the force with a question pressing, projecting outward and junts off his pain, fear, and worry out into the force. All he gets back as an answer is a distinct feeling of amusement and comfort. Much like the creche masters would give an amused and indulgent smile and a slightly humiliating pat on the head to initiates with silly fears. As they are cheerfully reassured that it ‘passes with time’.

An annoyed huff escapes him, “If you don’t wish to give me any answers, can you at least point me to where I need to go?” the force lightly giggles in response and wraps around him with loving warmth. Then in the next moment it pulls away and starts tugging him in a random direction.

He follows, what else is he supposed to do?

Mace gets all of ten steps and a vicious electric aftereffect of the lightning tears through him. Lighting up his nerve endings with harsh, zapping pinpricks and debilitating him to the point that Mace has to tightly grip onto one of the trees.

Mace finally gets back enough wherewithal to feel the force wrap around him, cushioning and supporting him. He forcefully blinks his eyes, willing the black specks out of his vision as he slowly lets go of his grip on the tree. The force lightly brushes against him with a silent apology, he sends back his acceptance and the sense that there is nothing to forgive.

Tuning back into his physical body senses as he starts moving and equally relying on his force senses, very quickly informs Mace that there is a blaster fight happening. In fact, it sounds like a full-blown battle. He pauses upon hearing something massive and slow moving making its way towards the battle. The force continues to insistently tug at him wanting him to go-change-save him-new beginnings-trust. Mace very quickly gets a move on, not feeling in the mood to have the force literally pull him off of his feet in its desperation to get him moving. 

What he comes upon is quite frankly a muddy, chaotically confusing, ruthlessly violent bloodbath. An intense battle between two different mandalorian groups, one in blue and silver and the other group in a myriad of different colors. The force almost violently tugs him towards the group with different colors.

The very group that is clearly pinned down and quickly losing the battle. A soul-deep and exasperated sigh leaves him - he pushes his ire away into a box labeled LATER - as he quickly starts mentally pulling up battle plans to change the tide. It takes him all of a minute to come up with and scrap thirty different plans. Due to him forgetting that Commander Ponds and Lightning Squadron aren’t with him. Until he finally gets to a plan that will work… potentially. It certainly won’t make the mandalorian side's situation he’s wanting to help any worse.

He takes a moment to breathe and pull on the still peace and calm of an untouched lake as he grips his lightsaber. Time seems to freeze as he moves.

From one breath to the next he’s across the battlefield and taking out the massive ion tank before it can even get a shot off. Mace springboards off the tank right up to where a handful of the blue and silver mandalorians are using their jetpacks to try and get a better vantage point.

In a single smooth move, Mace slices through one of the jetpacks and he grapples midair with a different mandalorian. He slams his hand down on the jetpack, ignoring how the heat of it burns his skin and reaches with the force and crumples the mechanism. Then he’s letting go, slamming his foot into the mando’s chest and launching himself at the next one. Force pushing the previous mando into a different one and smoothly turning his attention to the one he’s collided with as other two plummet to the ground.

Sharp pain blooms on his right side where the mando has stabbed him with a vibroblade. Mace impatiently punts the feeling off into the force as he twists and in a clean move relieves the mando of their head. He gets himself space as he rapidly falls towards the hard ground and very roughly slows and catches himself with the force. Carefully holding the side with the blade still lodged within it.

He senses the mandalorians he’s actively helping finally gain ground and reach his position. Everything quickly becomes a blur after that, dodging, parrying, redirecting blaster bolts and slugshots that would have either severely damaged or killed both him and the mandalorians. Then from one moment to the next, the force screams out in his still throbbing head. Mace moves before he’s even fully aware of the action he’s taking. Stopping a blaster bolt from slamming into the back of the neck of the mandalorian with the red cape from one of his own and swiftly relieving the traitor of his forearms.

At this point, many of the blue and silver mandalorians have very swiftly retreated and all that's left are the ones covering the retreat. The traitor stumbles backward and lands on his shebs into the blood and mud.

“Montross!” Mace barely twitches at the name being viciously spat out through the crackle of the buy’ce belonging to the red-caped mandalorian. “Aruetii! How long were you planning this?” The red-caped mandalorian stalks towards the traitor like a nexu on the hunt.

Mace lets his eyes slowly scan around as the rest of the mandalorians with the red-caped leader start to take care of the dead. The quiet hiss of his saber turning off makes a good number of them twitch as he puts it back on his belt. He calmly rips off two large pieces from his cloak and ties one around his torso, just above where the vibroknife is sticking out.

He stays silent as he watches the leader call for some of his men to take this ‘Montross’ away. Not that Mace really catches much of the language, but he gets enough of it to make a strong enough guess. Wrapping his hand around the hilt of the vibroknife, he pauses and slowly breathes in; pulling the force tightly around himself for strength, he quickly rips the blade out as cleaning as it went in. Mace ignores the shocked mutterings of the mandalorians and quickly rips one third of the strip off and folds it. He presses it tightly against the gaping wound and proceeds to use the larger part of the strip and the helping hand of the force to tie it tightly in place.

He just gets done with that when he’s wracked with another after effect of sith lightning. It shreds his shields as it shreds his body's nerve endings. Through sheer spite and strength of will he doesn’t scream out like he’d like and instead a grunt of pain escapes him as his knees give out. Mace could almost taste the sith lightning that seems to be locked within his very veins as his whole body convulses.

His ears ring sharply and loudly as his head goes from throbbing to trying to set itself on fire as it splits apart. Mace is aware enough to hear muffled voices and feel himself being moved, but other than that every single sense is a blur of pain. As the force drowns him in its depths and what’s left of his obliterated shields get washed away by the waves.

Even the pain becomes incredibly distant as the force gently croons to him as it wraps him in its warm healing embrace. Mace gently floats within the ocean of infinity, klicks away from the surface and completely at peace. He vaguely feels his body tingling with pins and needles and muffled yelling. Mace gets the sense that he should be more alarmed than he is at the moment and yet…

He’s tired, past tired and to a level of exhaustion he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to pull himself out of. He’s been tired since Qui-Gon came back to the temple, leaving his thirteen-year-old padawan in a warzone with parents actively hunting, torturing, and killing their own children. That tired feeling just spread as the years went on into his bones and to the depths of his soul. When the war hit, he was already checked out. Yet, he gave more of himself than he thought he had left and kept giving more.

As he knew many others did the same.

Mace knows intellectually that he’s slipping away, but with the force wrapped around him and carefully leading him deeper into the ocean, he willingly follows. There’s nothing left; the jedi order has fallen and his men are nothing more than flesh droids. He knows that his padawans, his daughters are bound to be dead. Mace takes in one more deep, pained, struggling breath and slowly lets it out on a quiet sigh of release.

And he floats away.

[bonnietachikenobi]

"Mace's good-bye was not quite as fond as Tyro's. He agreed to the necessity of the plan, but he didn't approve of the rule bending.

"Just try not to alienate the entire Senate," Mace said. "In other words, succeed." He drew his robes together in dismissal. "May the Force be with you, and may I not hear from you until it's safely over."

from Jude Watson: Jedi Quest, Changing of the Guard

Spoiler alert: Mace will hear from them sooner than he wished...

[izzystizzys]

As High Marshall Commander, a title foisted on him by the Galaxy’s fakest bitch aka Chancellor Palpatine, Fox theoretically has privileges and authorities like no other clone. In practice, he has a headache and gets ignored more obviously than before.

What he also has is a fancy new function on his personal comm unit modified to broadcast GAR-wide to all commanding officers, up to and including Jedi. It gathers dust next to his own modified button that sees much better use - a private channel to Stone, the only vod that will let Fox bitch at him to his heart’s content without hanging up (Thire) or bitching right back (Thorn).

It’s been a long shift of 72 hours, the maximum Stabby allows him to do without a well-placed hypo to the neck, when Fox finally collapses on his rickety cot in the Command quarters and hits the private comm connection to Stone without looking. He’s already rolling his eyes so hard it tweaks at the migraine that’s been building since hour 18 and heaving a put-upon sigh.

“Everyone is stupid, Stone, and asking to be thrown face-first from the Dome balustrades”, he begins, settling into a low, dead tone of voice to warm to the building monologue. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. “I swear to haran I’m going to wring Amedda’s stringy neck one of these days. I don’t know what magical Force gods his mother pissed off, but they made sure to punish her and the Galaxy at large a hundred times over. He sucks the joy and competence out of every room like a black hole of stupid. I’d call him a has-been, but I trust in the power of nepotism and also just don’t believe he ever was. I swear he’s doing it on purpose and - oh, kriffing Sith-damned hells, you know who’s definitely doing it on purpose?! The kriffing Chancellor, that wrinkly ass-faced ballsack!”

Taking a deep breath, Fox lets that sit in his chest for a moment, indulging in the feeling of bright weightlessness. “I swear he’s trying to keep the war going - no one man can be that incompetent and still draw breath, not even Amedda or Taa. Goddamn Taa - but anyways, kriffing hell, Stone, either the senility isn’t an act or he’s a bad cartoon villain from Dooby Scoo. Yes Sir, sending Senator Amidala to a Seppie-infested planet for negotiations is a great idea after her fourth bomb threat of the week. No Sir, I can’t hear you cackling evilly with Count Dooku under your lame two-credit robe as you’re definitely not colluding with the Republic’s enemies. What, you have a red lightsaber?! Oh, of course I don’t know what that means, I was dropped on the head as a tubie!”

Barely pulling in a harsh breath, Fox continues, palms pressing into his eyeballs hard enough to cause sparks. “And speaking of lightsabers and senile fucks, haran smite my ass off but who the kriff thought it’d be a good idea to give absolute tactical and military authority to the kriffing eldritch space monks! The Force didn’t bless them with the collective good sense it gave to a kriffing rock, and I’m tired of pretending otherwise! Has anyone kriffing read the Theed Convention of Sentient Rights in Wartimes?! NO?!! Well, color me UNSURPRISED, because war crimes ARE NOT! GOOD! BATTLE! TACTICS!!”

“They run around in crop tops, Stone, in crop tops! Oh, the Force provides - WELL I’M GOING TO PROVIDE MY FOOT UP YOUR ASS, AND IT’S GOING TO HURT BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT WEARING KRIFFING ARMOUR!”

“Sure, let’s send the preteens into active warzones under heavy artillery in kriffing party wear! Surely nothing will ever go wrong! And give them commanding positions equivalent to CC-clones, WHO WERE LITERALLY GENETICALLY CREATED FOR IT! WITH A DECADE OF INTENSE TRAINING! LET’S DO THAT, BECAUSE WE’RE ALL KRIFFING STUPID!”

He’s gesturing wildly at the ceiling now, face heating up as his blood boils beneath the surface. “And you know what really gets my lowers in a twist, apart from the preteen commanding officers and blatant kriffing high treason and war profiteering?! Is it the complete lack of recognition? Gratitude? Basic sentient rights?! No, Stone, no, I would take all that in stride if it meant I never had to see Skywalker and Amidala kriffing canoodle right in front of me again, and pretend like it isn’t the galaxy’s worst conflict of interest case in the making!”

“By all levels of Sith-hell, what the kriff is wrong with that woman? You have it all, you could have anyone, and you choose that twatwaffle?! And then they have the gall to lock themselves in a broom closet for twenty minutes straight and have me guard it! ‘Oh yes, Senator, naturally we all go rattling brooms with our good friends! Nothing dodgy happening at all! I definitely believe you were looking for detergent and have used a washing machine before!’ The absolute nerve on those two! And then last week - you’ll never believe this - High General Windu passed by, and I swear he looked like he wanted to throw himself off the roof! I’ve never been less impressed by anyone in my life, and I’m batch-mates with Bly!”

“Speaking of Bly, that little bitchtit - if I have to edit one more, one more kriffing propaganda piece of him staring at General Secura’s bits, I’m going to stab my eye out! And if I have to edit one more of Secura staring at his bits, I’m going to stab the other one out! The only good thing I have to say about them is they’re more subtle than Skywalker and Amidala, which means nothing really. I will never understand that woman - but then she’s worked with Jar Jar Binks for a decade and not had a nervous breakdown, so she either has nerves of steel or is on some good-ass drugs.”

“Girl, your choices. And you know what else is a choice? Kote kriffing roundhouse-kicking heads off droids when he has a perfectly good blaster right there! I don’t know what the Longnecks put in his tube, but I hope to kriff it’s not contagious. I’d say I’m glad he has Kenobi to keep him in check, but that man wouldn’t know common sense if it punched his nose clean off his face. Flirting with General Grievous, ugh. I’d say he can do better, but honestly, they deserve each other.”

“And Wolffe - “, panting, Fox pauses, considering. “Well, Wolffe is an asshole and stupid, and I hate him because he’s stupid and has a stupid face. Also he keeps drunkenly submitting adoption paperwork on General Koon’s behalf - I wish I could say something mean about that, but honestly, his existence is roast enough. Anyways, bitches are trying me today, and by bitches I mean everyone. Commander Fox signing off to go not commit treason, unfortunately.”

Thoroughly powered out, Fox sinks into his hard mattress with a deep sigh. Several seconds of silence reign, and then his comm unit starts blaring in alarm.

Somewhere in the Jedi Temple, Mace Windu is knocked flat on his ass by a gargantuan shatterpoint exploding.

[three-fold-symmetry]

RotS screenshot redraws, but only the unfortunate looking ones

[padawansuggest]

Obi-Wan: *gently massaging Anakin’s wittle palms while talking about the importance of proper hand care and why little padawans shouldn’t bathe in motor oil before beddy-byes* -and that’s the seventeenth reason you are the bane of my existence, yes yes, you cause Master soooo much stress! Naughty!

Anakin: *happy purrs and cuddles*

Entire Jedi Council: …

Mace: I swear to god Kenobi, if you don’t stop babytalking that twenty-five year old man-

Yoda: Familiar, this situation is…

Plo: *amused* Yes, I seem to remember Qui-Gon acting much the same way when Obi-Wan was this age.

Mace: *throwing a balled up flimsi at Obi-Wan’s head* force, stop that! It’s giving me force-hives! Padme won’t stop messaging me asking where her husband is, send him home already!

Obi-Wan: Hmmm… kick me off the council and I’ll stop bothering you with it.

Mace: Done.

Yoda: Not your decision alone, that is.

Mace: *hissing* you old troll either they go or I do but I’m not dealing with their codependent bullshit today, I’ve already encountered four shatterpoints while his antichrist children were in my presence today, I’m done here, I’m just so done.

Anakin: *falling asleep half in Obi-Wan’s lap* Just tell Leia to stop it. She doesn’t give me visions if I don’t bother her.

Mace: …did you just imply she can /stop/ force visions with her abilities???

Yaddle: what the fuck…

Yoda: Delightfully terrifying, she is!

Mace: That’s it, I quit, I’m retiring, I’m not dealing with this-

Anakin: Awwww, you can’t retire, Luke likes you.

Mace: He gives me anxiety! He always has a bunch of shatterpoint bubbles floating around him!

Anakin: Alright, how did you get over Obi-Wan’s weird force bubbles when he was tiny and constantly looking for you because babies love their finders?

Mace: I spontaneously learned teleportation one year. And forgot how to do it when the panic died down.

Anakin: There’s the trick, then.

Mace: I hate it here.

Yoda: Love Jedi, I do!

[womp-womp-chomp-chomp]

Just chaotic trio things 🩵☺️

[itstimeforstarwars]

What if i skip ahead to the satine parts what if i skip ahead to the korkie integration what if i skip ahead to cody and satine being chaotic and competent together to the chagrin of jango and the kryzes what if i skip ahead to ventress what if we went to tatooine what if what if what if---

[guestiguess]

[purplezombietumbler]

~Things Little Anakin Had Said/ Done That Make Obi-wan Question If There Really Is A God Prt. 2~

Mace Windu: *Peacefully reading a book in his quarters for fun*

Anakin: Master Windu-

Mace: *jumps* AJE5BXLFQ4YNV! I need to put a bell on you one of these days. What would you like Padawan Skywalker?

Anakin: Can I participate in a podrace?

Mace: Did you ask your Master first?

Anakin: *Remembering the rule that he can't lie to a member of the council* I...

Anakin: *Deciding to feign ignorance instead* ...Forget too.

Mace: *Has known Anakin for so long he doesn't need the Force to tell when Anakin's up to trouble* How unfortunate. You should've ask Knight Obi-Wan first before coming to me.

Anakin: Good... *Knows he’s been caught, but at least he’s alive to fight another day* ...Idea. Thank you Master Windu. *Bows before he leaves*

Depa: Are you going to tell Knight Obi-Wan?

Mace: Nah.

Depa: Why not?

Mace: Not my circus not my monkey.

[backpackingspace]

If a sith obi wan au isn't either meticulous planned out tactics with the most drama possible or obi wan making zero effort to change or hide his behavior while popping in yellow contacts I don't want it

[amariaamaris]

Of Spite and Planned Assassinations (Teaser)

Hi all! This is a Star Wars AU that I've just started working on and would love some feedback on this little bit of a teaser. I've been in a not so great writing block/rut, but this little idea has succeeded in at least partially pulling me out of it. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 1: Of Ire and Life Debts

Mace Windu has two hands.

Two hands that are actively shaking from the after effects of sith lightning.

He’s not on Coruscant… He's not on Coruscant.

Instead, Mace Windu, The Master of the Jedi Order is in the middle of a forest and he has no clue what planet he’s on. He would also appreciate it if his head would stop throbbing as spikes of pain splinter through his brain.

Mace finally, shakily pulls himself to a standing position and slowly takes in his surroundings. Trying to get a better grasp as to where he is and where he should start walking to find some civilization.

He reaches out to the force with a question pressing, projecting outward and junts off his pain, fear, and worry out into the force. All he gets back as an answer is a distinct feeling of amusement and comfort. Much like the creche masters would give an amused and indulgent smile and a slightly humiliating pat on the head to initiates with silly fears. As they are cheerfully reassured that it ‘passes with time’.

[darthmalewife]

Early 20s Depa turning to Windu and going "She was very nice and welcoming, wasn't she Master?" And Windu's deadpan delivery of "Depa, she was very clearly flirting with you."

[fallowsthorn]

Fakepatine Imposter AU

This is a series of ficlets from the Clone Haven server, after some discussion of what would happen if an Among-Us-style imposter replaced Palpatine without doing any research re: his extracurriculars. A thousand million thanks to the friend who wrote a script to convert Discord's special snowflake markdown formatting into HTML tags, which I had been banging my head against for ages and which was the main hurdle to uploading all these little extemporaneous snippets. (They did not want to be credited.)

Also for some reason tumblr no longer supports horizontal line breaks! Why would you do that! I need that! So I guess we're just doing the "extra empty lines means a new scene" thing.

somewhere along the way dooku tries to have fakepatine assassinated. fakepatine is entirely too fascinated by this and wants to help. fox says they're there to protect him, since fakepatine has so far distributed 100% less torture than realpatine. some shiny points out that technically, he outranks them and can do whatever he wants

"okay," says fakepatine, gets up from behind cover, avoids both the clones grabbing for it and the assassins firing at it, mimic-judders its way down the hallway faster than should be possible, and vanishes around the corner the assassins are hiding behind

there's a series of wet grinding and scraping noises and screams, and then fakepatine strolls back out looking none the worse for wear. "that was fun!" fakepatine says. "what's next?"

Fox rounds the corner and puts his hands on his hips, surveying the scattered pile of weaponry interspersed with occasionally recognizable small body parts. "Huh," he says. "Looks like it was a false alarm."

"Score," says someone whose name Fox definitely doesn't know and therefore will not have to discipline.

"Um," says Rift, their newest shiny, in the tones of someone who knows he's missing something but doesn't know how to ask what that is.

Fox takes pity on him. "See, if this were an Incident," he says casually, leaning down to free a rather nice dagger from the half-a-hand still holding it, "we'd be required to log all this as evidence and submit it to CoruSec to be put in a warehouse while we hunted down the perpetrators. But it's not." He flips the dagger over, eyes it, and nods to himself. "So if somebody just happened to leave a lot of really nice gear lying around, it'd be our job to take it to the Lost and Found." The same Lost and Found where items are legally up for grabs if no one claims them in a month.

"Oh, do you want these, too?" a new voice says brightly, and Fox turns to see whoever (or whatever) is pretending to be the Supreme Chancellor offering him two holdout blasters, both thankfully pointed at the ground. There's a short silence, during which everyone looks between Fakepatine, the pile of weapons and gore, and the significant distance (and multiple clone troopers) between the two. Fakepatine's smile acquires the fixed quality that means he doesn't understand why the Humans aren't Humaning correctly. Fox can relate.

"Where did he get those from?" someone whispers. Too loudly, because Fakepatine opens his mouth and takes a breath.

"PLEASE DON'T ANSWER THAT, SIR," Fox says in his best Command voice, and if there's an edge of hysteria to it, well, he dares anyone else to do better.

This isn't right. Something is going on with the Chancellor, and unlike Obi-Wan, who apparently just wants to star in a spy holothriller, Anakin is worried about both his friend and the leader of the Republic. He opens his mouth to ask straight out about it, because this dancing around it is getting them nowhere, but he's interrupted by the office's holoprojector chiming an incoming call.

"Ah, we should leave you to your work," Obi-Wan says, in a tone that implies... something. "You must be very busy."

"Nonsense!" Palpatine(?) says cheerfully. "Anakin at least is one of my closest friends, I have nothing to hide from either one of you." He grins at them a little, like he's sharing an inside joke. "Perhaps seeing a pair of Jedi Generals with me will make whoever it is get to the point faster, hmm?"

Maybe-Palpatine-or-maybe-a-shapeshifter-or-something turns away to answer the call, allowing Obi-Wan and Anakin to throw confused looks at each other. Palpatine usually cuts his meetings with Anakin short if he has to talk to someone else, not because he's trying to hide anything but because politics is a delicate job and he needs all his attention for it. Besides which, in Anakin's experience, seeing a Jedi immediately makes any given Senator harder to work with, not easier (with some exceptions, of course).

And then the call connects and Anakin just. Stares.

There's a long silence. Anakin sneaks a look at Probably-Not-Palpatine, who seems to be trying to keep his expression on the blank side of "crazed panicking," and then at Obi-Wan, whose expression actually is blank and whose Force presence has gone very still.

"Chancellor," Obi-Wan says, almost pleasantly, "why does the leader of the Separatists have your personal, heavily-encrypted comm frequency?"

Because standing in front of them, life-sized in washed-out blue, is indeed Count kriffing Dooku. Anakin has to clench his teeth together to suppress the hysterical laughter that wants to pour out of his throat.

To the credit of whoever's pretending to be Palpatine, they miss only a single beat before saying, in such a wildly confident voice that it's clear they're making this up as they go along, "Be...cause he's not the leader of the Separatists."

"He's not?" Anakin hears himself say, in unison with Obi-Wan. Dooku's mouth twitches like he had to stop himself from asking right along with them.

"He's not," Not-Palpatine confirms, suddenly serious. He fixes the two Jedi with a severe look. "But nothing you see here can leave this office, do you understand me? Count Dooku has been undercover as a spy for the Republic for almost the entire war."

Anakin glances at Dooku. If nothing else, at least they can be pretty sure whatever's happened to the real Palpatine isn't a Separatist plot, because Dooku clearly doesn't know what the kriff is going on either.

"Has he," Obi-Wan says, just as clearly not buying a word of it.

"Yes," Fakepatine decides, confident in the way of the desperate and poorly-informed. "Everything he has done has been in the service of the Republic, however it may seem."

"He cut my arm off," Anakin says faintly.

"And I'm sure he's very sorry about it," Fakepatine covers flawlessly, in exactly the same voice Anakin once heard a crechemaster use to explain that hitting is wrong. "Aren't you?" And then he looks at Dooku like he's actually expecting the man to answer.

Dooku looks at Anakin. Anakin shrugs minutely, indicating that yes, he finds this just as weird as Dooku does, and no, he doesn't have a better idea than just going along with it. Dooku blinks. "You have my most sincere apologies," he says, and then looks as surprised as Anakin feels that the statement wasn't entirely sarcastic.

"That's lovely," Obi-Wan says, suspicious and edging on furious, "but if the leader of the opposing faction is actually on our side, what are we doing fighting a war?"

Oh shit practically appears in neon above Fakepatine's head. He opens his mouth, but before he can speak he's rescued by Dooku, of all people.

"Nominal leader," Dooku says. Everyone swivels back to him. Anakin wonders vaguely if this is what being high feels like. It's extremely weird. "Who profits, in a war?"

Obi-Wan is doing his best impression of an overdue volcano, so Anakin hurries to supply the other half of the... lesson? "What do you mean?"

Dooku crosses his arms. "Wars are expensive. Not just metaphorically, but literally. They cost money. But those credits don't just vanish into thin air when they're spent; they get paid to someone. You've been to Separatist planets, you know that their galactic coordinates are the only thing stopping most of them from defecting to the Republic. They certainly aren't getting much out of it, so, if not them, who profits? Where is all that money going?"

"...the trade unions," Obi-Wan says, into the perfect silence that follows. "You think the trade unions have orchestrated a galactic civil war in order to profit off the sale of weapons to both sides."

"Weapons, supplies, armor, ships, reconstruction, anything and everything they can put a price tag on," Dooku says. "In fact, I know it. I just need proof."

"Which is why you must not even hint at this to anyone," Fakepatine says. It would be grave, except they've all forgotten he's there, and startle when he speaks. "We don't know who might be on their side. Do I have your word?"

Obi-Wan and Anakin exchange a look. Don't say anything, just nod after me, Anakin hears, right before Obi-Wan says, "Very well. On my honor as a Jedi Master, I will not share what I have learned here with anyone outside this room."

Anakin nods, wondering what Obi-Wan is up to, and allows Fakepatine to end the call and hustle them both out of the room. "Don't you want to tell the Council about this?" Not that he's generally in favor of the old coot brigade sticking their noses everywhere, but at this point, even Anakin has to admit they're in over their heads.

"Where do you think we're going?" Obi-Wan says, quietly enough that no one will overhear them.

Anakin frowns. "But you said--" His mouth shuts with a click. He'd said. Anakin hadn't promised anything at all.

Obi-Wan smiles grimly. "Precisely. I'm not going to tell the Council a thing. You are."

Mace is having a very long day. Mace has been having a very long day for about two years now. No one had ever told him that when he became Master of the Jedi Order, his unofficial title would be updated to Someone Else. As in, "that's Someone Else's problem." As in, "Someone Else will deal with this." As in, "let me go ask Someone Else." He's going to drown in paperwork one of these days and that'll be his epitaph: Mace Windu, Someone Else.

Which is to say that when Kenobi walks into Mace's quarters, way too chipper for ass o' clock at night, and says, "Ah, good, I thought Someone Else ought to hear about this," Mace thinks he can forgive himself for the brief but understandable urge to stab the man. He closes his eyes and releases the irritation and frustration to the Force. There is no peace, there is serenity. Er, wait. There is no passion-- Fuck it. There is no sleep, there is caf. Close enough.

"If this is about the supplies from Cato Nem--"

"The Chancellor found a bunch of Sith stuff," Skywalker bursts in, to the room and also the conversation.

Mace goes very still. "The real Chancellor or--" He stops himself from saying "Fakepatine" just in time. "--the imposter?"

"The fake one," Kenobi clarifies. He has perhaps left the realm of chipper and is fast on his way to the land of manic. "We still don't know where the real one is."

Mace turns back to Skywalker. "Found it where."

"In a secret room in his apartment," Skywalker reports, practically vibrating with concern. "This has to have something to do with what happened to him! The real him, I mean."

"If it does, why would Fakepatine comm us about it," Kenobi says wearily.

"All right," Mace says loudly, before they can descend into the fiftieth repetition of the argument that clearly led them here. "Council meeting, let's go." At least if a Sith Lord kills him, he won't have to fill out any more forms in triplicate.

In the end, every physically present Council member comes with them to meet Fakepatine in his fancy senator penthouse. They're wary, but honestly Mace can't sense anything from the man(?) besides worried confusion, and the Force is quiet, if... anticipatory. Which is unsettling in its own way, but not in a lethal one. Hopefully.

"When did you find this?" Mace asks. Two lightsabers rest on an office desk near a previously-concealed lift. He can feel the kyber screaming from across the room.

"Tonight, a few hours ago," Fakepatine says. "I've never seen any of it before in my life."

The thing is, he's not lying. Even the best liars can't hide themselves from the Force: to tell a lie is a form of division, between the self that knows the truth and the self that doesn't, and that duality is obvious. Shielding one's mind to hide the duality is also obvious. Fakepatine is doing neither.

"You live here," Allie points out.

Now it's there. "Um," Fakepatine says.

It's too early in the morning for this circus. "We know you're not the real Chancellor," Mace says bluntly.

"Oh."

"What did you do with him?"

"Um," says Fakepatine, wincing in a way that indicates Mace isn't going to like the answer. "I, uh. Ate him."

There's silence. "What the fuck," someone mutters.

Mace closes his eyes. "So no body, then."

"...No."

"If he was a Sith Lord, how did you ever get the drop on him?" Fisto asks. Mace notes with amusement that aside from Skywalker, who is bickering with Kenobi, no one is bothering to pretend Palpatine might have been innocent. Slimy bastard.

"Oh! Ah...." Fakepatine glances around the assembled Masters, like he's surprised they want to know. "I was pretending to be a clone. He called me into his office alone." He frowns. "Actually I think he was going to torture me. He was monologuing about something, but I wasn't paying attention, I just saw he had his back to me and. Went for it."

Went for it. Mace wants to sleep for the next thousand years. "He didn't notice your approach?"

"Oh, no, I've got a...." Fakepatine gestures vaguely. "Harpoon. Sort of. Thing. Would you like to see?" His jaw starts to work.

"NO," everyone else says, suddenly united in their desire to not see the Chancellor's face invert itself. "Maybe another time," Mace adds unconvincingly. Whatever. The hurt feelings of the bodysnatcher who ate the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, who was also probably the Sith Lord, are currently very low on his priority list.

"Hmm," Yoda says, which means Mace's workload is about to either double or evaporate. "Take the sabers now, we will. Much more to do in the morning, we will have."

Fantastic. It's both. Mace is blaming Skywalker, just on general principle.

[anakinh]

shout out to star wars: brotherhood for single-handedly getting me back into star wars. also fuck you, eat shit, how dare you