The Unchronicled Adventures of Ahsoka Tano, Book Three

Chapter Seventeen: Breaking Down

I love you. The words rang in her head. I might never see him again, she thought sadly.

But there was no time to think about it at the moment. She had lost everything: her friends, her family, her mentors… and now Lux. But she would not let the flickering Jedi flame go out.

Her lightsabers flashed on in her grip. She didn’t even remember taking them off of her belt. She took off her Jedi robes until she was simply wearing her old, usual outfit.

“For the Jedi!” she cried as she raced towards the nearest Clone Troopers, who seemed to be the origins of the blaster shots. She cut up the soldiers that had once been under her command, and that she had once trusted with her life. Jedi were too trusting.

Eventually, she managed to reach the first of the younglings fighting for their lives. It was a little girl, maybe five years of age, and she was barely able to fend off the laser fire of the single trooper attacking her.

Ahsoka cut up the Clone Trooper, who had been about to kill the youngling, and whispered to her, “Take the ventilation system to the main hangar. I will save others, and it will be your job to wait there and tell them what to do.”

She nodded, an oddly calm child for her age, and ran off. Ahoska had just the time to see her get to a vent and get through before another clone charged her. Soon, he wasn’t more than a dead body amongst the hundreds in the Temple.

So the battle went. Having sent a total of six younglings and padawans to hide in the vents, Ahsoka could only hope that they had all made it safely to the hangar. They would be the future of the Jedi Order.

Suddenly she spotted another padawan a little younger than she was, who was trying to protect two younglings and a younger padawan, who cowered, lightsaber-less, behind him. She ran over and helped him deflect the shots aimed at them.

“Who are you?” asked the boy in a yell over the fighting.

“My name wouldn’t mean much to you. I used to be a padawan, and I was nearby when the fighting started, and came to help,” she replied, her voice raised as well. It was best that nobody knew who she was or that she was here, due to her infamous reputation she earned for herself eight months before.

“I’m Zadyn. What are we going to do? I don’t know how to get these younglings out of here!”

“Send them to the hangar. I already have a group waiting in the vents nearby,” she replied. “And you go, too.”

 “But I can fight! Why do I have to-”

“Just do it! If I don’t make it, then someone else has to!” She looked up at him, not backing down an inch, and he nodded. The younglings and the padawan protecting them raced off.

Using a lightsaber she found lying on the floor as a boomerang to kill all of the troopers that stood in her way, she fairly flew from the library to the Great Walk. From there, she climbed the Temple’s wall designs up to the ceiling. From there, she could survey the battle going on far below.

Out of the blue, waves of darkness washed over her, squeezing tears out of her eyes and almost causing her to fall from her precarious perch. It was a familiar presence, but… changed. The darkest emotions and beliefs of the aura were so much more apparent, and she saw an image of the yellow eyes rimmed with red.

And suddenly she knew who it was. The masked figure in black, Darth Vader, the creep with the yellow and red eyes… they were all one person. The one who was leading this attack.

 Anakin Skywalker.