Ahsoka lands on Christophsis to meet her new Master and finds that he holds far more secrets than she realized.
There's a terrible darkness on the planet below. It curls and wraps itself around buildings, hanging in the air, splashing and expanding over cities and mountains and stretching over hundreds of kilometers in every direction. It seems to stem from the landing site.
Ahsoka doesn't want the ship to land. But it has to.
She can't help the way her knuckles turn white on the hanging handle. She can't hide the way her face screws together from the rising panic closing up her throat, born of old legends and hushed, fearful whispers of the power and hunger of the Dark Side. The fresh clones around her turn to her, giving her maybe-pitying glances under their helmets, but she can't process further than noticing, not with that darkness filling her senses. It's horrible. It presses in on her senses, makes her head feel all stuffy and squeezed, winds around her limbs and makes her want to never move again—
—and then it's gone.
It sucks itself up from the surface of the planet, folding in on itself as all of its misty tendrils retreat to a single spot in the center of the whirlpool. It happens so quickly. One moment it's there and Ahsoka is in a state of sheer panic, all the old stories from the creche haunting her, and the next it's gone. It feels like whiplash.
She's still a little panicky, though. And not just because of the darkness. She's going down to meet Generals Kenobi and Skywalker themselves! The heroes of the Clone Wars! The Negotiator and the Hero with No Fear! The Temple occupants have created an entire lore around them, pulled from the wisps of story that survived from battles, painting them as near-gods. She's never heard of either of them losing a battle. The two are unstoppable and inseparable. And none other than Anakin Skywalker is going to be her Master.
That's the sort of pressure that's on her, and the terrible darkness only throws suspicion into the mix.
One of the clones gently puts his hand on her arm. "You alright, kid?"
"Fine," she says distractedly. She doesn't know what to feel. Skywalker and Kenobi are supposed to be at the landing site, right in the middle of where that darkness was. But surely that can't be. Did a Sith take over? Why hadn't there been any transmissions?
Enough of that. She'll deal with it when they land…which is now.
The door opens and she straightens up, doing her best to plaster a smile to her face and calm her racing heart. Her eyes are immediately drawn through the hustle and bustle to the two men at the holotable. The Force swirls around them in a way it doesn't quite match with anyone else, in a way that makes their signatures shine with power just like the Jedi she knows, and these must be Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
They watch her as she walks down the ramp, and she tries her best to shoot them a smile despite the acidic nervousness in her belly. As she gets closer she gets a better look at their signatures in the Force, and she can't describe it, but they feel…wrong. Everyone always described them as bastions of Light, shining through even the thickest darkness to clear the way to victory, and they are that, but it feels off somehow. Too perfect. Too smooth. Like the Light is merely a shield. Kenobi's is more real, has more details, but it's still not enough. Again she's reminded of the darkness she'd sensed before.
The nervousness in her stomach starts to shake her hands, so she puts them behind her back. She doesn't know what to think. She doesn't want to go over there. She wants to get back on the ship and travel all the way back to Coruscant and the Jedi Temple and safety no matter how many hours and days through hyperspace it takes.
But she has to do this. She has to.
"Good…morning? Master Kenobi, Master Skywalker," she says, having no idea what time it is here on the planet.
"It's afternoon," Skywalker says.
Kenobi sighs. "Anakin, be nice. She's only a child."
"A child shouldn't be on the warfront." Ahsoka feels her knuckles tighten again, the bugs in her belly jumping up with the annoyance in Skywalker's voice.
"You'll have to bring that up with the Jedi Council, my Padawan. But for now we ought to show her around. Now, little one," Kenobi says, "I assume you're Anakin's new Padawan?"
"You mean your new Padawan?" Skywalker says at the same time that Ahsoka said "That's right."
Silence reigns for a few moments. Skywalker seems confused. Ahsoka's nervousness is rising even more, climbing into her throat. Obi-Wan just smirks.
And then it happens. Skywalker's Light cracks as he roars. "What?" Hot shadows sear her senses. Ahsoka has to grip the edge of the holotable to steady herself from the shock and her heart is pounding from the memories of the stories of Sith that hiss through the Jedi temple. She's going to die here. She's going to die here, from a Sith she thought was a Jedi, burned alive through the Force—
—but then it's gone, and she can breathe again.
She looks at Skywalker, whose fake Light shields are back in place, and sees that despite them he's still obviously seething. "Obi-Wan, what did you do?"
"I didn't do anything. In fact, I suspect it was Yoda."
Anakin scoffs. "Oh please. Like the Council would approve something like that."
"Yoda is not the Council, Chainbreaker."
"Am I still supposed to believe that a member of the Council trusted me enough to give me a Padawan? You know how they fear me."
"Well, even if you don't, the fact remains that you have a Padawan and she is currently absolutely terrified. You know how newcomers react to you." Kenobi was right. Ahsoka was terrified.
Their attention finally turned back to her at that. Skywalker looked chagrined, now, wincing and giving her an apologetic look. "Sorry, kid. Promise I won't kill you."
"Anakin!"
"Fine! Fine! I promise I won't hurt you. And I swear I'm not a Sith. Sith are cold. I'm not."
Sith are cold? "Huh," she manages to say in response. There are still a lot of bugs in her belly, but something dark and warm gently touches her mind and helps shush them. That must be Anakin. "Sith are cold?" she manages to ask when she's gotten a few deep breaths in.
"Yea. They're not right. They use a corruption of the Dark Side."
Kenobi coughs. "I think that's for later. Cody is calling me. Now, I want you two to figure out a way to get behind those shields and take out the generator. I'll be just over there in case Anakin gets out of hand, little one, so don't worry."
He leaves and both of them stand awkwardly for a moment. A small part of Ahsoka's brain whispers that she is now officially alone with someone Darker than she has ever experienced, but that dark warm presence that she's supposed to be scared of is still laying a hand over her fear. "So how do we do that?"
"Dunno," Anakin says. "We probably need to use stealth. Fighting them through the shield won't work and Obi-Wan said I'm not allowed to just devour the whole planetside."
"What?"
"What?"
They stand in silence for a minute. Anakin looks intentionally innocent.
Ahsoka starts to say "What do you mean devour—"
"So how do we sneak past the shields?"
"Uh, right." Ahsoka blinks, caught off guard by the sudden change in subject."We could use…uh…what about a box?" she says, noticing one of the clones start to stack crates of rations. "Something we could hide under that would be out of the way when the droids come. That could work."
"I guess." He sounds almost disappointed. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Obi-Wan looking back at them and laughing a bit, perhaps chiding his Padawan. "A box it is," he eventually sighs.
They stand in silence for a few moments until Kenobi looks up from his datapad. "Well," he calls to them, his commander in orange already gone. "It seems you've gotten yourselves sorted out, then?"
"I suppose. She wants us to hide in a box until the droids pass us." His tone is flat and he has a 'can you believe it?' expression on his face.
Obi-Wan just chuckles. "She'll learn, I'm sure. How are you feeling about this, little one? Ready for your first real mission?"
And the nervousness is back. Her first real mission, with someone who is basically a total unknown. She can't trust anything she's heard about Skywalker, she can't trust that the Darkness he oozes without those shields won't swallow her whole, she can't trust that Kenobi isn't throwing her to the proverbial wolves. But then she remembers an old teaching: when in doubt, look to the Force.
She closes her eyes and looks inward. She can see Skywalker and Kenobi's presences in the Force, shining bright with their fake Light—and yes, Kenobi's shields are as fake as Skywalker's—but beyond that, in the Force itself, she begins to seek the threads of emotion and meaning that swirled around them. There are a lot of them. The ones swirling around herself seem to sing to her, and she begins to pluck at them, listening to their melody. It says that she belongs here.
"Yea," she says eventually, to two men who she's suddenly sure will understand exactly what she means. "I'm ready."