3 Years Later (15 BBY)
The Knight Hawk (Jarik's ship); Jarik POV...
The sound of a bird hooting gets my attention, and I look over to see the convor sitting on one of the gates, much to my surprise.
"You again?" I ask out loud, heading in its direction. The gate that the convor appears to be standing on has some sort of symbol at the top. In the center was a small circle, flanked by four long trapezoids with two on each side, and surrounding that all was a circle.
"You're connected to the Daughter?" I ask it. "Why have you been watching me? Have you been watching Ahsoka?"
It chirps again, fluttering its wings as it looks down at me, almost as if in a yes fashion.
"Well... why?" I ask in confusion.
The convor looks down at the gateway it's sitting on, which starts to glow with a golden color. I raise an eyebrow in surprise and confusion but continue to watch the gate. The golden glow then moves to form a figure in the center, and behind him is a whole line of many different people, male and female, all human. The man standing before me reminds me of Revan, but I get the feeling that it isn't. He's wearing golden armor underneath a black cloak and cape, with his hood down. A golden version of Darth Revan's mask was clipped to his belt, and two lightsabers that looked eerily similar to mine were hanging from his belt as well. What surprised me the most was his face and how similar it looked compared to me, with brown hair reach just past the shoulders, some of it braided, and a thin beard and goatee covered his face.
"Who are you?" I ask the figure hesitantly.
"I am you," he replies. I blink in shock, not expecting that answer.
"You... what? How can you be me? I'm me!" I say in bewilderment.
"Because... I am your destiny!" he suddenly shouts, his whole figure changing instantly. His golden armor and pristine robes turn dark and terrifying, rips in the cloak, and a silver, crimson colored overcomes the golden mask. What scares me the most is his eyes suddenly gleam a bright and evil gold color, glaring angrily at me with fury, all the while the lines of people behind him fade away, revealing a shadow of Darth Revan standing behind him.
I back away in fear as the older, evil me activates a blood red lightsaber, and steps forwards, swinging it directly for my face. I raise my arms to block the blow in terror...
I shoot up in bed, coming out of my sleep with a gasp, breathing heavily. That was a nightmare I just had, something I've been receiving on the rare occasion during the past few months, and it always had that horrifying ending to it. The dream began the same as always, starting back when I journeyed to that strange plain of existence, a 'World Between Worlds' as I've decided to call it, when I met my future self. Yet instead of going on as it id originally, my future self would suddenly transform into a terrifying Sith, with a shadow of Darth Revan visible behind him.
I glanced over at Ahsoka, who shifted in the bed a little, disturbed by my sudden awakening but otherwise remaining quiet. I quietly sighed in relief, glad to have not awakened her. Slowly shifting my position, I move to get up when a tired hand grabs my shoulder. Looking behind me, I see Ahsoka half awake, staring at me with lidded eyes, although plenty aware of what's going on.
"Jarik, what's wrong?" she asks slowly, still a little bit tired.
"It's nothing Ahsoka, go back to sleep," I say gently.
"Bantha fodder and you know it," she retorts with a small frown, sitting up in the bed as well. "Is it that same dream again?" she deduces.
Sighing in defeat, I nod my head. She knows me too well for my own good. "Yeah, it is. I just don't understand why I keep seeing it," I admit, a little helpless.
Ahsoka slides across the bed until she's sitting behind me, and wraps her arms around me while laying her head on my shoulder. "I can't answer that for you. Maybe it's some sort of test? I don't know, but what I do know is that you would never turn to the dark side," she says confidently.
"But what if there's something that could make that possible? Even after I shut him out, the shadow of Darth Revan still seems to haunt me," I say nervously.
"You defeated him once, you can do it again," she says firmly, gently stroking my right arm. "And from what you told me, you also managed to resist the influence of 'Snoke,' or whoever he is on your journey," she points out.
I let out another uncertain sigh. "I guess," I admit quietly.
"Whatever it is, you can worry about it later." Ahsoka tells me. "But right now, just rest, and don't think about it. We do have a busy job after all," she advises, and I smile slightly in amusement at the reminder of us founding the Fulcrum Agency.
"True," I admit.
She smiles happily. "Good. Now come on, back to sleep. Just don't think so hard about it Jarik, you'll be fine. I know you will," she says, pulling me gently back down to the bed.
I let her do so, laying back down on the bed and pulling the covers back up, although this time Ahsoka stays with her arms wrapped around me again, as she helped calm my worried mind over the Force bond. I sent grateful feelings back to her, drifting off into a more comfortable sleep with Ahsoka snuggled close to my side, and I had an arm around her as well.
The next day, me and Ahsoka were both back to work as Fulcrum agents, having already eaten a small bit of food for the morning. Over the last three years, we had gotten newer looks, Ahsoka especially. She had dropped her burgundy, crimson smuggler type of outfit that she wore on Raada to a more clean, battle armor outfit. She had a new headpiece diadem, colored silver and blue with a bright colored diamond shape in the center. Her lekku had grown longer, now reaching down to her midsection front and back, and her white facial markings had also shifted slightly as well with the passage of time.
Speaking of which, we made the symbol for the Fulcrum agency based off of her head markings, which I think looks pretty cool.
A dark gray dress with burgundy brown colored leggings was her main form of clothing, and armor pieces over her chest, arms and skirt covered most of them. She also wore armored boots as well, and her lightsabers hung from her hips, the handles now a much more polished and clean design compared to when she first made them, being obviously rushed. Basically, I think she looked awesome, true warrior status with her own agile grace and beauty to go along with it.
I had changed my outfit a little bit as well, although not as drastically as Ahsoka had. I wore a black shirt and pants, with a light fitting, silvery colored armor over it. The armor was designed to be protective, but light enough to wear I could maneuver around in battle with athletic skill. Over that was of course my Jedi cloak and hood, which I enjoyed to wear. On my forearms were armored gauntlets with a comlink, small screen projector, and useful for dire situations in a mission. And if it weren't for my gleaming metal fingers, you wouldn't really realize that I even had a metal arm.
My hair was also longer, reaching down to shoulder length, usually in a loose ponytail behind my back (imagine Thor from MCU). From time to time Ahsoka would like to fiddle with my hair, finding it weird but fun to mess with since she didn't have any hair herself. Obviously.
Anyways, our job as the head founders of the Fulcrum Agency had us work for the Rebellion with constant moving around the galaxy, acting more in the shadows than on a battlefield, which still wasn't too often for most rebel cells besides small skirmishes because of the fact that the Rebellion didn't have armies yet, despite all of the volunteers we receive to our cause. Our recruitment level was satisfactory, slowly but steadily increasing as the years went by, but even the entirety of all the rebel cells put together wouldn't be enough to battle against a large enough force of Stormtroopers. And still the Empire wouldn't be bothered, the loss of the biggest army needed to wipe us out merely a fraction of their military might.
Lucky for us that Stormtroopers are stupid shots. The clones were so much better, yet I had to wonder what happened to them now, since the Empire doesn't use clones in their military anymore. Their story was just too downright tragic, it was sickening. Already slaves to Darth Sidious months before birth, their only function to wipe out the Jedi before being discarded in the end like trash.
As Fulcrum agents, we had our work split up between us fairly. My job was to uncover valuable intel and intercept Imperial files, while Ahsoka sorted through the data and gave out missions to various rebel cells scattered throughout the galaxy, mostly in the Outer Rim. Most of the rebel cells didn't even know others existed, which was the protocol so that if they were captured they couldn't reveal anything about the Rebellion as a whole. As for the possibility of them telling the Empire about Fulcrum, I already had that well taken care of. Any of our transmissions to rebel cells were near impossible to trace, and whenever Ahsoka gave out the missions, her voice was altered by a scrambler and the hologram appeared only as a cloaked figure, impossible to make out.
"Huh, that's interesting," I remarked.
"What is?" she asked curiously.
"From what I'm seeing, there is a possibility that there are old, abandoned Separatists outposts scattered throughout the Outer Rim," I told her.
She raised an eye marking at me. "How'd you figure that out?"
"Wasn't easy that's for sure," I replied with a shrug. "It's mainly from older reports in the database that I managed to uncover. Might be worth looking into."
She nods in agreement. "Yeah. It's not like we're that well equipped against the Empire, even with Bail's wealth being a major support. Anything we can find is worth something, especially if the Rebellion grows into a full out Alliance at some point," she says thoughtfully. "What planets?"
I looked at the datapad file with narrowed eyes. "Well... some of them I'm not sure about yet, but two definitely are Hypori and Vandos."
"Hypori was a massive producer of droids right?" Ahsoka asks.
"Yup. Droid factories scattered all over. What's even better is that it's in the Hutt territories," I inform her.
"A place harder for the Empire to have any influence," she finishes with a smile. "That's good to know."
We give each other small smiles at the discovery. If we managed to snag weapons, ammunition, even ships from the abandoned Separatist factories, that would be a major help in building up the Rebellion to having more of a fighting chance against the Empire. Imperial Stormtroopers weren't the best soldiers, not by a long shot, but they were numorous, so many that just a small unnoticeable portion would be enough to wipe out all the Rebels currently in the galaxy. Not to mention an Imperial Star Destroyer is a very dangerous ship, even on its own. Just one Star Destroyer is powerful enough to take on three Venator class cruisers from the Clone Wars and still come out on top.
My holopad beeps again, with an encrypted Imperial message that R5 just found and sent me. I read it, my gaze filled with worry at what it said.
"What is it?" she asks me, noticing my worried state.
"R5 just sent me something," I told her. "And it's more, Jedi related, I guess I could say."
She narrows her eyes in confusion and concern. "Jedi related? You mean another Jedi was spotted by the Empire, or captured?"
I shake my head. "No. Apparently, children have been slowly disappearing around the galaxy. It's only a handful, but guess what they all have in common?" I ask rhetorically.
Ahsoka widened her eyes in realization. "They're Force sensitive," she says in surprise and worry.
"Yeah," I say in confirmation.
"Looks like Vader and the Emperor are finding any possible threats and getting rid of them before they could become a problem," she says with angry, narrowed eyes. "Do you think you could track any future attempts?"
"I'll do my best," I say in determination. I'm not about to let the Sith continue kidnapping children without a fight. Who knows what they're doing to them.
Force sensitive children being kidnapped! :O And old droid factories with possible supplies to pick up! Everything is starting to become more intense for the pair.
