I do not own Star Wars or any of the characters!

WARNING: Graphic Torture and blood included in this chapter (and probably every chapter after this one.)

...

Another tooth clattered onto the blood soaked floor. Ahsoka groaned in pain, unable to scream because of the blood that gargled around in her throat every time she used her voice.

Ahsoka took a fast, shaky breath, "Please... please stop." She said, her voice weak, blood dripping down from her mouth and onto her chin and clothes.

She knew she'd lost a lot of blood but her mind was too hazy to register anything but the pain that raced through her.

The man laughed crazily at her, moving his face so it was close to hers. "Stop? But this is way too much fun."

He set the bloodied pliers down on the blue trolley.

Ahsoka, though delirious and half conscious, straightened her neck so she could sit up straight.

Everywhere ached and she wanted nothing more than to be in her bed at her home, at the Temple, surrounded by all of her loved ones.

Zengok turned to face her again, an old wooden handled hammer clutched in his left hand.

Ahsoka did her best to protest. She could barely speak, shuffling as much as she could in her chair to get away from him.

The insane horror and fear she felt was overwhelming.

He tapped Ahsoka's knee cap with circular, flattened end of the rustic hammer. "You're never getting out of this place, you know? It doesn't matter what we do to you, you're never escaping this place." He sneered, so close to Ahsoka's face that she could feel his breath on her face.

The man raised his arm, the hammer clutched tightly in his hand.

Ahsoka squeezed her eyes shut so tight she felt they might pop out.

When the hammer collided with her knee, Ahsoka felt the agonising shatter of her knee cap. She screamed in absolute agony, hunching over as much as she could. Her whole body moved and spasmed uncontrollably as her body tried to cope with the damage.

Ahsoka felt unbelievably sick from the torture her body had been put through. She'd never felt anything so sickeningly painful.

Ahsoka took once glance at her shattered knee and heaved, moving her head and leaning over the side of the chair so she could empty her stomach. She was struggling to stay conscious and knew she'd pass out soon.

Another wave of nausea hit her when the hammer crashed into her other knee. She screamed loudly and tears rapidly formed in her eyes. She emptied her stomach again, the pain too unbearable to do anything but throw up, scream and cry. Nothing could compare to the pure agony rushing through her.

A loud bang on the door didn't startle her, as she was too out of it to register anything but the agony in her legs. Zengok raised to his feet, setting down the hammer on the trolley. He swung open the heavy metal door. "What?" He snapped.

"Times up, Zengok." The man on the opposite side said bluntly, his voice completely monotone and lacking any kind of emotion.

He glanced over Zengok's shoulder to look at Ahsoka's bloodied, trembling body.

His facial expression not changing even the slightest at the sight of the girl, he locked his eyes back on Zengok. "Pack your things up and go."

Zengok sighed, "Fine. No need to be so pushy. There are such things as please and thank you, you know?"

The man just stared at him.

The man gripped Ahsoka's chin and bought her face up to meet his, "It's been a pleasure, Miss Tano." He smirked at her menacingly.

His awful smirk was the last thing Ahsoka saw before she blacked out.

...

Anakin walked beside his former Master as they parked up outside of Padmé's apartment. He didn't bother going to the inside parking area as it was usually quite difficult to find a vacant spot.

The pair made their way up to Senator Amidala's apartment. Anakin knocked loudly on the door so either C-3PO or Padmé would hear it.

Padmé opened the door a moment later, a look of confusion displayed on her features when she opened the door. Obi-Wan was there, so she had to put on a professional tone. "Master Kenobi, Master Skywalker. I wasn't expecting you here today?"

Usually Anakin would reply with something charming or polite, but he was too worried for his Padawan to even think about flirting with his wife. "Have you seen Ahsoka?"

Padmé frowned, "No? She left last night."

Anakin replied quickly, "Well, she's not at the Temple. We can't even sense her Force signature. We think something has happened to her." He said hurriedly, as if explaining the information quicker would help solve the problem faster.

Padmé shook her head, her worry becoming evident now. "No I haven't seen her..."

"Damn it..." Anakin growled, wracking his brains to think of a logical explanation as to where his apprentice could be.

Obi-Wan spoke, "Do you know where she might've parked her speeder?"

"Well it wasn't outside the apartment blocks when we got here, but he haven't checked the actual parking spaces in the building." Anakin replied.

Padmé quickly yelled to C-3PO that she was nipping out. She shut the door and followed the two Jedi down to where the speeders usually parked.

The three glanced around, not noticing anything that resembled Ahsoka's Flash Model 3 speeder.

"It's not here!" Anakin yelled, getting more stressed and worried by the minute.

Padmé walked forward a few steps, "The left side of the parking area is a lot more shaded and hidden than the rest. Let's check it out."

The two Jedi followed Padmé.

"That's it!" Anakin exclaimed, running over to it to check the numbers on the back to confirm it actually did belong to his padawan.

Obi-Wan raised a hand to his bearded chin, "This isn't good. It appears Ahsoka never left at all..."

"She'd tell me if she was going somewhere, especially if it was off planet. This just isn't adding up." Anakin analysed, studying her speeder as if it would give him all the answers to his questions. It didn't, much to his annoyance.

"Master Jedi, I think you should see this." Came Padmé's worried voice.

The two Jedi walked up to Padmé, who was couched on the floor.

A single drop of crimson blood had dried onto the metal floor. The drop was tiny, less than half the size of an old coin.

"Anakin, run to the speeder and grab a forensics kit. We need to get this tested."

Anakin nodded and took off towards the speeder. Within a minute he was back, crouching down to swipe the small drop with a cotton bud. Not wanting to contaminate the evidence, he dropped the cotton into a small plastic bag and sealed it.

"We need to get back to the Temple immediately." Said Anakin. They thanked Padmé for her help and ran to the speeder.

Things weren't looking good and Anakin couldn't help but think of the worst.

...

"Well is it hers or not?!" Anakin snarled at the flimsy droid in the medical bay.

The droid fumbled around, taking the blood sample out of the machine. "M-master Jedi it takes a few moments for the machine to match the DNA..."

Anakin slammed his hand down on the counter. "Can you not make it work any faster?! This is an emergency!"

Obi-Wan lay a hand on Anakin's shoulder, "Anakin calm down... He's doing all he can. Be patient, for once in your life."

The machine beeped and the droid pulled out the sample. "It's a match, Master Jedi. This is Padawan Tano's blood."

Obi-Wan raised a hand to his chin, "This is unsettling... So it seems Ahsoka has been missing for over 24 hours, this classes her as officially a missing person."

Anakin suddenly went pale. "Master, you don't think they have her, do you?"

Obi-Wan continued to think hard, "I'm not sure, Anakin. Unfortunately, it's a possibility. They did warn us to not send out research teams..."

"We need to alert the Council immediately." Anakin said angrily. If Ahsoka really had been taken by the strangers, they didn't even have a starting point as to where to search. Every time they even attempted to search, people were killed.

They arrived at the Council Chambers ten minutes later.

Anakin didn't even bother to knock, barging straight through the doors.

The council were sat in their usual positions. In the middle of the room was a hologram. The masked holographic figure turned around to face Anakin and Obi-Wan.

"Perfect timing, Master Jedi." He said, smirking underneath the white mask.

Anakin glared at him in response. "What have you done with her?" He snarled, taking a step forward.

He chuckled and held out his arms innocently. "I have no idea what you're talking about, my friend. I haven't laid a harmful finger on her."

"You're lying." Anakin yelled, wishing he could kill the man on the spot; had he been there in the flesh and not a flashing hologram, he would've.

"Hm, technically, I'm not. I personally haven't done anything to her." He said flatly. "It's rude to go around accusing folk of such things."

"Tell me where she is!"

He ignored her and turned back to the council, facing towards Master Windu. "I did tell you to not investigate us, Master Jedi. This is punishment for searching for us."

"I asked you where she is!" Anakin yelled, capturing the governor's attention again.

He turned to face Anakin, "Well since you asked so politely I'll show how her visit with the dentist went today." He started to chuckle to himself.

"What?"

The holographic image flicked from the Governor to a different image. The hologram was a darker shade of blue, indicating that the room was darker.

Members of the Council gasped when they saw Ahsoka tied down to a chair. She was unconscious, her head hanging uselessly and her eyes closed.

Blood covered her entire upper half, her t-shirt drenched in the crimson liquid. Her face was visibly battered, her eyes swollen and black. There was a lot of blood around her legs, too.

The quality of the hologram wasn't great, but it was good enough to make out that Ahsoka wasn't in good shape - but she was breathing, which was a small relief.

Anakin felt anger flare up in him. "What the hell have you done to her!"

The image flicked back to the Governor. His tone darkened and he began to speak more seriously. "I can't reveal too much, but I will tell you this; They thoroughly enjoyed their time torturing her, I must say." He paused a moment before turning back to the rest of the Council members. "I'll be in touch very soon. If you're good and obey my orders, I might even give you daily updates on the condition of your precious Jedi Padawan. Good day."

The hologram flicked to Ahsoka again. Even in unconsciousness she looked in an awful lot of pain.

Anakin felt sick looking at the state of his Padawan. His fears had been confirmed; they had her. They had her and he was terrified for her. He felt like a failure for not protecting her. He felt anger at the Council for not listening to them - because of them, Ahsoka was being tortured without reason.

A few seconds later the hologram flicked off.

Every council member seemed to be at a loss for words.

Master Mundi was the first to break the silence, "This is disturbing. We have no leads and next to no information - but we cannot let this continue."

"Of course we can't!" Anakin yelled. "They've got Ahsoka! She's just a kid! How could they have done that to a kid?!"

Mace Windu silenced him, "Skywalker, keep your emotions in check. This is our main issue at the minute and we're doing everything we can at the minute."

"You're just sitting here doing nothing!"

Windu stared at him, "Well look what happened last time we took action without proper preparation and planning."

Anakin considered this for a moment. Master Windu did have a point, but how long was it going to take for them to come up with an effective plan?

Obi-Wan cut in, "Is there a way we can mask our investigation? For example, track down a known criminal 'suspected' of criminal activity. This could be our public mission - secretly we are researching and following up any leads that could become known."

Plo Koon, who had been silent for the whole conversation so far, agreed with Obi-Wan, "That may be a good suggestion, Kenobi. We must cover our tracks well, however. We cannot afford to slip up - for our sakes and Ahsoka's."

Anakin knew Plo was feeling exactly how he was - he'd been the one to discover the girl when she was 3, they had a close bond. Master Koon was a lot better at hiding his emotions, as well as keeping them in check. Anakin needed practise on that, and lots of it.

The other Council members agreed. Now all they had to do was finalise the plan.

...

Ahsoka awoke to a bright, white light shining in her eyes. She immediately shut them tightly but gasped when she felt pain shoot through her face and her neck.

She felt like she had some sort of fabric in her mouth. She ran her tongue along the mysterious material and cringed at the feeling of it on her tongue.

More accustomed the light now, Ahsoka opened her eyes a fraction.

She felt a sharp pain in her knee and whimpered. She tried to pull her leg away from whatever was prodding at it but found that she couldn't move her leg at all.

The memories of what happened came rushing back to her all at once and her heart started to pound and dread filled her entire being. Hyperventilating, Ahsoka tried to sit up, fear overcoming her.

"Shh, shh," said a calming voice. Ahsoka felt soft hands on her shoulder and montrals, "It's okay. You're out of that room now. Calm down." The voice was rather soothing, but it didn't help lessen Ahsoka's anxiety that much.

Ahsoka could open her eyes fully now. She was lay on a bed and almost everything was white. From her experiences fighting in the war, a white room meant she was in a medical bay. Other white beds around the room, though empty, confirmed this.

A middle aged human woman stood at the side of her. She was delicate and fragile, with dark circles under her eyes and wispy blonde hair hanging around her face. Her delicate hands held a palm-sized bacta patch.

Ahsoka tried to speak, but her voice was muffled by the material in her mouth. "Mhf, Where... m... I." She said.

The woman above her smiled sweetly at her, wiping Ahsoka's face with a wet cloth. She winced as it ran over the deep slice in her cheek, "You're in our medical bay. My name is Narla. I'm a medical expert and I treat the wounded here."

Ahsoka didn't say anything, knowing that Narla wouldn't be able to understand anything with all that fabric in her mouth. She just grunted in reply.

"You've received quite a few injuries, so I need you to relax for me, okay?" She paused a moment, deciding to answer all of the girl's questions before she even asked them. "That material in your mouth is to stop the bleeding. Try not to move your mouth too much, or it might fall down your throat. You lost four teeth all together. I'm currently putting bacta on your knees..." She said as she carefully poured some liquid bacta on her shattered knee cap.

Ahsoka protested, flinching and whining as the pain in her knee increased. She couldn't control her body, jolting and trembling whenever her knee was touched.

The pain was sucking out all of the energy from her body. Narla stroked her bruised face very gently. "You poor thing. I'm so sorry you have to go through this." She sounded genuine and Ahsoka could tell she was speaking exactly what she felt in her heart.

Ahsoka looked up at her through half open eyes, seeing Narla's glistening, soft brown eyes staring back at hers.

Ahsoka swore she saw a tear in her eye but couldn't be too sure, as she blacked out again from exhaustion.

When she awoke, she was back in her 'room'. She sat up, her head pounding vigorously.

The first thing she noticed when she woke up was the absence of her teeth. She tentatively ran her tongue over the holes where her teeth should be. Hissing in pain as the tip of her tongue brushed the sensitive areas, she counted that four teeth were missing: the canine tooth from the left on her bottom row of teeth, two molars from the top right and a molar from the top left.

Her head still throbbing, tried to move her legs. Pain shot up her legs and let out a shriek of pain. Both legs were in splints - which were more like stabilisers, since she could still see the skin on her legs - keeping them straight so the broken bone fragments could heal properly. It was extremely uncomfortable - she was so used to being flexible and having maximum movement at all times, it felt wrong to be kept like this.

Ahsoka slowly lowered herself down onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, the memories from her short encounter with the medical expert flooding into her mind.

She recalled waking up to a woman treating her wounds. She remembered that the woman looked very sad. What was her name?

The girl wracked her brains for the answer, but her memory was so hazy and her head hurt too much for her to think.

Her mouth was slightly agape - it was too painful for her to close it properly.

She lifted her hand and gently touched her face. She could feel swelling all around her face, especially around her mouth, cheeks and eyes. She ran her tongue over the swollen holes in her mouth again, scrunching her eyes together when memories of them being forcefully removed came into her mind.

She felt awful. She had never felt so fearful for her life and had never experienced so much pain. She didn't know if she could go through it all again.

She couldn't think of anything to compare to what she had felt in that chamber. She had never felt fear so crippling, had never felt pain so excruciating.

In her head, Ahsoka knew things were only going to get worse for her and life as she knew it.

She was confident that Anakin was trying his hardest to search for her; but she knew that the Strangers didn't leave any clues behind and they covered their tracks efficiently. They were smart, possibly too smart for the Republic and Jedi Order.

There was a soft knock on the wall, followed by a timid voice, "Ahsoka?"

The girl pushed herself up with her arms and shuffled along the floor, trying to keep her legs as still as possible. She bit her lip when pain started to shoot through her; though she carried on pushing herself along. She needed to know if Kato was alright as well.

She timidly knocked on the wall, feeling weak and exhausted. "I'm here." She found it really hard to speak, her mouth throbbing every time she moved her jaw even half a centimetre.

"You sound awful... D-did they take you?" He asked hesitantly.

Ahsoka took a deep breath, shivering as she thought about everything she'd experienced. "Yeah."

"Are you okay?" He sounded terrified, the fear evident in his shaky voice.

"No." She didn't want to lie to him; giving him false hope could only make his situation worse. What would be the point in pretending she was okay? She wasn't. If she made it out of here eventually, the memories and scars would be with her for the rest of her life.

There was a pause before the boy spoke. "What did they do to you?" The way he was speaking made him sound like he didn't want to know.

Ahsoka sighed and looked at the state of her knees. "They ripped out my teeth... Then they shattered my knee caps with a hammer..." Her voice started to tremble and tears started to form in her swollen eyes.

He didn't reply for over a minute.

"Kato?"

Another minute of silence.

"I don't want to die here..." He said timidly.

"We won't. The Jedi are coming, I know it. We won't die here." She croaked, her voice coarse and rough from screaming and throwing up.

She tried to avert the conversation to something else, not wanting Kato to feel too scared. As a Jedi, she was always taught to put other people before herself, and that's what the planned to do, even though she just wanted to curl up in a corner and cry. "So where are you from?"

"Coruscant. I lived with my family, they owned a bar on level 1311." He said.

Coruscant? Could it be a coincidence that they were both from Coruscant?

Ahsoka was silent as she thought about the matter. It could be possible that the strangers were based on Coruscant or maybe they at least had a connection there.

"I'm from Coruscant, too. Are you human?" She had assumed he was by his accent and they way he spoke, but now she knew he was from Coruscant she couldn't be sure. Usually when people had lived there all their lives they lost their accent and picked up the basic accent that Coruscant had.

"Yeah. What about you?"

"Togruta. I left my home planet when I was three."

He laughed a little, "Yeah, I noticed you didn't have an accent so I assumed you were human. If you lived on Coruscant that long, it's expected to lose any kind of accent really."

"I thought the exact same about you." She croaked. "Do you have any hobbies? Like sports or writing?"

"Not really. I like researching into animals and learning about them. I want to be an expert when I'm older."

Ahsoka smiled, "That sounds interesting. How old are you?"

"I'm fifteen. I'm guessing you're a similar age?" He asked.

Looks like her plan was working. It worked as a little distraction for herself as well.

"Sixteen standard." She replied, tracing random shapes onto the wall with her fingers. She tried hard not to look at her legs - she knew a wave of nausea would hit her if she saw the state of her knees. Her right knee hurt considerably more than her left, maybe the break was worse. She'd have to mention it to the healer next time she saw her - if she ever saw her again.

"How are you coping so well with all of this? You seem so calm..." He trailed off.

"I've in situations somewhat similar before. I'm confident someone is coming for us, you have to trust me."

She trusted her Master. The amount of faith she had in him was phenomenal, she knew he was coming, or at least doing something to try and find her.

"Similar situations?" Came his hurried reply, "Are you kidding?"

"No. I'm a Jedi."

As soon as the word 'Jedi' left her lips, Ahsoka heard Kato gasp. "You're a Jedi? Can't you break us out of here using the force then?!" She could hear hope and even a little frustration in his voice.

"No, I can't. They have some sort of force field or something around here. I can't use the force here. Trust me if I could, I would've busted us out of here. I can't even feel the force, it's just... absent."

"Oh..." He said quietly, his voice completely absent of hope and motivation.

"Kato. I can't control what happens in here. But I promise, we're going to make it out alive. I swear on it."

...

Apologised for the lateness on this chapter...

As mentioned before I work full time and I'm extremely busy! I hope you're all still interested in this and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Please review!