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fanficsforheartandsoul · 4 years

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Enemies | [Darth Maul x Fem!Reader] | Part II

Notes: God, this took a while. I’m sorry xD Also, my subscription for grammarly ran out and now I’m probably making a lot more mistakes again, sorry about that but I’m broke right now, it’ll take a while until I can get it again xD Also,this part is mostly showing the Reader’s life after Maul’s supposed death.

Fandoms: Star Wars, The Clone Wars

Warnings: Non-Canon Story, Angst, Depression, Slight OOC, Original Characters, Time Skips

Summary: Y/N mourns for something she can never have but Maul won’t let her.

Word Count: 6′672

Taglist: @princessayveke @pinkiemme @thats-not-very-roger-roger

If you want to be tagged in my stories send me a pm with the fandom/character name! Or comment on the fic :)

Masterlist

Part I

They held a funeral for the dead Jedi, and her Master asked her if she wanted to attend.

Y/N declined with the reason that her injuries hurt too badly, although that was a white lie.

She would probably break down if she was surrounded by grieving people, and with his permission, she left Naboo in a hurry and returned to the Jedi temple on Coruscant.

When her feet touched the surface of the planet she lived on for the last 16 years, she breathed in. It felt like a massive weight was crushing her lungs and was dragging her shoulders to the ground.

She wanted to crumble right then and there, but her Master seemed to have announced her return to the High Council, and she was surprised to see Master Yoda standing at the transporter landing platform.

They weren't even close to the Jedi temple, so why...?

Y/N breathed out and straightened her back.

She respectfully cupped her hands and bowed before him, although there was a bad taste in her mouth that left her with a bitter feeling.

The old Jedi, who had trained her from a young age, looked at her with worried eyes. He could feel that the force around her was unstable. Very strange for the usually composed padawan.

It reminded him of Y/N's first few weeks in the temple. The same sadness and grief, if not a stronger one, weighted in her force presence, and it caused him to raise an eyebrow.

He had already heard that the padawan had met her childhood friend on Naboo, the boy for whom she had cried in her sleep for months when she was younger.

Suddenly they had met again, the Zabrak had turned to the Dark Side, and his destiny not only seemed to have shocked the young woman but his death deeply affected her too.

At first, he was doubtful when Master Ra'eli had told him that because the padawan he knew was collected and never let her emotions get to her head. She let it happen in her youth but not anymore.

That's at least what he thought. Now that he saw her empty eyes and the detached expression, he understood that he had been wrong.

His tone was soft when he said:

"About your mission, we should talk, Y/N."

The padawan squinted her eyes but she didn't voice any objections. She couldn't. Yoda was the grandmaster of the Jedi, after all.

Although she would rather cut her own arm off instead of having to discuss the events on Naboo. But she knew she would eventually have to face the council.

"Yes, Master," was all she replied.

He hummed and let his eyes scrutinize her, before turning around and leading Y/N to a taxi which seemed to have waited for them.

When they reached the Jedi temple, the padawan quietly walked beside Master Yoda, and they climbed the stairs in silence. Same as it had been with the short trip in the taxi.

The atmosphere was tense and almost unbearable for her. Every step she took seemed like one step closer to suffering, and her legs got heavier and heavier.

Thankfully, the grandmaster wasn't in a hurry, and she could adjust her pace to his, take a breather, and mentally prepare for the Council meeting that would definitely follow.

Her chest was tight from nervousness but also the bandage that stabilized her broken ribs.

Her Master had advised her to get into a bacta tank when she had returned to the temple, and she had nodded, although not understanding why she would need to go to such measures.

She didn't feel any prominent pain, she was fine. Everything was alright.

When she reached the end of the stairs, she noticed that Master Yoda was missing from her side. The padawan turned, and her eyes searched for him. He was standing a few steps under hers and looked at her with a thoughtful expression.

"Master?"

She shifted, hiding her faintly trembling hands in the long sleeves of her robes.

"Tired, you are, hmm? Discuss your mission tomorrow, we will. Go, heal, and rest."

Y/N watched him with a vague expression, but her eyes showed surprise. She lowered her head and bowed.

"Yes, thank you, Master."

The padawan turned and walked away, but Yoda had been able to see her quivering lips. The thoughtful expression disappeared, and his face turned grim.

The council, I must inform.

Y/N walked through the temple, but instead of taking the stairs to the Halls of Healing, she went straight to her quarter in the northern parts of the temple.

She was sure that the first aid she had received on Naboo was enough for her. Her head had stopped hurting after a medical droid treated her wound and gave her some painkillers, and the pressure on her chest was weak.

She would heal in time. After all, everyone did, right?

When she reached the dormitory, she walked past some rooms and suddenly froze when she saw a particular nameplate.

All this time, he was practically my neighbor?

His blue eyes and auburn hair came to her mind, memories of two children playing hide and seek in the Jedi gardens and many sleepovers. Anguish spread in her chest, she gritted her teeth and walked past Kenobi's room.

Five doors later, she finally reached her quarter, and she pushed her code into the panel to unlock it.

When she was finally in her own four walls, she felt a big void in her chest, and her emotionless expression crumbled. She stood frozen in the middle of her room, her shaky breathing the only sound.

Y/N closed her eyes, and she tried to concentrate on taking deep breaths. She focused so hard on it that she didn't even realize how her fingernails dug into her palm and tore the skin.

Focus.

While she tried to get control over her emotions again, she tightened her grip on a grey broken object with sweaty hands.

I’m fine. I’m fine, everything is alright.

Then, finally after a long time, her breath slowly calmed down, her fists unclenched, and the force stabilized around her.

When she opened her eyes again, Y/N's face was perfectly stoic, and her whole body was numb. The tight feeling in her chest was gone. Everything was gone. She was functional.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

When the High Council called her the next day, Y/N had already acquainted herself with her body's numbness.

And when the most respected Jedi of the temple asked her about the fight, they were surprised by the lack of emotions in her force presence and the neutral tone in her voice.

When she talked about Maul, she used detached words, and instead of addressing him with his name from his childhood, she said The Sith Lord, The Dark Side User, or just simply The Man.

The members of the council stared at her with curious eyes, only Master Yoda's expression was somewhat grave.

Then Master Windu asked the most important question, and the other Jedi held their breath for Y/N's response.

"Is it not true that he was your childhood friend?"

The question was justified, and everyone in the room knew that. The padawan stiffened just a little, and Ki-Adi-Mundi and Shaak Ti slightly leaned forward in anticipation.

She breathed in and straightened her back. Her expression was indifferent, but it looked oddly superficial.

"The person that killed Master Jinn was not my childhood friend, no. I believe that the Zabrak I once knew was already dead. The Sith had destroyed him."

The grandmaster tilted his head, and his hand traced over his chin.

"Us the truth, you must tell, padawan. Your feelings...?"

Y/N's eyes and force presence held no trace of a lie when she answered:

"I'm fine, Master."

And it was the truth.

It was the truth for the next days, the next weeks, and the next years.

She was fine.

After her Master had returned, and she was allowed to recuperate for a month, the High Council decided to grant her and Kenobi the rank of a Jedi knight.

The young man received his title because he killed a Sith lord and passed the Trial of The Flesh, while she...

Y/N didn't even know what she achieved to obtain the title.

She had acted like a fool as if she had forgotten all her training. She got injured, couldn't stop her former childhood friend from killing a Jedi, and was useless in general.

But Yoda knighted her anyway.

According to him, her Master said she was ready. But she wasn’t. She really wasn’t.

But like so many times before, she remained silent about it and didn't object.

What use was it to protest? She just wanted to be left alone.

The new rank didn't fill her with pride. But neither did she feel shame. The numbness was the only thing in her heart.

And if she had to take a hard guess, she would say that it was because of Maul. When Kenobi had slashed him in half, the Jedi killed part of her too.

It tormented her in her sleep. Almost every night, she would wake up in cold sweat, hateful yellow eyes haunting her.

Only then did she feel something again. But she definitely preferred the numbness over the fear and anxiety.

It cost all her concentration to ignore all the pain she felt from Maul’s death. The grey object she took from Naboo became her companion, and in the darkest nights, she held it tightly in her sleep.

The Jedi knight ignored her nightmares, and she plunged into work, following her former Master's footsteps; she became a Jedi Sentinel, a Shadow like him. Partly because her Master had mostly taught her about a Sentinel's duties, but also because there was a flame in her heart.

A flame that couldn't be quelled. She wanted to extinguish the hateful fire that burned in her chest and finally achieve peace but for that, she needed to obliterate everything that had something to do with the Sith and the Dark Side.

For Y/N, it was like a duty. Something she owed him.

Strangely, she believed that his soul would find peace in the force if she found the one who had done this to him, the one who had forced him to turn into that furious beast.

She had already decided not to remember the Zabrak as he had appeared before her during their last meeting.

In her heart there was only space for the shy boy with the biggest smile and the beautiful sun-like eyes from Dathomir. Not the angry, snarling Sith who held no mercy for any life form.

That’s at least what she told herself. But in her dreams was no happy little boy. Her illusions of a grown-up, laughing Maul had been destroyed.

How could her subconscious still project that version of him she had imagined over the years?

The man Y/N had dreamt about never existed in the first place.

The Zabrak didn’t grow up to become the courageous and prideful warrior she had assumed he would. His presence hadn’t been relaxing. His eyes hadn't been filled with warmth.

The Maul in her dreams was cold. The touch of a single finger of his would cause a shiver to run down her spine, and when he choked her in anger, it felt as if her whole body was frozen.

He would always strangle her.

It was the same scenario over and over again. A replay of the fight. Only that she was alone. Her Master, Kenobi, Master Jinn, none of them were there. And she and Maul would fight.

And she would lose. Every god damn time.

She couldn’t even remember how many times he had strangled her. Always with one hand. Always with an ugly grin on his face and hateful eyes. He would lean forward, his breath tickling her ear.

His mouth would move. He would tell her something, but she could never understand. Could never hear what he said. Only a ringing sound filled her ears.

Like the last time, they had held eye-contact.

When he had died.

And then he would clench his fist, and she would wake up with sweaty robes, a damp forehead, and a phantom pain in her throat.

People always said that Jedi Shadows controlled their emotions with an iron hand, but that wasn’t true. Y/N was sure that the Jedi Shadows, in fact, all Jedi, couldn't control their emotions at all.

They just buried them under the hypocritical rules of the order and their Jedi duties. That’s what she did too. And from what she had seen, she wasn't the only one.

She could name so many examples.

The Jedi knight ignored the desperation she felt when she couldn’t understand what the Zabrak tried to tell her in her nightmares. She ignored the instability in the force when she was alone, and she moved on.

If she couldn't sleep, she meditated. If she couldn’t meditate, she sparred.

It was a test of the mental barriers she had set up. Dark thoughts lurked at the border of her peaceful meditations, and it took a lot of restraint to not let them in.

But the wall of numbness protected her. She was happily bathing in the numbness of her body and mind.

And Y/N was fine.

Fine enough to receive her first special mission from the Council of First Knowledge. It took a while though.

Apparently, the High Council was worried about her mental health at first, but when they noticed that she seemed alright when she visited the library or went to meditate and train, they allowed the mission after two months. It was an easy task.

Find a Holocron, retrieve, and destroy it.

"Don't forget this, Y/N."

Her former Master had said, one day before her mission. He gave her back her lightsaber. The one she had lost on Naboo.

She took it silently, not able to look him in the eyes. The memories of him losing control of his emotions were still vivid before her eyes.

She could feel his stare on her body and she knew, he wanted to talk about that day, but she couldn’t. There was nothing to talk about, at least in her opinion.

When she touched the cold metal of her lightsaber, it felt like a bolt went through her body, and she almost dropped it.

This weapon held the darkest memories of her life. She would never use it again. Never.

Things would well up when she touched the hilt. She couldn’t handle it.

So, she continued to use the blade she had borrowed from the temple guards.

After the mission, I should ask the High Council if I could pay a visit to Ilum.

And so she left.

They sent her alone.

And when she came back, she had finished her task with outstanding results.

It only took her two weeks.

The councils were very pleased and praised her.

Y/N smiled bitterly in secret, remembering all the lives she had taken, for the sake of one stupid Holocron about an already destroyed Sith temple.

And the truth slowly revealed itself, if she wanted to or not. But she ignored it.

Like so many other things and signs.

She held onto the rules of her Jedi life, as if they were a lifeline. The code was the only thing that kept her from crumbling.

The woman’s reputation was soon overshadowed by a rumor of a padawan. The boy Master Jinn had saved on Tatooine, the one he entrusted to Kenobi.

Anakin Skywalker. The Chosen One.

She had laughed when she first saw him train.

This was the child everyone was talking about? The savior? The one who would keep the force in balance?

Wishful thinking.

If the Jedi entrusted the destiny of the Republic to that mere boy, she couldn’t understand why the Sith went into hiding. The Jedi were clearly vulnerable and the High Council members were old fools.

She swallowed her bitter laugh and blasphemous thoughts and went on with her days.

She received the permission of the High Council to get a new kybercrystal on Ilum after she told them about her "accidental” loss of her lightsaber.

She traveled with some padawans, and she knew that they watched her with eagle eyes.

Her reputation may have been overshadowed by Skywalker's, but people still knew about The Prodigy.

She ignored them with clenched fists. Her acquired inofficial title now seemed like a curse.

Anyways, the trip was successful, and 4 months after her former best friend's death, she got a new lightsaber.

Y/N also chose to become a Jedi Sentinel because they rarely stayed at the temple on Coruscant. When she was a padawan, she had a lot of duties in the Archives, but now that she was a Knight…

She could finally leave and get stationed somewhere far away. Far away from her former Master. Far away from the man who killed Maul. Far away from the watchful eyes of the High Council. Far away from all the hypocrisy.

And when she arrived on Dantooine, it felt like she could finally leave the turmoil, that waged in her heart, behind.

Dantooine was far from the Core Worlds, and although its Jedi temple was abandoned, the Council of First Knowledge sent her anyway, because there were rumors that a local gang was going to trade some Sith artifacts. She was supposed to infiltrate the group and find out more.

It was a welcome change.

Y/N could take off the Jedi robes for a short moment, and when she changed into civilian clothes, there was a weight taken from her shoulders. It wasn’t that she disliked being a Jedi, it was more the things that came with being one that burdened her.

Aside from the obvious restriction of letting your emotions run free and the fact that she always needed to restrain herself, there was also something else that had caused a bitter taste in her mouth.

The prohibition of marriage and love had shocked her when she had joined the order.

As a child who was super excited about marrying Maul... It felt like the world came crashing down.

It had stacked on the fact that she would never meet her best friend again. However, that shock slowly faded with the progress of training and the increase of her knowledge of the Jedi philosophy.

And so she thought she was alright.

But now that she had been reminded of the feelings she had held for Maul... It felt like a great loss.

She would never bear children. Her bloodline wouldn’t continue with her. There would never be a legacy.

Y/N L/N would never teach her own blood anything.

Of course, if she wanted to teach someone, she could take a padawan, but that also wasn’t in her hands.

The council would decide if she was ready for one, though she highly doubted they would ever say she was. But that wasn’t the problem.

Even if she had a padawan. She could never love them. She wasn’t allowed to. Like she wasn’t allowed to love Maul.

Attachments are forbidden.

Forget him.

The words of renowned Jedi echoed in her head, and it felt like she got strangled.

There was a tiny, bitter voice in her heart that whispered that there was always another possibility, another choice, free of any Jedi rules.

But these feelings and imaginations were not appropriate for a Jedi.

So she closed off all the forbidden thoughts and concentrated on her mission. It would take a while to establish a trusting relationship between the locals, but she welcomed this period with open arms.

And so time passed.

The mission on Dantooine had unexpectedly turned into a giant conspiracy.

It involved not only the planet in the Raioballo sector but also planets from across the galaxy. The thread puller: The Hutt clan. The Sith artifacts were used by a corrupted Hutt who was drunk on the powers of the Dark Side. Y/N's planned 8 months operation turned into 10 years undercover.

And in all this time, not once did she let herself break down and grief.

Not for Maul, not for the friends she had made on Dantooine and who then died in a battle.

Her walls around these emotions were invincible. They always emerged victoriously. That's at least what she believed.

Still, Y/N had changed. The years far away from Coruscant had influenced her far more than they should have.

She lost the humble attitude, wore jewelry, used her charm as a woman to get information, drank alcohol outside from investigations, enjoyed bare hand brawls, talked in a crude manner, laughed about the Republic and the Jedi, and found pleasure in visiting loud cantinas with drugs and dancers.

She let go of the restrictions the Jedi order had set on herself and she changed.

The smooth edges of her character hardened. Mercy wasn't her first choice anymore.

She told herself that this was only part of her cover, but she had slowly stepped off the supposedly rightful path, which was dangerous for a Jedi. But she hadn't felt like one in a long time anyway.

Although she was undercover, Y/N regularly meditated. In the deepest hours of the night, she trained her forms. She didn't allow her body to get rusty. It was her weapon after all. But the philosophies of the Jedi were far away in the Outer Rims…

At some point, years into her mission, the code didn’t help her to meditate anymore.

And one day, she found herself in a dangerous situation, and the first thing that came to her mind wasn't a Jedi technique.

Magick.

It was only a small trick she had been taught on Dathomir, but it was a dip into the Dark Side.

Only a toe, just for a second, but it changed Y/N's views fundamentally.

The feeling was familiar, it trickled through her body like warm summer rain, and the supposed hate, fear, and violence that the Jedi associated with the Dark Side was nowhere to be found. There was only her own sadness and pain.

And the questions she had long buried rose again.

What if all Dark Side users were like Maul? Corrupted? What if one uses the Dark Side to do good? What if there is more than just black and white?

She had met ambiguous people in her time on Dantooine and later in the Hutt space, and although they had done bad things, they were not evil people.

Some were forced to do bad things by others, some had never done something else in their life since the had been a child, and others were just hurting too much to understand what they had done.

But in all of them could Y/N feel and see good.

Was it only their protectiveness over their comrades, or the way they treated their ships with fondness, they were living, which meant they made mistakes. Everyone did.

Had the Jedi realized that?

Although her walls around her emotions crumbled and she slowly began to see through the veil of her years in the Jedi order, she stopped herself from probing further into unknown territory.

After all, she still felt obligated to the Jedi and found momentary peace in their principles.

They had raised her, fed her for years, they gave her a place to sleep, they taught her morals and showed her a path to her true heart, to the force.

After such a long time on Dantooine where she saw the slums and the circumstances, some people had to live in… She had lived like a queen in the Jedi temple compared to them.

Y/N acted as if there were two people inside of her. Her cover as the smuggler and the Jedi. And she treated them differently.

Y/N L/N was banned to the shadows of the night and only moonlight. While Dove reigned over the days and bathed in the sun.

She had been taught that a Jedi Shadow always needed a perfect cover, it was supposed to be natural. And Y/N was good at playing a determined, slightly crude smuggler with big ambitions who disliked the Republic.

Another padawan had told her once that undercover missions brought out the secret character traits of a person but she hadn’t believed him. She didn't realize that he was right.

Both Y/N and Dove were one. Both were a part of her. And their attitudes and beliefs slowly mixed.

Y/N L/N’s true colors slowly manifested on the canvas.

What once was covered up, bled through.

However, she desperately tried to hide it once again. Or else she believed she would lose her footing in the Jedi order.

Aside from her slightly worrying character changes, her mission was doing great.

She had finally met the man behind the whole conspiracy, and soon he would be arrested. In the worst case, she would have to kill him, but she wanted to avoid that. Her small encounter with the Dark Side had made her hesitate.

But then it happened.

She received a holo transmission from the Council of First Knowledge. Something that had only occurred twice in the ten years she had been undercover. Her contact person was usually someone outside of the order. But this time it was all the high tiers.

Y/N had a bad premonition, and it was linked to a nightmare she had a few days ago, where the force had cried out to her in unexplainable pain.

The fact that she had dreamt about something else than her friends’ deaths, was already a shock for her.

"Y/N L/N, it's good to know you're still alive."

The woman frowned a little. Did they believe she had died? She had contacted one of her informants of the Order just three weeks ago.

"Masters", was all she responded, and she nodded at the council members instead of bowing, too used to this greeting after all these years undercover.

She recognized only one of them, the Caretaker of First Knowledge, the others seemed to be new members.

Which was understandable, ten years had passed and the four members rotated every five years. She had seen two generations of masters during her mission.

All of them seemed to be relieved in a way, she could feel it through the force.

She raised an eyebrow.

What is happening?

Y/N understood that her mission was a rare case.

Usually, undercover missions wouldn’t go on for that long, mainly because the order wouldn’t let a Jedi be this deeply involved with the galaxy’s underworld but the council had worried that the Hutt, who had stepped into the world of the Dark Side, would cause havoc for the Republic, and they obviously wanted to avoid that.

So, she understood their concern but their relief seemed slightly too big for only that reason, after all, they didn’t really know her.

After thinking about it for a second, she hesitantly asked:

“You seem concerned. Did something happen?”

The older members shared a look and then the caretaker said with a grave and urgent undertone:

"You must have heard it. The Galactic Republic is at war with The Confederacy of Independent Systems. We would like you to-"

"WHAT?", she interrupted with a loud voice.

A war had started? How?! When?

She was currently staying on Nal Hutta, but she was sure that news about a war would have been told to her. After all, Dove held a high position in the Mantis gang right now.

The Jedi Master on the hologram looked at her with worried expressions.

"We can't talk for long, this channel will be closed soon. L/N, we will delete all Jedi Shadow names in the Archives. It's a security measure. But we would like you to finish your mission and then go to the coordinates we'll send you. You’ll meet with other Shadows and receive further instructions."

She just blinked.

What was happening? They were wiping out the records? Why? How where the Jedi involved with the war?

A sinking feeling appeared in her gut, and she realized that the voices she had heard in her dreams must have been dying force users, Jedi.

So many lives...

This can’t be true!

Her hands clenched, and she hid them behind her back. Soon she could probably do that in her black robes again. Maybe even on a battlefield... The thought made her gulp.

"Masters, will there be another way to contact you?"

They shook their heads.

"It's not safe anymore, child", said a female member of the council. She smiled sadly at Y/N.

"The Dark Side of the force revealed itself again. You must stay safe. May the force be with you."

Before she could even ask what that first sentence was supposed to mean, the transmission ended. Only the blinking of her comlink announced that she had received the coordinates of the council and that the conversation really had happened.

Y/N breathed in slowly. Her hands slightly shook, but she clenched them into fists and closed her eyes.

The darkness in the force showed itself again.

The icy feeling in her chest was slowly burned away. A determined fire began to stir in her heart.

Whatever this meant, she would find out. For him.

"S9, how far away are we?"

After the holo transmission, Y/N had continued her task. Although it ended abruptly and not how she had planned.

How could she know that the big boss would commit suicide?

That wasn't a move somebody had pulled on her before. Even in all those 10 years, no one had rather killed themselves than surrender to her.

But it had happened, and she couldn't do anything to stop it.

It was a bad outcome for her mission because there were definitely some secrets left that should be revealed and the corrupted Hutt had been able to use the force in incredible ways, but Y/N didn't care anymore.

He was dead and there were more urgent things she had to take care of.

The news she now received every day of the war between the Republic and the Separatists worried her.

The Republic had somehow gotten ahold of a giant army of white armored men. They were clones.

She couldn’t find out how that happened, or where they came from. But she had heard that Jedi knights, especially Jedi Guardians, had been appointed as generals for the clones.

The Peacekeepers of the Galaxy had turned into soldiers.

Y/N didn’t know if that was a choice the High council had made or if the Senate wanted them to do it but either way, the thought made her intestines churn. This spoke against the beliefs of the Jedi. She couldn’t find a reason to why the councils would have allowed that.

After she had left her cover in the dark of the night, she had only limited resources for information gathering.

The reason; the gang she had stayed with for 8 years had put a bounty on her head. And because she was partly the reason for their success and wealth, but also the death of their boss, it was a big one.

But she thankfully had no problems to leave Nal Hutta apart from a run-in with a clumsy bounty hunter, and she reached the coordinates which the council had sent her without any delays.

The droid that had accompanied her for the last decade whistled, and she sighed.

They had arrived on Corellia.

The planet in the Core Worlds was inhabited and it could be seen from space. Why the council chose this planet... Y/N didn't know. She never set a foot on it.

But now when she did she immediately felt a shift in the force.

This...!

The familiar calmness of her former Master's presence in the force seemed to wrap itself around her and although it had soothed her in the past, it now felt like an intrusion of her space.

She automatically hid her force presence and strengthened her mental walls. She could still feel him in the force and he could feel her but it seemed like he could no longer locate her as easily.

This pleased her and she slowly made her way to his location.

To tell the truth, Y/N wasn't ready to meet her former Master again. After she had left Coruscant and the order for her undercover mission, she had a lot of time to think about the events that had occurred on Naboo.

Her Master's heartbroken face from that time had haunted her for many years.

It was because she couldn't find any reason why he looked at her with such an expression. No, that wasn't true.

There was a reason she could imagine, but it didn't make any sense, so she never acknowledged it. Because it spoke against the Jedi code. And her Master wasn't a person who would break it.

But now that she thought about it... Maybe she didn't know enough about him to actually be able to say that.

She had also believed that she knew Kenobi well, they had been friends for years after all, but in the end...

And from all the things she had observed in her 16 years of living with the Jedi order, she knew that almost no one had a completely white vest when it came to the code.

So maybe it could be that her Master had felt more than just basic companionship for the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn.

But she didn't want to think about it. Her beliefs were already shaken, there was no need to shake them further.

The meeting point seemed to be at a backstreet right behind the daily market. Y/N assumed that they would take the actual discussions to a secondary location.

The Council of First Knowledge had always been careful in regards to information distribution, that's why she didn't question her lack of knowledge about the upcoming meeting.

Before she turned into the alley, she told her astromech droid to stay put and keep an eye out, then she walked into the shades of the houses and joined the other eight shadows who were already present.

"Identify yourself", demanded one of them, a man with a big build and a deep voice.

She recognized him as one of the former council members, Anatosh, or something like that.

"Y/N L/N", she stated and she turned her head to one of the other hooded people.

Her eyes found the ones of her former Master.

The brown color was still the same but Leon Ra'eli had developed deep circles under his eyes and she could see that he had gained more wrinkles in his face. He had aged and his former rather handsome attributes had dulled. Maybe from the war but probably mostly from aging.

"Y/N, it's good to see you alive and well."

His voice was also familiar, however, the soft undertone was missing and his exhaustion shined through.

Oh, Master... What have you become...?

"Master", she replied and greeted him with a bow.

A whisper from the other present members of the Jedi order took her attention away from her former Master, and she gladly stopped facing him.

"Is she the one who people called The Prodigy? I thought she had died?"

Y/N frowned but before she could say anything, the former council member, raised his voice: "Now that we're all here, we should find a better place to talk."

She turned her head a little and noticed that six more people had joined them, there were now 15 Jedi Shadows attending this mysterious meeting.

The 34-years old Jedi bit her lip, she hadn't been able to feel the other six approaching, they were like ghosts.

Y/N knew immediately that they were masters of the force concealment that she had practiced for such a long time. She expected herself to be a skilled user but the newcomers were way out of her league.

"It's good to see you again, Anatol", said one of them, and the voice seemed familiar for her.

The former Council member just nodded at the other and then ordered:

"I sent all of you our secondary location, we meet there at 1600. You have 15 minutes, now disperse!"

The military tone slightly put Y/N off but she ignored it for the time being. She turned her back on the group and walked out of the alley, back to R7-S9's location.

"We're going", was all she said to him and he followed her obediently with a whistle.

Under her long sleeves, she checked her comlink for the coordinates.

It wasn't far away, she would only have to cross the market, and then she would arrive at the steps of the bar where they would meet again.

"It's probably going to be a room in the back", she muttered to herself and the droid agreed.

This method reminded her of the countless rendezvous she had held when she was part of the Mantis gang. Only that she wasn't the one leading the meetings now.

While she traversed the market, she inspected the food at some stalls, bought a couple of old holo-music-tapes, and acted like a tourist, just to make sure. Anatol didn't give them 15 minutes for nothing. If they had traveled together as a group full of cloaked figures it would cause a lot of attention.

But while she acted like a relaxed market visitor, her mind was elsewhere.

She hadn't been sure if this meeting would be held with all Jedi Shadows present, still wasn't sure, but if it was...

Where was the rest of them?

Although she had never met all the Jedi Shadows scattered in the galaxy, she had seen more than just 15. She had met at least 40 members of the special group of the order, so what if...

She couldn't finish the thought, it was too worrying.

Although she had distanced herself from other Jedi, mainly involuntary through her mission, but also because of the events she had been through, she still held the feeling of companionship for her fellow Jedi.

Especially Jedi shadows. It had weakened, yes, but after everything, she was still a part of them and the knowledge that they also wanted to get rid of the darkness in the galaxy strengthened the feeling of the connection.

So she worried. That they were the only ones left. That they had been killed, destroyed by the newly revealed darkness in the galaxy. She remembered the stories of the war, the rumors about the Separatist's generals, how cruel they were.

And her resolve only strengthened, she would cleanse the galaxy of the darkness. No Sith would ever be able to prosper again. She swore on the death of her best friend, all evil shall be annihilated.

And if she had to follow the Jedi rules for this, she would.

If she had to work together with her estranged Master, she would.

If she had to join a war for this, she would.

[Somewhere on Lotho Minor, 20 BBY, 2 years later]

"This is where you live? How long have you been here?"

"Years and years and years."

He inhaled sharply.

"Through victory, my chains are broken. The chains - The chains are the easy part", his voice turned soft, vulnerable and he mewled: "It's what goes in here that's hard."

Savage frowned at the creature that was supposed to be connected with him through blood, he could say creature because the being before him was more like a beast than a man.

The sobbing and clanking and screeching irritated him and he replied:

"You have been lost, my brother. Do you remember who you are, where you came from?"

The spider legs began to rattle as if they shook from fright and their owner growled: "Always remember I am fear. Always remember I am hunter..."

The yellow-skinned Zabrak raised a brow when he felt the shift in the force, the fury and hate now so prominent like a signal flare.

Oh, this creature was definitely his brother, the strength was undeniable, although he questioned the sanity of him. But if his brother had stayed here on this doomed garbage planet with this body for years...

It was understandable.

His brother continued, but his tone had changed, once again it was spiked with pathetic desperation but an angry and seething undertone had joined.

"Always remember I am filth. Always remember I am nothing."

Like an animal, he snarled and his body twisted. Savage watched the poorly constructed legs with questioning eyes.

"Your legs...", he began but his brother interrupted him hotly.

"That scum! He took them from me! He took them!", he screamed in wrath and clenched his hands into fists so tightly, that the rough and coursed skin of his palm tore.

"Who? Who took them?", Savage urged and his brother answered.

"Jedi."

He repeated it and then slumped over the fire, his voice turning to a soft murmur. Savage took a step forward and knelt on one knee.

"You remember?", he asked but the other didn't reply to his question. Instead, he whimpered something, and the Zabrak leaned even more forward over the fire to hear what his brother said.

"They took her... They took her... They took her... I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you too."

Suddenly he grabbed his brother's arms, and Savage almost plunged into the fire, had the red-skinned Zabrak not held onto him with his strong grip.

"They took her!!!"

Savage had no idea what his brother was talking about.

"Who? The Jedi took who?"

His brother's voice had an emotional undertone that Savage couldn't quite place.

"Y/N, Y/N", he only muttered over and over again.

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