Chapter 16: Ahsoka

DATE: 12/26/45875 (Six Months Ago)

"MASTER!"

Ahsoka Tano's cry split the air, followed by the guttural growls of mutts and then another, human roar from the young Jedi Knight that flew through the air, impaling the creatures that dared to corner and terrify his apprentice. Ahsoka was pressed against the wall, lightsaber and shoto on the floor a few feet away, face scrunched up in a mixture of disgust and fear. He loathed that expression, and comfortingly placed a hand on her shoulder, guiding her along with him as they ran through the twisting halls and chambers. Another mutt leapt out of a shadowed corner, and Anakin Skywalker quickly lopped the beast's head off, while Ahsoka leapt high into the air and took down another that had tried coming at them from behind.

"It's getting dark out, Master," she called over to him, the emerald glow of her sabers illuminated her grime-covered face and head tails. "We have to get out of here."

"I know!" he replied, driving his heel into the fallen mutt's skull for good measure. The cranium collapsed beneath the blow, letting the slick, oily-black cranial fluid ooze onto the carpet. "Check around that corner. What do you see?"

She peeked around the gray bend, sneering when she spotted over twenty of the mutated victims wandering aimlessly around the corridor. Many of them were clad in tattered brown robes, the clothing hanging of their skeletal frames. "Blocked by more of the nightbrains," she reported grimly. "We can't get out that way without getting in the middle of another horde and attracting more."

Anakin cursed beneath his breath, and then looked at the window they were positioned near. The stained glass cast eerie shadows into the building, with the sunset's outside rays becoming distorted with the picture of an ancient Force wielder. "We can't go back out the way we came," he states, flipping his lightsaber over into his right hand. "So we'll just improvise." He sliced his blade across the glass in an 'X' formation, and then with the Force, shattered the window into a million smithereens. Immediately, the winds custom to the high altitude ripped into the hall, carrying the desolate chorus of groans from the mutts plaguing Coruscant.

Ahsoka leaned out a bit, scanning the area for any proximate danger, her lekku blowing back as more forceful zephyrs pulled against her. "There," she said finally, one thin finger pointing ahead. "That rooftop over there… we can make it, right?"

Anakin followed her gaze and smirked. "Quick thinking, Snips," he complimented. "Ready?"

"Ready."

They both stood on the windowsill, heartbeats racing as they heard the sounds of more rancid creatures rushing up to them from behind. "On the count of three," the Knight instructed, and upon seeing the girl's nod, he faced the horizon once more, squinting against the orange lighting. "One…"

"Two…" she offered.

He crouched down. "THREE!"

Summoning on the Force, the two Jedi leapt from the windowsill just as several rotting hands clawed the air where they had just been standing. They soared across a deep alleyway, where several more disfigured bodies looked up and snarled at them. Simultaneously, they hit the hard metal rooftop; and without stopping, they rolled to their feet and ran off, towards the empty police station where they knew Master Kenobi was awaiting their return, leaving the ruins of the Jedi Temple behind them.

xXx DATE: 5/11/45876 (Six Months Later, Present Time) xXx

"Ahsoka."

The moment Inya Mari breathed the Togruta mutt's name, time seemed to stand still in the Forsaken's basement. Nobody moved, with the Colonists either confused or gaping, and Kolic Kat's Forsaken watching their guests with wary eyes. Inya, brown eyes wide against her dark tan face, gasped, and scrambled backwards onto her feet as the Ahsoka-thing snapped its blackened teeth in her direction. Only a barely audible growl was able to be heard through the thick glass tanks the mutts were in, but visibility was not an issue. The creature that had once been Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano was maimed and horridly disfigured, open wounds rotting with infection, now-rigid backbones pressing up against the skin, one lekku nearly burnt and shriveled. Its fingernails were blackened and sharp, more like claws, and its eyes were completely black except for two tiny, narrow golden pupils. Sickly blue veins stretched out from the sockets and cover its face like invading vines.

For nearly five minutes, there was no movement among the living. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jason Dean remained nearest the stairwell, faces frozen in horror and disbelief. The other Colony members, those who had never met the teen girl, watched the expressions of others.

Anakin Skywalker remained planted in the middle of the group, staring at the Ahsoka-thing. His Snips, sniffing the glass that kept her apart from the living, gnarled tongue licking the shield and leaving a wet, grayish liquid in its wake. No, no, no, no, no... Scattered memories popped up in his mind, a happy Togruta apprentice sassing him and fighting beside him and saving him, being saved by him. The recollections were shattered and faint; but they were there, slowly coming back together by the sight of the Ahsoka-thing.

With the Soul Healers' help, he'd managed to accept that his Padawan learner had died. He'd never prepared himself for accepting the fact that she was now a monster.

That's when he spun around and outstretched his right hand, furiously manipulating the Force around the nearest Forsaken member's throat and smashing them into the wall nearby. "What have you done to her?!" he roared, fingers clenching as his victim gasped and the others began crying out and pushing their way towards him. "What have you DONE?!"

The Forsaken all raised their weapons, pointing blasters at Anakin; and it response, the Colony membered took out their own firearms, Derek aiming at Kolic's head and telling the Twi'lek to order his men down.

"Anakin!" It was Obi-Wan who called out to his partner, pushing his way towards his former apprentice. When he reached him, he grasped his arm, urging the young Knight to release his Force-choke. "Don't do this," he insisted quietly, stormy eyes sparking. "They aren't responsible, Anakin – they don't even know who she is. Don't do this." His grip tightened. "Let him go, my friend. Do not do this. Let him go."

Slowly, Anakin released his captive to the ground, and the middle-aged man stumbled off towards his own group, coughing and clutching his larynx. The Knight stared at the ground, ignoring Obi-Wan's touch as the older man moved to holding his shoulder, keeping him steady.

"What the hell was that?" Kolic demanded, glaring down the barrel of Derek's rifle. "What was that?! You got a problem, Jedi, or are you just…"

"Leave him be, Kat," Jason interrupted, moving forward now. "We can explain, just give Anakin some space right now."

"Some space? Master Jedi, I will remind you that you are the Forsaken's guests! I am, at the moment, highly uncomfortable with your 'colony's' presence, especially when one of your own just assaulted one my mine!"

Obi-Wan presently was ignoring the Forsaken leader, and kept his gaze steadily on his partner, gently probing the young man with the Force in concern. "Anakin?"

The Knight did not look up at his mentor; but he answered. "I thought she was dead," he whispered, eyes glued to the ground. "I… you were there. She was in the ship's explosion. She should be… burnt." He peeked at the Ahsoka-thing, grimacing. "But she's not."

"That's not Ahsoka," Kenobi said quietly, bowing his head. "I can sense your bewilderment, young one; but you must believe me when I say that is not her. You know it's not."

He found that once he looked at her, he could not turn away. She… well, it… looked so much like his Snips, especially when he thought back to when she had been possessed by the Son on Mortis. Her body had been taken over by MAV, yes; but surely she was still in there, somewhere, right? She couldn't completely be gone, she'd been too feisty to let something like a virus wipe her out for good. There was hope for her, wasn't there? Isn't that what Obi-Wan was always telling him: not to give up hope? Keep praying to the Force that there was some kind of light at the end of this tragic tunnel?

The Ahsoka-thing snapped at, growled, and slammed two bloodied, thin wrists against the growl. And she did it again, and again, and again, the thumping sound reverberating across the basement, drowning out the arguments between the Colony and the Forsaken. Over a dozen times, and each time her pupils narrowed to mere slits and her teeth dripped of black, rancid bile.

If Ahsoka truly was still in there, somewhere, she must've hated it. Would never want her Master to see her like that.

He pulled out of Obi-Wan's grip and shoved his way through the small crowd, taking the stairs two at a time as he made his way back to the floor level. Kolic moved to chase after him when Jason blocked his way. "Leave him be," he warned, frowning. "We'll explain everything down here." He then shot Obi-Wan a look. "I've got things taken care of here. You go after him"

"Thank you, Jason" Nodding once towards the other man, Kenobi went off after his former apprentice, and once he was out of sight, Jason Dean turned to Kolic Kat.

"Alright then… all of us are going to go upstairs, leave Obi-Wan and Anakin alone, and we'll have a chat in order to clear up a few things here. Everyone's going to drop their weapons, because we're all friends here, right? Right. Now let's go."

xXx (Half Hour Later, the Forsaken Penthouse) xXx

"…so we have been using the captured biters as test specimens," Kolic finished, placing his elbows on the small table he and the others were seated around. The room they were in was large, resembling a conference room, and clean. The "pride of the Complex" Hadrian had told them when first entering the luxurious apartment. "We keep this place free of any of our survival junk, make it a sort of nirvana for us to retreat to when the going gets tough. A little 'happy place', if you know what I mean. Keeps us all sane."

Now, Hadrian was sitting next to Kolic and backing up the blue Twi'lek's story. "We tried not to think about who these things had once been," he added once silence fell upon the groups. "We didn't… I am sorry for the pain you and your friends must have gone through." He directs this statement at Jason.

"I hope now you understand that Anakin's actions were not meant to be hostile," he answered, running a hand through his tangled ginger hair. "Everything is happening too swiftly…" The Force is a jumbled mess, everything clouded…

"I'm not holding a grudge against the Jedi," the man who'd been choked, introduced as Han, spoke up. "Way I see things, we've got enough trouble with the mutated and dead; don't need to add problems with the healthy and living to the list, do we?"

"No, we do not," Derek replied, managing a weak half-smile. "Anything else that us groups need to discuss here?"

There was nothing of major importance at the moment; or at least, nothing that anyone wanted to address at midnight. So a majority of them left, wandering back to their sleeping bags and cots, whilst others mingled around, quietly conversing, whispering to one another and discreetly pointing.

Derek moved downstairs, alone, back to the basement; drawn there by instinct, he would explain to himself, like a bantha is drawn to water on Tatooine. Or maybe he'd just wanted to once again see the mutt that had once been Ahsoka Tano, the girl that Jason had said to be so brilliant and brave and so close to Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. "Like their little sister," Jason had said; and so it was because of that explanation that Derek was not surprised to see that he was not the only one to revisit the mutt.

He moved over to where the creature writhed in its tank, and lowered himself into a crouching position, side by side with Anakin. The Knight was sitting with his knees drawn to his chest, and his forehead pressed against the glass – right where the monster's claws were scratching in a violent attempt to get to the 'fresh meat' outside its tube. Derek watched the young Jedi, then the Ahsoka-thing, and then looked back to Anakin, before sighing, lowering his gaze. "Kid," he breathed, swiping off his cap and running a sweaty palm along the short spikes of his ebony, crew-cut hair. "Your pal Dean explained everything." He paused, frown deepening when the younger man remained unresponsive. "Kid, you know that's not really her, right? You know that this thing in front of you… that it… it's… that's not her."

Now, there was a response: a soft exhale, eyes slowly closing. "I know," he whispered. "I know, and I… I accept that." He reopened his eyes and glanced at Derek. "That's what's bothering me the most though."

"How come?"

The Ahsoka-thing bent down on all fours and snapped its jaws at Anakin's face.

"Because I never accept things, not this easily," the Jedi stated, shaking his head. "Not once in my life have I ever been able to just see things with a broad view, and let things be. I never could. And now… and now my own Padawan has become this… this monster, this animal… and I hardly feel anything."

Derek's frown deepened, his brow furrowing together. "That doesn't make you guilty or anything, kid," he said. "You know that, right?"

Anakin was eye to eye with the Ahsoka-thing, and he subconsciously placed on hand on the glass, right over where several of her fingers were clawing at him. "Obi-Wan said the same thing," he replied quietly. "He's upstairs now, using the 'fresher and all, but that was the last thing he told me. 'Anakin, what happened with Ahsoka and all things concerning her are not your fault'. But he doesn't understand, and you don't understand… none of you understand… I can't remember hardly anything about Ahsoka. I can remember the basics – age, full name (sometimes), the fact that I was training her – but everything that matters is gone. Her personality, the feeling that she was like my sister, all the fun times and jokes and lighthearted moments… they're all scattered and fragmented. That is my fault, because I'd been too kriffing weak to deal with everything myself without having all those memories ripped out of my mind. She must've meant the world to me, just like Obi-Wan and Padme…" He lowered his hand away from the Ahsoka-thing. "…and I can barely remember what she had looked like before she'd become this."

Derek stared, fidgeting with his gloves for a long moment while Anakin looked at his former apprentice and the former apprentice glared back with feral hunger.

Finally, after almost ten minutes ticked by and nothing else was said, the Yaazix-5 soldier got to his feet, and outstretched his hand. "C'mon, kid. Let's get out of here."

He didn't want to leave – that was obvious – but Anakin eventually reached out and allowed the older man to pull him to his feet. He allowed himself to be guided back to the stairwell. However, before he left the room completely, he had to turn around and look once more, eyes adopting a hot, glassy sheen as the Togruta mutt growled and attempted to lunge at him.

"I'm sorry, Ahsoka," he whispered, clenching his fists at his side. "I'm so sorry."

Derek watched, silently, and then after giving the Knight a minute, reached and gently grasped his arm. "Kid… come on." He lead him out of the basement, and then gestured for the nearby Hadrian to lock the door.

xXx

"What are we supposed to do with her… or it?" military pilot Ax inquired, throwing a pali fruit into the air over and over as he lounged on his sleeping bag. "I mean, we aren't just going to leave that thing down there, are we?"

"The specimens provide us with priceless information," one of the Forsaken, a bearded, grey-haired human male, responded. "The experiments we have performed have told us much about the mutt's biological…"

"Did it give you a cure yet?" the black-haired man interrupted, finally catching his fruit and popping it into his mouth.

"Well, no…"

"Then they are a threat," he stated. "How can you people stand having that thing in the same building as where you sleep?"

"I assure you, sir," the cold-eyed Madeline replied. "They are quite secure in their glass tubes. They will not be escaping; and the pros of keeping them here far outweigh the cons."

"Shut your trap," Josh called over from the other side of the room. "Nobody is gonna do anything unless we all consent to it."

"Yeah man, and how about some compassion?" the one named Han added, the twenty-three-year-old shoving a stray lock of artificially-gray-streaked hair out of his steel eyes. "Did you not hear what your Jedi friend just said? The Anakin kid had trained that girl, loved that girl. What are you gonna do, go down there and shoot her in the face?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I will do," Ax answered, sitting up straight and folding his arms. "If it keeps us all safe, both the Colony and the Forsaken, then yeah. I mean, I understand studying the mutts for a cure – that's the only reason I and the rest of my group are here in the first place – but in the same building? Why not anywhere else? A nearby building, something?"

"Do you know how hard it's been for us, fifteen people, to keep just this place safe?" Madeline snapped. "We haven't been specially issued by the kriffing Galactic Republic to help save the universe. We were left here. We were stranded, forgotten. We're here to survive, not mess around with chemistry and antidotes that do not exist."

Andre Lynn looked up from the old novel he'd been reading on a dying data-pad. "If you don't mind me asking," he spoke up. "Then why do you keep the mutts down there, if you are not interested in a cure?"

"I said that we are learning about the biters," the old man replied once more. "We don't have the equipment or the skills to do anything you fella's are doing… but we are surviving by learning what their weaknesses and strengths are."

"Yes," Madeline added beneath his breath. "Because we were left to do so by ourselves because of the damn Republic…"

"Excuse me," Inya stated, eyeing the other woman with a frown. "Is there something else bothering you…?"

"Yeah," she replied sharply, coldly, rolling her dark eyes. "I'm surrounded by all you ignorant, Republic angels, and I'm a proud Separatist."

That caught a bit of attention by a few, while others just smirked, or groaned, and completely ignored the fact. Han Solo grinned at those that surrounded him and went back to smoothing the creases out of his black vest, folded neatly on his lap.

"You're a blasted Sepie?" Nathan Fox exclaimed, jaw dropping and eyes widening when Madeline just smiled proudly, unfazed by the various reactions. "The hell?!" Ax repeated the other man's attitude, a stream of profanities coming from his lips.

"Kriff it all, everyone, calm down!" someone, a Forsaken member in the back of the room, called out. "Politics are a thing of the past! No need to get heated!"

Ax sputtered, all riled up now. "But she's a blasted Sepie! How many more of ya clanker-hugging-idiots are in this room!"

"Force-damn it, Ax, sit the hell down!" blonde-haired Josh shouted out, moving over and shoving his teammate back down into a sitting position. He turned to several red-faced Forsaken members. "I'm so sorry, friends, he didn't mean that, he's just a big talker."

Han laughed. "Ah, so a scruffy-looking-nerf-herder, eh?" he teased. "Yeah, we've seen plenty of those, before and after the biters started popping up. He'll fit into this miserable reality just fine."

The tension remained in the atmosphere long after Derek, Jason, Kolic, Anakin, and Obi-Wan entered the room and the lights went out. Jason took watch, as he usually volunteered to do – and his soft voice sneaked across the room as he murmured into his comlink. Kolic too remained awake, as it had been decided one guard from each group would take shifts through the night. A safety protocol, it was explained.

Anakin lay in the far corner, and as expected, Obi-Wan was asleep across from him. The Master seemed younger when in slumber, the lines on his face fewer, his dark red hair smoothed back and tangled up, out of his eyes. Anakin watched him for quite a while, watching and counting the other man's breaths, comforted with the fact that though his wife was somewhere across the galaxy and Ahsoka was downstairs a savage beast, this man, his Master, was still there right next to him. Alive and breathing. Safe.

I failed to save the galaxy, Master, his thoughts wandered. But I will not fail you. The Chosen One can still save one of the people in the galaxy that he wishes to protect. And I will protect you, Master.

Just then, he noticed that Jason's whispers had ceased; Anakin turned, and nearly jumped when he found that the older Knight had crept up beside him at some point. "Blast it, Jason," he hissed, flipping over onto his other side. "You trying to give me coronary?"

"Sorry," the other Jedi said sincerely, frowning. "You should be asleep."

"I'm fine," he replied, even as he smothered down a yawn. " I don't need you to worry over me. Obi-Wan's doing just a fine job at that – I don't need two mother hens hovering over me, thank you very much."

Jason almost managed a full smile; but it quickly faded as he glanced over to where Kolic was fiddling with his rifle. Concern drifted through the Force, and Anakin blinked sleepily in an attempt to clear his head. "Is everything alright?" he whispered.

He hated himself for not responding with a "yes" and minding his own business; but the nagging in the Force that kept biting him in the back of his mind prevented that. "Do you… do you sense anything amiss?" he asked slowly, tightening his grip on his long-range blaster.

Anakin propped himself up on one elbow, furrowing his brow, but Jason motioned for him to lay back down. "What do you mean?" he questioned, and when Jason told him to just listen to the Force, he did.

At first, he really couldn't feel anything but his own inner turmoil and confusion and the danger screaming at him from outside the building where mutts swarmed the streets below. Then, for just an instant, he received a flash warning; then it disappeared as quickly as it had come. Strange. How had he not noticed the irregularity earlier? He was the kriffing Chosen One! He supposed Ahsoka… what had been Ahsoka… had been quite a distraction. Yet he still mentally rebuked himself, the dark hole in his chest painfully growing. What good did his unnatural connection to the Force do if he was too ignorant to listen to it? "I hadn't felt that earlier," he confessed guiltily. "It's… weird."

"Don't blame yourself, Anakin," Jason whispered, sighing. "And yes, it is strange. I'm not sure what to do with it yet, do you?"

"No, I don't."

They remained in silence for a few minutes, Anakin slowly finding his eyelids unwittingly closing while Jason stared hard at Kolic, trying not to be obvious.

Finally, the younger of the pair spoke up. "Do you think we can trust these people, Jason?"

The redhead looked down at the young man. How often had Anakin Skywalker, general of the Clone War, so openly ask for advice, without pretending to be all macho or willingly allowing himself to sound so young and vulnerable? Not once, in Jason's mind, and his earlier reply of "listen to your instincts and the Force" faded on his lips. Even though I have my worries of these people. I'd overheard them earlier – they have no doctor, no scientist among them – so how had they studied the mutts safely? Something is off with them, I can feel it. And I know you can too – you're just so… afraid, I guess… to think that when we've finally found allies, they could be liars. That they could be dangerous. I don't blame you for wanting to turn a blind eye, Anakin.

He didn't blame him, and he understood. So that's why, instead of telling Anakin to follow the Force and find something he obviously did not want to find, he said, "Don't worry about it. Just get to sleep now, alright?" and watched as Anakin actually obeyed and closed his eyes. Confirming the Knight had been more exhausted than he'd let on – the events of the day no doubt had caused that – Jason waited until Anakin's Force-presence became muted and quiet before moving back to his original position. Kolic gave him a nod, and he returned it, picking back up the comlink he'd placed aside. Turning away from the Twi'lek, he whispered into it so that no one else awake could overhear what he was saying.

/..:::SYSTEM MESSAGE:::TRANSMISSION RESUMED:::../

I suppose I'm going to have to end this log on a sour note – I am worried. So, so worried. I am a Jedi. I shouldn't harbor feelings of anxiety or fear or any of those negative emotions; but I do now. I fear for Obi-Wan and Anakin, for the rest of the Colony. I fear that there really is no cure to this abomination that has taken over the galaxy. And I now fear that these new friends we have made, the Forsaken, are a threat to us all. I've always trusted in the Force, but now… I just cannot bring myself to believe that the warnings I am receiving are related to this new group. How can I tell for sure whether or not to trust these people?

Everything is just so complicated now. So corrupted with grief and anxiety and hopelessness. And what happened to Ahsoka… blast it. Ahsoka. How do we even begin to deal with this tragedy? I overheard what Ax was blabbering about earlier – are we going to kill her? I mean, she's a mutt. She could be suffering. But what's the point of finding this cure if we are not going to save those we care about? Anakin… he was already shattered by her death. Reopening old wounds for him…

Kriff.

I… I am tired. And drained. I'll pick this back up tomorrow.

/..:::SYSTEM MESSAGE:::TRANSMISSION ENDED:::SHUTTING DOWN:::../