Now.
The first time Fives ran into a brother that was being controlled by the karking mind-control chip, he was with Echo, and they'd been confronted with five of the Coruscant Guard.
"CT-5555 and CT-1409," one of the Coruscant Guard - Commander Thire? - had called out, and then he'd ordered them to join with the squadrons making their way to the landing pads to destroy them at all costs.
Fives hadn't been able to move for the first second. Only one thought had run through his mind.
It's happening.
It's kriffing happening.
He'd only come to after he'd heard the sound of Echo's blasters discharging stun bolts into the unsuspecting Coruscant Guard, dropping all five of them where they stood.
"Come on," Echo had said, and he'd started relieving them of their weapons and destroying their comms, dragging the unconscious Coruscant Guard to the side for their own safety. "We need to move, now!"
That was hours ago. Since then, they'd lost track of how many of their brothers they'd stunned and left behind.
And now-
Now there's a tightness in Fives' chest that wasn't there before. He hadn't been injured - he and Echo had been lucky so far (and he knows that it's luck) - but the tightness comes from seeing the parts of bodies under the rubble and the red-gold flames that paint the surface of Coruscant. Under his helmet, the stink of sweat mingles with the coolness of tears, and Fives tries desperately not to think of how it's entirely possible that at least one of his brothers in the Coruscant Guard that he'd stunned in an attempt to prevent further deaths had died, crushed underneath the rubble caused by the many ships and vehicles that had fallen out of the sky.
Coruscant isn't his home, not really. His home is Kamino. But Coruscant is his Generals' and his Commander's home, and if they could defend his home with all their might, he sure as hell could give them the same courtesy.
In the distance, many blocks away, long, spidery fingers of red and blue clash as General Skywalker and General Kenobi battle with the Chancellor. Fives and Echo - along with the rest of the 501st - had gotten the instructions from Rex not long after they'd run into the mind-controlled Coruscant Guard. "It's the Chancellor," Rex had spat through the comm. "He's the one behind the chips, and he's a karking Sith. I'm ordering everyone to stay clear of the Senate block. We need to spread out for damage mitigation, now!"
It's strange. There's a part of Fives that thinks this all looks like a scene from a holodrama. He'd been a soldier for so long, but this - the red-gold flames soaring from the Senate Dome, the sharp blue lightning breaking through the windows, and the dark shape of his General (who looks far too much like a dark angel, in Fives' opinion) - looks too unreal even for him.
In the corner of his eyes, there's movement, and Fives whips around with Echo, blasters at the ready. But they're lucky - it's just Commander Tano, Commander Cody, and-
"What in the universe happened t0 you?" Fives can't help but exclaim as he takes in the half-melted state of Rex's armor. The only reason he's not running forward to check on his brother is because Commander Tano is right there - which means that she'd likely healed Rex and fixed all that was wrong.
"Eh…" Even under the helmet, Fives can hear the grimace in Rex's voice. "I got too close to the Senate dome."
"And nearly died," Cody adds, voice still scathing with worry. He jerks his head in Rex's direction. "He's only alive because Commander Tano made it in time."
"Only thanks to General Kenobi," Commander Tano says, voice amused. Though it isn't the first time he'd seen her like this, Fives can't help but marvel at how the sound of her voice has changed; if he listens really hard, he thinks it sounds almost like the trilling of a convor or the cry of a griffin.
Echo brings Fives's thoughts back to attention. "Do you need our assistance with anything, Commander?" he asks, and the faint smile on Commander Tano's face vanishes so quickly it might as well have never been there.
"I do." She turns, pointing to what used to be an apartment building not too far off. "There's a number of survivors under the rubble there. They're the closest ones I could sense."
Left unsaid is the fact that there used to be hundreds of residents milling about and living in this area. Fives's stomach lurches in horror, and he tampers it down. Later. He can be sick later.
"How far down are they?" he asks. The rubble looks far too heavy to lift, even for a Jedi, but he'd seen Commander Tano do far more impossible things at the second mission to Christophsis.
"Far enough that it would've taken a week to dig them out normally," she tells him, and he shudders. "Watch my back."
"Yes, ma'am!" he responds, the affirmation echoed by the rest of his brothers. They form a perimeter, back turned, and even under the visor of his helmet+
Fives can see the brightness of a white-gold glow as his Commander falls deeply into the Force, pulling at a power that most Jedi couldn't even hope to imagine.
(Look at me, the white-gold glow seems to whisper, cooing at him.
No, he tells himself, deliberately bringing to memory how Commander Tano had blinded and stunned hundreds during the second mission to Christophsis.)
The sound of hundreds of thousands of tons being lifted is deafening. Even after years of hearing explosions, there's nothing that can compare to this sound, not really. What's worse, however, is the fact that Fives knows that this sound of moving rubble is being heard all throughout the surface of Coruscant right at this moment as hundreds of rescue teams try desperately to reach as many survivors as they can.
He's not even angry. He's just numb. There's no more energy for fear, for anger, for righteous fury - after seeing so much war, he just barely has the energy to keep fighting for the Republic. For his brothers. For his Jedi.
Despite his knowledge of what's going on behind him, Fives can't help but flinch sharply when Commander Tano sets down the rubble, kicking up a ring of dust and making his ears ring with the crash of metal and duracrete. From behind him, the white-gold glow dims, and he turns around, blinking at the sudden hole that has appeared from underneath the rubble.
"There!" Beside him, Cody points sharply, and Fives follows his line of sight, zooming in with the infrared scopes in his helmet, and his knees feel suddenly weak in cold comfort when he sees around thirty survivors, huddled together under a table in a half-collapsed room.
They'd been lucky. He tries really, really hard not to think about how there are dozens more in this building alone that had been unlucky.
There's a new creaking noise as Commander Tano waves her hands, forming a clear path downwards for them to retrieve the survivors. She turns. "Rex, can you call for support?"
"Right on, Commander," Rex tells her, and he hits the comm. "This is Captain Rex, requesting support 5 klicks east and 33 degrees south of the Senate Dome."
There's no response. In the silence following the wake of so much rubble movement, Fives becomes suddenly aware of two things: that much of the blasterfire he's heard in the distance has ceased, and that Rex's comm is giving off nothing but static.
"Do you hear that?" he asks.
"The static?" Echo replies, worried. "That's not-"
Commander Tano inhales sharply, cutting off any replies, and Fives and his brothers tense, hands on their blasters. Rex's voice is coarse. "What is it, Commander?"
In that moment, Fives can't help but think that despite all that's been happening - despite all that she's done - Commander Tano still looks like a kid. Lightsabers and new powers aside, she still looks so small, damnit - and for the first time today, a sliver of carefully-controlled fear breaks free, making Fives shiver as he takes in how vulnerable she looks.
Then the moment passes, and her gaze hardens. "Take care of them," she says, jerking her head towards the survivors, and Fives tries to suppress another shiver at the sound of her voice - the sound of the cry of a large animal and the lament of a small convor. "I need to go."
And she pushes past them, running at a speed that's nearly too fast to follow, and then she's gone, leaving behind the faintest impression of the large wings of a griffin.
Fives blinks, the image seared into his eyes, before he shakes his head. "Come on," he says, and his brothers shake their heads too to clear the image before they carefully begin picking their way down to help the survivors.
(In the distance, behind his back at the Senate dome, Fives misses a sight that looks too much like a painting - the sight of a dark angel, falling and weakened, gargoyle wings limp as Anakin Skywalker plummets through the sky.)
Then.
There are so many bodies.
With the spell of resurrection ended, there are hundreds of bodies strewn over the ground of Dathomir. Ancient bodies mingle with new ones, all of them limp, many riddled with still-hot blasterfire wounds. The stench of death permeates the air, thick and putrid and suffocating, and the forest feels deathly silent without the screech of metal and the howls of the raging dead.
It's horrible.
(It's wonderful. It's cold, it's dark, it's suffocating - and it's so, so energizing.)
The Nightsisters set to work immediately, completely undaunted by the smell of rotting flesh or the feel of old bones under their fingers as they begin carrying bodies to the coven entrance. Sorrow filters through the Force, sharp and cold, yet it is laced with a quiet acceptance. From what Anakin knows, it's within Nightsister culture to view death as a second, long sleep; even in death, the sisters stay together, held close to the coven should they need to rise to serve their coven again.
(Like they just had.)
It's ridiculously intoxicating - the fear, the death, the darkness that rolls around the area. Without thinking, Anakin's hand sparks, the crimson lightning rolling across his flesh hand, and he closes his fist to push it down.
A presence, green and sharp and strange, intrudes on his senses, and he snaps his head up to see Mother Talzin staring upon Grievous' corpse with a dispassionate gaze.
"A fitting end," she says coldly.
Anakin can't help but agree. Vindication rips through his chest like a sharp blade, and despite himself, he smiles, relishing Grievous' fate.
He catches his own reflection in one of the few metal plates that still peeks through flesh. His face is gashed open by a smile that's all teeth and venom and malice, and it looks so wrongwrongwrong-
(But most of him doesn't mind.)
A noise of annoyance draws his attention. Beside him, Obi-Wan's face - or, what's visible of it - is buried in half-solid hands as he contemplates a new problem. "How in the galaxy are we supposed to explain this to the Council?"
Kriff the Council, Anakin wants to say, but Obi-Wan is right. Because it had been a surge of healing that had done this, Grievous's corpse positively reeks of the Light side. There's no plausible explanation for this. None of the Nightsisters wield the Light, and none of the droids are Force sensitive.
Before Anakin can think any more of it, Talzin steps forward. "If I may, Great Ones?" she asks, and out of curiosity, Anakin gestures his approval.
"Go ahead," he says, and though it's been a few days, part of him still marvels at how wrong his voice sounds, like the hiss of a serpent and a roar of a krayt all at once.
Talzin raises her hands, drawing on the Force, and Anakin watches as magick begins to coalesce around her palms. With a sound like a wordless exhalation of power, she thrusts her hands forward, enveloping Grievous in green mist. Her fingers dance through the air; they flicker out and curl, rising and falling as she manipulates the energy of Dathomir to do her bidding. Discarded droid parts rattle, flying around the corpse as Talzin weaves a coffin that's made of earth and metal and magick.
Then she's done, and all that's left is a box surrounding Grievous' body, with a small green window showing the remains of his face.
"Your Council will not sense anything other than my magick," she explains. "It should provide you with an adequate story to tell the Jedi and the Republic."
Obi-Wan hums. For a moment, the Force swells as he lifts the lid of the coffin, extending his senses to Grievous' remains. Blue-green mist swirls around the box before retreating just as quickly as it had come, but it's enough - Anakin had sensed it too. Talzin's spell - whatever it was - had masked what Ahsoka had done to Grievous. In the Force, Grievous' corpse now reeks of the sharp green magick of the Nightsisters.
It's a testament to the true power of Mother Talzin.
Such power, Anakin muses. She'd be a considerable ally if she ever really joined the side of the Republic - and she'd also be a formidable enemy if she ever joined with the Sith.
If.
He looks over her shoulder, sensing the devastation wrought upon the Nightsisters by Count Dooku and the sharp sorrow that cuts through Talzin like a blade, and he knows that the chances of her allying herself with the Sith are incredibly minimal. For a mother to align herself with the side that killed her daughters is unthinkable.
Obi-Wan's voice cuts into his thoughts. "Thank you, Mother. And, if I may - I recall that you had something which would help us in our fight against Dooku."
Talzin's eyes come alight, glinting with a cruel pleasure at the new thought. "Indeed I do, Master Jedi." She gestures. "Come. After the sisters have finished and they have rested, I shall prepare a potion that will aid you."
The cleanup is long. Though the Nightsisters had been saved from a total massacre, they had still lost nearly a third of their number during the battle.
The embalming process takes time, made longer by the lessened number of living sisters. Making the process longer still is the presence of the other bodies - some centuries old - which require even more care to re-embalm.
It doesn't take Ventress long to resort to using the Force to lift the bodies of her sisters. She'd learned the hard way that some of the bodies were old enough to make the rotten flesh crumble under her fingers. She hadn't felt the urge to hurl - she'd been desensitized to the stench and feel of death long ago - but it had still made her feel sick.
Hours later, as she finishes performing the last rites on the last body, she turns to see the gods in the distance, conversing with Mother Talzin.
Force. She'll never get used to this. The Jedi were insufferable before this; for them to become gods was something else entirely.
It's incredibly unnerving. Though they're far in the distance, the way they hold themselves is too strange - too unnatural, even for her. There's too many things to pinpoint that make them look wrong, but she's certain she can name some of them: it's the way Skywalker's mouth splits open his face like a ragged gash. It's the way Kenobi's limbs dissolve to reveal muscle and bone underneath. It's the way Tano's very being seems to glow as if she has a star under her skin.
As Ventress watches, Skywalker pulls out his lightsaber, and ignites it, illuminating the area in its bright blue.
Only it isn't really blue, is it? In the Force, flickering on the edges of reality, she's certain that Skywalker's lightsaber is a sharp crimson.
Interesting.
She really shouldn't-
But curiosity overwhelms her, and she stretches out with her senses to probe the crystal.
Almost instantly, Skywalker's eyes flicker to her, and though they're far away, she swears she can feel the golden colour burning holes into her skull. A whisper comes from nowhere and everywhere, from the shadows at her feet and in the recesses of her mind. Mind your own business, Ventress, it says, and she withdraws instinctively.
But it's enough to give her the answer she'd been looking for.
Skywalker's kyber crystal is bleeding.
It's strange. She'd never before seen a kyber crystal that had bled only in the Force while looking like a clean crystal in reality, but then again, she'd never seen a thrice-damned Force god either. She'd long known that she still has much to learn - but it's still an odd surprise.
There's a sharp surge in the Force as Mother Talzin draws on her magick. Sharp green pierces through Ventress' senses, making her blood and bones sing with recognition of the ancient power, before the crimson of Skywalker's saber flickers in the Force and turns back into a bright blue.
Ah.
Ventress may not know everything about magick and the Force, but she knows enough to understand that Mother Talzin's specialization is not in healing bleeding crystals. She's sure that if she were to extend her senses - and to focus strongly - she'd be able to sense a murmur of Mother Talzin's illusion magick over Skywalker's crystal.
She's so focused on the weaving of the illusion spell that Kenobi's voice startles her when it hisses into her ears.
Come join us, my dear, he murmurs, the sound like the passing wind, and she jumps before narrowing her eyes in annoyance. In a burst of Force-speed, she makes it to their side.
"What do you want?" she asks. She's aware that her tone is bordering on a sneer, but she can't bring herself to care. She's so karking tired.
Skywalker bares his teeth, looking far too much like a terrifying beast and far too little like an actual human, and she scowls, suppressing the fear that laces through her mind. But it's Kenobi that speaks. "We called you here to ask if there's any knowledge you could possibly provide us with for the next time we encounter Dooku."
The name comes like a slap, wiping out any other emotion in her need for revenge. Her scowl deepens. "Bastard," she hisses, before shaking her head. "He's based on Serenno, but it's heavily guarded. Even a full Republic strike force would be overcome by nearby defences."
"And if it's just the three of us?"
Kriff, hearing Padawan Tano's voice is so strange. The way a mere child's voice can also sound like the singing of birds and the ringing of bells-
Ventress shrugs it off.
"I'm sure that any of you could take him alone now." She tilts her head. "It's getting him to talk that will be tricky."
Mother Talzin places a hand on her shoulder, a cruel glint in her eye. "I have provided them with a dart; imbued in its sting is a potion that will force him to speak only the truth." She smiles. "He will be unable to hold back, like a prophet drunk on the beauty of his own words."
"But there's something more, isn't there?" Something more to Talzin's smile.
"Indeed. The potion was created with the aid of a lock of Count Dooku's hair." Her smile is sharp; the smile of a matriarch delighting in the prospect of vengeance for her murdered daughters. "Not only will the dart seek out only him - the potion will draw its power from his life force. Before the potion drains him dry, he will lose his ability to touch the Force in the last moments of his life."
Ventress can't help it. The smile breaks across her face as a vindictive glee blasts through her. Beside her, she's aware that Skywalker is sporting a similar smile, but she can't bring herself to care.
Revenge. Finally.
Skywalker laughs, the sound dark and roaring and wholly wrong - and all it does is invigorate her with a burst of the Dark Side. "We'll give you all the details," he says, and she decides that maybe Skywalker isn't so bad after all.
She meets his eyes. They're the bright molten gold of the Sith, and for the first time in her life, she looks into the eyes of someone entrenched in the Dark Side, and she doesn't feel any fear at all.
"I look forward to hearing about it from you personally," she says lightly.
Beside them, the Winged Goddess laughs; the sound is bright like the ringing of bells and melodious like the trilling of birds. From deep within the blinding Light that is Tano's presence, Ventress senses a seed of Darkness, and she marvels at it. "We promise you," the Goddess says, every inch of her both a deity and a sixteen-year-old girl at the same time, "Dooku will be brought to justice."
They decide to leave Dathomir not long after that.
It's Obi-Wan's decision not to contact the Council yet. "None of us know what will happen once we leave the atmosphere of this planet," he says to his padawans. "We may need time to adjust."
With the battle over, he can't deny that he's afraid. Afraid for Ahsoka, because it was from her power that Grievous died in such a horrible manner. He can't imagine what her reaction will be like once the unnatural serenity from the Light abandons her the moment she returns to a planet that hasn't been manipulated by the Nightsisters for eons. Afraid for Anakin, because he's on the edge of Falling - and has been for so long - and Obi-Wan doesn't know how much longer he can continuously soften the edges of the boiling rage and hatred that snap at Anakin's mind. And afraid for himself, because even though there's a strange acceptance that's rooted in a solid foundation of Balance, he's rather worried that he won't be able to reform a fully corporeal body when he exits the atmosphere.
Not to mention the whole issue with - well - immortality.
As if to confirm his worries, Ahsoka speaks one of his thoughts aloud. "We will," she says, voice still. "Once we go back into our normal bodies, I'm going to need time to adjust to what I did to Grievous."
Obi-Wan grimaces.
From the corner, Anakin is lounging on his seat, legs stretched out like a cat. "And how are you feeling about it now?" he asks.
"I've accepted it for the time being. It was necessary to react quickly to prevent injuries to ourselves." Briefly, Ahsoka's wings shimmer into view in slight agitation, simultaneously blinding while not being quite visible to the naked eye. "But the moment we clear the atmosphere, the acceptance I have will be overtaken by horror."
The way she says it - as if she's stating a mere fact, with no emotion behind it - does nothing to alleviate Obi-Wan's worries. It doesn't help that it sounds nothing like her at all. It's almost like she's a different person.
The corner of Ahsoka's mouth twitches upwards. "Aren't we all, Master?"
And to the side, from Anakin: "You're thinking pretty loudly, Obi-Wan."
Chastised by his padawans, Obi-Wan pulls up his shields, feeling still human enough to feel the rise of heat around where his face should be. "My apologies."
Anakin snickers, the shadows around him dancing along with his amusement.
Desperate to change the topic, Obi-Wan brings up another of his worries. "I'm a little concerned about what we would tell the Council if we arrive at the Temple in our current forms."
Anakin shrugs. "Kriff the Council, for all I care."
"Anakin!"
"What?" Anakin sits up, an amused smile slashing open his face. "They won't miss us if we're gone for another few days while we adjust. Besides - Mother Talzin saw something, didn't she?"
Ahsoka nods. Mother Talzin had predicted that on their way back to Coruscant, they'd run into potential trouble - and she'd also predicted that they'd need an extra kyber crystal, which she had provided them with from deep within the small treasury of Dathomir. "I've never heard of anyone who could receive visions like that so often without going mad."
"It's likely a side-effect of our presence here," Obi-Wan says. "We've been acting as amplifiers to their abilities."
"And their endurance," Ahsoka remarks. "During the battle, I could sense that the Nightsisters tired a lot less easily."
"Indeed."
They lapse into a brief silence as they begin to prepare the ship for takeoff. Sitting at the co-pilot's chair while semi-incorporeal, Obi-Wan thinks, is an incredibly odd experience; odder still is how he doesn't even feel the need to reach out to the buttons and levers, allowing the blue-green mist to gently slide over the necessary controls to prepare the ship.
Odder still is the fact that despite Anakin's current position in the back of the cockpit rather than at the front in the pilot's seat, the buttons and levers on the pilot's side are moving, pushed and pulled by a hand that dips in and out of the shadows. Absurdly, the appearance and disappearance of Anakin's hand from the shadows reminds Obi-Wan of one of the whack-a-porg games he'd seen in arcades during one of the Coruscanti expeditions as an Initiate, and he turns his head (or, more accurately, gathers the mist into a semi-corporeal face) to Anakin in exasperation.
"Are you really too lazy to get up from the backseat?" he asks.
Anakin grins, one of his hands already disappeared inside his own shadow as he prepares the pilot's controls from a distance. Rather than answering, he tilts sideways, falling into his shadow and emerging right beside Obi-Wan to plop down on the pilot's seat. "Maybe," Anakin teases.
Obi-Wan doesn't dignify that with a verbal response, choosing instead to roll his eyes. Behind him, a gentle amusement seeps through the Force as Ahsoka chuckles, and in the moment, it's really just the three of them - no war, no gods, just their bickering and the comfort they find in each other's company.
Then the moment breaks, and they come back to reality. "Well then," Obi-Wan says, and he's still human enough to feel the gentle flutterings of nervousness in his stomach, "shall we get going?"
The moment they break the atmosphere, everything comes crashing down upon them.
Everything suddenly feels so much more tight. Obi-Wan falls forward in his seat, gasping, as the feeling of suddenly being trapped in a body that's too stiff and corporeal overwhelms his senses. He grasps the sides of his chair, feeling the hard metal of the armrests, and everything feels too hard, too solid, too rigid-
Behind him, fear and horror burst through the Force. Ahsoka's breath begins to come hard and fast, and Obi-Wan tries to reach for the Force to send her a wave of calm, but he's overcome with another wave of sheer wrongness that batters at his physical senses. "Oh, Force," she's gasping, overwhelmed with the sudden reality of being forced to confront what she'd done to Grievous. "Oh, Force-"
"Ahsoka," he manages, and he makes to move out of his seat, but she jerks back.
"I think," she whispers between breaths, "I'm going to be sick."
Then she's out of her chair, bolting out of the cockpit and to the 'fresher.
Obi-Wan stands - or tries to. He takes a step and falls to his knees, suddenly unable to comprehend why he can't walk. But everything feels so wrong - so heavy - and the metal under his feet feels too dead and solid and corporeal. On Dathomir, everything had felt alive in the Force, and it had been such a simple matter to move over the shining presence of everything within the Force. Even the air had been alive with brightness, but here - everything feels dead. Dead, solid, and too still.
He reaches for the Force, trying to find the formlessness that he had become accustomed to, but it hovers tantalizingly out of reach as he tries to process the shock of being slammed into a mortal body again. It shouldn't be so hard - he'd been in this body for decades - so why-
Then he looks up, and realizes that he's staring at Anakin's legs.
Anakin, who hasn't moved at all, or said anything.
Anakin.
He calls out unconsciously through their bond, reaching desperately to see if his padawan is dealing with this any better than they are.
"I'm alright, Obi-Wan," Anakin says softly, and his tone sends shivers down Obi-Wan's spine. It's the same tone he'd used above Umbara when he'd been a hair's breadth from Falling. Obi-Wan drags his head upwards, ignoring the feeling that his body is too rigidsolidrestrictive, and he stares into the still-gold eyes of Anakin Skywalker.
It's then he realizes that for the first time since Umbara, their bond is closed off. In a panic, Obi-Wan stretches out, reaching with the Force, and he encounters nothing but an obsidian-black wall at the entry to Anakin's mind.
"In fact, I feel a lot better than before," Anakin continues in the same tone. He smiles - a normal, human smile, only Obi-Wan finds the human smile to be more fear-inducing than anything he'd ever seen from Anakin before. "It's a lot easier to think when I don't have you clouding my mind, Master."
Oh, no.
No, no, no-
Obi-Wan tries to summon the strength he'd felt on Dathomir as he desperately reaches across their bond. Anakin can't have really, truly Fallen - he'd been straddling the Dark, utilizing it for good so far, but there's something that's just so wrong about how Anakin feels right now-
But he can't find that strength. Everything is still too solid, too corporeal, too dead, and Obi-Wan tries to pull on a different weapon. The Negotiator knew how to talk in circles around anyone - surely, he can still-
But his tongue fails him, and he only manages one word. One name.
"Ahsoka."
Anakin stiffens, and in the absence of words, a new sound intrudes on Obi-Wan's senses - the sound of retching, and muffled sobs. His heart aches, but the moment he tries to stand again, his legs fail him and he falls to the ground again.
But it's enough. At the mention of his own Padawan, streaks of blue creep back into Anakin's eyes, and the coldness that had been his presence mingles with a new worry. "Ahsoka," he mutters, and Obi-Wan nearly slumps over in relief at hearing a hint of the familiar warmth in Anakin's voice. Anakin stands, the movement still graceful as a tusk-cat but far more normal and human, and he disappears out of the door to the cockpit in search of his padawan.
He finds Ahsoka dry heaving in the 'fresher.
For a moment, he watches in the doorway. She's sobbing - great, heaving sobs, mingled with sounds as she throws up the little that's left in her stomach - and for the first time, Anakin realizes that none of them had eaten since they had first entered the atmosphere of Dathomir. Hunger, gnawing and sharp, claws at his stomach, and he draws on the pain to keep him standing.
(Gods don't need to eat, after all.)
He'd gone hungry before, as a child. But he'd been weak then. He's stronger now. Stronger, and nothing like the padawan who's currently bent over in the 'fresher, sobbing over what she had done when she was in a form that was not entirely mortal. He tilts his head, observing her presence - it's still a brilliant Light, but it's tainted with a Darkness that he knows so well.
Anakin catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and sees that his eyes are the colour of molten gold.
What was it that he'd felt when Obi-Wan had said Ahsoka's name earlier?
For the life of him, Anakin can't remember. He's not sure he wants to. The Darkness croons at his mind in the voice of the Son, telling him how lovely it would be if he were to change the balance, if he were to shift the Light in his Sister-
Sister?
He blinks, temporarily confused, and Morai chooses that moment to fly into his chest to fill him with Light.
It happens too quickly for him to push her away. The convor screeches, the sound sharp and cutting and as beautiful as a song, and in the Force, she flies straight through the nugget of Light - the remnant of the Daughter - that lies in Anakin, and she amplifies it tenfold. He stumbles back a step, too stunned to be angry, before he realizes what had nearly happened.
Oh, Force.
He'd nearly truly Fallen, and he'd been about to take his Padawan down with him.
He stumbles back another two steps, his mind reeling, and Ahsoka finally turns to look at him. "Hey, Master," she croaks, bleary-eyed, and retches again.
Force. She hadn't sensed anything at all. He'd seen the disorientation Obi-Wan had experienced in the cockpit, but he hadn't truly thought anything of it other than reveling in the fact that his own mind was clear of the blue-green mist he'd let in since Umbara. For Ahsoka's senses to be suddenly so clouded with confusion, even with her nearly-Fallen master standing right there, did not bode well at all.
But that doesn't matter now. None of Anakin's confusion matters. He shoves aside his anger, his confusion, and he rushes forward to envelop her in a hug.
"Hey," he tells her. "Hey. It's okay."
It's not, but he's not sure what else he can say.
She'd stopped retching by now. Instead, the sobs continue, soaking his shoulder with tears as she releases all the horror and fear she hadn't even been able to feel for the past few days. "I mutilated him," she cries, and Anakin's throat closes up at the despair in her voice. "He was going to kill us, and he'd killed so many people, so many soldiers, but the way I-"
Her voice cuts off, and for a horrible moment, Anakin can recall with vivid clarity the way Grievous' bones had crunched and the sound his ripping flesh had made when it had been forcefully regrown with the power of a goddess.
He tightens his arms around her, and he reaches for their bond. To his relief, he's able to call on the Light, sending her soothing waves of warmth to calm the horror tearing at her mind. "It wasn't your fault."
"It was-"
"No, Ahsoka. Listen to me. What that was on Dathomir - it wasn't entirely us." He pats her on the back, pulling away briefly to look at her in the face. She needs to hear this. "This is you. The real you. But down there, on Dathomir-" He puffs out a breath, and tries again. "On Mortis, the Father told me that they assumed the forms that were molded on those who surrounded them. Our forms on Dathomir were changed by how they manipulated the Force. It wasn't us."
She shakes her head. "But it was. I felt this way when I saved Barriss - I remember."
"No, it's not! Look-"
"Master-"
"Ahsoka." He sends her another wave of calm. "Could you sense me down there?"
She stills under his hand.
He pushes forward. "You could. And I was- I was strong in the dark side. You could sense it. But-"
"It might have changed how you looked, Master," she whispers, her voice too soft, "but I can still sense the dark side in you. You're just as powerful as the Son."
He recoils. She continues, unheeded, and her gaze, teary-eyed and terrified, bores into his. He can't look away.
"It was me down there," she says. She blinks, and there's a flicker of jade in her eyes before they fade back into their startling blue. "But it was just… more. And the same happened with you, and with Master Obi-Wan. We were different, but we were the same."
He doesn't know how to respond to that. He stares at her, frozen, and she breaks her gaze.
But she isn't wrong, is she? He'd thought about pulling the Light from her just a few moments ago. In the Force, he stares at Ahsoka, taking in the brilliant white-gold that's still slightly tainted by the poison the Son had infected her with on Mortis, and he thinks about how if he were to look at his own presence right now, he'd see the mirror opposite - a presence entrenched in the dark side with a seed of the Light left over from the time he became a conduit for the Daughter.
He reaches for the Force, and finds nothing but darkness. He slams his shields shut.
A noise draws his attention. His head snaps up, hand instinctively going for his lightsaber, before he sees Obi-Wan at the 'fresher door.
"Are you both alright?" Obi-Wan asks.
No. No, they're not. Beside him, Ahsoka sniffles, and through their bond, Anakin can sense the image that keeps replaying itself in her mind - the image of Grievous, horribly mutilated and screaming in agony - and through his bond with Obi-Wan, he can sense that his master can feel Ahsoka's pain.
Obi-Wan meets his eyes, and though Anakin hadn't noticed it before, he sees the slight tenseness of Obi-Wan's shoulders relaxing as he sees that Anakin's eyes are no longer golden. But Anakin doesn't feel balanced. He doesn't feel stable. He feels like he's clinging onto the edge by his fingertips, dangerously close to falling into a void, and he isn't sure if he has enough strength to do anything but keep himself there.
"Obi-Wan," he says, and his voice feels so horribly small, "can you help me?"
Help me stay. Help me not to Fall. Help me-
There's a soft brush at his shields and Anakin opens his bond, letting the blue-green mist filter through his mind. It feels clumsier and weaker and thinner than before, but it's something, like a strand of twine curling around his torso to help support his grip on the edge of a cliff.
"I've got you," Obi-Wan murmurs.
For a while, they sit there on the 'fresher floor, too exhausted to do anything other than lean against each other's shoulders. Hesitantly, Anakin tries to calm himself, using some of the meditation techniques Obi-Wan had taught him years ago, and he reaches for the Force again.
There's nothing but darkness again. It's cold, cruel, and deliciously tempting. He reaches out, desperately looking for the Light that he'd been used to wielding for over the past decade, and he finds it, but it's so far away and hard to reach. He stretches again, aiming to grasp the Light that hovers so tantalizingly out of reach-
The Darkness laughs at him in the voice of the Son.
Silly little Jedi, it hisses. You are one of ours now.
He slams his shields closed again, heart racing. His eyes flicker to Obi-Wan, then Ahsoka, and for a horrible moment, he's afraid of what they might say.
But they aren't even looking at him. Ahsoka's eyes are closed as she tries to release her horror into the Force, and Obi-Wan is staring at his hands, as if he'd forgotten what they'd look like on a human body. As Anakin watches, they explode into a fine blue-mist before reforming.
"Master?" he asks tentatively.
Obi-Wan flinches. "I'm fine," he says automatically, and Anakin's mouth twists at the sound of his master's lie. "I just need time to remember."
Well, they have time. They have the time they need to get back to Coruscant-
Then the ship jerks, and dozens of new presences make themselves known.
Anakin curses. They'd been drifting in real space, too disoriented to even think about even triggering the hyperdrive, and they'd just been caught in a tractor beam. He doesn't even know how long they'd been drifting, but it's been long enough for him not to be able to sense the power of Dathomir behind them.
"Not good," Obi-Wan mutters, and absurdly, Ahsoka throws her head back to laugh, shrill and hysterical and entirely the sound of a normal sixteen-year-old girl. Obi-Wan makes to stand and he stumbles, body still disoriented, and he grimaces.
It's ridiculous. They're three Jedi. Three gods. They shouldn't be afraid.
An image rises up beneath Anakin's eyelids through a bond - the image of Grievous, mutilated and screaming - and Ahsoka's laughter begins to turn into gasps.
"I can't," she chokes out, hysteria turning into horror. "I can't do it, not again."
Anakin's stomach churns as he pats her on the back. At the doorway, Obi-Wan tries to stand, only for his legs to dissolve into a mist, making him collapse onto the floor. He spits out a string of curses that would've had Anakin laughing in any other situation, but in this case, only leaves him with a hollow feeling in his gut.
They're Jedi. They're gods. Yet of the three of them, one can't bear to touch the Force, one is adjusting to his mortal body, and the third is too scared to lean into the Force too deeply lest he Fall into the dark side again. For the first time, Anakin feels weaker as a half-deity compared to when he'd just been a normal Jedi.
"I just-"
Obi-Wan's voice drags Anakin out of his thoughts.
"I just need time to adjust," Obi-Wan says, but there's an edge of despair in his voice that betrays how worried he is. He reaches for his lightsaber, and abruptly, his hands dissolve into mist, moving through the weapon without picking it up. Frustration bursts into the Force, and Obi-Wan huffs in annoyance.
Then a voice sounds over the comm. Harsh vowels, sharp words. Anakin's blood boils as he listens.
"Prepare to be boarded by the forces of Gardulla the Hutt," rasps a voice over the speakers in Huttese. "Resistance is futile."
The ship shudders again, and a new sound intrudes- the sound of a hatch slowly being forced open as Gardulla's slavers try to make their way on board the Twilight.
They can't fight. Or, more accurately, they can - but if they do fight, it may not bode well for their own sanity. Ahsoka's eyes flash, wavering between green and blue, and she clenches her fists. She senses it too - not just the presence of the slavers, dark and oily, but also the weak, broken presence of dozens of slaves aboard their ship.
But she's afraid - Anakin can sense it. The darkness in her Light grows in her agitation, long, spindly fingers beginning to seep through her presence like poison, and he grits his teeth as he makes a decision. Obi-Wan might not be in any fighting shape, and while Ahsoka might be, Anakin will die before he lets the dark side take hold of her again.
"Help me," he snaps, and he throws his training bonds open in the Force. "You're both in no shape to fight."
"Master-"
"Anakin-"
"There's no time!" His voice rises, an echo of a roar and a snarl beginning to creep in near the end of his words, and in the mirror, he sees flecks of gold beginning to colour his eyes. At the back of the ship, he hears a scuffle and a clang; the sign the slavers have broken through. "Just- don't let me Fall."
His voice cracks. The sound of the slavers' voices begin to get nearer. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan stare at him, hesitant, and Anakin swallows his pride as he pleads with them through their bonds.
Please.
Obi-Wan nods. Behind Anakin, he senses Ahsoka reaching for him through their bond. In his mind, at the precipice of the dark side, a new strand of twine holds him aloft - a strand of white-gold, reinforcing the blue-green rope that makes sure that his leap into the dark side will not lead to him being lost in the Dark.
He's scared. He's not scared of the slavers - he knows he can deal with them. But he's scared that he'll Fall, and he's scared of what he could do if he becomes completely lost to the dark side like the Son - destructive, mad with power, and responsible for the deaths of the ones he loves. He's scared that he can't reach the Light anymore. He's scared that after he touches the dark side again, he won't be able to come back.
But if he doesn't move to fight, then the dark side will take a firmer hold of Ahsoka. If he doesn't move to fight, he doesn't know what could happen to Obi-Wan. He doesn't know how many slavers there are - just that there are several of them, and that they're geared up and ready to capture new slaves.
We got you, Master, echoes Ahsoka's voice through their bond. Equally as loud, but not as verbose, Obi-Wan's agreement filters through. We'll pull you back.
Anakin takes a breath, searching for the remnants of the Light leftover from the Daughter within him. He imagines taking it, forming it into a third tether to anchor himself to sanity. He takes a breath as the slavers' voices approach. In the Force, he stretches out, trying one last time to reach the Light side that he'd been accustomed to during the past twelve years. Like before, it's there but out of reach, and he mentally prepares himself.
Then he opens himself up to the Force, and a familiar icy power rushes through his veins as he falls into the embrace of the dark side.
There are four slavers. Two equipped with blasters; one with a vibrowhip; one with a slugthrower. The slugthrower is always useful for fighting Jedi; it wouldn't kill them, but it'd certainly slow them down enough for the slavers to beat a hasty retreat if necessary.
They know this ship holds three sentients. Two humans, and a young Togruta. Enough to fetch another hefty sum of money for Gardulla. They move quietly, aware that these sentients might put up a fight. But the slavers win. They always have.
They force their way through the top hatch of the ship and land in the storage area. It's relatively empty, save for a few boxes and a coffin-like thing that's strapped to the wall. The boxes cast long shadows in the low lighting at the back. There's something off about this ship too - a strange taste in the air and the cramped feeling in the back of this ship - but they swallow back their unease. All ships taste the same when they're being invaded.
Their leader - a grizzled human of forty years, steps forward. "Come out," he calls mockingly in Huttese. He says it again in Basic. "You got some nice cargo back here."
The shadows look a little big. Perhaps the lights are dimming - an effort of this ship's doomed crew to save themselves by taking on the slavers in the dark.
One of the slavers - a young Ortolan - peers at the coffin and shouts in horror.
"What is that?!" she screams.
The human rolls his eyes. So they'd stumbled across an odd shipment. Big deal.
Then he looks inside the coffin, and sees a half-metal Kaleesh face, frozen in agony, with flesh and dried blood grown in warped shapes around it, and his stomach churns as his unease grows. His gut tells him that there's something wrong here - something that tells him to get out. But he ignores it. "Eh, shut it," he snaps. "It's probably-"
The escape hatch they'd used to cut their way in slams shut with a clang.
The sound echoes in the darkening room like the toll of an executioner's bell, foreboding and ringing too loudly. The human rolls his eyes, pushing aside the unease he feels as the rest of his people ready their weapons. "Hey Zhig," he snips into his comm, his voice reedy and high, "You closed the hatch. Re-open it, will ya?"
There's no sound from the other end.
"Zhig," he says, exasperated, as he comms the pilot again. "Quit playing games."
Silence.
The Ortolan raises her voice. "Maybe we should-"
She doesn't get much further in her sentence before the sound interrupts them from the comm. They'd never heard their pilot utter such a noise. The hairs on their arms rise and shivers run down their backs, terror beginning to make itself known as they hear the bloodcurdling scream of terror on the other end that cuts off just as quickly as it started.
The slavers look at each other, fear beginning to widen their eyes. The human raises his hand to his comm.
"Whoever's there," he calls out, voice shrill as the edges of fear begin to creep in, "If you don't show yourself, I'll detonate the sl-"
All the comms of the slavers rip themselves off of their arms and belts, floating impossibly in the air, before they crumble into a ball, crushed by an invisible fist.
The human raises his hand, signaling to the Falleen with the slugthrower. So they're dealing with a Jedi. "Jedi," he says, voice falsely placating. "We can talk this out."
In the corner of his eye, something moves. The human slaver whips his head around, but sees nothing. Most of the other slavers look at him with an inquisitive gaze, but one of them - a Gran wielding a vibrowhip, begins to tremble.
"What is it now, Grinluff?" the human asks, exasperated.
Slowly, the Gran extends a shaking finger, and he points to the corner.
The slavers turn slowly, weapons pointed and ready to attack, and they see nothing in the shadows behind the crates. One of them opens their mouth to speak-
The Ortolan begins screaming, her voice high and shrill with terror. "No, no, no-"
The human whips around, heart pounding. "Teb, get a kriffing grip-"
"I am not a coward!" she shrieks, responding to an unseen voice, and the vibrowhip comes alive in her hand, lashing out at nothing and everything. The slavers throw themselves to the ground frantically. "Get out of my head!"
A new sound rips itself out of her throat - a howl that makes it sound as though her mind is shattering - and the vibrowhip snaps out, grazing the Falleen with its wild flailings, before the Ortolan shudders to a stop and begins to make strange noises.
"Teb?" the human asks.
The Ortolan gargles, her face beginning to pale, and the slavers realize that she's choking as she begins clawing at an invisible grip around her neck. The Falleen whips back and forth, looking for the Jedi, but there's nothing. Nothing but the strange cargo and the eerie silence underneath Teb's gasps for air.
Then-
The slavers' weapons simultaneously rip themselves out of their grip, pulled to the far corner by an invisible power. The Ortolan falls to the ground, sucking in great, heaving gasps of air, and the slavers jump as a figure emerges from the corner of their eye - one of the humans. He watches them, an unignited lightsaber in his hand, and in the darkness of the room, his eyes seem to glow an unnatural gold.
The human slaver shudders. The Jedi were supposed to be peaceful, but this Jedi- and the way he moves - just seems so wrong-
Then something strange happens, and the Jedi flinches. The glow of his eyes dim, fading into a cold blue, and the anger on the Jedi's face smooths out. A brief flash of horror crosses his face, and for a moment, he looks so young and human and vulnerable.
The Falleen doesn't hesitate. In one smooth motion, he draws a hidden pistol, and pulls the trigger.
It happens all at once. One moment, Anakin can feel the terror rolling off the slavers in waves. Their eyes are wide with panic, their hands trembling. He relishes in it, sucking in the cold power that calls to him in the Force, and he grins, ready to toy with them, to make them feel the pain they inflicted on others tenfold-
Then something tugs at him. A strand of Light, a reminder of Balance, and a gentle whisper from Obi-Wan and Ahsoka.
Anakin.
And the dark recoils.
He pauses in his steps, horror blooming in his chest. He knows how easy it is to be lost in the dark side - and even with some preparation before the slavers had broken onto the ship, he'd nearly jumped headfirst into madness in his drive for revenge against the slavers. Being entrenched in the dark side had been different on Dathomir - there, he'd had the strength of the blinding Light that was Ahsoka and the solid balance that was Obi-Wan to draw on to prevent himself from going insane. It had been different before they went to Dathomir too - back then, they hadn't gone through the shock of living in their other forms. But here and now - with all of them still reeling with the aftershocks of being slammed back into a mortal body - he needs to rely more heavily on his own self-control than on Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, and he'd nearly lost himself to the dark side immediately.
Force. They'd only left Dathomir just over an hour ago, and he'd nearly gone past the point of no return twice in that time.
Then the Force screams in warning, and one of the slavers' hidden weapons goes off. Instinctively, Anakin jerks backward, drawing his saber-
The slug fragments slam into his chest, burning through his tabards and into his skin. For a split second, there's nothing but a stabbing, white-hot pain, echoed by the cries of alarm through his bonds with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. He tries to take a breath, and instinctive panic begins to set in as he realizes he can't kriffing breathe-
And with the fear comes rage, then hatred.
How dare they shoot at a god.
He raises his hand and clenches it into a fist. All four of the slavers gasp, hoisted into the air by an invisible grip around their throats, and he takes a moment to assess the damage done by the slugthrower. It's not ideal - there's a strange tightness in his chest and a sharp pain that indicates at least one broken rib. But it's something to draw strength from.
Pain fuels the dark side, after all.
"Jedi… scum," gasps the human slaver. "You aren't… supposed..."
Anakin's voice is soft. "I'm no Jedi."
"A… dark Jedi... then?"
Anakin smiles, and he raises his other hand and twists.
The sound is deafening in the silence. The Ortolan slaver's head jerks violently to the side as he snaps her neck, and her body slumps to the floor. "Try again," Anakin teases, and he can't help but relish in the terror that's beginning to roll off the slavers in waves again. "You're closer this time."
There's a dull pull in his mind from the other end of the training bonds. Dimly, he's aware of Obi-Wan and Ahsoka calling to him, trying to pull him back - but the pain in his chest just makes it so easy to ignore them. Besides, he's doing this for them. To keep them safe.
The human's eyes are wide with terror. He opens his mouth, but in his fear, no sound comes out, and Anakin can't help but laugh. Let the slavers feel the pain they inflicted on others for a change. "Come on," Anakin taunts, and he twists his hand again, and another slaver - the Falleen - slumps to the ground with his head tilted at an unnatural angle. "I'm sure you can make a guess."
The Gran breaks. He babbles, pleading with the angel of death for mercy, promising to repent and to never touch a slave again-
Rage bubbles up in Anakin's stomach, and his gaze sharpens. These slavers deserve no mercy. They'd already harmed so many - they'd probably stolen dozens, if not hundreds, of sentients from their homes. They'd ripped the sentients from the arms of their families and they'd stolen their identities, their dignity, their right to be a person, all for the sake of a few coins in their pocket. In the slavers' ship, Anakin can sense the presence of the captive slaves - dejected, terrified, and broken, and his resolve hardens as he throws his hand forward and unleashes crimson lightning upon the remaining slavers.
"You don't deserve mercy," he snarls over their screams, and he draws on the burning in his chest and on the cold hatred he feels for them to intensify the lightning. The chip removal scar over his stomach burns in remembrance, and he stalks forward, intent on seeing this through to the end. "You don't-"
"Master!"
The sound of Ahsoka's voice and the brilliance of her presence cuts through his rage. The door hisses open and for a split second, it looks as though there's a star shining underneath her skin, bathing the room in a white-gold glow and washing away most of the shadows, and in that moment, Anakin can't help but wonder if this is how she looks to other sentients - a wonderterror with wings of light stretching to fill all corners of the room and with a thousand eyes that stare at him in the Force.
Then the moment passes, and he notices how there are still long shadows on his side of the room, cast by his own wings which encompass the area behind him. In the middle of the already-cramped room, the human and the Gran huddle together, whimpering in fear, their skin burnt and smoking from the strength of Anakin's Force-lightning.
A voice murmurs into his mind - a gentle admonition from Obi-Wan.
Anakin. Come back.
But - by the Force - he's having a hard time remembering why he should. Dimly, he recalls the horror he'd felt just a minute ago when he'd realized he'd nearly lost himself completely to the dark side again, but he can't remember why he shouldn't let the remaining slavers suffer like he and so many other slaves did. The galaxy would be better off without slaver scum. He looks at the bodies of the ones he'd just killed, and he can't find anything in himself other than a sharp vindication.
"We promised we wouldn't let you Fall," Ahsoka says, and she steps forward, suddenly looking every inch like a terrified sixteen-year-old Togruta Padawan burdened with a heavy task. Her eyes flicker to the crate containing Grievous' remains and her breath hitches, but she steps forward again, reaching for Anakin. "We promised, Master."
From behind Ahsoka, a blue-green mist seeps onto the floor and reforms clumsily into the shape of Obi-Wan, who waves his hand and puts the remaining slavers to sleep with a Force-suggestion. "Anakin," Obi-Wan calls out hesitantly, and suddenly he blinks through space-time and he's right there, his arms on Anakin's shoulders. "Anakin, are you with me?"
There's a part of Anakin that wants to jerk away and roar at Obi-Wan and Ahsoka for daring to interfere. The slavers would be better off dead, and he'd been doing this to keep them safe, to prevent Ahsoka from having to face Grievous again, and to prevent Obi-Wan from getting hurt while he re-adjusted. Then there's another part - a small, growing part of guilt and doubt, gnawing its way into his mind, admonishing himself for nearly going into an uncontrollable Fall rather than dipping into the dark side with caution and self-control the way he had before Dathomir, and admonishing himself for forcing Ahsoka and Obi-Wan to come to the back of the ship.
The conflict freezes him into inaction. He can't do anything but stare - stare at Obi-Wan, then Ahsoka, and then Obi-Wan again, and behind him, he feels it as his wings collapse into his back and disappear.
Ahsoka steps forward, each and every step trembling but resolute, and Obi-Wan moves back as she places a hand over the injuries left by the slug. "I'm going to heal you," she says slowly.
Leave me alone, a part of him snarls.
Help me, another part of him pleads. Before I Fall too far.
Amidst the conflict, there's not much he can do other than stare at Ahsoka for fear of himself lashing out and harming her and Obi-Wan. Her hand feels unnaturally cold on his chest, the coolness a soft balm to the burning pain left by the slug fragments, and there's a strange tugging sensation as the fragments of the slug are pulled out, the pain numbed by the gentle pulse of healing moving from Ahsoka's hand into his body. There's an even stranger sensation in his chest as he feels his ribs mending, all pain dulled by the soft coolness of the Light.
The white-hot pain disappears, and with it goes a part of his rage.
He opens his mouth, then closes it again.
Ahsoka pulls back. "Are you alright?" she asks warily. Beside her, Obi-Wan's eyes are narrow in concern.
Anakin blinks at them. He's suddenly aware of how cold the air is on his back without the wings, of how in the corner of his eye, he can see the limp bodies of the two slavers he'd just killed without mercy, and as his rage drains out, he finds in himself a numbness in response to what he'd nearly just done.
They deserved it, a part of him snarls in the voice of the Son. They deserved worse.
Maybe, another part of him acquiesces, but you nearly lost yourself in the process.
He opens his mouth again and tries to speak. "I-"
No other sound comes out. He doesn't know how to feel. There are so many things crashing down on him all at once. Guilt, from nearly Falling too deeply into the dark side. Anger, at himself for being unable to control his hatred, and at Obi-Wan and Ahsoka for holding him back. Terror, because he's karking terrified that he'll become like a Sith. Hunger, because he hadn't kriffing eaten for days, and hurt, because he can still sense the slaves in the other ship who are broken, and-
-and Ahsoka tackles him, pulling him and Obi-Wan impulsively into a hug. Anakin stiffens at the contact, then carefully relaxes, counting his breaths in an attempt to ground himself.
One. Two. He feels the gentle weight of Ahsoka's arms and the warmth of Obi-Wan's. Three. Four. On the other side of the training bonds, he senses the warmth of the light side, and he reaches for it. Five. Six. He closes his eyes, and in the Force, he gingerly pulls himself out of the grasping fingers of the Dark, and he takes hold of the precipice once more. Seven. Eight. He opens his eyes. Nine. Ten.
He opens his mouth and speaks.
"We should take care of the slaves in the other ship," he murmurs, and though they try to hide it from him, Anakin can sense Ahsoka and Obi-Wan relaxing. A remnant of hatred boils up in his stomach as he catches sight of the two remaining unconscious slavers, and he takes another breath, releasing the emotion into the Force. It's not entirely successful - there's a hint of venom in his voice when he speaks again. "And what about those slaver scum?"
Obi-Wan and Ahsoka draw back, faces darkening as they look upon the unconscious slavers. "They won't wake up anytime soon, I can guarantee that," Obi-Wan says.
"I say the galaxy is better off without them," Ahsoka adds, and Anakin can't help the fierce approval within him that leaps forward at those words.
"Let's take care of them later." Obi-Wan's hands land on their shoulders, interrupting their train of thought with a gentle urgency. "For now, let's take care of the slaves in the other ship."
Anakin bites his tongue, guilt warring with the desire for vengeance, and he finally acquiesces with a nod. "Alright," he says, and they move to release the slaves.
It takes hours to de-chip the slaves, and hours longer to ensure that they're fed and cared for. Obi-Wan can't pretend that he didn't feel a petty satisfaction in plundering the slavers' quarters for food and clothing to give to the former slaves. Though it isn't a Jedi sentiment, his mind turns to the two slavers locked in a small room on the Twilight - and he can't help but agree with what Ahsoka had said.
I say the galaxy is better off without them.
It had been sickening to find children amongst the slaves. Like all the others, they were battered, bruised, and broken, and it made him burn with a righteous fury that was made worse when he realized that Anakin had once been like that when he was young.
They'd offered the now-freed slaves passage to Coruscant, but they'd declined, wishing to return home or to find a new place on other planets. Obi-Wan had offered to speak to the Senator of Alderaan, and Anakin the Senator of Naboo; and some of the freed slaves had agreed. The freed slaves had also insisted on giving some of the crates of supplies, pointing out that they had no need for twenty crates of Corellian rum.
Soon after, the newly-commandeered ship had disappeared into hyperspace with a word of thanks, leaving Obi-Wan with his padawans and the remaining slavers on the Twilight.
"What do we do with them?" Ahsoka asks, staring at the two bodies of the dead slavers at the back of the ship.
"Space 'em," Anakin suggests. There's a golden gleam in his eye; throughout the hours they'd taken to free the slaves, Obi-Wan had had his attention split between re-learning how to use a mortal body and how to keep Anakin grounded. Despite himself, Obi-Wan can't find it within him to disagree, and so, out the airlock the slaver bodies went.
Which left the two living ones.
"And what about these ones?" Ahsoka asks, sliding open the door to reveal the still-sleeping slavers, cuffed and still battered.
"Space 'em," Anakin repeats, making no effort to hide the venom in his voice, and Obi-Wan feels the small, reckless part of himself shout in agreement.
"They'll face justice on Coruscant," he says instead, voice carefully neutral. A nugget of resentment appears in the Force from Anakin and is immediately quashed.
There's a frown in Ahsoka's voice when she speaks again. "But they saw us."
Obi-Wan thinks back to what feels like eons ago - to the time the Father had removed Anakin's memory, and to the time he'd removed Maul's.
"They won't remember," he tells her, and when he lifts his hand, he sees nothing but a blue-green mist.
The trip to hyperspace is delayed even further when Ahsoka receives a vision, insisting that the kyber crystal they'd received from Mother Talzin needed to be given to Hondo Ohnaka. Obi-Wan tries to object - kyber is sacred, and should not be given about recklessly - but Ahsoka stands firm.
"If we give Hondo enough incentive to trade," she says, "he'll help us to save the lives of at least seven Jedi. No kyber crystal is worth more than that."
A good point. Obi-Wan concedes, and over two hours later, Hondo Ohnaka leaves with the rum, the kyber, and a promise to save lives. And finally, hours after they've left the atmosphere of Dathomir, the Twilight jumps into hyperspace.
They compose the report for the Council while they eat.
"I'll give the report myself," Obi-Wan says, and in the Force, he tries to send waves of calm to his padawans. "We'll tell them that Ventress was the one who struck down Grievous, and that out of all the Nightsisters, only Mother Talzin had the ability to incapacitate him in such a way."
Ahsoka laughs, the sound a tad hysterical. "I never thought you'd lie to the Council, Master Kenobi."
Obi-Wan's smile is sharp. "What I'll tell them is true - from a certain point of view."
They lapse into silence, quickly consuming the military rations and nursing the cups of tea that Obi-Wan had had the foresight to bring, and it's then Obi-Wan notices that Anakin has barely spoken since they'd freed the slaves.
"Are you alright, Anakin?"
Anakin flinches, the movement spilling the hot tea onto the floor. He stares at the half-empty cup.
"Of course I'm fine," he croaks.
They lapse into a much heavier silence. Obi-Wan waits, giving Anakin the opportunity to speak should he need to, but nothing happens. Obi-Wan doesn't push - he doesn't want to pressure Anakin, for surely, if Anakin needs him - he'll speak up.
"Alright, then," he replies, and he turns back to the report. The Force around them swirls in a disjointed harmony as they ignore the bantha in the room, both Anakin and Ahsoka making vaguely affirmative noises or giving short suggestions for disagreements as Obi-Wan reads the report to them aloud.
The report is finished with little fanfare. When Obi-Wan goes to save it, he misses the button on the datapad when his hand turns into mist and goes through the cursed thing, and he swears under his breath before concentrating and saving the report with a solid hand. Ahsoka gives him a wry smile at the sound of his cursing, but it's faint and tired and scared, but what worries Obi-Wan even more is the fact that Anakin has barely reacted at all.
Alright. What they'd faced was unusual. But surely-
Obi-Wan sighs, and decides to confront the issue. "Anakin-"
Anakin whips his head around, eyes wild yet faraway, and he shrinks back like a frightened cat. At their feet, the shadows flicker in his agitation. "I said I'm fine!" he snaps, and a sudden power bursts from him, pushing everything back in a ring around where he sits and toppling some of the boxes on the side. Grievous' coffin creaks as it is slammed into the wall, the sound terrifying and sudden in the cramped space.
Twin pulses of fear from Anakin and Ahsoka leap into the Force to match Obi-Wan's, and he quickly releases his emotions into the Force.
No. This needs to be talked about now.
"You most certainly are not," Obi-Wan says firmly, but it's for nought; Anakin stares at the destruction around him with eyes wide, giving no indication that he has heard Obi-Wan at all. Beside him, Ahsoka reaches out tentatively.
"Master-"
"Get away from me!"
Anakin's hand snaps out as if to ward her off. In a surge of uncontrolled power that Obi-Wan hadn't seen happen since Anakin's early padawan days, the Force pulses, and Ahsoka slides backwards across the floor on her rear, a cry of surprise ripping itself out of her before she hits the wall with a stunned look.
Oh, Force. That's not good.
Before Obi-Wan can even think to gather his thoughts, Anakin scrambles backwards, staring at his hands as if he'd never seen them before, before reaching out tentatively to Ahsoka. "I'm sorry-"
"What the hell?" Ahsoka demands, voice incredulous, and Anakin shrinks backwards at her words.
"Ahsoka- I'm sorry- I-"
And in a display of emotion Obi-Wan hadn't seen in years, Anakin begins to shake, his breaths becoming shorter and faster, and his eyes begin to shine with unshed tears.
Kriff.
All emotions flee Obi-Wan then - all emotions but a fierce protectiveness and a sudden need to ensure that Anakin can breathe. "Anakin," he says softly, and he reaches out slowly. "Anakin. I'm here."
Panic blooms in the Force, untethered and burning, and Obi-Wan speaks again.
"Anakin." He opens his arms - an invitation. "I'm here."
Anakin stares at him, breaths coming in a harsh pant, before giving in and curling up in Obi-Wan's arms.
"I'm here," Obi-Wan says again. He'd never been particularly good at comforting Anakin - hell, he'd rarely confronted Anakin on issues this severe - but damned if he won't try his best. "Breathe. It's alright."
Behind Anakin, Ahsoka stands, quietly moving across the floor. "Mind if I join the hug, Skyguy?" she asks gently, and at the jerk of Anakin's head, Obi-Wan lifts his arm, giving Ahsoka the space to cuddle in.
(Ahsoka's skin is so cold, but the warmth of her presence more than makes up for it.)
They sit there in silence as Obi-Wan moves his hand in soothing repetitions down Anakin's back. They'd rarely done this - because of the war, there had been so little time to spend together that wasn't on the battlefield, and even less time to be able to let themselves go. Obi-Wan closes his eyes, savoring the feeling of familybrothersisterfather that murmurs in the Force, and for a moment, there's nothing but the warmth of each other's presences and the soft shaking of Anakin's body.
"How could you stand to be near me?"
Anakin's voice is shaky and terrified and entirely uncharacteristic of him.
"Of course I can," Ahsoka snips, though her smile is half-hearted and filled with worry. "We're always here for you, Master."
"But don't you see?" Anakin shoves back at Obi-Wan half-heartedly, then falls back into his embrace. "You sensed me. I can do such terrible things."
There's a tightness in Obi-Wan's chest that appears at those words. Anakin sounds so vulnerable and scared and Obi-Wan can't help but recall the terrible smile on Anakin's face when he was torturing the slavers. To reconcile the image of the gargoyle wings and golden eyes with his shaking padawan is a strange thing to do; yet Obi-Wan knows they are one and the same person.
"Maybe," Ahsoka says, but her voice is kind. "But you saw- you saw what I did to Grievous."
"It's not the same."
"Perhaps not," Obi-Wan concedes, "but-"
"I don't want- I-" Anakin's voice shakes, and Obi-Wan's arms tighten. In the Force, he sends wave after wave of soothing calm and warmth. In a sudden movement, Anakin jerks his head up and meets Obi-Wan's eyes, and Obi-Wan can't help but notice that they're a clear blue with no hint of gold. "Promise me that if I become like the Son - if I become a danger - you will stop me."
Obi-Wan thinks of how the Son died - with his sister dead, and with the Father dying - and his gut twists. "I should hope it never comes to that."
Anakin's grip on his arm is tight. "Please, Obi-Wan. Before I-" He swallows hard, and Obi-Wan knows - he knows - that Anakin is thinking of the image of the slaves they'd just freed, and how they'd been bent and broken by a horrible evil. "Before I hurt anyone else."
Another thought presses into Obi-Wan's mind - the face of the Father, filled with infinite sorrow as he held the Son he'd helped to kill in his arms, and Obi-Wan knows with a horrible certainty that should he ever be faced with an Anakin who has truly Fallen - one twisted and unrecognizable by hatred, one who has become everything Obi-Wan has sworn to destroy - he will never be able to strike him down lest he turn his own heart to ash.
"I will do what I must," he says, refusing to promise anything while pretending to, and Anakin's grip slackens in thanks before his mind turns to something else.
"I-" He stops, and tries again. "I don't know if I can hide it from the Council." His eyes flicker to the spot where the slavers are locked away, out of sight, and a flicker of hatred blossoms in the Force before flickering out and turning into fear. "I don't know if I can reach the light side anymore."
"We'll help you," Ahsoka tells him fearlessly, and the Light blooms in the Force. "We'll always be here."
"It might not work."
"Perhaps not," Obi-Wan says, and dimly he thinks of how he mustn't be the best at comforting people again. "We have had new legacies thrust upon us since our mission to Mortis. Much of our fate is uncertain right now, but we have each other. We'll be fine as long as we stay together."
He thinks of how the Force Wielders were locked away for millenia, undying yet isolated, and a surge of fear appears before he releases it into the Force. There is much of this situation he still does not yet understand - but he is glad, at least, that it is with two of the people he trusts the most.
"Come, now." He closes his eyes. "Meditate with me."
There's a brief silence.
"While we're like this?" Anakin asks, still in Obi-Wan and Ahsoka's embrace.
Ahsoka laughs, the sound free from hysteria and free from the echoes of bells. "Why not?"
A smile tugs at Obi-Wan's lips, and he sends them his affirmation through their bonds. And together, they fall into meditation in the swirl of hyperspace, listening to the songs of harmony and family that sings throughout the Force.