** Shadows of the Past**
**Scene 1 – Ahsoka Tano's POV**
Shili was beautiful.
The homeworld of the Togruta lay in the Ehosiq sector of the Expansion Region. It was a long-time member of the Galactic Republic, and Togrutas had been part of the Jedi Order since its earliest years. The planet was covered in vast turu-grass scrublands and valley canopy forests that glowed with bioluminescent life at night. Massive herds of akul roamed the plains, and tribes of Togruta had to work together to hunt them for survival. The most prominent city was Corvala, the planetary capital, but many Togruta still lived in traditional communities scattered across the wilds.
Ahsoka Tano stood on a hillside overlooking a waterfall that cascaded into a crystal-clear pool. The air was warm and carried the sweet scent of flowering turu-grass. It was peaceful here — almost too peaceful after everything that had happened.
Dagon was still in a medically induced coma aboard the *Sovereign* after the events on Naboo. He had pushed his body and the Force to their absolute limits to purify the Blue Shadow Virus before it could spread across the planet. Nox had assured everyone that he would recover, but the waiting was hard.
Ahsoka could still remember the moment vividly.
She had been safely in orbit when the Blue Shadow bombs went off, releasing the deadly mist into the atmosphere. She had watched in horror as the blue haze spread toward Theed, knowing millions of lives were at risk. Then Dagon had done what he always did — he risked everything. He channeled a forbidden technique, a thought-bomb-like ritual of purification, burning away the virus at a planetary scale. The cost had been immense. He had nearly died, losing almost ninety percent of his blood in the process.
She had been so angry. All the girls had been angry. He kept throwing himself into impossible situations, sacrificing his own safety again and again.
Nox had tried to explain it to them later.
"When innocents are harmed and you know you have the power to do something about it, you can't just watch it all burn down around you," he had said quietly. "Some things are worth fighting for. A life worth dying for."
Still, it was frustrating.
Now, after Nox had explained to the Jedi Council what Dagon had done — an ancient technique once used by the head of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge in the old Sith Empire — the Council had grudgingly approved Dagon's wish to reunite Ashara with Nox. They were currently searching for her grave on Shili.
Ahsoka had decided to accompany Nox. He was, in a strange way, Dagon's "hidden master" — the ancient Sith whose holocron Dagon had studied for years. But right now, Nox looked young and a little immature, far from the wise, angry, and secretive Sith Lord Dagon had described.
The grave site was on a hillside overlooking a waterfall, nestled beneath a massive ancient tree. It was covered in various wildflowers that bloomed in soft shades of blue and white. The location was serene, peaceful — the kind of place Ashara would have loved.
"It's so beautiful," Ahsoka said softly.
"Yeah," Nox replied, voice thick with emotion. He knelt beside the grave, fingers brushing over the stone marker. "She used to come here when she was pregnant with our daughter… to relax. We were going to start a family."
His voice cracked. Tears welled in his purple eyes.
Ahsoka placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry. You will be with her again. Dagon does the impossible, remember?"
Nox gave a weak, broken smile. "Yeah… he does."
**Scene 2 – Nox's POV (Flashback)**
It was the most horrible moment of my life.
The grave was empty.
They had taken his wife.
They had taken his unborn daughter.
And now she wasn't even allowed to rest in peace.
---
**Four Thousand Years Ago**
**Planet Shili, Ehosiq Sector, Expansion Region**
A Republic trooper fell to the ground, drowning in his own blood. Another was hit by an invisible force with the power of a speeding train and hurled away from the farmstead. A Wookiee Jedi was thrown into a nearby building by a wave of raw Force energy.
I used my lightsaber as a spear and threw it at a nearby commando who was shouldering a rocket launcher. The weapon flew true and stabbed him in the heart. The still-ignited lightsaber floated back to my outstretched hand. I fried another trooper with a purple bolt of lightning shot from the palm of my left hand. Suddenly, the enemies in my immediate vicinity were down.
I knelt next to the cooling body of my wife. Her chest was a burned, smoking ruin. I recognized the tell-tale signs of lightsaber wounds. Her once-vivid black eyes were misty, sightless orbs staring into the dark sky.
I discarded my helmet and let it fall to the ground. I gently picked up her limp right arm and placed a tender kiss on the back of her still-warm hand. The evidence was right in front of me, staring me in the face, yet my brain refused to believe it. She couldn't be gone! She simply could not!
I was torn between denial, grief, and anger that burned hotter by the second.
She was innocent! Ashara wanted nothing to do with the damn war!
I froze. In my anguish, I had failed to notice it. It was a faint spark of life force coming from my wife. I stared at her body with my mouth hanging open. My left hand traced its origin over Ashara's abdomen. My palm stopped over her tummy.
There it was.
Tiny. Innocent. Barely formed.
And fading fast.
Without thinking, I clutched the spark of life with all my might. I drew heavily on the light side of the Force — as much as my body could channel. I trembled with the strain, forcing the energies of the Force to pass through me and keep the tiny life going.
The cold, pragmatic part of my mind — the successful General — was screaming that it was futile. That I was killing myself for nothing. I disregarded it. For me, it was not futile. This small mote of light that I was holding in my metaphysical fingers was the last part I had left from my Ashara. Our child.
Its — no, *her* — life was slipping from my grasp. I could not let her go. I pulled even more power through me.
A storm of light and shadows raged around us. More power than a mortal was meant to wield coursed through my veins. For one vast, endless moment, her life blazed like a star. Our Force signatures synchronized, and I was engulfed by a blinding light.
I was somewhere else, gazing at a tiny, smiling face. It was light red, and from it two small copies of Ashara's eyes stared back. I grinned back. I was high on the pride and joy I felt as I looked at my newborn daughter.
I was laughing as my toddler made her first unsure steps and tried to walk toward me.
Many toys were floating around a bouncing and giggling little girl. I could see Ashara sitting next to our child, speaking words I could not hear.
A five-year-old Selene proudly presented me the hilt of a lightsaber she had constructed.
A teenage version of my daughter, who had fairer skin, was walking toward me.
"Shh… Daddy. It's not your fault…" I heard a light voice that melted my heart. I could feel warm hands engulfing me into a tight hug before the illusion shattered into countless pieces of sparkling light.
"It's not your fault," the female voice echoed in my ears.
The spark of light that would have been my lovely daughter winked out. I felt it dissipating into the Force, followed by the body of Ashara. I could feel a part of me dying with her.
I screamed my indescribable loss at the heavens.
---
**Present Day – Ahsoka Tano's POV**
Ahsoka Tano watched in horror as the tragedy unfolded in front of her. She could not turn her head away or close her eyes. To make things worse, she felt an echo of the emotions ravaging the man who had lost his wife and unborn child.
"NOOO!" Nox's anguished, hopeless scream turned into an animalistic roar.
The Force itself responded to the wordless call. Torrents of black lightning bolts surrounded the man like a shroud. Ahsoka could sense some kind of void forming in the center of a hurricane made of raw Force that engulfed the grieving man. The fury and anger were gone. There was emptiness — a lack of emotions where Nox was supposed to be. She could no longer feel him in the Force. Yet he was not cut off from it.
She saw it moments later when the Republic troopers and the Jedi — who had been forgotten until now — made their presence obvious.
Nine commandos opened fire with their blasters. Red bolts of energy exploded a couple of meters away from where Nox was supposed to be. All she could see was a vortex of darkness deeper than anything she had ever seen before.
"That does not belong to you," stated a flat voice void of any emotion.
The Echani Jedi armed with a lightsaber staff with glowing azure blades had a moment for surprise to register on her face. The hilts of two more sabers tucked in her belt moved on their own accord.
Those weapons hummed to life without warning, and a pair of sapphire blades blazed in the night. They spun around in blindingly fast circles, and the white-haired woman fell to the ground in fifteen pieces.
The lightsabers that belonged to Ashara Kallig (formerly Zavros) floated lazily in the air. The remaining Jedi looked at them with fear in their eyes while the commandos continued to fire their weapons at the black vortex.
What happened next was too fast for even a Jedi's eyes to follow. Yet Ahsoka Tano was unfortunate enough to see it in excruciating detail.
The hurricane made from the Force itself fell apart to reveal Nox standing where the body of his wife used to be. The murderous look in his eyes sent shivers of primeval terror down her spine.
"Damn you all to hell!" he hissed.
One moment the Sith was thirty meters away from the troopers who were shooting at him to no effect. The next, he was in the center of their formation. His lightsaber blade was buried in the heart of their Lieutenant.
Nox raised his left hand and darkness gathered within his palm. It twisted and elongated, creating a spear of living shadows. He hurled it at a man on the right flank of the Republic line. The trooper died screaming as his body was devoured by such a concentration of dark side energies that it literally liquefied flesh.
The Sith continued moving faster than the eye could follow. In seconds, the remaining commandos were cut to pieces, and he was facing three scared Jedi. He looked at the only woman in their group — a young Twi'lek female in her early twenties.
She was trying to say something, but words failed her. However, Nox apparently knew what she was trying to tell him.
"I know you are sorry, Line. It's not enough."
He moved so fast that he was a blur of shadows and crimson light. The female Jedi tried to parry a sweeping strike, but her lightsaber was battered away from her hands. Her eyes widened in shock a moment before her head was cut off.
The remaining Jedi were battered to the ground by torrents of black lightning.
"You will not be so lucky, Masters!" the Sith sneered the last word as if it was the vilest imaginable curse.
---
**Present Day – Republic Assault Ship Leveler, Hyperspace**
Ahsoka Tano slid down the wall she didn't know she was leaning on when she found herself back in the corridor of the *Leveler*. The Sith that was towering above her spoke with a subdued voice.
"For a short time I believed that they were there for me. But when I finally broke the two Jedi Masters I captured, they told me a different story. The attack was targeted at Ashara. At that time the war was going bad for the Republic and the Jedi Council was terrified. It was a war of attrition that we were winning. So the Jedi wanted their trump card back. Or eliminated forever."
Ahsoka watched with a heavy heart the anguish in Nox's eyes. That was contrary to what she knew about the Order, past or present. Yet she could feel that the man was telling the truth. The Force itself was screaming at her that the vision was real — a slice of horrific past that she had been shown for a reason.
"Why?" she whispered.
For endless seconds, Nox stared at her before speaking two words that explained everything.
"Battle Meditation. Ashara was disillusioned with the Jedi. So she left them. But once the bastards were losing the war, they wanted her back. At any cost. All my wife wanted was peace away from the conflict. And they murdered her and my unborn daughter for it."
He turned around and grabbed his helmet from the ground. As Nox walked away, he spoke a few parting words.
"I guess I am bound to be alone in this life forever… but still, a promise is a promise. I will help Dagon win this war, and after that, I am leaving forever."
"No," Ahsoka said firmly, stepping after him. "Because Dagon always finds a way. Even after suffering so many times, he will help you."
She reached out and touched his arm. "You already know his past. I guess that is why he seems like you from the past. So we — the girls — promised to help. So we will help you."
Nox stopped. For the first time since the vision, a faint, fragile spark of hope appeared in his purple eyes.
"…Thank you, Ahsoka."