A/N: I feel like I should preface this chapter. I am writing a morally ambiguous Anakin. One of the things I really enjoy about this character is his duality, his constant struggle between darkness and light. And because of that, you're going to be subjected to some pretty dark Anakin in this fic. If that's not your thing, you might want to bow out now. Just thought I'd give fair warning.

Chapter Eleven

Six months later

Learning to exercise patience and wait for Sidious to come to me has been a challenge. Although I had often done so in my life as Vader, the inclination to proceed slowly had been borne out of necessity rather than an actual desire to bide my time. Back then, I had been bound to a ruthless master and so his will had inevitably become my own. I didn't hesitate because I wanted to but because he wanted me to, always on a proverbial leash. Now that I am free of Sidious' control, I must learn to bridle myself. It hasn't been easy to do.

When I first left Coruscant I battled with the near perpetual desire to make a mental list of potential targets and hunt each of them down systematically for extermination. I felt I had neither the time nor the patience to play games. Furthermore, hunting and killing were my specialty. I was good at it and I had little doubt I could accomplish the goal in a short amount of time.

But I also understood that such actions would be shortsighted, not to mention lacking in subtlety. I couldn't simply begin by targeting all of Sidious' associates and expect that I wouldn't raise his suspicions, thereby causing him to close ranks and consequence making me work harder. The point was to knock Sidious off balance, not cause hardship for myself. I needed a plausible cover to carry out my schemes.

And so, much to my mother's everlasting disapproval, I fell back into the thing that I knew would place me in the best position to achieve my goals: podracing. It was crude and, frankly a step down from the respect and admiration being a potential Jedi Knight had afforded me, but the craft served my purpose. While I admittedly got off to a rusty start involving a handful of minor crashes (In my estimation. My mother holds a different opinion), it didn't take me very long for me to attract the interest of several prominent criminals on Tatooine, most specifically Jabba the Hutt. He was especially interested in my phenomenal racing skills due to the potential profit involved. That was exactly what I was hoping for.

After all, a human participating in the pod races could easily spark interest. It wasn't sport they would typically survive. Consequently, a human who did survive a pod race could draw quite a crowd. But a human who survived the race and won could easily achieve celebrity status across the galaxy. I managed to do all three in less than six standard weeks.

And so, while war broke out following the Separatist invasion of the Twi'lek homeworld, Ryloth and the sieges for the Outer Rim began, I was busy becoming a famous podracer with Jabba the Hutt serving as my benefactor. That suited me perfectly because being accepted into his dubious social circle would inevitably put me in proximity with the very people I needed to exterminate. While the Jedi wrung their hands, meditated ineffectually, and found themselves drawn into a pointless conflict they had been too foolish to avoid, I began laying the necessary groundwork to end the war by targeting the very people who had instigated it.

Of course, my methods weren't completely understood by those around me, most especially my own family. My mother couldn't hide her fear and disappointment following my decision to leave the Order though she did her best to respect my decisions. Beru was surprisingly nonjudgmental and proved to be an unexpected champion of mine. She would often serve as a buffer between me and the rest of the family when the pressure to conform became too intense. Cliegg and Owen, on the other hand, (who were most often the source of that pressure) never failed to pass up an opportunity to remind me that I was breaking my mother's heart with my life choices.

"I expect better from you, son," Cliegg would often say, "You're breaking your mother's heart." I might have appreciated his willingness to step in as a father figure for me if not for two reasons. One, I was a grown man and had stopped needing a father's guidance long ago. And two, his constant commentary on my decisions was beginning to get on my nerves.

I didn't necessarily like the idea of hurting my mother. Truthfully, I wanted to make her proud of me. I had attached such disgrace to her surname in my previous life that I naturally felt compelled to redeem myself in that regard. I was pained to read disappointment in her eyes, particularly after having been on the receiving end of that with Obi-Wan so many times before. It made me wonder if that was my true destiny…to eternally disappoint everyone who ever loved me…

Unfortunately, I had no way to explain away my actions either. Somehow, I didn't think the excuse that I raced only because I needed a cover for potential assassinations would go over very well with my mother, regardless of how noble and necessary I may have found my cause. Shmi Skywalker-Lars was many things. A warrior, a pragmatist, a fearless advocate for the disenfranchised but even she would be unable to justify callous murder, even for the sake of ending a war. If she knew the truth, she would do everything in her power to stop me, and the last thing I want is to be in opposition to my own mother.

It took several months but, eventually, some of her initial dissent began to cool, most notably when I used the first of my prize winnings to free a human, slave boy who had been serving at Jabba's pleasure as my unofficial pit master. Slavery remained a common occurrence on Tatooine. It was a lucrative business after all and the Republic certainly had no interest in stepping in to eradicate it, not with the risk of alienating the slave traders with whom they had formed strong political alliances.

That left responsibility for eliminating the reprehensible practice to the planet's citizens. My mother did her part. And so, I tried to do mine as well. Freeing the boy was my first attempt.

Jett Vyde was eighteen years old, but he looks much younger with his slight build and freckled, gamin face. But he is an old soul. His brown eyes are keen and shrewd and are the only things that betray the fact that he's seen far too much at his tender age. It would be incredibly easy to underestimate him but, like most children who had grown up in the gangster ridden rat-hole that was Tatooine, he could be a force to be reckoned with when crossed.

I'm not entirely sure what compelled me to free him at all. Maybe I was drawn to his underdog spirit. Or perhaps I saw in him the boy I would have become had the Jedi not found me all those years ago. Scrappy, willful and a fierce competitor and fighter. I couldn't be sure what my motivations were, I only knew that when I freed him, it felt right.

I had imagined that once his gained his independence, Jett would flee Tatooine and never look back. It was what I most certainly would have done had it not been for my mother. I was surprised when he decided to stick with me instead, following me wherever I went. And now, he's become the first (and truly the only) friend that I've ever had outside of the Jedi Order and one of the preciously few people that I trust. I was so pleasantly surprised by the outcome that I even made a habit of freeing slaves with my prize money every time I won a race.

"Was that your plan all along, Ani?" my mother would ask me with a fond smile, "Do you plan to free all of the slaves one podrace at a time?"

"Maybe. We'll see…"

Jabba didn't particularly understand my preoccupation with liberating slaves, and I didn't particularly care about his lack of understanding. He and I had a mutual, unspoken agreement between us. As long as I continued to make him obscene amounts of money, he would allow me to do whatever I wished. I was counting on that as well.

My first race off-world podrace was on the ice-planet of Ando and the track had proven to be a dangerously treacherous one that consisted of sharp dips through cavernous ice valleys, blizzard like conditions and large, indigenous beasts that weren't exactly keen on strange visitors. That race inevitably drew a large crowd, particularly because the odds of death were so high and especially so for the lone human contestant. Morbid curiosity never failed to turn a lucrative profit.

I had been back on Tatooine for 90 rotations when I made my first kill after I won that race. My target had been a senator by the name of Po Nudo. He had been serving on the Separatist Council as the Hyper-Communications Cartel head, and he was buried deep in Sidious' pocket. Through his efforts, the Separatist Alliance had been funded with a steady supply of cash to support their non-stop construction of weapons and fighter droids. He had made the unfortunate decision to revisit his homeworld specifically to watch me race. The irony wasn't lost on me.

Technically, it was my second time killing the sycophantic sentient, the first time being on Mustafar when I butchered him along with the rest of the Separatist Council…their handsome reward from Sidious for a job well done. Unlike the younglings, whose deaths I had viewed more as a means to an end, I had enjoyed killing the Separatists leaders on Mustafar. But that first time had been at my former master's behest and on his terms. This most recent time had been completely on mine.

Of course, I had been careful not to use my lightsaber. The last thing I wanted was to alert Sidious to the fact that someone with Force sensitivity or perhaps even a Jedi might be targeting his minions. As a result, I'd decided to execute him by crushing his windpipe with a Force choke instead but not before making it unquestionably clear to him why he was deserving of death.

Ultimately, while his demise had been a shock to the Galaxy and had circulated the Holonet gossip circuit for weeks afterward, it had been attributed to natural causes as opposed to foul play. Consequently, it was quickly forgotten and failed to raise any suspicion. His passing was swept from the news cycle entirely and nonstop coverage of the ongoing war resumed.

For me, however, the cursory attention Po Nudo's death received had been a tacit guarantee of my eventual success, a confirmation that I might be able to slowly cut my way through Sidious' underlings without him ever becoming the wiser. Truthfully, I was feeling rather emboldened following that encounter and filled with such self-congratulatory pride that I immediately began plotting to take out my next target. Planning my kills and determining how I would get away with them became almost like a game to me.

But I soon learned that I hadn't gotten away with murder quite as cleanly as I first believed. Someone had followed me that night. Someone who would eventually challenge me for answers.

It had taken several weeks for Jett Vyde to work up the confidence to confront me over what he had witnessed and, when he finally did, I had to appreciate the kid's unwavering directness. He'd even found the nerve to broach the subject with me without the benefit of any backup. Just he and I alone at night in the Lars' mechanical shed. It had been a gutsy move indeed, albeit a foolish one when I consider it in hindsight.

"I saw what you did that night," he had declared suddenly when our conversation fell into a lull.

Up until that point, we had been working together to make repairs on my racer, which had taken a beating in my last competition, and the atmosphere between us had been relaxed. Our conversation was casual and unassuming, nothing atypical for us at all. But the second the accusation was put out into the air, everything changed. There had been something in his tone, something quiet and forceful that had prompted me to set aside my tools and meet his stare directly.

"Saw me do what on what night?"

"On Ando. After the race…"

"Yeah? What about it?"

"I followed you."

"You followed me?" Fear over what he was implying didn't immediately register because I was too indignant that he would dare to trail me, and he was indignant that I was indignant at all and told me so.

"Maybe I didn't think you should go wandering off alone on a strange ice planet! Excuse me for having your back!"

"No one asked you!"

"That's the point of having someone's back, Anakin! They don't have to ask you!"

"And what gave you the impression I needed it? What's the point?"

"Like I said, I saw you with that guy…that fancy Senator. I thought it was strange that you were talking to him and…and when you followed him, I followed you." He had paused then, allowing the full import of his words to sink in before stating quietly, "I saw you kill him."

I had laughed off the accusation even as cold fear and dread had run through my veins like shards of ice. And though I was mentally calculating the possibility that he might not have been the only one there that night and I was irritated with myself for not sensing him in the first place because my focus on Nudo had been so consuming, I didn't dare interrogate him about it. Instead, I'd tried to regain some modicum of control over the situation by dismissing his accusation entirely.

"You don't know what you're talking about. There was no Senator."

"Is that supposed to be some kind of Jedi mind trick you just did? Because, if so, you're really bad at it."

I might have laughed at his reply if the circumstances weren't so dire. "No tricks at all. You're simply mistaken in what you 'saw.'"

"I'm not 'mistaking' anything! You didn't even touch him but, I know you did it. I saw you, Ani."

"You don't know what you saw. You're just a kid."

"And you're not? Stop acting like you're the only one who knows how the galaxy works! I'm not naïve! Don't treat me like I don't know my own mind!"

I'd sincerely hoped that declining to respond to his disgruntled retort at all would be enough to deter him. I consider that tact now and realize how ridiculous the effort had been. Jett had never been one to be easily pushed aside. He lived to be contrary, and that night had been no different. Even when I snatched up my tool and disappeared back beneath my racer, he had continued to hammer at me.

"It was because he was backing the Separatists, wasn't it? That's why you killed him, isn't it?"

"Jett, you need to drop this!"

"That's what you told him! I heard you! You said that he was responsible for the war and that you were going to stop him, and the people like him."

Because it became clear to me by then that he would not countenance being ignored and, frankly, I wasn't sure if I had the luxury of doing so any longer, I slid back from beneath my podracer to regard him with a detached stare. "What do you want me to say, Jett? Are you going to turn me in now?"

"What if I told you that was my plan? Would you kill me?"

"Yes."

Far from fearful or intimidated by my harsh reply, he'd had the audacity to grin at me. "Liar."

"What makes you so certain? I've killed others for much less."

"You won't kill me."

"How do you know?"

"Because we're the same."

That had been enough to give me pause, not because he was entirely misguided in his assessment but because I recognized some truth to what he was saying. I did recognize remnants of myself in him, traces of the boy I had once been or, at the very least, could have been. Kindred spirits were a rarity and yet somehow, I had been blessed to have three over the course of two lifetimes. The problem was that I wasn't so convinced that they had been equally blessed to have me and that feeling of unworthiness had prompted my resistance to Jett's reasoning. I kept insisting that he let it go, and he kept refusing.

"I don't want to turn you in, Anakin. I want to help you."

"Just because you and I are both former slaves, that doesn't mean you know a thing about what motivates me. You have zero idea why I do what I do!"

"I know that you could have been a very powerful Jedi, but that you chose to leave Order so that you could follow your own path. And you did that even though everyone thought you were making a huge mistake. That takes real guts."

"I see you've been spending too much time with Beru. You've covered most of her talking points."

"She respects your decision. Maybe you should try respecting mine and the path I've chosen."

"This sounds more like you trying to hitch a ride on my path right now!"

"Minor details. The point is, I know that you want to stop this war. I want to help you do it."

"You claim not to be a naïve child, but you sure sound like one!"

"And you're scared! Why are you so determined to do this on you own?"

"What makes you think that I need your help?"

"The Separatists invade worlds and take what doesn't belong to them just like the slavers do," Jett had reasoned, "They're all the same and people like you and me and your mom suffer for it. Well, maybe I want to make them suffer now. I want to help you stop them. Please don't tell me no."

"You have no idea what you're offering, Jett. This isn't a game. I know the course I've chosen, and I'm committed to it."

"I'm committed!"

"Have you ever killed anyone in your entire life?" I think about how he had folded at the challenge that night, how his eyes had dropped away almost as if he was ashamed that he hadn't. "Well, I have," I'd revealed to him, "I've killed many. I can't remember all the faces. You lose a little part of your humanity with every single death until you don't even know what you are anymore. Is that what you want?"

Ironically, his answer had come without the slightest hesitation. "Yes."

And so, our partnership beyond podracing began soon after that night. I have somehow gained an accomplice without ever actually advertising the need for one. And we do good work together. Shielded by the overwhelming fanfare that the inordinately large crowds and confusing bustle of the podraces affords us, Jett and I have been able to carry out numerous bombings and covert assassinations without anyone becoming the wiser.

Some of the deaths are attributed to "natural causes." Others are tied to organized crime or simply "being in the wrong place at the wrong time." Podraces were notorious for hosting criminal elements and so, most times, the deaths didn't come as shocking or out of place. But inevitably, some rumors began to circulate that the victims may have been specifically targeted. Rampant finger pointing soon followed with no one truly looking in the right direction.

The galaxy at large couldn't rightly discern the connection between all these dead victims besides their evident ties to underworld corruption, as some had clear links to the Separatist Alliance while others were supposedly respected senators within the Galactic Senate. Much gossip circulated about it, but mainly by conspiracy theorists and those who already had a deep mistrust of the Republic. Only I was fully aware of what these seeming opposing factions had in common…well, myself and Sidious and that fact would bring him to me soon enough.

I suppose that I should probably feel guilty for drawing an impressionable teenager into my tangled web of deceit and murder and, on some level, I do. I feel like I'm stripping him of his childish innocence, molding him into the same tool that Sidious had molded me. I tell myself that it's not the same, that I'm not purposely corrupting Jett for my own gain, but it feels similar and my long-ignored conscience rebels.

But, at the same time, I recognize that Jett had probably lost his innocence long ago growing up as a slave on Tatooine. I wasn't making him do anything he didn't want to do. He made the choice with me just as I made the choice with Sidious. At least I gave him all the facts while Sidious left me mostly in the dark. Still, that reasoning does little to assuage my guilt, and I often encourage him to walk away and to never look back. But the more I try to push him away, the deeper he digs in.

Jett is stubborn, obstinate and has an annoying penchant for doing the exact opposite of what you tell him to do. It grates on my nerves but at the same time fills me with unusual pride. He reminds me a great deal of Ahsoka in that regard. And that, perhaps, is the reason I ultimately relent and allow him to continue serving as my de-facto partner in crime. Because he does indeed remind me of my former padawan in so many ways, though his moral compass is much grayer than hers.

He's a great deal less likely to steer me away from my darker impulses. Most often, he encourages it. Still, having him with me makes Ahsoka's absence feel less acute.

I have no idea what's become of her in this timeline. Perhaps the Council followed through with their plans to assign her as Obi-Wan's padawan or it's possible that her future has diverged entirely due to the decisions I've made. What I do know for sure is that it is extremely unlikely that she and I will ever cross paths again and, if we do, it will probably be as enemies. I'm grieved at the thought of having to live through that prospect a second time. But she is a Jedi and so it feels inevitable…

It's not as if I've purposely set myself up in opposition to the Order. Frankly, following their ineptitude in dealing with Sidious and his war, I could care less what they did. They've proven themselves to be as incompetent as I've always believed. But cold, calculated killing is not their way unless, of course, they are the ones serving as arbiters of who is and is not deserving of death. But Force forbid that anyone else dare to do so… Then again, hypocrisy has always been the Jedi way so there's little point in getting myself worked up about it.

But I suspect that will hardly matter in the long run. While I have no plans to go out of my way to target them, I have no doubts that the Jedi will soon be coming for me. As far as they're concerned, I am a self-confessed Sith, an evil that must be neutralized at all costs. They hadn't had a valid reason before to take me into custody, but I've certainly given them cause to do so now. They will never approve of my methods and will do everything in their power to stop me once they become aware.

And when that happens, we're going to have a problem.