CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE: APPARITIONS AND APPRENTICES PART THREE

Anakin was lying on something soft, his brain just about ready to burst, side stinging, and the stump of his right leg ached. He must've lost it again in the explosion. Great. He could feel the fabric against the back of his head. Forcing his eyes open, he saw that he was in dimly lit, sterile room. Next to the bed he was on was a panel with flashing lights. Medical bay then. But where was…

"Ahsoka!" he cried, sitting up right. It sent fires of pain from his side and his head, but he'd seen her. He'd felt her presence.

Then someone was at his side, attempting to ease him back down. "You're hurt really badly." Their voice was familiar, but he couldn't tell who it was through the headache. "You need to rest."

"Well, then sick me in a bacta tank," he retorted, pushing back against them. They were able to overwhelm him pretty easily, though, and before he knew it, he was staring up at the white ceiling, again.

Could all of that have just been a dream?

"We already did that. Now you're going to rest." They were almost condescending. Well, that least they weren't a doctor.

"I'm fine," he insisted, glaring up at whoever this was—

"You've been out for twelve hours," Leia Organa said, "and the one time you did wake up, you were convinced it was the Clone Wars. So, no. You're not fine."

Anakin stared at his daughter's face, his expression melting. Her wonderful brown eyes were filled with what looked like concern, but he knew it couldn't be. She had probably been over joyed when she found out he had gotten blown up. So… "What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice no louder than a whisper.

She sneered, revealing the anger he'd come to expect. Luke probably made her stay or something, because there was no way—

Leia suddenly had her arms around him. "I was worried about you," she choked. Now that she was holding him, he realized – she was shaking. Not to mention the terrible sense of dread that was radiating out from her presence.

Anakin hugged her back, giving her all his warmth. "I'm okay," he murmured, stroking her hair. "It's okay."

Leia pulled back, her eyes focused on the floor. She sat down on a nearby chair with a sigh. Then her brown gaze fell on him again. "I… I want to get to know you," she said.

Maybe he was still dreaming, because there was no way this could be happen. Two weeks ago, she had been ready to fight him to the death, yet here she was, his daughter – Padmé's daughter – asking to get to know him. He was afraid to close his eyes. "Alright," he said, trying to smile for her. "I want to get to know you, too."

Bitterness came over Leia, but for once it didn't seem to be projected at him. Then she shook her head. "I talked to Senator Mothma, and she said that she would see about putting us on a mission together."

It couldn't be real, but Anakin nodded. It had been so nice to see Luke fight, and doubted Leia would disappoint him, given her reputation. "I'd like that," he said.

He would've said more, but the door slid open. To Anakin's shock, Rex stepped in, his eyes filled with concern, and raced to his side. "Are you alright, sir?" he asked.

He was definitely dreaming. Rex would've never forgiven him for killing…

Anakin looked over at his daughter. She was still sitting, though her big eyes were now on Rex, gratitude dancing on her face. He didn't want their moment to end, but at the same time – if all of this was somehow real – he needed to talk to his friend. After a breath, he said, "Rex… there's something I need to talk to you about."

Out of the corner of his eye, Anakin saw Leia give him a nod before she left the room. Thank you, he sent after her.

Then he felt Rex touch his shoulder. Anakin met his brown eyes, feeling his presence, as if that would somehow confirm it was all happening. He sighed. "I am dreaming?" he found himself asking aloud.

Rex smiled. "I don't think so, sir." Then his face deepened. "But what did you want to ask me?"

He closed his eyes. Seeing Ahsoka sitting there – feeling her brilliant presence – it was still so clear in his mind. He stared back up at Rex, again. "I think Ahsoka's alive," he said, his core quaking.


Anakin bent over a holoprojector, his eyes closed, immersed in the Force. The blue cast of the holomap pierced his eyelids, and he extended himself over it, waiting for the call of his Padawan's presence.

It had been a few days since his vision, and although he was really supposed to be resting after getting his new cybernetic, standing had meant easier access to star-maps. Which meant he would be able to find Ahsoka faster – something he'd been so dedicated to; Lila had needed to bring him food and remind him to eat.

The sliding of the door pulled him out of his meditation, and he looked over to see Rex walking to his side. "How's the new leg?" he asked.

Anakin shifted his weight a little. "It works. I've been limping, though." He smirked. "There might actually be something to this, 'Listen to your doctor, Anakin,' thing."

"Does that mean you'll do it?" Rex questioned.

Anakin looked at him like he'd just suggest he should try Rancor meat. "No," he replied.

Rex sighed. "Figures…" he muttered. Then his eyes flicked toward the map. "Any luck?"

He cast his gaze over the projection, the glinting planets taunting him. Ahsoka could be on any one of them, and he couldn't see anyway to narrow them down. His brows pulled together. "Nothing yet," he admitted. "But I know she's out there." He closed his eyes again.

"Do you have any idea why you can't sense her?"

He drew in a breath. "No…" When he was Vader, it was possible the Force was hiding her from him. Her connection to it was pretty deep, after all. But it was being made abundantly clear to him that he was meant to find her, now. He opened his eyes, looking over map.

"Maybe she's not on a planet," Rex suggested.

He shook his head. "No, that's not it. I know she's on a planet. When I saw her, she was definitely on a planet." He half-hoped that Ahsoka would just jump up from wherever she was, grinning and crying out, "Hey Master! I'm over here!"

Rex frowned. "Well, it's not like something could be blocking out her presence."

"That's it!" How could he have not seen it before? All this time he'd been searching for the wrong thing. He shouldn't be looking for Ahsoka; he should be looking for planet!

He could feel Rex's eyes on him, along with his confusion. "What do you mean? I thought the only thing that could block out the Force was the Force itself."

Anakin grinned, turning to his friend. "Exactly! She's on a planet that's strong with the Force!"

Yet Rex's expression remained stern. "Great. So how does that help us? I don't know if you've noticed, but knowledge about the Jedi is a little hard to come by these days."

He battling Jocasta Nu in the Jedi Temple. She'd found out who he was.

"…You, our great hope for the Force, were his target. He took you, made you his. Twisted you into this new form, submerged you in the dark side."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean—" came Rex's voice.

Anakin blinked, finding himself standing in front of the holoprojector. "It's okay," he said, feeling the strength in his lungs. "Besides, it's because of that, I know this: there are still a few Jedi outposts left. Not to mention collectors – and their hoards won't be as well guarded. Here." His typed the coordinates of one of the collectors he knew about into the map. A model of a space station came up.

"Huh."

Anakin smiled at his friend. "Do you think you can get a ship?"

Rex grinned back. "I'm on it," he said, already on his way out of the room.


Anakin pulled the ship out of hyperspace to vastness of deep space. The station wasn't based in any solar system, so it was difficult to make it out in the darkness. Well, scanners were invented for a reason. Turning to them, he brought the ship in.

But what was that dark feeling?

It hadn't taken Rex long to get them a ship, but Anakin had taken all the time he could get to continue using the map to search for Ahsoka. In that time, Lila had brought him more food, and he'd explained to her his and Rex's plan. He probably should've realized that would mean adding another person to the team. It wasn't long after that Luke found out, and he'd insisted on coming along, as well.

The ship sighed as it touched down. Locking down the systems in case there was any unexpected trouble, he left the cock-pit and headed down the ramp into a small hanger. Luke and Lila were already waiting for him, their faces filled with wonder, but Rex was still on the ramp.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

Rex shook his head, a wistful smile showing. "I know enough about this type to say that, if anything does happen, I'll be completely useless to you out there. The best thing I can do is stay on the ship in case some Impies show up."

Anakin rolled his eyes. "Alright. You're missing out, though," he added with a smirk.

"Yeah, you'll be jealous when something in there tries to kill you," Rex said.

The dark feeling tightened, and Anakin couldn't help tensing. He just hoped Rex didn't notice. "Weren't you monitoring the scanners, or something?"

His friend smirked back, heading back inside. "May the Force be with ya, General," he called before the ramp closed behind him.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Lila all but sang. "Let's check this place out!"

Focusing his Padawan's enthusiasm, he was able to work up a smile. He fell behind her and Luke, and the three of them headed out of the hanger – and into a room filled with Jedi artifacts.

"Whoa…" Lila breathed. She drifted toward a wall with Jedi robes hanging from it. "This is incredible," she said, a reverence in her voice, as she ran her hand along its cream fabric.

"Yeah," Anakin agreed, picking up a holocron. It was… reassuring to know that at least some remnants of the Jedi were still left. Still, it hurt to know that all these artifacts – artifacts that had once been sacred – were little more than trinkets in the eyes of whoever had – well – stolen them.

"Hey, Anakin!" Lila called. "What do you think?"

He shook his head and turned to see Lila holding a tunic over her chest, a grin stretching across her face and lighting up her eyes. Warmth spread through him. If she wasn't a good home for it, he didn't know what was. "You should keep it," he said.

Her lips parted. "You're serious?"

He shrugged. "Why not." He closed his eyes, letting her excitement blow through him, before sitting down. Feeling his breath fill his strong lungs, he released himself into the Force, channeling his light through the holocron he'd set down in front of him. Its blue glare pierced his eyelids.

"That's amazing," he heard Lila say.

Opening his eyes, he found himself looking out at a collection of planets, all of them strong in the Force. But one in particular – he could feel its signature radiating light – it was calling to him. He reached out for it, his gloved finger disturbing the projection.

Alba II.

He closed the holocron, letting it float, feature-light, into his hand. Getting to his feet, he typed in the name of the planet into a nearby comp-station. It came up as a mainly aquatic world with a few continents – one of which containing a large stretch of temperate forest. It was on the edge of the Unknown Regions on Wild Space. Excitement burst inside him.

"I think I got it," he said, turning to Lila.

But the eagerness had left her eyes. "That's great, Anakin," she said, looking around. "But have you seen Luke?"


Bile rose to Luke's throat as the stench of decaying flesh oozed through the door. He thought he'd sensed something off since they'd arrived at the station, and his suspicions had been peaked when whoever owned it had just let them trespass. But he'd been expecting some Imperial trap, not… this.

He was in an office, and sitting in a desk chair was the rotting body of what looked to have been a man in his mid-sixties, a blaster bolt in his chest. But Luke had seen plenty of dead bodies before. What got him about this man was his face.

His eyes, nose, and mouth all hugged his skull, like some creature had just sucked out all his meat. His skin was gray and loose, and he almost looked like he'd started to decompose before he died.

Something was going on here – something dark – and the more Luke looked at the body, the more he got the feeling they needed leave before whatever it was got to them.

"Luke? What are you doing here?" came Lila's voice.

He jumped, forcing himself to look away from the body. Lila was standing in the doorway, Anakin behind her, though where her face was gentle with concern, Anakin's was creased in concentration. "I got curious and started to look around. But…" he stepped out of the way of the corpse, "well, see for yourself."

Lila gasped, her hands shooting over her mouth. "What happened to—"

"We need to leave. We need to leave NOW," Anakin commanded, using a tone Luke had never heard coming from him before. His face was pulled tight, and his eyes were wide, their blue depths filled with sheer horror.

It didn't take Luke long to decide to listen to him.


Lila raced up the ship's ramp, her heart thudding against her ribcage and breath ragged. That man's sick and decaying face was still imprinted in her mind, along with a hollow that had worked its way into her gut. There had been something more to that corpse besides normal decomposition – they had all sensed it. And to her, it felt eerily akin to what she had sensed in the Force vision she'd had when she'd gotten her kyber crystal.

The four of them surged into the cockpit. "I told ya this would happen," Commander Rex said.

Anakin rushed to the controls, and before Lila even got the chance to sit down, they were in the air. The force of the take off slammed her into her seat, and she got the feeling Anakin was typically a much smoother flier than this. It only made the hollowness grow, like a breach in a ship.

The pinpricks of stars were stretch to streaks before disappearing in a flash of swirling clouds. The vacuum burst, at last letting clean, refreshing relief flow into its place. She exhaled the breath she'd been holding, and noticed both Luke and Anakin doing the same.

Rex turned his chair around. "Alright, what happened?"

Lila glanced at Anakin to see him slumping against his chair and staring out at the cosmic blue mist. He didn't even seem to notice her eyes on him.

She met Luke's eyes, and he shrugged. She turned to Rex. "Well, it all seemed pretty normal at first, but then…" the image of the corpse stirred in her mind, like a dead leaf picked up by the wind.

"We found the body of the guy who owned the station," Luke said. "There was something really wrong with him – not just that he was dead, I mean. I think—"

"He was corrupted."

Lila's attention rounded in Anakin's direction. He was now facing them, though his eyes were closed under his tight brows. "Whoever he was, his interests didn't stop at the Jedi. There's only one thing in the galaxy that can do that kind of damage to a person – and that's the Sith."

The air in the room went dead. Was that the darkness Lila had sensed? That suffocating, oozing, cancerous darkness? Was that the Sith? That long night on Ryloth, the monster from her vision… she'd hoped nothing like that would ever find her again. Did that mean one of those things had been on that station?

She shivered.


Anakin felt the stiff cushion of the pilot's chair beneath him, his eyes closed and lungs giving him life. The only sound he heard was the comforting hum of the ship's systems – keeping them flying away from that station and towards Ahsoka. Through the Force, he was well aware of Rex sleeping peacefully in the other room, Luke's sweet presence deep in the Force, much like his own, and Lila, still a little unsettled from what had happened at the station, walking into the cock-pit.

He opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder just as the doors slid open, giving her the reassuring smile he'd used so much around Ahsoka as she sat down next to him.

"So, do you think I'll like Ahsoka?" she asked.

Warmth swirled within him. "Yeah. I think you will." Actually, knowing Ahsoka, Lila wouldn't have much choice. She was probably going to be all over his new Padawan, although he somehow doubted Lila would mind it much.

The console beeped. Anakin sucked in a breath and his core seized. This was it. His spirit shining, yet quaking at the same time, he pulled the ship out of hyperspace, and a green, blue, and white planet met his gaze. The light side radiated off of it, and right in the center of the it was a brilliance he'd sensed for the first time, years ago, on Christophsis, coming from a snippy girl who was barely a Padawan.

Ahsoka.


This should've been a Halloween chapter... Does it still count since it's halfway Halloween today?

And, look, I know on the surface this may seem a little fillery, but I swear this will become important later on. Which, on a 100% unrelated note, you should totally check out the Vader comic series. It's excellent. Not that I've been inspired or anything, but you should probably finish before the last few chapters of this story. Just saying.

May the Force be with you.

-CWN