I have a very strange Master (Star Wars/SI) EPI-EPII
- Thread starter shadenight123
- Start date
Judging by the quote, yes, Ahsoka, that is what he meant.
Glad that I decided to Google that, since it sounded like a quote.
Oh I am slain!
Wynaut?
- Location
- Tatooine
D'awwww. Mentors live for this kind of affirmation.
Mentors also live for this kind of trolling.
I gotta say, perhaps my favorite part of this story is that an ending has actually been planned. It's quite common for fanfics, especially on SV, to go on and on and keep escalating as the author gets too attached to the story. "Let it go~" indeed.
Quadhelix
Professional Windmill Hunter
I don't know if the author is following this interpretation, but IIRC, canonically, the "Balance" in the force has nothing to to with a balance between Light Side and Dark Side -- rather, the Dark Side is itself an imbalance in the Force. Bringing Balance to the Force, then, does not mean a genocide of the Jedi but rather an end to the Sith.
That's one theory. The Je'daii Order, on the other hand, disagree.
Personally, I've always liked the idea that the Dark Side is like a cancer on the force, though. Still, it's a shame that the Jedi Order wasn't wiped out. I feel that it was better under Luke. Well, maybe Anakin and a few like-minded individuals can go make their own order, or join the Green Jedi, or something.
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Oh I am slain!
Wynaut?
- Location
- Tatooine
...Bogan. Gotta love the names writers come up with.
I don't like this...
don't get me wrong, this has been an excellent story up till now, and I even understood him wanting to cut himself off AFTER the war(which I thought to mean after Palpy and his cronies had been delt with)....but it sounds like he gave up on the fight against the Dark Side, and I may be wrong here, but it sounds like a Cop Out.
We all have the capacity for darkness, I should know, I have an Anger that frightens myself at times... You have to get up and keep going, because you are always gonna deal with that, and don't leave the fate of the galaxy in the hands of Palpy!
again, he may be planning to kill the two without his Force Powers, but how the hell would he do that?
and one more thing, this has solidified one lesson; if they call themselves a Jedi Council, DO NOT TRUST THEM!
this has been fun, and I wish you the best on future projects, but you've lost me on this one.
don't get me wrong, this has been an excellent story up till now, and I even understood him wanting to cut himself off AFTER the war(which I thought to mean after Palpy and his cronies had been delt with)....but it sounds like he gave up on the fight against the Dark Side, and I may be wrong here, but it sounds like a Cop Out.
We all have the capacity for darkness, I should know, I have an Anger that frightens myself at times... You have to get up and keep going, because you are always gonna deal with that, and don't leave the fate of the galaxy in the hands of Palpy!
again, he may be planning to kill the two without his Force Powers, but how the hell would he do that?
and one more thing, this has solidified one lesson; if they call themselves a Jedi Council, DO NOT TRUST THEM!
this has been fun, and I wish you the best on future projects, but you've lost me on this one.
asdx
Superior Sword Fairy
- Location
- Texas.
Or perhaps it's just a ruse.
and it may be, I said as much in my post, but I still don't like it...
I may check out the next chapter, but I don't know.
I explained in my post why he isolated himself from the Force, or what Shade's interpretation of how Force works from his Bond Breaker story.
The Exile showed how well being cut off from the Force by the Council works in the long run, which is to say: It doesn't.
We'll see I suppose.
We'll see I suppose.
Wookiepedia's entry on the Choosen One actually has quotes from an interview with Lucas where he describes the Dark Side as just like a cancer, while the Light Side is a symbiote. And then it says he basically contradicted that idea in his commentary on the TCW DVDs.
Delusionist
Seeker of Truth
- Location
- Land of the Fruits and Nuts
If Lucas is inconsistent, we can't use anything he says as definitive truth.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
It seemed pretty balanced to me.
After Anakin went Vader, there were like 2 Jedi and two Sith. Rather than like 5 Sith and several thousand Jedi.
After Anakin went Vader, there were like 2 Jedi and two Sith. Rather than like 5 Sith and several thousand Jedi.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
[Torgue] EXPLOOOOOSSSIOONS? [/Torgue]
Elî elî lamâ švaqtan.
Learn your parables better.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When the shuttle landed on the platform of the Coruscant spaceport, Ahsoka remained by Senator Amidala's side until Knight Skywalker came to relieve her, with a sad and embittered expression which told her everything she needed to know about just how many people knew of her Master -no, Ex-Master- Shade's decision to leave the Temple behind. Knight Skywalker didn't tell her anything more than to report to the temple, and Ahsoka would have obeyed, if only Mister Fluffles hadn't chosen that moment to act up and start to walk towards a completely different direction.
"That's not the way to the temple, Snips," Skywalker pointed out as soon as she began to follow the Cat-Like Hallucination.
"I'm doing an important Force Technique, Skyguy," Ahsoka retorted. "It will help me find Master...well, it will help me find Night."
"He's already off world," Anakin replied. "He took the first shuttle and was out of Coruscant by the end of the night. He didn't even stop to say goodbye, so I don't think he's still around now, days after the fact."
Ahsoka crinkled her nose. "Then," she said, "It seems you don't know my master as well as I do. He'd never leave like that, and he'd never do something like this for no reason at all."
"Oh, he had all the reasons in the world," Anakin said. "Obi-Wan told me he chose it because he couldn't trust himself with the Force. He saw him fall, Snips, and even if he came back, it was nothing but temporary at best. He knew it. The High Council knew it. They acted on it," Anakin had faint traces of bitterness in his voice. "And knowing all that, he didn't even tell us."
Ahsoka rolled her eyes as she placed a hand right next to her hip, "Well, I'm sorry if you're the type who plays the paladin straight-faced and can't see beneath the underneath, but I played the Bard. I know how he thinks better than you. This is clearly a case of fake-death."
Anakin recoiled as if struck. He shook his head, letting his right hand pass through his hair. Padme looked at both Jedi, and smiled with a rueful look. "I think I can reach the Senate by myself," she said in the end. "Why don't you go with her, Anakin? I can see it's eating you up inside," the Senator added. Ahsoka looked at the senator in surprised, but was even more surprised when the Jedi Knight nodded, and took her side.
"Let's go," Anakin said. Ahsoka raised an eyebrow, but nodded before bowing primly to the Senator.
"Follow me, Knight Skywalker," Ahsoka said, and rushed off behind Mister Fluffles, who seemed keener and keener on hurrying up as if afraid he'd be late for some very important tea time. As Ahsoka nimbly dashed past the crowd with Anakin hot on her heels, she watched as Mister Fluffles dashed past the security checkpoints and into the deeper corners of the spaceport, heading out of its way to take the most cranky and forgotten passages it could find.
Ahsoka would have dropped the chase had it been just any cat, but it was Mister Fluffles, and she knew that if he worked anything like the Cheshire Cat, then it would guide her where she subconsciously knew her Master was. A lot of things made sense, when taken into the proper context. The Cat was just a way for the brain to represent an extra point of focus, like a third limb, or a fourth or sixth one. Her Master had nine lightsabers because he was capable of that much, but she suspected there was more than met the eye to the Alice in Wonderland theory. After all, if she had defeated the Mad Alice, where did that leave her Master? Was he a Mad Alice too? Had he been thrown into Wonderland himself?
There were small flashes of insight running through her brains, as things instinctively felt right or wrong to her as she thought it through. He had said he'd taken the book as a metaphor for the fact that everyone was mad, but what if he had taken it as a mean to signal his actual state of being?
Furthermore, Alice in Wonderland and The Lord of the Rings were very old books, who had come back from the far away corners of time and space because an anonymous person had decided to rewrite them -and the Lord of the Rings had been rewritten in all of its former glory, with all of its thousand of pages, by an author who had read it 'just that once, and then, nevermore'.
Somehow, the fact the first copy was in the Jedi Temple clicked into way more than just a coincidence, and she was sure that if she had checked it thoroughly, she would have pretty much found out the real author, or well, the one who had written it back, as her Master.
"Ahsoka, wait!" Anakin blurted out, and she stopped before falling down a shaft that opened up just round the corner. So lost in thoughts she had been, that she hadn't even seen it. Then again, Mister Fluffles had jumped straight through the shaft that seemed to lead into the bellows of Coruscant.
Ahsoka didn't wait once she realized that. Anakin half-cursed behind her, but soon jumped down and kept following her. "I know what I'm doing!" she exclaimed, "Just trust me!"
"Where are we going anyway!?" Anakin asked once they landed down a few levels beneath the Spaceport's lowest levels. The air was thick and humid, drenched with the smell of fuel and oil. There was oily, black tar hanging from the walls and a few service droids buzzed about in the stinky small corridors.
"I'm following Mister Fluffles," Ahsoka replied, "He always knows where Master Shade is."
"Mister...Fluffles?" Anakin asked, his voice filled with disbelief.
Ahsoka bit the inner side of her cheek and looked sideways. "Look," she said, "He's not really a cat. I just see him as a cat. He's an Akul, it's like this big beast-"
"I know what an Akul is," Anakin retorted. "So we are following a cat sized Akul?"
"More like a cat who can turn into an Akul," Ahsoka replied. "And Master Shade had a similar cat, he called it the Cheshire-"
"I know," Anakin said. "I saw him once or twice when he used the Force heavily. Strangest thing ever, how does a cat even have purple stripes?"
"Well, mine's orange," Ahsoka said.
Anakin didn't reply. Ahsoka shot him a gaze as if to challenge him to say something of her color palette choice for her cat, but when he didn't say anything else, she realized it was because he had stopped and was gazing ahead with a half-empty gaze. Ahsoka blinked, and raised an eyebrow in perplexity.
When the Jedi Knight began to move again, he had already lit his lightsaber and taken on a defensive posture in front of her. "Can't you feel it?" he hissed. Ahsoka frowned. No, she couldn't feel it. She had no idea what there was to feel, because she wasn't feeling anything.
She did lit her lightsaber and turn the corner following Mister Fluffles, this time more alert than before, but what met her eyes wasn't what she had expected to find.
There was no Master Shade. There was, however, a putrid stench covered by the smell of fuel and oil from what looked like the carcass of a giant, slobbering mess of rotten flesh. Knight Skywalker neared it, lightsaber drawn, but the carcass didn't move.
"W-What is it?" Ahsoka asked.
"A Taozin," Anakin said. "I thought this place looked familiar," he whispered. "Master Shade came down here once with a few other Masters to hunt a Taozin. I-I didn't think about it until now, but," he neared the fallen beast, his lightsaber deactivated. "The Taozin is renowned for its invisibility to the Force. Master Shade said that anyone who had a Taozin nodule could hide his presence near perfectly from the Force," Anakin looked at the fallen beast, which hadn't just been killed, but also smashed apart by heavy, blunt trauma -truly a sign that her Master had been there, there was no doubt about it.
Ahsoka looked at Mister Fluffles, who was meowing loudly from where the hacked apart corpse was. "There's not a single nodule left," Anakin mumbled in thought, "It's like someone ransacked the entire corpse."
"Do you think," Ahsoka began, "That...there's something we're missing?"
"Well, Master Shade...Night, if he were to wear that many nodules on his person, he'd probably appear utterly invisible to anyone, even you."
"But Master Yoda said-" Ahsoka began, only to hesitate. "You think Master Yoda lied?"
"Maybe he didn't have to," Anakin pointed out. "Night, he used to say that there was a distinctive difference between being a wound in the Force and having a lack of the Force. I suppose I should have paid more attention when he explained that, but memory was never my strength."
Ahsoka rounded up on Anakin, teeth bared. "You're telling me the Jedi High Council lied to everyone and hid my Master because they couldn't...they couldn't sever his connection to the Force?"
"I'm not saying that. They'd never do something that underhanded," Anakin pointed out. "It's the Jedi we are talking about."
"Sacrifice the few to save the many," Ahsoka shot back, "But...but if you have to sacrifice few to save many, then why not try to save many few?" she looked up at Anakin, who looked back at her with a hard to read expression.
"If you need to start sacrificing people in order to get things to go your way," Anakin said abruptly, stepping away from the corpse, "Then ensure you are the first in line for the sacrifice, lest you become a hypocrite with no worth."
It was then that Anakin's eyes widened. "What if-What if he wants to kill Dooku?!"
Ahsoka gasped, and shook her head as firmly as she could. "Why would he?! He sent us to make peace talks!"
"Well, why else would he need to disappear from the Force then!?"
"Kill one to stop the war," Ahsoka said, much to Anakin's surprise. "Through the Bond, I...I knew he could have avoided the war," she looked downcast, even as she felt the look of disbelief of the Jedi Knight morph into a scowl of anger.
"What?!" Anakin yelled, and his voice echoed through the corridor.
"He beat himself over it!" Ahsoka snapped back, looking straight up at Anakin with her fists clenched, lightsaber forgotten and silently put back on her belt. "He didn't want to do, and he knew he could have stopped the war from ever happening if he killed a single person!"
"So...he's going to kill Dooku," Anakin whispered in disbelief. "Right when he's coming to Coruscant to make peace. He-He didn't let go of his anger at all, did he?!"
"No, no, that's impossible," Ahsoka replied. "He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't."
"I know this must look impossible, but see the facts, Ahsoka!" Anakin shot out. "We need to warn the...wait," Anakin passed a hand over his forehead. "The Council knew, the Council knew and accepted this!" he snarled. "We can't go to the Council with this!" he looked around in disbelief. "Night is going to kill Dooku and the Council agreed it had to be done! Ahsoka, we have to go speak with the Chancellor immediately! The Jedi are planning to boycott the peace talks!"
Ahsoka's eyes could only widen that much before they bugged out of her sockets, and as the thought crossed her mind, Ahsoka quickly denied it. "No," she said. "We can't. We should speak with the Council first. They-"
"They must have been corrupted by the war," Anakin said. "We need to see the Chancellor. He can appoint bodyguards, have the Jedi Council answer for what is going on-"
"No!" Ahsoka snapped back, "What about Master Shade?!"
"If he's just following orders, then he won't be punished, I'll ask the Chancellor-"
"You'll ask the Chancellor?" Ahsoka deadpanned. "Knight Skywalker-Anakin, no. We have to put our trust in the Jedi Council. They know what they're doing. They-We, are Jedi. We use the Force never to harm or attack, only to defend."
Anakin clenched his right hand, and looked at her with both eyes suddenly narrow. Ahsoka felt a pang of worry cross through her mind. "If not the Council," Ahsoka continued, "Then...do you trust Master Shade at least?" she asked in a soft tone, and that broke through whatever thought process the Jedi Knight had been going through.
"I-" Anakin began, and hesitated, "I do."
"Then do you truly think he'd be capable of doing such a thing?" Ahsoka continued. "Do you think he'd go along with what you think the Council wants? Do you think he'd be capable of this, even after all his desire to see peace?"
"He could have lied. He could have lied to let the war keep up, to avoid losing his powers, to-"
"He does not want his powers!" Ahsoka blurted out. "He wants peace! He dislikes being subjected to the Forces' whims! I know! I'm his padawan, I shared his burdens, I know what he truly thinks!" she had brought a hand to her chest, and was looking at the Knight with a look of utter sadness. "Do you truly think the man you know would do something like this? Do you really not trust him at all?"
"What's there to trust in someone who flat out disappeared!?" Anakin yelled back. "What's there to trust in someone who tells you he'll be there for you and then goes away!? What's there to trust in someone who made you lose the person you loved!?" he raised his right fist. "How can I trust someone who didn't even trust me with his thoughts!?"
"But he trusted me with his," Ahsoka whispered. "So at least, please, trust me."
"I don't even know you all that well," Anakin said. "For all I know, you could be in cahoots with him."
"What! You've got to be kidding me!" Ahsoka blurted out. "That's not true!"
"Well, you played the Bard, didn't you? The class that bluffs and cheats its way out of trouble!" Anakin looked at her in a new light, and Ahsoka was starting to feel unease. There was something wrong going on in there, and she didn't know if it was the place, the corpse, or the feeling of the Dark Side that-the feeling of the Dark Side?
"Anakin, we have to leave," Ahsoka whispered harshly. "There's something wrong in here."
Anakin looked at her. He looked at her and then grabbed his lightsaber, turning it on. "So that you can stab me in the back?"
"Anakin!" Ahsoka said, taking a step back as her lightsaber came right up to block a strike aimed at her head, not even at her hand. "What are you doing!?" the Knight didn't seem to be listening to her any longer, so keen he was in attacking her.
Ahsoka ducked under a swipe of the blue blade, and tried to strike back only for the Knight to easily swat the lightsaber away with his own. The man in front of her was a Jedi Knight, one trained in the arts far longer than she had ever been, and while he was no Asaji Ventress, he was probably stronger than her, especially at such short range.
"Traitors, the lot of you!" Anakin snarled, "All of you-All of you Jedi!"
"You're a Jedi too!" Ahsoka snapped back, trying to jump back and instead being forced down on one knee from the furious swipes of Anakin's blue lightsaber. "Stop this now! I don't want to hurt you!"
"Well, that's a pity. Because I want to," Anakin snarled, using the Force with his free hand to send her to crash against the Taozin's carcass, pushing her body through its organs and slamming her into the depths of the beast. Ahsoka gagged as she began to choke in the rotten flesh, trying to gasp for an exit that was precluded to her by a shining lightsaber coming for her heart. She pushed on the rotten flesh with her bare hands, and as she covered her body in it, the blow struck back, sending sparks to fly.
Uh.
The Taozin had really hard skin -lightsaber resistant skin.
Mister Fluffles roared then, charging at Anakin from the side and tackling him off from his position of power, giving enough time for Ahsoka to catch her breath and stand back up on the mountain of rotten flesh that wobbled beneath her feet.
"Can't you see there's something wrong going on here?!" Ahsoka snarled. "Come back to your senses, before I slam a lightsaber where the sun doesn't shine!" she quickly recovered her lightsaber and lit them both in her hands as Mister Fluffles growled, even as his Akul-like hands could barely hold back Anakin, who seemed to be growing more incensed with each passing second.
With a stab of his lightsaber, the Jedi Knight freed himself from Mister Fluffles' force grip, making the giant cat disappear in a plum of smoke to reappear behind Ahsoka, wounded but not beaten. Ahsoka winced at the phantom pain, but clutched her lightsaber tighter. She wasn't her Master, and she didn't have nine lightsabers, but she could still use Mister Fluffles to at least hold Knight Skywalker back.
"I see it will take a personal intervention to end this," a female voice purred in the air, and Ahsoka's eyes snapped to the side of Anakin's face, where a hooded figure stood -nothing more than a phantom, nothing more than a ghost, nothing more than a whisper in the wind...nothing more than a ritual in the Force.
Mother Talzin. The knowledge flowed through Ahsoka as if it had always been there, but merely kept hidden until required. Her Master had given it to her with Mister Fluffles, and in the end she hadn't understood until that precise moment what it meant to actually 'have' a Cheshire Cat. Each question she had, she just needed to ask her cat, not the Cheshire one.
Anakin Skywalker was being controlled through a ritual of the Dark Side of the Force. The how was unimportant. Well, no, it was...but only if-
Ahsoka needed a nodule from the beast.
They couldn't all be gone now, could they?
She needed to find a nodule from the beast while Knight Skywalker tried to kill her.
"Now do we kill her?" a female voice growled as it came from one of two lithe females by his side.
Scratch her last thought. Knight Skywalker, mind-whammed into being a moron who was all Dark Side and two assassins were trying to kill her.
...
Two assassins who both lit green lightsabers.
To say that Ahsoka Tano felt dread was an understatement.
But Ahsoka Tano wasn't a paladin.
She was a Jedi.
She was a Jedi, and she was a Bard.
She was a Jedi, she was a Bard, and she was standing on the corpse of a lightsaber resistant beast.
"I have the high ground!" Ahsoka snarled, putting a foot behind the other and holding herself as if ready for a final stand. "So come and get me."
Knight Skywalker charged with a fearsome roar, fury the only thing left in his Force-affected brain -and Ahsoka smiled as she made a small jump back and used the force to lift the shattered skin of the beast before pulling him 'under the sheets' and dropping the challengers from three to two.
Instead of jumping back again, Ahsoka charged forward, and as her robes covered in Taozin blood dripped around her, she unclasped and threw them to temporarily blind one of the two assassins. The other sprung her lightsaber, and their blades met in a shower of sparks before the previous assassin emerged from behind the cloak with fury in her eyes, using her lightsaber to cut through it.
A dagger came from thin air from that side, but Ahsoka spun, using the Nightsister's back to pirouette out of the way, before kicking her in the back and sending her to tumble and fall against her sister.
"Karis and Naa'leth," Ahsoka said as she spun, lightsabers both drawn. How did she know their names? Did it even matter?
Knowledge is power. Guard it well.
Ahsoka took shallow breaths as she kept her eyes trained on the two Nightsisters, who had halted in surprise at Ahsoka muttering her name, but soon began to circle her like prey. Using the reverse grip on her right hand, she rushed forward with a battle cry, aiming at Karis. The woman nimbly lowered herself to avoid the overhead swipe as behind Ahsoka's back Naa'leth arrived with her lightsaber drawn. Mister Fluffles' tail whipped at her leg and threw her off balance, making the lightsaber clutter on the ground and end up in the Akul's invisible hand the next instant. Lightsaber an inch away from the woman's neck, Ahsoka returned her concentration to the woman in front of her who had meanwhile stood back on her feet, and held the lightsaber in one hand as she would a sword.
But a sword was not a lightsaber.
Ahsoka knew it.
The woman in front of her did not.
When the Nightsister from Dathomir came at her with her lightsaber drawn into a downward swing, expecting to meet resistance, Ahsoka side-stepped the blow, deactivating her blade, and then lit it back once past her guard.
"Now, drop the weapon," Ahsoka said softly, and in her voice the Force carried power, and in that power, the Nightsister snarled as her fingers twitched, obeying the command.
From behind her, she heard Mister Fluffles' issue a meowing warning, but all she could do was turn and look at Knight Skywalker having dug his way out of the Taozin's carcass. In that moment of distraction, the Nightsister she was holding at lightsaber point punched her in the stomach and sent her to crash against a wall, covering her clothes in tar and leaked oils of various -probably cancerous to boot- nature.
Ahsoka groaned as the Nightsisters made themselves scarce in the depths of Coruscant.
"Ouch," Anakin groaned, a fleshy, pulsing nodule of sorts in his hand. "Urgh. What is going on?"
"Don't drop it Skyguy!" Ahsoka snapped at him, earning herself a shocked look from Anakin. "Seriously! What sort of Chosen One are you if you can't even fight off some Dark Side influence!? What are you, a Paladin or a Chaotic Neutral Bard having fun at night in a whorehouse!?"
"I-I don't know what...what took me over," Anakin mumbled, hissing softly. "My head's killing me."
"I should be the one doing the killing," Ahsoka snapped back. "You nearly beheaded me!"
"Nearly doesn't mean I did," Anakin hazarded. "So," he winced. "I think...we can...head back to the temple?"
"Not the Chancellor?" Ahsoka remarked dryly.
"No," Anakin whispered. "I-I think I will put my trust in the Jedi Council," he added. "Night would have wanted that."
"He'd want that," Ahsoka corrected him. Anakin gave her a puzzled gaze. "He's still alive, and he's probably still around."
"How can you say that?" Anakin asked, still massaging his forehead and removing sticky bits of entrails from his hair -but clutching the Nodule firmer with his left hand.
"I no longer feel him," Ahsoka replied as the duo began to carefully make their way out. "But his knowledge is still flowing, and this means..."
"This means that he's still a Jedi," Anakin whispered. "And that the council didn't sever his connection."
Ahsoka nodded. "It also means," she remarked, "That I will punch him when I next meet him for keeping me in the dark about this."
Anakin smiled. "Can I get a turn too?"
"Sure," Ahsoka grinned. "After all, punching someone you care about is a clearly defining trait of the Tsundere."
Anakin's humiliated groan made the fact he had nearly tried to kill her -even if brainwashed by some dark ritual of sorts- suddenly feel lighter. She'd just annoy him a bit more, like, for a few decades, before finally feeling vindicated enough.
When the shuttle landed on the platform of the Coruscant spaceport, Ahsoka remained by Senator Amidala's side until Knight Skywalker came to relieve her, with a sad and embittered expression which told her everything she needed to know about just how many people knew of her Master -no, Ex-Master- Shade's decision to leave the Temple behind. Knight Skywalker didn't tell her anything more than to report to the temple, and Ahsoka would have obeyed, if only Mister Fluffles hadn't chosen that moment to act up and start to walk towards a completely different direction.
"That's not the way to the temple, Snips," Skywalker pointed out as soon as she began to follow the Cat-Like Hallucination.
"I'm doing an important Force Technique, Skyguy," Ahsoka retorted. "It will help me find Master...well, it will help me find Night."
"He's already off world," Anakin replied. "He took the first shuttle and was out of Coruscant by the end of the night. He didn't even stop to say goodbye, so I don't think he's still around now, days after the fact."
Ahsoka crinkled her nose. "Then," she said, "It seems you don't know my master as well as I do. He'd never leave like that, and he'd never do something like this for no reason at all."
"Oh, he had all the reasons in the world," Anakin said. "Obi-Wan told me he chose it because he couldn't trust himself with the Force. He saw him fall, Snips, and even if he came back, it was nothing but temporary at best. He knew it. The High Council knew it. They acted on it," Anakin had faint traces of bitterness in his voice. "And knowing all that, he didn't even tell us."
Ahsoka rolled her eyes as she placed a hand right next to her hip, "Well, I'm sorry if you're the type who plays the paladin straight-faced and can't see beneath the underneath, but I played the Bard. I know how he thinks better than you. This is clearly a case of fake-death."
Anakin recoiled as if struck. He shook his head, letting his right hand pass through his hair. Padme looked at both Jedi, and smiled with a rueful look. "I think I can reach the Senate by myself," she said in the end. "Why don't you go with her, Anakin? I can see it's eating you up inside," the Senator added. Ahsoka looked at the senator in surprised, but was even more surprised when the Jedi Knight nodded, and took her side.
"Let's go," Anakin said. Ahsoka raised an eyebrow, but nodded before bowing primly to the Senator.
"Follow me, Knight Skywalker," Ahsoka said, and rushed off behind Mister Fluffles, who seemed keener and keener on hurrying up as if afraid he'd be late for some very important tea time. As Ahsoka nimbly dashed past the crowd with Anakin hot on her heels, she watched as Mister Fluffles dashed past the security checkpoints and into the deeper corners of the spaceport, heading out of its way to take the most cranky and forgotten passages it could find.
Ahsoka would have dropped the chase had it been just any cat, but it was Mister Fluffles, and she knew that if he worked anything like the Cheshire Cat, then it would guide her where she subconsciously knew her Master was. A lot of things made sense, when taken into the proper context. The Cat was just a way for the brain to represent an extra point of focus, like a third limb, or a fourth or sixth one. Her Master had nine lightsabers because he was capable of that much, but she suspected there was more than met the eye to the Alice in Wonderland theory. After all, if she had defeated the Mad Alice, where did that leave her Master? Was he a Mad Alice too? Had he been thrown into Wonderland himself?
There were small flashes of insight running through her brains, as things instinctively felt right or wrong to her as she thought it through. He had said he'd taken the book as a metaphor for the fact that everyone was mad, but what if he had taken it as a mean to signal his actual state of being?
Furthermore, Alice in Wonderland and The Lord of the Rings were very old books, who had come back from the far away corners of time and space because an anonymous person had decided to rewrite them -and the Lord of the Rings had been rewritten in all of its former glory, with all of its thousand of pages, by an author who had read it 'just that once, and then, nevermore'.
Somehow, the fact the first copy was in the Jedi Temple clicked into way more than just a coincidence, and she was sure that if she had checked it thoroughly, she would have pretty much found out the real author, or well, the one who had written it back, as her Master.
"Ahsoka, wait!" Anakin blurted out, and she stopped before falling down a shaft that opened up just round the corner. So lost in thoughts she had been, that she hadn't even seen it. Then again, Mister Fluffles had jumped straight through the shaft that seemed to lead into the bellows of Coruscant.
Ahsoka didn't wait once she realized that. Anakin half-cursed behind her, but soon jumped down and kept following her. "I know what I'm doing!" she exclaimed, "Just trust me!"
"Where are we going anyway!?" Anakin asked once they landed down a few levels beneath the Spaceport's lowest levels. The air was thick and humid, drenched with the smell of fuel and oil. There was oily, black tar hanging from the walls and a few service droids buzzed about in the stinky small corridors.
"I'm following Mister Fluffles," Ahsoka replied, "He always knows where Master Shade is."
"Mister...Fluffles?" Anakin asked, his voice filled with disbelief.
Ahsoka bit the inner side of her cheek and looked sideways. "Look," she said, "He's not really a cat. I just see him as a cat. He's an Akul, it's like this big beast-"
"I know what an Akul is," Anakin retorted. "So we are following a cat sized Akul?"
"More like a cat who can turn into an Akul," Ahsoka replied. "And Master Shade had a similar cat, he called it the Cheshire-"
"I know," Anakin said. "I saw him once or twice when he used the Force heavily. Strangest thing ever, how does a cat even have purple stripes?"
"Well, mine's orange," Ahsoka said.
Anakin didn't reply. Ahsoka shot him a gaze as if to challenge him to say something of her color palette choice for her cat, but when he didn't say anything else, she realized it was because he had stopped and was gazing ahead with a half-empty gaze. Ahsoka blinked, and raised an eyebrow in perplexity.
When the Jedi Knight began to move again, he had already lit his lightsaber and taken on a defensive posture in front of her. "Can't you feel it?" he hissed. Ahsoka frowned. No, she couldn't feel it. She had no idea what there was to feel, because she wasn't feeling anything.
She did lit her lightsaber and turn the corner following Mister Fluffles, this time more alert than before, but what met her eyes wasn't what she had expected to find.
There was no Master Shade. There was, however, a putrid stench covered by the smell of fuel and oil from what looked like the carcass of a giant, slobbering mess of rotten flesh. Knight Skywalker neared it, lightsaber drawn, but the carcass didn't move.
"W-What is it?" Ahsoka asked.
"A Taozin," Anakin said. "I thought this place looked familiar," he whispered. "Master Shade came down here once with a few other Masters to hunt a Taozin. I-I didn't think about it until now, but," he neared the fallen beast, his lightsaber deactivated. "The Taozin is renowned for its invisibility to the Force. Master Shade said that anyone who had a Taozin nodule could hide his presence near perfectly from the Force," Anakin looked at the fallen beast, which hadn't just been killed, but also smashed apart by heavy, blunt trauma -truly a sign that her Master had been there, there was no doubt about it.
Ahsoka looked at Mister Fluffles, who was meowing loudly from where the hacked apart corpse was. "There's not a single nodule left," Anakin mumbled in thought, "It's like someone ransacked the entire corpse."
"Do you think," Ahsoka began, "That...there's something we're missing?"
"Well, Master Shade...Night, if he were to wear that many nodules on his person, he'd probably appear utterly invisible to anyone, even you."
"But Master Yoda said-" Ahsoka began, only to hesitate. "You think Master Yoda lied?"
"Maybe he didn't have to," Anakin pointed out. "Night, he used to say that there was a distinctive difference between being a wound in the Force and having a lack of the Force. I suppose I should have paid more attention when he explained that, but memory was never my strength."
Ahsoka rounded up on Anakin, teeth bared. "You're telling me the Jedi High Council lied to everyone and hid my Master because they couldn't...they couldn't sever his connection to the Force?"
"I'm not saying that. They'd never do something that underhanded," Anakin pointed out. "It's the Jedi we are talking about."
"Sacrifice the few to save the many," Ahsoka shot back, "But...but if you have to sacrifice few to save many, then why not try to save many few?" she looked up at Anakin, who looked back at her with a hard to read expression.
"If you need to start sacrificing people in order to get things to go your way," Anakin said abruptly, stepping away from the corpse, "Then ensure you are the first in line for the sacrifice, lest you become a hypocrite with no worth."
It was then that Anakin's eyes widened. "What if-What if he wants to kill Dooku?!"
Ahsoka gasped, and shook her head as firmly as she could. "Why would he?! He sent us to make peace talks!"
"Well, why else would he need to disappear from the Force then!?"
"Kill one to stop the war," Ahsoka said, much to Anakin's surprise. "Through the Bond, I...I knew he could have avoided the war," she looked downcast, even as she felt the look of disbelief of the Jedi Knight morph into a scowl of anger.
"What?!" Anakin yelled, and his voice echoed through the corridor.
"He beat himself over it!" Ahsoka snapped back, looking straight up at Anakin with her fists clenched, lightsaber forgotten and silently put back on her belt. "He didn't want to do, and he knew he could have stopped the war from ever happening if he killed a single person!"
"So...he's going to kill Dooku," Anakin whispered in disbelief. "Right when he's coming to Coruscant to make peace. He-He didn't let go of his anger at all, did he?!"
"No, no, that's impossible," Ahsoka replied. "He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't."
"I know this must look impossible, but see the facts, Ahsoka!" Anakin shot out. "We need to warn the...wait," Anakin passed a hand over his forehead. "The Council knew, the Council knew and accepted this!" he snarled. "We can't go to the Council with this!" he looked around in disbelief. "Night is going to kill Dooku and the Council agreed it had to be done! Ahsoka, we have to go speak with the Chancellor immediately! The Jedi are planning to boycott the peace talks!"
Ahsoka's eyes could only widen that much before they bugged out of her sockets, and as the thought crossed her mind, Ahsoka quickly denied it. "No," she said. "We can't. We should speak with the Council first. They-"
"They must have been corrupted by the war," Anakin said. "We need to see the Chancellor. He can appoint bodyguards, have the Jedi Council answer for what is going on-"
"No!" Ahsoka snapped back, "What about Master Shade?!"
"If he's just following orders, then he won't be punished, I'll ask the Chancellor-"
"You'll ask the Chancellor?" Ahsoka deadpanned. "Knight Skywalker-Anakin, no. We have to put our trust in the Jedi Council. They know what they're doing. They-We, are Jedi. We use the Force never to harm or attack, only to defend."
Anakin clenched his right hand, and looked at her with both eyes suddenly narrow. Ahsoka felt a pang of worry cross through her mind. "If not the Council," Ahsoka continued, "Then...do you trust Master Shade at least?" she asked in a soft tone, and that broke through whatever thought process the Jedi Knight had been going through.
"I-" Anakin began, and hesitated, "I do."
"Then do you truly think he'd be capable of doing such a thing?" Ahsoka continued. "Do you think he'd go along with what you think the Council wants? Do you think he'd be capable of this, even after all his desire to see peace?"
"He could have lied. He could have lied to let the war keep up, to avoid losing his powers, to-"
"He does not want his powers!" Ahsoka blurted out. "He wants peace! He dislikes being subjected to the Forces' whims! I know! I'm his padawan, I shared his burdens, I know what he truly thinks!" she had brought a hand to her chest, and was looking at the Knight with a look of utter sadness. "Do you truly think the man you know would do something like this? Do you really not trust him at all?"
"What's there to trust in someone who flat out disappeared!?" Anakin yelled back. "What's there to trust in someone who tells you he'll be there for you and then goes away!? What's there to trust in someone who made you lose the person you loved!?" he raised his right fist. "How can I trust someone who didn't even trust me with his thoughts!?"
"But he trusted me with his," Ahsoka whispered. "So at least, please, trust me."
"I don't even know you all that well," Anakin said. "For all I know, you could be in cahoots with him."
"What! You've got to be kidding me!" Ahsoka blurted out. "That's not true!"
"Well, you played the Bard, didn't you? The class that bluffs and cheats its way out of trouble!" Anakin looked at her in a new light, and Ahsoka was starting to feel unease. There was something wrong going on in there, and she didn't know if it was the place, the corpse, or the feeling of the Dark Side that-the feeling of the Dark Side?
"Anakin, we have to leave," Ahsoka whispered harshly. "There's something wrong in here."
Anakin looked at her. He looked at her and then grabbed his lightsaber, turning it on. "So that you can stab me in the back?"
"Anakin!" Ahsoka said, taking a step back as her lightsaber came right up to block a strike aimed at her head, not even at her hand. "What are you doing!?" the Knight didn't seem to be listening to her any longer, so keen he was in attacking her.
Ahsoka ducked under a swipe of the blue blade, and tried to strike back only for the Knight to easily swat the lightsaber away with his own. The man in front of her was a Jedi Knight, one trained in the arts far longer than she had ever been, and while he was no Asaji Ventress, he was probably stronger than her, especially at such short range.
"Traitors, the lot of you!" Anakin snarled, "All of you-All of you Jedi!"
"You're a Jedi too!" Ahsoka snapped back, trying to jump back and instead being forced down on one knee from the furious swipes of Anakin's blue lightsaber. "Stop this now! I don't want to hurt you!"
"Well, that's a pity. Because I want to," Anakin snarled, using the Force with his free hand to send her to crash against the Taozin's carcass, pushing her body through its organs and slamming her into the depths of the beast. Ahsoka gagged as she began to choke in the rotten flesh, trying to gasp for an exit that was precluded to her by a shining lightsaber coming for her heart. She pushed on the rotten flesh with her bare hands, and as she covered her body in it, the blow struck back, sending sparks to fly.
Uh.
The Taozin had really hard skin -lightsaber resistant skin.
Mister Fluffles roared then, charging at Anakin from the side and tackling him off from his position of power, giving enough time for Ahsoka to catch her breath and stand back up on the mountain of rotten flesh that wobbled beneath her feet.
"Can't you see there's something wrong going on here?!" Ahsoka snarled. "Come back to your senses, before I slam a lightsaber where the sun doesn't shine!" she quickly recovered her lightsaber and lit them both in her hands as Mister Fluffles growled, even as his Akul-like hands could barely hold back Anakin, who seemed to be growing more incensed with each passing second.
With a stab of his lightsaber, the Jedi Knight freed himself from Mister Fluffles' force grip, making the giant cat disappear in a plum of smoke to reappear behind Ahsoka, wounded but not beaten. Ahsoka winced at the phantom pain, but clutched her lightsaber tighter. She wasn't her Master, and she didn't have nine lightsabers, but she could still use Mister Fluffles to at least hold Knight Skywalker back.
"I see it will take a personal intervention to end this," a female voice purred in the air, and Ahsoka's eyes snapped to the side of Anakin's face, where a hooded figure stood -nothing more than a phantom, nothing more than a ghost, nothing more than a whisper in the wind...nothing more than a ritual in the Force.
Mother Talzin. The knowledge flowed through Ahsoka as if it had always been there, but merely kept hidden until required. Her Master had given it to her with Mister Fluffles, and in the end she hadn't understood until that precise moment what it meant to actually 'have' a Cheshire Cat. Each question she had, she just needed to ask her cat, not the Cheshire one.
Anakin Skywalker was being controlled through a ritual of the Dark Side of the Force. The how was unimportant. Well, no, it was...but only if-
Ahsoka needed a nodule from the beast.
They couldn't all be gone now, could they?
She needed to find a nodule from the beast while Knight Skywalker tried to kill her.
"Now do we kill her?" a female voice growled as it came from one of two lithe females by his side.
Scratch her last thought. Knight Skywalker, mind-whammed into being a moron who was all Dark Side and two assassins were trying to kill her.
...
Two assassins who both lit green lightsabers.
To say that Ahsoka Tano felt dread was an understatement.
But Ahsoka Tano wasn't a paladin.
She was a Jedi.
She was a Jedi, and she was a Bard.
She was a Jedi, she was a Bard, and she was standing on the corpse of a lightsaber resistant beast.
"I have the high ground!" Ahsoka snarled, putting a foot behind the other and holding herself as if ready for a final stand. "So come and get me."
Knight Skywalker charged with a fearsome roar, fury the only thing left in his Force-affected brain -and Ahsoka smiled as she made a small jump back and used the force to lift the shattered skin of the beast before pulling him 'under the sheets' and dropping the challengers from three to two.
Instead of jumping back again, Ahsoka charged forward, and as her robes covered in Taozin blood dripped around her, she unclasped and threw them to temporarily blind one of the two assassins. The other sprung her lightsaber, and their blades met in a shower of sparks before the previous assassin emerged from behind the cloak with fury in her eyes, using her lightsaber to cut through it.
A dagger came from thin air from that side, but Ahsoka spun, using the Nightsister's back to pirouette out of the way, before kicking her in the back and sending her to tumble and fall against her sister.
"Karis and Naa'leth," Ahsoka said as she spun, lightsabers both drawn. How did she know their names? Did it even matter?
Knowledge is power. Guard it well.
Ahsoka took shallow breaths as she kept her eyes trained on the two Nightsisters, who had halted in surprise at Ahsoka muttering her name, but soon began to circle her like prey. Using the reverse grip on her right hand, she rushed forward with a battle cry, aiming at Karis. The woman nimbly lowered herself to avoid the overhead swipe as behind Ahsoka's back Naa'leth arrived with her lightsaber drawn. Mister Fluffles' tail whipped at her leg and threw her off balance, making the lightsaber clutter on the ground and end up in the Akul's invisible hand the next instant. Lightsaber an inch away from the woman's neck, Ahsoka returned her concentration to the woman in front of her who had meanwhile stood back on her feet, and held the lightsaber in one hand as she would a sword.
But a sword was not a lightsaber.
Ahsoka knew it.
The woman in front of her did not.
When the Nightsister from Dathomir came at her with her lightsaber drawn into a downward swing, expecting to meet resistance, Ahsoka side-stepped the blow, deactivating her blade, and then lit it back once past her guard.
"Now, drop the weapon," Ahsoka said softly, and in her voice the Force carried power, and in that power, the Nightsister snarled as her fingers twitched, obeying the command.
From behind her, she heard Mister Fluffles' issue a meowing warning, but all she could do was turn and look at Knight Skywalker having dug his way out of the Taozin's carcass. In that moment of distraction, the Nightsister she was holding at lightsaber point punched her in the stomach and sent her to crash against a wall, covering her clothes in tar and leaked oils of various -probably cancerous to boot- nature.
Ahsoka groaned as the Nightsisters made themselves scarce in the depths of Coruscant.
"Ouch," Anakin groaned, a fleshy, pulsing nodule of sorts in his hand. "Urgh. What is going on?"
"Don't drop it Skyguy!" Ahsoka snapped at him, earning herself a shocked look from Anakin. "Seriously! What sort of Chosen One are you if you can't even fight off some Dark Side influence!? What are you, a Paladin or a Chaotic Neutral Bard having fun at night in a whorehouse!?"
"I-I don't know what...what took me over," Anakin mumbled, hissing softly. "My head's killing me."
"I should be the one doing the killing," Ahsoka snapped back. "You nearly beheaded me!"
"Nearly doesn't mean I did," Anakin hazarded. "So," he winced. "I think...we can...head back to the temple?"
"Not the Chancellor?" Ahsoka remarked dryly.
"No," Anakin whispered. "I-I think I will put my trust in the Jedi Council," he added. "Night would have wanted that."
"He'd want that," Ahsoka corrected him. Anakin gave her a puzzled gaze. "He's still alive, and he's probably still around."
"How can you say that?" Anakin asked, still massaging his forehead and removing sticky bits of entrails from his hair -but clutching the Nodule firmer with his left hand.
"I no longer feel him," Ahsoka replied as the duo began to carefully make their way out. "But his knowledge is still flowing, and this means..."
"This means that he's still a Jedi," Anakin whispered. "And that the council didn't sever his connection."
Ahsoka nodded. "It also means," she remarked, "That I will punch him when I next meet him for keeping me in the dark about this."
Anakin smiled. "Can I get a turn too?"
"Sure," Ahsoka grinned. "After all, punching someone you care about is a clearly defining trait of the Tsundere."
Anakin's humiliated groan made the fact he had nearly tried to kill her -even if brainwashed by some dark ritual of sorts- suddenly feel lighter. She'd just annoy him a bit more, like, for a few decades, before finally feeling vindicated enough.
Heh. Classic Anakin.