Epilogue

Author's note: WOOOOOHOOOOO, I am finally back. Sorry that it took me more than half a year to write this, I was terminally busy during the last eight months. Now that I have returned to the land of the living and the fanfiction writers, I hope you like this definitely last instalment to my very own epic.

Disclaimer: I own neither Star Wars nor the Clone Wars, nor Sigmund Freud, the Supernanny, George Lucas, Justin Bieber, Stephenie Meyer, Ludwig van Beethoven, Moulin Rouge, the Simpsons, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary or anything else I might have forgotten to mention here.

oOo

After the grand parade and all the festivities in celebration of Naboo's liberation, the citizens of the recently freed planet mostly went back to restoring their planet to its former beauty, which the invasion by the Trade Federation had scratched off in some places. The Masters of the Jedi High Council retired to a conference room that had been placed at their disposal. The Queen retired to her quarters, accompanied by her handmaidens, because a change of clothes was long overdue. The newly elected Chancellor retired to his personal residence in Theed. He barely made it in time; just a few seconds longer and the insane, evil cackle he had been suppressing so far would have found its way out into the public even past his usually impenetrable Sith shields, and his image as the benevolent, grandfatherly new ruler of the Galaxy would be indelibly tarnished. Obi-Wan and Anakin went back to their room.

All of them, though, no matter who they were or where they retired to, spent a variable amount of time thinking during the afternoon – thinking about the Phantom Menace.

oOo

As soon as Chancellor Palpatine reached his lavishly furnished home in Theed, the mad cackle inexorably broke out of him. He was laughing at the stupidity of all these oh-so-wise high-and-mighty Jedi. He was practically taking over control right before their eyes, and they were so absorbed in staying serene and in the futile passive contemplation of the ever-darkening shadow that was growing in the Force – a shadow he, Darth Sidious, the most insidious and the most brilliant of evil masterminds since Sigmund Freud, the Supernanny or George Lucas, was the source of – that they never noticed what their greatest enemy was doing right beneath their lofty noses. But the entire order of Jedi were easily outclassed by a single Sith Lord as Justin Bieber was outclassed by Ludwig van Beethoven, as Stephenie Meyer was outclassed by Bram Stoker, as the Clone Wars Series was severely outclassed by the Star Wars Movies. Sidious only regretted that the Jedi would never be able to admire the ingenuity of his plans before they all died.

The Sith Lord's mad cackle only intensified when he thought about his recently deceased apprentice. Maul had been amusing, even useful, for a while. He had even managed to kill that nuisance Jinn, but he had shamefully failed with Kenobi, a mere Padawan! If Maul were not dead already, Sidious would have enjoyed killing his former apprentice himself for this disgusting failure. At least the appearance of Maul, however disappointingly short it might have been, would occupy the Jedi for a very long time indeed, and it would serve admirably to upset and unsettle the public, which was after all a major part of his plan.

These Jedi idiots probably even thought that Maul was the Phantom Menace. A more laughably stupid thing was hardly conceivable. Maul was blatantly malicious; he even looked evil at first glance. He could have been the Obvious Menace, but most definitely not the Phantom Menace. Still, Sidious was not willing to accept the title as his own. That would sound too much like he was some kind of creep hiding in the secret catacombs of some opera house, concealing his disfigured face behind a pathetic mask that covered only half his face. And while Sidious could accept spooking people, be it in an opera house or not, and he supposed he would even grow used to hiding in secret passageways and behind mirrors – after all, he was a master of stealth and furtiveness - he could not picture himself bursting into song all the time, and apparently that was mandatory for the classical phantom.

No, Sidious was definitely not the singing kind of Sith. His powerful, but occasionally raspy voice sounded much better proclaiming his Empire or enticing people to give in to their rage. Someone else must be that Phantom Menace. Sidious pondered this for a moment before deciding that, no matter how strange this might sound at first, it could only refer to the Jedi Order's newest Knight, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Although the Sith Lord didn't count the young Jedi as much of a menace – not even after what happened to Darth Maul – Obi-Wan inexplicably seemed more like the kind of man to start singing at short notice. Coming to think of it, his voice might actually make for very good singing, though Sidious had never heard him sing and probably never would.

Sidious considered this for a few moments longer. He even researched Kenobi on the holonet and in the Republic archives. There was not much – all of the truly useful information on any Jedi was highly classified, but as the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic that did not bother him much. Mostly, though, the Jedi stored the information on their members in their own, extensive archives, and apparently not even he had the clearance to access those.

Out of curiosity, Sidious picked one of the many acquaintances Kenobi had made on his numerous missions. The Duchess Satine of Mandalore must be more than a passing acquaintance since Kenobi and his Master had spent quite some time protecting her some years ago. She seemed to be a desirable woman: slender, blonde, exquisitely beautiful face – definitely the kind of woman that might make a man of the commensurate disposition sing songs to her. Maybe Kenobi sang only to Satine? The Sith Lord decided to ask her, should a convenient chance arrive. After all, it was not completely impossible that this Jedi would turn out a lot more dangerous to his plans than he might seem now, and it would not do to ignore a warning right at the start of his grab for power, no matter how ridiculous and far-fetched it seemed.

In his opinion, a truly evil Dark Sider always had to be ready to deal with anything as if it had been part of the original plan.

oOo

Padmé imagined something that was not so very far from what Palpatine had feared. As her handmaidens assisted her in changing her dress, her mind temporarily relocated to a dreamland of her own. She had once attended a musical that told about some kind of Phantom in an opera house, and that was the first thing that came to her mind when she had first heard about that Phantom Menace.

Now she was envisioning a similar story happening inside Theed Palace. She saw herself as the young, beautiful ruler of the planet who always presented a strong façade but who wanted someone to hold and protect her. She found that someone in the blue-eyed, red-haired Phantom who watched over her from the shadows, only daring to step out of his hiding place when she was alone, and they would sing the most beautiful songs together. A deep sigh escaped her at the idea of such a romantic, secret relationship.

Rabé rolled her eyes at Sabé as she heard that sigh.

"It seems My Lady is daydreaming about Padawan Gorgeous again," she remarked.

"It's Knight Gorgeous now, silly," Sabé rebuked her, playfully swatting at her shoulder.

Both handmaidens dissolved in giggles.

oOo

Once the members of the Jedi Council arrived at their temporary Council Chamber, Yoda immediately hobbled to his chair and climbed into it. With a deep sigh, he settled into the custom-made cushion of his Council chair, which remembered the contours of his backside exactly and thus gave it its special comfortableness. Yoda's feet hurt from standing on them for too long. He was no longer as sprightly and nimble at 900 years as he used to be in his youthful second century.

As he sat down, Yoda closed his eyes and his ears dropped. Whenever he adopted that posture, people usually assumed that he was deep in thought, contemplating the mysteries of the Force or meditating, when in reality, the plain truth was that Yoda dozed off. That was another disadvantage of growing old.

When Yoda woke up again after about two minutes of slumber, he cracked his eyes open and watched his fellow Councillors through heavy-lidded and barely open eyes. He was a bit worried because the title of this episode, this ominous Phantom Menace, implied that there was somewhere a threat they hadn't discovered yet. Once again, Yoda wondered if the Sith that had been killed was the Master or the Apprentice, and if either would be preferable. Still, Yoda did not think that the title referred to the Sith. That menace was plenty obvious by now, and Qui-Gon had known about it long before them. No, the Phantom Menace must be something they did not know about yet, something that must have emerged during the last few days.

There were quite a few new issues that had come to the Jedi Master's attention since Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had left for Naboo. For one, there was the young Queen, who had handled the whole Naboo debacle admirably and with not too many teenage tantrums, but in Yoda's opinion, the only one who was likely to term her a menace (though of course he would never do so openly) was a certain former Padawan who was being stalked by her.

Jar Jar Binks, Qui-Gon's penultimate pet project, however, seemed like a huge menace. He might not be consciously a menace, but that made him all the more dangerous because since he didn't have any, not even a Jedi could sense his bad intentions. Jar Jar was the kind of idiotic fool who would act as a stand-in for an important politician and make the exact proposal that said politician had worked very hard to prevent and that would prove fatal in the end. Still, to give something as pathetic and ludicrous as Jar Jar a title as ominous and threatening as "the Phantom Menace" was simply outrageous.

Yoda immediately discarded the idea of the title referring to Chancellor Palpatine. He seemed such a nice, benevolent, grandfatherly kind of man, even though Obi-Wan seemed to have taken an instant disliking to that man – even more than to the average politician. And he was not the only one: Master Windu had also voiced his concerns about their new Supreme Chancellor, although he couldn't say what bothered him about the man. No, Chancellor Palpatine did not seem like the kind of person to style himself totalitarian ruler of his own empire. Why would he be one, when he already was the leader of the whole Republic?

Anakin Skywalker, on the other hand…

Yoda still did not feel comfortable about that boy. His future was clouded, that much he could clearly see. Unfortunately, that was the only thing Yoda could clearly see about Anakin. His eyesight was also no longer what it used to be, apparently. Still, Yoda was quite fond of all the young initiates he had taught during his long lifetime, though of course he would never admit that. And Anakin looked actually quite cute, with his slightly dimpled cheeks, the huge, bright blue eyes, the sandy hair, even his slight pout could be quite charming. Had Anakin grown up inside the Jedi Temple, he would probably have been one of Yoda's favourite initiates.

Yoda never showed this affection for certain Jedi – except maybe that their shins got whacked a bit more frequently – but inside he had a soft spot for quite a few of his fellow Jedi. But unlike most of the children who grew up at the Temple, Anakin already had attachments, buried and potentially dangerous emotions and showed sometimes questionably warped morals. He was proud and defiant and rash and quick to anger. And yet, he was just a boy. So long as Obi-Wan made sure his Padawan didn't get involved too closely with, say, female Senators, and went to the Dark Side to protect this then pregnant Senator from some imaginary harm, everything should be alright.

Still, Yoda decided that Anakin would receive more than the average amount of shin-whacking, just to keep him from stumbling and falling. Despite (or maybe because of) all his senile wisdom, Yoda did not see the discrepancy in his last thought.

oOo

Phantom noun, adj

noun 1 a GHOST 2 a thing that exists only in your imagination

adj. [only before noun] 1 like a GHOST 2 existing only in your imagination

Obi-Wan closed the dictionary, deep in thought. His thoughts, too, circled incessantly around this Phantom Menace. The only one who seemed completely unworried was Anakin, who was probably too overwhelmed by the last few days to worry about anything that didn't concern him directly.

Obi-Wan had checked the exact meaning of the word "phantom". Although Qui-Gon had tried to break him of that habit, Obi-Wan could not stop worrying about the future. And this menace so dramatically described as having a phantom-like quality did not exactly promise a bright future. Still, there seemed to be less to that threat than everyone thought, if you looked behind the terribly gloomy and ominous sound at the actual meaning of the words.

The idea that the menace might actually in any way relate to a ghost was immediately discarded. Obi-Wan highly doubted the actual existence of ghosts – there has never been a verified appearance of one in the whole galaxy so far. Even if ghosts should, against all probability, exist after all, Obi-Wan did not think that something as insubstantial as a ghost could even as much as influence anything important, let alone actually do anything like help in the downfall of a government.

But that left only one other possibility: that this menace existed only in his imagination. Did that mean that he was going crazy and paranoid, along with all the other people in the galaxy? Then again, most people did not know the details of what had happened on this mission. To most people, the blockade and subsequent liberation of Naboo were but a footnote in history, unimportant and soon to be forgotten, and they didn't know about the re-emergence of the Sith, nor would they understand the implications if they did.

This Phantom Menace could not refer to the Sith he had fought, because this menace had certainly not been a ghost, and he had most positively been very real – no matter how much Obi-Wan wished that he weren't, because figments of his imagination would not have been able to kill Qui-Gon. So no matter how much Darth Maul had prided himself on his ominous-sounding soubriquet, it had not been his at all. Except if he should return as a ghost and thus become a threat (though a very insubstantial one) once again, Darth Maul could lay no claim to that title.

So this threatening person had to be someone else. Obi-Wan immediately discarded Anakin as a possible choice with quite a bad conscience because he had considered the possibility at all. After all, it was not as if the boy was intrinsically evil and would inescapably turn to the Dark Side, no matter what the nagging bad feeling might have to say about that. Anakin was friendly and curious and bright and always eager to help people. Admittedly he was also jealous, proud and possessive and had a quick temper, but he was a young boy who had grown up like a normal child and not within the strict and unnatural rigidness of the Jedi Temple, so he could not be compared to a Jedi Initiate of the same age. Anakin was still a child, he would surely learn to control his emotions, given time and guidance. If Anakin was a menace, then it could certainly only be in Obi-Wan's imagination and not in reality.

Chancellor Palpatine, on the other hand, was in a powerful enough position to become a very real and very dangerous threat. Obi-Wan imagined that he could dimly remember how the Supreme Chancellor had given him a disturbing leaflet, but the night after Qui-Gon's funeral had been the strangest of his life so far, and he didn't trust anything he remembered from that night. The Knight suspected that Qui-Gon's death had left him more unsettled than he liked to admit.

Or maybe the Phantom Menace was comparable to phantom pain. If phantom pains were perceptions relating to a limb or organ that was not physically part of the body, then perhaps a Phantom Menace was a threat caused by someone who was no longer physically present. That would be the perfect combination between both meanings of the word "phantom": an imagined threat from a ghost.

Obi-Wan had much greater difficulties in discarding this theory, because he kept imagining he could from time to time sense a faint echo of his Master's presence. Obi-Wan just hoped that this was simply caused by lack of sleep and the strain of the last few days, and that he was not really going crazy.

Indeed, after some rest, Obi-Wan did not have reason to doubt his sanity again until a fateful day some thirteen years later, when he unmistakably heard the voice of his long-deceased Master Qui-Gon Jinn as the thick end of the worst day of his life.

oOo

Some years later…

"Ah, Duchess Satine," Palpatine greeted the ruler of Mandalore with a gracious nod of his head.

"Chancellor Palpatine," the Duchess greeted in return with a graceful courtesy.

"I trust you had a pleasant journey?"

"Yes, my trip was quite uneventful," she reassured the Chancellor, who seemed not as perfectly pleased at these news as politeness dictated.

"Excellent," Palpatine said, pressing the fingertips of his right hand against those of his left while slightly hunching over his thus steepled fingers. For a second, his expression looked almost diabolical, but it was replaced with the usual worried but benevolent mask the Chancellor never seemed to have taken off since the beginning of the war almost immediately.

"Chancellor, I came to talk to you because of the unrest on Mandalore –"

Satine was rather surprised when the Supreme Chancellor silenced her with a gesture.

"Yes, Duchess, certainly. Say, I believe you are acquaintance with Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, aren't you?" Palpatine enquired.

Satine was a bit baffled by that question, but her political training kept her from showing that surprise. "Yes, your Excellency. Your information is correct. Quite a few years ago, when Master Kenobi was still a Padawan, he and his Master Qui-Gon Jinn were assigned to protect me," she warily offered.

"Say, Duchess, if I may be so bold to ask – did Master Kenobi ever sing to you?"

This time, despite all her political training, the bewilderment showed clearly on the face of Duchess Satine.

oOo

Author's note: Now that I am back, I hope you can expect another (though much shorter) story in the near future. I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes with my comments about Justin Bieber, Stephenie Meyer or the Clone Wars Series. I just used it to make clear how one part of my example is a real classic and the other one – is not.

Also, I was absolutely appalled when I first heard the name of Duchess Satine. I mean, it's apparently not enough that that woman looks as much like Nicole Kidman as the strange angular cartoon characters allow. But to give her the name of Nicole Kidman's part in the movie "Moulin Rouge", the courtesan who falls in love with Ewan McGregor's part just about beats it. First of all, I feel like they tried to insult my intelligence, and secondly, shouldn't there be a copyright law to prevent such obvious copying of characters, names and all? It seems like George Lucas just created an angular version of Nicole Kidman, gave her a fancy title and put her in his series. Pretty pathetic, if you ask me.

So for all those who did not get my jokes in this last chapter, the movie "Moulin Rouge" is kind of a musical, where Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor actually do sing quite a lot (and none too bad, either).

As for this story, I regret to announce this is the end:

The End

You have to imagine these words in bold, brightly yellow letters floating through space, and not only do they signify the end of this story but they will someday crash into the first Death Star, causing it to explode and thus cement Luke's reputation as a pilot as skilled and daring as his father once was.

Besides, there's nothing like quoting Bilbo when it comes to announcing the end. Although he's just a Hobbit with no idea of the universe I'm talking about, he does have a certain flair when it comes to goodbyes, doesn't he?

I would like to thank everyone who stayed with me this long. I especially would like to thank everyone who left a review or sent me a word, but I also appreciate all the readers who didn't find the time or the right words to review. You rock, all of you!

Besides, this story is fully edited. In case I missed any mistakes, please feel free to point them out and I will do my best to straighten them out. Also, I put all the extremely long words back in that this page somehow threw out; I hope they stayed in this time. If you get the impression that there is a word missing somewhere, please also notify me so that I can put it back in (maybe slightly modified, so that it doesn't get thrown out again).

I would like to say that no matter how old this story is when you read it and which year it is, please feel free to leave a review. If it is signed, I guarantee that I will reply to it at length (probably at more length that you would have wished for). If you liked this story, I made you laugh, you have some criticism to offer or just feel like you want to make an author who loves reviews happy, please leave me a short note. Reviews are the only kind of payment authors on this site will ever receive, and they can be worth so much more than just impersonal money could ever be.

Thanks to everyone who read this!