Chapter 35

Alexander and Ahsoka spoke in hushed whispers, the former with his arms folded over his chest and a weary expression on his face. It had been a long couple of months; it had been a rough couple of months. Sometimes, it felt more like years.

When Padme walked quietly into the room – having being woken by the commotion that had being taking place - not that she'd been sleeping particularly restfully anyway; there was far too much to worry about.

The pair didn't even notice her come to sit on the settee and watch them. It was only when she quietly coughed, to garner their attention, did they both spin round, poised for action.

"Padme?" Ahsoka put a hand to her head. "I'm so sorry, we must've woken you. I didn't-"

Padme cut through what would've been a very long apology. "It's fine; I wasn't having a particularly restful sleep anyway." She looked at Alexander with raised eyebrows, before turning back to Ahsoka and inclining her head at the boy.

Ahsoka took the hint. "Oh, right…sorry. Padme, this is my friend; Alexander. He was a-" Ahsoka frowned for a few seconds before turning to her friend. "What do you do exactly? I'm guessing 'Jedi reject' isn't the official name." She couldn't resist trying to rile him up.

"I work with the Jedi as an intelligence agent; scouting, recon and just generally gathering intelligence. I go wherever I'm assigned." He explained in a bored voice; this wasn't the first time he'd explained his work to Ahsoka. He did a double-take, remembering one particular comment the girl had said. "…and, I wasn't rejected…I just didn't join."

Ahsoka scowled at him with complete disbelief and scoffed. "Shut up. You didn't join because you knew you'd be rejected; you're too old."

"Your freaking school of witchcraft and wizardry would be lucky to have me." He intoned in a growl-like tone whilst giving her an equally dark scowl. "Anyway, I'm guessing that, since they accepted you, the standards are quite low and they'll have anything that walks in from the street."

"Oh force…" Ahsoka sighed and rolled her eyes in an over dramatic fashion. "…I missed this? What was I thinking wanting you back?"

"Oh, come off it…you know you hated it without me."

Ahsoka leered at him, baring her teeth a little bit. "It was awful; it was almost like having you here."

"Yeah? Well…you can shut up."

"Awwhhh…" Ahsoka taunted playfully. "…no snappy comebacks. Alex, my dear, you are losing your touch. Have you seriously got nothing to say?"

Alexander shrugged and threw, "Well, I now know why some animals eat their own children", at Ahsoka with such pleasantness that it contradicted the insult that accompanied it.

"That's my pigeon." Ahsoka smiled proudly.

Padme frowned for a few seconds, collecting her thoughts and summarising the new information she had received before choosing to speak, all too happy to cut off the pair's bantering before it went too far. "Since you're a Jedi agent, does that mean you're being hunted down too? Or, are you on the Clones side?" Padme looked ready to jump into action, despite the fact she resembled a planet.

"Nah, he works for the Jedi so they'll be looking for him." Ahsoka gestured to her friend. As if he'd be with the clones, he wouldn't betray her like that. Even if he wanted to, he didn't have the cunning and subtlety to pull it off. She didn't know who came up with the bright idea of using him as an espionage agent.

"And, that's where you are wrong." Alexander chimed gleefully, as if mocking Ahsoka for being the only one in the room that was being hunted. "I'm an independent agent; I only associated myself with the Jedi. I don't work for them so they probably won't be that bothered about me. And…" He looked positively excited at the next part. "I technically don't exist in your Republic; no-one ever saw fit to put me on your database – no record of me exists anywhere."

Ahsoka glowered and looked furious for a few seconds. How was it that he managed to avoid being implicated but everyone else was dead? She couldn't understand it. How could someone have a grudge on just the Jedi? What had they ever done but try to help?

"Don't you want to know what I was doing?" Alexander said in a sing-song voice, but he already knew the answer that his overly curious friend would give. "Where I've been all this time? Oh, come on…you do. You are itching to know what dragged me away from Coruscant. I can see it in your eyes; little 'Soky 'Soka Tano, the little girl with too much curiosity. Oh come on, it's killing you – it's driving you mad. Don't you wanna know?"

Ahsoka snapped, irritated at how he was attempting to make her plead him for the information. "Well, go on…spit it out since you're obviously dying to."

"I was investigating your little friends." He smiled in such a proud manner. "Boy, have they been making plans lately." Seeing Ahsoka's blank look, Alexander continued in a very slow and clearly enunciated tone in order to make Ahsoka feel as stupid as he possibly could. "Keep up, Tano. I was out in the big wide galaxy, getting Intel on Vipera – you know those lovely chaps that just can't keep away from your…desirable presence."

Ahsoka felt like she should've cottoned on to that a lot sooner. With wide eyes, she asked. "Did you find out anything?"

Alex sighed and breathed out his annoyance, resisting the urge to insult her; it wouldn't do getting into a fight with her…no, not after last time; now he thought about it, they'd never actually apologised for breaking that statue in the museum, had they? "Of course, I found something – why else would I bring it up?" Alex gave her a look that showed her seriously questioned her intelligence, or lack thereof. "Right, well…they've been awfully quiet lately, don't you think? Yeah, well they've almost got all they need to make this work."

"What work? Alex, what are they doing?"

"You need to understand their history first." He said in all seriousness.

The young man pulled his datapad out of his backpack, typing into it for what seemed like an eternity before staring at the screen, reading the information for what seemed like the 50th time; it just didn't seem right! How could they have not noticed, how hadn't they recognised them – the way they were behaving and their means. They should have, because this had happened before – a long time ago – they had used people, specifically children, even more specifically: Jedi children - before for the exact same goal. Only, back then – all those years ago – they had failed.

But why?

"You think you know them; you think you know what they are and what they do…but you have no idea, Ahsoka." Alex warned her before sitting down on the settee and staring at her with hard eyes. "You should've never gotten involved with them"

"What have you found?" Ahsoka asked in a clipped tone.

Alex stared her down for a few moments before speaking. "They're as old as the order itself, Vipera is just a new name they've started using since they've begun this latest project."

"And what exactly would that be?" She was beginning to get impatient; he was just dodging around all the important facts.

"All in good time." He chided. "They're made up of mostly rejects from the order. Those that have been exiled, those rejected from training for various reasons – age, too much fear, the angry children – and those that left of their own free will. They banded together an age ago with one goal: to usurp the order. Of course, that goal never came to fruition, as you can see the order is – or was – perfectly fine."

Ahsoka flinched slightly at the mention of the Jedi destruction, her eyes flickered subconsciously to the window and where the smoke still billowed. She could still see it, and her mind's eye could see the bodies that piled as high as the sky. She loathed how Alex talked about in a such a blasé manner, like it was completely normal.

"The name 'Vipera' comes from the genus of venomous vipers. They call themselves that due to the fact that they use the venom of these vipers as means of disposing of targets. Not too unusual, I know…but there's more" Alexander paused for a few moments to let the words sink in. "It took me months to dig up information on them. They go back about 4 years then they just vanish – no records of them after that, none of them show up on records…they disappear. Odd, don't you think? So I did some cross-referencing and pulled some strings; banked some favours. Did you know that 'Vipera' were once called 'Grigori'?"

Ahsoka shook her head and mouthed 'no'.

"Well they used that name years back, long before you were a Padawan. They went by that name for a couple of years – it was supposed to represent the fact that they were fallen angels or something; cast from grace. Perhaps to do with their history with the Jedi and that half of them were rejected. But even then, they vanished – no records of them anywhere if you look further back than 10 years or so. But…I did more digging and they had another name before Grigori, ever heard of Lamashtu?"

Ahsoka's eyes widened to the size of saucers as she let the words sink in. Her jaw trembled slightly and she mouthed 'no' so quietly that it could hardly be called a whisper.

"I take it you've heard of them?" He thought she would have, they were quite high-profile once upon a time.

She had heard of Lamashtu – of course, she had. She remembered being so very young and being so very scared just by the mere mention of the name. She remembered the teenaged Padawans – bored and with nothing to do – coming and telling them how Lamashtu would come in the dead of the night and snatch them.

Yes, she knew of Lamashtu, alright. It was the scary story told in the crèche by the older Padawans; every youngling grew up on stories of the myths and legends of that terrible demon. Every youngling lost many a night's sleep trembling under their quilts and watching the door for fear that, if they took their eyes of it, Lamashtu would come and seize them from their beds.

All legends were based on truth. Lamashtu had been proven to be more than a demon, it had been proven to truly exist. The child snatcher, specifically preying on Jedi children. No-one ever saw it. No-one ever even caught a trace of it. The kids it took never resurfaced. Every youngling in the temple was terrified that the monster would awaken from it's hiding and come for them.

"Ahsoka?" That was Padme, she felt the older woman put her hand on her shoulder but her mind was racing.

She watched the boy with wide eyes and choked out. "But...Lamashtu is gone, nobody's heard of it for almost 5 centuries."

"No. Not gone, just patient."

"But even if it were true. Even if Lamashtu was back." Ahsoka began pacing and folded her arms over her chest, she looked at Alex and pointed. "It's not, though." She continued her pacing. "Even if its back. It doesn't matter – it's not relevant. The story of 'Lamashtu' was a long time ago and…it was just one person – one guy with a taste for kids. I don't know if you've noticed but Vipera is an entire organisation!"

"Lamashtu wasn't just one person; they just wanted you to think that. They named themselves after the ancient demon and then changed their name when they needed to hide."

"That name is familiar." Padme mumbled absentmindedly. "Is that from a story?"

Ahsoka felt the need to explain the first recording of the name Lamashtu; a tale used nowadays to frighten younglings – one of those spooky stories that people told around campfires. "There was a demon from centuries – before even Master Yoda – called Lamashtu and he-." Ahsoka froze as her mind made the link.

"Exactly." Alex commended the girl.

"Oh, force."

"What?" Padme put a hand on Ahsoka's shoulder in a comforting gesture again. "Ahsoka, what's wrong?"

"The demon took children and…fed off them." Ahsoka looked up suddenly and asked the question she hadn't wanted to ask. "They're carnivores?"

"No. Not exactly." Alexander took a few moments to compose himself. "When you're taken, when you think that no-one is coming and that you've been left to fate, you lose the thing that makes you who you are: your hope. Without hope, a person is…nothing; they're numb and…broken. When they take the kids, they always take the more vulnerable ones…the ones that aren't sticklers to the rigid code…and they break them."

"But…why?" Ahsoka asked, confused.

"Once they stop opposing them and give up fighting, they can be…fixed." Alexander spat out the disgusting term the organisation used to describe what they did to the children. "They identify the children they can use, they then threaten them with all they care for so they help them…and then…then they destroy the things they love, and they destroy that child."

"Alex." Ahsoka said firmly."What. Do. They. Do?"

"I don't quite know how they do it but…they change the kids…they fix them. They find a way to damage their minds, and alter their personalities and beliefs; they warp every little part of their mind and destroy all they used to be. Then they make them loyal to only them. They warp them to believe in nothing but them. They turn them into merciless psychopaths; the perfect little agents that come pre-trained and deadly, and…now they're working on some sort of gene slicing. Where they can alter children's genes to make them smarter and stronger and faster – because you're young, there's a much higher chance of the alterations being successful and the body not rejecting them. Can you imagine what they'd do with 10 altered kids? What about 100? They'd destroy us all."

"And there's more." She could see it in his eyes.

Alexander took a deep breath before continuing. "It's experimental technology. It's never worked before…they keep trying and testing it on anyone they can…but they all died. They have some sort of machine – they call it Tabula arch – and it invades the brain so forcefully and powerfully that, every time they have used it, the person they're using it on has died from the trauma." The next part was the hardest part. "Our reports said they last tried to work the machine yesterday…on a young girl; Briseis Senfora."

Ahsoka's stomach clenched again, painfully and nauseatingly. "No."

"The technology doesn't work yet. We don't even have any idea what it's supposed to do. It could be designed to rip worlds apart, or disintegrate matter."

This was all her fault. She should've tried harder, she could've saved her.

"There'll be little left of her now."

Hearing that, Ahsoka had to sit down, and she did think of all that had come to pass. The things that were her fault entirely, and the things that were only slightly her fault; all of them stung like fresh wounds and like fire that licked at her skin mercilessly, torturing her every move. It was like, every time she breathed, she felt a brand new hole being forged in her chest. Simply because she breathed, and so many others didn't anymore…because of her; because she wasn't fast enough, because she wasn't strong enough, because she didn't save them, because she was unconscious – there were so many reasons why the blame could sit with her. But the biggest one – the one that hurt the most – was because she was just Ahsoka Tano; she was no-one special, she wasn't going to do anything worthwhile because…she was just a kid.

Ahsoka's stomach plunged deep and hard when the scolding heat hit her. The small cinders and smoulders of ash singed her skin and clothes…but she didn't care. All she could focus on was how her heart was beating so hard and loud that she feared it may burst out of her chest. All she could hear was the dull roar of everything rushing around her, and she was staying still. All she could see was stretches of burnt and decimated ground, glowing fiery lava flows breaking up the mass of brown every now and again.

This…she…no…how could she be here? The dreams were over. They were supposed to be over. But…oh, force; she didn't think she could cope with these right now, not with everything else that was going on.

Ahsoka couldn't help the quiet whine that broke through her lips, rebelliously rumbling in the back of her throat. Her shoulders heaved and she felt her heart shattering as the sizzling planet appeared to tease her; tease her about what was about to happen.

She couldn't will herself to move, no, not when she knew exactly what she would find; exactly what she would see. She couldn't bear it. She feared that seeing this now, might just destroy the last of her resolve, she might just lose the last flickers of her hope, the hope that kept her fighting and striving to look for the light.

"It's over, Anakin." Ahsoka felt the bile rising and her legs moved of their own accord, despite her desperate attempts to dig her heels into the loose ground. "I have the high ground."

"NO." Though she appeared to not be in control of her legs, her mouth appeared to work fine. "MASTER DON'T." She screamed for all she was worth, but, deep down, she knew it would change nothing.

She stumbled over the brow of the hilly mount of ash and debris, and she could see them now. Her Master was stood on the small hovering platform, holding his blue lightsaber with such a tight grasp she could practically see his whitening knuckles from there.

She knew what would happen next.

"MASTER." Her voice broke into a high-pitched wail as she screamed. "STOP. Stop. Oh force, please stop. Stop it."

Ahsoka could almost see his gleaming yellow eyes from where she should; the eyes that haunted her, the eyes that spoke of death and hatred and despair – now more than ever.

"You underestimate my power." Her Master's hoarse voice rumbled for miles with those four words that would condemn him, the four word that would make him jump.

"Don't do it." Ahsoka screamed at the same time as Obi-Wan warned Anakin: "Don't try it."

Ahsoka screamed and so did Anakin.

"No." Ahsoka put her hands to the sides of her head and hunched over slightly, not sure if she would vomit or not. Her head pulsated in accordance with her Master's cries of pain. "No, please. Not again."

Ahsoka wobbled shakily on her legs for a few seconds before racing over to the bank where the two former best friends were, one writhing and burning on the soil and the other watching in almost as much pain.

She knew they couldn't see her; she was like an apparition – an invisible spirit, if you will – but she couldn't help but keep begging. "Help him. Someone…please. Master Kenobi…help. Help him."

Ahsoka shot up out of her dream, faster than one would've thought possible. She sat so very still and breathing so loudly it was a wonder no-one had awoke. She looked around frantically before slowly lying back down; her heart still hammering against her ribcage.

That future seemed so likely now.

Ahsoka had wondered, so long ago; back before all the death and the treason and the destruction; she had wondered if maybe her interactions and associations with Vipera were at all connected to her Master's fall – she thought they were, they had to be. Those two events couldn't be separate anymore; they crossed paths so many times. She thought that maybe if she stopped the organisation, she could save her Master.

But she was wrong.

And she right.

They were linked – she was right to assume it – but the way they were linked was so different to what she had guessed, she was wrong to assume that the organisation were the ones that made him fall. No, they weren't too bothered about him; he was just another Jedi they wanted to get back at.

Ahsoka was wrong because she had assumed that maybe they caused her Master to fall, maybe they managed to blackmail him too…eventually.

But that wasn't the reason…

…she was.

The two events were linked because of her. Allowing herself to be blackmailed had put strain on her, and therefore it had caused her Master so much stress then he could cope with; it put yet another burden on him and he just didn't know how to fix things; he wouldn't ever ask for help – he was easy pickings after that.

So, now she knew…she understood now; she understood that she was the reason for her Master's fall, it was all her – forget the dark side and Sith and his fallings out with the council - she was the one that had forced him away. And she hadn't even realised it. She'd pushed him away by trying to keep him safe. And she would never forgive herself for it.

Yeah. I know. I'm a twat. And I can't promise a quick update but it shouldn't take as long as this one did. Anyone feel like reviewing?