Chapter Text
The dark mask stared, and all Ahsoka could see was them on Malachor, a planet of the ancient past where the forces of two begotten religions clashed.
I won't leave you! Not this time…
The owner paused, his crimson hued gaze staring back at her. He, through the mask of his broken, scarred face. The man that was once Anakin stared back into her. She could hear Ezra calling out, but she barely perceived his voice, instead hearing just her and Anakin. Maul's voice told her of what he had become, a cruel and harsh reminder, but she still refused to see it, reaching out for the bond that had been cut off as she heard him screaming through it, of a burning crimson planet, and nothing.
Then you will die.
It was not a dream, a deep whisper spoke in a hushed tone: Maul had been right.
The voice spoke of her failures, the truth in her refusal and denial.
She begs even while they continue their terrible dance, but the dark being that was once her mentor, her brother, was set, his crimson blade twisting vicious strikes. She barely manages to fend them off. She refuses because the Zabrak did not know her as she and Obi Wan did.
But he lunges at her once more, his blade inching and moving closer and closer.
The energies around them ripple further and further in a violent maelstrom that threatens to tear them apart. The Force sang loudly of their destruction if they did not move from the epicenter, but the two were determined to see their battle through to the end, despite it all.
Ahsoka parries hammer blows from the blood red blade that slain many of the Order she once served, but she falters, hesitancy now from the dark figure now latching onto her.
Please prove them wrong. Prove them wrong.
She wants to beg, she wants to plead. For a moment, she hears a distant voice that sounded like Ezra, but it could not be.
Please Anakin. Prove them wrong. Don't make me believe him.
Fatigue begins to claim her. The bloodshine blade moved in a crimson arc that nearly disemboweled her. Her resolve, because she did not believe in the Order, to bring back the man that was now very much so a monster from the depths of hell. She reaches out through the Force of what remained of their bond.
But she felt nothing. She reached out, feeling nothing.
What once tethered them together was now nothing but an empty void. There was nothing she could feel.
And with it, all she felt was an infinite pain. It stabbed through her mercilessly, because she had denied it, hearing the claims of death when Anakin Skywalker fell during the Empire's reign, where all those had mourned him, but they only mourned the man on the surface. They didn't understand him at all. Not like her or Obi Wan. Even Maul didn't understand him.
But he did, and she had not seen it before. She had been blindingly foolish.
Her hands grow numb with the pain of the truth. Vader strikes his blade through her chest, but she already felt the pain in her breast as she felt nothing in the bond they shared. She could only look up at him, anguish in her heart.
In the end, Maul had been right all along. Even the Empire's claims had merit proven to them in their propaganda for tyrannical dictatorship.
Anakin Skywalker was dead.
She feels the pain, and then, she disappears into the void, she feels nothing then after.
Light dawns around Ahsoka as she awakens, her heart fluctuating. Eyes snap open, back to her room, before she shuts it once more, the pain unbearable.
She would never stop dreaming of that day on Malachor. The day where he had betrayed her. The moment where she was forced to accept the truth that Maul had been speaking of. Her denial and refusal at the truth of the dark figure.
And then she awoke. By the Force or by its will alone, she felt Vader's blade pierce through her. She feels herself floating through an empty void and then she awoke in a country… Columbia.
She glances down at her monitor, strapped around her wrists. Though she wasn't Infected with the life sapping disease of Oripathy it was a requirement that she found herself working for… in Rhodes Island.
She throws off her covers, walking to her mirror image in her room. It was her… yet it also wasn't. The familiar Togruta traits of montrals and lekku were gone, replaced entirely by the pair of ears upon her head. Gone were the markings that denoted her of the tribe of Togruta and the orange pigment of her skin, now the familiar pale of a human, the color of her skin as a Torgruta transferred over to her hair, ears, and tail now. She could have been human, except she wasn't. She was a Lupo.
Her parents of this time were just the same as she had when Master Plo had found her in her prior life. Ahsoka found herself an orphan just as of now.
The phantom pain was still there. Thoughts of meditation formed in her head, but she would find no comfort in a self exile of her own mental fortitude. There would be no such security or calm within her. Malachor ate her mind like a swarm of locusts, and would continue to do so.
She needed a break. She needed to get away. She lost sleep, but even if she had the chance, she could never rest.
She dressed herself and left her room quietly. Rhodes was home to early Operators of the morning, but she was one of the few who woke far earlier in the shimmering blanket of blue stars.
Ahsoka found herself acquainted with its various employees in the past few days since she had first joined. The little Cautus known as Amiya was the face of the organization and she hardly found herself taken aback by the age of the little Cautus. Perhaps it had been the fact that the Order thrusted her into the Clone Wars at the age of fourteen, and hardly anything of that nature could surprise her anymore.
The Torgrutan turned Lupo did not join the company at first or simply went to find them of her own accord. She had heard of the organization by chats and talks. For the life that she remained before she joined the organization, she simply desired what the Force had led her to follow, staying in the country to assist in the Infected's plight once she began to train herself once more. The path that would best assist others, and she learned of the cruelties and the harsh nature of the Infected. Even the healing nature of the Force, she discovered, did nothing. The Force wept in mourning at the loss of lives and the cruel disease that took them away. She could watch in this new brand of injustice that many withered like ash, their bodies putrefying and decaying.
Though she heard rumors of entering bars or pubs. Talks of an organization that would treat the Infected. They had been rumors, and Ahsoka silently probed the thoughts of those unaware to learn more. That had been the first she heard of Rhodes Island.
Putting her faith into it, the ethereal energy field guided her out of Columbia, where she simply traveled and traversed alone. There was nothing she could do as she watched the roots of her new home wither like the Infected. Despite its better treatment of them, she was unable to assist in any way, and so she departed.
Despite its committed goal, almost akin to Leia Organa's of the Rebel Alliance, she had yet to see its resolve. Yet she could even see the determination in young Amiya's eyes that bore a similar level to the Rebels Alliance's leader.
Departing downward, she left to find the Training Room of the landship. The ship hummed in its machinery and generators being built into it. Ahsoka enjoyed the quiet. Though she was not reluctant or avoided company, it had been in her nature to lie low when she had worked for the Rebel Alliance in order to avoid the Inquisitors and Vader himself after she had received news that Luminara and multiple other Jedi had been executed by the Empire per Kanan and Ezra's news and within her own discovery. The first time she had saved the Ghost crew was when she revealed herself and gladly did so in order to save her comrades.
Rhodes Island was not a movement fighting against a tyrannical dictatorship; it was fighting against a disease that not even the Force would be able to save her from should she also become ridden with such disease. However, Ahsoka knew nobody in the landship. She had been acquainted with the early Rebellion leaders such as Bail Organa and Mon Mothma before the Empire's rise. Here? She knew no one and nobody. Perhaps it would change, as it did when she worked alongside the Ghost crew, as it had only just been numerous weeks since her arrival.
The training room of Rhodes Island, though wide and expansive, reminded her of the Order. However, it did not contain any droids, but instead, holographic images that morphed and warped into real organic Ancients when it registered an Operator within the confines of one of the rooms and a few press of buttons.
Training was all she could find herself doing now. Given the Vanguard rank, as she had learned there were multiple designations and ranks within Rhodes Island, she was among the many in the landship.
Her surroundings began to change and warp in a familiar tone. Rocks and boulders surrounded her in an empty landscape, and a humid breeze filtered through, completing the setting of a wasteland.
She drew her single blade first, awaiting the man made enemies to attack her in a coordinated rush. Switching fast into Shien, she batted aside arrows and multiple projectiles. She calmly parried and blocked her foes' blows as they came rushing with their own weapons.
The Force warned her of an incoming threat as she leaped high above a large indigo colored orb that detonated where she once stood. Twisting her body gracefully and arching around the projectiles fired by their owners, she raised a hand to blast them backwards before landing.
Arts, she had learned, was what the Casters in front of her utilized. If Terra had existed within the scope of the Outer Rim or was discovered, it would have been magic. Not the Force. The Force flowed in organic cells and tissues of a force sensitive being, while an Arts Caster were to utilize their own bodies in the case of the Infected, or an Arts unit that allowed them to cast it.
One of her foes, a few of the largest among them, was able to resist her efforts and so he came sweeping with his ax, the now Lupo registered a movement behind her, and with her ears twitching, she pushed her foot onto the giant's chest and leaped backwards akin to a launching pad, avoiding a swing from one of the more reckless adversaries as he was crushed by his own comrade.
The wave she sent out earlier did not take down the enemy Casters, meant to only knock them away temporarily. They began to charge their Arts once more, staggering to their feet, but Ahsoka was faster.
Grabbing hold of one of the Casters telekinetically, she halted his movements and then quickly redirected his aim back at one of the hulking brutes, just as when he was about to release it. The room lit in a rumbling explosion as the Arts detonated as it hit the targets, sending a third of them onto the floor where they fell, dispersing into shadows.
The remaining forces began to attack once more, though it seemed that it itself was aware of her, beginning to switch tactics. Ahsoka finally was forced to draw her second blade and deflected a hailstorm, the enemy forces began to advance slowly towards her as she moved back, but she was not concerned with the defensive posture she was forced into.
More so, she was now awaiting an opening and an opportunity that presented itself to her. They were well organized, but within her prior life as a Commander within the 501st and a Rebellion Agent, she was all but familiar with strategies and tactics.
She channeled the Force into her limbs and with a spinning heel kick, she slammed her foot into the gut of her foes in close range. In that same moment, with adrenaline rushing through her system, she sprinted in a burst of speed, barely acknowledging the projectiles that flew by as it was fired at her and past her, not one of them touching her as she dashed across, leaping over boulders and the hilltops of the empty field. One of the boulders came in her view and so she raised it to block the multiple arrows before she launched at the few, only a number of them managing to avoid their deaths by being crushed underneath and flattened into paste, avoiding it just in time. With both her blades, she hurled them away like a javelin, as she simultaneously concentrated on her blades flying to pierce and decapitate them, while also avoiding the attacks by her enemies. The blades only simply slid off the more armored figures in a shower of sparks, screeching loudly.
It was time to end it. And end it she would.
In a quick burst of speed, she, in a manner that would have surprised anyone watching, and the very audacity and the act of lunging into them was perhaps reckless and insane, but she was already moving into the very nature of it, sweeping down and rushing past them in a blur of movement. Her blades returned back to her hands, as she moved and slashed as she felt the fake blood splash through the air and around, continuing to do so as none of the hulking figures nor the Casters could react in time.
When it was over, bodies lay strewn around her. All that remained was one of those with the axe wielder and the Caster.
The axe wielder raised his axe once more in a bellowing cry, lunging at her with a frenzy that was familiar in desperation and rage, but he was far too slow and once more. Mad swings of her foe lunged and slashed and desired to crush her, but it was without any thought. Taking a chunk of sharpened earth as she leaped back to avoid a crushing blow, she fired it directly into his stomach with such force it pierced through it. The figure grasped wordlessly at the earthly protrusion, before he toppled over.
The Caster was all that remained and he still fought, but it was desperate. Ahsoka deflected aside his Arts with her swords or sent them aside with a wave of the Force, before she reached out with a single hand. There was simply no need to approach the Caster up close to finish the job.
The figure in the midst of channeling his Arts once more, stopped as he was lifted off the air in an invisible grip, grasping wordlessly but there was nothing there, clawing desperately at his neck. His body madly spasmed in the air as he fought the invisible grip that suddenly took hold of him.
Then, he stopped fighting the invisible grip, his head rolling over. The invisible grip was released and he fell to the floor.
Ahsoka stared at her hand. She could not remember the last time she had used Force Grip. Though she was no longer a Jedi nor bound by any views of the Force and no stranger to the Dark Side herself; after all, she did not see the Jedi or Sith with their view of the Force as anything more than two diametrically opposed extremist views that were both wrong, losing their way. Though she never admitted it to Kanan or Ezra, though the former likely already knew and the latter's own brush with darkness, the Force was what simply what one made of it.
She did tell Vader after all that she was no Jedi.
"Oh! Good morning, Fulcrum!"
Snapping into attention at her codename given to her, or rather, the one that she, Anakin, Obi Wan, and Rex had established as an informant for the 501st, and later, an agent for the Rebel Alliance, and the one she now donned for Rhodes Island, Ahsoka turned to see one of the few Operators she had met upon her first arrival at the landship, dressed lightly in blue, the Kuranta known as Fang, the leader of Reserves Ops A1.
She should have felt her arrival through the Force. How immersed in combat she had been to not notice her?
"Good morning, Fang." The Lupo exited the training room, and the corpses she left a trail of along with blood vanished. The scenery of an empty wasteland also disappeared as she did so, signifying the end of her training.
"That was amazing how you took out all of them! Your Arts was impressive!"
Ahsoka blushed lightly. The "Arts" as a few Operators who were aware of such called her use of the Force, but Ahsoka didn't feel the need to correct them on the matter. It would have been too complicated to even try to explain the Force in its basic terminology. Many in her own galaxy had seen the Force as magic in its own right and if Terra had been in the range of her home galaxy Arts would have also been seen as magic.
"It's fine. it's nothing." Ahsoka really didn't.
Fang suddenly realized as her eyes widened behind her spectacles as she waved her hands, her face flushing red. "Ah! I'm so sorry for watching you train! I was just arriving early in the morning to train myself!"
Ahsoka laughed lightly. "It's fine. Where's the rest of your team? Is it just you?" She had gotten to know the rest of Fang's A1 team through Amiya, and despite the clear mistakes made she watched above the viewport, she saw in practice drills and training sessions that they were coordinated as she, Obi Wan, and… Anakin was during their times in the Clone Wars.
Her heart burned and pulsed in pain at the thought of him, but she ignored it.
Why? Why did he have to appear in her mind now? She was adamant to escape her mind from such but now?
She would not break down. She could not.
Fang shook her head. "Beagle is coming over along with Lava. Kroos unfortunately, is slacking off somewhere once more. Hibiscus is trying to get her to come over but she's still trying to get away from doing our daily training sessions." A frown formed on the young Kuranta's face, reminiscent of Instructor Dobermann she idolized, as she crossed her arms.
To Ahsoka, it honestly looked more like a pout and through her years of experience, didn't laugh. However, it was amusing all the same.
"Do you know what I've become?"
The frown vanished from her face, replaced by a smile once more. "Anyway, that was still impressive. Most Operators rarely ever face a group alone. You said you had military training?"
Alongside a heavy dose of a teenager thrusted into a bloody and violent war which demanded cultivation and growth through live battlefields that was then replaced by another bloody and violent war which she didn't participate much in but all the same as a spy and informant cutting down multiple Rebel Alliance dissidents and Imperial bases. Yep.
But Ahsoka didn't say that. "Se-cret! I might tell you someday!" She winked at the Kuranta.
Anakin did not escape her mind. Ahsoka felt her heart being pierced and she could barely hold it back anymore. Her smile dipped down.
Fang smiled, and it was so kind, but yet it was also one that Ahsoka felt was unneeded because she didn't deserve such. She abandoned Anakin and she wondered how the Kuranta, who was so loyal to her team, would feel that she had betrayed and abandoned those who needed her the most. She thankfully did not see her expression falter. "I'll hold that promise to you one day. Are you going to go now? Maybe we can train some time together. Beagle and I wanted someone else to spar with but unfortunately most Operators are too busy with their schedules."
"I'll… see if I have time. If I do, I'll call you and let you know. I'm gonna go get some breakfast now. Tell your team I said... I said hello."
She nodded, "I'll see you later, Fulcrum! Message me anytime once I'm done!"
Ahsoka exited the training room as Fang waved to her, and once the doors closed shut behind her with a hiss, the smile dropped from her face. Tears blurred her vision as she sprinted back up the stairs. Once she finally reached back into her room and locked it, she collapsed, sobbing silently at her own failures and her blindness towards Anakin, all because she was too attached to see what he would become. She would never escape him. He had betrayed her.
And she couldn't even begin to understand why.