Hi! So I'm trying my hand at another fic. This one's a lot darker, so just maybe consider before you decide to read. Most of the dark is in the first chapter anyway, so just keep that in mind. If you want to go ahead with the story but maybe skip the first chapter, I'll include a summary at the end.
Chapter Triggers: Implied captivity, torture and sexual abuse. Read at your own risk.
CHAPTER ONE: A Padawan's Descent
Ahsoka is usually good at looking at the bright side of things. It's something that she'd always been good at, since her early days as a Jedi youngling. Rex once told her that he liked that about her and Obi-wan said that it helped Anakin, so it quickly became a usual practice for when she's faced with tough situations.
This though? This is a challenge, even for her.
Captured, restrained, drugged and on a ship on her way to who knows where. Her master is going to kill her. When he finds her, that is.
"My client wants you dead," the weequay bounty hunter sneers at her, running a grubby finger under her chin, forcing her to look up. She jerks her chin out of his hold and shivers. He laughs.
"Lucky for you, a young Togruta beauty like you is worth much more to me alive. I know plenty of men into your kind."
Ahsoka's naive mind doesn't pick up on his intentions straight away, and when she does, she's too young to fully understand what he means. All she cares about is that he plans to keep her alive, and the longer she's alive the more hope that her master and the men will come and rescue her. She's grateful for the greed of a weequay.
He leaves her then, most likely back to the cockpit of his ship while she's left to sit by herself in the small cage she's held in with no more than the dull hum of the engine to keep her company.
They touch down, and she immediately recognises the planet as Florrum. The last time she was here, she was with Master Plo on a mission. The thought takes her back to Anakin as well, and she misses them. It's worse now, because she now knows that it'll be a while until they find her. Florrum is a long way away from Coruscant, from where she was captured.
Their arrival is quickly met with pointed blasters, and a familiar laugh rings out above all the commotion.
"My my my, and what do we have here?"
Hondo Ohnaka. It hurts her pride to stand before him cuffed and groggy but she can do little more than glare him down.
"Ahsoka Tano," he mocks, arms spread as he approaches them. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"An investment," the bounty hunter answers before she can get a snippy remark out.
"Hmm, yes the Jedi will pay handsomely for this one," Hondo grins and Ahsoka is hopeful for a moment. Her master will know what to do, all he needs to know is where she is.
"No," the bounty hunter answers him, and Ahsoka fights to keep her face neutral. "We're being paid to have her dead. She needs to be off the radar. Find another use for her."
"You won't get away with it," she forces herself to growl out. Forces herself to be brave, because she's starting to feel a little more afraid now. "My master will find me, and you'll regret it."
The bounty hunter jostles her harshly in reprimand, and it makes her pounding head throb in agony. Hondo only laughs and grabs her face in his hand, turning her head from side to side to inspect her. She bites at him, but he retracts his fingers faster than she can manage it.
"Feisty. And beautiful. She will do nicely with the others."
"Others?" She asks grudgingly, though she's starting to suspect what they want from her. It fills her with dread.
"My exotic dancers." Hondo gives her a rotten toothed grin that makes her want to shrink away. "We'll see how well you can stir the loins of my men."
The weequay pirates soon learn that they're not entirely capable of taming her to suit their intentions. Force cuffs or not, Ahsoka has trained with the men long enough to be more than capable of defending herself when she's free to move, and most of them prefer their women only lightly restrained at most.
For a while, she's kept as nothing more than a pretty little thing to look at. They have her hands cuffed in front of her as always, and she's suspended a few feet off the ground, immobilised by a force field and wearing an embarrassingly skimpy outfit.
It's a blessing and a curse. During most nights that she's brought out she has to hold back her tears, helpless against the lewd eyes and the filthy words as intoxicated men lean forward to admire her form. It makes her want to hurl, makes her want to hunch over herself and hide as much as it pains her to admit.
But she's seen what they've done to the women they can touch. She's seen the aftermath of the abuse from when they're all rounded back up and locked away for the night. It could have been much worse.
Two weeks into her capture, a drunk pirate wanders a little too close and stumbles into the controls of the energy field holding her up. It turns off and she drops to the floor, stiff from the lack of movement but buzzing with adrenaline. It quickly gains the attention of a few men, so she forces herself to scramble to her feet. The freedom won't last if she doesn't act now, and she might never get another chance to escape.
Her lightsabers are long gone, but the pirates have always been careless with their weapons and it doesn't take long for her to get a hold of a blaster. She doesn't have the aim of a clone, but it's enough to take at least four of them out before the blaster is knocked out of her hands. She continues fighting for a way out with her elbows and legs, but her hands are still cuffed and she's hopelessly outnumbered. Her capture is inevitable.
When she's apprehended again, she's brought back to Hondo, who leans back in his seat and shakes his head at her like he's talking to a child. She is a child. Ahsoka used to hate the implication from Anakin and the men, but even she knows she's far too young to be lusted on like this. She vaguely remembers him speaking of honour to the bounty hunter Boba Fett, and she almost calls him out on it. There's not an ounce of honour in a single man on this cursed planet, much less in Hondo.
But she's helpless against her additional restraints and she's still very much aware of how much of her skin is exposed. She doesn't quite have it in her to speak out, but she does her best to show her fury in her eyes.
"You're making this very hard for us, my dear Ahsoka," Hondo clicks his tongue at her disapprovingly. "You don't cooperate, you attack my men, and now this? I thought you knew better than that."
"What, better than trying to escape from the people who kidnapped me?" Ahsoka spits at him.
"My dear, you're being paid to stand there and-"
"You're being paid. I'm being held against my will!" She wants to say much more in much more colourful language but she holds her tongue. Angry as she is, he's the person who decides what happens to her at the moment.
"Have it your way then," Hondo sighs, but Ahsoka doesn't relax. His words should be a relief to her, but there's a cruel gleam in his eyes that wasn't there before. "But you'll wish that you didn't cross Hondo Ohnaka."
He waves his hand in dismissal, and his men bring her back to the sleeping cells. She's relieved that they don't expect her to stand outside for the rest of the night. She doesn't think she'd be able to put up with that again. Sleep comes a little harder to her than it normally does. The cuffs dig uncomfortably into her wrists and Hondo's words still have her on edge.
Master, she tries to communicate to him through their force bond like she does every night. Where are you? But she knows he's not receiving it. She can't feel his presence in her mind. He's too far away.
She drifts off to sleep, and against everything, her last thoughts are still hopeful. Still bright and expectant. Her master will find her, she just has to be patient.
Hondo was right.
What comes next for her is much worse than what the pirates put her through. She knows as soon as she's collected from her cell the next morning, because this time, the weequay guard is not alone. There's a zygerrian with him.
"This is the one." the weequay gestures to her cell. She growls at the both of them, and the weequay frowns at her in disdain. The zygerrian however, just looks at her with interest, not at all put out by her show of aggression. "If you can tame her, she's all yours. So far, she's proven difficult."
"She has appeal as a pleasure slave," the zygerrian mutters, and Ahsoka's heart drops.
"For personal use only," the weequay tells him. "She needs to remain off the radar to both the Republic and the Separatists."
What? It occurs to Ahsoka that she's never thought about who it could be that wanted her dead. Sure, she's made enemies over the war, but no more than any other Jedi, and certainly no more than Anakin. And what enemy had she made who was so influential that she had to be hidden from two entire governments?
"If she can't take clients, she's worth less," the zygerrian eyes the weequay expecting an argument, but to her dismay, the weequay only nods.
"If you can take her off our hands then by all means," he agrees. "She's been more trouble than she's worth."
Payment is transferred and Ahsoka is released from her cell and tossed to the floor at the zygerrian's feet. A metallic collar is slid under her lekku and clicked shut around her neck. Mortified, she scrambles to her feet to strike out at her new owner, but a white hot pain engulfs her before she can even take a step closer. It burns her neck and the underside of her lekku, making her shriek as the pain travels through the sensitive appendages from her montrals to the end tips. Her limbs are seized and tensed from the current, and she drops to her knees once again.
The zygerrian drags her back to her feet by her arm, and presses her face close to hers menacingly.
"You'd do well to comply, skug," he snarls at her. "You don't know pain yet."
Ahsoka sets her jaw in fury but remains silent, eyes downcast. He secures a leash to her collar and drags her along through Hondo's compound, outside and towards his ship. On her way out, she makes eye contact with Hondo, who looks like he wants to snip another remark at her. But he doesn't. Even he looks slightly afraid at speaking out around the zygerrian.
There's another cell waiting for her on board the ship. She's tossed inside and the leash is secured onto the bars. To her surprise, he takes her cuffs off. She contemplates whether or not she'd be able to tug it free in her weakened state.
"Don't," the zygerrian says as if he can read her mind. "The moment that chain detaches, the collar will fry you. And I won't be here to turn it off. Do you understand?"
Ahsoka nods meekly. She knows he's not lying. She can feel the current flow through the metal chain now that her force cuffs are off. She recalls a distant memory of a conversation with the clones about the most painful ways to die. Electrocution had been one of the top decided methods.
Zygerria is a lot like Tatooine. It's a filthy desert planet crawling with crime and trafficking. She's surprised the Republic hadn't shut a place like this down. A different zygerrian meets them in the middle of the slave market.
"Keeper Agruss," the zygerrian holding Ahsoka greets him.
"Bruno Denturri. What can I do for you my friend?" Agruss questions. His eyes are on Ahsoka, studying her and it makes her lip curl up defensively. Her collar immediately goes off and she chokes in pain. It ends as quickly as it begins and she's left gasping for breath.
"Hmm," Agruss mutters. "Unprocessed I see."
"And a Jedi," Denturri warns him, placing a large hand on her bare shoulder.
"I've never processed a Jedi before," Agruss grins. "But there's a first time for everything. Come along now, little skug. We'll see what you're made of."
Ahsoka is shoved forward, but she's quick to catch herself. She doesn't like how unfazed they are at learning what she is. Is it arrogance or is it that they're really capable of doing what they claim to be able to? She recalls the stories of a Zygerrian Slave Empire before the Jedi shut them down, and she dreads the notion that it might be the latter.
She soon learns that it is the latter.
Ahsoka is fourteen when she is first admitted into the Kadavo Slave Processing Facility. It only takes a week for her to learn that rebellious outbursts and non-compliance only leave her and those around her helpless to whips and torture. She's forced to quickly accept that this is how things are now. Best to keep your eyes down and remain hard at work.
When she's in the mining facility she's put to hard labour. She hates it at first for the same reason that she used to hate unloading supplies from gunships a whole lifetime ago. Mindless tasks allow her mind to wander, and she knows now that the mind is capable of wandering very far down the road of despair if it is allowed.
But she learns to hate it less when she realises the alternative. Bruno Denturri returns for her once in a while for a night in the bedroom. For his pleasure and her pain. He's rough and unforgiving, and despite the other slaves claiming that it becomes less painful the more you're accustomed to it, she screams and cries no less every time.
She's just a child, she thinks, begs someone to realise. Though as time passes, she realises that the statement is no longer true. She's been forced to grow up too fast. She's not a child. She's hardly anything anymore.
Nights like those make her glad when she's returned to the mines.
She no longer hopes that her master will come to her aid like she used to. In fact, she's quick to bar any thoughts leading to her life before slavery, her life in the Jedi Order. Not because they never came for her, though they do act as an irrational place for blame, but simply because the word master now has a new meaning to her, and those thoughts always lead to a dark place.
She's better off accepting that help will never come. She can't place her hopes in frevolent places if she wants to survive.
Sometimes she doesn't even know if that's what she wants anymore.
She's just shy of seventeen when she's admitted into the facility for the last time. Bruno Denturri tosses her to Keeper Agruss and claims that he will be back for her when he finishes seeing through business offworld. He never does, and she's left indefinitely in the hands of the Keeper and his guards. Left to a life of labour and torture, waiting for her slaver that will never return.
She doesn't know that Bruno Denturri was killed by Anakin Skywalker, doesn't know that he's one step closer to finding her. All she knows is that if she keeps her eyes down and remains hard at work, she might be granted a moment more spared of the zygerrians' hungry eyes and lashing whips.
Chapter Summary:
The story starts off when Ahsoka is around 14 years old. She is kidnapped from Coruscant by a weequay bounty hunter. His client wanted her dead, but he decides not to kill her and use her for extra money instead. She is sold to Hondo Ohnaka and his gang as an exotic dancer, before they realise that they don't have the means to keep a jedi captive. She's then sold to a zygerrian slaver named Bruno Denturri, who sends her to a Slave Processing Facility run by Keeper Agruss. Once in a while, Denturri retrieves Ahsoka from the facility to use her as a personal pleasure slave, but for the most part, she spends the next three years of her life in the processing facility. Eventually, Bruno Denturri is killed by Anakin, though Ahsoka doesn't know that yet. The chapter ends off just before the zygerrian arc takes place in the clone wars.
Hope this was okay for you! Totally understand if this is not your cup of tea. I wanted to explore a different aspect of the clone wars, a much darker aspect of it that we may not have seen as much while following the heroes of the republic during the war.
Let me know what you think! Feedback is always welcome and appreciated.
See you all for chapter 2!