The Choice of Death/Story

It all came down to this. The Jedi had finally found the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, disguised as none other than Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. He had put up a fight, but now he lay on the windowsill, beaten and wrinkled, held at Mace Windu's lightsaber. Mace was determined to put an end to the Sith threat, but was now irked due to Anakin Skywalker appearing on the scene. He had told the young Jedi knight to stay at the temple, for fear that Anakin's loyalty to the Chancellor would interfere with business. Now, Mace Windu stood prepared to kill Darth Sidious. It was against the Jedi Code to kill a defenseless opponent, but considering the Sith Master's trickery, there might not even be a Jedi Code if he was left alive. Anakin was protesting against it, but Mace knew the boy would understand eventually.

Anakin was torn. He fully understood the threat that the Sith posed, and knew he should have been glad that they were going to be extinguished, even if it was his friend that was being killed. Yet, recently, Anakin had begun to wonder if the Sith were all that bad. Weren't they simply serving their morals, like the Jedi were? And while the Jedi were enmeshed in tradition, sometimes oblivious to what was going on, the Sith were not afraid of change. Who was the true villain here? As Mace leapt to deal the finishing blow, Anakin also leapt...and then stopped. The Sith were the true corrupt ones, weren't they? Ultimately, they only served selfish purposes and nothing else. The Jedi had many problems, sure, but Anakin swore then to spend the remainder of his life trying to change the Order. When he looked up, he saw the Sith Master, once his friend, impaled. Mace was breathing heavily. "It's over, Anakin," he said. "The phantom menace has ended." Anakin said nothing.