Star Wars: The Clone Wars Elements

by Barrobroadcaster

Chapter 4: Strong Feelings

"Heh heh heh heh!" Dua chuckled, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary. "Now, if y'all will escooz me, I'll be relievin' ya of your weapons naw." He gestured with his blaster at the ground.

Behind them, the Super Battle Droids stepped closer to further box them in and encourage them to disarm. Not close enough for them to slash, but close enough. Anakin was first, tossing his lightsaber to the ground, followed by Ahsoka's sabers and Rex's blasters. Then, Rex's grenades. Then, Rex's holdout blaster, his spare holdout blaster, his ankle blaster, a couple demolition charges, droid poppers, field survival pistol, more grenades and a tri-blade knife.

Rex noticed his commanders looking over at him. "I came prepared," he said. Jedi usually only had the Force, lightsabers and the clothes on their backs, in that order. Troopers liked to carry a little extra. In Rex's case, a lot extra.

"Well, this is, uh... quite a collection y'all got here..." Dua holstered his own blaster and picked up one of Ahsoka's lightsabers. "One of you wanna help me carry this stuff?"

"No," said Cydon Prax.

Something exploded in the floors high above them, rocking the palace. The weapons then levitated them up, clutched in Chrysalis' magical grip.

"We have to get moving. Get these clowns to the dungeon," Chrys ordered. She walked up to Anakin, a predatory smile spreading across her space. "But this one, this one comes with me."

"Now hold up, lil lady," Dua stopped her. "These ain't 'Questrian prisoners, naow. These here are Republic prisoners. Before you get to do anything, I gots to interrogate 'em. Squeeze every bit of info I can out of 'em."

"You'll be able to do that after I'm done with him!" she snapped. "I can smell it on him. He positively reeks of it and I need him."

"What do you need him for?" Ahsoka asked. They were all wondering it, but Anakin wasn't exactly keen on asking for more than one reason.

"Hahaha... nothing a welp like you needs to worry about. But you, you're different. You have what my people need."

Anakin glared. "I think you'll get more than you bargained for."

Love. Queen Chrysalis smelled it on him. To her and the changelings, it represented a food source, a source of magical power and little more. The clones, other Jedi, not much real love among them. They were stoic, cold and emotionless to her, but Anakin Skywalker was different. She knew it, and now he knew that she knew.

That was a problem.

In that moment, all the feelings Anakin fought to suppress every day welled back up inside of him. His heart beat harder in his chest, his muscles became rigid and hot, his teeth gritted with anger. He stared daggers at the blue-eyed insectoid alien woman, felt adrenaline surge through him. His midichlorians reacted wildly, each one inside his blood cells ready to gorge on his emotions and harness the power of the Force. But in this state, with these emotions, it would not be the Light Side of the Force that he drew upon.

His hand, the robotic right prosthetic that replaced the one Dooku had severed, almost instinctively formed into a grip.

"Eerrrmm-hmm," Chrysalis cleared her throat.

Stop talking. Stop her from talking. Silence her. Silence her forever. Those thoughts didn't quite enter Skywalker's mind, but deep down, they whispered, almost like an echo at the edge of hearing. It didn't quite reach his head, but it was a feeling that reached his arm. Fear very rapidly turned into anger and hatred inside Anakin, all from the simple knowledge that Chrysalis knew. She knew about Padme. And no one could know about Padme.

All of the feelings Anakin Skywalker suppressed every moment of every day were in a deep ball somewhere behind his stomach. He kept them hidden from everyone, even himself at times. It was like he was leading two lives, two completely different people, even. The thoughts and desires of being with Padme, the desire to hold her in the golden sunset-drenched lakes of Naboo, to be somewhere far away from violence and danger where he could just be happy and in love, those feelings flooded his body whenever his relationship with Padme was threatened to be exposed. Like a floodgate breaking open.

Rex was not attuned to the Force, but Ahsoka was, and she could feel Anakin getting worked up. Her concern for their safety masked it at first, but like a fire, it began to burn too hot and too bright to ignore. She glanced over at him, the beginning of concern growing in her eyes, like her own instinct to care about her friend and master, when an explosion rocked the palace.

"You never mentioned anythang about 'using' any prisoners befoe, lady. You... feedin' on this boy ain't part of the deal."

She spun back to him. "Then I am altering the deal!" Chrys was another being that couldn't quite control her urges, her chief one being hunger. For power, food, for herself and her horde. Anakin's love was as strong as Shining Armor's. She could smell it, it was almost getting stronger all the time, almost as if-

"Get down!" Shining Armor, the real Shining Armor, leaped down and produced a shield from his horn. It surrounded Anakin, Ahsoka and Rex in a cone of shimmering blue magic. The Super Battle Droids and Cydon instinctively fired, but their blaster shots were absorbed by the shield.

"You!" Chrysalis growled, "How did you escape?!"

Something rolled across the floor just as she asked that question. From the back of the room, several small spheres rolled to within inches of the droidekas. A couple more levitated to stick to the backs of the Super Battle Droids and Commando Droids. The droids had time to register the objects before they sent out their electronic-frying pulses that overloaded their systems and shut them down.

Jedi Master Krace leaped down from the ceiling as well, lightsabers activated.

"Well," Rex said. "I see why he's the Jedi's infiltration expert."

Admiral Ningo's instincts chimed in as well. "I think it's time to be headin' out." With Chrys between them and the Jedi, Dua and Cydon both bolted in the opposite direction.

"No! Get back here, we can't just leave them!"

"You should take this lesson to heart," Master Krace said. "The CIS make for poor allies. The Republic would not abandon you so quickly."

The changeling queen turned back to him and scowled. "You fools. This is only the beginning. You don't know what's been started here, what's already been done. You Jedi, your Republic, there's so much you don't see."

"Oh yeah? Enlighten us," Rex said, taunting but also serious. Any opportunity to get information was useful.

"Ahahaha!" she cackeled, "why should I ruin your surprise? This place was under occupation LOOONG before you idiots blundered in. You'll see soon enough- hahaha!" In a flash of green, Chrysalis burst into flames and evaporated. Their weapons hit the ground.

And Rex's grenades were armed.

"Uh oh."

Master Krace reached out with the Force and tossed the grenades outward. They exploded, blasting into a few columns in the throne room but otherwise doing no damage. Chrysalis, the Separatists, they were all gone.

"That could've gone a lot worse," Ahsoka said.

"It could've also gone a lot better," Anakin said. "Your majesty Prince Shining Armor, I presume?"

"Yes. The uh, real one, this time. You're with the Republic?"

"We are. I'm General Skywalker, this is Commander Tano, Captain Rex and General Krace. We're here to rescue you."

Shining nodded. "I thank you. For myself, my kingdom and my family."

"Uh, we should probably do the meet-and-greet later," Ahsoka reminded them. "If we hurry, we might still be able to catch the admiral."

But then, the sound of more guests put the brakes on that idea. More Super Battle Droids, more than they could handle, began marching their way into the throne room from the entrance hall. Rex's explosives might have been able to take care of them, collapsed part of the building on top of them, evened the odds if they had not all just been used up.

"More clankers!"

That was when Princess Candence appeared behind them. "They've called for reinforcements, the palace is surrounded!"

"Back up the stairs- move!" Anakin ordered. Already the droids took shots at them. Krace deflected them while Anakin, Ahsoka and Rex grabbed their weapons and ran in the opposite direction.

They ran back into the corridor and up the long staircase. There was nowhere for them to go but up.

"Do you have any ships docked upstairs?"

"No, the Separatists took them all or destroyed them already," Cadence said. "You guys got in here, you didn't think of a way to get out?"

"This was supposed to be a STEALTH mission; we didn't account for it being a trap!"

Anakin keyed his commlink. "Rescue-One to Zeta Leader, where's our exit?"

Static. No one answered his comms. They kept running up the stairs.

"Rescue-One to any Republic forces out there, can anyone read?"

"This is Archer Leader- general, the tank column is out of action and the droids have called in reinforcements! We've got two landers on the way and they're headed to your position!"

"Oh, great."

"We have a plan, sir, can you get anywhere that's stable in that building?"

"There's an armory that's pretty secure about halfway up the tower," Shining said.

"What do you mean by 'stable,' Archer-One?"

"Just get there as quickly as you can and hold onto something!"

"Oh, I've got a bad feeling about this!!"

They raced up the stairs. Down below, the droids were already filling the bottom of the staircase and slowly marching their way upward.

Author's Note:

Admiral Dua Ningo is a bit of a hippy-like character in this story, and the tiny tidbit about him not wanting the changelings to feed off Anakin reveals a bit more about his character. Even though he's a Separatist, he doesn't like prisoners of war mistreated, so he has some sense of honor somewhere.

Comments

[Bronycommander]

nice to see this updated

[Barrobroadcaster]

11422704
Been a bit busy lately. I'm busy already, got a job and bills to pay and a mother to take care of so it's not always easy to get around to writing. But I'm making progress. These past few chapters have just been the introduction.

[Bronycommander]

11422739
of course, i know that only too well