"Ugh… Fuck..." the clown murmured as he reached the end of the sewer pipe on a cliff at the northern end of the Great Western Sea of Coruscant. Another exasperated heave of breath came as he made one final heave to exit the pipe. He greeted the fresh grass with a sigh of relief. He took a moment to absorb the scenery, then took to continuing to feverishly rubbing the blood off his mouth. He couldn't even tell if what he was wiping off was blood or makeup, but he didn't care. He never did. He sat up and looked out at the sky, the bones of his back cracking as they exited the stiff, twisted line they had inhabited for the last two hours of pipe spelunking. The clouds of the planet never ceased to entrance him.

The music of his sax poured through his ears, but the melody only served to insult him. The mood just wasn't right. The instrument itself appeared to his left, but the sound came not from the instrument itself, instead choosing to reverberate ambiently throughout the planet's surface. He looked at the waterfall next to him, the small trickle of refuse absorbing into the cascade of fresh water which poured over a cliff which must have been twenty stories high. He stuck his hand in the water, not removing his soft cotton glove. The music grew louder. Pennywise growled. The sound of small feet moving in the grass summoned him. His head turned, more automatically than willingly.

"Fuck you," he said through clenched teeth as Mia, his most recent lunch, stood, the saxophone reeds in her mouth. His stomach churned and the music grew louder, the melody stronger. She danced at the edge of the cliff. He would would push her over the edge if he knew it would make any difference, just as he would all his victims' spirits. She stepped over the edge, spinning in passion on the open air. Pennywise had no idea if she could actually play saxophone in real life or not, but he couldn't have cared less about the matter. He shoved his gloved fingers in his ears, only mildly muffling her now blaring tune. She skipped across the sky, remaining level with his line of sight, towards a horizon dotted with the barely visible spirits of the billions of other child victims he had accrued over the æons of his life. He looked down, seeing now the doll she had carried when he grabbed her. He threw it over the edge, its splash into the water inaudible over the howling music. He looked back up to see her face, slowly decaying into the same unintelligible mush worn by all the other dancers on the horizon. He could only snicker at her, these images and feelings necessary for his digestion. She wouldn't care. She was dead.

The hallucinations began their usual course of increasing in distaste, with grotesque and needlessly violent scenes beginning to pollute the horizon with jumping and jeering dead children. Pennywise closed his eyes, letting out a laboured sigh. Before his mind's eye were now the racing images of thousands of imagined conversations, each scene being long-ago made stale and worn-out by billions of years of overuse after having run out of stories to tell himself. Each successive scene bore a sensation of instant boredom lasting not long enough for him to thoroughly appreciate it before he rushed to recall another to take its place. Nevertheless, his eyes remained closed, the imagined conversations preferable to reality for him in every conceivable measure - at least within them he could pretend as though he could speak his mind freely to another living being, freed from the constraint of being at the eternal mercy of other beings' imaginations to put words in his mouth. He pined for the first few million years of his life, where new stories were possible and where the sensation of being trapped in an eternity of subservience to others to serve as proxies for his own emotions had not yet fully settled in. Rattling him now out of his fancies was a substantial nudge from behind. His eyes bolted open, revealing to his side a horrifically disfigured child bearing a lumpy and bulbous head which jittered and jerked with uncanny dis-appeal. Pennywise would have been frightened at the sight in his youth, but the effect had long since gone. He would rather empathise with the creature if he could, but in the absence of that possibility he turned his attention away from the sight. He looked at the cliff face, stood up, and jumped off.

The music was unstopping as he rose to the surface of the frigid water. Reaching the air, he began to feverishly swim across the surface, his head down and away from the chaos above. His arms and legs beat the water, the splashes leaving his limbs stinging. He did not know how long he had been swimming when over him came a coldness. He looked up, and the children were gone, and in their place were three ships flying, the lead of which was far greater than the the two behind it. Pennywise felt sadness aboard that ship. He followed it, not sure if his tired arms were being motivated more by intrigue or hunger. The ship slipped out of view over the horizon as he struggled to keep up his swimming with the supersonic craft. Falling into fatigue, he let out his breath and began to sink, bubbles sputtering up as he slowly submerged. A few minutes passed before he began gagging, the sudden sensation of drowning coming over him. He rushed to the surface, and, reaching it, violently shook his head, letting out a brbrbrbrbr through his reverberating cheeks, and cleared his throat, and continued swimming.

"You feeble, drunken old fool!" Sidious said, the his of his voice failing to echo in the empty chamber. His eyes were filled with the coldest hatred Pennywise had ever seen. "Your self-indulgent quest for immortality cannot save you from the power of one trained on power over the entire galaxy." Sidious stepped forward a few paces towards the empty centre of the room, stepping down the three steps that separated his seat from the entrance. He raised his finger. "And now you will see the true power of the Dark Side." The rest of his fingers rose to join his first, and electric began to pour out of them. Pennywise sat in the corner behind a curtain, entranced by the display. The electric stopped. "I do not mean to torture you and bring you back, to prove a point. No. I intend to send you over the threshold to which you thought you had become immune. You trained me, and for that I will be indebted to you. But now your purpose has expired, and I am the one who will rule the galaxy. Never think that I intended to share power with you. You were a pawn in the larger plan, one in which I rule the galaxy alone. You thought you had broken the Rule of Two, but see now that you were mistaken."

The electric continued, the rancor on the Sith Lord's face intensifying further, his eyes cemented in a frosty stillness, the pupils reduced to small, vacuous craters. He took a few steps forward, dominating the centre of the room. "You tortured others in order to perpetuate yourself. Now feel the power of the Dark Side from their perspective." He gnashed his teeth. The electric ravaged what remained of the smouldering carpet. "I will rule the galaxy!" the Sith yelled. "Look at you in your smallness! Curled on the floor, a helpless wreck! You thought you could belittle me. You took me as a fool. That boy you created, he is mine!" The electric flooded the floor, and began to climb up the deep crimson curtains in the corners.

Pennywise rushed to get out of the way of the fire. He glared in amazement at the demonstration before him. In billions of years, he had never felt such pure hatred as he did now in this Sith. The anger was broken only by a whiff of sadness, the origin or purpose of which Pennywise could not discern. Suddenly there was a happiness rising. Palpatine walked back up the stairs, a sudden gust of wind rattling the room and killing the fires. The Sith looked back at the ruined centre of the room, staring at it, the feelings of absolute dominance, self-criticism, and mediocrity vying for power in his heart, each emotion layering over the other and overwhelming it, totally consuming his mind, like massive waves in all directions breaking and crashing over one another. The rip current left in the wake of the feelings dragged the clown's heart in every direction, leaving him no option but to submit to their power.

A hailing signal from a communication beacon interrupted the Sith's performance. All at once, the feelings retracted, as if the Sith had compacted that ocean into a wineglass. Nute Gunray appeared on the handheld holodisplay.

"What is it?" Sidious asked, the menace wiped from his face, and a calm, rested mask asserted itself in its place. Well this will simply not do! Pennywise thought to himself.

"My Lord, we have word from Geonosis," the Neimoidian said.

"Tell me," Sidious replied. Wat Tambor replaced Gunray on the display. Wasting no time, Pennywise took control of the scene. Loud electronic music began to blast from Tambor, and the Skakoan began to bob to the beat. Sidious stared in amazement at the brashness of this display. "Is this a joke?" Sidious asked. Tambor ignored the question, silently continuing to dance.

"The Techno Union supports your proposal, Lord," Tambor eventually said in his mechanized voice. He reached for the knob on his chestplate, and the music grew even louder, the pounding bass beginning to make the walls of the room vibrate. Sidious reached out with the Dark Side, attempting to choke Tambor, to no effect. Pennywise held in a laugh which would have discharged enough energy as to alert Sidious to his presence. Enraged, Sidious pushed the button to deäctivate the device, but it remained on. The music grew louder, and the hologram began to strobe different colours. Sidious began to squeeze the device, crushing it with the power of the Force, but it remained intact. He raised his arm to throw it against the wall, a surge of electricity from his hands coursing through its circuits. Pennywise clenched his lips, the Sith Lord's hate fueling the laughter he was withholding, which by now would have made his eyes bulge were he in clown form. He decided that had to back off these antics before his head exploded. The music stopped.

"My Lord," the Neimoidian said as Pennywise allowed the feed to continue as normal. Sidious stopped and slowly lowered the display. Gunray's head slammed backwards as he saw the look on Sidious' face, the Sith's eyes burning into the Neimoidian with an absolute rage.

"You have one chance to tell me what the fuck that was," Sidious hissed. Gunray stammered for words in typical Neimoidian fashion.

"L-Lord Sidious… I thought you would be pleased!" Gunray pleaded. Pennywise tugged at his hair as Sidious' pupils shrank even further than they had before. Gunray began to choke.

"You will be aware of one thing, Gunray," Sidious said. "I am not your toy, you brainless cretin. Without me, you and your federation would be nothing."

"But… Lord…" Gunray said between coughs.

"There is nothing more for you to say," Sidious said. "You just threw away your life. You clown."

"There… are no… clowns here," Gunray said. Pennywise's eyes twinkled, then he rushed in to correct the error. Sidious saw Pennywise walk up behind Gunray and rest his arm on the Neimoidian's shoulder. The clown waved at Sidious, and leaned his smiling head on Gunray's neck. Gunray's choking intensified as his red eyes began to bulge out of his head and his skin began to go pale. The Sith's eyes bulged.

"There's an actual clown…" Sidious said, his mouth agape. Gunray's neck cracked, but his body remained standing. Pennywise stuck his tongue out at the Sith Lord, who responded by trying to choke the clown, again to no avail. Gunray dropped to the floor, dead. Palpatine crouched, placing the holodisplay in a cabinet in his desk. He took a long, deep breath. Pennywise considered his options. The pounding bass music from before began to reverberate inside the Sith's metal cabinet. The Dark Lord began to make his way towards the door.

"Heya Palpy!" Sidious heard from behind himself. He turned, to see nothing, then, the clown slipped into view from the corner of his vision, standing with the same slap-happy grin he always wore. The electronic music came to a halt. "Hope you're having fun." The Sith lord remained still, his head peering in silence over his shoulder. Eventually Sidious turned to face the jester. "Whaddaya say about -"

"What is your name?" Sidious asked, searching for feelings within the clown but finding none.

"I, Palpy, am Pennywise the Dancing Clown! Proud to make your acquaintance!" Sidious continued to probe and read him, seeking out any element of humanity or the Force, but again finding only silence.

"Do you need something from me?" Sidious asked, a cool stillness dominating his voice.

"I just wanna be friends. Aren't you my buddy?"

"Surely we can be friends," Sidious said calmly. "But first just tell me why you are here." Pennywise felt a pang of fear in Sidious, the Sith Lord being more cautious and calculating than the clown had hoped. Pennywise looked left and right.

"Can't we just talk?" he asked. Sidious chuckled.

"You must be here for a reason," Sidious said, his voice now more direct and frank. "What do you want from me?" Pennywise was unmoved by the Sith's insincerity. He began to jump up and down.

"Blah blah blah!" Pennywise shouted, then stuck out his tongue and made a farting sound. Sidious stared blankly as Pennywise began to skip around the room. "Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Hoo-hoo!" he shouted as carnival music blared through the room.

"Get out of here," Sidious said, the same menace that had consumed him before rising again to the surface.

"Kiss meh Palpy!" Pennywise shouted before dive-bombing onto the Sith and heaving a gigantic wet smooch. The hate in the Sith was delicious. He wondered if Sidious had ever before been so emasculated. The swelling of hot blood in the Sith's face suggested otherwise. "It's all just fun, even the sad bits, Palpy! Laugh a bit. I love your laugh!" Sidious raised his hand.

"Ooooooh!" Pennywise's high-pitch voice careened across the room as he allowed a surge of electricity knocked him backwards.

"What a waste," Palpatine said. "We could have been friends."

"You're relieved, aren't you?" Pennywise asked. Sidious stared at him. "Your Force chokey-pokey didn't work last time, didn't it?" Sidious's face contracted. "You're just glad your electric zippy-zappy worked. You didn't think it would."

"You're keen," Sidious said, his voice almost snapping. He let another surge of electricity tear through the clown."

"Woo woo woo woo wooooo!" Pennywise shrieked, his hair standing on end, half-knowing that Sidious was aware that it was an act. He writhed on the floor until eventually the electricity stopped. Pennywise uprighted himself and sat and smiled at the Sith, his goofy face-paint and hair singed and melted by the bolts. He licked his finger and dabbed out a small fire on his jumpsuit-leg. A few moments passed, then Sidious rattled a short final bolt through him sending him into a final shrieking spasm. The silence between them was horrific. Pennywise sat up, his head drooping towards the floor.

"You have no appreciation for camaraderie," Sidious said. Pennywise remained still. "It is perfectly natural for you to want to destroy me, but doing so will…" Sidious' words trailed into silence as Pennywise raised his head, his face now ashen, oblong, and frozen in a stoic solemnity. It was the face of a Muun. "You don't…" Sidious managed to stammer out.

"I have no appreciation for camaraderie, Sidious?" the Muun asked. Sidious limped a step backwards. "Tell me, Sidious, who was it who taught you all that you know? Who was it who wanted nothing more than to rule the galaxy by your side, freed from the necessity of hiding?"

"Please don't!" Sidious cried.

"Don't do what, Sidious?" Plagueis continued. "I have no intention of killing you, unlike the feelings you still harbor for me. I, for one, have transcended the physical world. It seems as though you are still its servant." Sidious' eyes hardened, though a palpable terror still abounded in them. Pennywise stepped towards Sidious, the Sith's hundreds of emotions tearing past each other in the clown's awareness. Sidious continued to back up, the animosity of a cornered animal rising within him.

"You failed, Plagueis," Sidious hissed. "You cannot rule a galaxy from beyond the grave. Power is for the living, not for those who forfeit their chances to inebriation and delusion. You kill me, and you kill the Sith order."

"I am not here to discuss politics, Sidious," Plagueis said. "I am here to talk sense into you."

"The ramblings of a senile dead man," Sidious replied. Pennywise watched the conflict between the Sith and his master. A wave of disillusionment came over Palpatine, the recognition that his steely, perpetual, premeditating cool had finally been broken issuing a feeling which overshadowed his already-powerful sense of bewilderment. Palpatine scrambled for words, but could find none, to the dismay of his natural gifts as a politician. "I- I-" Pennywise took another bold step towards the Sith, now literally backing him into a corner. Just attack me already - the thought stirred in the clown's mind. You did it before, do it again now.

"No," Sidious said. "You will not kill me." Pennywise took a final step towards the Sith Lord, now standing at arm's distance. The Muun façade contorted with anger as Pennywise projected just enough presence to send the sensation of intimidation, but not outright attack. Suddenly, the Muun was thrown back against the same wall as before, electricity once again flowing through him. "You will die!" Sidious exclaimed. "The Force chose me alone to rule the galaxy! I am the Sithari!" Plagueis writhed in agony as Pennywise allowed the wave of hurt felt by Sidious to circle back to himself, bearing the illusion that the Muun was actually hurt by the bolts. Emboldened, Sidious amplified the power of his attack, even exceeding the enormity he had first experienced when killing Plagueis more than a year previous. Pennywise was captivated by the Sith's feelings, the urge to hurt others for personal gain and empowerment coursed through Palpatine just as they did in the clown himself.

"Stop!" the Muun begged as the chords of light tore at his body. Pennywise felt lifted by the feelings, as the feelings of control and power surged through him through Palpatine.

"I am invincible!" Sidious exclaimed, allowing the syllables to ring out. The shared sensation lifted Pennywise, a feeling of total and absolute freedom gripping him. "I control life and death as you could not! I will rule everything!" Sidious yelled. A sense of disbelief struck Pennywise. All this power and that is what you choose to say? The Muun's eyes darkened. You have the freedom to say whatever you want, and you choose self-glorification at your highest moment? Palpatine's eyes watered with excitement, his hands trembling. Pennywise stood, the electric bolts loafing about his body and leaving no marks. The Sith's eyes retreated from their prominence.

A mumbling sound emanated from the Muun's face. Sidious paused and considered the gesture, the electricity fizzling into the æther. Pennywise beamed at the Sith, his Muun eyes carving his feelings into him just as well as words. Sidious held himself in an icy stillness rattled only by an internal uncertainty still overpowered by the fading euphoria. Pennywise raised his hand level to the ground, and in an instant, Sidious' back was smashed into the wall by an explosion of lightning even more powerful than his own. Pennywise paced to the left, his hand still raised. As another bolt surged forward, it was met by the reciprocating bolts emanating from Sidious, the two laces of luminescent power tangling with each other as if one single stationary bolt connecting the two. Their gazes met, their eyes dripping with tears as much from the brightness of the light as from their mutual unspoken emotions. Sidious' sense of self-importance only fueled the restlessness in Pennywise as the Muun still struggled to produce coherent syllables. As the ecstasy in the Sith began to wane, and fear again replaced it, he noticed the Muun appearing to grow in size, and the bolts emanating forth from the apparition swelling likewise. Soon Pennywise was crouching to keep his extended forehead from crashing against the chamber's ceiling, and Palpatine gave way to exhaustion against the torrent of power against him. Sidious became consumed within the bolts, almost invisible behind the huge sea of blinding radiance. Pennywise struggled to produce words, but worried that Sidious would soon be killed by the attack. The frustration only continued to amplify the blaze, Pennywise unable to hold back the need to oblige his fantasy.

A sudden darkness overtook Palpatine as the burning heat of electricity gave way to an emptiness. He felt for a moment as though he were falling, then floating. He looked around, his limbs flailing without resistance, seeing only a consuming vacuum about him. Plagueis was gone, as was his chamber. Is this death? he wondered. He yelled out into the void, the vane hope that someone would come to his rescue soon ruined by the creeping feeling that he had lost his sense of time. The Dark Lord continued to thrash gainlessly, unsure whether he had been there for mere moments or years. Racing thoughts of all he had accomplished - rising to Supreme Chancellorship, mastering the Dark Side, killing his master, revealing the Sith to the Jedi - all played in his mind, as did the fear that he had lost them forever, and the loss of all the power that that implied. The thousands of faces from within the Galactic Senate chamber mocked him in his memory as they were unable to save him from his plight. His fingers grasped at the void, searching for some substance to prove to him that he had not lost his power. From out of the darkness there echoed one word. "Alone."

"Hello!" Palpatine yelled, hoping the voice would answer. He continued flailing. "Help me!" There was no reply.

Anakin bolted upwards from his seat, the call for help compelling him to his feet.

"What is it, young Skywalker?" Master Windu asked, his voice bearing the same mild irritation it always bore when addressing the boy.

"Did you sense that?" Anakin asked.

"I only sense unease within you," Windu replied.

"I hear a cry for help, like someone's in agony," Anakin clarified.

"I sense nothing. Have a seat, padawan."

"We have to go find him!" Anakin implored. He wondered how a Jedi Master like Windu could fail to sense such a palpable plea.

"We will do no such thing. We will return to our studies," Windu said, projecting now thorough frustration with the boy, but far withheld from the fury the Jedi Master wished to project given the Council's decision to keep the boy within the Jedi Order.

"I can't believe you don't sense it," Anakin pleaded. "Aren't we supposed to place the safety of others above our own needs?" Windu glared fiercely at him. Anakin refused to let up, remaining silent before the master's stern gaze. Windu sighed.

"I will fetch Master Obi-Wan. You are to remain here." Anakin nodded. "Do not move." Windu exited the learning centre. Anakin complied, returning to is seat, and remaining there. He strained his feelings, searching for whose essence was calling out so urgently. He sensed an incredible fear, as if the universe itself was crying for rescue. He remained seated for a long time, patiently awaiting his master's presence. But an eternity seemed to pass, the call for help eating into the boy's conscience, and his master had yet to arrive. How could Windu not feel this? he asked himself. And even if he didn't, how could he let someone suffer like that when someone else senses it? He was reminded about his frigid feelings for Master Windu, and for the order itself. How can they guard peace and justice if they do things like this? His mother called to him from his memory, as did all his fellow slaves on Tatooine, as well as the memory of the Council's endless explanations as to why they could not be freed. The boy's eyebrows knitted.

Pennywise remained for hours, staring at the void where Palpatine once hung. His emotions echoed through the emptiness. A refreshing silence, absent of music accompanying his ears, enraptured him. "Alone." That word had been his, and that fact flustered him. After a long while, he looked down, but saw no clown jumpsuit. No arms, no body. He was the emptiness, and he let himself sink into the sensation. But the saxophone melody soon resumed, piercing the emptiness with its mournful jazz. That fucking Mia, the thought tore through his mind as he recognized the melody played by the little human girl.