Capítulo 8: Does the Chancellor want to meet me?
"Where?" Ahsoka opened her eyes only to realize that she was in a bed, covered by a blanket. Looking around she managed to recognize this as her room in the Jedi temple.
"How did I get here?" Shaking her head, she stood up and went out, the corridors were empty and she could hear the sound of an instructor teaching about the force in one of the rooms on the right.
However, she had a strange feeling, it was something she hadn't felt in a long time. Curious, she walked through the site, and after passing through several doors and paths, she arrived at the training wing, more specifically at the place where the Jedi trained the use of the force.
Tanden was there, he was using Durandal to fight against a wave of combat training droids, but there was something unusual about his stance, it reminded her of form I Shii-Cho, however, the way he moved, attacked, and defended was somehow different.
As if feeling her presence, he suddenly sped up and swept the crowd of 8 droids with a movement that she never heard of, his lightsaber seemed to have been infused with force energy, and the moment the blade hit one of the droids, the energy expanded outwards forming a wave of telekinetic energy that threw away the others at the same time.
However, only the first seemed to have been truly affected by this, since he flew for 5 meters, while the others only a single meter.
Before the droids could stand up, Tanden spoke. "End training mode." The droids suddenly adopted a more casual posture and one by one entered a compartment on the wall that opened for each one of them.
"What was that?" Ahsoka asked. A hint of worry could be clearly noticed in her voice.
"I was studying the archives, looking for information about the ancient Jedi. I discovered something called alchemy, the process was pretty much completely classified, but when I traced the origin of that information to the Je'daii and discovered what kind of weapon they used to use in battle, I somehow come up with this, but I don't know what to call it..." Tanden avoided looking in her eyes, instead, he walked past her and crouched near the door to grab his helmet.
"You know I'm not talking about that." Ahsoka watched as he put on the helmet and used the wall to support himself with his head lowered. "The Jedi forbid using the force to directly harm others! If any of the masters see you using this they might-"
"I know." Tanden interrupted her. "But this is just an interpretation of the matters, Ahsoka. The force gives us an advantage over normal people, technically speaking whenever we cause harm we are always directly using it."
"You're just making up excuses." She pouted, unsatisfied with his answer.
"Maybe." He laughed. "But you can't deny this truth."
She sighed. "Can you tell me what we are doing here? What happened with the bounty hunter?"
Tanden turned to look at her. His eyes wandered across her body without her knowing. He was feeling conflicted for some reason, although he always knew that he wasn't like the others, he was pretty clear of his own abilities, the force surely gave him a powerful boost, but he was starting to realize something about the Jedi.
After the battle against the bounty hunter, even though Tanden worked exceptionally well, going as far as capturing Cad Bane without help and even locating Bolla Ropal, he was extremely scolded once they arrived at the temple.
Yoda somehow seemed to know what he did, and he together with Mace Windu and Ki-Adi-Mundi imposed a heavy punishment on him, stripping him of his Padawan title, to make matters even worse, they tried to take his lightsaber and armor.
Tanden couldn't help but smile thinking about this situation, Ahsoka raised an eyebrow seeing his reaction, believing it had something to do with her question.
But how could she know that he was basically laughing at how naive the Jedi are. The moment they tried touching his belongings they dissolved to dust and automatically integrated into his body. A form of protection he created in casa someone managed to best him in battle and tried to steal from him.
Just remembering the Jedi frowning was enough to improve his mood. And they deserved every little lack of respect from him... with the exception of master Plo, master Obi-Wan, and master Anakin who tried to defend him and spoke well of his actions, the others were clearly interested in his things.
Tanden wasn't naive, he knows what loyalty is, and even though it took some years, how couldn't he know that they assigned people to spy on him? The only place he had some freedom was in his room and in the training facilities of the temple.
From a child till this very day, the order was always keeping track of his actions, whenever he touched on some sensitive information, they made sure to remove it from the public library and make it classified information.
They even tried to install trackers on his starfighter and mess up with its software, had him not used the technology of his previous life, who knows what the Jedi would be capable of doing... a single failure of the hyperdrive engine was enough to make him die and make it look like an accident.
What made him wonder though was why Mace Windu taught him form VII if he couldn't trust him. All in all, he was starting to think that the Jedi were hypocrites. After studying so much, he knew very well who deals in absolute, and it isn't the Sith.
Torture, genocide, conspiracy, the kidnapping of young kids, corruption... The Jedi were rotten on their core... It reminded him of the religions back in his previous life, no wonder they ended up getting rid of such things, they were more trouble than they were worth.
"I'm no longer a Padawan, Ahsoka."
"What!?" A million thoughts crossed her mind, but she failed to realize what he meant. "Did they promote you? How? What happened?!"
"No, I was punished... Do you remember your battle with Cad Bane?" Tanden approached her as he spoke, removing his helmet to look directly into her eyes.
"I... I remember him using an electric charge to knock me out after we fought for a few dozen seconds."
"I arrived soon after that. I saw you on the ground, and even though I knew that you were fine, just blacked out... I got angry, Cad was already on my list... and then he hurt you..." Tanden caressed Ahsoka's face, making her blush and lower her eyes. "I couldn't let him off that easily, so I punished him..."
Ahsoka could only feel a sharp feeling in her heart, this situation... she felt conflicted. If she had stayed with her master things wouldn't have ended like that, Tanden was punished because of her mistakes... It was always like that! Why was she so overconfident! When will she learn to have patience!?
Alas, the past couldn't be changed, and now there is this... Ahsoka held his hand and slightly pulled it away from her face. "Tanden, you know we can't..."
Hearing this Tanden lowered his head, his eyes falling under the shadows of his hair. He didn't resist or tried to force her, he was clear of how much the order meant for her, she wouldn't break the rules so easily, their feelings weren't strong enough to reach this point.
After some time, Tanden's eyes focused, they became sharp like the edges of a blade, and he looked at Ahsoka with a seriousness like never before.
"Tanden?" She asked, concerned about his sudden change.
"Ahsoka, I'd like to give you one last gift. Please, turn on your lightsaber." Tanden backed away a few meters and pointed his lightsaber at her, using the form I.
"What are you trying to do?" Although she asked this, she still took out her lightsaber.
"I'll help you adapt to your new body!"
"Huh?" Before she could think about his words, he suddenly jumped at her and struck down horizontally from above using a speed that she had only seen him using against the droids!
What is he trying to do!? Ahsoka's mind was clouded with fear as she felt that she wouldn't be able to hold herself against his strength, even using form III wouldn't be enough to make up for the disparity in raw power.
Having no other choice, she let her instincts drive her as she parried his strike with one of her own, making the blades briefly contact each other before separating again.
Something was wrong! Why did it seem... easier? Surprised by the result of this confrontation, she was almost unable to react to Tanden's next attack from the bottom up.
The lightsabers entangled in a match of pure strength, the energy blade seemed to cry with the result, making that high and familiar sound spread through the room.
The battle continued for almost an hour, and Ahsoka finally understood what he was talking about, while she couldn't match his mastery of lightsaber duel, she noticed that her body wasn't the same as before, it was stronger, faster, and she even seemed capable of reacting faster than before! It was as if she had gotten stronger without doing anything!
They stopped and looked at each other, both panting heavily.
"How...?" Ahsoka asked, incapable of understanding how did this happen.
"Science." Tanden smiled. "Or you thought my superiority against the others was all about natural talent?"
"But..." Ahsoka couldn't understand, she never heard of anything that could make a person improve so much without any efforts.
"You'll see that this is just the beginning, your body didn't have enough time to adapt, I suggest you practice exercises whenever you can, this will greatly increase the benefits of what I did." He turned off Durandal and turned to leave, however, she held his arm, stopping him from leaving the room.
"Why you never told me about this?"
"Because there was no reason to do so... In fact, it's thanks to the council that I decided to... 'spill the beans'. My days in the order are numbered, Ahsoka."
"What are you talking about!? The council wouldn't expel you from the order because of such a thing, or would they?" Ahsoka had her fair share of troubles with the council, they never did anything too harsh, although she never went as far as Tanden in causing trouble...
"They wouldn't, but I won't waste my time in the Jedi Service Corps, I entered the order with an objective in mind, and I'll fulfill it with our without their help!" Tanden clenched his fists as he spoke.
Hearing Tanden's voice, Ahsoka could only gulp, she never heard him saying something so intensely before.
Although she wanted to say something, Anakin opened the door of the room and went inside. Although he felt weird seeing Ahsoka holding Tanden's arm, he didn't think much of it and directly said what he came to say.
However, before Anakin could speak, Tanden used force speed to the maximum of his capabilities and used his dexterity to put a letter on Ahsoka's hand when Anakin blinked, it put quite a toll on him, considering how fast he had to be in order to do that, and the only reason he did so, was because he felt like something would prevent him from talking to Ahsoka about other matters that he wanted to, that's why he wrote the address of his house on coruscant on that paper beforehand, just as a precaution.
"Tanden, Chancellor Palpatine wishes to have an audience with you, I was instructed to take you there."
Ahsoka let go of his arm, and avoided looking at Tanden's eyes as she pretended nothing was happening, Tanden did the same, but he couldn't help but frown after hearing Anakin, what could such a man want with him?
"May I know the reason?"
"Uh..." Anakin scratched the back of his neck. "Apparently he wants to congratulate us for capturing Cad Bane."
"Us?"
"Yes, I was called as well, don't worry, the chancellor isn't a difficult person." Anakin tried to reassure him, thinking he was afraid of meeting the 'head' of the republic.
"That's not what I'm worried about. Sigh... alright, let's go."
Ahsoka watched the two leaving, and when the door closed she looked at the paper, and seeing the address, she wondered what was that about... Sighing, she decided to train a little bit, she would follow Tanden's advice since she apparently would get even stronger than she currently is thanks to whatever he did.
[A/N: Damn I really wanted to make Ahsoka just leave with him, but I don't want to make this such a shameless wish-fulfillment story, she wouldn't abandon the order so easily... Ahsoka is the perfect waifu, change my mind.]
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