Assassin (A Star Wars Fan-Fiction) Book 2

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Six

As they walked out of the pirate base with Hondo as their temporary hostage and an entire horde of his followers trailing after them, Denali began to think of what she was going to do about her condition.

Something must've happened to her that had caused such a seed of the Dark Side to be planted within her, to give her these abilities that no Jedi should ever have. What could it have been? Could she have prevented this if she had known earlier what was wrong with herself?

"Denali? Are you alright?" Anakin asked after noticing how long her sudden silence was lasting. She blinked a few times, being brought back to the reality of the moment by Ani's voice and nodded, tightening her grip on Hondo's shoulder and the hilt of her white-bladed lightsaber.

"Yeah," she cleared her throat. "Yeah, I'm okay." Obi-Wan and Anakin exchanged unbelieving doubts, but knew better than to press the matter. Once they were a good distance away from the base, the humming sound of a ship could be heard over the restless grumbling from the uncivilized men following their captive master. 

"That's our ride out of here." Anakin pointed out as everyone looked up to the dull orange sky.

Sure enough, the rusty white color of a Republic gunship was slowly decending downwards towards them, causing sand and dust from the ground to spray in all directions. With the click of a button and a very un-Jedi-like shove, Hondo was stumbling forward and into the out-stretched arms of his men. The doors of the gun-ship slid open and five troopers jumped out, kneeling on the ground and taking aim at the pirates, but Obi-Wan held his hand up to stop the unnecessary blood-shed.

Instead, the three Jedi and the four used-to-be pirate women made their way onto the vehicle, followed by the soldiers, and they were out of there. The clones didn't bother asking about their knew passengers since the Jedi generals seemed fine with them coming along and just acted as if this was any other mission. 

"Are you three alright?" One of them asked.

"Actually, General Bleway is in need of some medical assistance. Tell the cruiser to make the necessary arrangements for her arrival." Anakin told the trooper.

Obi-Wan looked over at him and Denali since they had first gotten aboard the ship and realized that Anakin had picked up Denali and was carrying her bridal-style. He felt a sudden burst of anger boiling within himself to see that his wife had completely collapsed from the recent sort of events into his best friend's arms. How had he not realized that she was in a terrible state? He should've been the one holding her, not Anakin of all people.

"As you wish, sir."

It wasn't her fault that she was in this state, but he couldn't help but be angry with her. If she hadn't been away for so long, none of this would have happened. She wouldn't have gotten captured. They wouldn't have had to come and rescue her, they wouldn't have beaten her to the brink of death in their drunk stupors-

Obi-Wan stopped his thoughts right there. None of this was her fault, she had only done what she believed was right. She believed that by distancing herself from him and Anakin, she would be protecting them. Even though it had put herself and her padawan at risk. Denali had just been doing what she thought was right. And the Council had let her do it.

Anakin kept a tight grip on Denali, holding her like he would've held Padme if he loved her like he loved Denali. She was so light, nearly as weightless as paper. He felt like he was carrying nearly nothing at all. The bruises on her body were terribly dark and were turning a disgusting shade of mucus-yellow mixed with greenish-purple. There were deep circles under her eyes from lack of sleep and he could tell just from feeling her left leg that it was either terribly dislocated or completely broken. What had he and his master done to her?

Once they got to the Republic cruiser, he didn't want to let her go.

He didn't want to hand her over to the doctors even though everyone knew that that would've been the best thing to do for her health in this case. She had suffered so much. So terribly much. And Anakin wanted to make it better. He knew that when someone beat you, you never looked at them the same way you had before. He had figured that out himself at a young age when he was in slavery. Knowing that Denali might not look at him the same as she had before ever again......he'd lose what little friendship remained between them. He'd lose her.

That couldn't happen.

"Wait-" He objected as the medical droids pried her from his arms. 

"Let her go, Anakin." Obi-Wan's tone was somber, melancholy, like he had realized the exact same thing Anakin had as they took her away on the floating mechanical gurney. The younger man took a deep breath and folded his arms, staring down the hallway as they took her away.

"This is terrible. This is all our faults."

"Anakin-"

"No, Obi-Wan," Anakin interrupted, sending an icy glare to his former master. "If we hadn't let those pirates trick us into doing what we did, then we wouldn't have made this mistake. Jedi don't make mistakes. And when they do, people get hurt. Good people."

"We can't change what happened, Anakin." Obi-Wan snapped right back. There was a moment of tension-filled silence between the two men as they glared at one another.

"She's never going to look at us the same." 

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she's going to hate us from now on, Master. She's going to resent us til the day we die for beating her. For attacking her so mercilessly when she was in the state that she was in. When we were in the states that we were in."

"Don't be foolish, Anakin."

"I'm not being foolish." Anakin replied, his tone growing even more poisonous as the seconds rolled by. "I know how this works, I've lived through it myself. When someone hits you hard enough long enough, you start growing a deep hatred for them that even you can't explain. All you know is that it was created in the form of physical pain. It fills your head with red and black until your will bends, and bends, and bends, and bends, then snaps in half like a twig." Obi-Wan stared at his former padawan for a long time, trying to process the information he had just given him and let it all sink it to every part of his brain. It couldn't be true. 

Obi-Wan knew about Anakin's slavery-filled past, he knew that he had lived a dark life until the Jedi had swooped in and rescued him. He knew that being a slave wasn't a fun experience, but Denali hadn't been a slave. Denali hadn't been an object that belonged to someone cruel and abusive. 

Which made it ten times worse.

* * * * * * * * * *

The white lights were the first thing she saw when she woke up. Then she felt the liquid on her skin, covering her whole body. Bacta. She was in a bacta tank. She was wearing a pair of white under-shorts and a matching tight tube-top that must've been provided by the medical droids who had put her in the tank in the first place. Her hair was pulled back in a long blonde braid that floated behind her and danced around in the bacta when she moved her head. Slowly as she breathed through the thick breathing mask, she lightly tapped the glass. A brown claw-tipped finger tapped back. But she wasn't scared.

Chewie.

With a loud KA-SHHHH the lid of the bacta tank opened up and she bobbed to the surface. She immediately ripped off her mask and hung her arms over the edge, letting two other sets of arms carefully pull her over and onto a towel set on the floor of the medical room.

"Master!"