Whassup. So, the chapter ahead is really something... Dark. If you don't like a kid going on a killing spree, please do not read.
Little Ani's eyes widened when the news reached his ears. If before that feeling of death was like a fire in his heart, freezing his mind and numbing his senses... Hearing this raised the flames to a complete and utter hell. Before he left Watto's shop, he heard the loan shark say that his mother had gone on a train before they did...
.
.
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Swallowing dry without even realizing it, Anakin watched the five men in the speeder go into a state of euphoria, the copilot shouting on the obsolete radio that people like them were still using.
"What's your position?!"
"790X, 42Y! The bastards stole all the slaves and killed three of our men! Come on, they so shot me and Ku-" his voice was cut off when an explosive noise happened on the other side of the line, closing the call at the same moment.
"Shit... Speed up that tub, we gotta get back to Central right away!" shouted to the pilot who, with a frantic nod, made the accelerator reach its maximum speed, the sand being pushed back hard.
"This slave train... Is the one my mother was?" he suddenly questioned, really praying it wasn't.
"Remember what I said about maybe you'd go see your mom one more time, kid? So... I guess not!" Shouted in his face, the tension was broken by a clumsy symphony of laughter from the five men. Comments and fingers pointed at Anakin's face happened quickly, the look of pure terror on the child was ignored... But Ani didn't care. Everything was silent to him. These men did not matter, only his growing and endless inner fear. Gradually, his heart began to lift, as did his eyes. The blue reflected each of their faces, but it seemed that Ani himself did not see them... Flashes passed quickly through his head. His mother's sincere smile, always sweet and happy, no matter how difficult the time. Her malnourished body and the times he caught her with her stomach snoring, but gave up the food so that Ani would have a little more. His love for his mother was making his heart catch fire, his breathing getting pierced... She was so amazing, so good to him…
... And that's what she got in return? Wasn't that enough injustice to his mother?! Being a slave, not being able to eat, not being able to rest... And now being killed by the Tusken... No! Inside of Anakin, the flames that destroyed his heart cried out. That veiled feeling of death had not yet passed... And he remembered what the man shouted on the radio; the Tusken took the slaves...there's a chance his mother is alive. He has to go after her. Quickly.
"We must change course! We have to go to where the attack happened!" Ani shouted, despair rising in him when suddenly the Force whispered to him... You're right.
"Are you crazy, kid?! Did your mother's death leave you with a tantrum?!" one of the men around Ani screamed, pushing Ani to the side with a wheeze. The back of the speeder shook when the boy fell to the metal ground, but still screaming soon after.
"No! She didn't die, I know she didn't! Please, we have to go in there and rescue-" it was cut with a kick from one of Hutt's other men.
"Shut up! Nobody's gonna risk their life for your fucking mother, boy! And, indeed, she may still be alive, I bet the Tusken will love to play with her!" Laughed louder, a kick hitting Ani's ribs... No one would help him. Nobody was going to help his mother. Perceptions kept him quiet, but not without a reaction. Panting as he faced his own hand lying on the ground, Anakin began to have his mind clouded by thoughts…
Feed the side that suits best the situation.
It was something Kyp talked about so long ago... Still, he always remained confused. He wanted to be a Jedi now, and thus save his mother from slavery. But how should he feed the light side with the fear of losing her?! With the hatred he feels of these men, the Hutts of Watto and anyone who has a slave?! Kyp said only the dark side of Force uses those feelings…
And the side he chooses gets stronger as Anakin feeds him... So his only choice is to be a Jedi... A hero to his mother... while he uses the dark side of the Force.
And Anakin, in his desperation, fed all his emotions and feelings to the dark side of the Force.
His hatred burned as never before, his pain tore him from the inside out and reverberated with a beastly scream out of his throat. Images of the hell he has lived since he met people crossed his mind and took possession of his rational thinking. His fingernails tightened the metal from the ground for a second, even the air reacting around him. With a difficult movement, his right hand flew inside his shirt, pulling the lightsaber and turning it on the moment he rose from the ground at first sight. The man who had kicked him before could not even react when the hot blade beheaded him through his neck, weaving and shaving each cell, the speed of the speeder making the head fly in the wind. The other two in the back were put to the test with a scream and a "What the kriff!", both cut off when Ani rocked his saber like a bow, the blade burning everything in its path. The co-pilot in front, stunned for only a moment by the death of the three men, did a quick job of getting the gun from his holster... only to suddenly be pushed by an invisible force out of the speeder, flying several meters against the high speed, his body bumping into the sand.
"Holy shit!" Scared, the pilot suddenly lost all direction, swinging the whole train and, in this way, causing it to crash into the sands, two or three rolls when the inertia was done. Both the man who was pushed by force and the pilot came out alive, extremely injured, however... Ani, on the other hand, got up with only a few scratches of sand, blood in a thread at the side of his face. Being close enough to the pilot, the child once again called out the lightsaber, stocking the weapon through the head of the man fallen into the sand and penetrating it without any difficulty, the impregnating smell of burning flesh being ignored by the frenzy of emotions that little Anakin's body was.
Behind...
The Force whispered and, quickly, Anakin turned with only a few moments to raise his hand in the direction of the danger that hoisted the hair of his arms... The man who had previously killed Watto, strangely, let the blaster fall through his fingers, his hands running to his neck, his skin gradually becoming purple-blue and his eyes bulging out of the orbits. Falling to its knees on the warm sands, his mouth gushed out threads of saliva from the corners, his cheeks inflated... And Ani watched everything with cold eyes.
A loud noise reverberated and disappeared into nothingness, followed by the corpse's thump against the ground.
And then... Ani just watched. His eyes hovered over the body of the man who died with a broken throat. Then, it went to the man with his head showing a smoky hole, burnt black matter and branding his burned brain, Anakin guesses, his eyes went to the speeder seconds later. It was in good condition, but he would have to let the wagon disengage if he wanted a higher speed... Still, his mind went back to all that. It was hard to tell from the adrenaline that numbed his blood... But Anakin had just taken the lives of five men.
And he felt nothing but accomplishment. And power.
... Power flowed inside him. A tremendous power. A capable power. Looking at the lightsaber in his hand while panting, Ani came to the conclusion that what he did was the right thing to do. He was like a Jedi killing the bad guys, all for his mother's sake... And the dark side of the Force responded by dancing inside him, only increasing his heart rate, the feeling of the Force running between his veins being overwhelming. If delivering so much to the dark side would make him so strong... Then he would deliver whatever was necessary to save his mother.
"790X, 42y..." whispered to himself the coordinates he'd heard before. Activating the green lightsaber once again, the hitch of the wagon was undone in a show of luminescent particles, leaving only the speeder. Being the best driver this universe had ever seen and having competed once in a Pod race and survived, Ani was quick to unravel the speeder with the Force and proceed with it to the coordinates where his mother had been abducted, every ounce of despair, fear and anxiety that his heart pumped being delivered to the dark side.
With almost forty minutes through the burning deserts of Tatooine, Anakin saw in the distance a scant black smoke... And his eyes saw as they were sent down, a speeder similar to the one he is using, but that one exploded. Dead men surrounded him.
...and Tusken alive too.
Suddenly, a massive amount of anger erupted within Ani while seeing the sand people searching the wreckage for what might be useful. There were only five of them, all carrying blasters... and he still couldn't see his mother anywhere... They must have taken her to their camp. It didn't take long for one of the Tusken to notice Anakin coming in the distance, the guns pointed in the child's specific direction. Raising his hand, two of the men were instantly massacred, the destroyed carcass of the speeder passing with swiftness over them. The other three men faced it with fright, screaming in confusion.
The few seconds he gained were enough time for Ani to fly past them with his speeder, raising a lot of dust and sand, covering their faces. Clumsy but barely noticed, the boy jumped out of the speeder and, with his lightsaber in hand, rushed towards the three Tusken. He felt their fear, feeding his desire to slaughter them... However, nothing stopped them from simultaneously raising their weapons in the direction of the child. A powerful push of force threw them to the ground, though... Ani barely had any control of the Force, but he indeed replaced this flaw using only his massive, sheer power. The power only the Chosen One can bear.
With all three on the ground and their weapons gone, the child was quick to cut off two heads with his saber, leaving only one of them who, frightened, was trying to get up. Ani stopped him and ghostly grabbed his throat, causing him to kneel on the ground. With a gaze of pure anger, Ani observed that mask that all the sand people wear. In huttese, he shouted.
"Where did you take the slave woman who was there?!"
"The... The camp to the east - only fifteen kilometers from here! Don't kill me, please!" He asked for mercy... But he was properly put down when the lightsaber made his head drop off his shoulders, rolling across the sand. Ani had never really heard that request for pity, the growing hatred in his chest for those plagues made his ears deaf. Hate was an inferno inside him and it kept growing bigger and bigger, and the power of the dark side moved him to mount the speeder once again, leaving for the place where the Tusken had indicated.
Later on that day, he saw smoke rising to the heavens. It wasn't smoke from an accident or an explosion, though... the Tusken camp had a few tents, people here and there, walking around carefree and eating with no care for the world around them. The stench was felt from afar, even when Ani parked his speeder on the slope of a hill of rocks that surrounded the camp in the shape of a half-moon. In the Force, the smell of rotting corpses, piss and rotting carcasses of other animals reached him and repudiated him. They lived almost sunken on the sand and were monsters capable of any atrocities... Ani hated them. He hated those disgusting people with all his heart. Shaking the saber in his hand, he tried to feel his mother in the Force the same way he learned to do in the first week of training with Kyp.
…! And he felt her. An expansive smile opened between his lips. And it just disappeared right after. She was in deep pain. A lot of pain. And in her pain, the hatred of the creatures increased. Trying not to waste another second, Ani ran to the camp trying to be as stealthy as he could. But just as he was getting close to the first tent, a loud bark of an animal began. Turning scared, he stared at three Tusken dogs there, thirsty and salivating... It was no surprise when, together, they both advanced in Anakin front. Feelings of haste took over when, using the lightsaber, he divided the monstrous animals into smoking flesh, but the damage was already done.
Huttese words indicated that three, four Tusken were coming to investigate all the noise.
Acting fast, Anakin brought the lightsaber back and threw himself under the tent cloth, trying to be as fast as possible by sliding inside. Nobody saw him, but it was a fact that they were going to investigate this tent soon after... Entering it, his eyes fell on the person who lived there. A Tusken woman, holding three sleepy babies in her lap... Seeing that made him sick. She emanated such peace while sleeping with her cubs in her arms. Peace... But they were animals. They all are. Clenching his teeth, his saber once again was drawn out, the noise of the green blade waking the woman asleep in the pile of clothes.
Anakin was quick to put her and her babies back to sleep.
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.
.
...it was only after Anakin killing actually realized what he had done...! A terrifying face reached him, his blue eyes suddenly creaking in fear. He killed a mother and three babies... all who had done nothing. And he didn't even think. He just called them animals and ended their lives. He didn't...
... No... Even children... It didn't matter. They were all animals! Every one of them was going to grow up and become like their parents! They'd kidnap people, kill them just for their crazy fetishes and repeat without caring. Hate filled him at the moment the resentment was fed completely on the dark side. He looked one last time at the bodies against the ground, holding his lightsaber a little harder, and without looking behind his back, he was out of the tent... They were going to find him somehow or other. So Anakin preferred to catch them before they could fight back. His hatred had, for only a moment, overcome his desire to save his mother, that moment was when he, quickly, beheaded the male creature who was standing at the side of the tent, reading something on a piece of paper. Confused eyes stared at the noise, a commotion beginning when they saw the child there, a luminous weapon in his hands and eyes full of hate.
Guns were raised in his direction, dogs ran at him... And Anakin, increasingly fulling his hated of hate, cut them off. Using the Force, he made the remains of campfires, stones, boxes and the Tusken's own weapons fly at them, bewildering them or killing them right there. Those who tried to escape, Anakin pulled back with force, beating their bodies against the other animals. Dead bodies were also thrown by the Force. Like a maestro, the Chosen One used the Force as an extension of himself from birth, eradicating all monsters with blood in their eyes. Screams filled the air and the smoke of burning bodies made a cloud rise to the skies of Tatooine. No one his red-hot eyes saw managed to flee from the burning blade of the lightsaber... This, however, was still the first time that Ani actually used the saber to attack people. The lack of practice or technique, together with the limited control of the Force, left him in a lint.
However, all the damned Tusken had been annihilated as sick banthas.
.
Tacitly panting and turning his head to all sides, his eyes only found smoking bodies on the ground. In the Force, no vitality was felt, a black mass of emotions was circling that place... And Anakin didn't feel bad or anguished. The dark side of the Force gave him unimaginable powers, which he used to destroy the plagues as will.
Meanwhile, the dark side flowed into him once again when a new burst of emotion struck his head. Fear, pain. His mother's presence became his priority when, limping and slowly, Ani walked towards her tent. Some Tusken had hit him with stones and sometime in the rush of the blood, a shot grazed his left shoulder.
In comparison, the fact that he was alive denied any importance of these injuries under his body.
Staggering with difficulty, he entered the tent where his mother was... And the sight horrified him, an intense outburst of feelings resuming when he saw her there... And, strangely enough, not just emotions from the dark side. Relief and pain, anxiety and love. His mother was crying softly against a wooden stake stuck to the ground, her red face stained with blood and her clothes not as torn as Ani's... However, Shmi's legs could barely leave her really standing, only remaining that way because of her hands tied above her head. Blood dripped between his mother's legs. Ignoring the world and everyone, Ani screamed with an immeasurable amount of pain in his childish voice.
"Mother!"
The scream alerted Shmi who, with incredulity, moved her head towards the entrance of the tent.
"Ani..."
"Mom" in another scream, and the child was hugging his mother with an utter necessity, not caring about the dirt covering their bodies, the putrid smell or the blood dripping. The tears of before turned into a flood through the eyes of the eldest, her mouth trembling with the image of her son. She didn't even need to have any power to say how bad he looked. His eyes reflected dread, his hands were shivering, and the pale tone of his skin was not accurate with the golden tone he acquired living under the two suns of Tatooine.
"Oh, my little Ani... What have they done to you?" As she asked, Anakin once again lit his saber, cutting the ties that held his mother's hands. The moment she fell, Shmi's thin, bruised arms reached her son, wrapping him in a tight embrace. "I worried so much about you."
"There's nothing more to fear, Mama... I executed them all."
"My little hero... my Jedi knight." With a painful smile, Shmi just squeezed him tighter, a long kiss in his hair. Being sold to the Hutts was the least of his worries in the face of all that was happening now. Tired to the extreme, Ani let the lightsaber fall from his hands, trying to gather on his mother's back and embrace her more calmly. Anakin was too tired that his senses relaxed in the Force, the loss of power on the Dark Side weakening him too much.
Suddenly, the tent was bombarded by laser shots.
Anakin lost his sense of space as blood flew into the air, a body falling on him and protecting him against the energy projectiles. As his eyes, cold and open to the core, watched the blood begin to fall from his mother's face, he lost every portion or cohesive thinking he imagined he had... The Dark Side strength returned in an explosion. With a bestial cry, but wrapped in pain, everything within a 10-meter radius around the tent was slaughtered by an invisible force. The three Tusken who had managed to escape unnoticed and came back to kill the boy who entered the tent had their skeletons going through their flesh, blood gushing in the air, rocks exploding into dust clouds and sand being lifted up like a wave. All this followed by just a single word;
"MOTHER!"
... And the suns of Tatooine were setting themselves on the horizon hours later. In the distance, Anakin observed smoke rising to the skies from a fire that had just gone out. The sight from above these rocks allowed his blue eyes to see the tents and the burning bodies of the Tusken in the camp... No regrets reflected by the slave. His mother died quickly, with only one shot in the back of the head... Turning his eyes to the tomb he dug at the top of this large rock, Anakin could only nurture the dark side a little more... And yet the feeling of deep pain, of endless sorrow, did not go away. Here on this rocky hill, his mother would be far away from the sand. Tears flowed down in threads around Ani's face while, with a slow step, he began to descend the hill, not failing to look at Tatooine's binary sunset one last time.
Just after what happened at the Tusken camp and before setting fire to everything, Anakin took what he could from them. A big speeder-truck was what he was driving now, charging dozens of batteries, weapons, clothes, parts and, most importantly... Food. The Tusken had a lot of food stored. And it unnerved him. How mindless animals as they had so much food, but the slaves of Tatooine spent days without eating?! In a vow of silence a few minutes ago, Anakin promised he would vanquish the Tusken from the soil of Tatooine. He was going to wipe out that race of demented people. He was going to destroy them, and he was going to love every second that his saber ran through their flesh... And with everything he took from them, he would distribute it to the slaves of Tatooine.
His clothes had also been changed. He decided to become the opposite end of a Tusken, which wore light and white clothes... Anakin wore broad black clothes, a thick cloth serving as a cloak above his shoulders.
Entering his speeder-truck, Anakin sighed heavily... And soon the tears began to, once again, weave their way across his face. His mother had called him a Jedi... a hero... And in his arms, she died. Anakin is the only one to blame for not protecting his mother. It's all his fault. And in the Force, the Dark Side began to consume little Ani more and more powerfully.
- 2 years later -
"A hyperdrive? Here? You must be crazy, pal." the salesman spoke, watching the strange man in front of him while drinking a glass of something alcoholic. Along with him was an ass-whupping Gungan, a mechanical robot as well as a young lady. A strange party, with a strange request. The man sighed hard, seeming to think for a few moments.
"Why would I be crazy for asking about a hyperdrive?"
"Since the Slave Revolution last year, all the parts stores around here are being closed. No collectors, no merchandise. Some moved to Mos Eisley or other settlements with the lowest influence of slaves possibly... To be honest, though, you could get an easy hyperdrive in Mos Eisley, you know?"
"You said something about the Slave Revolution. Tell me more." the girl back there seemed to take an interest in that conversation, a sharp look on her face as she questioned the seller.
"It happened out of nowhere. From one week to the next, the slaves got weapons, food and parts. It was no surprise when a genocide of slaveholders began, especially here in Mos Espa. Their bombs were being smuggled out, so controlling them became incredibly difficult. The Revolution began when Jabba himself began to pursue the slaves since they all belonged to him. They managed to get them out of Mos Espa, but the next attacks were total failures. The slaves were armed with everything, whether it was simple ships, laser weapons or speeders. With the first attacks being fought back, the slaves forced their way into other settlements; everything in the north is their domain, for example. Try to be careful while walking through Tatooine, many attacks happen at night, especially from slave hunters."
"Why are they hunting the slaves? Why not just try diplomacy? After all, slavery is illegal in our democratic Republic." the girl spoke in a cocky tone and with her nose up.
"We're on the Outer Rim, the claws of the Republic don't get here, lass." said the seller, staring with a closed eye.
"Well... I guess it's impossible to get a hyperdrive around here then. What would be the best way to get to this place, Mos Eisley?" asked Qui-Gon.
"Mos Eisley is over 10,000 miles west of here. It'll be three days with the fastest speeder to get there. Either you pay an absurd amount of credit and get off at the airport that's in the far north of Mos Espa, or you ask one of the Pest Terminators to take you to Mos Eisley."
"And who are these Pest Terminators?"
"Some kind of group of killers. They hunt any "pestilence" for money; Jabba's men, Tusken, Jawas, Bounty Hunters. Formed mostly by slaves." spoke, his hand scratching his jaw and, soon after, taking the glass of alcohol and throwing the contents down his throat.
"I see. And where could I contact them?"
"I don't think you understand correctly. Any hunter would charge an absurdity to take you to Mos Eisley, and they might still arrest you if you try to use Republic credits to pay"- That line made Qui-Gon frown slightly. However, before he could speak, the man cut him off. "There's only one guy I think would do that for free."
"Good, then hope is not all lost." Further back, the brown-haired girl spoke.
"See? Jar Jar said we'd get something!" said the Gungan, an empty jar stuck in his foot. Where did that come from? Nobody knows.
"Um... I suppose there's something else behind all this." Qui-Gon spoke lightly, the salesman staring at him in the corner of the eye.
"Well... the only person who can take you to Mos Eisley is a nine-year-old." spoke, seeing the confused looks that spread to those two. The girl was the first to speak.
"I'm sorry, but I think I heard you wrong".
"Oh, did you heard 'nine years old'?" she wavered her head with a small smiler, expecting the seller to correct himself. "Good, then you can clearly hear like a normal person, kid!" the salesman laughed at her statement.
"May I conclude that you're making fun of us, sir?" Her eyes are shaped in impatience.
"We'll listen to him before we jump to conclusions." the older man spoke, stopping the girl with a calm but severe look. Lickin' his lips for a second and pondering, Qui-Gon resumed his speech. "Could you clarify, please?"
"It is always that same reaction! All of the core people act like this; Ani was the one who incited the revolution and armed the population a year ago. He's a crazy kid and an unscrupulous killer, but an incredible pilot."
"Killer? I refuse to believe that a child could carry a title of killer." the girl spoke in a real outrage and disgust at the salesman's dull joke, and the answer was not pleasant.
"That's because you didn't see him. Better yet... you're not a Tusken in his sights." This time the man did not laugh, his face becoming more serious. "Let me tell you a history, little girl. Three months ago, the Tusken tried to destroy the old settlement I lived in with bombs. Ani was there and blowing it all up seemed like a desperate solution to save them from extinction." The salesman's humorless tone kept both humans quiet, the robot and the Gungan paying no attention to the story. "It was chaos... But only one or two houses exploded in the bombing. As soon as the third bomb was going down, nothing happened. But I saw it with my own eyes; the third, fourth, fifth... Eight bombs in total. All stopped in the air... And the boy just pointed his hand at them. After that, the usual happened. The Tusken speeders exploded and the bombs were thrown into the dunes, the ones that survived not being stopped by Ani's lightning blade. And he never took his breath away for a second. He was calm about everything. Killing is the only thing that kid can do. Because situations like that, he gained the surname of 'Demon without fear'."
The story sounded extremely fictional. Even a liar at many points. However, the surprise was what remained in Qui-Gon's and Padmé's eyes, caught specifically in the final details of the seller's story. Weapon of Light, ability to make objects float... Was this child a lost padawan? Qui-Gon had to change the goals in his mind; not only protect Padmé Amidala, but also find this lost padawan and finally leave this planet.
Little thing to know: Dorme and Sola mean, respectively, Sleep and Insole in Portuguese.