The wind of Tatooine's twin suns was harsh on his face, but Anakin Skywalker barely felt it. His heart was pounding, his mind torn open like a raw wound.
Padmé had come with him, despite his insistence she stay behind. She had seen the trembling in his hand, the fire behind his eyes, and chose not to speak only follow. There were things about him the Republic could not understand. But she had always tried to.
The desert world hadn't changed. The same dry heat, the same choking air. But the boy who had left was no longer the one who returned. And now he was too late.
Shmi Skywalker lay dying, chained in a Tusken camp like an animal. When she opened her eyes and saw her son's face, a light flickered through the pain but it was brief. Her final breath escaped in his arms.
And something inside him broke.
Anakin didn't remember igniting the lightsaber. Only the screams. Men, women, even the children he cut through them like a vengeful god, blind with grief and fury. The Force surged around him, but it was no longer calm. It was fire. Rage. Death.
Later, he collapsed beside the ship. Padmé stood nearby, stunned. When he finally spoke of what he had done, she didn't flinch. Her hand found his. She didn't offer forgiveness only presence.
That night, beside a flickering fire beneath the open stars, Anakin kissed her for the first time.
Obi-Wan's message arrived like a storm.
Captured. Geonosis. The Separatists were real, the droid armies massing. And Count Dooku, once Jedi, now traitor, stood at their helm.
The Jedi Council deliberated slow, cautious. But Anakin would not wait. Neither would Padmé.
They took the Naboo cruiser and went to Geonosis themselves.
The barren, crimson-hued planet bristled with tension. Industrial caverns ran beneath the surface like veins of a machine god. Inside, the Geonosians were building war itself ranks of droids, seismic tanks, monstrous walkers. And in the heart of it, Obi-Wan, shackled.
Their rescue attempt was brave but foolish. Caught in the assembly chambers, surrounded by battle droids, Anakin and Padmé were taken. Dragged in chains to the spire above the arena.
Yet in the face of death, their eyes locked with defiant calm.
Padmé whispered, "I truly... deeply love you."
Anakin swallowed hard. "I thought we had decided not to fall in love."
"We may never get another chance."
Below, the arena roared. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padmé were chained to pillars, beasts of war released to kill them in spectacle. But Jedi were not so easily broken. Nor was love.
They fought. Chains snapped, weapons were seized. The creatures were forced back.
But it wasn't enough.
As the droid armies surrounded them, it seemed their fate was sealed.
And then aviors descended.
Hundreds of Jedi swept into the arena, blades blazing like lightning from heaven. Mace Windu himself led the charge, his violet saber crashing against metal as he confronted Count Dooku. The battle was chaos incarnate blaster fire, saber clashes, explosions that turned stone to ash.
Still, the Jedi were outnumbered. For every droid that fell, another emerged.
It was then that salvation thundered down from the sky.
Gunships of the newly revealed clone army authorized under emergency powers by Chancellor Palpatine arrived in force. Their cannons tore through the Geonosi'an ranks, and the Jedi retreated into their transports.
The Clone Wars had begun.
Far above, Palpatine watched through holographic relays. The Senate chambers were abuzz with fear and triumph. The emergency powers he had subtly orchestrated gave him control over the Republic's armies.
He did not smile.
There was no need to. Everything was unfolding as he had foreseen.
The war would spread. The Jedi would burn.
And in the ashes, something greater would rise.