Chapter Text
22 BBY, 11 years after Anakin arrived in this timeline, and 7 years after the events of ‘Everything is Deja Vu when Time Travel is involved’.
Force, he hates the cold. Sand is bad, the way it crawls into everything he owns and rubs irritatingly at his skin and burns the soles of his feet even through shoes, but this? This is so much worse. He can’t feel his fingers. Or his nose.
Around him the Crystal Cave sings softly, a content and curious tune. So sweet, so kind. So pathetically weak.
Anakin looks around the cave, making a rough estimate of how many kyber crystals there are in here. There has to be thousands just in this section of the cave. How many on the entire planet? Millions?
Closing his eyes, he reaches out through the Light to the crystals. Their singing latches onto him. The further he reaches, the more latch on. Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. A million. Two million. Three million. Four million. The Light strains under the pressure of so many crystals interconnecting. Anakin keeps reaching though.
Five million. Six million. Seven million. Eight million. Nine million. Anakin’s head is pounding with pain by now. He refuses to stop. Ten million. Eleven million. Twelve million. Thirteen million. If Anakin doesn’t break under the pressure soon, the Force just might. Good. He’s always wanted to push the limits of the Force. Fourteen million. Fifteen million. Sixteen million. Seventeen million. Seventeen million five hundred and two thousand, four hundred and sixty-one.
Everything stops. The pounding in Anakin’s head isn’t growing, but it’s still unbearably loud. He feels like his skull is going to split open just staying connected to all of the crystals. This next step is going to be unspeakably more painful.
He casts his mind back to his darkest memories, to holding his dying mother, to storming the Jedi temple, to the lava banks of Mustafar, to the harsh breathing of a metal suit, to the reactor shaft of the second Death Star. He feels all the hatred and anger and pain and fear he felt in each of those instances, and he pulls them to the front of his mind like he’s feeling that this very instance.
Then he pushes those feelings into the seventeen million plus kyber crystals.
They cry and scream and struggle, and Anakin’s head explodes with more pain than he knew was possible. A high pitched ringing pierces his ears and then his brain. Everything disappears.
…
It takes an incredible amount of effort to open his eyes, and he blinks up at the ceiling of the cave. Is he… lying on the ground? He turns his head and feels snow press up against the side of his face. Yep. He’s on the ground.
He tries sitting upright, but the moment his head leaves the ground his vision goes black again. Okay. Bad idea. He’ll just… he’ll just stay here for a while.
The cave hums quietly around him, and the cold eats away at the feeling in his limbs. When his head steadies enough that he can sit upright, he looks around the cave at the kyber crystals. Where once there were thousands of clear crystals, waiting to become coloured when they bonded with Jedi, now there are thousands of red crystals, leaking hatred and anger and pain and fear into the Force.
“Shabla haran.” He gets his feet under him and stands upright with some effort, ruining the Human-shaped imprint he left behind in the snow as he does so. “I didn’t think that’d actually work.” He turns in a circle so he can admire the shining red contrasting the white walls of the cave. A laugh breaks past his lips. “Ohhh, the Jedi are going to love this!”
There’s a skip in his step as he leaves the cave, buoyed by the Darkness resonating beneath him. All of Ilum screams a passionate song into the void, loud enough that it’s heard in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. They’ll be sending the best of their best to investigate this soon, but it won’t matter. Anakin will be long gone by then.
Jango wishes that just once, he would be able to walk somewhere without being followed by people needing him to fix the latest ‘problem of the hour’. Just once. Is that too much to ask for? “Mand’alor!” Apparently so.
Kote breaks off from the group of Protectors he was talking to when he sees Jango passing, and falls in step beside him. “We don’t have enough Protectors to cover the shifts since Fordo’s squad went out of commission. Can we put the trainees on active duty for the next two weeks?”
“Good morning Kote, how are you today?”
Kote sighs. “Sorry.” He musters a poor excuse for a smile. “I’m good, thanks.” His face shifts back to his patented ‘serious expression’. “Trainees on active duty? Just until Fordo’s squad is back on their feet.”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I don’t need Protectors.” Kote disappears from sight for a second when Jango collides with someone in the hall, and has to stop to mutter an apology before catching up to Kote. “We live on a planet that doesn’t have a fixed place in the space-time continuum. The chances of me being attacked are less than zero.”
Kote scoffs. “Excuse me for wanting to do my job.” He jumps out of the way of a giggling Twi’lek child, who is being chased by their exasperated beskar’ad buir. Since when are kids allowed in the city hall?
“You’re wonderful at your job, Kote, but I’m afraid your job is a bit redundant.” He claps Kote on the shoulder. “If you’re really that worried about it, then get rid of the night shifts for the next two weeks and shut the city hall down from midnight to six in the morning.”
“And the people who usually work here during those hours?”
“They can get some proper sleep for once in their lives.” Maze appears out of the crowd, hurrying to fall in step behind him and Kote. “If that’s all, Kote?”
“There’s something else, actually.” Kote’s voice tightens, and Jango knows he’s frowning without turning to look. “Boba.” What’s he done now is on the tip of Jango’s tongue, but he bites it back. It’s not fair of him to assume that Boba’s gotten in trouble again. “He poisoned the Skirata family’s tiingilar. Claimed he was ‘trying to make it spicier’.
Maze snorts, and Jango immediately grinds to a halt so he can turn an accusing glare on her. The people in the hall split to go around them without a second glance, in too much of a rush to be curious. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you Maze?”
Her eyes widen for a fraction of a second, before she smoothly recovers and adopts an innocent expression. “I don’t.”
Yeah, Jango isn’t buying that for a second. “If you want to murder Ordo, do it in a way that doesn’t take the rest of his family out with him.”
Maze holds very still for a second, calculations flashing behind her eyes. Then her shoulders sag. “Elek, alor.”
“Good.” He turns around and starts walking again, ignoring the amused grin Kote is trying and failing to stifle. “Anything else, Kote?”
“No sir, that’s all.” Kote leaves to give instructions to his Protectors, and Maze speeds up to walk beside Jango.
Ursa Wren passes them in the hall, deep in discussion with two of her clan members. She gives Jango a respectful nod, which he returns. Kriff, does he have a meeting with her and the other clan leaders later today? “Good morning, Maze. How are you today?”
“I’m good.” Maze smiles at him, far more genuine than the one Kote gave, and then turns serious again. “I’ve just spoken to the Father. He got distracted while terraforming the northern forest for the new settlement, and we slipped out of the time stream again.”
Jango inhales sharply and turns wide eyes on Maze. “How long?”
“We got 17 hours for the outside world’s half hour.” She grimaces. “Thankfully no one was off planet at the time.”
“Okay. I’ll handle it.” Maze nods and leaves, fully trusting him to be able to ‘handle’ a situation he honestly has no idea where to begin with.
A familiar face and shaved blonde hair appears out of the crowd, Rex falling into step beside him. “Good morning Rex, how are you today?”
“I’m good, thanks. How are you?”
Jango huffs a surprised laugh. “That depends on what news you have for me.”
Rex sighs deeply, and Jango’s shoulders slump. “The armourers said our latest trip brought back enough for a half dozen diluted beskar’gam sets.”
“Half a dozen?” Jango frowns. “I thought you managed to steal a shipment from a Kyr’tsad mine.”
“We thought it was going to be a sizeable shipment, but it turned out to just be a small crate of unprocessed beskar.” Jango and Rex move to the side of the hall to make room for a group of hunters on their way to the kitchens, a large animal body being carried between them. “Guess Kyr’tsad is also having trouble getting beskar.”
“Yeah, which means they’ll be extra careful about protecting the rest of their shipments. Make sure not to go near their beskar again.”
“But we’ll get barely anything then.” A child collides with Rex’s legs, then mutters an apology and runs down the hall after the group of hunters. “Probably not even enough for the ade passing their verd’goten this year, let alone the vode who still don’t have beskar’gam.”
“I know, but it’s better than you and your gatherers being killed or, ka’ra forbid, tortured, by Kyr’tsad.” Jango stops outside his office and turns to face Rex. “You can go back to focusing on Sundari instead, though I expect Kryze’s people will have caught on and placed extra security on their beskar heirlooms by now.”
Rex nods reluctantly and leaves. Jango opens the door to his office and steps inside, eyes immediately falling on the person in white and red beskar’gam sitting in front of his desk.
“Good morning, Fox.” He rounds his desk and sits down in his chair, bringing up his schedule to check if the clan leader meeting is today or tomorrow. “How are you today?”
“The Hutt cartel fell last night.”
Jango frowns. “The Hutt cartel did what?”
“It fell. Slave revolts killed the last of the Hutt leaders last night. Or, last night for the outside world, a day ago for us.” Fox slides his datapad across the desk so Jango can see a compilation of news reports on the slave uprisings in Hutt territory. He flicks through a few of them, noting names of Hutts he took jobs from in the past, now all deceased.
“The less developed systems are declaring independence and setting up governments. Some of them with former slaves leading them, others with slave owners leading them. Really depends on who got to their blasters first.”
“And the more developed systems?”
“Not declaring their independence, but also not declaring support to the remnants of the cartel. They’ve lost a few export deals, other systems not wanting to be associated with them until things calm down.” Fox’s wrist comlink chimes with an incoming message, but he ignores it.
Jango stops on a news report mentioning Tatooine. Gardulla the Hutt had tried keeping control of Tatooine and some surrounding systems after Jabba died, but she was eventually killed when the slaves in her palace revolted. Tatooine has now declared themselves independent, but there’s not much information on if the new leaders are former slaves or slave owners.
“I’ll call Shmi later and find out what the situation on Tatooine is. I’ll let you know what she says.” He sighs and slides the datapad back over to Fox, straightening up. “In the meantime, keep your spies away from the Hutt territory. Or, former Hutt territory. I don’t want anyone getting caught and needing to be rescued. We can’t afford to be revealed right now.”
“Is there a better time to be revealed?” Fox picks up the datapad and switches it off. “Unless you want to be an isolationist society forever, you’ll need to start setting up foreign trade relations at some point.”
“Not when we’d just end up in the middle of a civil war. Last thing we need is Kyr’tsad shooting at us from one side and Kryze’s pacifists spitting at us from the other side.”
“So you want to wait until one of them kills the other.”
Jango winces at Fox’s bluntness. “Well… yes. Or until they make peace.”
Fox raises a disbelieving eyebrow and goes to speak, but he’s cut off by the door opening. Kal Skirata steps in, a sickly tint to his skin and an angry glower on his face. “Jango. Wonderful to see you again. You have a minute to talk about your son?”
Ohhh, kriff.
Ahsoka feels small and inconsequential standing before the Council, eleven impassive gazes looking past her body and straight into her soul. She wonders what they’re looking for in there. Her deepest secrets? Her biggest regrets? The reason why she’s over an hour late?
“Sorry, Masters. I lost track of time.” Again.
“Perhaps we should get you a wrist chrono.” Obi-Wan smiles at her warmly, but she can see the strain around the edges. “Though I suspect you’d still lose track of time regardless.”
“You can have this conversation after the meeting. We have more important matters to discuss.” Master Windu frowns and makes direct eye contact with Ahsoka. She resists the urge to fidget. “Padawan Tano. Did you feel the disturbance in the Force earlier today?”
“Yes.” How could she not? She’s sure every Force user in the galaxy felt that disturbance. Kriff, it was probably even felt by Force users outside the galaxy. “What was it?”
“Ilum, it was.” Ahsoka, along with the rest of the Council, turns to look at Master Yoda. “All of Ilum, a Dark side user has Bled.”
Ahsoka blinks. “I’m sorry, what do you mean all?”
“All, I mean” Master Yoda grunts. “More clearly, I cannot explain. All of Ilum, a Dark side user has Bled.”
“So… the entire planet is now red?“
“No.” Master Yoda’s ears flick in irritation. “A planet, one cannot Bleed. But many kyber crystals, one can Bleed.”
Ahsoka frowns. “Yeah, but not an entire planet’s worth of kyber.”
Master Yoda’s gimer stick connects with the ground loudly, and nearly all the Masters jump in surprise. “How the Force works, you are telling us? Better than us on this topic, you know? Hmm?”
“To be fair” Obi-Wan says, rising to Ahsoka’s defense. (Thank Force, she thought Master Yoda was about to kill her with his death stare.) “We didn’t know it was possible either until it was done.”
“Tell her it is possible, I am trying to. But listen, she does not. Instead she argues. Be open to accepting new knowledge, you should have taught her.”
Obi-Wan bristles like a strill being poked with a stick. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you. You, who still refuses to accept Quinlan back, despite him having done nothing to warrant banishment in the first place.”
A collective breath of ‘oh kriff’ is sucked in around the Council room, as if Obi-Wan just pulled the pin out of a grenade.
Master Yoda huffs in annoyance, eyes narrowing at Obi-Wan. “Corrupting, the Dark is. A matter of time for Quinlan Vos, it is. Because many years I have lived, I know this. Many Dark side users, I have seen.”
Ire and irritation battle for dominance in Obi-Wan’s expression. “The number of years you’ve lived doesn’t count for kriff if you still refuse to change your mind when proven wrong. It’s been seven years since Quinlan Fell, and he’s still done nothing to warrant your distrust of him. You’re just a wrinkly old raisin who hates being proven wrong.”
Master Yoda opens his mouth to retort. Ahsoka has a sudden mental image of being here years later, covered in dust and cobwebs as she waits for Obi-Wan and Yoda to finish their argument. She shudders. Nope, not happening. “I’m sorry, do you mind going back to the fact that someone Bled every single kyber crystal on Ilum?”
Obi-Wan and Master Yoda both turn to look at her, and the rest of the Council breathes a relieved sigh when they do, as if Ahsoka just managed to put the pin back in the grenade.
“Yes.” Master Windu clears his throat, drawing the attention of the Council to him. “As of right now, we have no idea who did this or why they did it.” A bad feeling settles deep in Ahsoka’s gut. “That’s what you and Master Kenobi will be trying to find out.”
Oh, she was right to have a bad feeling. This is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad turn of events. She’s quite tempted to spit out a string of curses in protest, but that wouldn’t be very Jedi-like of her. Obi-Wan taught her to be polite and well-spoken, so instead she says; “While I love the idea of hunting down a Dark side user that’s powerful enough to Bleed an entire planet, I do think that there are other people more suited to it than I am. Couldn’t you send one of them instead?”
Obi-Wan stifles a proud chuckle, and Master Yoda harrumphs. “Fight the Dark side user on your own, we do not expect you to. But the best at unravelling mysteries, you and your Master are. And the best at getting in trouble, you and your Master also are.”
Ah, so that’s their grand plan. They’re just going to chuck Obi-Wan and her out into the galaxy and hope they stumble across the right kind of trouble. Well, they’re likely correct. Any mission she’s on does tend to turn south very quickly.
“Well in that case, Ahsoka and I will gladly do this mission.” Obi-Wan stands up and joins her in the center of the Council room, giving his fellow Council members a serene smile. Only Ahsoka is close enough to see the mischievous glint in his eyes. “But we will be needing help. This is hardly a two-person job, after all.”
“Who do you have in mind?” Master Windu asks calmly, entirely unaware of whatever chaos Obi-Wan is planning on bringing down on the Council.
“Quinlan Vos.”
Master Yoda explodes with indignation.