ANAKIN WAS CHASING her. So were a bunch of clones. So was Obi-Wan. And Ahsoka, normally the one who was bored by literally everything, was terrified by it.
She hadn't actually bombed the Jedi Temple. She hadn't even been on Coruscant when the bombing happened. She hadn't killed that woman -- Letta -- in the holding cell, either.
But she knew who had. Her best friend, Barriss Offee.
Ahsoka hadn't known she was a Dark Jedi until recently. Barriss didn't know that Ahsoka knew. She didn't know that Ahsoka was almost a full Sith Lord. But she'd framed her for a murder that Ahsoka suspected the Jedi, Anakin, and Obi-Wan all thoguht she really had committed.
How nice it was to have such loyal friends, Ahsoka thought sarcastically.
Once again, she found herself contemplating why she'd turned to the Dark Side in the first place. It was because of Skyguy, she guessed -- he'd been so open about it, she'd fallen prey to his ways. But now...
Now she wasn't entirely sure she wanted it anymore.
She hated the thought of the pointless mass murder that Skyguy and Obi-Wan went out to do. War was casualty enough for her. While she did have a healthy dose of hatred for Hondo and his pirates, she really didn't have all that much anger or hatred in her otherwise.
Ahsoka's use of the Dark Side was driven mostly by fear, she thought. Fear of being kicked out of the only family she'd ever known -- though thanks to Bariss, that had happened anyway. Fear of herself, of what she could become. The inherent fear that war brought to every living being.
And, Ahsoka realized, fear of Anakin and Obi-Wan.
They were too powerful. She was constantly afraid when she was with them -- afraid that they'd sense her unease, afraid of how they would react if they found out she was having doubts, afraid of how casually they talked about murder, afraid of the dangerous look in Obi-Wan's eyes whenever Maul was brought up. The two of them scared her. Even their relationship, as intimate and dark and open as it was, was a frightening thing to behold.
All this was chasing its way through her head as Ahsoka herself ran through the pipe system that ran through the Jedi Temple, trying in vain to outrun Anakin and his entourage of clones.
Karabast, Ahsoka thought as she hit the end of the pipelines, staring out into the busy lanes of traffic that ran through some of the tunnels into the main sector of the city-planet. Karabast, karabast, karabast. Bariss, why did you have to do this to me?
"Ahsoka!" Anakin's voice scared her. She jumped, then turned to see Anakin as he skidded to a halt in the mouth of the tunnel, facing her. "Ahsoka!"
"I didn't commit those murders, Anakin!" Ahsoka shouted. "I'm innocent!"
"Are you?" Anakin asked. "Or are you just saying that to try and get yourself off the hook?"
"I know who did it!" Ahsoka yelled. "It was Barriss, Barriss Offee! My friend! Luminara Unduli's apprentice!"
"I know it wasn't you, Snips!" Anakin called. "But this is pointless! Turn yourself in and await the trial, and stop accusing people until we can actually find out who was behind this!"
"Anakin, you don't understand!" Ahsoka screamed, tears running down her face no matter how hard she tried to fight them. "I know it was Barriss! I have no proof, but I do know that I can't let the Jedi get away with expelling me for a murder I didn't commit! The Jedi are the only reason I'm still alive! The Jedi found me as a baby, orphaned by a war on my homeworld! The Jedi protected me, the Jedi raised me, the Jedi trained me! The Jedi are my family, my life! I'm not about to give that up because of my backstabbing best friend accusing me of a murder I wasn't even present for!"
"What about that woman in the cell?" Anakin countered.
"That was her, too!" Ahsoka cried. "Anakin, she must have been watching the security holo and remotely Force-choked that woman to make it look like it was me! Why can't you see that it wasn't me?"
The look in Anakin's eyes was dangerous as, for the briefest moment, he let them flash the all-too-familiar yellow-orange color of the Sith.
"Snips --!" Anakin said, a warning in his voice as he watched Ahsoka glance behind her, calculating.
"I'm sorry, Anakin," Ahsoka cried, "but I have to do this. I can't let you take away my life!"
And with that, she jumped.
"Ahsoka!" She heard Anakin's cry as she free-fell into the maze of air traffic, landing hard on the roof of a passing transport. Somehow she knew he'd run to the edge of the tunnel and watched her fall, the clones appearing behind him.
That was probably stupid, Ahsoka thought, but I can't let him take away my life. I can't let him...
"That settles it," she muttered to herself. "I'm done being a Sith. I'll play the part for the rest of the Clone Wars, so I can help kill Sidious, but then I'm gone. I'm done. The Dark Side holds nothing for me anymore. Not if the only people I love -- who both happen to use it -- are willing to just turn me in for a murder that I didn't commit."
Loyalty is overrated.
Ahsoka kept running.
***
GET OFF OF ME, you assholes, Ahsoka thought as a pair of Jedi Temple Guards roughly shoved her into the trial chamber. Whose fault is it that I'm being falsely accused? I just hope Anakin has caught Barriss.
"Ahsoka Tano." Chancellor Palpatine's drawling voice rang out across the chamber. "You are being tried for the bombing of the Jedi Temple and the murder of suspect Letta."
Ahsoka knew at this point that it was useless to point out that she hadn't even been on Coruscant when the bombing happened; rather, she'd been coming back from a mission with Anakin and Obi-Wan and hadn't found out about it until the three of them were assigned to investigate the case.
It was useless to accuse Barriss with no proof, either. After all, who would listen to the word of a fugitive? Especially one that everyone seemed so convinced was behind the terrorism and murder.
"Your sentence stands thus -- oh, my," Palpatine said, a surprised note entering his voice when Anakin stormed into the chamber, two more Temple Guards behind him dragging...
Ahsoka's spirits lifted. Anakin was dragging a chained Barriss behind him.
"Wait!" Anakin called. "Ahsoka is innocent! It was her!" He shoved Bariss forward.
"Yes, it was me," snarled Barriss. "I bombed the Temple. I killed that Letta woman. I framed Ahsoka for the whole thing."
"Why?" Obi-Wan called from his Council seat.
"Because the Jedi are weak!" Barriss spat. "The Jedi are on the wrong side of this war! I wanted to make a statement, and what better way to do it than by getting one of them expelled for it? I wasn't exactly planning on being caught!"
Ahsoka thought that Anakin and Obi-Wan would be glad to be hearing this.
"Barriss, I thought we were friends," Ahsoka said, turning to her.
"Well, you thought wrong," Barriss snarled.
Ahsoka gave her a long, sad look. "Obviously I did."
"Take her away!" called Palpatine. "Ahsoka Tano, you are free to go."
One of the Temple Guards -- the one they called Inquisitor, Ahsoka believed -- undid the lock on the binders holding her hands in place.
"Go ahead," he muttered to her. "The Council will be waiting for you in the Council chamber. I hope this goes well for you."
"You're Inquisitor, right?" Ahsoka asked. He nodded, ever so slightly. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Bastila Shan, the other there, she wanted the best for you, too," he said. "Now, go on. You're free."
Ahsoka didn't need telling twice. She left the room fast, heading for the Council chamber. She wondered what this was about.
"Wrong, we were, Padawan Tano," Yoda said upon her entry. "Too quick to assume, we were."
"We want to formally welcome you back into the Order," Mace said. "If you'll come."
"If you'll forgive us," Obi-Wan added.
"Please, Snips," Anakin said, coming forward and opening his palm to reveal Ahsoka's Padawan symbol, the strand of silka beads that served as her Padawan braid since she had Togruta lekku instead of hair.
"I thought you'd never ask," Ahsoka said after a moment, taking the silka beads and replacing it on her lekku-headdress.
"Welcome home, Ahsoka," Anakin said with a smile.
Something told Ahsoka that now that she'd renoucned the Dark Side, at least mentally, she'd be a little more interested in everything. There was something about getting betrayed by someone you called a friend and very nearly having your life ruined because of it that gave you a whole new perspective on things, Ahsoka thought.
The Jedi started to clear from the room. Ahsoka noticed that Anakin immediately went to Obi-Wan.
"You coming, Snips?" Anakin called.
"In a minute," she replied. Anakin nodded and the pair left. Ahsoka didn't fail to see them intertwine hands ever so subtly as they left.
"Noticed it, have you?" Yoda asked.
"They don't exactly try to hide it," Ahsoka replied, turning back to Yoda and Mace, the only two Jedi besides herself left in the room. "I assume Maul told you we're Sith?"
"Yes, he told us," Mace confirmed. "Why?"
Ahsoka took a deep breath. "I have something to tell you..."
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great, ok, so ahsoka didn't leave (hooray) and she turned back to the light side (also hooray) and can you guess what she does next? she becomes another jedi spy! at least until after they overthrow palpatine by, you know, murdering him
they do murder hondo btw, i just don't wanna write it cuz i'm lazy and i want to get to order 66
ok so next is another maul chapter, we go a little deeper into his growing relationship with padme, and then after maul we'll skip to order 66. the next chapter after order 66 will be mustafar and palpatine's murder, and then the last charted maul chapter. i might throw more of his chapters in there occasionally, so be on the lookout for those
btw i'm also going to start a spinoff fanfic of this that goes into jedi knight maul's backstory after i'm done w/ this one so if you're a fan of the jedi knight maul thing (he's fun to write) then i'll let you guys know when i've started it
as always, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who's read this, please leave comments if you like it, it'll go on for a while longer so thank you for sticking with me
~R.A. Starkiller