Mutual Feelings

Chapter 1: A stressful day of action

The Clone Wars, Day 1088, Teiron System, Outer Rim.

Sometimes, Anakin Skywalker thought to himself, being a Jedi causes you nothing but trouble.

"They're getting away!" Ahsoka yelled at her master, vaulting a parked ground car with the force, before dropping into a combat roll as she landed, not losing any speed or ground, as they chased a small group of battle droids, carrying with them an item only officially termed "The McGuffin".

"I've sent Rex and a team around to cut them off." Anakin replied, pointedly using his headset, before making his own flip over the ground car, which had large amounts of damage to it from the magnaguard that was leading the group they were pursuing. "They can't get off this road until the next intersection, and that's a good mile away."

Roughly one hundred yards up the road, around a parked haulage speeder, things went to pot faster than a jawa moving in on an unprotected droid.

Ahsoka was in the lead, roughly twenty yards ahead of her master, and disappeared around the side of the speeder.

In front of her, she found a two rank firing line of B1 battle droids, no more sophisticated than the units that had been used on Naboo, more than a decade earlier.

A moment after she came into their line of sight, they fired a perfectly synchronized volley at her. The total difference in travel time between the twenty blaster bolts was perhaps one one-thousandth of a second.

She threw herself to the ground, her heart pounding as they all scorched through the space where her torso had been just a heartbeat earlier. She couldn't have even attempted to block them all, even with both of her lightsabers.

Before she could rise, an electrostaff pressed onto the back of her head, and she looked around, seeing the duranium plated feet of a Magnaguard.

A pair of binders clattered to the ground next to her head.

"Put Them On Your Wrists, Behind Your Back." It instructed her, watching with satisfaction as she reached out for the devices with her left hand, before slotting one of the loops over her right wrist as her Master came sailing over the speeder truck.

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As his padawan vanished from view, Anakin felt a sudden pulse of panic from her, then pain, in a dozen places, from slightly raised areas of the tarmac surface in use on Teiron.

Then he felt cold, absolute terror.

Drawing on the force, he hurled himself over the speeder.

The first thing he saw was Ahsoka, an electro-staff resting on her third lekku, preventing her from rising, or doing anything to defend herself.

Then he saw the restraints she was fastening around her own wrists.

He landed in the middle of the double rank of battle droids, sending a shockwave out through the force.

Most of them went down. A few of them were still moving, and he laid into them with both the force and his lightsaber, downing the remainder in a few seconds, before suddenly being brought up short.

"Jedi Skywalker." He heard from the magnaguard. "If You Do Not Cease Combat, Your Padawan Will Die."

Looking around, he saw that she was still in the same position, her hands now secured behind her back, held straight out behind her, with her wrists pinned six inches apart, and he felt a pulse of hatred for the droid, which had clearly forced her to restrain herself.