Hellooo, thank you for all the awesome reviews on my last post! It's great to see such positive feedback. Sorry for not uploading in a while, am extremely busy, and I'm only going to get busier as my mock exams approach. But I'll endure. And eventually, I will write the next chapter.
Looks like the lights are out down here too. Ahsoka is beginning to think that the electricity in this entire part of the building has been cut. The nameless corridor stretches out for what feels like an eternity ahead, without a single hint as to what may lie at its end.
She had decided a while ago that trying to find more holes in the ceiling or stairs climb up is pointless. After what felt like hours of wandering she only found one set of stairs in what she guessed to be an abandoned quarters, which lead her up one level. Similarly, she had wandered into a place that hadn't been damaged by any explosions, so the ceilings were holding strong above her. Guess she got lucky earlier on.
Instead she shifted her focus to looking for some sort of emergency shaft, repair tunnel, or vent network that she might be able to squeeze through. The only problem is, she has no idea how one would go about finding something of that nature. Every door she opens leads into another dark, abandoned room. And every corridor either leads to another corridor, or an elevator, which her master cautioned against using. Not that she can use them anyway since there is no electricity.
She shines her lightsaber down a T-section in the corridor, which to her disappointment, looks identical to every other corridor she's walked down. A hint of frustration creeps up her neck; part of her feels like she'll be trapped in this maze forever.
She walks, holding her lightsaber close to the wall in order to keep her bearings, the oppressive darkness can be disorientating at times. However when she looks to the wall, she notices that the patterned green wallpaper is no more, having either being covered in black or ripped off the walls completely, revealing cold metal underneath. Ahsoka frowns, she must be nearing another blast site. The next door she passes has been blown straight off its hinges, so she steps over it and into the room beyond. However once she enters, she has to take a hastily step back, as she notices that the floor has given way right in front of her.
"Woah" She exclaims quietly.
Whatever exploded in here did some damage. Not only has both the floor and ceiling collapsed. But the walls supporting a whole series of rooms have also been completely wiped away. Sadly, she notices the remains of what must once have been library shelves. Who knows what records were stored in here. She stares out into the huge, almost cavernous expanse before her, and marvels at the size of the building as a whole.
A whisper of muffled sound breaks the silence behind her. Surprised, She jumps back into the corridor, but no one's there. She reaches into the force for guidance, and it tells her that no life forms are near. Is she hearing things?
She slowly creeps along the corridor, both her lightsabers in hand. The patter of movement can be heard just ahead. Ashoka moves a littler quicker in the hopes of catching up with whatever's out there. For a split second she swears she can see something move ahead. She hastily jumps forward, but illuminates only air with her lightsabers.
"Who's there?" she calls into the darkness, but receives no reply.
She presses on, determined not to let whatever is sneaking around in here get away. Pulling her sabers into a guard position, she slowly advances down the long hallway, stepping over bits of debris as she needs to. The heavy silence is lifted only by the hum of her sabers. She squints, trying to see through the thick blackness.
The force tingles. Her entire body tenses as she moves further and further down the hall. Something is close, very close.
The force bursts to life. A high-pitched warning blares in her head and she jumps back just in time to see a vibroblade cut through the air beside her. The assassin! She swings a saber back, and the cold metal face of a droid looks back at her for a split second before retreating into the black again.
She leaps into the space it once occupied and thrusts both sabers forward. They sizzle as they make contact. An arm drops to the floor. The force screams again. A blaster shot rings out through the hall. Her blade deflects the shot back towards another droid hidden from view.
Before she knows it the droid at her side has grabbed her hand. A sharp pain erupts in her wrist as its metal claws dig carelessly into her skin. The droid leans closer, the green glow of the lightsaber illuminates its harsh, black features. She grunts in pain and swings her free arm around. Her shoto decapitates the droid, the hand griping her wrist goes limp.
A volley of shots scream towards her. Their red bolts light up the hallway in crimson for a few brief seconds, illuminating the dark wood floor and patterned wallpaper. She blocks them in quick succession, and runs towards the hidden droid at the end of the corridor. It unsheathes its own virboblade as she draws nearer.
She strikes first, but it is quick to parry. It counter-attacks with unexpected speed, she is forced cross both her sabers into an 'X' formation to block the powerful downward-swing. Her arms buckle as the droid utilizes its strength to force her backwards. Just as it is about to break through her defense she drops to the floor and rolls away.
It strikes again the second she's on her feet. She blocks and counters; quickly sweeping behind the droids guard to slice off its shoulder and neck. The head clanks to the floor. A hot pain stabs into her thigh. She screams, and falls backwards. The droids body hits the floor with a bang.
Her breathing comes heavily, she moves her hand down to her leg, and feels the cold metal of a dagger digging into her body. The droid had stabbed her before she killed it. The bone-chilling pain spreads from the focal point of the wound. She puts her lightsaber too it to see blood seeping around the edges of the dagger. Blood runs down her fingers, she grunts in pain. Her heady feels fuzzy. But she knows she has to do something.
She grabs the dagger with her hand, and takes a deep breath. After a short countdown, she grips it tighter and rips it from her thigh with a sharp tug. A cry of pain breaks from her mouth. Red, hot blood pours down her thigh and unto the floor. She'll have to bandage it or she'll bleed out.
She looks to her own clothes. Without thinking, she rips through her leggings from the knee down on the opposite leg. She pulls off a long strip of white cloth, and wraps it tightly around her wound. The stinging gets worse, and she groans in pain, but she knows if it's not tight it wont help her.
After finally securing the cloth, she falls back against the wall in despair. Adrenaline courses through her body still, every muscle tingles with anticipation. She closes her eyes and tries to calm herself. She has to contact her master, and tell him what she's found. Just as the thought comes into her head her mind runs wild at the appearance of the droids.
They must have been the ones planting the bombs, she assumes breathlessly. But who had them do it? She calls Obi-wan on her commlink. No reply. She tries again, but only receives an empty buzz.
"Dammit master, I need you," she pants.
Lowering her commlink helplessly, she turns her attention to the dark room around her. How many more of those things are out there? She realizes that her journey to floor 86 may be far more difficult than she thought.
She takes a deep breath, and pushes herself up the wall. She manages to stand, but only barely. Any attempt to put weight on her leg results in a mind-numbing explosion of pain in her thigh.
How is she going to make it up so high into the building like this? She looks around in desperation, wishing she could find something to help her stand up. She hops forward, one lightsber ignited, one hand pressed against the wall. She takes another hop, and another.
The carcass of a decapitated droid comes into view. She recognizes them to be sentinel droids, with long cylindrical heads and somewhat stiff bodies. She looks it over in confusion, wondering who they work for, and why they ordered this. Whatever the reason, it didn't justify an attack like this, who knows how many innocent people were caught in the explosions?
Ahsoka frowns in disgust at the droid. Whoever sent these things is sick. She feels her resolve flow back to her as she sets her mind on figuring this whole thing out. So what if she has a bad leg? Some stupid assassin droids aren't going to stop her. She's going to find master and help him fix this. Maybe she'll even figure out what's really going on along the way.
She hopped bravely over the droids legs, and continued down the hallway. Now, it's time to start looking for that repair tunnel.
Padme watches with bemusement, as 'senator' Skywalker forces open one of the elevator doors, revealing an empty metal shaft. She takes a few steps closer, then looks through the doors. The shaft falls for miles into darkness below, the same can be said for above too.
"This isn't a good idea," she mutters at Anakin as he analyses the walls above them. That scrutinizing face is giving her a really bad inclination as to what he's thinking.
"Sure it is," he states calmly.
He pushes past her, and turns into the shaft, using his arms to cling unto the wall just beside the door. The echoes of his movement travel up the shaft as though it were an amphitheatre, echoing endlessly in an unnerving symphony of threats and warnings. This is a really bad idea, what if an elevator comes while they're in there? That risk doesn't seem to bother Anakin though, because he is staring confidently at her.
"Get in," he orders.
"Anakin, lets just find a set of stairs, this is unnecessarily dangerous," she lectures; and she's right, they could just spend a little longer looking for a safe way up. That way they'll actually be alive when they reach the top of the senate building, and not splattered against the walls.
With the look he is giving her, one could swear she is being the most unreasonable person on the planet. His lips tighten and he jerks his hand out towards her. She shrieks as he grabs her by the arm and pulls her into the shaft.
For a split second, her brain screams that she's going to fall to her death. But Anakin holds her hand tightly, so instead she slams against the wall underneath him. The loud bang reverberates throughout the shaft, as does her scream.
"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" she yells helplessly as she dangles beneath him.
He mutters something, and though she can't quite tell what he's saying, she is almost certain she hears "Now whose the coward?"
He re-adjusts his grip on the wall to accommodate for her weight, then looks down at her, his blue eyes sparkling dangerously with determination.
"Let go of me and grab unto the wall," he orders sharply.
Padme looks at the wall, and quickly realises that there is no way in hell she will be able to grab onto it. Anakin must have some sort of monkey-grip or (more likely) advanced training in climbing, because she can see nothing to hold onto of other than a few tiny groves between the plating of the shaft.
Even though the odds are against her. Part of her mind wants to attempt to climb the shaft independently, if only to get further away from Skywalker and his crazy, unpredictable nature. But the logical part of her screams 'don't let go, you'll die!' She frowns as her confliction boils over into anxious desperation.
"I.. I can't," she waivers with uncertainty.
"What do you mean? Just hold unto the wall," Anakin condones like this is the most obvious, simple thing in the entire universe.
"There's nothing to hold unto," she replies, finally putting her internal war to rest and deciding that she can't, in any reasonable way, climb the shaft.
Anakin doesn't initially respond, and after a few seconds he sighs loudly, like a troubled teen.
It may have been amusing, if her life weren't dependent of a man she only met hours before, who had a habit of getting her into potentially deadly situations.
"Climb towards my shoulders," he mutters begrudgingly.
At first, the order surprises her, but then as realization dawns, she figures out what the plan is; they're going to have to piggy-back-ride up the elevator. A sensation of deep-seated awkwardness makes its home on her chest. She can't piggy-back-ride, with a complete stranger up an elevator shaft, that's absurd! yet she can't think of a better solution.
"Come on," he growls impatiently above her.
She sucks in a sharp breath, and decides that she will just have to grit her teeth and get on with it. Padme holds unto Anakin tightly with her right hand, while pulling herself upwards and grabbing unto his tunic with her left one. Her arms scream against her, and burn venomously; force, she really needs to start working out.
With great effort, Padme manages to shimmy up to his shoulders, she breathlessly wraps her arms around his neck while tucking her legs around his torso. She pushes her head into his shoulder, half in exhaustion and half in terror of somehow losing her grip and falling to her death. He's warm, and his body feels strong, it gives her hope that he wont tire out like she has.
"You ready?" He asks as his head moves ever so slightly back to look at her.
"Yes, don't drop me," she says, hoping her genuine fear of falling doesn't seep into her voice.
It mustn't have, because Anakin almost immediately starts to climb, without a word of reassurance given to her. He makes quick ground, though the ride is rather bumpy, since he often leaps up several centimeters seemingly at random and without warning.
As they climb higher into the shaft, Padme notices a long, black cable dangling close to the wall, if she weren't lacking in something to occupy her time, she'd probably have completely missed it. Her eyes follow it down the shaft, until it disappears into the darkness.
That's odd, she thinks. Why would there be a black cable such as that here, in an elevator shaft of all places. It looks somewhat like the ones special agents use to scale skyscrapers in holo-movies. Was someone using that cable to scale the elevator shaft? That would be silly, if they wanted to reach the top of the building, they would have just used the elevator. Padme's eyebrows knit together in contemplation. Unless... they knew they wouldn't be able to use the elevator.
Anakin stops suddenly, she feels his shoulders tense up.
"Anakin?" she asks warily.
He doesn't respond. She isn't quite sure what's happening, and he doesn't give her any time to figure it out either. Instead, he leaps with superhuman strength several feet up the elevator shaft, forces a door to one of the levels open, and throws her in. She lays there in shock as she realizes that Anakin didn't use his body to open the doors, they opened with a flick of his wrists. A second later the sound of screeching metal echoes from the elevator shaft and something black whizzes past her vision. The shaft explodes with red light, and the doors slam shut.
Her eyes wide, she stumbles to her feet and runs to the doors. Desperately she tries to force them open. The electricity isn't working on this level, and the only light is coming from the windows. Though despite the suns best efforts, the corridor remains dark, save for the occasional patch of light from a window, so she can't even see what she is doing.
Muffled banging sounds from the other side of the elevator. Panic fills her as she tires to imagine what's happening inside.
"Anakin?!" she yells helplessly, slamming her hands against the elevator shaft.
She receives no response. The banging fades into the distance, and she can't help but imagine the worst case scenario; whatever that thing is, it might have killed him. Her lips quiver with adrenaline, she takes a few steps back from the elevator door, ending in up the light of a window. Silence smothers the hallway, tiny dust particles float past her vision. The amber light of the sun is her only company.
Just as she is about to admit defeat, the doors to the elevator explode open. A black shadow fires past her, slamming into the ground a few feet away. She quickly realises it's an assassin droid. Anakin rips past her, and in mere seconds, the blood-red blade in his hands pierce the disoriented head of the droid.
His blade hums at his waist as he looks at the corpse beneath him. Padme stares with shock written all over her face; only a Sith carries a red blade. Obi-wan made that very clear. But he doesn't look like a Sith, his eyes aren't orange.
He turns to face her, and those cold, icy blue eyes scrutinize every subtle crinkle around her gaping mouth. No longer does he bear the stance of a simple senator. No, he holds himself like a warrior. The cold winds of death blow like a storm in those detached eyes. Yet despite that, Padme can't look away, those eyes are captivating. The storm, enthralling.
A long silence grips the two of them. Anakin stands in the darkness between the windows, illuminated only by the red blade of his lightsaber, the corpse of the droid at his feet. He's staring at her, unflinching. In that moment, part of her thinks he's going to kill her. But then the crimson glow of the blade disappears as it zips back into the hilt of the lightsaber.
"Let's go," he eventually mutters before stalking past her, back towards the elevator.
She watches silently as he opens the elevators again with a flick of his wrists.
"Who are you, really?" She asks cautiously, her voice soft.
He stops at the edge of the shaft, and looks back at her.
"If I told you, senator, I'd have to kill you,"
With that, he swings into the elevator, his blue eyes watching her intently.
"We need to leave now, before more droids appear,"
She swallows a nervous breath. This man... he's dangerous. Perhaps it would be best if she tried to find her way to Obi on her own. Yet, no matter how much she wants to, she knows that if she encounters one of those assassin droids on her own, she'll be killed. And she can't climb the elevator without him either.
With clenched fists, she slowly steps towards him, his eyes don't leave hers as she walks towards the elevator. They shine in the darkness, she has never seen a shade as blue and powerful as his before.
She flinches as he reaches out his hand, but she soon realizes that he's trying to help her, not hurt her. After a few seconds of hesitation, she takes his hand, and allows him to take her into the elevator. She wraps her hands around his powerful shoulders, and rests her head against his back. As he starts to climb, she focuses on controlling her breathing. With a deep exhale, she closes her eyes, and allows him to take her away.
