Chapter 106: High Risk
"I only saw him kill two of us," Aayla Secura said, sitting upon her seat in the Jedi High Council, her hand entwined with a worshipful Kit Fisto. Whatever it was that existed between the Nautolan and the Twi'lek was ignored by the other Jedi Masters. There were more important things to worry about than two Jedi finding comfort and relief with each other in these dark times. Sanity would reassert itself when the war was over. "Quinlan killed three, and Kenobi...made one Knight kill another."
"What of the other four?" Mace asked, and Secura shook her head.
"We left them to tend to the fighting above the planet. I don't know what happened up there, but I chased Vos for days on Felucia, and he only really engaged us when his Master showed up." Kit squeezed her hand, and she smiled softly at him before turning her attention back to the other Masters. "It was Kenobi, it had to be. He's stolen our ships before. He must have killed the others. I have no doubt about that."
"There were fifty thousand clone soldiers on those ships," Windu said, shaking his head. "One man, no matter how powerful in the Force, cannot stand against an army of that size, so what happened?" Secura looked at Master Yoda, the little creature small and silent in his seat. Since her arrival at the Jedi Temple, she had spent the last week alone with the Grandmaster, quietly discussing the events of her trial again and again and meditating together. Something was stirring, she knew. Something deep and hidden that went far beyond what she could imagine, and Yoda was beginning to come to grips with whatever it could be. She was only released last night, declared cleared of any influence, and malicious intent by Kenobi, and was told to report to the Council in the morning to answer all the questions the Masters had.
There was a lot of them.
When Yoda waved his hand at her for her to go on, Secura took a deep breath and, nodding, said, "I saw what he did to my troops on the ground. He just...lifted his hand and undid them. I could feel them suffering, they were being tortured. And when they rose, they weren't my troops anymore, they were his." She clenched her jaw, her eyes narrowed in anger, and she tightly clutched Kit's hand. "One hundred of my best men, and he took them from me like it was nothing. I can only assume he did the same aboard the Star Destroyers. So no, Master Windu. One man can destroy an army."
"And he made a Jedi turn?" Mace gasped. "Just like that?"
"It would have taken some effort," Master Billaba said, her holographic image flickering. With her new Padawan in hand, the Master had overcome her injury and was now back in the field. She had been fighting on Mygeeto when the Mandalorians attacked, far enough away that she wasn't effected by the ferocious torrent of historic Jedi slayers. "He had to work to break me. Give him long enough, and he may be able to break the best of us, but he would have to be terribly focused to do it."
"He was fighting, Master," Aayla gasped. "Fighting two Jedi and torturing a hundred clones. His attention was divided, so how could he do it?"
Depa simply shrugged. "We are foolish if we consider him anything but a Master of the Force. They were Knights. They were outclassed, and not by a small margin."
"Then we need to send our best," Mace growled. "And not just one or two, but enough to combat him and all his followers, enough to hold his attention and keep it divided. Kenobi needs to die before he becomes an even bigger threat." Mace didn't see the blindingly fast strike of Yoda's stick as it descended upon his bald head with a loud, sharp thwack. Mace growled in pain, rubbed his head, and looked at the Grandmaster, the tiny creature sitting peaceful and serene as though he hadn't moved at all.
"Of all things," Yoda softly rasped, "believe this, do you?" He shook his head. "Learned much of Obi-Wan, we have. Peaceful, he is not, but shifting, the Force is. Killed a Sith Lord, he has. Reached out to end the war, he did."
"No, no, no," Mace said quickly. "He's done this before, and it was used against us! He's trying to manipulate us!"
"Gave back Secura, he did." Yoda pointed his stick at Mace's chest. "No reason, he had, to do this. Given her back, he would have, if willing to talk, the Republic had been." He frowned as he groaned in though. "A feeling, I have, that changed, Obi-Wan is." He nodded. "Meet with him, we must."
"This is a terrible idea!" Mace cried. "Skywalker has the right of it, if Grievous and Kenobi are dead, this war is over."
"Over, this war would be now, if reason, the Republic saw." Yoda closed his eyes and tapped his stick rhythmically upon the ground as he organized his thoughts. "A Sith Lord in the Senate, there is. Darth Sidious." Yoda shook his head. "Move against him, Obi-Wan will. Right, Qui-Gon was."
"With all due respect, Master Yoda," Mace growled, "you can't just go meet with a Sith Lord because he gave us a Jedi back when he didn't have to!" Yoda gestured to Aayla, and the entirety of the Council look at her. She refused to meet their gazes. She didn't like being interrogated.
"He was," she said softly, "perfectly civil. He made his home mine, I was never a prisoner in the week I was in his company." She paused to bite her lip for a moment, uncertain how to explain what it had been like to be in the presence of darkness personified and feel nothing but peace. "He's powerful, Masters," is what she finally settled on. "So, so powerful. He doesn't need to reach out for peace, he doesn't need to do any of this, and he certainly didn't have to set me free when he could have easily used me to further extort the Jedi." She shrugged. "Mace is probably right about him wanting us to fight exactly like this, but he seemed...unconcerned about the Jedi. Like none of us were a threat to him at all."
"Sith arrogance..." Mace grumbled, his arms crossed over his chest, but Secura shook her head.
"No. His focus was on Anakin Skywalker and...something else. I don't know what. But when he was taking me back, he said that he'd soon be the only Sith Lord." She took a deep breath, and felt relief wash over her. "Master Yoda is right. He's turning against his Master."
"Mace sputtered a moment before he managed to spit, "We can't make deals with Sith Lords!"
"Why not?" Yoda asked calmly. "Begin somewhere, peace must."
"The Jedi and the Sith have fought since the very beginning!" Mace shouted, and Yoda just looked at him with big, inquisitive eyes.
"What over?"
"The Force!" Yoda frowned.
"Thousands of years ago, began, this conflict did. End, it must, or again and again, happen, this will."
"You want to make peace with the Sith..." Mace said, slumping back in his seat.
"In great danger, is the Jedi Order," Yoda said softly. "A chance, this is, a great risk, but take it, we must. Peace, we must make, with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and lead us to his Mster, he will. Destroy him together, we may."
"Only to have him rise as Lord of the Sith!" Mace snapped, and Yoda just looked at him, unimpressed with his anger.
"Yes," he calmly said. "Dangerous, that is. But more dangerous it will be, if peace, we do not try to make." Yoda gripped his stick tighter and looked at each of the Masters gathered. "Where says it that Jedi and Sith must fight, hmm?"
"The Sith say it," Mace snapped, and Luminara rose from her seat. She had seen silent, sullen and morose for some time, and she finally had enough.
"It needs to end one day, Mace," she said softly. "Obi-Wan has been known to be reasonable in the past, and if he's Lord of the Sith, perhaps things may change. I'm going to go talk to him."
"Are you out of your mind?!" Mace shouted, but the Mirialan had already left, leaving the Council in a stunned silence as they tried to sort out what to do next.
It had taken months to do, but she had done it. For weeks, she had simply observed the planet from the safety provided by the swirling, clouded atmosphere of the extremely nearby gas giant, Jestafad, a single, small ship unnoticed by the might of the dreadnaughts and the Star Destroyers that hung in space over the burning world. She saw fighters and heavy cruisers and transports constantly flying to and from the fiery planet, and after some time, she knew exactly where the palace was located. It was encased in a planetary shield, a wicked, vicious defensive measure that would fry the systems of any ship that passed by without the proper security clearance, but she couldn't imagine why the planet needed it. Only someone out of their mind would attack this place.
After that, the rest of her time was dedicated to finding a way in, and she had tried so hard to somehow get a Mandalorian ship, which she suspected would have the proper codes, but she had never been successful. That clearance, it seemed, was the first thing that was dumped from the ship's memory when any kind of alarm was sounded, and she was good, but not that good. Still, she tried, periodically returning to gaze at Mustafar, to count the ships, to see if the shields were miraculously down, to see if the Master of the palace was in or out. It was always hard to tell. She kept her communications attuned to the holonet, as she always did, just to keep up to date on how things were going, how the Republic was fairing. She heard a great deal about the Separatists and the Mandalorians, fighting together in a tentative, conditional alliance. She heard about the ships Enigma, commanded by fallen Jedi Quinlan Vos, and Silence, commanded by terrorist Padawan Barriss Offee, the two winning victory after victory to liberate Confederate worlds from Republic hold. It was difficult to hear, but she always listened. Always.
Then one day, after months of waiting and careful planning, she returned to Mustafar and saw all of them. Negotiator, Liberator, Enigma, and Silence, the four prides of the Separatist fleet all present in the space above the burning world. Another opportunity like this would not present itself. Thrusting the accelerator forward, the tiny starfighter sped out of the cover of the gas giant and zipped low under the massive ships, angling the nose of her fighter just right as she approached the atmosphere, and hoped that the approach was right to land her close to the palace. It would have to be. Anakin Skywalker had taught her a thing or two about flying, and she would need to use all her skills now, since the ship would be badly damaged as it powered through the planetary shield. It didn't matter. This was a one way trip anyway, and Ahsoka Tano had no hopes of being able to return.
As suspected, crashing through the shield was like hitting a wall, and the ship had lurched and veered off course, and Ahsoka shut her eyes and looked away as the control panel before her erupted into a shower of sparks and arching electricity, but she kept her hands upon the accelerator and the yoke. It was hardly responsive, but it was good enough. When she opened her eyes, all she could see was flames, from her ship and from the planet below, and she pulled back hard on the accelerator to slow her rapid entry, her jaw clenched tight in focus as she tried to drown out the sound of blaring warning alarms and frantically flashing emergency lights. She jerked hard on the yoke, willing it to respond, which it did, but badly, and as the nose of the ship dipped down, she could see it. The towering palace of Mustafar, black and expansive with a single, massive tower rising high above the rest of it. She pulled the yoke back, the ship groaning and reluctantly complying as the nose tilted up, and a moment later, she felt the bottom of the ship strike something hard, sending the little craft spinning and skidding and screeching upon hard ground.
She pulled the hatch release, but the cockpit shielding stayed fixed overhead. It was jammed. With a cures of frustration, the Togruta harnessed the Force, touched all the fear and pent up anger and disappointment she held within her, and with a snarl of fury, she pushed upwards with the Force, the raw power of the blast shattering the glass, and Ahsoka jumped out of the opening to land tumbling on the ground, the ship screeching and sparking as it fell over a nearby edge and into the lava drifts below. With a groan, she stood, stretched, rubbed her head and quickly assessed her damage. She was bruised badly in some places, but nothing was seriously injured. She squinted as she looked around, the raging heat burning her eyes and making it very difficult to see, but she was alive and on solid ground, a stretch of hard, refined black metal that appeared to be something of a landing strip. Before her stood the palace, tall and looming above her, and it reached upwards almost higher than she could see. The sprawling expanse must have been far above them. When she was crashing, she hadn't seen that the structure dropped over the side of the cliff it was sitting on as well, but that is where she stood. She frowned. She had badly miscalculated her landing. Anakin would have been so disappointed.
Slowly, Ahsoka limped toward the palace, drawing closer to the large landing door she could barely see upon the black of the building. She wondered if anyone even knew she was here. She suspected they must, but if they did, they were clearly unconcerned. Nobody was around. The doors weren't even open. Perhaps they simply decided to stay safely behind the walls of the fortress. She had heard that the planet had been attacked once, and seeing it up close now, it wasn't surprising that it had failed. But they couldn't keep her out. Activating her lightsabers, she drove them into the large, locked door, the heat-resistant metal taking longer than usual to begin glowing as the metal liquified. She grit her teeth and pressed harder, the effort of cutting through straining her muscles, her arms shaking with the prolonged exertion in the blistering heat. It had taken far too long, but she finally got through, leaping through the tiny hole she had made and rolling out of her dive when she hit the ground.
As soon as she stood, she found herself blasted back with a powerful pulse that made her fatigued muscles twitch and convulse and she struck the wall, the impact making a long, low sound reverberate through the air. She groaned on the ground, her muscles aching from the impact of her second crash that day, and her head ringing with pain as she struggled to rise. She groaned softly in irritation when she hears the sharp whine of a blaster being primed and a light, amused chuckle echo in the large, empty hangar, the lighting dim, but she could still see clearly. Or, would have been able to, had her vision not been swimming as it was.
"You aren't very smart, are you, Jedi?" the voice asked, and Ahsoka froze for a moment, than glanced up in recognition as she felt the presence of a clone, so alike the ones she served beside, but so, so much different, so much younger than any clone she fought with, and she found herself staring at black and red Mandalorian armor, fitted to perfection on a frame not yet fully grown. She knew him, and the slight waver of the warrior's hand betrayed his own shock at seeing her.
"Boba Fett," she said, soft and sad, her hands raised above her head in surrender, and she smiled when the boy tore his helmet off and looked at her with wide, surprised eyes and a face that was flushed from more than just heat. "I thought you died. I thought they killed you."
"Why should you think any different?" he said, keeping his weapon trained on her, and trying to sound cold, angry, indifferent, but he was met with considerable failure on that count. "You all just left me. And you took my ship!"
"There was no way we could have gotten to you," she said defensively. "When we left, you were on the ground. He had a lightsaber at your throat."
"Y-yeah," Fett said sheepishly. "That doesn't happen much anymore. Dad's trained me really well." He growled and shook his head in irritation. "Cody. Cody's trained me." The smile on the girl's face told him that he hadn't gotten away with that slip.
"He adopted you?"
"He's training me!" Boba snarled, raising his weapon again. "Why are you here, Jedi?"
"...I'm no Jedi," she said quietly. "And I'm here to see my Master."
He looked at her appraisingly, held the blaster to the Togruta's head, and took the lightsabers from her belt. Ahsoka offered no resistance. Resistance wasn't part of the plan. What was a Padawan without a Master? A question that echoed in her mind incessantly since her time with the Jedi had come to an end, and she could take it no longer. She needed to know. Dark Side or no, Quinlan Vos was everything to her. He would know what to do.
"Your Master," Boba said quietly, holstering his weapon and picking up his helmet, tucking it under his arm. "Vos, or the Shadow King?"
"...I'm not sure anymore." Fett nodded in understanding.
"Come on. Keep close, I'll take you to them." The Togruta nodded, and quickly moved to stand beside the young former bounty hunter, her gaze fixed straight ahead and trying not to notice as he tried to look at her out of the corner of his eye. "Did you bring anyone with you?" Fett asked, trying to sound demanding, but he came across as merely curious. Ahsoka couldn't help but wonder why. The boy was a seasoned bounty hunter, but he was acting like some blushing, stuttering Padawan. She smiled softly.
"Only me," she said. "There was only room for me in my ship. I didn't expect to make it this far. And I don't expect to come back." Boba looked at her this time, putting aside all pretense of pretending he wasn't and saw grim determination on her face, her stride confident, her mannerisms strong and forceful, even in the unfamiliar territory, even in a place where Jedi simply did not return from. She was...feisty. He liked that. And he had no idea what to even do with that, so they walked in silence through the corridors of the palace.
As they walked out of the elevator into what Ahsoka had assumed was the sprawling complex she had seen on her crash, the palace changed, the walls build with black stone inlaid with gold, large windows lined large rooms to let in the red light of the lava flows they overlooked. The palace was...magnificent, dark and ominous, yes, but also strangely beautiful and absolutely soaked in the Dark Side. It was so thick in the air, she could almost feel it enter her lungs as she breathed, the pressure so great she felt her sensitive montrails complain and set her head to throbbing. But it also was...soothing. Calming in a way she couldn't understand, the chill of the Force a stark, refreshing contrast to the heat of the lava outside. She knew she should resist, knew the Jedi looked down upon such feelings, knew that no true Jedi would feel a strange ease in the darkness of this place, but Ahsoka did.
She could hear faint sounds as they walked, and slowly, as the Mandalorian beside her brought them through the spacious, opulent palace, the faint sounds became distant, tortured screams, drawling louder and louder the longer they walked until the sound seemed to echo off the walls around them. Ahsoka winced, her sudden discomfort catching Fett's attention, and he laughed softly.
"That's alright," he said reassuringly, "it's just Maul."
Ahsoka stopped in her tracks, her jaw slack and eyes wide. "Maul?" she asked, astounded. "Darth Maul?"
"No," Boba said. "Not Darth. The Shadow King says that's a term of fear and respect. It's just Maul." He paused for a moment to shrug. "Or slave. Or slut. Or a hundred other names, but never Darth."
"Why is he here?" she asked absently, wincing when she asked. She already knew the answer, and she didn't want to hear it.
"They torture him. Everyone torture him." He looked at the Togruta, confused, when he found her to be appalled, like it was some awful thing. "What? He killed the Mand'alor. Death's too good for him." Ahsoka could find nothing to say to that, and she quietly followed Fett once again. She, to some extent, understood revenge. Perhaps not in the Sith way, but in her own.
When Boba opened the large door in front of him, the cries and wails intensified, and Ahsoka felt her conviction falter when she looked about the elegant, beautiful living room and saw the enormous white rancor, the fabled beast that belonged to Obi-Wan Kenobi, with the small, weeping, bloody form of Maul held in his giant clawed hand. And beside the beast stood the Sith Lord himself, calm and collected and poised, at peace even in the sounds of suffering as he looked upon a galactic map, pointing to different spots and talking to a clone beside him and...
Quinlan Vos.
With a strangled cry, Ahsoka ran toward her Master and found herself suddenly stopped, frozen in place by the weight of the Dark Side, the pounding in her head intensifying as the Force roared around her. A moment later and she was listed into the air, a firsm, but not strangling hold upon her neck, and she kicked her legs in an attempt to break free, but stopped when she found herself looking down into the glowing gold eyes of Darth Lumis.
"Ahsoka Tano..." Kenobi drawled softly, a cruel, hungry smirk on his lips. "I have been waiting so long to see you again..."
"Obi-Wan..." Vos said, creeping toward his friend, his hands outstretched as if he were pleading, but a swift glare from the Sith Lord told him not to approach any closer.
"When last we met," the Sith said, cold, menacing, his eyes flashing dangerously and the grip upon her throat seeming to tighten, "you nearly killed me. Or you stabbed me, in any case." He grinned. "Right in the back, my traitorous little Jedi."
"I'd do it again," Ahsoka found herself snarling despite herself, pushing past all the fear she felt and grasping at raw anger and the power that came with it. This was the man that made her Master fall. This was the man that had left her directionless, purposeless, deprived of her friends, and now deprived of the Jedi she once knew to be family. She could never go back, not when they had betrayed her the way they had, not when she was trained by a Master that was drawn to darkness, not when she felt it in herself as well. And as she thought all this and more, the Sith's grin became wider, his eyes brighter, and it only served to make her more angry.
"Have you come to finish the job?" he calmly asked the snarling former Padawan, more amused than angry, and Ahsoka stopped her writhing and glared at him.
"...no," she said, shaking as she looked at him, as she felt him within her, as she had once felt before, and she didn't have the power to stop him. "I'm...lost."
"Lost?" Kenobi looked behind him when Vos whimpered, carefully observing his friend, and Kenobi closed his eyes, standing silent as he reached deep into the Force for guidance. He met her gaze once again when he had his answer, but this time, it wasn't cruel or amused. It was sympathetic, and Ahsoka felt herself shiver. "For so long, I have seen you in my visions," he muttered, and the Togruta felt herself being lowered, could feel the ground beneath her feet, and was quickly made to kneel before him. "Your presence was a nuisance, but you have since been changing and shifting..." Kenobi crouched before her, a long finger hooking beneath her chin and forcing her to look into his eyes. "I was going to kill you before, but now...you're of interest to me." He released her, both physically and through the Force, and Ahsoka caught herself before she lurched to the ground. "You're lucky that I'm having something of a personal crisis at the moment, or you would already be dead."
The Sith waved his hand dismissively, and a moment later, Ahsoka found herself held tightly in Quinlan's arms, the Kiffar Master squeezing so hard that she could barely breathe, and clutched tightly to him, the Togruta began to weep, slowly at first, and then freely as she remembered that the restrictions imposed upon Jedi no longer applied to her.
"Master," she whimpered, clutching Vos' robes tightly between her fingers, "I've had no idea what to do, I-"
"Hush now," Quinlan said softly, gently, and pulled her closer to him. "Everything's alright now, Ahsoka..."
"No, it isn't!" She violently pulled away from him and glared up into his face, those brown eyes once a dark, warm brown now stained yellow and red, and she found she could barely look at him. "Master, did you stop to think once about me when you abandoned the Jedi?! What was supposed to happen to me?! What was I supposed to do! Nobody knows, Master! A Padawan is supposed to follow their Master everywhere, but following you leads to darkness!"
"You..." Kenobi said softly, and Ahsoka's eyes darted to the Sith, narrowed as she felt anger build inside her. "You are no Jedi, young one."
"...not anymore." The Togruta laughed bitterly. "I left the Jedi. After I tried to save you, Master, I..." She stopped and shook her head. "There's darkness inside of me. I don't know if you put it there, or if it's my own, but you fell to the Dark Side. How could I stay with them? I may not follow you, Master Quinlan, but you trained me, and you fell, so how could I be prepared to resist when you weren't?" She sniffled and looked away. "You...were the greatest Jedi I ever knew, Quinlan. I don't know what to do. Help me."
It was a rare thing for Quinlan Vos to be speechless, but now, he found himself at a loss for words. Slowly, silently, he pulled the girl back into his embrace, and she did not pull away. "I'm sorry, Ahsoka..." he whispered, holding her close, and he found himself shaking. They just stood there, clinging to each other like they were all the other hand, and Obi-Wan looked at her curiously. Ahsoka was something new. Something different. One who left the Jedi, not to join the Dark Side, but to flee from it. She was a shadow in his vision, one that strode among the dead unseen and had a keen interest in the Sith Lord. She wasn't one that walked in the light, not anymore, but she wasn't one that reached for darkness either. This girl was something in between, and it was...beautiful. Like twilight, the fading light bringing with it the rising darkness, and she sat firmly in the beauty of both. This girl...was not his enemy.
He laid a hand on the rancor's head, and with a low, soft growl, the creature bounded from the room with Maul gripped in his teeth, the sobs and screams fading into nothing. "You can still follow me, my Padawan," Vos finally said, looking down at the small girl in his arms, but she shook her head.
"Not here, Master..." she whispered sadly. "Not to the Sith, I can't...not after all I've seen them do, not after what I saw what you have become." She smiled, shaking softly as she watched emotions fly across his face. "Ventress wasn't lying, Master." The Kiffar tensed, but Ahsoka didn't care. She knew she was going to die here anyway. The Sith Lord would kill her, but maybe her death would pull her Master back toward the light. It was all she could hope for. The pain of the Dark Side was far too much. She had seen that.
"Don't talk about Ventress..." Vos quietly warned, but the girl wasn't listening.
"As soon as we lost you on Raxus," she said softly, "as soon as we found a way to return to Coruscant, we went to find help to rescue you. She got the best bounty hunters she knew." Beside Cody, Boba Fett's chest swelled with pride. "We even went to the Council to secure Jedi help."
Vos scoffed. "She went to the Temple?" he asked, clearly disgusted, but there was something else within him that Ahsoka knew all too well. Longing.
"Yes," she said, nodding. "Reluctantly, but we were willing to do anything to bring you home to us..."
"Stop it!"
"She loved you, Master!" Ahsoka cried, standing her ground to meet the furious Kiffar when he bore down upon her. "I bet she still does! Come with me, come home! We can't go back to the Jedi, not ever, but we can be together without having to be exposed to this...Sith evil!"
"Where is she?!" Vos shouted, grabbing the girl by the arms so hard that she winced, but Tano's gaze never left his. "Tell me where she is! Lead me to her, Ahsoka, and I'll put an end to that lying bitch!"
"No." Quinlan looked at her in shock, defiance in her eyes, and he could feel his anger rising when she said nothing else.
"No?!" he gasped, and the Togruta's defiance became unshakable resolve.
"No. I don't know where she is, and even if I did, I would never take you to her. I won't watch you commit another murder, Quinlan."
"Than don't watch!"
"I won't, because I'm not going to be an accomplice to the murder of a woman that loves you!" Vos' features hardened, twisted by anger and darkness into something that Ahsoka had never seen upon her Master, and she knew she had gone too far. Still, she stood her ground.
"I will have my revenge against Asajj Ventress," he spat and his every word felt poisonous to the Togruta. "Nothing, nothing will stand in the way of that. Not even you, Ahsoka."
"Killing someone you love isn't revenge, Master, it's stupidity!"
"I don't love her!" he snarled. "Not anymore, not after what she did to me!"
"And what she did was wrong," the Togruta said, almost pleading. "It was wrong, but it was all she knew, and when that lie really mattered, she was too afraid to tell you the truth because she didn't want to lose you!" For a moment, the Kiffar seemed to waver, seemed to actually be listening, almost seemed to understand, and then he hardened once again.
"Don't you dare make excuses for her, Ahsoka! Just who's side are you on?!"
"Yours, Master," she said softly. "But being on your side doesn't always mean giving you what you want."
"You'd betray me too?" Vos asked, his voice cold and dangerous, and Ahsoka found herself rooted to the spot, fear keeping her pinned down as she watched her Master reach for his lightsaber, and just as his hand touched it, he howled in pain, staggering backwards and clutching his head and dropping to his knees.
"That's enough," Obi-Wan said softly, his hand extended, and Vos' lightsaber flew to his grasp as he walked past the man. Ahsoka looked at the Sith Lord cautiously, her chest tight as she braced herself for her end. "Is this why you came here, Tano?" he asked gently. "To see if you could pull Quinlan back to the light?"
She smiled sadly, her throat tightening and her eyes welling with tears as she looked past the Sith to her Master, the man on the ground as he gasped for breath, his body trembling as he slipped out of the Dark Side's grasp by orders of Darth Lumis. "I couldn't give up on him," she whispered. "I saw what he was like on Raxus, I...felt how badly he was hurting. I had to try to save him...I can't abandon him to this."
Kenobi looked back at his friend, the Kiffar slowly recovering from the sharp rebuke, and denied his access to the Dark Side, the powerful beast resting at Kenobi's feet and forbidden to move, he was slowly regaining control. "I apologize for his outburst," Obi-Wan muttered. "Taming the Dark Side is no small feat. It takes many years to master, and most never do." He looked back at the Togruta and examined her carefully. "Quinlan didn't leave for the Sith, he left for me. He's learning the Dark Side, yes, but he has a talent for it, as well as a natural inclination, and the Jedi had stifled him."
"You have made him do evil," she growled, and Obi-Wan looked offended.
"Evil..." he scoffed. "Such a simplistic view. You hurl a child's word at things you do not understand. But, for the sake of argument..." he drawled. "Tell me, what evil has he done?" Ahsoka stuttered at that, started several times to say something, and then stopped trying. Kenobi scoffed. "Nothing you Jedi haven't done. He has fought in the war by my side, but he is guilty of no act of perceived evil. After all, I never sent him to assassinate a man..."
"H-he wants to murder Ventress!" she cried frantically. "She loves him!"
"And she wronged him, Ahsoka. Do her feelings for him excuse her actions? It isn't for you to decide if and how and when he chooses to forgive her, and only he can decide the nature of his revenge." A sly grin spread over his face at the little former Jedi's look of confusion. "Sometimes, revenge is justified."
"...I-I just want him to be happy," she whimpered, trembling as she looked at the Lord before her, and slowly, she felt herself drawn into Quinlan's arms once again, the Kiffar moving moved to her side without her knowing. She relaxed into him and sighed in contentment as she listened to his heart beat, could feel his contrition through the Force, and could sense that the man was fulfilled, united with his lost friend after years of pain and emptiness. She swallowed hard. Perhaps the Jedi way wasn't the only way for one with the Force. Perhaps, just maybe, peace could be found in the Dark Side as well, and for Ahsoka, one who belonged to neither side, perhaps there was a place for her too.
"You're lost, Padawan Tano," the Sith Lord said, laying a hand on the girl's head, and she shivered, but didn't resist. She knew he could control minds, but she was not afraid. She could have died several times already, and Kenobi had saved her once. He was oddly not a threat. She nodded as she gripped her Master and wriggled closer. "That is the real reason you are here, is it not? As you said, what is a Padawan without a Master? And what is one to do when their Master gives in to the Dark Side?' The girl shivered, whimpering against the Kiffar, and he hissed.
"Stop torturing her, Kenobi, this is hard enough as it is."
"I'm not torturing her, these are real questions that need answering. Tell me, Ahsoka. Are you going to do what all good Padawans must and follow your Master?"
"No." The answer was swift and strong, unwavering in its conviction, and Kenobi nodded.
"If you are so certain of that, than you have grown beyond your Master. You aren't a Padawan any longer." Kenobi chuckled softly. "The Jedi should have knighted you. You have more conviction than most of their lot. You are your own Master now, Tano, so you tell me. What is it you want?"
She didn't know. Her whole life had been planned out for her, her entire career as a Padawan spent fighting in a war, and it was all she knew. The Jedi were supposed to be peacekeepers, but she never felt anything like that. Ahsoka was a warrior, not a keeper of the peace, though she wanted to be. She looked at Obi-Wan carefully and remembered when she had seen him long ago, the Jedi Knight, the Sith Slayer. A legend that she had met, had spoken to when she was so very young. Memories of him had sent her imaginative mind into dreams of fierce battles against the Sith, or ridding the galaxy of them once and for all, and she wondered if, even then, Obi-Wan Kenobi had fallen to the Dark Side. He had promised to protect her then, and she had felt peace, safety, a feeling that she was beginning to feel now. Perhaps the Sith weren't what the Jedi thought after all. At least, this one wasn't.
"I'm not a Jedi..." she whispered. "But I'm not a Sith either, I can't live in the darkness like you, I can't."
"Not everyone can," he said gently. "It takes someone truly exceptional to walk the path of the Sith and not be destroyed by it."
Ahsoka nodded. "Then I need to figure out what I am. I want to help people. So many are suffering because of this war. That's who I want to help." Quinlan looked at Kenobi, his lip held between his teeth and a pleading look in his eye.
"Can we help her?" he asked, and Kenobi steepled his fingers and thought for a moment before slowly nodding.
"The Mandalorians are offering aid to worlds that cannot defend themselves and have been ravaged by the war. I can contact Bo-Katan and have her send relief assignments your way."
The Togruta wrinkled her nose. "Isn't Mandalore working for you? And you're a Separatist, so-"
"If you believe the Mandalorians will work for anyone, you are seriously mistaken," Kenobi said quickly, rolling his eyes. "But if you won't shed your Republic sympathies, I can also put you in touch with Padmé Amidala. She's closely connected to the man that runs the Republic's relief operations."
"...why are you helping me?" she asked quietly, and the Sith Lord simply shrugged.
"As I said, you caught me at a weird time. I...also find myself in transition. Call it sympathy." He punched Quinlan in the arm. "It also pleases this idiot. He has always loved you."
"You have no idea how many sexual favors I'm going to have to preform for him for this, Ahsoka," Vos said, grinning brightly at the Sith. "And he is relentless, let me tell you."
"I suppose I better take it, then," the girl said softly, smiling as she looked at the two men. "Can you set me up with them both? I want to do everything I can."
"I'll place the calls in the morning." Kenobi looked the girl over, felt the pull of the Force within her, her previous confusion gone and replaced with the self-assurance he had always felt from her. "The Force has plans for you, Ahsoka Tano," Obi-Wan said softly. "I can feel it."