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Chapter Text

"Late Galaxy" Studio, Coruscant

“Eclipsa, everybody! We’ll be right back after this break—don’t go anywhere!”

Finally. 

Ahsoka and the other girls scattered into their practiced retreat, slipping out of formation and toward the wings in silence. The stage crew scurried to clear the floor. The afterglow of the lights withdrew from Ahsoka as quickly as it had embraced her. And she followed the others, heartbeat still thrumming in time with their song. Her thick, three-inch platform black boots thudded against the polished stage floor as they passed into the shadows backstage, running her hand down her skirt to press out the wrinkles—there were none, but her fingers lingered on the fabric anyway.

Barriss was already unhooking her earpiece when Ahsoka turned the corner, and Steela pulled her mic pack from her hip with a wince. Padme, ever poised, powdering her face yet again in preparation for her return to the stage. She offered Ahsoka a warm smile as she passed, and the younger of the two nodded in return. 

“You were extra focused today,” Steela said, coming up on Ahsoka’s side. She nudged her with her elbow, “way to make up for nearly punching Riyo in the face during the same move last night.”

Ahsoka couldn’t contain the laugh under her breath. “I guess self-defense lessons with Anakin might’ve slipped into the dance.”

Riyo perked up from where she was crouched near a water bottle crate. “No kidding,” she grinned, brushing cerulean bangs out of her eyes, “but I think this was the best performance of this choreo yet, so I forgive you.”

Barriss, standing a bit further away in front of a mirror, spoke while unhooking the last wire from the back of her mic, “the symmetry on the opener was off by a hair but we adjusted fast.”

That was about the closest thing to praise Barriss ever offered. Ahsoka—along with the other girls—nodded very slowly, unsure whether or not to take it as such. It never really mattered much, Barriss would watch over the performance later like a mission brief and Ahsoka would hear all about it. 

Satine, crossing the room, grabbed at a cloth to dab at her temples with. Ahsoka always found her beauty to be a sharp opposite of Padme—her features were angular and pointed, with eyes that could kill with one dangerous look. But, she was a sweetheart in Ahsoka’s eyes. The two, personality wise, were peas in a pod. 

“There better not be any odd editing tweaks this time around,” Satine said, pursing her lips. “Or I’ll petition for the holonet director’s resignation.”

“Let’s be real,” Bo-Katan drawled from the gelding chair she’d thrown herself into, one leg crossed over the other, “they could only upload Padme’s entrance and the Republic would still vote it performance of the year.”

The girls laughed—even Padme—and Ahsoka felt their warmth radiate through her chest as she leaned into a mirror of her own, dabbing away stray flecks of eyeliner that got a little too close to imperfect. There was an ease to their banter, and Ahsoka listened more than she spoke. She was part of it, yes, but sometimes it still felt like she’d stumbled into a story halfway through, trying to memorize her lines before someone noticed. 

These were her sisters; yes. But siblings didn’t always get along; sometimes cliques formed with how large of a group they were, and most of them didn’t include Ahsoka. Padme did, behind the scenes, but if the other five realized that Ahsoka’s brother was in cahoots with Padme behind the curtain, accusations of nepotism would drown Ahsoka in seas of dangerous fanmail. She was already a lesser known member of Eclipsa—to change that would be to mark her own doom.

“I’ll be making an announcement when we go back out,” Padme suddenly said, her voice softer this time. The tone made Ahsoka’s skin prickle, and she turned over her shoulder to examine Amidala—her expression completely serious.

Her brows furrowed. 

Bo lifted a brow. “Anything we should know?”

Padme had a moment of noticeable hesitation, but was quick to return with a smile. “You’ll find out with everyone else. It’ll keep the reaction authentic.”

Barriss hummed from afar. “I don’t like surprises.”

“You’ll survive,” Satine replied lightly, taking a seat beside Ahsoka, now, and stretching her long legs out beneath the vanity table. Padme didn’t speak any further and so neither did anyone else. Ahsoka watched as she adjusted her gloves and checked her reflection one last time, but her eyes weren’t on herself. For a second, they flickered to the group behind her—to Ahsoka. 

The moment passed.

“Back in thirty seconds!”

Chairs scraped as the crew gathered to their feet. As Ahsoka stood, her heart starting its familiar climb again. In a blur of motion, Ahsoka was in the wings, watching as the countdown ticked. It wasn’t long until stage lights bloomed to life, intro music for the segment augmenting their arrival. Ahsoka fixed her posture as she sat neatly between Satine and Riyo on the plush half-circle couch arranged around the host’s desk. 

“Welcome back to Late Galaxy with Perre!” The announcer’s voice boomed, and out walked Perre Laxx, all teeth and velvet with his usual too-glossy hair and a cape that screamed Coruscanti elite. He bowed theatrically toward the girls before taking his seat. “Let’s give it up one more time for Eclipsa!”

Ahsoka, as often as she spoke to them, was not fond of hosts like Perre—they never truly cared about who they brought upon their show so long as they brought the numbers. The lack of genuine emotion behind his eyes as he interviewed them was strangely reminiscent of a droid. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was one, in fact. 

But nevertheless, the girls waved—Padme led with a gracious tilt of her hand, Satine a close-lipped smile, Steele leaned in while Bo-Katan gave a small salute. Barriss nodded and Ahsoka mirrored Riyo’s shy little wave. She kept her expression neutral and not too eager. 

“So,” Perre said, leaning in. “Twelve million copies sold. That’s not even counting the digital charts! Did any of you expect this kind of explosion?”

Padme gave a delicate laugh, professional and warm. “We hoped. We trained for it! But to actually see this kind of reception across systems… it’s humbling, Perre, truly.”

“Spoken like a true leader,” Perre quipped.

Padme smiled. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

And thus was the part where Ahsoka checked out. She’d enough of watching their faces, the small calculated smiles and half-second glances toward the cameras. She was well aware enough to tune into things when keywords were said—reveal, single, new, girls, Elcipsa as a whole. They talked about everything, from Bo-Katan’s rap lyricism to Barriss’ writing process. Satine’s fashion promotion and Steela’s added jokes between it all, some even drawing real laughter. 

Perre glanced to the side, “And Ahsoka—”

The dancer blinked, straightening in her seat as her fingers ceased their drumming against her thighs.

“You’ve been credited with some seriously sharp center work this tour. I think our audience wants to know! What’s your secret? How do you move like that?”

Ahsoka slowly nodded as Perre spoke, “I think of dancing like sparring,” she said, carefully, “The control and timing, at least. I did a bunch of martial arts when I was younger, so—”

“Ooh, deep,” Perre said with a grin, seemingly unaware she had more to say. He glanced toward the camera. “She’s mysterious, that one!”

Ahsoka smiled, dipping her head as the spotlight slipped off her shoulders—now turning to Padme, who shifted slightly in her seat. Sat straighter.

Perre noticed, “Now, everyone, exclusive to our show, here, we’ve got a special announcement from Miss Amidala herself.”

This was odd.

No matter how she’d framed it backstage, Ahsoka saw through it—this was going to be big, and she didn’t want to be talked out of it. Those were the only sure-tells of this announcement, Ahsoka knew. The others? Ahsoka wasn’t sure if they’d noticed. 

“Yes,” Padme smiled, but it wasn’t quite like before. She leaned toward the camera slightly. “As of the end of this tour, I will be stepping down from Eclipsa.”

Out of all the girls, Ahsoka was the only one to stay silent. Though, her eyes told of her reaction—wide and bewildered. Sure, Ahsoka guessed that big news was imminent but this? 

“I’ve been honored to lead this group,” Padme continued, voice steady, “but as many of you know, Naboo will be holding elections in the coming cycle. I’ve been asked to run as a Senatorial candidate for my country, and I’ve accepted. It’s time for me to serve in a new way.”

Ahsoka felt a tight, constrictive feeling enveloping her chest. Dark blue eyes pointed directly at Padme, but she didn’t look back. She was facing forward, body language surprisingly still despite the seismic charge she just landed upon the other girls. Ahsoka had to look inward to even begin to question the implications; was Eclipsa over? Membership changes in groups like these were fatal, especially when the world took notice of Eclipsa because of Padme. How would group shows go forward? Was the ending of this tour going to be the end of Eclipsa as Ahsoka knew it?

Perre, ever the professional, recovered. “That’s… incredible, Miss Amidala. A massive change for Eclipsa. Have you decided who’ll be stepping into the leadership role?”

A possibility Ahsoka didn’t even consider. But Padme clearly did. 

“That’s still to be determined.”
And just like that, Ahsoka’s bond with each girl around her seemed to rip a thousand miles apart. When she glanced at Satine and Riyo at either side, their eyes were distant. Newfound space between them all. Ahsoka had never been too close with any in the group, but this… was a rift they’d never recover from. 

She hoped Padme knew what she was doing. Ahsoka and five other girls had their careers on the line. 

The Undercity, Coruscant

Maul never enjoyed Coruscant.

It was dark, during daylight hours—more so than that of Dathomir or any other country Maul had the displeasure of perusing. Tiered and layered, each sheet of fragile society blanketed the other like reptiles fighting for the first drop of sunlight. The air was hard to breathe until one adjusted, thick with fumes polluting the population from way up top. The only thing Maul could be thankful for was the abundance of odd-looking people who happened to typically make quite a bit of noise.

He blended right in. 

Maul still needed to conceal himself, but less urgently, here. His black cloak was thick and shadowy enough over his face but there was no masking the faint whirr of movement under his steps. The quiet thudding as he walked across pavement—decompressing hiss of hydraulic joints when he moved. It was his tell. It wasn’t like Coruscant wasn’t home to other cyborg-amputees, but this instance in particular just felt personal. When Maul thought about it a little too long, his throat would constrict like a snake ready to spew venom into the first thing that crossed its path. And it wasn’t uncommon for him to do just that. 

Such was the way when one was on their own, though. Minus his brother, that is. Twelve days he’d been released from that cell in the upper rings, and twelve days he had spent maneuvering his position into one of complete effectiveness. The undercity just so happened to be the playground of his enemies—or any crime, for that matter. 

That being said, the more people on the streets, the better. Maul was able to walk rather plainly, despite the noise it made. He stuck close to a wall, passing by the faint glow of store windows as his eyes took in the size of a smaller dive bar where some drunkards stumbled out, spilled their guts onto the floor, and scampered off like rats. 

Maul scowled. 

Filthy. But that made perfect sense for the information he was to gather—skulking around so late at night in the most diabolical reaches of society. Maul wasn’t one to dread, but he had very little excitement for the altercation to come. 

“Is that it?”

It was Savage who spoke, his gruff, rumbling voice unmistakable. Maul, though faint, slowly turned around to nod his confirmation. The larger, much more muscular of the two tilted yellowed eyes upward, faintly gleaming from under his own hood. 

“That’s unbecoming.”

Maul couldn’t agree more. “According to our intel, she has business here.” His words were soft, yet layered with years upon years of thought. As he and Savage slipped closer to the bar, his shoulder brushed against the concrete structure. “And yet to realize that we do, too.”

Vengeance was something that coursed through Maul like blood; slithering, pulsing, fueling his body. And that rush of hatred was pointed and sharpened like a blade. 

“Komari Vosa will be ours, then.”

Savage had been the one to verbalize it, but he spoke aloud Maul’s own thoughts. Debt was something Maul never allowed to sit for long; and given the predicament of his imprisonment, this debt owed to him had been lingering far longer than necessary. But he wasn’t in the right position, yet. He needed to track Komari Vosa down before making his presence aware of her, and with enough interrogation then it’d be easy enough.

She likely believed Maul was still rotting. After all, she saw him in the cell in the first place. 

Turning, Maul faced Savage. “You brought the device?”

“Yes,” Savage nodded, reaching into his cloak and withdrawing what looked to be a small flash drive, but when pressing the button on its underside, a faint blinking red light bloomed to life. A recorder. To pick up and enhance anything that Maul or Savage would, somehow, miss.

Maul nodded.

The plan was simple enough—Komari was an extravagant woman and not a quiet one either. If her affiliates in various other crime groups gathered in one place, word of mouth would indefinitely escape from her whereabouts or happenings. But the woman’s plans were irrelevant to Maul so long as he saw her drop dead at the end of everything. 

Yes.

Soon, he would have his revenge. 

“Excellent.”

The door to the bar hissed open on a delay, and dim lighting filtered through layers of haze—smoke, vapor, grease-heavy air. Inside, the scent was a violent concoction of engine coolant, fermented spice liquor, and the unmistakable sting of burnt skin oil. Maul’s eyes gathered every detail as screens flickered static over the bar. Someone was passed out on a table in the corner, and a fight was brewing just as another finished. 

Maul stepped across the threshold, and every pair of eyes that could turn, did. 

He paid them no mind, the mechanical rhythm to his stride was subtle but loud enough. Savage’s sheer size was enough to garner half the attention, but the faint whirr and hiss of servo pistons maintained it. And their horns—sickly gray at the base, but darker toward their tips, ridged and barbed. Artificial and grated, scar-tissue latticed the skin where they’d been drilled in—ritualistically arranged in uneven rows. It was a crown made for war. Each one gleamed slightly under the neon strip lights overhead. 

Savage adorned them, as well, but he was of a healthier stature— he had the pleasure of returning to their home where the act was done traditionally, as was the yellow glow of his skin beneath the black ink. Maul, however, was a victim to another being holding the brush. Something worse than the hell Komari Vosa saw him locked in. 

The two approached the bar in silence, Maul’s gold eyes narrowing dangerously.

A bartender, aging, hesitated before shuffling forward with two empty glasses. “What’ll it be?”

Maul’s voice came grovelly, “I seek entrance into the Bando Gora.”

The bartender didn’t ask for clarification, but clearly grew uncomfortable through the way that he shifted his weight and cast a glance toward a booth in the back. There, three men sat hunched over a cracked datapad, trying—and failing—not to look over their shoulders. 

Beside Maul, Savage settled on a stool. His elbows were too big for the bar. One clawed hand placed the blinking device beneath the counter lip, subtly affixed with a magnet. It would start listening now. Maul didn’t move to remove his hood. 

“I suggest you speak,” he murmured low, eyes sweeping the bar in a manner predatorial, “I have places to b—”

“ Nooooooo—! ”

The sound that swallowed Maul’s sentence whole was loud and pitiful. A wet, broken, wounded thing, stumbling out from the booth two seats down. Both Maul and Savage turned, expressions unreadable as a scrawny, clearly spiced out, man with a half-melted cyberjaw slumped forward onto the bar—head in hands, shoulders shaking, thick tears streaking down the smog-stained metal of his cheeks. 

“I—I can’t believe it!” he sobbed, slamming one palm flat on the counter hard enough to jostle the rustled tray of stale crackers nearby. “I gave them everything—my votes, my credits, my heart ! And this is how she repays me!?”

The bartender frowned. Maul discerned this wasn’t the first outburst. “Again?”

“I named my speeder after her! Eclipsa 7, for kriff’s sake! What am I supposed to do now?”

Maul blinked once. Slowly. Then shifted his gaze to the nearest wall screen behind the bar—one of the static-warped holopanels cycling through audio-free broadcasts. And there, framed in clean white and gold and the gleam of studio lighting, were seven young women, each in tailored stageware.  The camera panned to crowd reactions—audience members gasping, some clutching their chests in faint.

Padme Amidala announced retirement from Eclipsa. Plans to run for Senate.

Savage leaned in slightly toward Maul. “What is an… Eclipsa? ”

Maul’s lip curled. “I don’t know.”

“I can’t believe she’s leaving the group!” the man moaned, practically collapsing into his own elbow. “She was the heart! The soul! She was the only one who could sing without auto-tune—!”

A woman at the nearby booth snorted. “Says you. Barriss has more range than Padme and Satine combi—”

“Oh, shut it!” he snapped back .lifting his head enough to reveal two dented implants along his jawline—jagged chrome teeth clamped against his tongue ring. His fingers twitched at the mention of Barriss. “You don’t know art. You’ve never loved. ”

Maul’s attention shifted from the dramatics, but to movement just behind the sobbing fanboy. A figure tucked into a far booth, hunched, cloaked in layers that didn’t match. Too clean around the shoulders and frayed at the hem. He was switching—at the screen. Not at the news, but at the name. 

Beneath the cowl, Maul caught a flash of twin spiral tattoos. 

Bando Gora. 

His eyes narrowed.

The figure didn’t cry, nor laugh, but muttered to himself in stuttering half-phrases. “...knew it. Shouldn’t’ve let her… always drawn to glory. Could’ve warned her. Could’ve…”

“Savage,” Maul said quietly. 

His brother shifted. “I see him.”

“We wait.”

The Bando Gora were a fractured people, but even that of a splintered limb still twitched when threatened. If this one was here, watching this girl group like it burned, then the connection certainly wasn’t random. 

Maul turned back toward the bartender, lifting a single black-gloved finger to gesture lazily at the screen. “Turn it up.”

“Really?” the bartender asked. “You don’t look like the target demograph—”

Maul didn’t repeat himself, nor did he have to. One look made the man fumble for the control dial. The holoscreen’s audio clicked on with a burst of static. 

“Eclipsa has been my home, my family—but Naboo needs voices. And I intend to be one of them, especially in the wake of crime.”

A few patrons groaned. But Maul only cared about the muttering man in the back booth, drooping his head into his hands. Under the shadow of his hood, Maul’s lips twitched into a smile. He recognized that man now. A former handler from the spice sector of Nar Haaska. A mid-level mover under Vosa, if Maul remembered correctly. 

Maul rose.

“There are networks operating unchecked, cities infected from the inside. If we don’t name that corruption, the people will pay the price.”

Slowly, deliberately, his stood scraped back with a shriek. Savage mirrored him, standing as his cloak fell slightly open, revealing the hilt of a holstered blade beneath. Nobody spoke to them or made movements to stop the brothers. But the man in the back booth knew. Maul saw it in the way his shoulders twitched. 

“Don’t,” he muttered to himself, eyes locked to the holoscreen. “Don’t come over here. Don’t do it. Not again. Not again!”

On-screen, Perre leaned across his desk with all the smoothness of a polished shark. “There’ve been reports of something dangerous, Senator-to-be. Rumors. Given your… history with Eclipsa, is this really the move you want?”

“If there is something darker, Perre, it thrives in secrecy and must be wrought out.”

Maul reached the booth and the Bando Goran didn’t lift his head. But his voice cracked through clenched teeth.

“I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything!”

“Lie,” Maul said, sliding into the seat across from him. Savage loomed just beside, silent and imposing. “Talk.”

The man’s hands trembled. His datapad was cracked and there were food stains on his sleeves. A twitch in every movement, but most notably in his eyes that screamed withdrawal. Had Maul been a better man, he’d almost feel a little sorry for the rodent. 

“I–I’m clean,” he stammered. “I’ve been out since Nar Haaska! I left when she disappeared.”

Maul leaned forward, “disappeared?”

The man paled.

“Eclipsa’s farewell tour ends in the Coruscant Central Hub next week. It’s fitting, I think. A way to close the chapter in the heart of the Republic.”

“And some say you’re more popular than most elected officials already. Do you think that’ll help your campaign?”

“I think it helps that I’ve seen power from the stage, and how easily it can become performance only. I want something real.”

The operative squinted at the screen, then looked back to Maul. “That girl. She doesn’t matter. You know that, right? She’s— she’s a fool. All of them are. If you’re trying to find Vosa—”

“I am finding Vosa,” Maul growled, voice low. “And you are going to help me.”

“Even if I wanted to talk, they’d kill me,” the man snapped. “They’re watching me now. Always watching. The minute you leave, I’m dead.”

Savage leaned down, finally speaking. “Die now, or die later.”

The man blinked rapidly, looking back to Maul as if that’d offer him any help—only to receive an equally as hard stare from the shorter brother. Sweat pooled in the corners of the man’s eyes, fingers trembling as they released the holopad onto the table. 

“You—you want the concert.”

Maul didn’t answer, instead arching a brow. His silence pressed heavy. 

“She’ll be there,” the man whispered. “V–Vosa. Not in the crowd—no… she’s meeting w–with a contact. She thinks the group’s a shield. That no one would ever look at a pop tour.”

Maul’s eyes twitched. 

It was a perfect distraction. A mass gathering. Cameras, lights, movements, all the ingredients for a proper form of violence. He’d hand Vosa that one—she was remarkably intelligent. Only one woman could join the Bando Gora and turn it inside out to worship her within the span of a few years. But, she clearly wasn’t as smart as she thought she was if Vosa thought Maul could get stabbed in the back and sit down to take it. The harlot would get what was coming to her soon enough. 

“Give me names,” Maul said. 

“Not here. Not now. I—I need time. I need out. ”

“You said it yourself, you’ll die the moment we leave.”

The man’s lips parted again, desperation evident in his eyes as the animalistic glare bounced between Maul and Savage. But just as he began to utter a word—

Crack!

His head jerked to the side, violently and a small, whimpering sound escaped his throat—fearful. He slumped sideways in the booth, mouth still ajar as his eyes rolled up to white. Maul didn’t flinch, and neither did Savage, but a long, irritated exhale blew from the younger Dathomirian’s nose. The rest of the bar didn’t even react. 

No blood, or foam. It was clean and surgical. 

A poisoned tooth, Maul deduced, was likely. Triggered by a signal from a safe distance. Vosa’s standard form of insurance. A loyal dog, with a leash she’d never let slip. Across the table, Maul watched as the corpse still twitched in small, insectile movements. Nerve endings catching on the way down. Savage reached forward and casually pressed two fingers to the man’s throat. He waited. 

“Dead.”

“Obviously,” Maul muttered.

He leaned back in the booth for a long moment, allowing the silence in his mind to scatter any loose thoughts. He had been so close. A trail and a thread. Perhaps Komari Vosa did know Maul was free, now. 

That’d be a problem.

“There’s a tracker still on him,” Savage offered, voice low, “you want me to grab it?”

Maul stood. “No.”

Savage looked up. 

“If Vosa killed him,” Maul said, “she knows we’re here. To burn the corpse, would be to tell her we’re scared. We leave it, we tell her we’re coming.”

A slow nod came from the younger brother, and Savage let the body lie. 

The bartender made no effort to stop them as they returned to the counter, nor did he clean the booth. It’d no doubt be used again before the night was out. Maybe not for drinks, but for something. The undercity moved too fast for corpses to get in the way. 

Maul stopped at the threshold, one hand briefly pressed to the rusted frame of the door. His fingers curled, not quite a fist and not quite open.

“Let’s move,” he said.

Savage followed behind.

Chapter Text

Hotel, Coruscant

Ahsoka was not a morning person. 

Nothing welcomed her like the freshly washed sheets of a luxury hotel bed, enveloping her sore joints and over-exerted body with no judgement. She cradled a fistful of the white blanket around her body, wrapped tight into what felt like the most comfortable position she’d ever found.

Five more minutes.

But her comm had other ideas. 

A long, painful sigh exuded from Ahsoka as the flimsy little screen buzzed. And buzzed. And buzzed until Ahsoka felt a trickle of desire to grip the thing and throw it out the window—hoping it’d hit some speeder on the way down. 

But she didn’t. 

Instead, she rose, tight coils of loose alabaster hair framing her face as braids caressed her shoulders. She gave a faint little stretch as she reached for the comm, flipping it over to see what the hell whoever-it-was wanted. 

[5:32am] Pryce: Where are you?

[5:34am] Pryce: We need to talk about yesterday’s interview.

[5:38am] You haven’t seen the numbers, have you?

[5:41am] Ahsoka. Answer your comm.

[6:00am] Eclipsa is meeting downtown for lunch. Mandatory. 12pm. No excuses.

[6:01am] Bring your A-game.

Ugh.

Ahsoka’s eyes burned as she clicked the screen off, reaching to untangle her bare legs from the best blankets she’d ever touch. When her feet hit the floor, her head spun a little bit—adjusting to the sudden movement as she blinked her vision into focus. Under any other circumstance, Ahsoka would’ve tossed the comm back down and returned to sleep—ready to lazily dream the day away if it meant getting some breath of fresh air. 

But alas, that wasn’t possible. 

She reached toward the nightstand drawer and tugged it open, pawing around aimlessly without looking until her grip found a familiar little orange bottle. Without thought, she twisted off its cap, tipped one tablet out and onto her palm, and took it with no water. The taste was bitter and unwelcome but not foreign. Moments later, she shuffled to the fresher. 

The cold tile floor shocked her skin—a feeling she must’ve forgotten in her haze to go to sleep the night before. But she tried to shrug it off as Ahsoka approached the mirror. 

The woman there wasn’t a stranger, or anything. But Ahsoka wasn’t very familiar anymore. White markings danced symmetrically across her face, not yet hidden beneath layers of concealer. She exhaled once again, reaching to brush her fingers through braids in order to smooth them down. Her eyes had always been a dark shade of blue but the lenses she wore during shows to illuminate them more almost seemed to suck the life out of them.

Ahsoka just looked tired. 

And she was. It’d be a long tour and the sleep debt was catching up to her. The amount of times the bodyguard posted outside her hotel room door had been paged by Pryce to wake Ahsoka was more than countable—poor Rex likely didn’t think that was part of the job when he signed up.

To be fair, neither did Ahsoka. 

Years of training in professional schools since she was young wasn’t a bad way to grow up, don’t get her wrong. Ahsoka loved to dance—it was the only time she could really set aside everything and let her body move with the rhythm it helped create. And in the beginning, Eclipsa was very near and dear to her heart. 

Her comm buzzed again. 

[6:12am] Pryce: And wear something chic, not casual. You’re trending again. 

Ahsoka exhaled. 

Enough moping. Get yourself together. 

And she did. From the drawer beside the fresher, Ahsoka retrieved a small palette of neutral tones—concealers, skin balancers, highlighters, all meticulously matched to the undertones of her complexion. With the ease of someone who’d done this every day for years, she began to tap over the white patches of her face. 

Her cheek, her browbone, her jawline. 

The symmetry helped, making things easier to blend and control. Once upon a time, she found the marks beautiful and unique, but the agency had, long ago, instructed her that uniformity is the way fans expected her to look. To be anything different would be to too heavily reference her own culture, and to pull that much attention away from the group was selfish. 

And if she didn’t do it, Pryce would mention something. 

Ahsoka swept her braids into a half-up twist, using some silver clips shaped like stars from one of their stage performances, and her clothes were an afterthought. Something effortless, a black jacket that cinched at the waist with tall boots adorning chrome accents. Something chic, like Pryce demanded, but walking the lines of “still a popstar” and “soon-to-be-replaced.”

Ahsoka didn’t linger in the mirror after that, not exactly appreciative of the woman she’d see. She instead, gathered her things, slung a soft leather bag over one shoulder and palmed her calm. One more check of the time—6:47am—and she headed toward the door. 

As it slid open with a hiss, the hallway light bled across her boots and cast a shadow into the suite. Standing just outside, perfectly still and alert, was Rex. 

He didn’t flinch, didn’t glance at her outfit or frown at her delayed wake-up. He didn’t need to, instead his arms were crossed over his chest and his earpiece buzzed faintly with incoming chatter from the security line downstairs. He looked exactly like he always did—imposing but calm, a scar nicked over his eyebrow and a blaster discreetly holstered beneath the tailored jacket that disguised the rest of his armor. 

“You’re late,” Rex said, but not unkindly.

Ahsoka gave him a sleepy half-smile. “I’m fashionably exhausted.”

He huffed once. Close to a laugh, had he been anyone else. “Speeder’s waiting. We’re wheels-up in two minutes. You eat yet?”

When she shook her head, he frowned. “Don’t worry, I’ll get a coffee or something at lunch.”

“Let me guess,” Rex muttered, tapping in their clearance code, “downtown cafe?”

The doors shut and Ahsoka leaned against the wall of the lift with closed eyes. She nodded. Rex didn’t say anything right away as the elevator hummed beneath them. A low mechanical drone that vibrated up through the soles of their boots. Ahsoka swayed slightly with the motion, her head tipped back against the wall. But she could still feel Rex looking at her. 

Not in a judgemental way—never that—but in the way someone does when they just… know you too well to let things go unsaid. 

“That interview yesterday.”

Ahsoka opened one eye. “Mm?”

“How do you feel about it?”

Ahsoka groaned softly, rubbing a hand over her face but not nearly enough to disturb the mask she wore. “What part?”

“ That part, Tano,” Rex said, raising a brow, “you couldn’t have seen it coming.”

Ahsoka snorted, “who could’ve?”

Rex didn’t respond to that. Instead, after a beat, he asked, “have you ever thought about it?”

She furrowed her brows. “Think about what?”

“Leading Eclipsa.”

Ahsoka didn’t even give that a thought, and it instead made her laugh. Not a sharp, rehearsed laugh or one carrying mockery. But it was short and genuinely amused. “Me?” she echoed. “Rex, no.”

Ahsoka was definitely not someone to be placed in that position. She could barely keep herself in check, let alone other people. She pulled attention during choreography to distract the viewer from noticing formation changes behind her. She had a deep voice for basslines, but that was it. The other girls didn’t even include her in many of their non-Eclipsa activities—aside from Padme, every now and then—and they would never look at Ahsoka with the same respect they hold to her. 

“It’s not gonna happen,” Ahsoka shook her head. “Everyone knows who’s in line. Satine, Riyo, Barriss… even Steela’s got more backing than I do. I’m just a dancer.”

“You’re a lot more than that, Commander.”

Ahsoka glanced at him, the old title slipping out like it always did when he was trying to make a point. It used to annoy her, but now she just let it hang. When Rex had been first assigned to Ahsoka, she jokingly asked her brother—assuming they were alone—if she should make a personal demand that her body guard call her ‘commander’. 

Little did Ahsoka know, Rex was right behind her. 

The memory brought a slight grin to her face, and even though Rex wouldn’t showcase that with a smile of his own, it was evident in his eyes that was his intention. 

“What’s your goal, then?”

Ahsoka hesitated.

That question had become harder and harder to answer lately. Once, it had been simple: she wanted to dance. She wanted to perform. She wanted to be part of something bigger than herself, to be seen for who she was. Just someone doing what they loved. 

But now?

“I just don’t want someone narrow-minded to lead,” she said at last, “Eclipsa is already teetering on the edge of collapse.”

She glanced down at her comm. The elevator ticked closer to ground level. 

“I don’t need to be center,” she said quietly, “I just don’t want us to lose the heart we started with.”

“Then maybe that’s exactly why you should be.”

Ahsoka looked up, but Rex didn’t offer more than that. His arms stayed crossed, his tone neutral. But Ahsoka could feel that belief he rarely voiced aloud. It was a feeling he oft’ kept tucked behind his protective instincts and sly side glances between security alerts. 

It was nice to have someone in her corner. 

The lift doors slid open, and Ahsoka exhaled once, pulling her shoulders straighter. “C’mon,” she said, stepping into the marble-lined lobby, “let’s kill time before lunch at the gym. I bet my mile time’ll beat yours, now.”

Rex followed a step behind, his stride even and measured. “You’ve been dodging breakfast and running less than ideal hours of sleep. I give you half a lap before you fake an injury.”

Ahsoka scoffed as they passed the fountain in the hotel atrium, a sweeping curve of glass and mist that sparkled in the soft morning light. “You wound me, Captain. I’ll have you know I still clock under six minutes on the dash.”

“For what, the first fifty meters?”

She spun on her heel mid-step to walk backward, grinning at him with faux arrogance. “Careful, old man. I’ve got youth and cardio on my side.”

“I’ve got discipline.”

“Your knees pop every time you bend!”

“That’s tactical.”

Ahsoka barked a laugh and turned back around just in time to avoid walking straight into a bellhop. She murmured a quick apology, then glanced over her shoulder with a sly grin. Rex gave her a look that landed somewhere between exasperated and fond. She nudged his arm with her elbow as the two approached the waiting speeder at the curb, doors already open and ready.

“It’ll be my win for the morning,” Ahsoka beamed. 

“You had one,” he said, “you got out of bed, didn’t you?”

Ahsoka blinked, caught off guard by the softness behind the words, then she ducked into the speeder with a faint smile. “...then let’s make it two!”

It was a few hours later that Ahsoka reached the downtown restaurant. And it was as sleek and soulless as every other Pryce-chosen venue—chrome fixtures, soft lighting meant to make influencers look radiant, and windows tinted enough to hide the Coruscant’s ever-churning chaos outside. Ahsoka barely made it up the steps before she saw her manager. 

Pryce stood by the entrance, dressed to kill in a blazer so sharp it looked like it could file her taxes. Her datapad was clutched in one hand, stylus already clicking away in the other. She didn’t greet Ahsoka. 

“You’re late.”

“I’m early.”

“Relative to when you should’ve arrived,” Pryce didn’t look up from the screen. “The datapad won’t silence. Your trending tag tripled overnight. Good news, if we don’t squander it.”

Ahsoka parted her lips but Pryce cut her off.

“No statements, no apologies, no backstage commentary if they ask. You’re going to walk in there, look like you’re not holding back tears, and make the public feel like you’re already the mature, grounded option for succession—without saying a single word about it.”

Ahsoka’s jaw worked soundlessly for a second. Then, she offered a tight smile. “I’m thrilled to be here.”

“Liar.” Pryce said, flatly, waving her toward the inner doors.

The hostess recognized them immediately and led the way through a gleaming interior. Eclipsa had been given the private mezzanine overlooking the rest of the restaurant—a glass-paneled perch,isolated but visible, just the way Pryce liked it. Ahsoka’s heels clicked over the marble as she walked, legs still sore from her friendly mile-time competition with Rex, as she adjusted the fall of her jacket and steeled herself for the chill in the air. 

The other members of Eclipsa were already seated, arranged in their usual calculated symmetry. Satine to the far left, ever-poised with her knee crossed and eyes unreadable. Riyo beside her, slowly stirring her drink as Steela sat back, arms folded, dark eyes tracking Ahsoka as she approached. Barriss only glanced up once and Bo-Katan was too engrossed in her comm to notice her entrance. 

Padme’s seat was empty. 

Ahsoka’s stomach sank as she slid into the vacant chair Pryce pointed her toward, directly across the spot where Padme’s should’ve been. It was odd—how sisterly the group could be and how cold they could turn.

Pryce didn’t sit right away and neither did the other handlers who filed in behind her—representatives of various members of Eclipsa all under the same label of Light Side Agency. Each of them clad in the identical black and sleek aesthetic that made them indistinguishable from each other, like a swarm of carrion birds in designer suits. Ahsoka watched them take their places along the outer rim of the table like generals prepping a war briefing. The only thing missing was a holomap. 

Pryce cleared her throat. 

“I’ll keep this brief,” she began, voice clipped and clear, already in presentation mode. “You all are aware of the news. Padme’s official statement has been released, and effective immediately after the tour ends, she is stepping down from the group to pursue her Senate candidacy full-time.”

Ahsoka anxiously drummed her fingers along her thighs.

“Eclipsa is entering a new phase. Padme was our center, she was the face of the group and with her departure, there will be scrutiny—on the brand, the tour, and every single one of you individually.”

One of the other managers, a stiff-nosed man assigned to Satine, interjected. “There will be interviews. The media’s going to want answers we can’t give yet, so we must maintain a unified image.”

“The numbers are already showing spikes in solo mentions,” added Bo-Katan’s manager, not even glancing up from her datapad. “Satine’s fan base surged overnight, as did Ahsoka’s.”

Ahsoka tried not to notice Barriss and Steela exhaling a little sharply at that. 

Pryce pressed on. “We’ll be rotating center positions during off-stage activity. See what clicks. But the company will make no official announcement until we’ve observed group dynamics. That means you don’t get to screw up. Not in rehearsal, interviews, and especially not in public. Is that clear?”

None of the girls answered, but no one argued. 

“We expect each of you to treat this as a new audition,” said the manager beside Riyo, a well-coiffed woman. “Fans will be paying attention. So will the board.”

Pryce locked eyes with Ahsoka. “Yes. And some of you are trending for the first time in months. I suggest you use that momentum wisely.”

The implication wasn’t subtle, and Ahsoka held her gaze without flinching, even as her pulse kicked harder beneath her skin. Her thoughts bubbled back to Rex—of course Pryce would want Ahsoka to compete for the leadership position despite her own wishes. And as a result, Barriss and Bo both glanced Ahsoka’s way, sharp eyes penetrating Ahsoka’s ever-cracking armor. 

“You will all attend a dance rehearsal this afternoon that will be recorded,” Pryce continued. “Choreography is being redistributed. Vocals will be reassigned over the next few days. Steela, you’re leading next week’s solo shoot. Satine, you’ll handle the charity gala press circuit.”

Her eyes flickered back to Ahsoka. 

“Tano, you’re joining Bo and Barriss for the new trio choreography.”

Bo-Katan’s eyes finally lifted from her comm, narrowing just slightly. Ahsoka could feel the heat of the stare already, anxiety pooling in her gut like blood. Pryce didn’t sit down until the air in the room was thick enough to choke on, and then—precisely, purposefully, she slid into the chair at the head of the table with her legs crossed. 

“One more thing,” she said, voice like a scalpel and tone far too casual to be harmless. “Leadership isn’t just about popularity, but artistry, direction… and vision.”

Ahsoka could already tell where this was going.

Pryce tapped her stylus once against the screen. “As such, the company is instituting a creative trial. Each of you will be producing an original single.”

Ahsoka quickly reached for one of the ice water on the table, bringing it to her lips to prevent a visceral reaction. Satine raised a brow her way, but returned her attention to Pryce. 

“You’ll oversee the process from start to finish,” Pryce said, “concept, lyrics, choreography, visuals, branding, budget oversight and so on. You’ll be paired with an in-house team, but the choices will be yours. Consider it your thesis statement.”

“I’m sorry—what?” Barriss said first, polite but icy. “In the middle of the tour cycle?”

“The tour’s almost over,” said Steela’s manager, “it’s perfect timing for a mid-season boost. Padme released her solo right before the Ryloth leg last year, and it boosted ticket sales twenty-four percent.”

“Because she is Padme, ” Barriss muttered, and Ahsoka couldn’t tell if she meant it bitterly or reverently. “That’s… insane!”

“Call it what you like,” Pryce replied. “But your fans won’t care what happens in this room, they’ll only care who leaves the biggest impact.”

“And we’re expected to do this while managing group performances, interviews, and new center rotations?” Riyo asked, brows furrowed. 

“Exactly!” Pryce said, tone chipper in a way that was unmistakably sharp. “You’re professionals. You’ve trained your entire lives for this. Show us what you’ve learned.”

The silence that followed was colder this time. The pit in Ahsoka’s stomach quickly churned into nausea at the implications of it all—there would be absolutely no free time between events. Her lack of sleep would have no chance to repay itself. Rex might get paged a bit more often, if that were the case. She didn’t realize how hard she’d been gripping the glass in her hand until she sat it down, noting the red marks on her palm from the cold condensation. 

Across the table, Bo-Katan tapped a single nail against the glass. “Hope they’re giving us hazard pay.”

A few of the girls smiled at that—some genuinely, some tightly, but it didn’t last. Ahsoka felt the pressure shift toward her. It always did when she didn’t want it to. Which, technically, was ever. She felt Steela’s eyes on her again, and Barriss was watching, too. 

“Each single will be reviewed by the board and a test group of high-tier fans,” Pryce went on. “Whichever garners the most impact will be heavily factored into our final decision.”

The rose-tinted glasses Ahsoka once saw each of these five girls slowly faded. It was due to happen, with time, and perhaps Ahsoka’s eyes had adjusted to the color so slowly she hadn’t realized the change, but it was there. Inevitably. And it sickened Ahsoka to her stomach to watch as they all fell from who they once were. 

And Ahsoka knew they weren’t the only ones. 

With her gaze flickering down at the water in her hand, she saw a faint, warped image of herself. Sloppy wet droplets of condensation from the ice trickling over her cheeks like tears. She looked distorted and it wasn’t due to the angle. Ahsoka just… knew she wasn’t the same woman she was when she signed that contract. And she knew that the same for all the others around the table, too, but…

Why did they have to grow so hostile?

Her throat felt dry, the remnants of that pill she took hours earlier gracing her senses so faintly—reminding her of the real change. 

“Lunch is on the company,” Pryce said, leaning back with an air of satisfaction. “Eat up, You’re going to need the energy.”

The Undercity, Coruscant

Maul has disassembled his legs again. 

Something about the low electrical hum of an exposed conduit along the far wall and the slow, measured exhale of steam rising from the cup beside him got Maul through it. The table he sat at was more scrap heap than furniture, covered in the scattered guts of servo motors, damp cloths stained with carbon soot, and a long, glinting row of tools laid out like a surgical tray. Wires splayed like sinew from the severed edge of his thigh, and his knee joint—partially dismantled—sat propped up in a small vice grip, twitching faintly. 

His fingers worked with deliberate precision, stripping away layers of caked dust from the socket mount, clawing out every microscopic trace of the place that put it there. 

Cog Hive Seven.

He hadn't had the time to get it done since his… ‘release’. And the name alone filled his lungs with a toxic, gaseous feeling akin to breathing in hours worth of wildfire smoke. Even now, even here—there was still the sting of sulfur and blood, the scent of electrostunned flesh thick in the air. 

Maul didn’t blink.

Each rotation of his wrist was mechanical, every cable he tweaked was deliberate, sterile, and exact. But his thoughts…

Were far less civilized.

Maul hadn’t screamed, then. Not when the lights went out, not when the prisoners tore one another apart for a scrap of protein paste. Nothing about life in the prison, itself, bothered him beyond a surface level point. Cog Hive Seven wasn’t unlike the circumstances he grew up in—under that of his old master, whose name also brought fire to his blood. No. Cog Hive Seven was only the symbolic figure piece to represent that someone he had managed to build any semblance of trust for… had left him to die. 

Vosa thought him weak enough to perish in some… gambling prison. 

And perhaps he was weak, having believed that he wouldn’t have been betrayed. 

The hiss of steam from a small auxiliary pipe pulsed in time with his breathing, and the heat from the cracked power cell below the floorboards fogged up the edges of his vision. The safehouse he and Savage scavenged was barely a roof and a lock, little more than insulated panels and repurposed starfreighter parts hammered together into a livable tomb. 

It suited him fine. For now. He had far more extravagant plans in mind.

Maul adjusted the tension in the actuator with a quiet click. The joint flexed in response, and the muscles in Maul’s jaw ticked with silent approval. From the far door, faint footsteps padded into earshot, heavier than his own. 

Savage.

A beat later, the door hissed open and Savage stepped in, ducking beneath the low frame. The larger Dathomirian moved with a soldier’s stillness, cradling a battered take-out box in one clawed hand. He placed it on the workbench, close enough to acknowledge but far enough to leave Maul untouched. The scent of grilled root-meat and fried starches fought with the burnt air. He paused, however, watching Maul dig through the mechanics at hand. 

“You’ve been at it for hours,” Savage said, voice low and gruff, “Ain’t nothing left in there but metal.”

Maul’s golden eyes finally flicked up, slow and unblinking. He stared at the shadows on the wall across from him—at nothing. 

Savage exhaled through his nose. “You need to eat, brother.”

“I need her dead.”

The response was so quick Maul almost didn’t believe he said anything at all. The hum of the wall conduit skipped as the buzz of the city beyond their walls grew distant. Muffled screams, repulsor engines, rain somewhere in the levels above. Maul realized how tense his hands were around the mechanisms and closed his eyes for a moment, exhaling the anger not to dispel it, but to control. 

Savage dragged a stool with one hand and settled beside the bench. He cracked open the food container and set it near Maul’s good side. A single spork rested inside, bent slightly. 

He needn’t say anything, Maul knew. As hostile as the older of the two was, both brothers understood one another well. Maul had a temper, and it was forged to be such a way. Savage was a quieter, meeker force. He looked much scarier to others than he actually was, but was loyal to no end. Regardless of how Maul behaved, Savage knew that he was the only one for Maul to trust. While Maul was imprisoned, it was Savage who gathered as much intel on Vosa as he could in the meanwhile. 

A low whirr pulsed from the actuator as he reattached the final screw. The leg flexed once, jerking to life. Maul didn’t flinch. 

He let his tools fall into a loose pile with a clatter—sharp enough to bounce an echo against the walls. His hand hovered near the food box Savage had brought, then, slowly, took the bent spork. No acknowledgement passed between them, but he began to eat. 

Savage didn’t look over. 

“The Underworld grew quiet without you, brother.”

Maul said nothing.

“Too quiet,” Savage went on, “Vosa kept her head down. She knew what’d happen if she made noise before you got out.”

Maul pierced another slab of meat. “She’s not stupid.”

“No, just arrogant,” Savage snorted. “She truly thought you’d rot in that place.”

“I almost did.”

It was perhaps the closest Maul had come to admitting anything about Cog Hive Seven aloud. Not about the hunger, or the cold floors, or the cage fights. Most he handled well, but a few got to him. The blood-slick tiles underfoot after his caged water fight with another prisoner. 

“I asked about you every week,” Savage said, shifting slightly as he studied him from the corner of his eye. “It took me a while to learn the name of the prison. She buried it deep.”

Maul and Savage’s late teenage years leading up to Maul’s arrest were fuzzy, and Maul knew very little of Savage’s personal affairs. Maul knew that he worked for a dark lord that served Maul’s own master. But their training was vastly different, and thus they rarely saw one another outside of a few holograms and comm conversations. 

“What else did you do?” Maul asked, after some time. 

“Worked,” Savage gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Ran jobs with Asajj. Transport and a few shakedowns. Nothing too loud, I couldn’t afford to make enemies. Not without you.”

Ah, Asajj. Maul recognized that name. She was the other protegee of Savage’s boss. The thought actually made Maul’s brow crinkle. If Savage’s boss was anything like Maul’s master, then two apprentices at once was certainly not—

Well, nobody was like Maul’s master. 

“Be wary of Asajj,” Maul said, in a low tone. “Dathomirian women are… underhanded.”

Savage scratched at the edge of his jaw as silence fell over the both of them. Maul studied Savage for a tell—unsure of his brother’s feelings toward his partner in crime. The older brother would rather die than admit it out loud, but he’d hate for Savage to end up in the same predicament Maul found himself in. 

“I’ve maintained contact with her unbeknownst to Tyranus.”

Maul’s eyes narrowed. 

He knew that look.

“She’s not a fan of Komari Vosa either,” Savage clarified, “and I couldn’t afford to break her as a contact. She has too much intel to go to waste.”

Maul didn’t nod, but he understood. “I see.”

Asajj Ventress was a smart woman, if Maul’s memory served him. She’d know better than to test the waters with Maul on the loose, now. The thought of her trying anything sent a fiery hot anger back up through Maul’s spine, but he suppressed it, sharpening it—filing it away for later. Savage was finishing the last of the root-meat with shoulders broad and relaxed when Maul felt the bleeding into the room; it was subtle. The shift of his brother’s jaw when he mentioned Ventress.

They weren’t just partners. 

Or, at least, Savage didn’t see it that way.

Maul didn’t speak, but his eyes narrowed just slightly again. His thoughts drifted—not to Ventress, but someone else. 

Vosa.

The way she used to walk in step with him, unflinching. The thrill of being needed. Of being trusted. Of building something toge—

Maul shook his head suddenly. He knew that look on Savage. That quiet loyalty that rendered one blind. He inhaled once, slow and through the nose. 

He knew his brother well enough to understand that it wasn’t a topic Maul could convince him of. That was a lesson that, in due time, would be taught directly to Savage himself. To render his thoughts somewhere else, Maul stood, slowly, the mechanisms of his lower half supporting his weight with a quiet click. He took a few measured steps across the small space, surveying the wreckage of their stolen refuge. A broken tool rack, power cells stacked against the wall like corpses. 

“We’re not meant to live in this filth,” Maul said, voice low and firm now. “Not after everything we’ve endured.”

Savage blinked. 

“I will not crawl through the same gutters that built the men who caged me,” Maul continued, his lips curling into a sneer as he turned to face Savage. “It’s not enough.”

Savage tilted his head, larger, more jagged horns protruding from his head. “You got something in mind?”

Maul stared at him, his earlier thoughts wrestling with his mind. 

“I want a syndicate,” Maul said. “Not a crew, or a gang. I will not wrestle with a pack of street-slick bounty hunters hoping for scraps.”

Maul took a step forward, gripping a jagged shard of metal from the workbench and turning it in his hand like a talisman. Yes, a syndicate. Something with reach and with power. Something that could turn his enemies into fodder at the mere mention.

“Something built to last. That is how we’ll find Vosa. We bring a threat to her door greater than anything of the likes she’s ever seen. Greater than the dark lords we’ve been worn under.”

Maul had endless time to think and ponder in his cell between the staged cage-fights that bitch of a warden put him through. He’d achieved something of the sort during his time there, standing tall and looming over the Bone Kings and Gravity-Massive. He’d walloped the division in that place and turned them all into his dogs. It had been easy enough, in a controlled environment; perfect practice for the wild underworld that was Coruscant. 

They had the time. The concert Vosa was reportedly going to end up attending wasn’t until a week from now. He’d just need to crack down and get to work—gather as many loyalists as he could in the meanwhile. 

Yes.

“The Crimson Dawn.”

Chapter Text

Dance Studio, Coruscant

The echo of bass still lingered on the studio floor.

Faint vibrations rippled up through the arches of Ahsoka’s feet. The others had already filed out, either to gossip in the lounge or loiter by the stylists while discussing their own individual projects. But Ahsoka stayed behind as she always did, claiming a corner of her own tucked behind a half-collapsed divider wall where the mirrors no longer reflected properly and one of the light panels overhead flickered. A towel hung loosely around her neck, sweat glistening at her collarbones. Her legs ached from the strain, joints humming in protest but she liked that feeling. At least it meant she was still moving. 

She slid to the ground with a tired grunt, knees drawn up. Back pressed to the cool duracrete wall. Her comm buzzed softly at her side, and Ahsoka needn’t look. The ringtone was custom. 

“Yeah,” she answered. 

“Snips!” Anakin’s voice came through with that familiar crackle—his older model comm. He was likely mid-shift. 

“Hey,” she said, wiping at her brow. 

“You’re late calling, everything alright?”

Ahsoka paused, just long enough for her reflection in the broken mirror to notice. “Yeah,” she said, “sorry, rehearsal ran long. Some things are changing up around here, you know how it is.”

“You should tired.”

“I am tired,” she replied with a soft laugh. “But, like… the good kind. Productive tired.”

“Mhm,” Anakin paused. The kind of break Anakin always used when he didn’t believe her but wasn’t ready to challenge it outright. “Hows the tour shaping up?”

Ahsoka let her head lean back against the wall, her eyes closing for a while. She imagined the clean answer first; the safe one. The version that would get her brother, who already had his own ever-growing list of worries, to stop worrying entirely. “Really well,” she said at last. “I think the crowd’ll love it. I’ve been leading warmups with Bo-Katan and Barriss.”

Ahsoka kept her tone light. 

“And you?” she asked quickly. “How’s the front line?”

Anakin didn’t answer right away, and instead she could hear the sound of movement on his end. Someone passing by, probably a trooper. Then, his voice returned, more subdued this time. 

“Same old. The boys and I cleared another outpost this morning, so it’s quieter now,” Anakin paused, “I’m actually surprised this is going through as well as it is. An hour or so later, Echo and I had to rewire our transmission signals and he told me it wouldn’t be so stable.”

Ahsoka hummed, that meant he likely had no news of the broadcast or the news Padme dumped onto the world last night. “That’s good.”

But then followed a silence. 

“Snips—”

“ Skyguy, ” she cut in, “I’m okay. Really.”

The last thing Ahsoka wanted to do was make Anakin worry. He had a war to fight; and one that seemed to stretch endlessly long for the Republic. Perhaps that was why Padme insisted on being a politician, so that she may try and put an end to it for Anakin’s sake—the two went way back—but that was wishful thinking on Ahsoka’s part. Anakin wasn’t just a normal soldier, either—he was a top ranking general. For a long while, he’d been nothing more than a police officer with Ahsoka’s most uncle-like figure, Obi-Wan, but when Shili itself had been attacked on the outskirts of the Republic’s reach, Anakin decided it time to pay back their parents for taking him in and defend.

It was noble. Probably the most noble thing a goofball like her brother could ever do.

“You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

“Of course.”

There was a short pause. The sound of static fuzzing in her ear as he adjusted the comm link. Anakin sighed. “Well… I was gonna surprise you with a visit at the last show. Figured I’d sneak in with the crowd and bring some of the 501st boys with me—make a night out of it.” He paused. “But orders came down this morning, and I’m shipping out somewhere to the Outer Rim.”

Ahsoka’s heart didn’t dip. She didn’t have the expectation that he could, anyway, but given the fact it might be her last show ever with Eclipsa, at this rate… “I figured as much.”

“I wanted to.”

“I know.”

“...You’re not mad?” Anakin pressed.

“Mad?” Ahsoka laughed, tired. “Of course not. You’ve got your life on the line out there, Skyguy, you can’t turn your back to the enemy just to come watch some girls sing and dance. You’ve got a Republic to save.”

“You’re still part of the Republic, Snips.”

“I’ll record the last show,” she said, trying to lift the mood again, “or make sure I get a drive of it. Not sure how your signal will be all the way out there. I’ll even make Rex cameo in it. Think the boys would like that?”

That made Anakin laugh. “They’d love that! How’s he doing?”

Ahsoka’s lips suddenly puckered into a pout. “Well enough to still beat my mile time,” she snickered, “But… good.”

A knock sounded on the studio door, likely the man in question warning her of impending visitors. Ahsoka sighed, turning back toward her comm with a tone far more than regretful. 

“I’m being summoned by my master overlords,” Ahsoka said, her voice low and dramatic but not untrue. “Think you’ll have signal tomorrow?”

“I should,” Anakin said, the grin in his voice, “good luck at battle, soldier. Stay sharp.”

The comm clicked off, and silence fell over the fractured corner of the studio. Ahsoka sat still for a moment, allowing herself to marinate in the remnants of her familiarity. Anakin’s voice always had a way of grounding her. Brought her back to the age where she’d run amok in the fields of their childhood home pretending to be ships in distant lands. 

With a low exhale, Ahsoka pushed herself upright, towel sliding from her shoulder to hang off one hand. She gave her arms a half-hearted stretch, rolling her neck until it popped, and then approached the door, movements quick and deliberate as she did. 

A flick of her wrist on the sensor panel—

There stood Rex, standing with his usual calm. His eyes softened the moment they met hers, “Your eight o’clock, commander.”

Ahsoka offered him a tired smile. “Thanks, Rex.”

Ahsoka stepped aside to let him in—just as Barriss Offee and Bo-Katan Kryze entered from the adjacent lift. Barriss was already mid-scroll on her datapad, lips pursed in faint concentration. She wore her hair in a tight, slicked back bun that just oozed clinical sharpness whilst Bo-Katan trailed a step behind her, arms crossed over her chest with aviator shades still perched lazily on her head.

“Hey,” Ahsoka greeted.

The two of them barely nodded as they entered, and Ahsoka watched them strut on by with her lips pressed into a thin line. So it was that kind of day.  

She suppressed a sigh.

Ahsoka followed the two women onto the center floor, where the auxiliary sound system was already cycling through their working playlist. The lighting was brighter here, too harsh for her tired eyes. Barriss clicked her comm. 

“I’m thinking we choose something to cover, rather than an Eclipsa song,” she said, “to build hype from other fandoms and bring in new viewership.”

Bo-Katan quirked a brow, “That’d mean recording vocals too.”

“And?” Barriss replied dryly, “we choose something within our scope but a little different. Pryce said she wants us to go all out, so I’m going all out.”

Ahsoka parted her lips to suggest something, but realized the two girls were not paying attention to her in the slightest. With Barriss as the lyricist, and Bo the choreographer, it was natural that they’d have more trials and tribulations with choosing the song than Ahsoka would. She couldn’t help but get the feeling that they weren’t waiting for her, either. 

Rex lingered by the door, watching carefully. When Ahsoka glanced back toward him, his brow furrowed just slightly—like he was noticing too. 

“Alright,” Barriss announced, “lyrical wise, our best match is this band that I fin—”

“But lyrics aren’t the game here,” Bo said, placing her hands on her hips. “We were told to get a trio choreography. I don’t think the lyrics matter so long as we get the singing part down, but that’s not as important either as the dance.”

“We’ve done that a million times before. I think we should do something a little slower and more contemporary—”

“That’s stupid, you said that we should do something with more hype to it and that is not— ”

Ahsoka’s eye twitched, and she reached for her comm. While they bickered and argued, she thumbed through a playlist of her recent songs, syncing her comm to the sound system of the studio before they could realize, and clicked on the first song she saw with a relatively dance-able beat. 

A guitar riff. Immediately. 

Barriss and Bo whipped their heads around to Ahsoka, brows furrowed and faces full of confusion, but Ahsoka only shrugged her shoulders. “What? We haven’t settled on a song?”

“This isn’t danceable. It’s too heavy.” Bo said.

“You just said you didn’t want contemporary,” Ahsoka said, pointing to Bo, before moving to point at Barriss. “And you said you wanted different. Tell me how this isn’t a compromise?”

It was a pretty famous nu-metal song, if Ahsoka knew correctly. A little on the older side—at least old enough for her and Anakin to have played air-guitar in anything but sync back when they were younger. Ahsoka was extremely familiar, but it didn’t appear like Bo and Barriss were when Ahsoka moved to mark the center of the wall-length mirror. Placing her water bottle down, she stepped back, adjusting her loose-fitting crop.

The intro riff built fast, wailing of distorted guitar suddenly met with thunderous drums that followed the timbre of a hip-hop track. Doubt swam in their eyes when she glanced back at the girls in the mirror, so Ahsoka would demonstrate. 

As soon as the chorus hit, Ahsoka moved. Each kick-drum blast met with a jolt through her shoulder. She moved quickly and aggressively, allowing the song to ensnare her movement in its entirety until she was a puppet of its rhythm, exuding the high-energy as a physical force.

“It’ll be too hard to sing while moving like that,” Barriss said, placing her hands on her hips as she focused. Bo nodded in agreement. “Look, Tano, you’ve made your point, but—”

Ahsoka paused in her movement, breathing a little hard but otherwise just warmed up. Quirking a brow, she parted her lips and began to sing along to the scream-like vocals, only with a polished melodic tone to her own voice—she wouldn’t do the scream thing, as fun as it’d be. Then, in the midst of the words she sang, she began to bounce between her feet, at first  subtly to build up her vocal stability. But as she progressed, she moved around them, a bullet around the studio. It helped that she had a lower voice from her chest, sure, a head voice would be a little harder to maintain, but with enough practice…

She kept going until the chorus looped once more, body whipping into a final spin where she landed in the middle of her initial starting spot. The music cut sharply as she slapped the pause on her comm. 

“You were saying?”

Ahsoka wasn’t trying to be smug, she was trying to find a compromise. Otherwise, they’d sit in this studio and waste precious time trying to argue about artists to cover. Barriss said nothing, her expression flickered somewhere along the lines of irritation, if Ahsoka peered a little closer. Bo-Katan, at the very least, seemed mildly intrigued. 

“If we’re going to do this, we might as well have fun with it,” Ahsoka said, suddenly getting that cold sensation in her chest that arrived when she felt a little too exposed. “Remember when Eclipsa first formed…? We used to just pick our favorite songs and dance as our workouts. This feels like that.”

Bo-Katan, after a long moment, relented, allowing her shoulders to sag with a shrug.

“You’re right, Tano. We’re taking this too seriously,” Bo said, to which a small flicker of hope blossomed in Ahsoka’s heart. 

Had she… had she actually gotten through to them?

“It’s not like our careers are on the line or anything,” Bo said, maintaining that same ‘given up’ tone. Ahsoka’s little sparkle of hope was diminished at the sarcasm, and with its absence came the cold, again. “No… no! Let’s do it your way and have fun with the death of our group. Just because ‘Soka wants to ‘pick our favorite songs and dance’.”

Ahsoka’s chest tightened, and she immediately clicked off the comm, as if throwing away the song in its entirety. She tried not to let the heat in her cheeks become visible but by the look on Rex’s face, reflected in the mirror, she wasn’t doing a good job. 

“Now, if you’re done prancing, ” Bo said, voice short and clipped, “I’ve got a song to choreograph and we’ve already got a playlist of good options.”

Ahsoka didn’t say anything. 

Instead, she inhaled slowly through her nose and nodded, desperate to get Bo to just… stop talking to her like that. When she did, Barriss was already cueing up a standard track—some syrupy mid-tempo ballad with an easy four-count beat and long, drawn-out choruses. Ahsoka moved silently to her mark on the floor and Bo-Katan didn’t look back as she crossed to the mirror wall, shoulders squared. 

“Let’s map out the chorus first. No spins or drops yet, we need the vocals to carry, so keep the moves small.”

“Got it,” Barriss said. 

Ahsoka raised her arms on the one-count like she’d been taught, body folding into the first formation as Barriss began to count the tempo aloud. “One… two… three, four—left, right, lift…”

Ahsoka followed the cues. Her body obeyed, fluid and sharp where it needed to be, trained to fall into rhythm the moment it was asked. Her instincts never failed her, and it wasn’t a bad song or anything. They could’ve rejected the song choice and Ahsoka would’ve been fine. But…

That cold in her chest, the hollowness that followed her like a dark cloud over her head lingered. And it thundered, ready to pour. That energy she exuded, chasing fun, chasing excitement, was uninvited, here. That much was already known to Ahsoka, but given she’d been with these girls for well over three years, she’d hoped their forged sisterhood would emerge and they’d act like kin again.

Perhaps that was another tactic of Pryce’s cultural erasure. 

“I’ll take the lead for the bridge,” Barriss announced after another pass-through. “Tano, try to keep your arms lifted when you pivot. You’re dragging slightly.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Sorry.”

The Undercity, Coruscant

Maul walked with purpose. 

Metal legs hissing faintly beneath the long fall of his coat, they clicked softly on the grated walkway as he descended into the final stairwell of the heart of the Black Sun’s district of these low levels—a sub-headquarters, so to speak. The air thickened the deeper he went, with smog, rot, stale blood. It bothered Maul not, but he did find it telling. There was power here. Real power, guttural, ugly, and influential.

He was here to build.

The durasteel doors ahead hissed open with a sluggish creak, and inside was a half-lit chamber reeking of stale death sticks. A single, long table stretched across the room, its edges crowded by seated lieutenants. Some old, some new. All surprised of his arrival—not quite having expected Maul, of all people, to be standing in their doorway. 

He… wasn’t the type to make appointments. 

“ Jagannath, ” came the voice, gravelly and amused. Far too confident for its own good, Maul knew. That name sent a sickening snarl to Maul’s lips. It was none other than Ziton Moj who spoke, head of the Coruscant sector of the Black Sun—fingers steepled and rings glinting in the dim. He regarded Maul with an expression that could've mirrored respect, but instead it seemed more curious. “A surprise, indeed. What brings the conqueror of Cog Hive Seven to my doorstep?”

Maul’s movements didn’t halt until he was just shy of the table’s edge. His face betrayed nothing of his swirling thoughts, a halo of anger-inducing draws he could pull from swirling in his mind’s eye. 

“Or is it Maul, you prefer?” Ziton leaned back in his chair with a grin. “I half-expected you to show up with a leash around your neck. No offense, of course. Old habits! You used to bark when He snapped his fingers. That wasn’t so long ago.”

Maul tilted his head, slowly. “Do not mistake my silence for servitude.”

“No,” Ziton said, chuckling, “I mistake your history for relevance, Jagannath. ”

The room laughed with him. It bothered Maul not, the ones who giggled alongside their leader like schoolgirls would be soon to regret it, anyway. Instead, he pressed a single palm on the table, leaning forward with eyes so intense they might’ve burned holes into Ziton’s skin. 

“I’ve a proposal.”

That wiped the smile off Ziton’s face. “Oh?”

Too many men filled voids with bluster. Ziton Moj was one of them, and the others around the table weren’t unlike Moj. But they weren’t like Maul, either. None had spent their entire lives being broken and reshaped in the image of another, tasting annihilation around every corner and overcoming nevertheless. Maul had.

The Black Sun wasn’t foolish. They were a proud people, but a bloated one. Once feared across the Outer Rim of The Republic—but now, they stood fractured and shattered from the inside. Too many offshoots and too large a realm size made for too many failures. That was their fault, but Maul knew a name they liked to put to blame for their latest weak streak. 

There’d been a few Black Sun operatives in Cog Hive Seven that gave Maul the intel he wanted; how the leader of the Bando Gora gutted their spice operations across Kessel and Ryloth. Their shipments were a joke under her influence.

Maul would be a tourniquet. 

Ziton cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the prolonged silence. “By all means, the floor is yours.”

“You’ve lost seventeen spice corridors in the past three cycles, correct?” Maul tilted his head, jagged crown of horns heavy. “Ten raided by the Bando Gora, three shut down by Republic customs, and four inside jobs.”

Maul leaned back, standing up straight. 

“You bleed. But you are too proud to admit it.”

Maul watched as the wretched lines in Ziton’s face coiled from calculated neutrality to a stone, heated anger. Simmering like a pot ready to boil over. A few of his lieutenants shifted amongst their seats, but Maul didn’t waver his stare from the man in question. In fact, he allowed a corner of his mouth to twitch—amusement and disgust in one. 

“The Hutts have been watching,” Maul said, tilting his chin up, as if grazing the ceiling for any potential spyware around them. “They’ve seen your weakness and will exploit it, soon. I’ve heard it confirmed, verbally, within Cog Hive Seven.”

Ziton barked a dry laugh, out of nowhere. “And why should I believe you?”

Maul’s gaze sharpened. “Because your men obeyed me before they died.”

Ziton’s jaw stiffened. He didn’t have to ask which men—he already knew. Black Sun had lost more than spice corridors in the last three cycles; some of those losses never made the ledgers because they were inside Cog Hive Seven. Maul’s storm there had been catastrophic and veiled in secrecy that even Maul sometimes dared question. But Ziton had read between the lines, dead lieutenants whose comms went dark weren’t a coincidence. 

Maul took one slow step around the corner of the table. “Jabba’s lackeys arrived in an attempt to intercept an arms dealer hidden beneath the prison,” he explained low and slowly, as if speaking to a child, “and as interested in others, they were intrigued by your collapse. He’d send them to carve up your markets while they got the job done.”

A memory flickered in Maul’s mind, coming down from that halo of angst. Slumped bodies on steel catwalks and the stench of scorched flesh in the prison’s recycled air; the Hutt’s enforcers had bragged before their ends came. Maul had slit their throats himself—blasted a few others, and ended the lives of those working for Ziton as well.

“You knew I was there,” Maul continued, eyes narrowing as he drew nearer to Ziton. His voice dropped to a low hush, final. “Because a remarkable amount of new inmates after Vosa’s foolishness was over with just so happened to be Black Sun.”

Ziton’s fingers flexed. “In our line of work, men disappear frequently. As you said, with the Republic cracking down—”

Maul stepped closer, the creak and mechanical drone of the movement telling in that of itself. He allowed the sound to fill the void before he spoke. He needn’t say the words aloud—the truth was evident in the way tension swelled at the implication. That was how bad liars were caught. 

Ziton sent them. 

The Black Sun knives into Cog Hive Seven, that is, on Vosa’s word. Her rise to power over the Bando Gora needed to be aided by a spice trade—that was her signature move to keep her men under command. A supplier was in order, and the Black Sun was one of two major options she could’ve picked. He’d have no suspicion of one over the other had not the Black Sun came after him whilst he was behind bars. 

“You believed that your new friend could choke the life from me where He could not, and yet—” Maul said, leaning forward slightly until his reflection eclipsed Ziton’s in the black glass of the table. “—I am here.”

It was pathetic, the way Ziton trembled. 

It was a weakness Maul would not tolerate. Not in his syndicate… no. 

Ziton’s knuckles whitened on the armrests as Maul straightened, allowing his pause to hang long enough for their nerves to stretch thin. Then, in one sharp, predatory movement, he lurched forward—both palms slamming against the table akin to a blastershot through the air. 

“Where is she?”

The words were not shouted, eyes bored into Ziton yellow and red burning with an intensity that pinned the Black Sun leader into place. Chairs scraped suddenly as two of Ziton’s lieutenants surged to their feet, moving to flank their leader.  It didn’t take but two steps before Maul’s blaster was in hand. And the report of the shot was deafening in the enclosed chamber. The nearest lieutenants' head snapped back, body collapsing sideways in a heap on the table’s edge before sliding limply to the floor.

Maul didn’t lower the weapon when silence followed. 

“Sit.”

Each one obeyed. 

Ziton swallowed hard. The bravado was long gone now, Maul knew—peeled away like cheap pain as the man stammered. “Maul… please,” he said, hands lifting slightly from the armrests in a gesture of surrender before curling back against the polished wood. “I—I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Maul’s gaze didn’t shift. He stood, expectant. 

“Yes,” Ziton went on, “Yes, she and I… we worked together for a time. Small shipments, nothing grand. She wanted leverage in the lower corridors and used my contacts to funnel her spice out of Coruscant without drawing too much attention. But—”

He swallowed again, glancing toward the corpse beside him. 

“—she cut me off. Said the arrangement was no longer profitable. She pulled her crews from my lines and started pushing her own supply through channels I couldn’t touch.”

Maul raised a brow. 

“But there are rumors!” Ziton added quickly, as if fearing the information wasn’t satisfactory enough. “She’s still on friendly terms with the Pykes. They’ve been seen moving her product through Oba Diah. Discreetly, though,” his voice lowered, almost conspiratorial, “If she’s partnered with them, she’s got reach.”

Maul thought about it, and a scowl crossed his face. 

If she was working with the Pykes… then he at least had his own leverage over the Black Sun in a greater power, now. The two were rivals of one another as much as they rivaled the Hutts. If Maul could hook them all on the same belt, he’d have the perfect arsenal to ensnare that broodmare and make her pay for her crimes. 

And perhaps… After her ruin, another could be his victim.

Ziton sat there, pale and sweating under Maul’s scrutinous gaze as he resolved the issue in his own head. A low, unstable inhale came from Maul as he internalized that rage pulsing through him again. Wielding it like the handle of a whip, and when his eyes refocused, so did his arm. 

Pop!

Ziton Moj slumped over in his seat, forehead steaming. 

He’d deal with the consequences of such an action later, when the real Black Sun leader came to pay  him a visit for such an egregious act—if he was bold enough to do so in the first place. But for now, Maul slowly turned to the rest of the lieutenants, lazily waving his blaster to gesture toward the door. 

“It seems you are in luck,” Maul said, speaking louder now to the group, “you’ve each been given a chance to join a collective far more powerful than your miniscule minds could possibly comprehend.”

Throwing the blaster onto the long, black table, Maul slowly began to march toward Savage’s position at the entrance. 

“But it appears there’s only room for three on the team, as of now,” Maul said, stalking off toward his brother. When he reached the steps, none of the men had moved yet, and the barrel of his blaster still smoked. Maul turned one glance over his shoulder, “So, we’re going to have try-outs. Make it quick.”

When the massive doors creaked shut, blaster fire emerged from within the chamber like music to Maul’s ears, pulsating in time with the screams that followed. Exchanging a glance with his brother, Maul nodded. 

Excellent.