He's Not Our Enemy
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all credit goes to George Lucas and Lucasarts.
Summary: After vanishing from the Jedi temple ten years ago, Anakin Skywalker is found. The Jedi imprison him until he decides to tell them what happened to him. After getting lost after fleeing from some of her abusive class mates, Ahsoka stumbles into Anakin's room and discovers a side to the force she never knew.
Gaming, Ahsoka Tano
After walking into my room and finding it well and truly trashed, Master Plo took me right back to Anakin's room because it had been deemed 'the safest place for me' because of the dark force wielder being after me. I'll be honest, there is not a lot of reasons for me to be scared. I can't die; I can't be maimed; I can't be severely injured. This must be a real problem for my teachers because they are supposed to challenge us to be our best but with no threat of impending death there isn't much to motivate me anymore. I'm not even sure what's going to happen in my classes anymore but I guess I'll be told when I go back.
The other three Jedi masters were still there, since we hadn't been gone long, and after Master Plo explained it they just suggested that I go back to sleep in the bed in the other room. I wasn't about to complain and just said in a polite voice that I would and walked out of the lounge. It's a little hard no to be nervous when you're in a room with those Jedi masters in the middle of the night so I managed to get out of the room in under two seconds without making a fool of myself. Anakin gave me a look that plainly said 'goodnight' and I fell asleep quicker than I usually would have. That's what happens when you're woken up after a five hour nap.
Waking up this morning is slightly strange. Naturally, I'm not very happy about waking up since I am an eleven year old and prefer to stay in bed for as long as is physically possible. Groaning, I stuff my face into the pillow in an attempt to go right back to sleep but it fails miserably when I hear the sound of an alarm chrono. I huff in annoyance and turn over so that I am laying on my back. When I look around the room I find that there is no alarm chrono in sight and then realise that Anakin is playing a trick on me. I swear that one of these days I am going to pay him back in such a way that he will never trick me again.
"You awake yet, Snips!" He shouts from the other room.
I groan again and pull the covers over my head. "Yes!" I shout back.
"Anakin, don't wake her," The scolding voice of Master Kenobi says and I smirk under the duvet.
A muffled bit of conversation and then, "I heard that smirk, Ahsoka!" Anakin shouts and I sigh. Nothing ever seems to get past him.
I pull the covers down so that they no longer cover my head and lay in bed for a few more minutes as I think. It can't be too early in the morning since Master Kenobi is already here though I have no idea about his choice of sleeping arrangements so maybe be stayed the night too? Then again, Jedi masters rise early and go to sleep late. I've never been sure about whether or not I wanted to be one of them because it's all paper work, lack of sleep and doing things that will scar you for life. Some people say that being a Jedi master is the best thing for any Jedi but I don't know about that. Becoming a Jedi master is usually down to being old, having experience and knowing how to use a saber better than most.
Lazily, I push back the covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed so that they are touching the ground. I have to use my arms to push myself up to my feet because of how low the bed is and how tired I always am when I first wake up after a long sleep. Stretching out my arms to get rid of the tight and compacted feeling given from staying in one position for too long, I notice that I have what feels like the beginning of a stomach ache. I must be hungry because this doesn't happen usually and whenever I wake up hungry there is always something wrong with me that makes me realise. One time I skipped dinner and when I woke up I threw up everything that I had eaten the day before. Not a good thing.
Rubbing my eyes to get rid of the tired feeling, I walk out of the small room which I slept in last night and towards the lounge. It's already light out, which is good, and judging by how bright it is I'm guessing that it's not six o'clock anymore. Anakin is already sat on one of the couches watching me with a huge cocky smirk on his face that tells me I need to hit him and stop him from ever waking me up again. Master Kenobi is just visible in the kitchenette and if I didn't know any better I would say that he's making breakfast. Speaking of breakfast, I check the chrono on the table and see that it is nine o'clock in the morning. I slept three hours later than I usually would and, once again, it feels terrific. I don't know why people invented rising early.
"Are you awake yet, Snips?" Anakin says in a mocking fashion.
With a grumble I 'accidentally' use the force to send a book at him and sit down on the sofa beside him. This turns out to be a bad idea when he sends the book back at me and I get smacked in the face by it whereas he was only hit on the shoulder. I pick up the cushion and hit him over the head with it, causing him to retaliate with more force, and soon we are engaged in an all out pillow fight. I've said many things about Anakin but there are many ways I would describe him. An insulting one would be 'the freak of nature' but the one that best describes him when he is hit over the head with a cushion is 'the ultimate pillow fighter'.
Our little fight, though it was actually quite a large one if you think about it logically, was brought to an end when Master Kenobi walked back in the room and used the force to pull both of the cushions away from us. It's a shame because I was actually doing rather well at holding my own against Anakin, for once, and the face that his hair is now standing out at odd angles makes the fact that I would have won even more obvious. There has to be something that never lets Anakin lose because whenever I'm about to beat him there is either something that interrupts him, something that flies across the room and stops the game or a really angry chess set that's sick of not being played as often as it should be.
"You do know that you're not a child, Anakin." Master Kenobi reminds him, throwing the cushions back down on the sofa opposite us. "Although you do your best to try and get everyone to think that you are."
"I'm twenty years old, Obi-Wan. That's only two years off eighteen which is still classed as a child year and I'm not twenty-one yet so I'm just about a young adult and not a real one yet. I can act as care-free as I want... most of the time." Anakin says with a cocky smirk.
Master Kenobi rolls his eyes. "Anakin, one day..." He trails off and walks back into the kitchenette, leaving us on the sofa whilst Anakin grins at his retreating back.
"Anakin?"
"Yes?"
"What am I supposed to be doing now? I mean, Master Plo just sort of left me to go to sleep and now I don't know whether to go back to my room or not." I say.
"Well, I know that you're not going back to your room because someone broke in through the window and tore all your stuff up. They are still trying to figure out what the person was looking for since you didn't exactly have anything in your room to rob other than clothes." Anakin replies. "Whoever it was either thought that you were hiding there, in which case they were an idiot, or thought that you had something that they wanted, which you didn't."
I nod slowly, not understanding what that was supposed to mean other than the burglar was an idiot. "What are we going to do now? I'm not exactly allowed to go back to my room and I don't know where my friends are."
Anakin thought for a moment, it wasn't a long moment and I can tell that he is just faking because he's had something in mind for a while. What that thing is I am about to find out. "We can play a board game that I've always enjoyed playing," He suggests. "It's called Sides Of The Force."
"Okay, how do you play?"
"You can have up to four players and each of you is a different version of the force. It's basically like having four forces and one has to beat the others to win." Anakin explains. "There are galaxies to buy with the game armies that you start off with. Basically you start off with five hundred soldiers in your army and you have to take over other galaxies to build it up and then challenge the other players if you want one of their galaxies."
Thoughtfully, I nod. "That sounds like a fun game to play."
Anakin smiles. "I'm glad you think so because I always win," He says, snapping his fingers and making a large box appear on the coffee table. "Let's say the person who wins is allowed to throw something of their choice at the other."
"Fair enough," I agree.
For the next five minutes we set up the game that Anakin seems confident that he will win. I don't doubt that since this will be the first time that I've played the game and he has obviously played it many more times than I have. Speaking of games, where does he get all of this stuff? I am finding it extremely hard to believe that he just had all of these things on him when he was imprisoned in this room by the council because they were afraid of him. They may say that it was for other reasons but it is obvious every time they mention him that they are fearful of him. I can sense the small twinge of fear in them all apart from Master Kenobi. He's the only one with sense in this whole temple and I am counting Anakin in this.
The game board is a metal sheet with holographic technology inside of it. When you push the 'on' button it lights up and displays the various spaces in a square shape where you can fight for galaxies, rest your troops or miss a turn. I'm not even going to mention the 'turn of event' cards which can wipe out planets in your galaxies or give you another thousand for your army. There are four pieces which you can be and I chose to be the blue one because Anakin stole the white one for reasons which I am certain will come back to bite me when we're playing. The other two pieces are red and yellow which are two of my least favourite colours in the universe.
"Roll the dice and whoever gets the highest number gets to go first," Anakin instructs me after rolling the dice himself and getting a seven.
I roll the dice and get an eight which Anakin gives an outraged look about. Being beaten by one point always makes the loser more annoyed than they usually would be. I've had that with Barris often enough to know exactly how it feels. After getting to say so from Anakin, I roll the dice again and get a lower number than before. Though I doubt that five is an unlucky number it just seems like a rather plain number to get for your first move. Picking up my piece, I count five spaces and land on a 'turn of event' space which makes me pale and Anakin smirk. This cannot be good. I don't even had a galaxy yet and only five hundred troops in my army so if I lose anything I am going to be out so fast only a minute will have been used up this Saturday.
Reaching out, I pick up the card and turn to smirk at Anakin and show him the card. It reads: You have been acknowledged as a fair and just force. You gain two thousand in your armies. I watch with a grin as Anakin's cocky smirk fades faster than a light going out and the number beside my piece goes up from five hundred to two thousand five hundred. As I put the card at the bottom of the pile I can hear Anakin cursing fluently under his breath. Who's the best at this game now? I have to resist the urge to plaster a cocky look on my face so that he knows exactly what it feels like but decide to wait. A lot can change after the first move and it definitely will since Anakin is the best cheater in the galaxy.
"Lucky youngling..." He grumbles under his breath and I send him a glare in response. Why is he calling me a youngling when he just justified his immature behaviour to Master Kenobi?
Anakin picks up the dice and rolls them. To my suspiciousness, he gets a double six and moves up twelve spaces before rolling the dice again because he got a double and moving three spaces more. Now he's eight spaces away from me and that is nearly a quarter of the way around the board between us in one go. I'm fairly certain that he will be overtaking me soon or attacking me with an army of five hundred and miraculously winning. There's probably a lesson to be learned from all of this. Never play a board game with a force wielder unless you can cheat just as well as they can. I notice that Anakin has landed on the 'rest your army' space and give him a suspicious look. He doesn't have any bad things and he doesn't have the chance of the 'turn of event' cards. There is something that clearly points out when he is cheating but I decide to say nothing.
"Your go," Anakin says with a smirk.
I roll my eyes and pick up the dice. Honestly, if he gets any cockier he'll be trying to take on the entire droid army on his own... although, now that I think about it, he would probably survive with a few scratches on him. Damn it! There has to be some way for me to compare him to something and not realise a second later that he probably could do it if he wanted to. Sometimes I think that Anakin needs to be given a taste of his own medicine and he would most likely get that from someone on his planet. Oh wouldn't it be grand to observe the winner become the loser?- from some random person in the Jedi archives who's name I've forgotten.
After my turn if over, which I am mostly grateful for since I landed on the 'miss a go' space that made Anakin smirk again, Master Kenobi comes back to the lounge with two plates of breakfast that makes the stuff they five us in the mess hall look like gruel. He hands me one of them and I thank him before he sits on the sofa opposite us and watches with interest. It's obvious that he can't have played this game many times before either if not never. Anakin must be cheating on this game somehow because the next move gets him a 'turn of event' card which gives him and extra ten thousand troops for his army. Ten thousand and I only got two thousand. This is so unfair and it hardly seems like the best game in the galaxy as far as I am concerned.
"This doesn't seem like a very fair game to me, Anakin." Master Kenobi says when he notices that I am losing. "How can we be certain that you are not cheating?"
Anakin gives him his best innocent look. "Would I do that?"
"Yes." Master Kenobi replies plainly with a tone that shows how obvious the answer is. "And Ahsoka has to begin the construction of her lightsaber today since she did win the competition even though there was a slight problem at the end."
Lightsaber construction? I hadn't even thought about that. This means that I'm going to have to go to Ilum and retrieve my lightsaber crystal and spend most of my time trying to get my head around how to build a lightsaber in the first place. There's the complicated method of building the casing that has to be able to hold all of the fuses and have a compartment to hold the strength of the crystal and then I have to use the force to assemble all of the parts and you get the idea. Fortunately for me, Anakin seems to have this one in the bag which is really convenient since I could have sworn he was only in the Jedi order for a month or so.
"Lightsabers are easy to build. We had to do it every day at... well, where I grew up." Anakin says. "It can't take more than a day."
Master Kenobi rolls his eyes and effectively crushes my hopes of getting this done quickly in the next sentence he speaks. "This is a project that she had to do herself, Anakin. It isn't something that you can help with and is a Jedi's write of passage."
"I didn't go through it," Anakin protests.
"You were kidnapped before I could even mention it to you and taken to a planet in another galaxy." Master Kenobi reminds him.
"I fail to see the problem."
"No helping with Ahsoka's lightsaber." Master Kenobi says clearly so that even Anakin will understand.
Anakin makes an unhappy noise under his breath and rolls his eyes. "Jedi writes of passage messing with my game time..." He mutters under his breath and reminding me of the two year olds in the nursery who won't go to sleep. "Fine. The sooner your lightsaber is built the sooner we can go back to me crushing you."
I glare at him but it seems to have no effect what-so-ever. He's hardly crushing me because of him getting ten thousand more troops to his army. That's only eight thousand more than I have and I still think that he's cheating. True, there is no way for me to know for certain but that just makes it all the more likely that Anakin has charmed this game to only work for him somehow. I have no idea how he could do it or where he would have learned it, other than on his planet, but I just know that there is something he has done or will do.
Ignoring him all together for a few moments, I focus on eating my breakfast of eggs and bacon. It's much, much better than anything in the mess hall and is slightly more tasty than even Anakin's breakfasts. I suppose that when you're a Jedi and you have to eat all of the rubbish things in the mess hall whenever you get the chance to cook for yourself you take it. Every youngling knows that the Jedi masters are great cooks, with the exception of Master Yoda though we would never say it out loud, and if you ever need a good meal you just have to catch them around dinner time and put on your best hungry face. I've pulled that trick on Master Plo about a hundred times now and when he figured out what was going on I was gutted. No more free meals for me, or so I thought until Anakin started giving me them.
"What style do you fight in?" Anakin asks me.
"Uh, I use the reverse grip and mainly Djem So." I reply.
Anakin nods. "Right. Strong casing with grips and crystal holder to the left. You want to get started now?"
"Anakin, you can't help her." Master Kenobi reminds him.
"I wasn't going to... much." Anakin admits. "Besides, Starkiller has a lightsaber and I'd rather not have to use mine since it brings back lots of painful memories."
"You have a lightsaber?"
"Obi-Wan, I'm a force wielder who was taught to practice every form of the force when I was growing up. Saber fighting is classed as one of the things that I would have done a lot."
I frown. "Didn't you say you didn't take the saber fighting lessons?"
"Of course I did because then nobody would have been trying to take it from me and I wouldn't have been forced to get violent," Anakin explains. "Plus, I don't want to lose it because I've already lost ten lightsabers, broken seven and had three sliced in half in fights. That's twenty sabers, Snips."
"I can count you know," I grumble with narrowed eyes.
"As much as I can see that being possible, nobody can go through that many lightsabers Anakin." Master Kenobi says. "How did you even make them?"
Anakin shrugs his shoulders. "Lightsaber Assembly Kit."
"What?"
"Lightsaber Assembly Kit. They sell them on my planet to people over the age of thirteen although you do see a lot of little kids running around with them. That's what the protection fields are for." Anakin gives a brief explanation.
"It sounds like that could be very dangerous."
"On a planet of immortal beings who can only be killed by other force wielders with extreme amounts of power it isn't as dangerous as you might think. Whenever you get hit it just feels like your being tickled or something but it is rather painful for me since I wasn't born on that planet and have some mortal properties. It's too complicated for me to explain."
Master Kenobi shakes his head slowly. "Your planet seems like a Jedi's paradise if you ask me."
"Believe me it is. I'll show you some day if you'd like but not any of the other council members. They're afraid of me and I don't trust them." Anakin replies.
"Jedi do not feel fear." Master Kenobi reminds him although I don't believe that is true considering the councils actions.
"Tell that to the emotions I sensed from them when I demonstrated my force abilities to them. Paranoid old coots in tunics -" He catches himself at the sight of Master Kenobi's piercing glare. "- who are fighting a war for the republic and saving the lives of thousands."
I smirk. "Nice save." I mutter sarcastically, though the sarcasm is well hidden in my tone.
"Thanks, Snips." Anakin says with a smirk of his own. He obviously didn't realise that I was being sarcastic but at the risk of being beaten to a pulp in a pillow fight I'm not about to correct him.
"You have to start constructing your lightsaber now, Ahsoka." Master Kenobi says. "No more games until you're finished."
I pout. That is completely unfair.
"Yeah, I can play against Obi-Wan and see how long it takes me to beat him." Anakin adds with a mischievous grin. Something tells me that Master Kenobi isn't going to be as content playing the game as I was.