Once Anakin could breathe again, he steadied himself on the edge of the counter. "Where'd you find that?" He asked between wheezes.
"On a shelf, back there," she pointed behind her. "I didn't think you needed help, but I couldn't resist the opportunity."
He stood up straight. "At least now we don't have to worry about him. We can find those holocrons and get out of here."
"Right," said the Inquisitor. "Back to work."
"Feel around for your holocrons," he told her. "See if you can find them."
He did the same, focusing on the song he heard from the holocrons. The sweet singing filled his ears, and he turned slowly with his eyes closed until he thought he was facing towards them. When he opened his eyes again, he was staring at the floor, towards the back of the house.
"Find them yet?" He questioned, walking forward and searching the floor ground for a trap door.
"Yep. Down in the basement somewhere." The Sister saw what he was doing, and continued the search in the other room.
The taser wasn't the only thing she had seen on the shelves. This guy was either a collector or running some kind of black market for electrics and weapons. All sorts of scanners, blasters, trackers, computers, projectors, and just random pieces were cluttering the shelves, counters, and even the floor. The Sister had to watch her step to make sure she wasn't accidentally smashing a rogue spark plug.
She didn't see a trap door, but her gaze did sweep over the counters, looking for hints of other traps she had missed earlier while Killian was threatening Skywalker. A scanner was tipped on its side and the Inquisitor picked it up. Might be useful, she thought, and she turned it on.
She held it in front of her, watching the screen as it came to life. When she activated the program, it showed the room she was in, but with infrared lighting instead of visible. She angled it at the dim lightbulb hanging over her head. It was a soft orange. If it could pick up the heat from the light, maybe it could help scan for more traps, like the one on the door.
"Hey, are you dead yet?" Came from the other room. Skywalker must have found something.
"Not yet," she replied, "but I found an infrared scanner. You think Killian would mind if we borrowed it to steal our holocrons back?" She walked into the front room again, and Skywalker was fingering the floor beneath him.
"Probably," he guessed, and he looked back at the snoring drunk. "I found our way in. Bring it over here."
The Sister kneeled by Skywalker, examining the door with her eyes before checking the scanner. It was well hidden, but it didn't look armed. She held up the scanner and studied the heat coming from it.
"The door isn't armed," she reported, "but there might be another shock mat at the bottom. I can't tell until we open the door."
Anakin turned to the trap door. "Well, the good news is that it won't set off an alarm, and even if it did no one would hear it from all the way out here. Nothing should explode, either, since he probably is hiding more than holocrons down here. Whatever traps he must be setting probably either require contact or proximity." He opened it. "What do you have?"
"Shock mats, and plenty of them."
They stood up and Anakin pulled his lightsaber from his belt. He was about to ignite it and drop it on the shock mats, but the Sister held out hers. Anakin stared at her.
"This might work better." She offered it to him.
He reached out to grab it, gingerly. Replacing his own, he ignited both ends, and the Sister stepped back to give him room.
Now that he was holding it, he could feel the kyber crystals inside it. It was like they were sick, and the song he heard, ever so quietly, was a song of pain. They weren't made to be used for this, they told him. They were made for more than this.
He tried to push it out of his mind and focused on the handle. He didn't feel any mechanical parts inside it, which confused him.
"How does it spin?" He asked. "Are there motorized bearings, or..."
"Just regular ball bearings," she told them. "I tried to motorize it and it worked, actually, but I ended up taking them out, and I spin it using the Force. It actually spins faster without the motors."
"Really?" Anakin glanced at her, then back at the saber. "I guess the lack of heat probably creates less wear on the parts, now that I think about it. What lubricant do you use?"
"Well, since there's a lack of heat, I tried a mercury-based mix from the Outer Rim, some private company that no one pays attention to. Normally, it would react with the parts, but the lack of heat prevents that from happening."
"I've heard about that mix. It's terrible for motors, I tried it once. Nearly blew up in my face."
"Works better than the popular lubricants. I've only had to reapply it once." She cocked her head. "I didn't know you were good with motors."
"More than motors," he told her. "I've always been good with those, droids, equipment, anything really. You ready?" He asked, and he spun the red blades. She nodded, and he threw the lightsaber down through the door. It sliced up the floor a little bit, but once it made contact with the basement floor, sparks flew, and the mats short-circuited.
"After you," he said, and the Sister jumped down. While she pulled her lightsaber to her and deactivated the scarlet blades, he jumped down after her.
"See anything new?"
"Look at this," she showed him the scanner in her hands. "You were right, he's hoarding more than holocrons."
"I wish I could take some of this to Coruscant. This guy would be in a lot of trouble if the Republic knew about him."
There were more treasures here than either Anakin or the Sister could count. Jewels, rare parts, prized portraits and statues, samples of some of the rarest (and most illegal) substances in the galaxy, texts that were sure to be count as lost, and hundreds of other things were on display for the two to see. If it all was to be priced, well, Anakin wasn't sure if anyone could pay for all of it. Killian had probably gotten deals on all of this because there was no way a 'collector' could have gotten his hands on all of this.
"Looks like everything is resting on a weight sensor," she pointed out. "If it's moved, it sets off its defense mechanisms, probably a nasty shock. This guy has a thing for electrocution."
"Kind of like Dooku," Anakin retorted.
"Sideous too, actually," agreed the Sister. "I think the holocrons are in the back. Mine is, anyway."
"The first one to find them wins," challenged Anakin, setting off towards the poorly lit end of the room. He employed his lightsaber as a glow stick.
"Wins what?" The Sister asked, following his lead. "Or were you just saying that?"
Anakin's lips moved of their own accord, his muscle memory taking over. "A lifetime supply of air, not valid while choking, underwater, or in space."
The Sister laughed again, and Anakin smirked. Classic.
"Who came up with that one, or was it just off the top of your head?"
"It was-" he fell short. Thinking quickly, he amended his statement, dropping his voice. "It's an inside joke. 501st thing."
The Inquisitor squinted at him. Anakin knew he hadn't fooled her. "Your Padawan, wasn't it? Ahsoka Tano."
Anakin breathed in deeply, the lightness and the humor gone. "Yeah, she came up with most of them. Don't say her name."
The Sister didn't reply but continued to look silently. Anakin was grateful that she didn't ask questions.
He had been so wrapped up in the search and the banter that he had forgotten all about his questions about her identity. Anakin hadn't expected to be able to work with her so easily. Their pointless arguments, their quick-witted quips, they had all flowed naturally back to him, from back when he would exchange the same banter with Ahsoka on missions.
Anakin stole a glance at the Sister behind him. I used to do the same thing with Ahsoka.
Even as he pretended to keep searching for the holocrons (he knew where they were, he could feel them clear as day, now), he realized how similar they were, and not just in looks. Her agile frame, her clever fingers and neat tricks with her lightsaber, the...the snippy banter. Never once, in eleven months, had he dared to use 'snippy' to try and describe someone else other than Snips, but this girl, in just a matter of half an hour or so, acted just like Ahsoka did on missions. For two months, he had thought that the Sister and Ahsoka couldn't have acted more differently, but one night of truce and all of a sudden, it was like his Pada-
No. This was not his Padawan. She wasn't her. No one was, except her. He forced himself to return to his search, and he approached the shelf he felt the holocrons on.
Anakin held up his lightsaber to the shelf to get a better glimpse of what he was looking for. "How many holocrons did you say were here?"
"Only one of ours," she said quietly, referring to the Sith. She didn't want to upset him, after mentioning Tano. "I know there's at least three of yours here. Maybe four, but I couldn't tell for sure. The last file had been corrupted."
"Then I think I found them," he said, and the Inquisitor walked over to them.
True to her word, four cubed glass prisms were sitting on weights triggers, and Anakin could hear their songs clearer now than ever. A small red pyramid was resting next to them.
Anakin furrowed his brow. Not songs, song. He held his lightsaber as close as he dared to the precious artifacts, but only one of them glinted with the reflection of his lightsaber.
"There's only one here, the rest are fakes," he muttered as he scowled. "Typical."
"Well, as far as fakes go, they're not horrible," the Sister commented. "Whoever was selling them must have been desperate for credits. Check it out."
The Sister lifted her infrared scanner to the three fakes, and their heads crowded around the screen. They had lights inside of them, where crystals would have been if they were real. Someone had clearly spent a lot of time on them.
Anakin lifted the tip of his saber to the bases of the two real holocrons. The weight triggers sparked and died, and the Inquisitor and the Jedi reached for their respective holocrons at the same time.
Their hands clasped around the glass cases at the same time, and their glow brightened. Both Anakin and the Sister dropped their lightsabers they were holding, although they turned them off before it burned their feet.
The holocrons hovered in the air, but neither Force user could let go of theirs. Anakin turned to the Sister.
"What did you do?" He accused her, but she shook her head.
"I'm not doing this! This isn't me!"
They both turned back to the floating holocrons, but they were blinded by the sudden flash of blue and red light. The holocrons flew up rapidly and lifted Anakin and the Sister with them. They knocked several precious artifacts off their shelves and their corresponding weight triggers, but they had already been lifted through the roof of not just the basement, but the regular house, too. The bases were too late to shock them.
The two were carried into the air, and Anakin wondered if the holocrons would take them out of the atmosphere before they could let go. About a hundred feet up, though, the holocrons stopped and connected together of their own free will. Anakin and the Sister vaguely felt themselves falling as a vision appeared in their minds.
They were standing on a giant balance, seemingly made of, well Anakin wasn't sure what it was. He didn't even recognize where they were. They were on opposite ends, but Anakin could barely see the Sister from where he stood. He was surrounded by tons of people, and the more he looked, the more people he recognized. They were Jedi, most of them.
He turned, and behind him, on the end of the balance, he saw Master Yoda, Obi-Wan, and most of the Masters actually. When he looked at the end closest to the Inquisitor he saw Dooku and a dark, hooded figure that looked like a Sith. He must be Sideous.
This is a balance of the Force, Anakin realized. Light users on one end, and Dark users on the other.
In the center of the balance, he saw small children. Undecided Younglings, he thought, but there were others in the middle too, people who used neither the Light nor the Dark. Actually, from what Anakin saw, there were only two: Barriss Offee and Asaaj Ventress.
If they were here then Ahsoka should have been too, but Anakin didn't see many Togruta. Just Shaak Ti, over by Master Yoda, and the Inquisitor.
Which means Ahsoka is either the Inquisitor or...
Before he could finish his thought, he blinked and snapped back to reality.
The ground was hurtling towards them. Anakin winced. This was going to hurt.