The explosion shattered the quiet serenity of Coruscant's diplomatic sector. The starship decoy was engulfed in flame as security droids scrambled too late. Smoke spiraled over the Senate District, and Padmé Amidala, watching from the shadows of her new vessel, felt the weight of war settle deeper onto her shoulders.
"It was meant for you," Obi-Wan said gravely as he approached, flanked by Anakin.
Anakin's jaw clenched. "I should have been there."
"You were right behind her, Anakin," Obi-Wan replied. "This wasn't a failure. It was a message."
The Jedi Council convened in tense session. The assassination attempt forced their hand.
"Mandalore remains quiet," Mace Windu said, "but whispers grow darker. The Republic splinters, and now this."
"Find the killer, we must," Yoda insisted. "Begin unraveling the shadow, we must."
Anakin and Obi-Wan were assigned to protect the Senator. That night, the assassin struck again, sending venomous, shape-shifting creatures through her window. Anakin caught the movement first—slashing with his saber before the insects reached Padmé's throat.
The chase led them to the undercity, through speeders and sky-lanes, until the bounty hunter Zam Wesell was cornered and—before she could speak—silenced by a poison dart. Too precise. Too orchestrated.
Obi-Wan studied the dart closely. "Kaminoan. But their system doesn't exist in the archives."
"Someone erased it," Jocasta Nu said. "Only a Jedi could."
He followed the mystery trail to the rain-lashed world of Kamino, where cloners greeted him with assumed purpose.
"Your order is ready," Taun We said.
The clone army. Ten years in development. Commissioned under the name of Jedi Master Syfo-Dyas—long dead. The Kaminoans had never doubted the order's legitimacy.
The clones moved in tight formation, genetically enhanced and bred for loyalty. Jango Fett, the donor, stood cold and calm beside his young, unaltered "son."
Obi-Wan pressed. Jango admitted nothing, but his connection to the dart and the Trade Federation was clear.
Their battle came swiftly. Rain hammered durasteel as blasters ignited. Obi-Wan held his own, but the bounty hunter escaped aboard Slave I, vanishing into hyperspace.
Meanwhile, Anakin and Padmé, under direct orders, hid on Naboo. There, amid the rolling lakes and quiet courtyards of Theed, something unspoken grew between them.
"I'm not the boy you met on Tatooine," Anakin said quietly.
Padmé hesitated, then offered a smile. "And I'm not a Queen anymore."
They didn't kiss. Not yet. But the distance between them had grown thin.
Still, Anakin's dreams twisted. His mother's face appeared each night—crying, fading.
"I have to go," he told Padmé.
Tatooine greeted him with dust and silence. Watto, older and broken, gave him the trail to a Tusken camp far across the Dune Sea. Shmi Skywalker had been taken weeks ago.
Anakin found the camp by moonlight. He cut through its defenses silently. The cages were crude. His mother was within one—barely alive. She opened her eyes long enough to whisper his name... then slipped away in his arms.
Something inside him snapped.
He slaughtered them all.
Not just the warriors. The women. The children.
When it was done, he staggered back to the homestead, hollow. Padmé held him. He confessed—voice shaking. She didn't recoil. She didn't judge. She simply stayed.
"Why do I feel more powerful when I'm angry?" he asked.
"Because anger's easier," she said.
Obi-Wan's transmission came from Geonosis—cut short mid-sentence. He had tracked Jango there and found something far darker: a Separatist conclave. Count Dooku led it, speaking freely to the Techno Union, the Banking Clan, the Commerce Guild. All were prepared to break from the Republic.
Anakin and Padmé ignored their orders and flew to Geonosis. They were captured, joining Obi-Wan in the arena.
Three beasts were unleashed upon them—massive, feral, meant for spectacle.
They fought. They survived.
Then came Master Windu and the Jedi strike team. Then the droids.
Blasterfire lit the stadium. Jedi fell. Mace clashed with Jango Fett. The bounty hunter fell to the purple blade, his head severed before the eyes of his cloned "son."
And as the droids threatened to overwhelm them—
The clone army arrived.
Yoda led the charge. Gunships descended. Republic troopers—thousands of them—engaged in precision strikes.
The Clone Wars had begun.
As fire engulfed Geonosis, Chancellor Palpatine stood at the Republic war table, sorrow in his voice, control in his hands.
"This is a dark day," he said. "But our unity will be our strength."
In the shadows, Serion watched it all.
Sidious had moved his pieces. War had come. But war, Serion knew, was a means—not an end.
His warship—code-named Oblivion—neared its keel laying. His new generals were being grown, forged from beskar and Rakatan design.
And far beyond the Outer Rim, in a pocket of darkness known to no map, Serion looked again into the void—
And saw something moving toward them.
Something older than Sith or Jedi.
The galaxy was at war.
And it was not ready.