Chapter 3
Pirates. Why did it have to be pirates? 'Great timing,' Anakin thought. Just as Obi-Wan and he were about to possibly talk, they had to go and show up at the most inconvenient time imaginable.
Anakin Skywalker looked around and started thinking quickly. He was the King regarding unpredictability and changing a plan when it all fell apart. Now, he just had to think of something quick before the pirates came on board. He did not want to imagine what they were capable of in this reality and what kind of value they would find in discovering Anakin and Obi-Wan. He couldn't imagine it being any better in this reality than his own. A pirate was a pirate in any reality.
Looking down at Obi-Wan, he realized he had to do something with him or work with the young child. Anakin had half an idea just to send a sleep suggestion to the young Obi-Wan and put him somewhere out of the way of any type of danger. Yet, Anakin knew that was a bad idea and would only make Obi-Wan mistrust him even more than he already did. So why risk making the situation even worse? No, he would have to do the latter. He would have to trust this young Obi-Wan and hope he could get the small young child on his side early on. He finally spoke again to the child.
"Look, I know you don't trust me, and you have no right to. But you have to believe me when I say, I would rather die then see harm come to you. So let's get rid of this threat currently and talk afterwards, deal?"
Obi-Wan had every reason not to put faith in him. Yet Anakin reached for the Force for Obi-Wan's Force signature and opened himself wide open. Trying to show Obi-Wan that of all people in the galaxy, Anakin truly meant the best for him and would do anything to protect him. Anakin saw something flash through Obi-Wan's eyes quickly, and Anakin had to assume it was Obi-Wan feeling the Force and feeling someone brush against his Force signature. Anakin would have many more questions for a later time as to why Obi-Wan didn't know this feeling. How long had this child been cut away from the Force? But with everything going on, Obi-Wan's eyes set, and he pushed back acceptance through the Force and back at Anakin.
Anakin smiled. "Alright then. This is the plan."
The only species that entered the ship unannounced or without invitation were not pirates, to Anakin's surprise. From where he was currently hiding and staying out of view, what looked like to be a female adult Togruta by the size of her montrals, and something was oddly familiar about her. As she moved very stealthily and quickly to the front of the ship, Obi-Wan dropped from his hiding spot. Barely making a sound, he hit the control panel and ran out the door before it could shut, effectively locking it behind him. She turned around to see who had closed the door behind her, which then Anakin dropped down. He used the Force to close the door behind him, trapping him and the would-be ship stealer and igniting his lightsaber while all this was happening. What Anakin didn't expect was to be met by another lightsaber that was green as the Togruta whipped back around.
Her eyes were bright blue like the beautiful waters of Naboo. Her skin was orange, and her lekku's were longer than he had ever seen them, as they were past her chest, and she was tall! She was the same height as he was. When he quickly reached out in the Force to confirm if this was indeed the person he thought it was, he came back with 110% confirmation this was his Padawan Ahsoka Tano, except a full-grown adult.
Ahsoka seeing the hesitation, had Anakin on the ground in two seconds flat with limbs trying to reach out to stop his fall as he slammed into the ground and his lightsaber lost from his grip as it rolled away from him. She moved quickly, kicking it further from reach, pointing the lightsaber at his throat as he put his hands up in defense.
"Explain yourself. Why do you have my Master ship?" She demanded, squinting her eyes with accusation and determination.
"Wait, Count Dooku is your Master?" Anakin asked with nothing but complete shock. His voice had gone a little higher than he intended, but not only now was he looking at his former Padawan, but she also was under the tutelage of Count Dooku. But why was her lightsaber still green and not red?
The door opened behind her, and she turned to see who was coming at her backside. Before she could recover, Anakin took advantage of her vulnerability and swept her legs out from under her like she had done to him a few moments before. She slammed hard into the ground, and before she could regain her composure, he sent a sleep suggestion to her. She crumbled into a heap, unconscious, unable to fight such an attack through her shields.
"SOKA!"
Obi-Wan came to Ahsoka's side and put his hand on her forehead. His face frowned, and he looked up at Anakin with anger in his eyes.
"What did you do?" Obi-Wan demanded. He stood up, balling his fists in anger.
Anakin put his hand out to Force grab his lightsaber from the floor as he put his other hand out to show he meant no harm. "Obi-Wan, she's okay she is not hurt. Just sleeping check again. Reach out with the Force. Feel for her. Her force signature is still there. It wouldn't be if she was dead."
Obi-Wan looked down, and Anakin watched as the young child bit his lip closed, his eyes in concentration, and reopened them. Though the anger had dissipated, the accusation of hurting Ahsoka lingered there.
"See. I would never hurt her. I promise. Just didn't want to get into close combat in such small close quarters." Someone would lose an arm or a leg with two lightsabers in such close proximity.
Obi-Wan looked at him with judgmental eyes again, like he wasn't sure what to believe anymore. That he was only buying his time until he could escape Anakin's clutches. As Anakin clipped his lightsaber back to his belt, he did the same with Ahsoka's; he leaned down and gently picked up Ahsoka.
"Besides, if I wanted to hurt her, I would have done so already. Want to show me where I can put her more comfortably?"
Obi-Wan Kenobi was not entirely sure what to do at the moment. Everything in him wanted to run from this situation. Get back to his Master somehow, yet he had not been presented with any new opportunities yet. He was trying to remember Dooku's teachings. Sometimes you had to be patient, wait and bide one's time, and that opportunity would come around. Now he had Ahsoka here. Unconscious currently, but she would think of something once she had awakened again; he was sure of it. Finally, what seemed a little reluctantly waved his hand for Anakin to follow him.
They moved to Dooku's quarters, and Anakin gently put Ahsoka down. He reached into the Force to ensure she was in deep slumber and pushed another sleep suggestion, just in case. It would be many hours before she awakened again. He didn't want to have to restrain her. He felt that would send the wrong message to the very young Obi-Wan. He was trying to get the young boy to see that he meant no harm and restraining someone Obi-Wan knew would make things harder for Anakin than they already were.
As Anakin looked down at Ahsoka, he realized he could finally take in her adult features and get a good look at her. She had many scars and nicks on her lekku's, and what looked like someone had tried to hack one off completely, but it had been saved and reattached. The other thing that stood out to him was the scar running vertically, almost an identical scar running down her face, including it being on the right side. Anakin was very curious about how she got this mark, if it would be as similar to his story, and how he got his from Asajj Ventress at the beginning of the Clone Wars.
When she awakened, Anakin wanted to talk to this Ahsoka if she didn't try to cut his head off first. But he wanted to see the differences between his Ahsoka and this reality. Would she be jaded? Would she be as battle-hardened as his? Like so many of her generation, his Ahsoka had grown up in the Clone Wars. Though, for the most part, she so far had been beyond lucky and had not sustained any real scars that left its noticeable mark like the one before him. Anakin and Obi-Wan were utterly different. Both had imperfections and a roadmap on their bodies of the complete dumpster fire that had become their lives of late. No, the only thing Ahsoka would have to worry about was her mental health when everything was said and done and the Clone Wars had come to a closure.
This made his head hurt, almost thinking about the reality of this place and seeing Ahsoka with clearly many battle scars. He would like to talk to her when she awoke from her deep slumber. Anakin couldn't help but think, 'Great. You couldn't just kidnap your younger version of your Master. You now had to abduct your Padawan older version. Who was next on the list? Yoda, Mace Windu. Scratch that. He'd leave Mace Windu. He's probably more unsufferable in this reality than his own.
He turned around to see Obi-Wan standing in the doorway, watching him with her, and he smiled gently. Obi-Wan moved out of the way of Anakin as he moved to leave the room. Obi-Wan turned and looked at Ahsoka one last time before the door shut as Anakin then closed the door and locked it.
"Let's get this boat moving shall we?"
It took Anakin and Obi-Wan almost an hour to get back into hyperspace and on their way to Coruscant due to what Obi-Wan had done earlier to the ship to try and escape. As they sat in the cockpit, the quietness made Anakin's anxiety want to go through the ship's window. Hell, he couldn't even stand when he was by himself, let alone someone being right next to him. It's why he was always messing with something mechanical in his room or with Padme. It kept his mental focus and his mind on track. So not tumbling into a tailspin of thoughts that Master Obi-Wan would say kindly and respectfully, "You are getting into your head again." Now, he had the younger version of his Master and found he was getting into his head again.
He just couldn't figure out what he wanted to say, and he tried to think out his questions. Most of the time, more than he would ever like to admit, Anakin talked and never thought of the repercussions. Obi-Wan was always instructing him to try and relax, think out before he spoke, and not lead with his emotions like he always seemed to do. No matter how much Anakin practiced. Obi-Wan always seemed to never talk unless he had a purpose, a meaning. Moving a game piece. Always calculated, always one step ahead. He truly never minced words. He was a straightforward person and hardly ever held back. Obi-Wan was never doing it to hurt your feelings. He was just speaking from his experience and how he saw the world. Padme was very similar to Obi-Wan in that regard as well. Padme. He had been so worried about the young Obi-Wan and what he was doing that his thoughts hadn't even gone to her yet.
His heart ached suddenly, and the fear and anxiety of never seeing her again. What if he never got back to his reality? What if she was concerned for him and sick with worry? Was she trying to call him right now and getting no answer? How would she react when Obi-Wan returned without Anakin by his side? What would Obi-Wan say to her? What would she do? Too many questions started to race through his head.
"Why are you sad?" Obi-Wan broke the silence suddenly, and Anakin's racing thoughts and Anakin realized that Obi-Wan had felt him through the Force. So he allowed his feelings to creep out.
"I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was projecting so much and that you could hear it. I was thinking of someone. That's very good. Let me ask you this, how long have you had that Force collar on?" Anakin asked, allowing his feelings to flow back into the Force and putting his shields back into place. Kenobi would no longer be feeling the onslaught of emotions from him.
He watched as Obi-Wan looked up and around and then back at Anakin. It was Obi-Wan trying to recall a memory, trying to remember. "Long time. I started to wear it when some people tried to take me from my Master. He said it was for my protection. That is when Ahsoka got her bad scar on her face." Obi-Wan's little finger trailed his own face mimicking where her scar was. He then looked up and pointed toward Anakin.
"How did you get that scar?"
Anakin didn't like to talk about his scar and how he had gotten it. As he thought about it because, quite frankly, he had forgotten half the time he had it until he caught himself in the mirror. He remembered Ahsoka asked him about it, but he grumbled and told him to ask him another time. The only two people that knew about it were Obi-Wan and Padme. But even then, he had opted out from telling them the entire truth, how Ventress had only gotten a rise out of him, and he had lashed out in anger and revenge. Which was, of course, not the Jedi way. It was anything but the Jedi way. He had just told them that Ventress got a lucky blow and thought he had killed her, but she was a lot more clever than most and would show up later.
He honestly didn't know what he wanted to tell this Obi-Wan. But, of course, this wasn't his Obi-Wan. This was a much younger and innocent version of him, but even still, Anakin felt he would let Obi-Wan down if he told him the truth.
"It was just a bad fight. You said bad people, do you remember what they wanted?"
Obi-Wan shrugged his shoulders. "They were after me. But I don't know what for. My Master always said he'd tell me when I was older. That was a while ago. Not sure how much older I have to get." Obi-Wan was telling the truth. There was no lie behind what he was saying. Anakin hoped they could just help them at the Jedi Temple and make sense of this before things got out of hand.
A few hours they snapped out of hyperspace above Coruscant. He put it onto autopilot, so it could start the trajectory down to the Jedi Temple. He did some last-minute checks before they hit the atmosphere, including checking on Ahsoka and ensuring she was still out of commission. As he returned to his seat and Obi-Wan looked around with wide eyes, Anakin noticed something rather quickly. Something was off about Coruscant. As they made their way into the air traffic, he realized how dark the planet felt. He looked over at Obi-Wan to see what his reaction was, and he could see the little hints of stress in Obi-Wan's eyebrows. Young Obi-Wan Kenobi was frowning. He felt it too. Why was he getting such a feeling from this planet? Maybe he should rethink his strategy.
'Maybe this is a bad idea.'
The sound of the door opening behind them pulled Anakin from his thoughts. Both turned to find Ahsoka Tano standing at the doorway, very awake and looking beyond pissed off. She called for her lightsaber from Anakin's belt.
"Where is this ship headed?" Ahsoka demanded. She had yet to ignite her lightsaber, but her finger was on the trigger, ready to light it and go into action if need be.
"Relax, to the Jedi Temple."
Confusion hit her face as she took in Anakin's words and shook her head. "There is no such thing, wait….where are we? What planet?" She asked in a hurry, her eyes now glancing past Anakin and out the viewscreen to see their location. Her eyes quickly scanned, trying to locate their location.
"Coruscant." Anakin replied as he turned to see if he could see the Jedi Temple coming into view. But instead of seeing what he thought should be, the Jedi Temple in all its glory was something downright sinister and menacing. As they got closer, he realized it looked like the Sith Temple he had walked out of earlier, only a much bigger version. The Temple was massive, a grand pyramid and imposing amongst all the other buildings around it. It was black in stone, and everything about this structure screamed Sith.
"What have you done? We can't be here! He can't be here!" Practically yelling as she pointed to Obi-Wan and looked past both of them again to see the Temple getting closer to them. "No we need to leave immediately before they know."
"I think it's too late, Soka. We are landing." Obi-Wan announced to everyone. The sound of the vehicle coming in and descending quickly, and Anakin glanced back to see a welcome party for them on the landing pad.
"I'll take us back up." Anakin said as he went for the controls.
"No, it's too late they won't let us. Trust me." Ahsoka spoke.
Anakin looked back to see people meeting the ship, and as he reached out, he felt nothing but absolute pitch-black darkness. It is what Anakin always assumed what it felt like to live back during the Old Republic era. They were not Jedi, but without a doubt, Sith.
"Well, if I am to die, what is your name?" Ahsoka asked as she moved to the door, turning on her lightsaber. The green hue lightened up her face.
"Anakin Skywalker."
She turned back around with a smile. "Well Skyguy. I hope you have a plan because we are kiffed."
TBC….
