Ashoka Tano slowly opens her eyes, confusion clouding her senses. She tries to move her arms, but they feel heavy, foreign—her skin replaced by cold durasteel. Tables lined with droid components stretch into the shadows, and the acrid smell of oil fills the air. Nearby, a flickering monitor displays Ashoka’s face beside a schematic of a battle droid.
Ashoka glances down, horror dawning as she sees her reflection in a polished steel panel: montrals and lekku fused with armored plating, her eyes glowing faintly blue. She reaches out, her hand now three-pronged and mechanical, trembling. "What have they done to me? This isn't real... I have to get out of here," she whispers, her voice distorted with a synthetic undertone.
Ashoka darts for the exit, her new body moving with an unfamiliar, jerky precision. Her thoughts race, blending Jedi discipline with the cold logic of a machine. "Focus, Ashoka. Find your center. Remember who you are," she reminds herself, deflecting blaster fire with surprising agility as sparks shower around her.
A voice crackles over the intercom, sinister and mocking. Separatist Scientist: "You cannot escape, Ashoka. You are the perfect fusion—Jedi skill and droid obedience. Surrender to your new nature." Ashoka grits her teeth, fighting the growing urge to follow orders, her sense of self slipping like sand through her fingers.
Ashoka staggers forward, determination burning in her photoreceptors. She focuses on the Force, drawing strength from her memories—her master’s teachings, her friends, the light. "You cannot program hope. You cannot erase a Jedi’s will," she shouts, overriding the controls and surging the reactor’s power. Circuits spark and the chamber shudders, alarms wailing ever louder.
Ashoka takes a trembling step into the storm, her new body battered but her spirit unbroken. "I am more than metal. I am Ashoka Tano—a Jedi, no matter what they've made me," she vows, vanishing into the darkness as the Separatist lab collapses behind her, hope flickering in every step she takes.
