Ahsoka flexed her new hand, and looked at it in distaste.
"You'll get used to it," her mentor told her. "It's better quality than my first one."
It was almost the exact shade of red Ahsoka's skin was, a simple robotic skeleton covered by the new synth-flesh. Strong and durable enough to be used the same way her old hand was, without being too different.
"I still don't like it," she said. She was sat on a bed in the Infirmary, with her Master and Master Kenobi nearby, on chairs.
"Well, Padawan," Obi Wan said, smiling, "it could have been worse. Considering the state Fett was in, it is lucky that he took your hand not you head."
"That's not something I want her to be thinking about," Anakin reproached his Master, slightly.
"Well, there is a more – upside-y, upside," Obi Wan smiled. "Ahsoka is ready for the trials."
Ahsoka looked up, a light in her eyes.
"The Council decided this?" she asked.
"Myself and Yoda decided," Obi Wan said, still smiling. "The rest of the Council merely agreed."
Ahsoka suddenly didn't care about her hand. She was happier than she had ever been.
--
He was not amused.
All the effort he had put in, subtly manipulating things for so very, very long, all the ways he had maneuvered Fett Junior into his position. The way he had taken revenge – for both of them – on Mace Windu.
Then Skywalker, blasted Skywalker, had come in, ruined everything. Typical.
Darth Sidious, no longer Palpatine, sat back in his chair in his facility. Long ago he had returned, had cursed Skywalker and had waited for the single moment when he might have his total vengeance against him and that accursed Yoda, against Kenobi, and that blasted child, Tano. He silently thanked the Force for his Clones, that no one else had ever discovered.
"Dammit," he muttered. "Stupid Fett…"
Boba Fett had been searching for a way to revenge himself upon the Jedi, and Sidious had promised him it – had delivered Windu into the twenty two year olds hands. Windu's death had felt, in the Force, like a powerful aphrodisiac almost, powerful and seductive and wonderful. Palpatine's death at Windu's hands – no, Skywalkers hands, but Windu had caused it – was reason enough to want the Jedi dead, and his tortured death had been sweeter than nectar.
Sighing, Sidious prepared to begin his new plan.
--
Yoda and Obi Wan looked through the list of Trials that a Jedi could go through.
"The trial of flesh she has faced and overcome," Kenobi said.
"And the war, enough of a test of spirit it was," Yoda added.
"And she fought Grievous and survived," Obi Wan continued. "Some fully qualified Jedi never succeeded in that."
Yoda nodded, and considered the final test.
"The trial of spirit," he murmured. "Dangerous this is."
"I never did it," Kenobi said, truthfully. "But Qui Gon never spoke of it."
"He would not have," Yoda said. "Difficult it is, and worse to speak of. A trial of the very soul it is, a test of a Jedi's fortitude, a test of their knowledge, a test of their..."
"What?" Kenobi asked.
"Everything," Yoda said.
--
Ahsoka walked into the training room where she had been summoned, and looked around at the empty space.
"Masters?" she called. There didn't seem to be anyone present. Was she early, or late? She hoped not.
"There's no one here for you now," a darkly sadistic-toned voice spoke, cruelty edged in every syllable. Ahsokas' blood froze. She turned to face her opponent, lightsabre already active.
"Hello," the image spoke again. It was impossible for it to even be there. It was, to be blunt, Ahsoka. Except that Ahsoka didn't wear black. And her lightsabre wasn't red. And her face wasn't twisted into a sadistic, cruel smile. And her eyes weren't blazing golden fire. Except for all those, the image was, basically, Ahsoka.
"What are you?" Ahsoka asked the image, holding her saber to guard.
"What you should have been," the apparition snarled. "Stronger, harder, faster, everything you aren't."
Ahsoka felt a sudden rage starting within her. It seemed like this…thing, was a vision of what she could be. Well, she'd defeat it.
She lunged, but somehow, it blocked her. Then she launched into a series of strong strikes, and each time the creature blocked them. The Dark Ahsoka laughed.
"You're no match for my power," she snarled. Ahsoka kept hitting out, but nothing worked.
Then, unbidden, words flowed into her mind, in a voice she had never heard, but one that seemed familiar.
'Anger, violence, combat… war itself is a weapon of the darkness. Only love can defeat evil.'
'Only love...'
Ahsoka understood. She stopped attacking, and then, to her own surprise, she smiled. She flicked her saber up to a salute, the way she had seen Dooku do it, and switched it off.
The apparition snarled, and struck out, but Ahsoka didn't flinch, and then the thing… vanished.
And then, Yoda, Anakin and Master Kenobi appeared before her.
"Well done," Kenobi smiled. "Jedi Knight."
Ahsoka kneeled before the Masters, and Yoda came up to her.
"Hereby do we dub you, Jedi Knight of the Republic," he said, tone serious and gravelly.
Anakin only smiled.
"Knew you could do it, snips," he said.
Ahsoka smiled, and stood. It was, you might say, the happiest moment of her entire life.
So it was typical of everything that happened that something just had to go wrong.
--
Order 66 he had considered, but, to his considerable chagrin, the order had been erased and expunged. Which annoyed Sidious no end.
So his second plan was far more obvious.
He had spent the last nine years building a private army of Clones in the spaarti cylinders, and had used these clones to create what he termed the 'Antitroopers'. These Antitroopers were equipped with black versions of the standard Clone Trooper armour, and they were as deadly as their light side equivalent. Now, he would unleash them.
Ten thousand troopers, armed to the teeth, unleashed upon the Jedi Temple.
'Let's see them survive that,' Sidious thought, smugly. 'They'll never feel secure again.'
--
