Chapter Text
Days had passed by the time Ahsoka had come around. She woke to monitors surrounding her, and she had to fight the tsunami of an urge to rip out the I.V.s. Something beeps, and alerts someone in another room of her wakefulness. A man walks in, dressed in blacks that cover his arms and his legs. It takes her a few moments of squinting to recognize him as Kix, and an onslaught of memories surge through her worn mind. She notices with a pang of deep melancholy that her white dress is gone, replaced by a simple med-gown.
“Hey, Commander.” His voice is gentle, familiar. She refrains from answering, glancing at him warily from the corner of her eyes- he is familiar, yes, but if there is one thing she learned, it is that nothing is to be trusted. Her door mutedly opens again, and two more men walk in. One looks identical to the first, except with blonde hair rather than buzzed and tattooed. The second man she recognizes instantly as Anakin Skywalker, and, despite Lessons One through Three, she immediately relaxes.
“Hey Snips,” his voice is smooth.
“Hi, Master,” hers is not. Her voice is scratchy with weeks of unused use, and the sound grates against her montrals. The other man, who she now identifies as Rex, steps forward, opening and closing his mouth.
“Ahsoka?” He decides on speaking. “What happened to you?” She presses her lips into a thin line.
“You don’t have to tell us everything now-” Anakin quickly interjects, sensing her uneasement. “-but soon the Council-” He is interrupted.
“The Council is full of hypocrites who I no longer answer to.” Her voice was deadly calm, not a waver of hesitation to be noted.
“What?”
“Rule Number Six.” As if that explained everything. Kix decided to step back in.
“And Commander, what is Rule Number Six?” She turned to him with a burning intensity in her eyes, a cold winter’s fire.
“Only the wise man acknowledges that he knows nothing, of course.” With that, her heart monitor starts to scream it’s alarms, as her line went up and down without pattern. Her body began to seize, her muscle convulsing and contracting involuntarily.
~~~~~~~~~~~
“Commander! On your six!” Rex rolled off his shoulder and destroyed the droids that thought they could sneak up on his Commander unsuspecting with two well-aimed shots.
“Thanks, Rexster!”
“Anytime, sir.”
The 501st was back on Geonosis for another campaign, and Ahsoka was getting thoroughly tired of the sandy and dry climate. They were here every other rotation. This time, the Separatists had reopened the droid factory, but instead of manufacturing droids, they began experimenting on bioweapons, looking to create living things they could control. She shook her head free of thoughts as she noticed a tank approaching her squadron.
“Fives! Give me a boost!” As soon as she called his name, he quickly holstered his deeces as Echo rolled to cover him, and he laced his fingers together, prepared to launch her. She was once again amazed at how her team moved in tandem, harmonizing with each other. Her lightsabers hummed along as she swung at the droids manning the tank. It was an older model, so it's conductors were exposed. She grinned as another idea struck her. “Echo! Come here.” The clone in question ran over to her. “How fast until you learn how to use it?”
“Judging by the make and model? Not long, sir.”
“Good, get right on it.” With her parting words, she left him with the weapon and leaped back into the fray. True to his word, not long after she left him, she could hear the tell-tale explosions of canon-blasts, and the droids screaming. She and Fives shared a smirk before she force-pushed a squad of the mindless beings back into each other. Her comm blinked insistently, drawing her attention. She signed to her men and pulled herself acrobatically over a rock with one hand, crouching behind it. Her squad circled protectively around her as she answered.
“Tano.”
“Ahsoka, great. We’re almost done with the frontal assault, no barricades. Where are you?”
“By the cliffside you told me not to worry about.”
“Oh.”
“What? No ‘I’m sorry, I will listen to my omniscient padawan next time’?”
“Not quite. I’ve got eighty-seven droids.”
“Eighty-five. Wait-” she deflected a stray plasma bolt into the chest of an advancing droid. “-make that eighty-six.”
“I’m still beating you.”
“Not for long, Master. There are about three squadrons of droids left, then we have to scale the wall. See you in a few ticks. Tano, out.” She hung up the comm before addressing her men again. “Rex, Fives, cover me.” With the two soldiers covering her from both of her sixes, she closed her eyes, focusing intently on the force. Her lightsabers left her outstretched hands and followed the pulls of air sent by their master, impaling droids as it went. Jesse let out a whistle of appreciation and Ahsoka found herself baring her fangs in a smirk.
Within moments, the remaining squads of droids had been taken down, and the only remaining task was how to scale the wall without any climbing equipment. Ahsoka studied the cliff-face with the Force, while Fives and Echo studied it with their binoculars. Rex supervised their shoulders.
“Sir, look.” Ahsoka pulled herself out of her conscientiousness to look where Echo was pointing. A rock cropping stuck out of the mountainside, but she could also see an opening.
“Alright, boys, let’s move! It’s still a bit of a climb, but it’s better than the whole wall. And it’ll protect us from the oncoming sandstorm.” She pointed to the hazy blur of the wind kicking up sand on the horizon.
“I’ll say. You heard her, men, let’s get moving!” They began their trek to the rocky outface. Once they reached the mouth, the men flipped on their helmet lights and night vision, and Ahsoka allowed her primal instincts to take over, letting them along with the Force guide her. She held up a fist when a cold shiver shook her spine, halting the men behind her.
“Sir?” Fives stood a foot behind her, already becoming as hyper aware of his surroundings as she was. She could feel something move in behind her.
“Fives, Echo, take the lead. Rex, back with me. Everyone be alert.” Fives and Echo nodded, continuing to march forward while Ahsoka and Rex waited for the last man before following.
“What do you think is out there?”
“I don’t know, but I certainly don’t want to find out.”
“I’ll tell you what, Commander, me neither.” Ahsoka opened her mouth to answer, when a heat seared through her veins, a warning for an enemy she could not see.
“Everyone get down!” A rocket launcher appeared, and a bright spark showed before a blaze could be seen hitting the cave wall.
“Run, fall back, now!” Ahsoka commanded, using her ‘sabers to deflect the incoming plasma bolts. SHe heard the enemy closing in on her and Rex, but she would not endanger him any further. “Rex, go now!”
“Not without you sir.”
“That’s an order, trooper. Move, now!” And Rex moved, because she had ordered him to, and that’s all he had been trained to do, even if he hated leaving her. A blur of green and yellow cloaked her as she whirled and deflected, but a stun bolt, of all things, slipped through, momentarily immobilizing her. She never got to see who had bested her.