Jedi Insurgency 142 (Interlude 14)

In the hollow heart of Coruscant, far below the glittering spires and endless hum of speeders, Palpatine descended into the bowels of the former Jedi Temple. What had once been a sanctum of light now festered with the rot of the Darkside. Clad in raven-black robes, his half-scarred, half-mended face was solemn. 

Shuffling down a long, narrow staircase, he moved slowly, his footsteps echoed along this empty, dry place like a quiet, distant thunder. The air here was ancient, and thick with the memories of dead Masters and the lingering dread of something older still. Invisible whispers struck his psyche, and a thousand generations of psychic echoes bore down upon his shoulders with the weight of the universe. 

Striking the next step with his cane hard, a wave of putrid malevolence spread from his person, pushing the wandering weight of history away. Yet even still, visions of serenity, peace, and calm assaulted his heart. Younglings training in their lightsaber forms, Jedi meditating, and a hymn that pierced his soul came wave after wave. 

Staggering in his step, Palpatine almost fell flat on his face as the ancient Jedi mechanisms meant to guard this place assaulted him one after another. Cloaking himself in the Darkside, he sneered at this failed idea of peace & serenity, his yellowed teeth quickly transformed into a grimace of pain as the phantom of a Jedi Master manifested in front of him. 

Unlike the pedantic Jedi of the past, this guardian was silent, and rushed at him with a lightsaber raised. 

Palpatine wasted no words, and struck out with his left hand. A bolt of [Force Lightning] surrounded, and overwhelmed the memory with ease, hardly slowing down his descent. 

Ever since the loss on Eriadu was confirmed, a slow, boiling rage had overcome him, and induced a sense of urgency. Vader had been a test. To see if this Revan truly was the Dark Lord of the Sith, and not some Jedi pretender. The overwhelming victory confirmed his suspicions. He now had a threat much more deadly than Yoda to contend with. As a student of history, and a student to Darth Bane's school of thought, he was well aware that the most deadly opponent of a Sith, was another Sith. 

How he wished he could hate Vader for his failures, and yet, he could not. Instead, the stark, cold reality had settled into place. Impotent rage was the mind killer, and Palpatine refused to play the Gungan fool. Even now, the Senators whispered about him, the titans of industry balked at his economic agenda, and the tool he had so finely crafted was returning to Coruscant full of cracks. Padmé Amidala, of all people, had returned from the dead, and he knew that he would once again have to babysit that overgrown child. Otherwise it would be in his best interest to nip that waiting liability in the bud, lest another Sith aim for his head. 

Between Revan, and if the reports were to be believed, Maul, he had plenty of rivals to deal with as it stood. 

At this point in time, he could ill afford to vacate his seat, lest his opponents seize the opportunity to grab Coruscant for themselves. 

The seat of government proved his legitimacy, generated a tenth of the Empire’s revenue, produced enough arms to field a Legion, and now was the largest source of manpower that had fallen under his sway. Abandoning this gem, this seat of power, was unimaginable. 

Before him stretched the crypt: it was a vast chamber of obsidian walls that seemed to drink what little light dared to enter these chilling halls. At its center, a wound in reality pulsed, it was a Dark Side Nexus. The air rippled and warped around it, offering a constant murmur of whispers too low to be understood, yet too insistent to ignore. Even Palpatine, with his years of experience, felt his skin prickle with unease.

The Jedi had sealed this location away from the universe for aeons. Now, with their last protectors dead, it was his to seize. 

Prepared for this momentous occasion, he carried with him, in his withered hands, a holocron. The black pyramid pulsed with a sickening orange light, its cadence became ever more fervent the closer he came to the bottom of the steps. 

It belonged to Darth Nihilus, the Lord of Hunger. Within it was the secret to consuming life itself. It taught him how to become a void that devoured the Force. Palpatine had studied it before, and even he, master of countless atrocities, had recoiled from its promise. Madness waited within those teachings, it made one experience a hunger that never ceased. This was a route he did not wish to pursue. 

But he had no choice.

Earlier that day, a tremor in the Force had shaken him to his core. A presence that was cold, vast, and impossibly familiar had stirred in the void. That aura was unmistakable. 

Plagueis, his master, had returned. 

The day he had become Chancellor, was the night he had poisoned the old Muun. A practitioner of the most astounding sorceries, Plagueis possessed knowledge, patience, and cunning that were most unlike the open sabers of Maul or Revan. His Master treated him like an experiment, Palpatine, better than any other lifeform in the galaxy, was aware of the menace that he represented. 

He was Darth Sidious, the Emperor of countless worlds. Yet due to mounting, catastrophic failures, he felt the first flicker of fear in decades.

How he hated it. 

And so, he would take this burden upon himself. As much as it irked him, he required a deterrent. To compete with ancient monsters, and cow the geniuses of the next generation, he would prove himself supreme. The fear of Bane, and all Sith who came after Nihilus would be conquered by him, by Darth Sidious! 

Desperation had inspired him. Fear of death, had acted as his motivator. For these past five months that he spent as Emperor, his every waking moment had been devoted to paperwork, meetings, and eliminating the bloat in his bureaucracy. During that entire time, he never lost focus on what mattered to him. 

Power. 

Commanding a trillion souls. 

That was:

Power. 

Rearranging the Senate, inspiring billions to join factories, or the military in support of his nation. 

That was: 

Power. 

Death, life, the fate of the galaxy, they were all playthings in his hands. 

Harnessing this desire, this reality, his body worked through the motions of a seasoned politician, whilst his mind was on fire with the quest for knowledge. 

After studying the holocron, and ruminating on this curse to immortality long and hard, he had found a solution. 

Nihilus had gone insane by mixing the impurities of planets, strangers, and many more interstellar beings. In essence, he had transformed himself into a natural phenomenon bereft of thought, a slave to his hunger. In Palpatine’s mind, that was a fate worse than death. 

The solution to this dire predicament had come to him in a dream. 

His quest to find the perfect clone body seemed to have gone up in flames due to Revan’s purging of Kamino. Yet a clone facility on the moons of Coruscant remained active. Their clones of Force Sensitives could only last a day, maybe three if enough resources were expended. They lived such short lives, and yet, they shared his life force. 

The clones, in essence, could not corrupt him! 

At least that was his hypothesis. Now, gathered in this crypt, six floating pods with grav boosters trailed him. Each one held the macabre clones of himself, Emperor Palpatine. With a flick of his hand, the pods arranged themselves in a hexagonal pattern. 

Kneeling before the Nexus, the holocron hovered above his palm, and he began a long, guttural incantation. The crypt shuddered as his words pressed upon the very fabric of the universe. Shadows writhed like serpents, and a dew-like moisture seeped down the walls, generating a thick, musky scent. A second later, a tremor passed through his body as the Nexus opened to him. 

This was it. This was what unlimited power represented. 

As the Darkside flowed in and around him, an excruciating pain assaulted his senses. Strobe lights flashed thousands of times a second in his eyes, his already damaged skin shriveled ever more such that all the moisture in his body nearly evaporated. His eyes glowed yellow with power, but had sunken so deep into his head, he was like a ghoul. Paper-white, leathery flesh defined his exterior, it was so thin, a gentle pass from a leaf or piece of paper could cut it. 

Wobbling on his cane, Palpatine continued his foul chant. Even though blood was now dropping down his nose, and out of his gums, he refused to bend! 

This painful experience not only struck his flesh, but pierced the very structure of his being! The molecules holding Palpatine in place slowly trembled apart, each particle screamed as it was torn between reality, and the void. His robes disintegrated into fragments as his body became a storm of sparks flickering on the edge of annihilation.

“No…nooo.” His voice came out as a hiss of steam. 

The Force tremored, and he teetered on his cane as mounds of flaky skin fell to the ground one after another. Thin, black veins pulsed along his body, and a stench like no other permeated the chamber. 

This Nexus of the Darkside continued to warp, and tremble, uncaring for his declarations of denial. It devoured indiscriminately, it had been, was, and always would be.

Simply put, it was the Force. 

Palpatine saw his life begin to unravel before his eyes. Falling to his knees, he struggled to finish the ritual as his cane clattered to the floor. Finally, just as his withered, gaunt form was about to dissolve, he had spoken the final word. 

In his desperation to survive, his mind reached outward, and a gnarled, curled up finger pointed towards one of the pods containing his clone. A faint-almost invisible-rust colored ray shimmered to life. At first, it was weak, wobbily, and seemed like it would disappear with so much as a sneeze. 

And yet…the stream of energy grew in volume, speed, and cohesion every second that passed. 

The screams of massacred Jedi younglings assaulted his mind one last time in an effort to destabilize the ritual, but he had come this far, he would not be defeated! 

Raising another hand, he began to drain every pod all at the same time. 

The Nexus roared in pleasure as a champion of the Darkside announced itself to the universe. Invisible waves of pressure sent a brief tremor through the currents of the galaxy. For the briefest of moments, every creature and being touched by the Force felt a premonition, and experienced a vision. Haunting yellow eyes pierced every skull, as if their deepest thoughts, and secrets were on display. 

Palpatine’s body reformed, and as he stood, every bone in his body thunderously cracked.  Remade in agony and triumph, he was the very image of youthful vitality. 

When at last the darkness settled, the Emperor stood reborn.

His flesh was glistening, and muscles coated his form. His eyes burned with endless hunger, yet this insanity had been tamed by the method of consumption. For a second, he was Mr. Perfect, then, with a thought, the Nexus that he had wrestled control of entered his veins, and like a switch being flipped, his appearance once more resembled that hellish, yellow eyed demon. 

Upon releasing this hold, he once again returned to his youthful appearance, although perhaps he now looked middle-aged. It would seem accessing such raw, unfiltered power held a cost. 

But what mattered most, was that his thoughts remained his own. 

Staring at the palm of his hand, and its supple skin, he thrust it into the air, unleashed a torrent of pure plasma, and shouted his triumph to the universe: 

“I. am. THE POWAAAAAARRRR!!!”

~~~~~~~

AN: That's right, baby, Palpatine just discovered immortality. He would never ordinarily take such a risk, or have this inspiration, but adversity is the mother of invention, and Papa Palpatine is not going out quietly!