Hello again!
I know I promised this to be ready by over a week ago, but it eventually grew way longer than I expected, and I was also low on time a bit.
Just to avoid confusement: this chapter takes place immediately before the last paragraph of the previous chapter, this leads up to the explosion that shook the Negotiator at the end.
Also just for the record: I've decided to change the year Ahsoka was born in, from 36BBY to 37BBY. Which means in this AU she was 15 instead of 14 upon her introduction, and she's 16 during the events of this story.
Hope you'll enjoy it!
Ahsoka Tano sat at a table in the canteen of the Negotiator, fumbling the remainders of her dinner. She was really upset about her Master... or rather about herself? At first Anakin had seemed to pity Ala, but since he has spoken with her for the first time, he had kept saying that something was wrong with the girl. Later Master Kenobi also turned mistrustful towards her, albeit Ahsoka had a feeling, he agreed with his former apprentice only because he had learnt to have faith in Anakin's senses. But Ahsoka was sure about that, this time he was wrong. She had been so certain, she „told" it in his eyes:
An hour earlier:
„Ahsoka, I think it would be better if you don't talk with Ala for some time." Anakin said after his umpteenth conversation with the girl. At first Ahsoka couldn't believe her ears, and she was barely able to ask:
„What? Why?"
„I have a bad feeling about her. I don't know why, but I feel like she's trying to manipulate everyone who speaks with her."
„Arhh Master, you've kept saying this in the past two days. Did you find anything in her story to doupt about?"
„No, but…"
„Did she say anything that supports your suspicions?"
„No, but…"
„Does Master Obi-Wan share your concerns?"
„No, but…"
„Then why won't you give it up? I've thought you'd be more commiserating with her, taking that you had been a slave once as well." surprised anger ran through Anakin's face upon hearing this, but he answered calmly
„My past has nothing to do with this situation. I'm sure about that this girl is dangerous. She's hiding or waiting for something. I know it."
Ahsoka barely could stop herself from bursting out in a laught:
„You're turning paranoid for your old days, Skyguy." she said with way more edge and sarcasm in her voice, than the acceptable. No wonder Anakin raised an eyebrow with indignation.
„What's with that tone, Padawan?" Ahsoka knew she had already stepped way over the line – her Master barely addressed her „padawan"- and it temporarly shut her mouth up. In that moment she hadn't had an idea about where did she find the courage to sauce Anakin like that. But she didn't apologise, instead looked in his eyes, and waited for him to continue.
„Very well. Look Ahsoka, I know you befriended with Ala, and that's exactly my concern. You can't remain objective when talking with, or about her. And that's risky, especially if I'm right, and she really tries manipulate us. Please trust me. She's dangerous, I feel it. No, not through the Force…just in my guts."
„Master, I apologise." Ahsoka said „You're not turning paranoid. You're turning conceited." for a second Anakin could only blink. Then before he could reply, Ahsoka continued:
„I don't care what your super-senses are saying! You're not the only Jedi here, even Master Kenobi says you are wrong! And I can sense her as clearly as you do, and I perfectly trust her, along with Obi-Wan!"
„You're going too far!" Anakin raised his voice, but she didn't give up:
„Maybe you are the Chosen One, but don't think it makes you infallible!"
„That's enough!" he yelled at her, raising his right. For a second Ahsoka thought he'd slap her across the face, but then she realised he only wanted to show her his mechanic arm: a permanent reminder of how overconfident he had been about his skills. „I know it very well that I could be wrong." he said on a softer voice „I've learnt that on the hard way." Ahsoka stared at his face. He didn't look angry, just… hurt. „Now go and calm down your mind! Meditate, and you'll see that I'm right about Ala."
Present
„Arrgh I can't believe I've talked to Master Skywalker like that! What the hell was I thinking?" Ahsoka thought with guilt. She was so angry with herself, she wanted to bash her head in the table. Only the presense of the legions of clones around, stopped her from doing so. However, she was still sure about that Ala didn't mean any threat. She only regreted the way she had spoken with her Master. „I don't have the right to speak with him like that. And he didn't deserve it either… Is it really the way he treats Ala, or was it something else that bugged me into doing that?" she asked herself again and again. Truth to be told, that Anakin hadn't trust Ala, concerened Ahsoka far less than the fact, that he didn't trust her senses either. She knew that his senses were far sharper than her's. She knew he was the Master and she was just a Padawan. She knew he was the Chosen One, while she was just another, one-out-of-a-dozen Jedi to-be. And she hated this knowledge. It was the reason behind her reckless, sometimes even crazy attemps to proove that, she was worthy to be the apprentice of the Chosen One –in front of him and the entire Order, as well as in front of herself. „Could this be the reason? Did I take his doupt in Ala, as a personal insult?... Ohhh what's with me? Lately I can't get a hold on myself, if it's about him." She stood up, and left the cantine. She headed to the quarters, where Ala was accomodated temporarly. „Even if I'll get into trouble for it," she thought „I must speak with her at least once more."
Count Dooku broke his Sith Meditation, as his Holoprojector signed an incoming call. He stood up, start the machine and greeted the appearing hooded figure.
„Master Sidious." he said, bending before his superior.
„Lord Tyranus. I guess you know why I have called you." the Sith Lord's usually maletic, but always calm voice was trembling this time.
„Yes, Master, I can feel it too. A great disturbance within the Dark Side. I've never felt something like this before. What does it mean?"
„We've got new adversaries." he replied. Dooku saw his mouth flinch into a beastial snarl. „This can't mean any good for us." he thought, as Sidious continued:
„I feel that the maze of destiny is changing rapidly. If we don't act quickly my friend, my master plan might will be be ruined. According to my inteligence, some of the ones, who are responsible for this disturbance are on Kenobi's flagship, near to the Kalinda system."
„That're good news for us, aren't they Master? Kenobi had been a spike under our nails anyway. Grievous has a strong fleet ready only a few hundred parsecs away from them. He planned to conquer a strategic keypoint with it, but that can wait. Shall I order him to attack Kenobi?"
„No, Darth Tyranus, no! Don't make rush moves." Sidious answered coldly „There are more in this, than what we know at the moment. It wouldn't be wise, if we acted without full knowledge of this situation. Be patient, but tell the General to be prepaired for any possibilities!"
Ahsoka was gasping heavily, as she ran trough the corridors of the Negotiator. „Where the hell did she disappeared into?" she had thought she'd explode, when the clone, who stood guard at Ala's empty room explained he couldn't rememeber anything, that had occured after he took his position and before Ahsoka asked him about the girl. Finally she arrived to the hulks.
„NO!" she let out a scream, when saw Hellrider had dissapeared too.
„Soldier!" she yelled to the clone, who didn't respond at all „Just like the other one." she thought, so she yelled at him again: „Soldier!" this time the clone winced, looked down to her, and salutated:
„Yes, Sir?"
„Where is the prisoner?"
„The prisoner?" he asked back confused „He's right…" he stucked in the middle of the sentence as he turned around and saw the empty cell. „Wha-whe-how…?"
„Do you remember anything strange?"
„No, Sir. I've come here just… What time is it? WHAT? This can't be! I had just relived the previous guard! It's impossible that one hour has passed since then!" Ahsoka wasn't listening to him. She was busy with trying to reach her Master through her comlink, but the device didn't seem to work.
„Damn it! Soldier, does your commicator work?"
„I'll check it. Hell, mine is down too, Sir."
„Then go, inform the Generals and Admiral Block about this, and also tell them that Ala Tiannai, the Togruta girl went missing as well."
„Yes, Sir! What will you do?"
„I'll try to locate them! Move it!" she shouted back over her shoulder. „Hellrider is a powerful Force-user. He must have tricked the guard's mind, and then kidnapped Ala. But how? I thought he was drugged. Ahh never mind!... Lets see, if I was him, where would I go? I doupt he would escape with a pod. It'd be noticed immediately, no matter how well he tries to hide it. And they wouldn't get far with it either. That means he either will try to take over the Negotiator, or steal a ship. With two Jedi Masters on board, I doupt he'd go against the bridge, so he must headed to the hangar!" she ran as fast as she could, using the Force to enchance her speed, near to the maximum her body could bear. As her sight wasn't realiable at this speed, she let herself to be aided by her Togrutan-ability of echolocation. Altough she practised with it, and used it in some ocassions previously, her steps were still a bit unsure. „Wait a second. I should call for some help. I can't beat that guy on my own." she thought as she passed by two clones. „No, I can't. Most of them don't know about Hellrider and Master Skywalker are identical. They'd follow his orders without question. Even if they wouldn't, I can't put them in danger. I can hold him up long enough for the Masters to find us, but the clones would be slained within seconds." as she turned on the last corner in front of the hangar, she almost slammed into a mass of crew, who were leaving. She barely stopped, and then asked one of the clones:
„Soldier, why do you abandon your place?" but he didn't answer. Neither did the others. „It seems I was right." She fought her way through the mass, and saw the door was about to close. She ran for it, and barely slipped through between the wings. She immediately noticed Hellrider and Ala at the ramp of their ship. She collected her strenght, and jumped between them, igniting her lightsaber.
„Stop right there, Hellrider!" she shouted at the man, who turned around. Ahsoka winced, when she looked in his face. Maybe his features were identical with her Master's, but not the look in his eyes, neither the grin on his face. They reflected nothingelse, but wicked malice, and a sick amount of egoism.
„Ah welcome, youngling. I'm grateful for that, you came here so quickly, and alone. You made our deal far simplier with it."
„Shut up, or I'll stab you!" she said threateningly „Ala, are you alright?" she asked the girl without turning away from the man, who started to laught at this:
„Oh, I wouldn't be worried about her, if I were you."
„I told you to shut up!" she yelled, holding her lighsaber closer to him.
„You should have listened to him." a new voice said behind her. Ahsoka turned around, just to see Ala, with the same expression on her face as Hellrider, pointing her right hand's fingers at her. Before the young Padawan could say something, or move a muscle, blinding, blue-and-white lightning erupted from Ala's fingertips and strucked her down.
„Something is wrong here." Obi-Wan though. He was on a meeting of the High Council in the Operations Room of the Negotiator. They were discussing Anakin's doppelganger and the news they got from Ala, about this „Conquistador Empire". But it wasn't what worried him. He felt some sort of disturbance in the Force, but poorly, like it's cause was lightyears away from him.
„Troublesome news, these are." Yoda's hologram moaned „About the Pirate fleet, what did the girl say?"
„According to what little she could tell, they have a Main Fleet about half of the total seize of the current Republic Navy. In addition, they presumably have a massive technological advantage over us, as well as over the Separatists. But that's the least of our concerns."
„That's true. What do we know about this new Queen?" Master Windu asked.
„We know that she was the personal body-guard of the previous Queen, and she's also a Force-user. However, we have no idea about how powerful she is. But taking that the Queen had chosen her, over her own son as the heritor, suggests that she's even stronger than he is."
„How does the de-coding of material, found on the captured ship's navy-computer go?"
„It should be ready in any minutes by now. Anakin oversees it himself."
Pain. Burning pain...She didn't think, not even in her nightmares, that such agony could exist…
Ahsoka screamed on the top of her lungs, as the electric shock run through her entire body, causing spasms in each one of her muscles. She screamed from the white-hot, rampageous energy, that she thought would burn her alive. Although she already had been unfortunate enough to be electrocuted, it couldn't possibly prepare her for the energy of a Force-lightning. The power of Bane's tool was just about nothing, compared to this. Despite her senses were overladen and confused, she still felt that, when someone Force-pushed her with increadible power, from behind. She had felt as she flew throught a considerable length, before being strucked into a container. The power of the impact extruded the remaining air from her lungs, and tore the hilt of her lightsaber out of her hand. The agony from the Force-lightning immediately decreased as Ala stopped her assault, but the spasms and pain remained. As she slowly regained her senses, she heard discussion and coming steps.
„I thought you had chosen her as your new host, sweetie." a deep, craggy male voice said.
„Ahh, her will is too powerful. It's a pity tho'. She's strong in the Force, so I could have become much stronger by using her." Fighting with her rebellous body, she looked up. Ala and Hellrider were looking down at her with the grin of the satisfied psychopaths.
„Ala…" she whispered „Why?..." the girl laughed as she replied:
„Ala? Ohh poor little Jedi, you can't see the difference between me and that puny, pathetic slave?" Ahsoka crickled her eyebrows. Ala didn't just acted differently from before. Her voice, her articulation, her… everything was totally different. Now that she observed, she realised that even her Force-presense wasn't the same. If possible, Ahsoka's confusement grew even larger as the the other Togruta entwined herself around the man like a snake and…snogged him, with naked lust.
After a seemingly endless moment they broke the kiss, and sent an evil glimpse towards Ahsoka. To their surprise the girl grinned back at them.
„Congratulation. You fooled me, and beat me." she hissed „But you were stupid enough to uncover yourselves in front of Master Kenobi and Master Skywalker. What were you thinking, using such powerful technics, while being on the run from two Jedi?" for a second they just stared at her. Then they burst out in a laughter.
„Poor, silly girl. Do you really think we're that dumb?" Ala replied. „What do you think, why didn't your famed Masters realise our presence, from the start?" Ahsoka swallowed before asking:
„Are you able to hide not just yourselves in the Force, but your actions too?" delirious light glinted in Ala's eyes.
„That's one of my specialities. As well as playing with others' mind."
„Big deal, any Force-user can use mind-tricks." Ahsoka retorted.
„To the point of deceiveing and manipulating a Jedi Padawan, and even a Master?"
„So, Master Skywalker was right. Your whole story was a big lie, right Ala?"
„Double wrong. Most of the story is true. And I already told you: I'm not that simple-minded, naive, slave girl you first met." Ahsoka was still in pain from being electrocuted, so she thought her ears were playing tricks on her.
„Do you remember what I told about why we had come here?"
„You said you'd been sent here as spies."
„Well that's the only part where I –or should I rather say Ala, or even better, we?- lied to you." She caressed her „boys" face, who kissed her on the neck, before taking over the story.
„It all started when my dear mother, found out about our relationship, and our plan to take over her empire."
„We were both as stong as she was. But we found out a way to surpass anyone, by becoming one in the Force." his face reflected obsession as he recalled. „We were about to became the leaders of the strongest fleet, and military-state, as well as the most powerful Force-users of the universe." his face clouded at this point „However that bitch, my mothers bodyguard forseen our plot, and overthrew it." he subsided into silence, and Ala continued:
„I was doomed to death, and he was forced to watch my execution. After that, her Majesty planned to throw my dear Prince –her own son- into prison for half a year, guarded by her witches, and leave my corpse in his cell, instead of feeding him." Ahsoka felt sick to the stomach just from hearing this. But the duo only laughed, and Hellrider continued their story:
„What my moron mother didn't know about, was one of my discoveries. Years earlier, I found a way to keep someone's soul away from uniting with the Force, and transfer it into another living body.
„When I was executed…" „Ala" said with a wide, evil grin.
„I transfered her into a silly, little, Togruta slave-girl."
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