Afterglow II | The Clone Wars

The Masks

Dakota snapped awake. Her body jerked, but didn't move far. It took several seconds for her vision to fully resurrect itself. She was suspended; hovering a few feet in the air, restrained at the wrists and ankles by crackling blue energy cuffs, electricity pulsing faintly through her nerves.

Her head drooped forward, sweat dampened hair clinging to her brow. Her breathing was uneven, her mouth as dry as Tatooine. The ground was grey, but shimmered with blue from the energy cuffs. Their awkward hold left her limbs sore.

She lifted her gaze, spotting the shadow before she actually saw them. Admiral Trench. An absolute monstrosity of a creature.

He smirked at her, or at least, she assumed it was a smirk. He looked far too reminiscent of a bug, and that alone was enough to deeply disgust. Half of his face was coated in cybernetic metals, with a yellow eye whirring in swift motions as he concentrated on his prize.

"Oh, God." she rasped, emerald eyes rolling. "What a sight. They couldn't at least get General Grievous out here?"

His natural eye on the opposite side of his face was blood red, along with the four spider-like irises that dotted his forehead. "Normally," he clicked. "Jedi are more respectful when at deaths door."

He has no idea what deaths door even looks like. That, she can guarantee.

"You send slinky link after me, and except me to be respectful?" Dakota narrowed her eyes, any traces of a professional filter had vacated the premises when that masked monster ambushed them.

Watching her. Trench clicked his mandibles with satisfaction. "Ah, you speak with the same aggression that you fight with. You nearly reminded me of a Sith. Do the Jedi know of this thorn in their barelia bush?"

Dakota said nothing. Her fingers twitched against the current in the cuffs, eyes scanning the room, mind already working. A grey, grotto hovel. It held the sparse measurements of a prison cell. Lovely.

"Aggression without victory is still an embarrassing defeat, General." Trench continued, pacing in front of her. "You're in the heart of my command now. I do hope you're comfortable."

Dakota met his gaze without flinching. "You've overestimated your position," she said hoarsely. "But that's a commonality between all Separatist leadership."

His mandibles clicked. "And yet you are the one restrained."

She lifted a finger by her bindings, correcting. "Temporarily inconvenienced."

He drew closer. "And I'm sure it was a terrible inconvenience for those Barenthian civilians, wasn't it?"

The words struck harder than any blow. For the briefest instant, something flickered behind her eyes. The hall she'd left them in, her feeble attempts to keep them safe. That Mask Warrior scourged them out of existence, leaving nothing but bodies and burn marks in its wake.

She shoved the rising bile and thoughts of it behind the barb-wired walls she'd built years ago. The same walls that held the burning bodies on Sorgan—the smell of it—dead Jedi, killed clones, the brutality of her father, of her and who she used to be. Dead. Gone. Buried.

Mace had taught her that emotions acknowledged could be mastered. She had learned something harsher in war. Some things had to be locked away entirely.