Alright, may as well update and quickly edit this chapter as well - given that FF is not exactly the most accurate or quickest with updates, I do want to let everyone know that I can't keep track of stats. I'm now aware that this is an ever-present curse on the website, but it isn't deterring me from continuing to write.
However, I have noticed that at times the newest chapter is not showing up on the browsing list of stories, though I'm not sure if that's just on my end or everybody else's as well. In the event the latter is the case, please check the dropdown tab for chapter listing
In other news, this story is not the main body of work. Rather, it is an extensive prologue to the main plot itself - while Knight of the Old Republic will not be short by any means, it is meant to cover the year between Bastila leading her strike team against Revan - where Anakin now finds himself - and the events of the KotOR game.
As the story progresses, updates will become sparser, though I aim to never go longer than three weeks between posts. The majority of time in between is being spent with planning out the plotline itself as well as listening to the canonical books of the Disney Star Wars universe as well as the EU - I'm currently trying to balance writing the Knight of the Old Republic while also reading the various handguides to the planets and systems, as well as the Rise of Vader and Revan novels. I'm trying to incorporate all the events that led up until the recent episode of Ahsoka and the events that led up to Bastila's failed attempt on Revan, including Clone Wars, Bad Batch, Kenobi, Rebels, and the OT/Prequel films themselves.
I'm not aiming to write just a fanfiction, but a story that you guys can get lost in and that will follow lore-accurate events.
I just wish I was a stronger writer when it came to dialogue and exposition, alas those are my weakest links, I believe.
Anyway, with that said, I hope you all enjoy - if you like the story, feel free to follow and favorite, and if you have any constructive criticism or opinions, feel free to post them. I disabled the moderator for guest reviews, so they should be automatically approved.
"There's still hope for you yet."
Those had been the final words he spoke to Ahsoka, his former student.
Standing at the ledge of one of the many bridges that connected various points in the seemingly infinite space of the World Between Worlds, he clasped both hands behind his back. Gazing out into the dark expanse of the unknown, he took the time to count each individual star that littered his view - the only sound coming from the soft and quiet sounds of his leather vest and Jedi robes shifting beneath the subtle motions of his body. It initially started as a way of passing the time, a means by which he could stave off the boredom that would inevitably pass over for a brief moment - then he eventually found it becoming merely habitual.
In fact, he'd actually reached a point where it was no longer about actually counting the stars themselves, but seeing if perhaps a new constellation or cloud of gas would appear. Sometime he would stand back and wonder if eons had passed around the realm, or if perhaps the realm itself was independent to the space and time around it. Was this perhaps a universe within the Force itself, a type of pocket dimension within their own reality - or could it have been outside the fabric of reality itself?
Letting out a soft and gentle snort of amusement, he couldn't help but shake his head at the thoughts that were crossing his mind. Who would have known that he'd eventually pick up the ability to stand back and just take it all in? What would Master Windu say if he had seen him right at this moment?
"He probably would have admonished me for taking so long to learn patience, though I can't say I would have blamed him," he mused to himself, turning on the heels of his boots as he began to pace forward, the darkness at the edge of the translucent bridge he walked on giving way to reveal a slowly shifting portal at the far end. Furrowing his brow, he made his way forward - each footstep echoing with a deep bass, as if he were stomping atop of metal. He'd long since realized it was not the weight of his own body, but the weight of the Force he carried within himself - though that hardly mattered as he cautiously approached the portal that had only just now opened up, mere minutes since he spoke to Ahsoka.
There had been silence that filled the void around him, one that he once would have considered deafening and perhaps even oppressive - yet it was now broken by the faint hum of the portal, as the images on the other side of it slowly coalesced. Leaning his head forward at an angle, he felt his expression slip away from its neutrality and morph into one of confusion as he watched fighters of all various kinds slip by him. Initially dismissing it as perhaps one of the many space battles that had happened between both the Republic and Separatists, or even the Rebellion and Empire, he began to turn away and return to counting the individual stars once more.
Until he caught the one detail that he had almost dismissed in his brash conclusion - after all, simply because he felt that he had matured with the Force, did not mean he was a perfect being, right?
Waving that thought aside, he stepped forward this time, narrowing his eyes as he observed the sight before him - fighters of different makes and models were zooming into numerous dogfights that were happening simultaneously. On a superficial glance, yes, they moved with the classical formations that many of the clone pilots had implemented, yet the fighters themselves were all wrong. To begin with, he could not spot any specialized bombers - there wasn't a single proton bomb to be seen, nor even the signature BLT-B Y-Wing Bombers of the Grand Army of the Republic. In fact, he couldn't even spot the iconic X-Wing fighters of the Rebellion that he'd seen his son fly long after his own passing.
What was going on? Where was this fight even taking place?
Reaching out with his gloved mechanical hand, he flicked his wrist and watched the scene fade from view, now replaced with that of a young woman - her dark hair disheveled and messy - as she dragged herself and the limp form of a masked man, across a damaged corridor. It was clearly the interior of a larger cruiser, but he neither recognized its design as Republic, CIS, or even Imperial. Narrowing his focus on the young woman, he watched as she struggled to lift the man above the fallen shape of a support beam.
As the air around her gave away to the painful groan of yielding metal, he looked behind her to see another support beam giving way to the failing structue of the ship - the enormous construct collapsing around the two figues. Without much time to think, he reached out with his hand even further and pulled the woman through the portal, before it vanished into darkness. No sooner had the masked figure disappeared under the collapsing beams, however, when an unnatural pressure descended upon him.
He had sensed the Force within himself before; its immense pressure like that of a maelstrom as it swallowed all before it. However, while his was dense enough to pull you in like the gravity of a black hole, this presence felt as if it were the heat of a supernova - an explosion of life that carried light and darkness within it.
"Vitiate," a voice whispered, before a new portal opened.
Before he could react to it, the unconscious form of the dark-haired woman was sucked into it with terrifying velocity. An instant later, though, he was as well - Anakin couldn't even find the time to summon the thought to try and hold onto the ledge of the World Between Worlds.
Yet he could have sworn he spotted the clear glow of a purple lightsaber in the fraction of a second before his vision gave out.
"He has not awoken in days, though, perhaps we should speak to the young woman that brought him here? Where is she?" asked a female voice, causing his mind to slowly shudder. It was a strange feeling, though, as he felt his body slowly begin to process the world around him - he could readily tell that he was lying in a simple bed of some kind, yet it took him several seconds to recall just how he was meant to move the individual muscles in his body.
"I believe she is still outside the house; she has been sitting there for several hours - she keeps claiming to be reaching out to somebody," answered a second voice, this one far younger than the first. If he had to guess, he would have immediately assumed they were still a young child, a teenager at most.
Yet even as this thought crossed his mind, he had yet to move even his left arm, which if he had to be honest, caused a brief flare of fear that overtook him, before it settled down as he opened his eyes and found the strength to let out a groan of effort in an attempt to sit up. He wasn't sure if it was the sudden movement or abrupt sound that left his throat, but by the time he pressed a hand to his brow and managed to somewhat focus his vision and look around, he noticed that the room he was in had grown silent.
"You are awake," commented a third voice, this one far smoother and calming in tone.
He could only just make the off-beige and brow blur that was still clearly a person, their face unrecognizable to him as he managed to register a dark mane of hair. It took him several more moments, but he did recall the young woman he'd saved form within the World Between Worlds, which sparked a rush of memories to return to him, not excluding the shock of having been sucked away from the realm he'd spent the better part of a decade uncovering and exploring following his death on the Death Star.
Glancing up, he blinked away the remaining blurriness that clouded his sight and shook his head as he hissed softly at the aching soreness in his body. That was when a singular thought struck him, however.
He saw people, actual people, and he was no longer in the World Between Worlds - where in the Force was he?
"You should not move so quickly, Master Jedi," suggested the first voice that had spoken out, who he could now tie down to an older woman, her features giving away that she had to have been in her late thirties at the very least. Furrowing his brow, he glanced off to the side, where he spotted the likely source of the youngest voice - a young girl, no older than twelve, perhaps thirteen. "You and your companion have been unconscious for well over a day, though she awoke early this morning," informed the older woman, her voice filled with a kindness that managed to soothe him.
Shaking his head, however, he removed his hand from his brow and slowly pressed it to the mattress of the bed, leaning his weight on both hands.
"Where am I?" he asked, as he pushed himself back to swing his legs over the side of the bed - thankfully, he found that he was still wearing his robes. When he moved to stand up, however, the young woman from before stepped forward to hold him back down, shaking her head. Giving the older woman and the young girl an apologetic look, she nodded to the open archway that led to a small living room within a stone building.
"Before we answer any of that, may I ask to speak with my companion alone, mam? This is, unfortunately, sensitive information for the Order solely," she asked, before offering up a polite yet brief smile as the pair silently nodded in return and walked out of the room. Without a word of warning, however, the young woman turned on her heels and faced him down - her gaze digging deep into his, as if were trying her best to interrogate him. "I have had to lie to them that we were together on a mission for the Jedi Council, though I truthfully have no idea just how we even arrived here . I do recall that one moment I was carrying Revan away from the bridge of his flagship and to the hangar, where the rest of the strike team had landed their fighters, when…I remember the ceiling falling down, but everything went dark afterward," she explained, causing him to stifle a small grunt.
How was he to even begin explaining just what he'd seen and done, much less just where he was? Force, he couldn't even explain to himself just how he ended up on a planet outside the World Between Worlds - he was supposed to have become one with the Force, he should not have had access to the physical world itself.
"I'm still trying to figure out what is going on," he answered initially, still cautious as to what was happening. The young woman looked like a Jedi, but he knew for a fact that nobody would ever be so open about the Jedi in the time that had followed the collapse of the Empire. Even if this were somehow in the time of the Republic, well…that would have only raised many more questions, such as where or when the portal had thrown the pair of them. "But I must have hit my head rather hard, I can't even remember what I was doing," he lied, masking his own lack of information, before lifting hand to swat the young woman's arm aside as he forced his body to stand. He immediately felt the lack of coordination in his body, though as he rested his weight against an adjacent wall, he allowed his body the time it needed to coordinate itself once more.
His more stable tone seemed to have steadied the woman's nerves, though Anakin could easily feel the panic and anxiety forming within her mind - whatever it was about losing track of this Revan, it clearly shook her to her core. Thinking on it, however, Anakin had to guess that Revan must have been the cloaked figure she'd been dragging along the corridor of the cruiser.
"Are you sure you are alright and don't need help? You seem to have lost your senses far worse than even I did after I awoke - you did mention having hit your head, after all," stated the young woman, momentarily forgetting her panic as she began taking a step forward. Anakin slowly waved off her question, and concerns, though, as he straightened up, feeling his strength now begin to return. He needed space, but he also needed time to think on everything that was happening so suddenly and quickly.
"I'm fine, I just…need some time," he responded, taking a deep breath. Returning his attention to the young woman he once more again her, "But maybe the hit did more damage than I expected…I know I recognize you from somewhere," he repeated, finally getting an expression of realization from the young woman.
"Oh, right, sorry, I am Bastila, Bastila Shan. I am a Jedi Padawan at the Jedi Enclave here on Dantooine…we truly need to get you to a proper medical facility," she answered, though her only reinforced the fact he was absolutely lost. that he could feel his face struggle to even emit the proper emotion. Instead, he was left gazing at her with little more than a vacant look to him. He wasn't sure what to say to the information she had given him - he knew for a fact that no such enclave existed on Dantooine, certainly not within hundreds of years, in fact. If there were ever such an existing post for the Jedi, than he surely would have remembered it - Dantooine was a simple farming planet, but it was little more than that. "I don't suppose you know exactly how we ended up here, though, do you? As I said, I was on Revan's cruiser - far in the outer rim territories. I was with a Jedi strike team and we fought our way to the bridge to eliminate him. The others…died during the fight and an explosion, but I remember dragging him back out towards the hangar bay. After that, though, I can't recall a single thing…he escaped my grasp, our one hope of crippling the Sith's leader and most strategic mind yet I fumbled the entire mission. I have nothing to show for the death of my own comrades," she continued, though Anakin said nothing initially.
He knew nothing of whoever Revan was - at no point did he recall a Sith Lord named Revan being pivotal in history to the point that , even after he'd begun to traverse the World Between Worlds. Was this a different time period entirely? Was this some test or trick by the realm outside of space and time? What was happening exactly? The more he asked himself these questions, the more he realized he would likely never find an answer - not without help from the Jedi, if what Bastila said was true.
He could have questioned the idea that perhaps this was a dream of some kind, but everything felt far too real - and the Force was nothing if not unpredictable and powerful beyond the imagination.
"I am…a Jedi Knight from Coruscant, I was…just leaving Alderaan, when my ship was struck by something and everything simply went dark," he lied once more, hoping that he hadn't given himself away, before shaking his head as he patted his waist, letting his hands travel across his belt. He still remembered Ahsoka having disarmed him and thrown away his lightsaber, but it didn't matter as the idea was to wait and see just what Bastila would say in regard to his commented on Alderaan.
"Here, I believe you are looking for this - I knew that I did not recognize from the enclave, but I hadn't imagined you were from the main Jedi temple. I can't believe a fully trained Knight would be so far out here, though, especially when you were just leaving a core world…you would have travelled almost as far as I had when we were found out in the fields…" she interjected, drawing Anakin's attention. With a clear double take, he spotted the familiar hilt of his weapon in the young woman's hands as she presented it to him. "But I spotted you blade not too far from where the woman claimed to have found us - I went back to go find Revan, but when I failed to locate him, I sensed your blade among the taller grass. I have never seen a hilt like this one, the grip is actually quite well balanced for dueling and the protective guard at the tip of the hilt is quite a new design," she informed him, her words picking up a bit of speed as she examined the device. It wasn't something that escaped Anakin's notice, but he was far more concerned with the fact that he didn't want any more questions being asked that he didn't feel quite comfortable discussing.
He also didn't even know how to explain to himself just how his weapon had appeared when he'd clearly watched it plummet into the abyss.
"I…thank you, my old master would have killed me if he realized I'd lost it again," he found himself stating, the memories of all the times he'd lost or damaged his blade coming back.
"A fully fledged Jedi Knight losing their blade not just once, but twice? How is it that you became a Knight so young if you have lost your weapon that often?" she questioned, forcing Anakin to refrain himself from throwing her a sharp look. The way she had said wasn't exactly insulting, but there had been just enough inflection for him to pick up the subtle condescending tone.
"I lost it trying to defend the senator of Naboo from a droid attack," he snapped back, before catching himself. That was now one major detail he had given away, and if Bastila were to follow up on it and it ended up that his suspicions - or fears - were correct, then he'd have to explain everything, which he was not prepared to do.
"You were tasked with defending a senator? Wait, from a droid attack? As in an attempted assassination? I have heard that Revan's forces were not above targeting priority targets even outside of military battles, but I did not think he was actively going after the senate itself," murmured Bastila, causing Anakin to hide a grimace as he realized that her tone was shifting back into that elevated and frantic pitch. Even after all of this time, he was still not quite as tactful as Obi-Wan had been during the Clone Wars. "This only makes my failure seem even worse - I failed to secure Revan and that he could very well be roaming this planet or perhaps have even escaped in the hours since we were found. If he manages to return to his forces, then whatever happens after today will be on my hands," she cursed herself, though Anakin said nothing initially.
There were far too many questions still lingering in the air - he could tell there was a war happening, but rather than droids, it sounded as if this Revan was leading an actual Sith campaign that had the Jedi fighting against him. However, how was that possible? The last time, if he could even recall his history lessons correctly, the Sith had existed in mass amounts was over a thousand years prior to his own existence. Could he have somehow travelled that far in time? The most he had seen was within years of his own lifetime, never further than that.
Raising his gaze to Bastila, Anakin watched as the young woman moved over to ask the woman from before for a damp cloth. If she was a Padawan and being sent on such a mission, either she was more skilled than what her rank implied, or the Jedi Order was desperate to attain Revan and threw what they could at the moment. Regardless, he didn't feel comfortable in trusting her with the truth just yet - he needed to first speak with the Jedi in charge of the enclave she was from. If he could communicate with the High Council on Coruscant, then he could perhaps find a way to solve what had occurred in the World Between Worlds.
After all, he knew where some of the entry ways were at, so it would only be a matter of finding them and opening them.
Somehow.
"If Revan escaped, then he escaped - we should focus on contacting somebody from the Order, have them pick us up. I will speak with the High Council and explain all of this - even if you had him in custody, you would have to somehow explain just how you travelled so far without any recollection of it," Anakin interrupted Bastila, deciding to stow that train of thought for when he met the Jedi Masters.
Taking a longer look at her, though, he realized that how incredibly young she was - the tone and smoothness of her voice made him believe that she could have been in her late twenties, yet as he gazed upon her face, she had to have been a few years younger than even him. She couldn't have been much older than twenty.
"It is not that simple, though, Anakin - he was the Sith Lord that was above Darth Malak. He was easily their best strategist and the key figure for their success. I had him in my grasp and I lost him - that could have ended the momentum that the Sith have been gaining on the Republic. If he did in fact escape back to his forces, any further lives lost in this war will have been my fault," she responded back, her tone now slowly lacing itself in self-deprecation and guilt. It caught Anakin by surprise, but only mildly. If anybody knew how quickly that emotion could appear and take over, it was him - even against Ahsoka, when he'd called on that rage, it was not so simple to let go of it readily.
Though it was possible, as he had begun to master that flaw in his character when he fought Ahsoka during her final lesson.
Stepping forward, he found himself in the same position he had been with the Togruta what felt like moments ago, in the World Between Worlds; though this time, he pressed a hand to Bastila's shoulder.
"There is no point in hounding yourself over a failed mission, focus on recovering your momentum and getting back to the Order first, alright?" he asked her, repeating his earlier statement. This time Bastila tilted her head up to get a clearer gaze at his eyes, before she took a deep breath and sighed.
"I…you are right, Master, I apologize," she replied hesitantly.
Anakin pulled his hand back, making a slight face at the title she'd referred to him by - which didn't escape Bastila's attention.
"Did I say something wrong?" she asked, to which Anakin shook his head.
"No, I just haven't been called that in years, not since I last saw my student as a Padawan," he answered, once again catching his mistake at the last second - right as Bastila did the same.
"Anakin, you are…you are not that old, has your student already graduated? How long have you been a Knight?" she asked.
Anakin groaned internally, that semblance of his old personality returning; he suddenly found himself wishing Obi-Wan was here for advice on how he and Quinlan Vos were able to go undercover throughout the years? The constant slip ups were beginning to wear on him, and he'd been at this for less than half an hour.