"In Need of Wings"
Chapter the Thirty-Second
"What your orders, sir?" Sergeant Korla asked. The Togrutan who reeked of the Dark Side would not stop running towards them.
She screamed, like an animal. Begging them to kill her. Stumbling over the debris, but still coming at them. Tears ran down her cheeks as she began foaming at the mouth.
"Shoot me already, you idiots!" Ahsoka cried.
"Orders, sir?" Korla repeated.
"Hold your fire. Do not shoot!"
This is my fight, Bane thought. Only I'm going to do the shooting around here.
He watched, eyes cold and lips pursed, as Ahsoka jumped over the corpses and advanced even faster towards them. Since he last saw her, her eyes had sunken deeper into her sockets, her cheeks hollowed out, her form visibly thinner. In spite of Mustafar, he ached for her and longed for what used to be.
They manipulated you. Twisted you and turned you on us. I'm so sorry for that, 'Soka.
He aimed his rifle at her carefully, clenching his jaw. His finger curled over the trigger.
But you were the one who chose to take my arm, you little bitch.
When he shot her, the stun blast hit her directly in the chest. She went down and fell face up on top of a a broken table, knocked out but very much alive. Since she was strong in the Force, Bane knew she would be awake in a matter of minutes.
He felt the troops staring at him, confused, as he lowered his rifle.
"Not going to kill her, sir?" one asked. "She's Vader's apprentice. Too dangerous to be left alive. We'd be better off just killing her instead of taking her prisoner."
Bane lit a cigarette and adjusted his hat, glancing at where Ahsoka lay.
"Didn't you hear what she said? She wants us to kill her. We never give the enemy what they want." He set down his rifle and took out a large knife. "We give them what they gave us."
"Sir…?"
He grabbed some rope and walked towards the unconscious Togrutan girl. The troops murmured between each other, wondering what the hell the captain was up to. But Bane knew how to ignore it. He grabbed her by her legs, dragged her over behind the rebel lines, and bound her wrists together, then her ankles. His knots were so precise that it would be a miracle if she fought out of them.
"Sir, what are you doing?" Sergeant Korla asked, in an almost demanding tone. "If you plan to set an example of her or something I think it's way too much of a risk. Vader won't be happy about this."
A cold glare crossed Bane's face, and he clenched his mechno fist, feeling the old memories shaking inside him. Every happy moment stolen from him when Ahsoka chose betrayal. So close to a possibly better life spent doing more than surviving and caring only for himself. But she threw it away like garbage.
He turned around, facing his troops, and spat his half finished cigarette on the ground.
"Vader's apprentice took my arm. I was willing to die for her and she was willing to kill me, and for what? So she could go back to the Sith I was trying to protect her from in the first place!" His troops backed off, taken aback by the sudden outburst. Bane had never been known to shout at them. "She did it to me. Not like I can do all of that to her, but…I can at least do some."
"But sir—"
"And don't talk to me about any rules of war. This is war. We could all die at any moment, so I'm going to do what I damn well want to!" he shouted.
"What are you going to do, sir?" Sergeant Korla spoke up.
Bane cleaned the knife and knelt beside her bound body, studying her face for a moment.
"You'll see…"
When Ahsoka awoke, the world spun around her, then folded her in half.
A pair of glowing, frozen red eyes looked down at her. Save for the slight rise and fall of his chest she could have easily mistaken him for a statue. He twirled his blaster against his mechno fingers. Smoke clotted the sky, but he still formed a strong shadow because of his ugly hat. All she saw was her first failure as Vader's apprentice.
"Cad…?" Her head ached. No, it pounded. Her legs stung around her ankles but she could not move them. She could not move her arms either, as she was lying on top of them. Suddenly she was helpless at the feet of Bane. This certainly brought back memories.
"Hello there, Tano." He nodded and politely tipped his hat at her.
His voice sounded peculiar. As if he could be inches from her, or fifty feet away, and she could not tell which it was. Or if it could be both. And the lower half of her montrals were completely numb.
He looked so different, and yet, at the same time, he had not changed one bit. Was he really standing in front of her, or did he just seem much closer?
"So are you going to kill me or what? You might not want to wait too long." She forced a small smile. Her lips were so cracked that they bled when she spoke. "The Empire will finish off all of you."
"Oh, no. I'm not going to kill you."
"Wh-what? Why not? You mean you…" Oh, no. No…not this.
Gnawing on her tongue, Ahsoka forced herself to look down at her chest. A hoarse cry rose from the back of her throat, and she tugged at the bonds on her wrists and ankles. But it was useless.
Oh, no.
Instead of long left and right montrals, the beautiful blue stripes, she only saw raw, ugly knobs ending just above her shoulders. Veins dangling from the ends as dried blood itched around her arms and chest.
They were gone.
"Oh, no, Cad! What did you to me?!"
No wonder she couldn't move. Everything was thrown off. Her sense of direction, her coordination, her hearing…tainted and abused.
No longer a true Togrutan. Not even a person.
As if to confirm what she saw, Bane showed her a large knife, then cleaned it against his thigh, smearing it with her blood before he put it back in its sheath.
"What did I do?" he echoed coldly, not moving a muscle as she writhed and sobbed. "I got my revenge. It's as simple as that. You maimed me and ruined me, so I did the same to you. Your third one was cut off too, just so you know."
"Kill me, kill me! Cad, you've got to kill me!" she begged him. She couldn't live like this. Not without half her montrals. Not this impaired, barely able to find her way around, much less fight. Not as just a few pieces remaining of her heritage and identity.
This was worse than dying.
"And relieve you of this?" His glare twisted, like a sour taste had filled his mouth. "You'd think I'm that merciful, wouldn't, you? You'd like to think I'm a changed man. That you redeemed me with your ex-Jedi ways, or some other bullshit."
She bit back another scream and looked up at him, only to have his cold eyes stare back, like those of a stranger.
"Well, I'm sorry, little lady. But I'm still a very, very bad man."
And Bane turned away and ordered his troops to move out and he left her there to die.
She cried until she lost her voice, and then she lay there helpless, listening to the gunfire and cannons less than a mile away. It did not take long for her to wonder how quickly and painlessly she would die by being crushed to death by a rebel tank. Or if the rising smoke would eventually suffocate her.
"Anakin…" Her vision blurred and she squeezed her eyes shut. Her whole body was numb. "Anakin…help me…please…"
Through the Force, the cry was enough. More than enough for Vader, even while hearing the name he discarded, feel her presence growing closer. Enough for him to find out where she was and run there as fast as he could.
When he saw her, he gasped in horror. He could smell Bane's handiwork all over what had been done to his little Snips.
"Oh no…Snips!" Vader raced to her side and knelt down. Immediately he worked on untying her wrists and ankles. "Bane did this to you, didn't he?" he cried.
"Anakin…" She looked up at him. Why did Anakin look different? Why were his eyes yellow and his hair so long and dark?
"I'll kill him! Oh gods, my poor sweet tart. He took your montrals…"
Ahsoka felt herself lifted up in his arms. The motion made her so dizzy that she vomited, but he still held her anyway.
"You're going to live, Snips. I'm going to get you to the safe bunker in the Palace. You'll be safe there."
"But I'm supposed to fight with you…"
"Shhhh." He commed a ship to pick them up. "You can't fight. You need to recover. And don't worry, I'm going to hunt down Bane and make him pay for this. How would you like him to pay? Shall I take his eyes first, or let him hang for a while?"
"It doesn't matter…they're all going to die soon anyway." She shut her eyes, as if that would help all the sharp, agonizing movements. Whimpering from the pain, she couldn't help but cling to her Master as he lowered her to the ship and sat with her. He held her head in his lap and was extra careful not to aggravate the sensitive edges of her montrals where they had been sawed off by Bane's knife. "We're all going to die…Snuffed out like cigarettes. Burned out like stars. Shot down like rats."
"Don't talk this way. I can fix this. I can fix you…" Vader stared at his apprentice, looking so frail and helpless. She had almost left him. Bane's fault.
"Yeah…" Ahsoka smiled weakly. "You once told me you could fix anything."
"Well, that's because it's true. We fixed the galaxy. Now I get to fix my apprentice."
The pain pills only did so much. Ahsoka still had little sense of direction or sound. Voices and figures fading in and out, like some sort of nightmare. When they finally arrived back at the Palace, Vader pushed his troops aside before they could touch her.
"Mine! Don't even look at her or I'll kill you!" he snarled. He took off his robe and wrapped her in it, then carried her in his arms. "It will be all right. Just you and me, Snips. Just wait until you get all better and then all those rebels will see what we can do…" Only with her, his tone softened. As Vader carried her to the safe bunker, Ahsoka shivered against him and buried her face in his chest.
"I'm sorry I failed you," she whispered.
"No. I'm sorry I let this happen."
That's unlike him to say that… she thought.
And for that moment, as small as that moment was, Ahsoka could have sworn she heard not Vader's voice, but Anakin's. Anakin, his way of telling jokes and cheering her up even when they were certain they were both going to die. Beating himself up when anything bad happened to her. Always there for her.
And as they ascended the steps of the former Jedi Temple, she felt that Anakin had come back just long enough to fix what had been broken when she left the Order. Instead of letting her walk away, he carried her home where they would always be together. Anakin had returned to her.
For just a moment, everything was as it should be.