It's been re-edited to make it sound better! (…now for chapter two…)

Well ladies and gentlemen, it sure has been a while, hasn't it? I've been busy with college-prep stuff and excitement over graduation here recently (not to mention the complete lack of money in my house has forced my mom and I to lose internet, cell phones, TV, and whatnot for a while). I got a request through one of my reviewers of my other Star Wars fic to do this story….so I did!

Title: Tribulation of the Chosen

Summary: What do you do when your body acts without your commands? What happens when you can't stop the inevitability of you slowly dying as you're forced to watch yourself? No one every wants to find that out—even Jedi padawans. Unfortunately for Ahsoka and another unlucky soul, they don't get much of a choice. Their trials and tribulations have been chosen by something or someone other than themselves—and now they're forced to suffer for it.

Disclaimer: …Do I really need to do it again? Me no own, you no sue. Kay?

Well folks, without further ado, here's the first chapter to this new fic. Please leave CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and feedback. Flames will be used to light my candles and tar and feathers will be used to mummify my most disliked teacher.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to PM or email me anytime!

And many thanks to the wonderful Mini Marianne for her help! Enjoy her fics too!

Yours,

~Eliana

It was ridiculous—absolutely, positively, without a doubt proposte…rius (or…whatever word she had heard Master Obiwan use the other day). But it was truly unbelievable, Ahsoka seethed to herself in her mind as she paced back and forth restlessly in her room aboard the Resolute, her steps making the familiar clanging of metal to the hard soles of her shoes. Since when did she have trouble with her lightsaber practice?

She had gotten out of a sparring session with her master not ten minutes ago and, much to her frustration and confusion, she had been hands-down beaten, rolled up, tossed aside, and utterly showed-up. She had gotten up several times and tried again under her own silent urging, only to have the process repeated in the same humiliating fashion. Anakin had just given a soft laugh, patted her on the shoulder and said:

"Don't worry about it, Snips. Everyone has an off day every now and then."

That was the problem right there. She wasn't having an off day. She was having an off week. Even now, pacing back and forth in the small space of her room, she could feel the odd pain settling in the muscles of her body and her breaths refused to stay with her for very long. A cold chill sent a violent shiver through her body suddenly, shaking her frame with its intensity.

It made her stop her motions and put a hand up on the metal wall to keep her disintegrating balance in check. Her arm shook in the exertion that she put on it and a sudden, sharp shot of pain went through her knees, forcing her to hit the floor hard when the muscles refused to hold her.

The strangled gasp left her lips without permission and she crawled over to put her back against the cold, riveted wall behind her. Then, just as soon as the attack started—

It stopped.

Just like that—it was gone. Ahsoka reached a shaking hand to her face and ran it over her features in an act of desperation to find any kind of norm in this situation, finding that she had allowed her Force signature to slip slightly in the sudden rush of pain.

This had been happening for six days now, and each unexplained attack was more violent and more powerful than the last had been. And of course, Ahsoka being Ahsoka, she didn't tell another soul (well…living soul, anyway) about it.

These… attacks were preceded by trembling, nausea, insomnia, pain and cold—Force forbidding, mind numbing, absolute dark side-calling, straight-from-the-pits-of-Hoth cold. As nature had decreed, a Togrutan's body temperature was several degrees higher than that of any human's (mostly due to their planet's tropical climate and proximity to its star). In the aftermath of those nerve-splicing pain episodes, Ahsoka had found herself beginning to feel an odd difference in her own body's natural flow. She had gotten curious early that morning and 'borrowed' a hand-held temperature checker from the med-bay (without the droids knowing, of course) and had decided to do her own investigation. She ended up being mortified. Her body temperature was the same as her master's – it was now four degrees lower than it had ever been at any point in her life.

She was the padawan of the Chosen One, she had reminded herself after that, and no stupid head-cold she caught on some stupid outer rim planet was going to stop her from learning from the best master she could have asked for. The youngling kept her new-found horror to herself and went about her everyday routines – including her knew one.

"Get up, Ahsoka," she murmured to herself as she struggled to her feet in order to get off the cold floor.

She succeeded after a moment and, fixing her now-wrinkled robes, she headed out to where the Twilight was docked on the other side of the battle ship. She and her master were going to head to the Temple for a few days (Anakin had to have a 'private' meeting with the council and Ahsoka needed to get away from all of the fighting that the war brought with it) and, personally, Ahsoka didn't have a fiber of complaint left in her when it came to the potential two-hour flight that she had ahead of her.

While she walked through the dimly lit and deserted metal halls, she contemplated every instance of the attacks that week. There had to be some underlying pattern to it… maybe some Separatist poison gas that she had inhaled was giving her the trouble. Every poison had a trigger, she reminded herself as she recalled the books she had read in the Archives, and if every poison had a trigger then she just had to figure out what it was and avoid it. It had to be something one the ship. It had to be.

She soon reached the dock where the Twilight waited, ready for its trip to the Temple. She took her time walking up the ramp and into the interior of the ship, pausing for a moment to put a shaking hand out and brace herself again the wall. Her fingers tightened into a fist when another shockwave of pain ripped through her back and stomach, making her pull back her lips and expose the small feral teeth in her mouth in an effort to silence any sound she was going to make. She wasn't going to blow it now.

She whipped her head around when she felt a hand lightly brush her shoulder and, in her blind turn, started to lose her balance and almost fell face-first to the floor.

"Whoa!" Anakin called out, shifting to catch her before she was able to impact the metal and held both of them there for a second, listening to both of their quick breaths.

He stood her on her own feet after a minute, leaving one mechanical gloved hand on her shoulder as he stood up straight.

"You alright, Ahsoka?"

"I'm fine Master," she managed after a minute, "You just… surprised me is all."

She knew that was the wrong thing to say the second it passed her lips—the quirked eyebrow on her Master's face told her that much. No one 'just surprised' Ahsoka Tano (or any Jedi for that matter). It was obvious that Anakin was thinking the same thing when his eyes bore straight into hers, searching for any hint of a lie behind her façade. She let out a silent breath when Anakin nodded slowly in acceptane, dropping his mechanical hand from her shoulder.

"Everything's packed. Close the cargo hold and let's get out of here," he ordered, stepping past her and moving to sit in the captain's seat of the Twilight.

The young Togrutan moved to do what she had been asked, releasing the door control for the cargo unit of the ship and watching the durasteel sheet slide into place. When she felt the ship begin to take off, she turned on her heel to head toward her Master and immediately regretted the motion. The familiar pain shot through her center and ribs in a sudden shockwave, making her double over with a sharp intake of breath at its intensity.

Over the deep rumbling of the engines and the whir of the ship's control system, Anakin didn't catch onto the strangled sound and continued to steer the small freighter away from the Jedi cruiser. Ahsoka forced herself to close her eyes tightly and breathe through her nose, trying the only way she knew how to get the pain to pass.

Several long seconds passed before it began to ebb and finally start to die, and she opened her eyes and sighed heavily. Once again, the engine noise concealed her discomfort from her Master, making her feeling somewhat relieved, in spite of herself. The logical half of her brain rebuked her, telling her the one thing that she already knew: it was getting worse. With the more time that passed, the more confused, disoriented, and frustrated Ahsoka became – and she knew that sooner or later, the lie was up. She couldn't hide it forever.

"Are you planning on staying back there all day, Snips?" her Master called back to her, his obvious intention to get a reply. He couldn't completely turn his eyes away from the view in front of him as he aimed the ship clear for the jump to lightspeed, but he did toss a glance back to her.

"Sorry, Skyguy, your flying was so bad I decided to hide back here for a while," she tried to joke back, putting a false strength in her voice.

"Haha, very funny," was his sarcastic reply as he shot them into lightspeed, the entire ship lurching forward.

Ahsoka stumbled slightly at the initial shock but recovered her balance, slowly walking over and sitting in the co-pilot's chair as she watched the stars blur by. She let out a soft breath and unintentionally drew the attention of her mentor.

"You sure you're alright?" he pressed gently, eyes trailing over her body that trembled ever-so-softly without her notice. He noted with concern the pale parlor of her skin and the off-color of her head-tails.

"I'm fine, Skyguy," she quipped, putting on her normal front, "It's just been a long day."

"I know," her Master agreed and leaned back, allowing Ahsoka to relax as well. He took the bait. "I didn't think we'd ever get off that ship."

He got no reply from his young apprentice who had tensed up like a bowstring, biting the inside of her cheek harshly when another jolt of discomfort raced through her system. His eyes on the control readouts in front of him, Anakin failed to notice.

Under any normal circumstances Anakin would have easily sensed her pain and discomfort through the Force the second that they happened, but Ahsoka had been doing a little extra training on the side, teaching herself to block her Force signature from her Master subtly (such a thing wasn't taught or encouraged to padawans, but she had used her spare time during her 'studies' to pick up a few tricks). Her normal conveyance was still there, but every twinge of pain, nausea, and fear was kept to herself while she just hoped that they went away. It made her feel like she was being unappreciative of Anakin's teachings, but the last thing she really wanted was for her Master to know that she was becoming ill and to postpone her training until she got better—if she got better.

She had hidden it from him for six long days until this point and it was beginning to be a little too much for her to bear. Without her Master's intervention, the pains were getting more frequent, more violent, more corruptive—and the cold had become so unbearably numbing that she had started to wear her Jedi robe instead of her usual clothing. The robe doubled for another purpose: she looked awful.

Not only the shade of her skin and her head-tails, but her whole body had begun to bruise and tear. She had small little welts on her stomach, back, arms, and chest that she just couldn't explain… and it happened in a matter of days.

In the back of her mind, she knew that once they reached the Temple, the charade was over. Master Kenobi knew all too well of mind shields (Anakin had used more than enough of them when he was a padawan) and could easily see past hers like he had so many times before- and if he didn't, one of the other Masters surely would. Part of her was so defiant to it, but the other was so tempted to right then and there get on her knees and beg her Master to make it all stop.

She wouldn't allow herself to do that. She was a Jedi padawan—and Jedi didn't beg for help. She shifted slightly to lean back in her seat, reclining against the newly-furnished chair in order to quell the aching muscles in her body.

The pain continued steadily, but she continued to hide it, and tried to ignore it as long as she possibly could with what dignity she had. Ahsoka shut her eyes to steel herself against the unwelcomed feeling and tried to draw in on herself, noting with increasing frustration and worry that she could barely reach the Force.

A sudden lurch of the small ship drew her eyes open and she was met with the all-too-familiar view of Coruscant. It was an unintelligible jumble of emotions that left her mind when they touched down.

The Twilight docked in one of the many landing platforms near the Jedi Temple. Ahsoka pushed herself to her feet when her Master started toward the door at the back of the ship – she quickly followed.

They both walked down the slanted metal ramp and into Coruscant's light, blinking hard a few times to adjust their eyes to the light of the planet and its stark contrast to the dark space they had been flying in. They both immediately recognized the vanilla shaded robes and ginger hair of Jedi Master Obiwan Kenobi as he stood on the duracrete a few feet away from their landing spot.

"Master," Anakin smiled, giving him a polite bow that Ahsoka copied.

Obiwan returned the offered bow with a grin, gazing fondly at both of them as he spoke.

"Welcome home, you two. We have much to discuss," he told them as he gestured them toward the vast Jedi Temple and into its massive halls and turned on his heel, the dark cloak he was wearing blowing lightly behind him.

With a single nod from the pair, the threesome walked down one hall. Obiwan, leading the way, spared the two a glance. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up when he first noticed Ahsoka - the shields she had up were so strong that he could tell that they were taking their toll on the youngling. She seemed to stubbornly holding them up despite their toll and avoided his eyes when he tried to see past them. When he realized that she was silently begging him to not say anything, he moved to face forward again, silently devoting himself to pick apart the walls she had erected brick by brick without her notice.

"So what's the big rush, Master?" Anakin asked once they stepped deeper into the confines of the Temple, "Why are all of the Jedi in the system being called in?"

"There's been a slight mishap that's caused a bit of a panic," Obiwan told him in his usual informative tone, not tearing his eyes away from where he was going.

Anakin slowed his step for a minute before catching up to his former Master again.

"A mishap? With what?"

"A young padawan has become extremely ill," the older human told him, crossing his arms in front of him as he walked, his eyes suddenly filled with sorrow and remorse, "We've had to send him back to his home planet of Shili to get medical help."

"What about the healers?"

"I'm afraid that they can't figure out what it is. The medical droids had no file on it…and the boy was so cold that the healers swore that he was dead. Apparently it looked like some epidemic with him being so thin—and he had several sores on him that the healers said just wouldn't stop festering. Master Healer Zivan told us that the child couldn't move without shouting in pain…they had to sedate him in order to calm him down enough to get him on the ship safely."

"Force…" Anakin swore, earning him a sharp, reprimanding glance from his former mentor, "Whose padawan was it?"

"It was Master Zimerek's young padawan."

If there had ever been a moment when Anakin's heart had completely stopped, Ahsoka swore it was just then when her master stopped dead in his tracks to stare into the back of his old friend in shock. Obiwan and Ahsoka stopped too, both of them looking back at him with stares of understanding and confusion respectfully as he stood fast in his spot.

"Master Zimerek? Has the council lost its mind?" the Jedi Knight all but screamed out suddenly, earning a hissed silence from his for Master who pulled him and Ahsoka to the side of the hall.

When they were well out of the walk way and out of the gaze of the large number of eyes that had suddenly turned to them, Anakin continued with his sudden bombardment of unrestrained questions.

"Are you nuts, Obiwan? Who would give him another chance to have an apprentice after what he did to that little girl?"

"Anakin, please," Obiwan told him, reaching over to put two hands on his friend's shoulders, "That incident was years ago—Kailem has repaid what he has done and has pledged his loyalty to the Council again. We have too few Jedi left to train apprentices—we need all that we can get."

"That doesn't matter," came the heated reply, "That man shouldn't be given another chance! That poor kid he has now is probably suffering—"

"But not by his hands," Obiwan interrupted calmly. "Yes, he is under observation since the healers found bruises on the child, but Kailem swore that it had all happened because of that illness. Everyone deserves a second chance, Anakin."

"Not him," Anakin told him, looking him straight in the eyes, "If he's here, I'll banish him and take care of his padawan myself!"

"I'm afraid you're too late, Skywalker," a new voice told them. Master Plo Koon stepped toward them, his hands folded calmly in front of him as he approached.

Obiwan released Anakin's shoulders and all three of them bowed to the Jedi Council Member who returned the gesture. Ahsoka leaned against the wall when she stood up straight, offering what she hoped to be a happy smile to her old friend who regarded her with a warm look.

"He has already left for Shili," Plo Koon spoke from behind his mask, "Master Zimerek has proven himself to be worthy of teaching another apprentice, even after his brief turn to the Dark Side he has put himself in a position to be firmly loyal to the Jedi Order."

"Or pretending to be," Anakin shot back at the Master. He moved unconsciously closer to Ahsoka almost as if to shield her from something she couldn't see. "I don't doubt for a second that he's still loyal to the Dark Side—why was he even let back into the Order?"

Master Plo raised a clawed hand for silence and began to speak calmly.

"Skywalker, this is not the place to discuss this matter. I'm sure you and Ahsoka would like to rest after your trip," he stated in a tone that clearly meant the discussion was over, "Your quarters have been prepared and are waiting for you. Master Yoda stated that he would send for you later."

Anakin paced, mulling over what little he had only recently learned. Ahsoka, when feeling brief bouts of relief, quietly watched him. The rest of the time, she mostly struggled to bury her pain deep inside, and not let it well up.

The discomfort which was attacking at this instant finally began to fade, and she glanced between all three tense Jedi in front of her for a long moment before finally speaking.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?"

Anakin stopped in his pacing, Obiwan (who had put a gloved finger to his chin and had been watching his former apprentice) turned to her, and Master Plo gazed at her for a long while.

"Don't worry over it, little Soka," the Keldorian told her then, "It's nothing you should concer yourself with at your age. Why don't you and Master Skywalker go get some rest?"

Without another word, he turned and headed back toward the Council chambers with Obiwan behind him. Ahsoka let out an annoyed grunt, crossing her arms defiantly and looking at her Master who had yet to speak again since Plo Koon asked him for quiet.

"Come on, Ahsoka," he said finally, gesturing her to follow him as he headed toward their old quarters, "I'll tell you about it later."

She said nothing, but followed obediently behind him. And when they arrived at their old quarters, reeking of nostalgia, she watched her master expectantly. Her gaze broke, when another wave of pain washed over her—and without any distractions, this time Anakin noticed and he quietly approached. She barely heard the sound of his footsteps until he was right next to her.

"Are you absolutely sure you're alright, Snips?"

He reached to touch her with his flesh hand... and a jolt of surprise shot through him when he made contact. Even through the graded, protective cloth of his glove and her Jedi robe, he could feel the undeniable chill of her skin and its unnatural contrast to the way she should have felt. His reaction was immediate after that. He pulled his hand away immediately after that, tore off the glove, and put his hand back on her small left cheek, his eyes widening at the feel of the icy-cold flesh.

"Force, Snips, you're freezing!" he shouted, reaching over then to pull her over to where the couch was in the center of the room.

Sitting her down, he began to rub on her arms vigorously to try and restore (what he thought the problem was) blood circulation. When he moved to rub her back, she couldn't help but tense in the sharp pain that suddenly invaded her mind when the sore skin was harshly touched and her Master immediately stopped the motion. When he recovered from the shock, he started to pull of the Jedi robes she had on over her normal clothes.

There was no use in fighting him anymore…and Ahsoka just sat quietly, resigned, as he pulled off the final layer of the dark brown robe to reveal her normal clothes that allowed her body to bear the skin of her back, arms, and stomach. Anakin was horrified.

There were welts—sores, he told himself as he reached a shaking hand over to gently touch one- and it looked like multiple welts had formed on top of one another. They had formed one, popped, formed another, popped again, and appeared to have continued the pattern until nothing but raw skin was left where they had once been.

"Ahsoka…"

He couldn't find the ability to say much more at that instant, so he settled for being quiet—just for a moment so he could swallow and find his voice.

"What happened here, Snips?" he asked her, for the first time since he found out looking her in the eyes.

She quickly turned her gaze away, already shivering with the lack of robes around her body and the effort to word her answer correctly. There was only one real choice.

"I…don't know," she found herself saying as she slowly shook her head, "It just…happened…"

"Why didn't you say anything?" her Master demanded, grabbing the discarded robe and pulling in back tightly around her.

She was silent for a minute. She had never felt so… small before in her life, she realized with a small twitch of her lower lip.

"I was hoping… that it would go away."

"You weren't going to tell me about it, were you?"

His voice sounded wounded—hurt that she didn't seem to trust him enough to confide in him. He shook his head after a moment of silence between them, reaching down to pull Ahsoka to her feet as well.

"Master? What're we doing?" Ahsoka had to ask, tightening the Jedi robes back around her as she shivered.

With an arm wrapped around her shoulders, he began to lead her to the door stating: "We're going to the healers. I don't know what's wrong, but maybe they will."

"Healers?" She stopped dead in her tracks, resisting with what little power she had left against her Master's tugging arm. "They won't know."

"How do you know, Snips?" Anakin stopped as well and looked at her.

He couldn't find the word to describe the look on her face then—it was a mix of too many different emotions at once to be called anything but anguish.

"Did you already forget about earlier, Master? Remember what Master Obiwan said about that other padawan?" Her eyes were shaking a bit now as she finally made her point, "That padawan sounded like me… Master, I think I have what they have."

There was no sound for a long while except for Ahsoka's trembling breathing (while Anakin's was a lack thereof) and a few speeders cruising by the windows outside of the Temple. When he could hold his breath no longer, the human drew in a deep breath and swore in Huttise.

"Come on. Let's go," he said forcefully, dragging her again, "That poor kid is suffering—I don't want that to happen to you."

He was surprised at the resistance that she offered, pulling her bodyweight back instead of following him out of the room.

"No! Master, I want to know about the man you were talking about!"

"Not now. You need to get checked out first."

"Master-"

"Not now, Snips. I'll tell you about that—"

"Master, please!"

He couldn't ignore that one and stopped where he stood to look back at her. He could feel his hardened gaze soften at the unshed tears in her eyes and the small tremors in her breath—enough so that he heard himself give a long sigh before doing something he wasn't accustomed to. He pulled his arms from around her shoulders, stepped fully in front of her before kneeling down to be below her height. His hands reached out to clasp her upper arms gently but firmly and, when his eyes locked onto hers, he began to speak.

"Ahsoka, I need you to listen to me."

She swallowed a little bit and looked at him through tired eyes, what little bit of fight she still had in her obviously exhausted and expelled after that last outburst of defiance. She had never seen Anakin look at her this way and it was beginning to make her nervous.

"Ahsoka, the other padawan Obiwan was talking about is suffering—I don't want to see you like that. I can't lose you."

She could feel the fear begin to break through her crumbling shields that she had taken so long to build.

"I don't know what's going on here… but I want you to be safe."

"I know," she reluctantly admitted, trying to tear her eyes away from him.

"If something happened to you, I don't know what I'd do, Snips. Just trust me this time."

"I do trust you Master…:

"Apparently not enough," he reminded her when she finally looked back to him, "but that's not the issue right now. We need to get you help, okay?"

When she didn't move to reply, he decided to play her game for a while.

"Alright, I'll make you a deal. You do this for me and I'll tell you the story of….that man. Deal?"

Ahsoka gave him a look of surprise, but found herself giving him a small smile anyway.

"Even without the council's permission?"

He had to grin at that.

"Of course."

"Deal, Skyguy," she stated, slightly slurring the words together.

"Good girl," Anakin praised and stood up, beginning to lead her to the door of the quarters.

She started to sway heavily and immediately reached out to him as the boiling pain erupted again—this time all over her body, quickly running through her veins and spreading like a wildfire in some desert plain. Anakin was swift enough to turn and catch her as she fell, her mouth letting out an unconscious sharp squeak of pain as he hands dug into the cloth of his tunic.

"Snips?" Her Master tried to call to her, but got no response.

"Snips?"

She knew no more.