Hello again, everyone! Here's a small prologue to my newest story that's almost finished. I can't promise incredibly quick updates, but I think I can probably hold to a timeline of once a week. Enjoy! (And if you're feeling kind and want to make me happy, please review!)

Also, in case you're interested, I've been messing around with making fan videos. I've got two up over on YouTube under the screen name of 3yesac3 if you'd like to check that out. Any comments would be greatly appreciated, especially if you know a bit about editing, as I'm just learning how to make these things. It's good fun so far, though.

Prologue

He is not young.

Most days, he considers that an advantage. The foolishness of youth is, after all, a detriment to many of the galaxy's best young men. It cannot be helped by anything but time, and that, at least, is one thing that is on his side.

He does not like to think of himself as old, per say. Getting on in years, perhaps. Certainly he has seen the passing of enough time to lay claim to the wisdom that comes with it. Still, he is not elderly. The elderly are the retired, no longer fit for active duty or anything more than reminiscing about a time when they were. He is certainly not at that point. He is active. He has more say in the fate of the galaxy than almost any other man.

He has a lot of life left before him.

Most importantly, he intends to defend his right to live that life.

His master is a wise man, full of intelligence and guile. He has offered many good teachings. But he is arrogant… and his arrogance blinds him. He thinks himself above defeat in anything but the most glorified and epic of circumstances, and that self-given surety born of pride creates a weakness.

Battles are won and lost in the details, in the overlooked moments.

His master would tell him this. It is simply that, when it comes to his own life, he is blind to the implications of his own teachings.

Sidious will not be defeated in a grand battle. His end will be as unknown as his true identity was to the Republic, to the Jedi—to all but a select few.

He has the good grace to go quietly at least, with none of the words that have come to be so loathsome as of late. What was once appreciated teaching became useless lies when it became apparent that Sidious had no intention of keeping him as his apprentice indefinitely.

In Anakin Skywalker, he already had a replacement, and time, one thing that used to be an ally, became an enemy in the face of that steadily accelerating plan. Quite simply, Sidious's death became a matter of survival.

He does not kill Sidious in his sleep. He considers it, mainly because Sidious finished his own master that way, and there would be something poetic about it, but when it comes down to the final decision, he elects not to out of worry that Sidious might expect it.

Instead, he does precisely what Sidious does not expect.

He kills him while looking straight into his face.

It's so obvious—so blatant—that Sidious never considers it. He never considers that his end might be as simple as a lightsaber in his gut while he has a routine conversation with his apprentice. There are no signs. It is a perfectly amiable conversation, with hardly even a change in tone when he is skewered. He expects nothing, because in his pride, he cannot fathom that he would have such an unremarkable end. That is why it is perfect.

So simple.

Sidious dies isolated in a seedy part of Coruscant, safely away from prying eyes. In the morning, the Republic will panic, desperate to find their missing Chancellor. There will be chaos. Actions must be taken before that. Sidious left him the proper clearance. The clones will take orders from him. Though, there is only one order that he needs to give before morning dawns on this planet.

"Execute Order 66."

There is a moment of pause, a check of that clearance that he inherited, and then, "It will be done, my Lord."

Upon the dawn of each world, the people of the Republic will awake to find their Supreme Chancellor gone; their Senate in disarray; and the Jedi, their defenders of peace and justice in the galaxy, exterminated.

They will awake to chaos.

And Dooku will rise from it all to the place that was always meant to be his.