Title: Brume

Author: Emjen Enla (Fanfiction)/emjen_enla (Wattpad)

Teaser: They were just following the coordinates like they were supposed to. Unfortunately for Anakin, things went downhill from there. [part one of two posted]

Rating: PG-13/T

Canon/Timeline: Legends or Disney; before the Untold Stories

Dominant Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, Rex, Aayla Secura, various 501st clones, featuring a minor appearance by Palpatine

Pairings: underlying Anidala like practically everything I write

Warnings: Anakin & Tusken Raiders (work the rest out for yourself)

Notes:

-This story was requested by amberbalzer0920 on Wattpad an absurdly long time ago. She asked that I write something in which Anakin get hypnotized, I ended up going more with hallucinations so hopefully this turned out the way she wanted it. amberbalzer0920: I'm really sorry for making you wait this long.

-Ever since I finished Give All My Secrets Away I've wanted to write some nice, mainstream Clone Wars stuff as opposed to all the AUs I've been doing recently. I had this story started and since I've been feeling bad for how long it's been taking, I decided to work on it. I had a lot of fun with Obi-Wan and Mace, who had a role in this story decidedly different from most of my other stories.

-This story is two part. I'll try to get the next part out as soon as possible, but I move back to college on Monday, so I won't have as much time to write. I'll do my best, though, because no matter how busy I am I love sharing stories with you guys. ;)

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.

Part One

The tunnel was dark, dusty and old. It jutted down into Glaison's crumbly soil vanishing to darkness. Anakin wrinkled his nose as he stared down into it.

"Are you sure the Separatist signal's coming from in there, Fives?" he asked, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the ARC trooper.

"Yessir," Fives said, looking up from the portable tracker he was carrying. "Positive, sir."

Anakin stared down the tunnel. It didn't seem right, but he'd been told that the coordinates correct and that there was no reason to doubt them by many people, not the least of which was Obi-Wan. Still he was getting a really bad feeling, but he was the Hero With No Fear. He couldn't afford to appear timid, even if it was just in front of his own men.

"Alright, form up," He said. "We're going down there."

The Force prickled warningly in the back of his mind as he took the first steps down the slanting tunnel. This was a strange place for a Separatist shield generator like the one that they had been sent to destroy. Shield generators normally had to be open to air in order to function. Maybe the generator was an extremely powerful model. However, if the Republic Intelligence agents were so certain that the frequency would lead them straight to the generator that was protecting the Sep droid factory thirty klicks distance, it was hard to believe they'd gotten the model wrong. Maybe they just had to pass through the tunnel to get to the generator.

Something about this didn't feel right, maybe they should go back.

The tunnel became pitch black startlingly quickly. When Anakin turned around to look back the way they'd come the light from the surface was gone. Had they been walking longer than he had thought?

Rex was looking back too. "That's a bit odd," the captain said flicking on his helmet lights, the rest of the clones followed suit.

Odd was an understatement, but Anakin didn't point it out. He was too relieved that Rex could see it too. He wasn't sure when it had happened, but at some point over the last few years he'd worked it into his mind that he couldn't be seeing things as long as Rex could see the same thing. Rex was Anakin's touchstone, an inconspicuous way to make sure he wasn't losing his mind. That was something Anakin worried about far more than he wanted to admit, especially since he'd lost Ahsoka.

"Do you think we should turn back, sir?" One of the shinies asked.

Anakin ignored the comment temporarily and turned to Fives. "Do we still have a lock on the generator's location?"

"Yessir," Fives said. "It's reading as straight ahead and down a ways."

"Alright then," Anakin turned to the shiny. "We'll keep moving.

They moved on in near silence. The tunnel changed from relatively well-preserved sentient-made ferrocrete to a damp, cold cave. Though there was no dust in the air, the clones' helmet lights became less and less effective against the dark. Eventually, Anakin drew his lightsaber to give them more light, but he found that the portion of the hilt that contained the crystal was strangely warm. He'd never felt that before and decided not to ignite the thing until he knew what was up with it (after all, malfunctioning lightsabers had a very bad track record of exploding upon ignition).

They walked on, and the light failed even more. Anakin found himself squinting into the darkness, jumping at shadows that looked strangely like Tusken Raiders.

"Wait, wait, wait! Stop a minute!" Fives slid to a stop staring down at the datapad.

"What's wrong, Fives?" Anakin asked and turned away from a particularly Tusken-like shadow.

"We've lost the signal from the base," Fives growled. "Great. I don't know where to go now."

Anakin ran a hand through his hair. A shadow moved in the corner of his vision, but there was nothing there when he turned his head. "That does cause a problem," he said to Fives. "We'll have to-" He trailed off when he looked over the clone's shoulders. The tunnel they'd just walked down was blocked by a stone wall.

What?

"General?" Rex asked. "Is something wrong?"

Anakin pointed over their shoulders. "We just came from that way, didn't we?"

"Yes, sir," Rex looked behind him and didn't show any notice of the wall. "Do you want to go back to the surface?"

Anakin blinked a couple times, the wall stayed. "Are you sure we can?"

"Yes…" Rex looked at Anakin cocking his head. "Are you alright, sir? Do you feel something in the Force? You're acting like the tunnel's blocked off or something."

Anakin frowned at the wall. How could Rex not see it? Or was Anakin looking at the wrong place? "I'm fine," he said. "We should head back to the surface. It's pointless to wander around down here in the dark when we don't know where we're going. We'll head back to the surface and find another way to destroy the generator. Maybe there's another entry point closer to it."

"Siryessir," Rex saluted and turned to the rest of the clones. "You heard him, grunts. Let's move!"

The clones turned and marched towards the wall like there was nothing there. Anakin watched in shock as they walked right through the wall. What is going on?

Something tapped his shoulder and he jumped. Rex was standing right next to him. "You ready to move out, sir?"

Anakin blinked a couple more times. There was still a wall. "Yeah," he said. "After you."

"Yes, sir," Rex walked towards the wall and disappeared through it.

Anakin bit his lip. Something definitely wasn't right. Was he dreaming? If he was he definitely didn't remember falling asleep.

"General!" Jesse's voice called, not muffled at all by the wall that appeared to be separating them. "You coming?"

"Yes," Anakin called and stepped towards the wall. He took a deep breath and stepped into it, bracing himself to ram into solid stone.

Nothing happened. He found himself standing on the other side facing the clones. They were watching him, helmeted heads cocked in curiosity.

"Are you sure you're okay, sir?" Jesse asked.

Anakin looked over his shoulder, the wall was gone. He could see the tunnel he'd just left clearly. Something wasn't right. He'd been sure there had been a wall.

He couldn't tell that to the clones, though. "Yeah," he turned back to his men. "Let's move."

"What the-" Obi-Wan jumped at the sound of Mace Windu's frustrated voice. He exchanged a glance with Aayla Secura, who shrugged.

"Is everything alright?" Obi-Wan called up to the Jedi Master.

Mace made a disgruntled sound. "Obi-Wan, Aayla. Get up here, will you?"

Obi-Wan climbed up onto the top of the stationary AT-TE walker with Aayla behind him. Mace was lying on his stomach towards the front of the vehicle holding a pair of electro-binoculars to his eyes. When Obi-Wan crawled up, Mace handed over the binoculars. "Look over there," he pointed. "Please tell me you don't see what I see."

That was a strange request. Obi-Wan lifted the binoculars to his eyes and focused in on the location Mace had specified. A Separatist shield generator was barely visible beyond the shrubby trees in front of them.

"Well?" Mace asked. "What do you see?"

"It's a Separatist shield generator," Obi-Wan said.

Mace swore under his breath. "You were present when we briefed Skywalker. Does that not look like the generator we sent him to destroy on the opposite side of the Separatist factory?"

Obi-Wan frowned and raised the binoculars to his eyes again. This time he studied every visible centimeter of the generator for the markings that had been in the intelligence images of the generator. "It does," he finally said.

Mace released an even more colorful list of expletives. Aayla, who was lying on Mace's other side, levered herself up on her elbows and held out a hand towards Obi-Wan. "Let me see," Obi-Wan handed her the binoculars and she studied the generator for a few minutes.

"It does look like the same generator," she finally said. "But it can't be, Intelligence says it's on the other side of the base."

"Intelligence has been wrong before," Mace said. "And this generator is in a location closer to the factory than were we sent Skywalker. It's a more practical location,"

"Still, assuming this is the generator we sent Anakin to destroy is a bit hasty," Obi-Wan said. "Intel had images, it's hard to believe they'd have accidently reported the location wrong."

"I know," Mace replied. "But something about this isn't right. The Intel probably flew over this generator. How could they have missed it?"

"That is worrying," Aayla agreed.

"We should do some reconnaissance," Mace said. "We need to check this generator out, and figure out what's going on."

"I'll gather troops," Aayla volunteered. "We'll be ready to move out within the hour."

"Good," Mace nodded and turned to Obi-Wan. "I want you to contact Skywalker and inform him of the situation."

"Are you sure that's necessary?" Aayla asked. "This might be nothing but a little oversight. If that's so, we'll still need him to take out the other generator. It would be unwise to give him more things to worry about when those things are beyond his control."

"If this generator turns out to be the one we thought we sent him to deal with, something we don't know about it going on," Mace said. "He could be walking into a trap. Its best he's aware of that in advance."

"I agree," Obi-Wan said. "Anakin is a magnet for trouble, after all."

"Meet up with us before we leave for recon," Mace ordered.

"I will."

"Good."

"Are you sure we're not lost, Fives?" Tup asked as they passed yet another junction.

"We're not," Fives replied. "That part of the map is working just fine."

"You're sure?" Tup asked.

"I'm sure," Fives snapped. "Trust me okay?"

"Okay," Tup sighed, the sound was tinny through his helmet. "I just don't want to get lost down here. This place is creepy."

"Just keep marching men," Rex ordered. "We're almost there."

Anakin lagged behind the clones. He wasn't feeling quite right. His vision kept blurring, causing the packed dirt beneath his boots to go out of focus in waves that made him struggle to keep his balance. He was also panting. It had gotten really hard to breathe, but he couldn't quite remember when the feeling had started. Maybe it had been slowly building the entire time they'd been down here. He wondered if he was allergic to something in the tunnels. Maybe it was the same thing that was cutting down their visibility so much.

He hoped that wasn't the case and pressed his lips to keep from wheezing, the last thing he needed was for the clone to go all mother-nuna on him. He had a feeling that if he could just get out of this tunnel everything would be fine.

"Master," A voice whispered.

He froze. No, that's impossible.

"Master," the voice called, louder this time.

"General?" Rex had noticed that he wasn't moving anymore. "Are you alright?"

"Master!" the voice called.

"Do you hear anything?" Anakin asked. He meant to sound casual but his voice came out strained.

"Nosir," Rex said.

"Master!" the voice called as if in response. "Come quick!" He could tell what direction it was coming from now. The speaker was down the hallway they'd just passed and the voice was very, very familiar.

Anakin took a deep breath and reached a conclusion. He needed to figure out where this voice was coming from and he needed to do it now. "I'll be right back," he said. "I need to check something out."

"Are you sure, sir?" Rex asked. "You're kind of pale, and you've been acting strange. I don't think you're well. Maybe we should keep heading towards the surface and Kix can take a look at you when we get there."

"Master!" the voice called, it was starting to sound frantic.

Annoyance bubbled up in Anakin's stomach. Why did Rex have to keep questioning him? "I don't need Kix!" He roared. "I'm fine! I'm going to check something out, and I'll back in five minutes. You will take the men and keep going towards the surface!"

Rex visibly jumped. "Sir, I-"

"That's an order, Captain," Anakin snarled.

"Um…Yessir," Rex said, snapping into a salute.

"Good," Anakin said and turned towards the other tunnel and the terrifying familiar voice that was calling out to him.

"Any luck?" Mace said as Obi-Wan joined the two other Jedi Masters by the small scouting squad they'd gathered.

"Not much," Obi-Wan said. "I can't make contact with Anakin. However, I was able to reach one of his lieutenants. The clone said that Anakin and a small squad of Torrent Company clones headed into some kind of partially-mapped cave system a couple hours ago."

"A cave system?" Mace asked incredulously. "What does Skywalker think he's doing? Seeing the sights?"

"Evidently, the coordinates Intelligence gave us for the shield generator lead into the cave system," Obi-Wan explained.

There was a long pause. "Are any models of shield generators that can work underground?" Aayla asked.

"Not that I know of," Mace muttered. He thought for a minute. "Are the tunnels some kind of shortcut to the generator?"

"That's what I asked the clone," Obi-Wan said. "He wasn't sure, but he thought that the coordinates were actually inside the cave system."

There was long pause while the three masters considered the implications of that bit of information. "Something's not right," Aayla said after several minutes. "You two go check out that other shield generator. I'll stay here and continue trying to make contact with Skywalker. I get the feeling we don't have much time."

"So do I," Mace said. "Obi-Wan? Let's get moving."

It took Obi-Wan, Mace and the clones about a half hour to reach the shield generator. When they did, they hid in a handy clump of bushes while the clones did some recon and took some readings.

"It's an active shield generator, sirs," one of the clones—a sergeant called Hoop—said.

"We can tell," Mace said, pointing up at the column of plasma rising from the generator and up into the sky.

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir," Hoop said, his embarrassment coloring the Force. "What I meant to say was that we've done some calculations and this generator is shielding Separatist droid factory."

"How much power is it contributing to the shield around the factory?" Obi-Wan asked.

Hoop turned to look at him. "Actually, sir, if I didn't know better I'd say this is the only generator powering the shield."

Obi-Wan looked at Mace and saw the same suspicions—the same lingering feeling that something had gone wrong—reflected in the master's face. "We could head back to the rest of the troops and see if Master Secura's made contact with Anakin yet," Obi-Wan said. "Anakin and his forces didn't land that far from the generator coordinates so they must have reached them by now. Anakin will be able to confirm or deny if the Intel was good."

"Or we could just blow up this generator and see what happens," Mace said reaching for his lightsaber.

That was such an Anakin thing to say that Obi-Wan was momentarily taken aback, then he remembered the rumors he'd been hearing since he'd become a master and become privy to the really juicy bits of gossip that only the high-ranking Jedi knew. Apparently, in his early twenties, Mace Windu had been rather unorthodox in ways that would give Anakin a run for his money.

"We could do that," Obi-Wan said trying to overcome his shock at seeing that particular rumor might be correct.

"General Windu's idea sounds good to me," Hoop said.

"Good," Mace said. "We have charges don't we?"

"Yessir," Hoop said and another clone a little further away held up a backpack.

"Alright, then give that backpack to General Kenobi," Mace said. "He'll be able to climb the generator faster than any of your men, Hoop. The rest of us will cover him. There aren't many droids here, so we should be able to do this quickly and be back with the rest of the troops and General Secura within the hour."

Hoop relayed the order via helmet comm. Within minutes the men were in position and they were ready to begin their attack. Mace drew his lightsaber and glanced at Obi-Wan. "Ready, Master Kenobi?"

"Yes, Master Windu," Obi-Wan said putting on the backpack and tightening straps.

"When this is over we'll worry about Skywalker," Mace said. "I have a bad feeling involving his part of the mission. The cave, the lack of communication, the existence of this generator. Something isn't right."

"I agree," Obi-Wan said. "Hopefully, by the time we return Master Secura will have made contact with him."

"Hopefully," Mace echoed, but he didn't sound very hopeful. Then he turned to Hoop. "Sergeant, let's move."

As one Obi-Wan, Mace and the clones burst out of the bushes and ran towards the generator. The droids shrieked in surprise and started shooting. Obi-Wan batted down a few with his lightsaber then leaped up onto the generator. He deactivated his lightsaber, clipped it to his belt and pulled out the first charge. He had to hurry; the safety of the rest of the team depended on him.

He was only about halfway through sticking the charges to the outside of the generator when Mace climbed up next to him. "Obi-Wan, give me some charges."

Obi-Wan started and suddenly realized the shooting had stopped. "You destroyed all the droids."

"It was a ridiculously small defense," Mace said. "It was almost like they weren't expecting anyone to try to destroy this generator."

The two Jedi Masters shared a look that encompassed all their ever growing concerns.

"They were able to send a distress call, though," Mace said instead of putting voice to any of their collective worries. "We need to get moving. Let me have some charges."

Mace took an armful of charges from the backpack and moved off to another place on the generator. Within minutes all the charges had been attached to the generator (who cared about conserving resources when trying to do so might mean you failed to destroy your target?). Then they jumped down from the generator and ran with the clones back into the bushes.

They ran until they were atop a nearby hill before turning to look back. The generator stood below them, blinking faintly from the little lights on the charges. Farther in the distance they could see a cloud of dust that signified the approaching droid reinforcements. "Whenever you're ready, Master Kenobi," Mace said.

"As you wish," Obi-Wan said with a smile and pressed the detonator.

The generator vanished into a tremendous explosion than shook the ground and sent up a dust cloud that left Obi-Wan and Mace hacking while the clones stood by silently (and no doubt savored the usefulness of their helmets). When the dust had settled a little, Hoop and the other clones took some readings.

"That brought down the shield, sirs," Hoop finally announced. "The Sep factory is now completely unprotected." The sergeant sounded like he wanted to cheer, but Obi-Wan and Mace were far less enthusiastic.

Something was definitely wrong.

They were proved even more correct when they return to the rest of the Republic troops. Aayla came running out to meet them, something that no self-respecting Jedi Master did unless it was real emergency.

"I made contact with Skywalker's clone captain," Aayla said when she reached them. "He says they entered the caves and traveled for a while before their tracker cut out and they turned back."

Obi-Wan's first thought was that that wasn't so bad, but Aayla wasn't done.

"Captain Rex said that while they were in the caves Skywalker was acting strangely. When they were partway back, he seemed to hear something and said he was going to check it out. He became…extremely agitated…when Captain Rex suggested that perhaps that wasn't a good idea. Skywalker ordered the clones to return to the surface and said that he'd catch up with them in five minutes…that was over an hour ago."

There was a long pause while that information sunk in. Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's…not good."

"Not at all," Mace agreed.

The voice got louder and more distinct the further Anakin went into the caves. He was pretty sure he'd been running a lot longer than five minutes. Rex would be angry, but Anakin didn't care. He was close to the voice, he was sure.

Plus, he was still angry at Rex. Just because they were friends didn't give Rex the right to argue with Anakin. When it came down to it, Anakin was still the CO and Rex should follow orders regardless of whether or not he thought they were sound.

Somewhere deep down inside, Anakin knew that it wasn't like him to angry at Rex for failing to follow orders. After all, Anakin ignored orders all the time and had spent a lot of time since meeting Rex trying to break through the Kaminoan brainwashing that prevented the clone from thinking about disobedience.

Anakin also knew that even though he wasn't going to win any prizes for emotional control, even he didn't stay angry about something so pointless for this long. Something wasn't right, something was making him angry about things he normally wouldn't mind and keeping him angry for a long period of time. He knew all these things on some level, but he was angry and totally focused on finding the voice. He didn't have time to think about anything else.

He reached another intersection and paused, waiting for the next call. When he heard it he headed in that direction. The voice was starting to sound extremely frantic, like the person was in pain and screaming for help. The voice was also extremely familiar, though Anakin wasn't letting himself think about whose voice it was.

He was trying reach the voice as quickly as he could, but that wasn't proving to be as easy as he'd thought. Firstly, every time he thought he'd just about reached the voice it turned out to be even farther away. That was getting really annoying, but he'd committed to finding it now and he wasn't going to quit (plus, he had no idea where he was and didn't want to admit it to himself).

That wasn't the only problem, though. The air in the tunnels and caves was thick and hard to breathe. His breaths came in harsh, wheezing gasps, and he'd had to stop several times just to catch his breath. There was also the dizzying waves which left him gagging and struggling to stay upright. Thankfully, those moments were lessening the further he went into the cave system. He knew those kinds of things weren't normal and that he should probably worry about them, but right now he was completely focused on the voice.

"Master!" the voice sounded very close now, like it was coming from around a corner he could see just ahead. Vaguely, he wondered how he could still see when he was klicks beneath the surface and there was no light. It should have been pitch black, but it wasn't. He was distracted by another call from the voice. The voice was becoming so familiar the effort it took not to think of who it belonged to was making him sick to his stomach.

He reached the corner and slowed to a stop. "MASTER!" the voice screamed sounding like it was being murdered. It sounded like it was just around the corner, maybe he had finally reached his destination.

He took a deep, wheezy breath and turned the corner.

Around the corner, the passage opened into a huge cavern. Actually, cavern was probably the wrong word because it implied the space was natural. This space anything but natural. It was shaped in a perfect right triangle and the black stone walls were covered in strange symbols that glowed faintly red. Aside from that small light, it was completely dark, but somehow Anakin could see everything perfectly.

Everything included the hundreds of Tusken Raiders lined up inside the space, gaderffii sticks brandished and masks focused on him. Anger boiled in Anakin's blood, stronger than anything he had felt since that night on Tatooine when his mother had died. What were these monsters doing down here?

"MASTER!" the frantic voice called from further into the room. Anakin shoved the horrid memories dredged up by the Tuskens aside and searched for the source. His boiling blood ran cold when he saw it.

In the center of the room was a dais raised to a level above the Tuskens' heads. Two pillars rose up from it, covered in the glowing red marks. Attached to each pillar was a thick metal chain which was cuffed to the arms of a limp being. Anakin gritted his teeth as the urge to kill every Tusken in the room rose up inside him.

Hanging in the chains, beaten, brutalized and bloody, was Ahsoka.

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Emjen