Snips, Skyguy and the Senator (Star Wars Ahsoka x Anakin x Padme story) (Excerpt - Opening Scene)

Anakin Skywalker was in hot pursuit, sprinting through the bowels of Coruscant’s Level 1313. Lightsaber at his side, the Jedi knight ducked, weaved and dodged his way past street vendors and vagabonds of various species. Many passersby expressed confusion and a few blurted out an annoyed expletive as Anakin and his prey bolted past them, before carrying on with their day. Chaos was a way of life in Coruscant’s most notorious district, after all. 

Ahead of him, his quarry rounded a corner and ran into a long alleyway, with Anakin only seconds behind him. Force, he never knew a Gran could run this fast. 

The treasonous 3-eyed former politician found himself at a dead end. He let out a frustrated grunt, slamming his fist on the steel wall of the building in front of him. With his target trapped, Anakin crossed his arms as he walked up to him. 

“Give it up, Prem. It’s over. Come quietly,” Anakin said with swagger. 

The Gran glared at him with hatred in all three eyes. “Would you ‘come quietly’ if our roles were reversed, Commander Skywalker?” 

Anakin’s bravado slipped and he found himself looking back at him with contempt. “I didn’t secretly produce biological weapons for the Separatists, so our roles never would be reversed, would they, Prem?”

Prem snorted, reaching his hand behind his back, pulling something out of his neon coat. 

“Hey, hands where I can see them, Prem!” Anakin’s hand went to his lightsaber. 

The Gran gave him a disconcerting smirk. “I’ll not rot in a Republic prison, Commander. Never.” 

Prem threw down a stun detonator, and Anakin’s ears started ringing just as he ignited his lightsaber. Shaking his head, Anakin looked up, and the Gran was nowhere to be seen. He growled with frustration, looking around the alleyway with lightsaber raised. He noticed a manhole cover slightly ajar, leading down into the sewers. 

Pulling aside the manhole cover, Anakin jumped in after his quarry, his boots splashing into the waste water. The moment he hit the ground, he immediately sensed danger through the Force and raised his lightsaber just quickly enough to deflect a blaster bolt fired directly at his head. 

Prem cursed as the Jedi deflected his shot, rounding the corner at the end of the sewer tunnel. Anakin broke into a full sprint after him with weapon at the ready. Up ahead, he heard the sound of a struggle around the corner in the adjacent sewer tunnel. 

Instead of being met with another blaster bolt like he was expecting, Anakin was surprised to see two masked figures standing over his target. Judging by a quick appraisal of them beneath their bounty hunter garb, it did not take long for Anakin to determine that they were both female. 

The slightly shorter of the two had her foot firmly planted on Prem’s chest as he struggled beneath her. “W- what’re you?!” the Gran babbled from the confusion of evading his Jedi pursuer only to run straight into two bounty hunters. With a snarl, he aimed his blaster up at the slender hunter standing over him. 

With a frush sound and quick, blinding flash, Anakin was immensely surprised to see the hunter swiftly brandish a pair of lightsabers, slicing Prem’s blaster in two before she leveled the blades at his neck. 

“Wait…please d- don’t kill me!” Prem gasped, now truly starting to panic. 

The other bounty hunter put her hand on her compatriot’s shoulder. “Take his head and let’s be done with this. We’re being paid for dead only.” The bounty hunter’s voice was disguised by a modulator.

“Wait!” Anakin stepped forward with his lightsaber still drawn.

At once, the second hunter noticed his presence and drew her own pair of curved sabers, stepping up to block Anakin’s path between her and their shared quarry. “Not one step closer!” she warned him. After a moment, she cocked her head with realization. “Wait a minute…Skywalker?”

Anakin looked back at the bounty hunter before his eyes widened. He felt foolish for not realizing sooner. He’d crossed blades with those curved sabers often enough, and had seen only one other person wear that garb, back when he pursued a certain terrorist who bombed the Jedi temple. 

“Ventress.”

Bumping into his former adversary, Asajj Ventress, was surprising enough, but when he turned to her partner he also noticed that she was brandishing a pair of lightsabers that he had known all too well. He had given those sabers away himself, after all. 

“A- Anakin?” the bounty hunter said softly, her voice also garbled by a modulator beneath her helmet similar to Ventress’. 

Anakin’s heart pounded in his chest as she sheathed one of her sabers and lifted her helmet, though he already knew who it was even before the helmet came off. He only now realized that he had felt his former padawan’s presence in the Force the moment he jumped down into the sewers. But when he saw those familiar montrals, he knew for certain. 

It had been months since he had last seen Ahsoka Tano. They had parted ways just before she had gone off to fight in the Siege of Mandalore and he had gone off to rescue the Chancellor - the same Chancellor that he would later unmask as a traitor alongside Master Windu before ending his schemes once and for all. He had received only one communication from her, telling him that she needed time off on her own, away from the Jedi. Time to find herself and fend for herself without him to lean in. It had caused him just as much confusion as when she first left the order, especially since he had hoped that their reunion before Mandalore would’ve brought him and his former padawan together again. 

“Ahsoka,” Anakin said softly. “It’s good to see you again.” 

Her orange cheeks flushed, and for a moment she looked very much like that girl that used to follow him along on mission after mission. “It’s good to see you too, Anakin.” 

Prem’s squirming underneath Ahsoka’s boot brought all of them back to reality. Ventress lowered her sabers, pointing them instead down at the Gran. “Yes yes, a touching reunion,” Ventress said with her familiar sardonic attitude. “But we have a bounty to claim. So go on, take his head. Or I will.”