Chapter Text
Ahsoka had been great once.
She’d shone as bright as a star, her lightsabers flashing with pride as she’d cut down droids and shouted with glee. From planet to planet she’d gone with her master, the 501st standing loyally beside them from one hyper jump to the next, awaiting orders dutifully. They’d fought with such fervor, her beside them at the very front, slashing and stabbing as they’d blasted away. It used to be all so clear; the separatists were the enemy, their droids were dogs. Go to a new system, put the dogs down, and then celebrate like there was no tomorrow. After all, it hurt no one to put down dogs that neither understood nor felt hurt of their own. Perhaps it was a mercy for their unfeeling robotic minds to be put to rest.
After every new planet, there was another to defend, some new paramount threat time and time again. And so the cycle went. Kill the dogs, revel in the glory, give alms to the people the dogs had bitten, revel some more, and dash to the next big battle to do the same thing. On and on and on it went. Ahsoka had loved it.
Looking back of course, that love wasn’t even the tiniest bit real. She’d hated the war, hated it so deeply and horribly it had kept younger her up night after night wondering if the hate would turn her into some mystical Sith Lord by virtue of her thoughts and feelings alone. She hadn’t been wrong to hate it, but hate had felt so foreign that she’d fought with herself to banish it from her head. If anything, she’d loved the clear cut path things seemed to have. She’d viewed it all so simply, so centred around her conviction that the republic was a force of absolute good that everything else became irrelevant. Kill the dogs, she’d whisper to herself at night. kill them, kill them.
It had all been so raw back then too. As bad as it was, the sheer ecstasy of the highs and lows so rapidly in succession was intoxicating. The emotions had been so real and unbridled and utterly free that none of it now felt real. It felt impossible to feel that much now. She’d sobbed with her master, laughed carelessly alongside the clones as if they were real brothers, voices high and loud. She’d pressed her forehead to Rex’s like a rabbit, swearing she’d find him in some other life and be his sister again as the world lit up with cannon fire. Grasped the arms of other padawans as they chirped about their recent adventures. Now, there was nobody to hold onto, to sob with or be a sister to. Dead or forever missing, there was no in between. She’d call for them in her dreams, and only the empty space between the stars seemed to answer.
Now none of it mattered. Alone she sat, blanketed by darkness. She was used to the cold ground, the way pebbles ground into her skin and the late night mists dampened her clothes. They were some of the only constants of late. Unpleasant, without a doubt, but if she was honest with herself it kept her sane in some strange way. Comforting in how it stayed the same. What wasn’t comforting, however, was the thick gush of blood that poured from her nose and soiled the front of her shirt.
Stupid Imperials . Ahsoka leaned forwards as she felt some of it go down her throat and nearly gagged. She was used to blood, but definitely did not fancy it as a midnight snack. She tilted her head, holding it over the stone rubble that she’d called home for the past dozen or so rotations. A fat drop of red smacked onto a piece of wrecked wall.
She’d been far too bold, infatuated with the idea that once she got back into the groove of it all, she could do it. It’s just dogs again, she’d thought, brazenly deciding to leave behind her weapons in favour of fists. And dogs they had been, just not the ones she wanted to fight. The dogs this time used to be brothers. When they’d barked, she’d faltered, and their blaster fire chased her bravery away.
With wild swings her fists had come, then fled the second after in fear of hurting them. Sometimes she’d hit, others she’d stop just before the punch landed. So overwhelmed Ahsoka had felt that the force became out of touch, and so only her fists served her, if only barely. In the end, the dogs— clones turned imperial troopers— had beaten her badly enough she’d ran. It was so unlike her that the minute she’d lost them in the maze of Serenno’s ruins, Ahsoka had returned to her rubble shelter and wept with frustration.
She was better than this. She’d been great once.
The night did not pass fast. In fact, time seemed to go exceptionally slow just to spite Ahsoka. Her nose had stopped bleeding at some point, reduced to a dribble then nothing at all, but she’d been far too lost in her own misery to remember or care.
Everything hurt. It wasn’t just the beating. Her head throbbed and her lekku felt like they’d been punctured with a million massive needles. Her legs were sore, aching as she shifted in place and one foot felt like it was on fire after a rather violent stomp from a trooper.
Above, the stars winked cheerily, smiling at her suffering. “Shut up,” she told them. “I’m not in the mood.” The stars twinkled back, their answer a soundless laugh of mocking amusement.
At the very least, the weather was mild. A small blessing, but Ahsoka would take all she could get. She was used to the cool breezes and crisp mornings of Coruscant, but her Togrutan body was made for humid summers among thick trees. When the mist dampened the edges of her clothes, she found it didn’t bother her all that much. It was warm on Serenno, and the nights were fair enough not to be an inconvenience.
If she had just gotten a single one of those crates…. well, then she wouldn’t be sleeping in piles of rubble, that much was clear. But a single high-value crate, maybe two with a stolen necklace or two slung around her neck for good measure could have bought a small ship and hot meals for weeks to come. Wouldn’t that be grand?
Yes, she’d buy herself heaping bowls of meats and greens Alderan and platters from Coruscant's finest restaurants, then go try a hundred new soups from a hundred new planets. That sounded nice. A culinary tour of the outer ring, maybe. Leave behind a jeweled ring from one of the crates after each feast as compensation for the chef. By the stars, her pillaged ration sticks were beginning to get old. They had her daydreaming of feasts already, and she still had two packs of them left.
Ahsoka sighed, leaning back against a stack of bricks. Best to get rest instead of staying all night brooding. She’d head to Saffia once the sun crested the hills and catch a shuttle offworld. Where she’d go, Ahsoka did not know. That sort of thing has been happening a lot these days.
One place to the next, chasing credits, chasing purpose.
The quiet hum of some alien bird provided a peaceful lullaby. The sound of a man screeching, did not. It was more of a howl than a scream, and made Ahsoka very distinctly uncomfortable.
Sliding down her pile of rubble, she leapt upwards to a half-covered ledge to peer around the walls. Through the blue and grey shadows, a series of shapes moved through the ruins, two blobbed together in the darkness. Scrappers, maybe? Unlikely. The guild had no claim on Serenno, not that it would stop them, anyways. They’d come no matter how much or little scrap there was. Credits were credits, after all.
They could be imperial. It didn’t seem like it, but anything was possible. Things were stranger and more dangerous than ever now.
The shadowy group gently hushed their pained companion, placing reassuring hands on his shoulder as they passed him and the second half of the blob, who seemed to be being leaned on for support. The rest of the group walked ahead, a much shorter figure hanging back with the two.
She trailed them at a distance, minding her throbbing foot. Ahsoka leapt silently to another ledge to peer down at them. Curiosity ate at her, gnawing away any fatigue.
“It’s alright, Tech. We’re almost back to the Marauder.” Came a soft childish voice, low in a whisper. “Only a little ways farther.”
The injured one responded with a wheeze, then stifled a groan as his leg caught on a jutting rock. Ahsoka watched as he gripped tightly to his companion, gasping deep breaths. Poor thing, she thought.
The one at the head of the group was twitchy. He turned every so often, peering into the dark like he was looking for something. She desperately hoped it wasn’t her. His voice had a deeper rasp, and he spoke with clipped words. “It’s just over the hill. We only have to cross the ruins a few minutes more before the ground evens out. Can you do that?”
The injured one wheezed again in confirmation. The young one made a small noise of sympathy and patted his arm.
Ahsoka followed them as they slowly trekked over stones and trashed electronics, keeping to the shadows. When they stepped into the moonlight, the most peculiar thing happened. She saw they were wearing clone armour. Degraded and far outside any armour regulation, sure, but clone armour nonetheless. Who in the galaxy were these people? And why were they travelling with a child?
She hovered at the edge of the ruins, watching the strange group bicker in quiet whispers, the injured one far too exhausted by this point to chime in on any of their ridiculous points. She stared and stared, intrigued beyond words.
So intrigued, so deep into a trance of confusion that she hardly had time to see the vibro-knife flying directly at her face.
If there was one thing his years on Kamino and expeditions across the galaxy had taught him, it was how to tell when someone was trying not to be noticed.
His senses made it easy, he couldn’t deny it, but even so there was a certain trick to it that had taken him an embarrassingly long time to learn. It was the small hesitations in their steps, the way trying to be quiet just seemed to make them louder. It was how they made themselves small against their environment, tucking themselves out of sight.
It was being able to tell the clop of an imperial trooper’s strangely-shaped boots from the thick-soled stamp of their commanding officer’s. It was being able to tell the springing of a battle droid’s joints from the click-clack-click-clack of a droidika’s roll before it was in sight. The way their presence seemed to disturb the ground with faint electric pulses. The rhythmic click of Sid’s clawed feet against the bar floor as opposed to the drunken shuffle of her patrons.
Whoever was following them, to their credit, was doing a remarkably good job.
They hadn’t seemed like a threat. In fact, Hunter had originally thought they were some type of creature, curious about who was traipsing so blindly through its territory. It confused him. Their footfalls were like feathers, far lighter than any human or other species he knew for that matter. The stalker moved like there was no ground at all.
But they were no creature, he knew that much. The stalker was more curious than hesitant, keeping a distance but never staying in the same place for too long. They leaped impossibly high and crouched on the narrowest of unsturdy walls.
And then they slipped up. He’d dared a glance back, peering into the darkness for some sort of clue about who their pursuer was. His eyes finally caught on a shape crouched low into a jutting ledge. They gripped at a rock, and his hand was on his knife before he’d even had a chance to think about it. He’d already seen enough for tonight, and he was not about to let anything else surprise them.
He hurled it directly at their head without a second thought.
It should have hit. He KNEW it would have, his aim was perfect, but before it was even halfway to the figure they’d jerked backwards, practically throwing themselves from their perch. They let out a gasp invisible to the ears of everyone but him.
No more surprises. He repeated the thought bitterly. Maybe this person was just a curious Serrenian local who came down from the forest to take a peek at his squad. Worst case scenario, it was yet another mysterious imperial foe. Either way, he was about to find out.
“Echo, with me. Give Tech to Wrecker.”
His squad had all whipped their heads around at the spontaneity of the flying knife. Their eyes were full of confusion behind their helmets. Consistent as ever though, they didn’t miss a beat. “On it.”
Together they dashed towards the fallen figure, Echo’s twin blasters already in his hands. Somewhere in the rubble, the figure was stirring from where they fell.
To his left, Echo flicked his blasters onto their stun setting, and Hunter did the same.
“There,” he pointed with the nose of his gun. “You go around, I’ll head through that arch.” He jumped over a solid lump of warped metal, and his companion split off to box in their strange follower.
Hunter rounded the corner, skidding through the arch and into the half-broken remnants of someone’s old sitting room. Family photos destroyed by water and time sat beside bent wires and shattered glass on a carpet growing grass and mushrooms. The figure sat clutching their head, blanketed by the shadows.
He kept his blaster trained on the figure, still far too shadowed to see properly. Echo slipped through a hole in the wall opposite to him, guns held at the ready. Both of their feet crunched on the wreckage beneath them.
The figure didn’t flinch, but stayed impossibly still. Their voice was hoarse in their throat, and Hunter smelled a hint of blood in the air. They must have cut themselves during their fall. “No… don’t- I-“
“What do you want with us?” His voice felt far too loud opposed to Her , he now realized, near-whisper.
“Nothing. I promise. Please, I didn’t mean any harm.”
“Who are you?” Echo’s voice chimed in with his own, and the figure shrank back ever so slightly. Hunter could make out the vaguest outline of what he thought were montrails. A Togrutan, then?
There was something strange about the way the shadows seemed to darken around her, bending over one another to cover her face. Like the world itself was subject to her afraid and cowering will.
The figure raised both her hands. “I’m nobody. Just passing through. I’m only trying to travel to Saffia, I swear.”
“On foot? All the way out here? I don’t buy it. You came for the war chest, didn’t you?” Hunter took a small step closer, squinting hard at the shadows.
She sighed. “It would be stupid not to.” The figure cringed at the words almost immediately after.
Echo let out an impatient puff of air. “Just cut to the chase. Who are you? Imperial? Bounty hunter? Another wandering civilian?”
“ None . Like I said, I’m just passing through.” She raised her voice slightly, stumbling to her feet. A cloud went over the moon, and the shadows bent again, covering her even more.
Hunter took another step, bigger this time. The figure regarded him warily. “Then care to tell us why you were following us?”
“It was just curiosity! And I would appreciate it,” she gestured towards them. “If you could lower your guns.”
Neither of them were convinced. “Curious of what?”
“Your armour. You’re clones, aren’t you?” Something between fear and sadness leaked into her voice, bleeding through the words.
“What’s it to you?”
“ You’re clones, aren’t you? ” She repeated. She tried to back away, bumping into the wall behind her. The fear and sadness rose, and she sounded almost terrified.
We aren’t getting anywhere with this, he thought. Wrecker, Tech and Omega were probably almost to the ship by now, and he was itching to leave this planet far behind him. Echo was similarly antsy. “Listen. For our own safety, and yours, tell us who you are and we’ll leave you alone. These are dangerous times, I’m sure you know, and I’d rather not be shot in the back when I turn around. At the very least, let us see your face.”
He tried his best to sound reassuring, but if anything, he was just growing tired. It had been a long night, and this altercation was just stretching it longer. They had to be some kind of bounty hunter, he was sure of it. Normal people don’t follow seemingly random groups in the dark without a good reason like credits.
“Put your weapons down first.”
He gestured for Echo to do so. Both of them were quick enough draws.
He wasn’t quite sure what, or who, he was expecting to step out from the shadows. It certainly wasn’t a girl barely out of her teens with dried blood down the front of her clothes and face, a deep cut above her eye and a gaze that seemed to stare directly into him, rifling through his thoughts and feelings.
A distinct sense of otherness permeated around her, an almost animalistic look.
The few Jedi he’d met in the past had been like that as well. Even the young Caleb Dume, despite his childishness and playful words, had that strange look about him as if he were part of the earth beneath his feet. Like he could just melt away into the world if he so chose. As for his master, every time she made an expression, be it pleased or horrified, had looked like the subject of a painting made by an old great master. She too looked as if she could become part of the world, fade into the rivers or become wind itself if she wanted too. The Jedi were just like that, he supposed. Naturally peculiar creatures.
That just begged the question, was she one of them ?
He opened his mouth, fighting for words amid a cloud of confusion, when all of a sudden Echo gasped.
Hunter turned to face him, and he watched as Echo practically threw his helmet off, and howled like he had been struck.
For the first time in all the hundreds of rotations he’d known him, Hunter watched as tears filled Echo’s eyes for the very first time.