The Republic has fallen.
In the final days of the Clone Wars, Chancellor Palpatine died under mysterious circumstances. With the Senate struggling to retain a sense of unity, it was the perfect time for the Separatists to strike. And strike they did...
The words sang in Ahsoka's soul, resonating, awakening and bolstering the subtle power in her midichlorians cell by cell. She'd forced them to remain dormant for ages, all but the basest of her Jedi senses restricted to the distant corners of her psyche. Now energy flooded through her in a rush till she was almost drunk on it; she wanted nothing more than to reach out, to destroy, to free and be freed in turn...
On silent feet, she stalked away from the private box where Lux and his monster of a father still sat, staring vacantly out at the utter pandemonium in the auction house through a screen of green plasma fire. Soon, the roar of the explosion would fade, and they would realize their guards had fallen dead behind them. She'd have to be long gone before they realized anything was amiss... or anyone else did.
Distantly, she wondered how this would all translate back to Lux. He'd had a rare chance to catch her in a lie, to compromise her entire mission, but he hadn't taken it. And now even the most unskilled of criminals had the perfect opportunity to do him and Zakhan harm. With their guards conveniently dead or close to it, they were the easiest targets one could ask for.
It felt far too much like a betrayal for her liking.
Ahsoka faltered, stopped, and then started moving again, gritting her teeth. She'd already betrayed him once the second she saw a chance to help Barriss. If she'd had any doubt, that was her guide for where her loyalties truly lay. There was no point in second-guessing or overthinking about Lux or Anakin or anything else resembling a plan. Not when freedom and justice were so close at hand.
If Lux was smart, he would run and hide until the storm was through. If not...
She felt a twinge of dread that she quickly swept aside. She was not going to think about that. It wasn't her job to protect him. Her duty lay with the innocents who'd been forced into slavery to appease the greed of cruel overlords.
She hadn't been able to save her Master that day on Felucia, but she could still help these people. She finally recognized her long wait in chains for what it was: helpless indecision. Now energy was surging through her, intoxicating and utterly liberating, and she knew in her bones that would change today.
The door Ahsoka had seen before was unlocked and completely accessible now that she'd removed the guards obstructing it. Beyond was a long, grey hallway. She drew a fraction of her power inward, willing her lekku to better interpret the auditory information that reached her montrals. Conversation and clamorings from the boxes to her right bounced off the stone and back to her, their varying pitch and strength painting a vivid picture of what lay around the bend.
The coast was clear, and a way to the landing platforms on the roof of the auction house was nearby. Ahsoka smiled to herself and set off down the hallway.
Some brigand – a mercenary guarding one of the gangsters attending the auction, she'd guess – stumbled out of a nearby box after her, in a haze of drunken madness and lust rather than conscious realization that she was the cause of all this. She crushed him against the wall as casually as she would have a fly.
