AN: Ten chapters in a week! I hope that's good enough for you guys! I'm surprised by how many followers/favorites this story has, 'cause I haven't written FanFiction before. My chapters have been getting longer so let's see if I can keep that up. Here's chapter ten!
Training people was really hard. Re-training people with extreme medical conditions was near impossible. I tried some things Yoda did with me, like having my two "padawans" stand on their heads and let the light flow through them. Leia asked why we were doing it, which I didn't know, and Anakin lost the air circulation to his lungs. So that didn't work. Obi-Wan volunteered to train Leia since he knew how. That left me to fill a dark void with light. I had a little technique figured out for that one.
"Ok," I started, "since we are getting you used to the light side again we're going to focus on drawing power from happy memories. Since drawing from the past might be painful, we're going to create happy memories."
"I like the sound of that," Anakin said enthusiastically, "I get back in the feel of things and get some quality time with you."
"Obi-Wan said you're a good pilot."
"Was the same time he told you I killed myself?"
"Yeah…"
"Well I am an excellent pilot, and from what I saw on the Death Star so are you."
"Bet you can't beat my simulator high score."
"That's rich Luke. How much money are we betting here."
"None, you already have more money than you know what to do with."
"I'll still beat your score."
"Prove it."
"With pleasure, my son."
We went to the flight simulator and I watched as my father attempted to get a better score than me. I was horrified when the screen flashed "NEW HIGH SCORE!"
"No," I whispered in denial, "that's not true that's impossible!"
My father turned back towards me and said, "Search your feeling you know it to be true."
I glared at him and said, "I hate it when you do that."
"All part of the charm Luke."
"Yeah right."
Anakin put a hand on his chest and gave me a mock offended look, "Excuse me? You are in trouble young man. I'm gonna… uh… er, what do parents do when their kid does something bad."
"Ground their kids."
"You are so grounded! Not."
I laughed, "This is why I believed you could come back to the good side. You can't even bring yourself to ground me because you love me so much."
"Don't get a big head about it Luke, or I'll figure out what grounding is and ground you."
(POV Switch to Anakin)
Why didn't I redeem myself years ago? Spending quality time with Luke was filling the holes that were burned through my heart all those years ago.
After Luke explained what grounding was, we went to go see how Leia was doing. Padmé's slightly shorter clone was using a training lightsaber against a training droid. She made a lot of progress while we were gone. The lightsaber stabbed through the droids stomach and it shut down.
"There," Leia said with satisfaction, " level 4 completed."
"Great job Leia. How about we take a brea-"
I was cut of by some unseen attacker pinning me to the ground. That was not supposed to happen! After a moment, my opponent said, "Lord Vader! We are sorry for the misunderstanding master."
I winced at the use of my Sith title but responded, "It's fine, just let me and my children go."
The group, called the Noghri, complied and released us.
"Thank you. Now who ordered you to pin me to the floor?" I asked.
"Your master did milord."
"I don't have a master anymore. I'm going back to being my own person. Not someone else's puppet. And for now on you are to address me by my actual name. Anakin Skywalker."
They nodded and one asked, "What your orders Lord Skywalker."
That would have to do, not having a title would feel weird. What were my orders? I wanted to save killing the Emperor for myself, so… wait, Mara! They could tell her the truth of what happened to her parents and bring her back here. They could also get other Imperials to defect. Then I'd finally me able to start making up for all the terrible things I've done in the last twenty years!
"I want you to go to Coruscant and find a girl named Mara Jade. You are to tell her the truth of what happened to her parents and get her to defect like I did. The Emperor killed her parents just so he would be able to use her. If you find any other Imperials who want to defect and bring them to me. Do not fail," I commanded.
"Yes milord," the Noghri responded in unison and went of to fulfill their duty.
My children stared at me confused. "What was that all about?" Luke asked.
"Me getting us a bigger army, your welcome."
"It's been a long day," Leia said, "and we need some rest before tomorrow's tiring meetings."
I hadn't gotten proper sleep in years, so I gladly agreed. Luke set up an air mattress in his room for me to sleep on. I stared at the ceiling and reflected over everything that happened. If I wrote a novel on my life, it would be a best seller. Sometimes I wonder why I was chosen to go through all this insanity. Maybe it was meant as a swift kick in the pants to make me a better person. Maybe the universe drew my name out of a hat and gave me this fate. I'll never truly know the answer. But I do know that it's never too late to break free of the chains given to you by fate, no matter how far down you fall. Now I know that it's the low, that make the high so incredible. As I finally drifted to sleep, I dreamed of a second ladder being dropped down towards my bottomless pit. This ladder was family, and I didn't hesitate as I grabbed onto the golden bars a climbed as fast as I could.
AN: Some deep stuff at the the end there. As always, please review!