Chapter Text
Chapter One: Luke Skywalker, supercool
21 BBY, Chelli Minor
Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Padawan, was fuming. It should have been a simple stealth mission. Sneak into the Separatist outpost on Chelli Minor, retrieve the classified files on the new Separatist Fleet weapons systems, and get out before Skyguy and Master Kenobi sent the bombers to draw out the enemy and raze the place to the ground. She was the perfect person for the job. Small enough to fit in the air vents of the place, and stealthy enough to swipe the card where the files were encrypted. No sense sending the whole 501st or 212th, nor in using slicers--terminals there were too protected and it would have taken too long. Simpler to swipe the physical copy from under the Seppies's noses.
Instead, she had found herself hit by a stun bolt the second she had got out of the air vents, and lost consciousness. When she came back to, she was being thrown into a cell by two B2 Battle droid. She suppressed a curse as she landed hard on her shoulder on the metal floor, and threw her hands out at the droids to push them into the opposite wall, but nothing happened. With a frown, she looked down at her hands, and realized they were bound in cuffs. Big, bulky Force-dampening cuffs.
She cursed, and energy bars closed the entrance to the cell. "Just my luck."
"No." the pale face of Asajj Ventress, Separatist commander, smiled at her from beyond the bars. "Just my luck."
"Ventress." snarled Ahsoka. "So this was a trap."
"Of course." Ventress purred, looking beyond her. "Though I'm surprised you Republic fools fell for it twice."
Ahsoka frowned, and followed Ventress's line of sight to where it ended behind her--on a blond Human wearing a battered jacket of the Intelligence Corps of the Grand Army of the Republic.
"Hi." the Human waved at her. Their hands too were cuffed, although their cuffs weren't Force-dampening. "Guess we're both in quite the pickle, aren't we?"
Ahsoka ignored them, and turned back to Ventress. "It doesn't matter. My Master will come and free us, and it will be all over for you, Ventress."
"We've exchanged these pleasantries many times, Padawan," Ventress replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "But trust me. The security measures on this base are too much even for Anakin Skywalker. This trap was designed for him, after all."
To both the two female Force-user's surprise, the GAR Intelligence officer laughed at that remark. "Yeah, maybe for Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight and GAR General." they said, settling into a mischievous smile. "But not for me, lady."
Ventress snorted. "And why would that be, Republic fool?"
"Because my name's Luke Skywalker." the officer said, and both Ahsoka's and Ventress's eyebrows shot up. "And I'm supercool."
Ventress's face fell into a scowl. "I...have absolutely no idea who you are."
"Of course you wouldn't." the officer snorted. "Not even Junior knows of me, as far as I know, and as much as it pains me. But your master, Count Dooku, does. Why don't you go ask him?"
"Why would my master know of you?" Ventress snarled. "You're just some officer. You can't even touch the Force, I sensed it in you." Ventress's voice dripped with derision this time...but to Ahsoka's ears it felt just the tiniest bit forced. And 'Luke Skywalker' in all probability felt it too, because they pounced on it with no hesitation. "He's a Sith Lord, Miss Ventress. That's what they do, keep secrets from their apprentices to foster their resentment and hatred, in order to better control them. He probably doesn't even tell you all the things he talks about with his own master, Sidious--and come to think of it, going by the Rule of Two, what does that make you?"
"Are you seriously trying to sow doubt between me and--"
"Excess. It makes you an excess. Superflous. Easily discardable." was the officer's flat answer. "So why don't you ask him about me? As I said, you're a Force user and I'm not. You're the best person out of us to ascertain if you can really trust your Master. And you should. Dispel the possibility I'm lying, or...see if he really trust you enough to tell you the truth."
Ventress' hands tightened into fists. Even with the Force-dampening cuffs, she could feel Ventress's rage swirl and churn around in the woman's chest like a storm. It made her sick in the bottom of her stomach, to feel the Dark Side in this way...and to her suprise, the officer going by 'Luke Skywalker' was unaffected. They leant back against the cell wall, cuffed hands in their lap, with their face, posture and eyes displaying utter calm. As if the officer was daring Ventress to hurt them with the Dark Side.
And yet Ventress didn't hurt them. She turned, sending one last look at them. "When I come back," she seethed, "I will torture you until you'll regret being born, you arrogant scum."
"No you won't." the officer smiled. "You won't find me here. Supercool, remember?"
Ventress stormed off, and the officer leant back with their eyes closed. Ahsoka looked at them, flabbergastered. The officer didn't look like a Skywalker. Or rather, they didn't look very much like her Master. Sure, like Skyguy, they were Human, tanned, cleft-chinned, blonde-haired (though Luke's hair was still properly blond and graying, instead of Skyguy's darker locks) and blue-eyed. They even had scars on their face, only that they were fainter and lining their laugh lines and upper lip, with others following a tree-branch pattern from their neck to their jaw. But they looked older, in their mid-to-late-hirties, couldn't be taller than five-foot-eight, muscled but in a wirier way than the utter near-six-foot-two tank that Skyguy was. And they had stubble! Stubble, faint but showing the beginnings of a beard, kind of like Master Kenobi before Skyguy was knighted. She couldn't picture Skyguy with a beard, not in a million years, not even stubble. And they weren't a Jedi. Ventress said the officer wasn't even Force-Sensitive, and yet they seemed to know so much about Sith stuff, and had the gigantic balls to own Ventress with that knowledge. Just who the Hell was this person? Non-Clone GAR Intelligence officers interacted with the Jedi only in very rare occasions, they were people for and from the Chancellor's Office. And the officer called Skyguy Junior?
"Who the Sith Hells are you?" she asked.
The officer opened his eyes. "I'm Luke Skywalker and I'm here to rescue you, Ahsoka Tano."
"Right." Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm a Jedi."
A shrug. "And I've broken out of worse places." without daying anything more, the officer pulled down their right jacket's arm from the wrist...and bit into it.
Ahsoka resisted the urge to throw up as the officer ripped a strip of flesh from their wrist's underside, leaving a skin flap flopping about, and bit further into their arm. And yet...not a single drop of blood. Just a faint buzz of static that was over as soon as she heard it. The cell's surveillance camera jerked in the smallest of ways, and then was normal again.
"There." the officer said. "I've scrambled the camera's signal--for no more than five minutes it will replay the footage from five minutes prior. We have a chance now."
"How the kark did you..."
"Easy. My boyfriend's very good with electronics."
"No, I mean the..." Ahsoka almost threw up again.
"Robot arm." the officer said, showing her the circuitry under the gash they'd made with their teeth, and a small, circular device with a switch sitting inthe center of it. Three or four inches below the wrist, there sat a thin line of demarcation. Above, their skin was paler, less calloused, below it was darker, lined with strange, faded, lightning-like patterns that seemed to follow their nerves. "Synthskin."
"But synthskin is barely experimental--" Ahsoka began, but the officer started coughing. They made a couple faces, thumped their chest...and then a green kyber crystal rolled off their tongue and into their waiting hands.
"There." the officer said, as their cuffs popped open by themselves. Still sitting, they clicked their heels together and small electronic components flipped out of their soles and heels, flying into a cylindrical shape as the officer took a few more smaller parts out of their fake hand. The kyber flew in the center of that mess, and assembled into a lightsaber that looked very similar, to Ahsoka, to Obi-Wan's own.
"Ok," Ahsoka said, "I'll admit that that, while gross as all Hells, is kinda cool."
The officer turned to her with a smirk. "Only kinda cool?"
"Yeah, wha--"
They moved impossibly fast, so fast Ahsoka could barely see them. There was a flash of green, and then Ahsoka's Force-dampening cuffs clattered uselessly to the floor in ten pieces, her hands unarmed. And then the whole wall that contained the energy door fell outwards into the corridor, melted metal around the edges where it had been cut. It had been a single fluid movement, at an imaginable speed.
The officer turned to look at her again, green lightsaber in their mechanical hand, pointed towards the floor, flesh hand extended to her, to help her up. Ahsoka accepted it. She didn't know if she should be terrified or awestruck. "Who are you?" she instead asked again.
"As I said," the Human said, smiling at her as they stepped out of the cell, "I'm Luke Skywalker. And I'm supercool."
-line break-
On a control platform suspended above in the belly of an active volcano, Asajj Ventress was losing her mind.
"He fucking signs his own correspondence like that." she said through gritted teeth, staring at the recorded conversations her Master had transmitted her.
"Asajj." Dooku's hologram frowned. "It seems to me quite clear that this other Skywalker prefers neutral pronouns. Luke may be our enemy, but there's no reason to deny them basic respect."
Asajj scowled at the count. "Alright. I'll use "them" to refer to this other Skywalker. But why in Sith Hell are you on first-name basis with them?"
"They are...quite interesting."
It was certainly one way to put it.
Luke Skywalker's first mail to Count Dooku read:
Greetings, Count. Name's Luke, pronouns are "they/them". You don't know me yet, but I know you. We've got quite a few things in common. We're both former Jedi who think our Order has devolved into a bunch of pompous, useless fools. Their blind adherence to Republic law over the concerns of the larger Galaxy, even over the plight of the oppressed, is something that will destroy them. I know your Master, Darth Sidious, is counting on it. And I know who he really is. But allying yourself with slavers, gangsters and capitalists, and forcing the Separatists to share their army and Parliament with them, and have their genuine grievances be poisoned by their interests? Well, I think you're doing this all wrong, Dooku. I think you may have genuinely honorable ambitions, but you're either too naive or too arrigant to see you're allying with the very same people who would destroy them in a heartbeat out of utter greed. I think it's probably because you're a Count. So I propose a bet. I will make Palpatine's plans fail, utterly and miserably. I will make the Jedi Order feel like morons and the Republic like bastards, and I will create the liberation movement that you could not. I will make poster boys like Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi realize the errors of the Jedi ways, yes, and I'll make you realize the errors of the Sith ways. If I win I get your cape. You've got a pretty spiffy cape. I respect that.
Cheers,
Lucas George Skywalker
Better known as,
Luke Skywalker, supercool
Asajj's eyes narrowed as she re-read the document. "Master," she asked as she turned back to Dooku, "Is this channel esclusive to the two of us?"
"Of course, my Apprentice. What is it?"
"..."
"Yes?..."
"...Is Chancellor Palpatine Darth Sidious?"
"..."
"..."
"...Yes."
"...Fuck." Asajj slamped back in her chair. Under her platform, the lava churned. If she wanted to have fun, she could have used the Dark Side to play with it, maybe throw a few B1 droids down in it. That was the whole point of building that base into a volcano, to chuck Skywalker or Kenobi down in the lava when they came for the plans, or the Padawan. It was supposed to be fun.
But the revelation of Sidious's identity just made her feel empty and...cheated. "Why would Chancellor Palpatine play both sides?" she asked Dooku.
"To make the Republic lose and us win."
"Yeah. And what if we lose? What if the old coot likes his Republic just fine and discards us?" Asajj's eyes burned into her Master's.
Dooku's lips pressed into a thin line. "He's a Sith." he said, his face dark. "No matter. I am coming to your location."
"What?"
"I allowed the info of our trap to leak out to Luke Skywalker's associates. This was as much a trap for Anakin, or Kenobi, as it was for our friend." Dooku explained. "I will reveal what they've been up to in due time, as soon as I get there."
"Understood." Ventress said, and then a tremor rocked the whole base. Alarms started flashing everywhere, and the assassin was thrown into the command console.
"Ventress! Are you alright--"
"Yeah, just peachy, Master," snarked Ventress, pulling herself to her feet, and then scowling at the Count. "And you said Luke Skywalker was our 'friend', huh?"
-line break-
"Why the Hells did you dive headfirst for the droids??"
"Well I had to retrieve a blaster or we woulda been defenseless, ya know??"
Ahsoka cursed in her native language. This Luke Skywalker person was even crazier than her master. Here they were, aurrounded by a thousand battle droids, darting from cover to cover, Ahsoka covering Luke from blaster fire with their lightsaber while Luke shot at the clankers with two blasters and used the Force to throw them around.
"Well anyway we gotta find Ventress." said Ahsoka as they ran behind a pile of debris from the firefight, and called more debris and droid parts to the pail to form a makeshift barricade. "She has my lightsabers."
"And she has the card." Luke said, firing a couple shots from each blaster and downing a droid for each plasma bolt discharged.
"The what?"
"Don't pretend not to know--we're after the same thing, Ahsoka Tano." Luke said, looking right at her. "The data card containing all information on the new Separatist Fleet defense systems."
"Shouldn't you say 'we're on the same side'?" Ahsoka drawled. But before Luke could reply, a plasma bolt tore through their improvised barricade, spraying them with particles and microshards of debris. "Dank farrik!" she swore, hissing in pain from the places on her arms and face where she'd been grazed by the flying debris. Luke echoed the curse, themselves covered in scratches. "We need to end this and find Ventress. I can feel her, she's right above us."
"I've got an idea." Skywalker eyed an inactive tank in the other side of the room.
"That's too far away."
"I can jump very high with the Force. And very far. But not enough. I'll need a boost from you." they turned to Ahsoka. "While I get inside, you'll be defenseless, though."
"They'll be distracted by you. I can deflect their shots long enough to find cover."
"Alright. Think you're strong enough to aid my jump all the way there and fast enough that I don't get myself killed while trying?"
"My Master is the Chosen One." Ahsoka smirked as she deflected more blaster bolts. "Besides, you're pretty fast when you wanna be."
"Alright." Luke said, downing a few more droids, and then put a hand on her shoulder. "Run for cover immediately. I'm serious. I know how I acted earlier, and I know you just met me, but I don't want you to get hurt."
"Alright." Ahsoka said, and her tone hardened. "If we get out in one piece you'll have to tell me how you and Skyguy are related." she added, as they went through the motions again. It was getting harder, though--too many droids.
"What makes you think we are?"
"You're share his surname and insane strength in the Force, you called him 'Junior' and look somewhat alike. You're either a long-lost relative or you're trying to kill him. In which case," she looked at him as he kept shooting droids, "I will kill you."
"It's a deal." Luke smiled. "My blasters are overheating. I can feel it through my gloves. Let's do this."
Ahsoka took a breath and sent a Force push against the closest wave of clankers, not enough to send them away but enough to stun them. Luke jumped, twenty feet into the hair, and spun on themself to get momentum, throwing their overheating blasters in the thickest clusters of droids, where they detonated and shredded B1s and B2s alike with a discharge of burning hot plasma and liquefied metal. Ahsoka, taking advantage of the confusion, threw her whole self out with the Force, all into Luke, propelling them towards the tank. The Human spun and cartwheeled right into the open hatch.
The droids were in disarray. Ashoka didn't look at them twice, and booked it for the nearest cover as Luke used the tank's cannons to blast the room's ceilling into oblivion. This time it was Ahsoka's turn for acrobatics, jumping between blaster fire and rubble to get to the tank. Once on it, she climbed inside as Luke finished off the surviving droids with the cannons.
"Great." She said as she slid into the pilot's cabin, Luke at the console. "I thought you were just gonna blast the droids, but now since you blew up the ceiling you blew up the ascension platform, too."
"We don't need an ascension platform." Luke said as they redirected shield intensity. "We just need the Force."
"The Force? But...this thing is just too big to lift it with the Force all the way up there. We'd need Masters."
"Ahsoka, you wound me. Haven't I told you what I am?"
Ahsoka groaned. "You're not gonna make me say that. Not in a million years."
Luke smiled.
Ahsoka gave them the finger.
Luke's smile persisted.
Ahsoka gave them both fingers.
Luke's smile kept persisting. It was the placid, calm smile of insanity.
"Fuck you." Ahsoka pinched the bridge of her nose, and never felt closer to understanding Master Kenobi. "Supercool. That's what you are. Supercool. You're fucking supercool" she seethed, looking back at Luke. "Happy now?"
"Never been happier." Luke's smile only grew wider, and they held out their arms. They closed their eyes, taking a deep breath, and then little by little, the tank started rising in the air.
"Holy kriff." Ahsoka breathed out, as metal groaned and wheezed all around them. "How are you doing that?"
"With quite a bit of effort." Luke said, face straining. "Lend me a bit of energy, if you please. I'll let you use the big gun on Ventress."
Ahsoka turned towards them, and bared her pointy Togruta teeth in a wide, savage smile. "Deal."
-line break-
Ventress went to the command room window, looking at the platform right across from it--the one leading down to the vehicle and droid hangar. It was a raging inferno, a hole blasted outward from below, droids and vehicles strewn about as the few remaining ones tried to regroup and make sense of the situation.
And then, one of their own tanks kriffing levitated out of the inferno.
"Hey, Ventress!" the voice of Ahsoka Tano blasted out of the tank's intercom, and Ventress ran a list of curses in her mind as she saw the barrel of the tank's main, biggest gun point straight at her. "FUCK YOU!"
And then the tank fired, destroying the command center in one shot.
-line break-
"This is pretty fun." Luke said, sitting on top of the tank as they flung droids and their speeders and artillery down in the volcano's boiling core. The high-pitched tones of the droids as they screamed all the way down to their destuction only made the scene more ridiculous.
"Yeah, I gotta admit it is." said Ahsoka, joining them. She grabbed a spider droid and flung it into he lava, where it exploded from the heat. "I doubt Ventress is dead tho."
"YA THINK??" Ventress's voice rang, as the woman lifted herself out of the command center's smoldering wreckage, bruised, battered and covered in scratches. She had a large gash on her forehead, and smaller cuts all over her arms and legs. Her long, wide skirt had gotten torn, revealing the shorts, bindings and boots underneath. Her top too had gotten torn, Ventress holding up the scraps of it to cover herself.
Ahsoka blushed. Ventress was, well, she wasn't overstacked, but she wasn't even flat as a board like her. And she was ripped, too. Wait, was she getting envious at the enemy?
"Take this." Luke said, tossing Ventress the shirt they had under their jacket and remaining bare-chested under the uniform. The Human was slender, yeah, but they too were ripped. Ahsoka blushed again. "If we have to fight, I don't want to do it while you're embarrassed." they said to the assassin, and Ahsoka took advantage of the moment where Ventress pulled the T-shirt over her head to put it on by Force-pulling her lightsaber and shoto off the assassin's belt and into her waiting hands. She took it back. Ventress was ripped and stacked.
"You know," Luke told her, "you could have took the infocard off her belt too, 'Soka."
Ahsoka blushed again, this time out of embarassment.
"Yeah, I got distracted." she said, and bit her lip. The scars on that chest and abs...they were just like the ones on their arm, not tree branches but lightning patterns crisscrossning their skin...
"Ahsoka, are you staring at me?"
"Wha--me? No!" Ahsoka blushed furiously, and Luke pinched the bridge of their nose. Oh, so she wasn't the only one to imitate Obi-Wan.
"Look, please stop. You're what, fifteen? Give me a break, I'm, like, old enough that you could be my daughter--"
"Well I mean you look old enough to be SKYGUY'S parent--"
"Kid, you don't know the half of it--"
"Oooooolllddd. Ancient. Fossil. Older than Master Kenobi--"
"Tsk. Obi-Wan wishes he had an ass this good, and he's dummy thicc!"
"If you children are all quite finished," a deep and very familiar voice boomed, and Ahsoka shuddered as she saw the tall, massive form of Count Dooku descend the ramp of his ship, hovering just over the wreckage of the command center, behind Ventress, "I would have words with thee, Luke Skywalker."
Luke clipped their lightsaber back to their belt and shrugged. "Okay" they said, and jumped off the tank, hands in their pockets.
"Luke!" Ahsoka jumped off the tank, following them as they walked--no, strolled--towards the Sith Lord and his apprentice. "Look, I know you're crazy strong, you managed to hide all your power from Ventress for Force's sake, but that guy is Count kriffin' Dooku, y'know?"
"Who says I'm not still hiding all my power?" Luke smiled to her as they walked. "Rule numero uno, 'Soka: being underestimated is the greatest trump card."
Ahsoka couldn't believe it. Was there really yet even more to underestimate about this person?
-line break-
"Ventress," Dooku said to his Apprentice. "You're wearing Skywalker's shirt."
Asajj scowled. "I did not sleep with them, Master, if that's what you're implying." she said, taking out her lightsabers. "Those two shot at me with a karkin' tank."
"I heard what they said." Dooku pursued his lips. "Perhaps only Kenobi would have been that much of a gentleman, or his master. This Luke Skywalker is more polite in their actions than their words...that's intriguing."
Dooku watched Skywalker and Padawan Tano come to a stop not even six feet away from them. Well into Dooku's easiest reach, just out of Tano's, right into Asajj's and barely out of Skywalker's. Calculations flashed in his mind. Why would Skywalker do this? It meant placing both them and Padawan Tano at a disadvantage. A show of trust? Confidence? Arrogance? Or did they really think that Dooku or Asajj would not attack?
"I can hear the gears turn in your mind, Count." Luke Skywalker stated. "I wouldn't mind fighting you, but I'd much rather we all cooperate."
They were slight, but wiry like a coiled spring. And yet their whole body was relaxed, their Force presence a beacon of calm in the Light as much as Dooku's was still in the Dark. That meant readiness, speed, quick reflexes.
"That was the impression I got from your letter, yes. That, and that you wanted to challenge me." Dooku's hand brushed his lightsaber hilt. Oh? What was that? A tinge of uncertainty, of impulsivity in old age? Nobody made him feel like that in his old age anymore, except Yoda, his Master, or Windu, the uptight fool. "I must say," Dooku continued. "I was quite impressed with your guerrilla operations in the Outer Rim. This 'communist' insurgency of yours, as it calls itself, is quite...pecultiar. I assume that its mysterious leader, this 'Ka'Lir' as voices call them, is you. And the IGBC heist on Muunlinist! My, I doubt San Hill and the Senate will be able to keep it under wraps for much longer, unlike what you've been doing about Zygerria."
Skywalker shrugged. "I just helped." humble. No grandstanding. No grand speeches. They really seemed to just want to talk. To...chat. "The people are sick everywhere around the Galaxy of capital and its wars. I just want to do what both you, the Republic, and the Jedi started out to do, and then didn't. End this meaningless suffering."
"I don't think your young friend, or I, would agree on how you've been doing that." Dooku's lips formed a smile. "She's much too ingrained in the ways of the Jedi. She wants our schematics to win, you want them to destroy the war machine...of both sides."
"I've seen a worse war than this, and many more smaller wars, with worse atrocities." Luke said, their eyes looking older for a second. "I fight you and the Republic only so that the Galaxy may throw away their weapons once it's all over."
"And yet you wrote me in an attempt at persuasion while you could have assassinated me."
"I want you to do the right choice." Luke shrugged. "Is it really a fight you want, Dooku?"
"Yes." Dooku finally took out his lightsaber. "You are an idealist, Luke. And the Sith prove that their ideas are worth merit with superior force."
"That's what the Jedi have been doing for a while, too."
"Why do you think I joined the Sith? At least they admit it." Dooku ignited his lightsaber. Everyone but Skywalker followed suit. "And plus...I want a full challenge from you, Luke Skywalker."
"Fine. But remember you asked." In a split second, Luke closed the distance between them, their lightsaber flying away from their belt and into their hand to make a mid-air cut, and Dooku had to block the blow with his own blade, talking a whole step back. No matter. Dooku flicked his wrist, sending Skywalker back, but Skywalker themselves moved only a step and attacked again. Dooku parried, counterattacked, attacked again--a thousand different moves running in his mind both from his training and experience, a thousand different options with which to choose, not a wasted movement as was typical of a master of Makashi like himself--and yet Luke Skywalker countered his very move and forced him to think even harder.
Dooku's presence rippled in the Force with joy. This, this was a challenge worthy of its name, yes! And the most wonderful thing of all--even if in a quieter way, Luke's Skywalker's whole being sang with mirth at the very duel they were conducting. They were both enjoying themselves. And in that moment, it was all Dooku wanted. It tore through machinations and rage and resentment and darness, through war and fear and endless plans within plans, and brought him back to his youth in the Jedi Temple, with Syfo-Dyas and Master Yoda, and all the other friends from that faraway time. It brought him...peace.
-line break-
Ahsoka eyed Ventress. The assassin had her sabers out, just like her, and they were slowly circling each other. Dooku and Luke were fighting among the wreckage, sending shockwaves in the air with their every blow, their movement lightning-fast and barely readable. It seemed like it could go on forever. Luke was attacking Dooku as hard as Anakin usually did, and yet their self was calm, at peace, devoid of the frustration or anger that usually accompanied Ahsoka's Master in fights against Dooku. Even Dooku seemed more at ease, as if responding to Luke.
Ventress, meanwhile, was unreadable. Her usual scowl had turned into simple worry. In a 'usual' situation, she'd have pounced on Ahsoka and went for her throat. She too displayed an unnatural ease.
"Who do you think will win?" she asked her with a small smirk. If she could at least throw her off-balance, ruin her concentration...
"My Master is...enjoying himself." said Ventress. "Without cruelty or arrogance, this time. It's something that never happens, except for when it's the two of us that are dueling."
Okay, that threw Ahsoka off-balance. Dooku being a nice guy? In which Universe?
She decided to snark. "Didn't know you Sith could be so nice."
Ventress snorted. "I am no Sith, nor will I ever be. My illusions about that have been...rudely shattered."
Ahsoka hid her surprise under an innocent smile and made batty eyes at her opponent. "Sooo...that mean you gonna give me the infocard and turn yourself in?"
"Yeah, no, not a chance." Ventress laughed, and pushed her away with the Force. Ahsoka went skidding away a couple feet, cursing. At least she'd tried. She ran at Ventress, calling to herself pieces debris from the wreckage to distract the woman. Ventress battered those away with her one of her lightsabers, and slashed at the ground with the other, sending rocks flying at Ahsoka. Ahsoka deflected those with her lightsaber and went into Ventress's space with her shoto for a stab, but the woman closed her guard and repelled her. Ahsoka snarled herself and attacked again, but Ventress countered her attack again and they soon found themselves locked in the same stalemate as Luke and Dooku.
"Stalemate?" laughed Ventress, sensing her feelings. "Don't make me laugh. Our weapons are different, you're smaller, shorter. Strength, reach and power are on my side."
"Yeah well," Ahsoka dodged under a slash instead of parrying it, sliding into Ventress's space and kicking her in the leg. "You're wounded and I'm not." she said, throwing her shoto upwards in the air and punching the woman as she went down, this time in the stomach. Ventress responsed with a spat and an inside-out double slash, forcing her back. Ahsoka called the shoto down on Ventress, but the woman simply deflected it back at her with the Force.
"Don't think you've won just yet, Padawan."
"Well," Ashoka smirked, producing a small, silver infocard between her two fingers. "Actually, I think I just did."
Ventress's hand went to her belt. "Shit." she said, and Ahsoka smiled in triumph.
-line break-
Despite his fun, Dooku was at a loss. He was the undisputed master of Makashi out of all the Jedi. Yoda was the master of Ataru. Obi-Wan of Soresu. Windu of Vaapad. And that insufferable Anakin was master of Djem So.
Very few Jedi could be called masters of one style, let alone all of them.
And yet Luke Skywalker seemed to switch effortlessly between all Seven Forms of lightsaber combat whenever it suited them. They jumped, spun, deflected, pressed, whaled on, switching between Forms as if they didn't care at all. Dooku could keep abreast of those wild shifts in patterns only through more than seventy years of study and practice. How was this possible?
And then, it dawned on him.
"You have no style at all." Dooku said, almost deflated, as he redirected a stab.
Luke Skywalker had the audacity to shrug while locked in combat. "I have plenty of style" they said with a smile. "Look how I rock this shirtless jacket!"
"Are you mocking me?" Dooku snarled. "You fight like a common street brawler."
"Well, I did grow up on Tattooine after all." Luke said, and then did the unthinkable.
They stepped on Dooku's cape.
Dooku slipped, his balance and concentration lost. Skywalker had stepped on his cape. Not even--not even Anakin had dared to go so low--
But Luke Skywalker went even lower. In fact, they fell on their mechanical hand, spun on it, and kicked Dooku's legs out from under him.
The fallen Jedi fell...flat on his butt. Anger and humiliation shot though Dooku, but a sharp pain in his lower back and knees prevented him from even reaching a seated position as far as he'd liked. And even as he managed that, cursing his old age, he couldn't be prepared for what came next. Luke Skywalker ripped the skin and flesh off their own right hand and slapped him with it.
Dooku realized only a moment later it was synthetic, but it mattered little. The slap stung worse than a killing blow. His composure and pride were gone in and instant, and he could only feel rage.
With a guttural cry, he let it all flow outward, deep purplish blue Force lightning right at his enemy.
And Luke simply...abdorbed it through their flesh hand.
"Been there, done that." they stated, and it was as if Dooku's shock was enough to make his rage disappear. Skywalker put the synthetic flesh back on their prostethic hand, and continued: "I slapped you with a glove, so to speak, as you were down because I wanted to make you understand how it feels, in a language I thought an aristocrat like you could appreciate. I was a moisture farmer. Me and my family dug tracking chips--miniaturized bombs, Dooku--out of escaped slaves. I cut open people to help them gain the freedom I was born with when I was ten, and I was the first freeborn of my name. I've been getting kicked in the teeth since I was even younger, and I've had to survive in the sands of Tattooine. Your volcano? It's fun, it's campy, it's sincere. It's the thing I live for. But its fire is almost cold compared to the heat I'm used to."
Dooku grit his teeth in rage at being talked down like that, but remained still. No point in attacking them as they talked, even now that he'd recovered his senses. Luke Skywalker had dimostrated that, if they so wanted, they could be faster and more unpredictable than him...in a way only Sidious matched. Just who was this Luke Skywalker?
"I'm nobody. Just a kid from Tatooine who's had enough of seeing privileged, sheltered fucks harm innocents, either consciously or because they don't even realize that the little people exist, and far outnumber them." Skywalker said, sensing his thoughts. "Ka'Lir Ni'aversa'al is the trickster spirit of forgotten Tatooine. They are who Anakin Skywalker dreamed to be yet never was, because goddamn it, did he ever go to Tattooine and help the slaves free themselves?" Luke's hands had balled into fists, and the lava raged as they stood over Dooku and kept talking, green lightining striking from the clouds above the volcano--green like Skywalker's lightsaber, Dooku noted, as the blong kept fell silent. Their face had darkened, and their hair was billowing in the air discharge from Dooku's ship and the energy from the volcano. And Dooku could feel their rage: it was nothing like Anakin's. This fury was cold, a storm that could slip by unnoticed, focus on a single point and become a nuke whenever it wished.
"Then why haven't you gone to the other Skywalker, instead of me?" Dooku snapped. "You share a family name with Anakin, and I'm sure you share blood. He'd be delighted to get a speech from you. The boy oh so loves lessons."
Luke laughed darkly, and ran a hand through their hair. It was then that Dooku noticed the scars on their chest: a thousand small lighning patterns, in shapes that came only from prolonged exposure to Force lightning. This person had known the Dark Side. "Anakin is a kid. He's twenty, for Force's sake. He thinks he's gotta do everything by extremes. He thinks in absolutes, like a Sith, even if he hates the Sith absolutely, on principle. You're a grown-ass man. I wanted to meet you, discuss philosophy with you, but you're a moron too. You can rationalize, yes, but like every Jedi of this time you rationalize too much and fall into the same banthashit as Anakin." Luke's anger dissipated, and it was replaced by determination. "You and him are equals and opposites. You both think you'll free the people by handing them over to a dictator, and fight for the same master on opposite sides of the barricade. But me? I'm soooo done with this shit, Dooku. I couldn't care less. I'll burn your goddamn war machine to the ground, and then you'll have to decide if you want to play faux-bipolarism or really serve the Galaxy, so to speak."
"So?" Dooku asked. He'd been bested. Skywalker's wasn't logic, it was facts. But he couldn't abandon Sidious's side. Or could he?
"So clean up your act." Luke said, stepping away and fiddling with a communicator on their belt. "You get one warning. That was it."
A ship, a modified YT-1300 freighter, roared into the caldera of the volcano, and Dooku didn't even get up as Luke Force-jumped on the freighter's extended ramp. "Hey, Ahsoka!" they called to the Jedi Padawan still fighting with Ventress. Said Padawn jumped ten feet back from where she was and sent a Force push to stall her adversary. "What?" she called to the strange warrior--and then the infocard flew out of her belt and into Luke's hand.
"You're great, kid, if a bit distracted." they smiled, and reached out with their other hand. Ventress was yeeted away and landed right next to Dooku in a heap.
"Dooku, I don't wanna see you die in a place like this without fighting. Take Ventress and run. You'll need time to think, I'm sure, and we all need time to rest." the old Count gave them a grim nod, and then helped his apprentice to the ship. "That goes for you too, Ahsoka. I suggest you book it in the opposite direction, your teacher is coming in with bombers on this place."
"You can't just take the infocard." Ahsoka protested. "The Republic needs that information!"
"I'm sorry." Luke said, a pained expression on their face as the ship slowly turned to be nearer to the Padawan. "Give my regards to Anakin."
"I trusted you." Ahsoka seethed. "But you let Dooku and Ventress go free." she said, gesturing to the Sith who were getting in their ship, ready to run away.
"Should I kick them while they're down? Is that the Jedi way?"
"No, but--" Ashoka cursed. "You promised to tell me what's your relation to Anakin. You promised, Luke, and then you betrayed my trust and that uniform which is probably stolen--"
"He's family." Luke's face softened, and Ahsoka fell silent in shock. "He's family, 'Soka. Close and distant at the same time. I never knew him when he was young, and I regret it. I wish I could have helped him make healthier choices. Yet I love him with all my heart, because I know he's a good man, and he loves you, and Obi-Wan, and all his friends. I wish he could see what I'm doing. I wish we could meet without fighting...but we're on opposite sides of the fight. And I can't tell you anything more for now, sorry."
Ahsoka opened her mouth and then closed it. The ship with Ventress and Dooku was fleeing out of the caldera ads here she sat talking with this utterly incomprehensible being. "Alright. Fine. But--"
"If you want to meet me again, the Force will bring us together."
"But--why are we on opposite sides?"
"Well, for starters, ask yourself, or your teachers, one simple question: are Clones free?" Luke's face hardened again for a second, and then they smiled again. "Bye, Ahsoka."
"We will meet again."
"Alright." Luke smiled. "Just remember one thing."
Ahsoka laughed despite the direness of the situation, the smoldering wreckages of the base all around her, the utter failure of her mission, Dooku and Ventress's escape, and the fact she was inside a volcano. "I know what you're gonna say. And I know you know I know."
"Of course I do." Luke said as the ship started ascending out of the caldera. "After all, I'm Luke Skywalker, and I'm supercool."
The ship flew away, and Ahsoka watched it evade and shoot both at Seppie fighters and Republic ones. Whoever Luke had piloting it (and Ashoka could bet that it was the boyfriend Luke had mentioned) was good. But she'd seen enough. She turned and ran in the opposite direction. She could hear explosions, loud and close, just outside the volcano, but when she finally got out, it was all over. Among the fire and the smoke, Anakin Skywalker was covered in oil and droid circuits, and even his soldiers of the 501st were eyeing him warily as they surveyed what remained of the droid forces and vehicles.
"Hey, Snips." Anakin smiled at her as soon as he saw her. "How ya been?"
His hands were shaking and his lightsaber was still lit in them. Ahsoka didn't know what to reply.
-end chapter