AN: You know, when I wrote this chapter, I made it my business to start wrapping this story up, convinced I only had maybe ten to twelve more chapters to go… Pft. It took me that many chapters to build up to the climax (which in itself took a good seven chapters or so). My mother's right… I am longwinded, but there were so many things to address and loose ends to tie. So I guess it wouldn't be called longwinded. The current story was really the bare minimum. I took out a good chunk of stuff and still might. Anyway, I'm having the same problem with my essay. It's supposed to be 1800-2200 words… It's now standing a 3000 without a concluding paragraph… Ugh!

Read, enjoy, and review!

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Chapter Eighteen

"It's been a while Melody," Vader said once they had detained the spy.

Ahsoka glanced between the girl and Vader. Vader had only said that she was an emperor's hand, whatever that was. But Ahsoka was beyond caring. This was the woman she had seen in her vision.

"Not long enough Vader," Melody snapped.

"Believe me. I couldn't agree more," Vader said. "But let's skip the pleasantries and get down to the business. I want to know what you did with the prisoners you detained."

Melody glared at him. "I don't have to tell you anything. My mandate comes directly from your master."

"Does it look like I care?" Vader asked impatiently.

Melody smirked. "Well apparently I don't have them anymore. If I had the girl believe me, I wouldn't be here right now…"

"I'm going to ask you again and I will not take kindly to your games," Vader said lighting his lightsaber.

"I don't have to tell you anything so long as my orders come directly from the emperor and you know it. You can't do a damn thing unless you want the emperor catching up to your little game," Melody replied.

"Perhaps you could use a little more persuasion," Vader said lifting his arm.

Melody's hands flew to her throat as she pried at invisible fingers.

"Talk," Vader demanded.

Melody tried to open her mouth. No sound came out, but her lips formed the word 'never' resulting in Vader squeezing tighter. Ahsoka put her hand on Vader's outstretched one at that point.

"She's no use to us dead. Let me talk to her for a minute," Ahsoka suggested and while Vader loosened his to let her get a little air in, he didn't let go yet.

On cue, an officer opened the door and looked up at Vader.

"Sir, we managed to recover those security holos you requested," he said.

Vader let go of Melody completely and she fell to the ground gasping for air.

"She's all yours then," he said glaring down at her.

"I won't be too long," Ahsoka assured him.

"Take your time if you must," Vader said to her. "I have no need or use for her now. I have what I need."

When he was gone and Ahsoka secured the door, she turned to face the woman calmly.

"Vader couldn't get anything out of me," Melody said massaging her neck. "What makes you think you can?"

"Vader doesn't have the patience to talk to you," Ahsoka pointed out. "You're willing to die and he figures since he'll get satisfaction from it anyway, he may as well get you out of the way. He has better things to worry about."

"You still can't do anything. The emperor-."

"You think I care about the emperor?" Ahsoka said quickly cutting Melody off. "He's not on my list of people I'm particularly loyal to."

"And what is? That dead order you profess?"

"Apparently some of Palpatine's information is out of date," Ahsoka said dryly. "I'm hardly a Jedi anymore, but I'm not a Sith either."

"And what's that got to do with anything?" Melody said carelessly.

Ahsoka's expression, which had remained passive until then, became cold and dark.

"Everything," she said and before Melody could blink, Ahsoka had crossed the room, grabbed her by the neck, and pressed her against the wall.

Melody gasped and tried to pry Ahsoka's fingers away.

"You won't kill me," she choked.

"You're absolutely right. I won't. I want worse for you… Do you have any children, anyone you care about more than life itself?" Ahsoka demanded.

"Love is pathetic. You and that so called Dark Lord are weaklings to give in to such emotions. The only thing worth living for is power," Melody gasped.

"I'm glad you feel that way," Ahsoka said.

"Really?"

"Yeah," Ahsoka said and then backhanded her across the face and let her fall back to the ground. "Now I won't feel guilty about what I'm about to do to you."

"What are you talking about?" Melody said in a raspy tone.

"Get up," Ahsoka snapped.

"What?"

Ahsoka made her way over to Melody, reached down and twisted her hair around her arm before pulling. The assassin groaned in pain.

"I said get up," Ahsoka said forcing the woman to her feet.

"It doesn't shock me you know nothing about love or caring. Because if you did, you wouldn't have done whatever you did to my daughter," she added.

"I didn't touch her," Melody spat.

"You didn't need to," Ahsoka almost screamed, letting her go and slamming her foot into her chest.

Melody gasped and grabbed her chest.

"You feel that… That's what whatever you put her through felt like," Ahsoka said in a calmer tone and then picked her up and slammed her head into the wall. "But it was ten times worse, and I'm going to try to make you feel all that pain and then some without killing you. I want the satisfaction of seeing you in agony. You'll be begging me to kill you…"

Ahsoka dropped her on the ground and walked away.

"But… Perhaps I'll have mercy if you tell me everything," she said.

"Bitch," Melody snapped resulting in Ahsoka using the force to grab her head and slam it into the wall. Melody stumbled as she tried to get up but remained quiet.

Ahsoka took her lightsaber then and grabbed the woman's hand then.

"You want to feel the pain then?" Ahsoka asked her darkly as she put the light saber next to her fingers.

Just the heat of it made Melody squirm.

"Yeah, it would hurt to have your fingers picked off one by one, wouldn't it? Now don't make me ask again," Ahsoka demanded. "Tell me everything."

"Skywalker…" Melody choked as she coughed up blood.

"That doesn't explain a lot," Ahsoka said and then cut off the woman's pinky. Melody howled in pain as Ahsoka let her fall to the ground.

The Hand held her hand to her and Ahsoka extinguished her blade as she said, "I grow impatient with you. We can do this all day. Finger by finger, toe by toe, inch by inch of flesh… Now tell me everything."

Melody didn't waste any time.

"Palpatine wanted to use the girl to get the Skywalker twins to come here. He sent you and Vader on that mission knowing that by the time you all got whiff of it he'd have them all in his possession. He didn't want us to touch her though, and so we made her watch us torture the wookiee and the captain. We didn't hurt her. We didn't hurt a hair on her," Melody said.

Ahsoka laughed bitterly. "You say that as though making her watch her friends get tortured is any less traumatizing and painful."

Melody let out a raspy laugh. "One strong brat you got. Acted like it didn't affect her at all. The emperor's impressed."

Ahsoka lifted her up by the collar and smacked her across the face again.

"You say that as though I should be flattered," she growled dropping her to the ground. "Now tell me. Where did you take her?"

"She got away," Melody said.

"How?"

"Calrissian… He helped them get her away. She took the ship and made a hyperspace jump. I don't know where she went though."

Ahsoka glared at her, figuring that was the most she was going to get out the woman. She had told the truth and confirmed Leia's suspicion on the matter.

"Now that wasn't so hard was it?" she asked lighting her lightsaber again. "You don't deserve to live you know that?"

Melody eyed the lightsaber with wide eyes, terror coming off her in waves from the force.

"You said you'd have mercy."

"Believe me," Ahsoka began. "Death is mercy compared to what I had in store for you."

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Vader growled in impatience as he interrogated Mr. Calrissian.

"I'm telling you I don't know. Melody came here telling me that if I didn't cooperate the Empire was going to shut us down. I had no choice. I didn't know what they were going to do. All they said was they wanted the girl. I didn't know what they were going to do to her," the man said tiredly eying the torture droid in front of him.

"What did they do to her?"

"Nothing to her directly. I don't think they were supposed to hurt her," Lando replied. "They wanted someone else. They were talking about a boy and a girl, twins, trying to get them to come here,"

"You're not telling everything," Vader said. "Perhaps you could use a little more persuasion…"

The cell door opened and in walked Ahsoka whose presence surprised Vader. It was dark and vengeful, but surprisingly satisfied as she looked in on the scene.

"He didn't have anything to do with it. He had no choice," she said sighing.

"You got her to talk?" Vader asked.

"It just took a little patience…" Ahsoka said cryptically as she stared at her feet and Vader felt a twinge of remorse, the beginning of what he had a feeling was more to come.

"He helped her get away," Ahsoka said looking at Lando. "Leave him alone."

"You won't feel so merciful if you see the footage I saw," Vader said glaring at Lando. "What they made her watch…"

"But he can help us find her," Ahsoka said, whatever remorse she had forgotten.

"He was a willing participant in what happened here today," Vader said to her simply

"But if it wasn't for him, she'd be with the emperor right now," Ahsoka argued and then looked down again. "Besides… I've done enough cruelty for the both of us today."

Vader narrowed his eyes under the mask and used the force to carefully probe Ahsoka. He saw the usual, her desperate attempt to cling to her Jedi principals and truths, the restlessness of her inner warrior, but there was something else there now. There was a spiral of dark emotions accompanied by high levels of guilt and remorse, but some strange sense of having done what needed to be done.

Whatever had happened, it was the passion that Vader had been urging Ahsoka to let out for months. But now that she had, she didn't quite know how to handle it.

"Return to the Executor. I'll clean up the remains of this mess," he ordered and as he expected, Ahsoka silently and solemnly left the room.

When she did, Vader turned back to Lando.

"Well Mr. Calrissian it seems that today is your lucky day. You will live, but on my terms. First of all, where did you send the girl? Where did she escape to?"

"I don't know," Lando whispered guiltily. "I had to stall for time and distract the rest of the workers. Han told her to go somewhere but I'm not sure where. It had to be somewhere she was familiar with though. They were talking about staying there for a while. Let Shmi practice something. I don't know what."

Vader scowled. Regardless of what Ahsoka said he had done, if the man hadn't helped Melody to begin with, he wouldn't have had to help Shmi get away to begin with. This man deserved nothing less than death and that was exactly what he planned on giving him.

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Ventress stood idly as she watched the woman train, every now and then going up to one and telling her not to be weak, to never give in to weakness. She had to say her existence had been a bore since the end of the Clone Wars and she was forced to flee back to her home to avoid persecution. She didn't think the new emperor and his right hand man would take kindly to her being alive. Mother Talzin had welcomed her with open arms, despite their last encounter. She hated running and she hated hiding, but she wasn't stupid. It would be stupid to leave Dathomir and risk persecution.

But her existence had been livened up a little with the coming of the smuggler that worked for their tribe. The girl with him was intriguing. Mimi, she was called. But Ventress had the feeling that it wasn't her real name. The smuggler who claimed to be her uncle was hiding her from someone and what better way to hide a child than to trust her with someone like a smuggler. No one would suspect it.

It got her to thinking why someone would need to hide her and although she was powerful, it was untamed. She wasn't a threat, just an immature brat who liked to play and smile all the time. At least, that's what Ventress thought at first. Then the girl started coming around more and Mother Talzin allowed her to study some of their ways. That's when she saw the real power of the girl. She had a silent resilience about her, was incredibly willful, and had an intolerance for incompetence and mediocrity. The girl had an inner strength that a person didn't just happen to come across in any random child. Mimi wasn't a random child. Character traits like that in a child so young were bred into them. They were innate, and the child was desperate to have this power honed.

Perhaps that was why the girl seemed to have taken to Ventress, much to the older woman's dismay at first. She had better things to do than give in to the demands of a whiny child. But the girl proved to be serious about honing her skills. She showed no weakness and therefore Ventress could tolerate her. Mimi had more heart and courage than half the sisters in her tribe combined.

"Sister," one of the younger warriors said to her. "Mother says to come immediately. It's an emergency."

Ventress reluctantly left her class to follow the warrior as she was led out the temple and towards the perimeter of their territory.

"What's going on?" she snapped.

Her escort pointed to a ship wreck. The ship wasn't in too bad a shape. It could be prepared easily enough, but the fact that the ship was familiar got her attention. It was that smuggler's ship.

"What happened here?" Ventress asked.

"We're trying to find out," Talzin said calmly. "But he won't let us near it."

Ventress then noticed the tusk cat hovering protectively at the entrance to the ship.

"Kishan," she said crossing her arms.

"We thought perhaps he would let you past. Her owner seems to trust you," Talzin said.

Ventress sighed and went directly to the cat that growled in response.

"Oh move beast. I can't see if anything's wrong with you in the way. Move!"

Kishan growled again but turned around and started back into the ship. Ventress followed him in towards what she assumed to be the cockpit off the ship. It them nudged something on the floor and Ventress looked down to see Mimi leaning forward under the control panel, her long brown curls unbound and covering her face. Ventress knelt down to move the hair out her face to see a blood dripping down the side of her face.

"Child," Ventress said putting her hand on her face and shaking her a little.

"Asajj?" she whispered not trying to look up.

Ventress cringed. Mimi was the only one who called her by her first name.

"What happened child? Where is your uncle?"

Mimi moaned. "We were attacked. He told me… He told me to go to Dathomir. I didn't know how to land the ship."

Ventress looked at her scowling before pulling her from under the control panel and lifting her into her arms. Kishan growled at Ventress and the former assassin growled back.

"Relax beast. She'll be fine," Ventress assured as they headed out the wreck and they went back to their village to heal the girl.

She didn't wake up immediately and so Talzin gave her a room and tasked Ventress with the task of waiting for her to awaken.

"I have better things to do that to babysit mother," Ventress growled.

"The child and her pet seem to be comfortable with you. Perhaps we can use that to our advantage to find out what happened to her," Talzin said.

"I don't understand it. She's not one of us. Why should we care?"

"This child has the spirit of a Nightsister," Talzin said staring at the sleeping child. "She will be a powerful warrior and a useful ally. I have foreseen great things for us through this child."

"I doubt she'll like being used," Ventress said knowingly.

"Which is why we will make her into one of us. She will become one of the sisters, a Nightsister," Talzin declared and then left the room.

Ventress suppressed a groan and glanced at the girl, her eyes landing on the large tusk cat that was curled around her.

"Perfect…"

It didn't take long for the girl to awaken, but more so out of necessity than because she was ready.

"Han," she muttered beginning to toss in her bed. "Han no… Mama, Leia… Where are you? Please, help me. Mama where are you? Stop it… No stop it. Leave me alone!"

The girl shot up in bed a powerful wave of force power coming off her and shattering a plant in the corner of the room. She looked around the room in confusion and terror before her eyes landed on Ventress, causing her to relax.

"Asajj," she said and ran a hand through Kishan's fur. "What am I doing here? Where's Threepio?"

Ventress looked in the corner of the room where they had put what looked like the annoying protocol droid that normally accompanied the girl.

"You mean that heap of metal?" she asked.

Mimi groaned and let her head fall back. "Oh man!"

She sighed and started to get out of bed to assess the damage to the droid.

"That wouldn't be wise child," Ventress said to her. "You need to rest after that crash."

"Crash?" Mimi asked… "What crash?"

"We were hoping you would know the answer."

She blinked for a moment before squeezing her eyes shut and covering her ears as it all came back to her.

"What happened child?"

"We were attacked," she said. "They were going to take Han to someone and take me somewhere else. But someone helped him get me, Kishan, and Threepio away. He told me to come here, but I didn't know how to land the ship, and it crashed."

Ventress watched as the girl buried her face in Kishan's fur. It sounded plausible enough, but she had the feeling the girl was hiding something. Something very important…

"I see she is awake," Talzin said when she came back.

"She's been staring like that since she told me what happened. I think there's more, but she's not talking."

"Understandable Ventress," Talzin said sitting next to the girl. "The child is obviously traumatized."

Mimi spoke again for the first time in hours. "What's going to happen to me?"

"Do not fret child," Talzin said put her hands around her to rest on either shoulder. "Our home is now your home. Henceforth, you are one of us. A Nightsister."

"You'll need a new name," Ventress said to her. "Mimi screams weakness and that's something you aren't child."

"My real name's Shmi," she said.

"No child, we will give you one of our tribal names to represent your new life here," Talzin said and then smiled. "You will be called Vijaya, one who conquers."

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AN: So I'm off to try and cut this essay and if not… Well, maybe he'll give me extra credit. Hope you enjoyed. Excuse any errors as I'm trying to cut out 600-800 words from my essay.

Hope you enjoyed. Review Please!