Disclaimer: Me – no – own – the – very – good – and – mighty – Star – Wars! Oh, what the heck. If you understand plain English and you know who I am, you know I am not George Lucas in any way, shape and/or form, got it? Good...
To Give Up the Order
"Where did you get this false information?..." Anakin hissed at the boy with a great, but calm, rage.
"It is not truth, but it is also not false, Anakin." Mathius tried to explain.
"Stop speaking with your riddles!" Anakin screamed and Mathius cringed a bit, which was when Anakin suddenly really did realize that Mathius was just a boy. This young padawan had only just received his lightsaber not long ago, after all, and he had only just become a teenager. This little boy was of no threat, and did nothing but attempt to help Anakin, and he knew it and almost felt guilty, but this was no time for guilt, he knew...
"I really do not mean to anger you, Master Anakin, really I don't!" Mathius asked and Anakin realized with guilt that the boy was starting to cry...
"I cannot tell you where I got this information, but this is what happens to me and my Jedi family if you choose the path of the dark-side, you must see that, and the same path is before Padme!" Mathius was begging with Ani. "In a sense, that is not Anakin Skywalker, but on the outside it is. The dark-side twists and turns your mind, Master Skywalker. Yoda himself would do the same if he was to stumble across the path of the dark-side, you must understand!"
"You know," Anakin mused, "I never would have given in this much in the past..."
"I've noticed..." Mathius laughed, looking up at Anakin with great admiration in his eyes. Anakin had remembered days when he had looked up at Master Obi-Wan Kenobi like that in a way that was most like hero-worship.
"There are many things to discuss, young Jedi!" Anakin said in a lecture-like tone, sounding very much like an impatient Obi-Wan.
Mathius giggled slightly, noticing the mock-authority tone. "Master Kenobi would not be pleased if he heard you mocking him, you know!" Mathius snickered.
"Well, we just won't tell him, will we now, padawan... ummm..." Anakin honestly had no idea what the young Jedi's last name was at all.
"Mathius Fett." The child said with a nod, trying to sound as casual as possible.
"Fett?" Anakin asked, almost disturbed by the name. The last time he had encountered a Fett it hadn't been too pleasant...
"Yes, Fett." Mathius said bitterly. "Just don't tell the council. Yoda is the only one who knows and I'm not in the mood to get stabbed through the heart with a lightsaber."
Anakin noticed that the last part was said while Mathius was looking directly at him.
"Listen, I am the son of Jango Fett. Twelve year ago, my brother Boba and I were abandoned on the planet Kamino. My brother was barely older than I, but because he was simply a clone of my father, he had amazing survival skills and took care of me at only the age of three-years. We waited a year, nothing changing, before my father came back. My brother Boba thought it was dangerous for me to go with him to investigate the ship, so he was taken by my father and did not return. It must have been only a week before I was found by my former Master, Jape Annul, who died in one of the Clone Wars, as everyone well knows. Master Jape had sensed that the Force was in me and took me back with him to be tested. I was allowed to be trained, but of course Master Yoda sensed in me anger as a young one." Mathius sighed, looking away.
"You don't get to choose your family." Anakin shrugged, though he believed he had received too many shocks for one day...
"No you don't." Mathius nodded, still looking up at Anakin with admiration.
Anakin sighed and shook his head, still not understanding where he fell into this whole role involving the 'ex-padawans' as Mathius called them.
"You must clarify where I am to be of some assistance, Mathius." Anakin said, "I will help you, but I don't know how I can, other than not stabbing you to death..." saying that actually got a snicker out of the young Fett, though Anakin didn't understand where the humor in it was...
"We need you to train us, Master Skywalker." Mathius said with a shrug. "Everyone also knows about your flying talents, about how you can fly almost anything, and none of us will be able to, and I'm sure Queen Padme will help, if you can convince her to leave the Senate." Mathius shrugged again.
"I don't know if she would..." Anakin said softly.
"The Senate will soon be diminished anyway, as will the Jedi-Order if we cannot get as much help as possible." Mathius said in a worried voice, "Do ya think you could convince her into it?"
"I could explain the situation." Anakin said with a nod, "And it would most-likely work."
"Alright," Mathius began, "That's a start. I've only got nine padawans, but it's certainly enough to save the Order." He finished nervously, "I hope..."
"You mustn't fear, youngling." Anakin said, laying a reassuring hand on the young Fett's shoulder, "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate-..."
"And hate leads to destruction. I understand." Mathius nodded.
"You cooperate too easily." Anakin smirked.
"Anything to become a Jedi-Knight, that's all I really want." The boy smiled, "I just wish there weren't so many wars. Wars have killed the only family that I ever had..." Anakin took in the fact that Mathius was referring to his dead-master, Jape Annul...
Anakin ruffled the boy's hair with a smile, imagining what his own son would be like, if Padme was right about the child being a boy.
"The wars will be over soon." Anakin reassured to the child.
"Yes, they will, but there will still be many deaths." Mathius said, brushing tears away from his face vigorously, "I just pray that the Force will guide us and that the Jedi-Order will live on."
"I promise you," Anakin said facing the boy and placing his hands on the boy's small shoulders, "The Jedi will live on, and it will be all because of your 'silly dream', and many lives will be saved. We may have to leave the Order;" Ani said sadly, "But the Jedi will live on..."
Mathius Fett sat cross legged on the floor, staring out of a window onto the only planet he had ever been able to call his true home, Coruscant. Hot tears of sorrow filled his eyes to the brim and he brushed them away too with great impatience.
I'm never going to cry again. Jedi's don't cry. The boy thought bitterly to himself, looking up at Anakin as if waiting for him to use some great powers only the Chosen One could hold and make all of the evil and the wars go away, but the boy knew that it would take much time and effort for anything to make all of the evil and the wars go away.
"To give up the Order will be a very hard thing." Anakin noted, also looking out onto the forever sunny planet of Coruscant, thinking not only about this planet but also about Tatooine and Naboo, another two planets that had been like home to him and all three there was a chance he would never see again.
"Yes, it will ring great sorrow to the many who will have to leave this place." The Padawan name Mathius Fett said slowly, "It has been the only home for most of the Padawans. Many of my friends have never seen another planet... I myself haven't left the Temple in a year..."
Anakin looked back on the boy curiously. Ani hadn't even considered what it was like for the younglings, barely leaving the Jedi-Temple. Ani himself had gone on many missions with his Master, Obi-Wan, but some of the younglings hadn't yet received masters or their master's had been killed in battle, like Mathius' and therefore had no reason to leave; they after-all ate, slept and trained in the Temple.
"It will be fine." Anakin reassured the boy.
"To give up the Order, hmmm..." Mathius mused, "Never thought I'd be doing it myself. I've lived here for almost twelve entire years and the only planet besides this one I've been to was Kamino. All I ever wanted to do was be a Jedi, and now that I finally am considered one, I'm leaving."
"It's all I ever wanted, too." Anakin said, looking down at the ground with great concentration, almost as if the floor would give him an answer.
"Master Windu might be dead, you know. He wouldn't have been able to kick Palpatine's evil, Sith ass." Mathius growled.
"I tried to tell him to let me come along, but he wouldn't have it." Anakin explained.
"I figured you'd try, but if Master Windu is lucky, Palpatine didn't hurt him too badly." Mathius said, standing up and brushing his blue tunic off; most of the padawans were allowed to wear colors when they were younger, but the older padawans, knights and Jedi-Masters tended to wear dull tan or brown colors.
"You'd better get back to the Temple you know." Anakin chided, "As you said yourself, you just left the Temple for the first time in a year just a week ago. One of the Master's will notice that you're gone soon."
"Yes, I know, but I don't want to miss out on the action!" Mathius whined to the older-boy.
"I know you don't." Anakin pondered. "I'll tell you what, gather your nine padawans and have them meet me back in this same room at midnight on this same day next week, understand?" Mathius nodded, "Good. I will try and get Senator Padme to come as well, if she's not too busy."
"Yes, Master Anakin." Mathius nodded eagerly. Anakin felt rather odd, having a padawan clinging onto his every word; he would probably feel exactly like Obi-Wan if it weren't for the fact that Mathius actually listened to instructions, something Anakin had never done well...
"Master Anakin," Mathius began, looking up at him with stormy gray eyes. Anakin knew the boy's eyes were blue, but they had a silver glint to them that made them an eerie but attentive steel-gray tone, but he did have slightly tan skin and a cold disposition, not to mention the un-tamed brown mop of hair that Anakin remembered suddenly seeing in a boy that had been at the stadium after Padme, Anakin and Obi-wan had been captured. That same boy had gone and picked up the Bounty Hunter, Jango Fett's, helmet, after his head had been severed off by Master Windu; maybe that boy had been Boba Fett...
Anakin shook himself out of his pondering and looked down at the boy, wondering what the boy had felt when he had discovered that one of his own teachers, Master Windu, had chopped off his own father's head.
Instead of asking him such a question though, Anakin responded to the boy a simple, "Yes?"
Mathius looked slightly nervous as he stared up at Anakin with the odd eyes and asked, "Will you train me as your own padawan learner?"
Anakin looked down at this boy, the boy who seemed so fearless, yet overly sorrowful, but Anakin had also been like that, when he had been taken from Tatooine and from his mother, the only person that had ever loved him, and then yet again when he had been separated from his wife Padme for so long.
Anakin tried to think of what would become of this little boy if he did nothing, if he didn't leave the Jedi-Order, if he didn't rescue the youngling from sheer torture or death, or even worse, if he gave in to the dark-side.
He remembered clearly back to the image of himself stabbing the little boy through the heart and had to avert his own shrewd eyes from Mathius's sorrow-filled ones; he had to help the children now that he knew what would become of them other-wise, and this particular child looked up to him as though he ruled over the Force itself.
"Yeah, I'll train you." Anakin nodded his head. He faced the boy with a stern look and said, "Only if you're willing to learn."
Mathius's eyes bored into Anakin's skull as the boy said silently, "I'm ready Master..."
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A/N: SO MANY REVIEWS! AHHHHHHHHH! I LOVE YOU ALL! Did you know that Jedi-ism is now considered an official religion over in the great U.K? Yeah, and by the way, there's also a real-life Jedi-Academy over in Romania. Look this stuff up on the internet; it's some really cool information. I know some people are hating Mathius and I'm starting to as well, so I'll tell you what, I'll have something bad happen to him in some battle later on. Also, I need suggestions for my story! If you want something to occur, I might just make it happen.
...: Yeah, why did he have to turn into an ugly Sith? It would have been okay if he hadn't gone ugly and killed the younglings too; grrrrr...
MionePotter1392: Yup, going to the movie tonight!
Twitch in my eye: Ummm, thanks? Well, I must say, this is my most interesting review so far, but I do understand.
VictoriaM2006: Look up Star Wars Characters under Google. There will be a link to Character Archives in the main Star Wars web-site and it says that some of the characters are from something called Expanded Universe. These are the sequels to some of the Star Wars movies. They don't really have a movie sequel to Star Wars 1-6, but in a sense they do, I think...
Zaniac: Thank you very much:)
DivineRoseKeeper: Yet again, thank you!
Mae: Well, wait no more.
Fath8252: I made Mathius seem like a pathetic child in this chapter just for you! Mathius was seeming to over-shadow Anakin to me as well. When the rest of the padawans come along, Mathius won't seem quite as important as he was before, he'll kind of just fall into rank. I thought it would be cool if Mathius was one of the younglings to be murdered by Anakin if he turned to the dark-side because I dunno, it would give Mathius a real reason to try and stop Anakin from joining the dark-side, because he didn't want to get slaughtered or something. Oh, and thanks for loving me and my chapter! My mum wouldn't take me to see Star Wars because she just got into a fight with her boyfriend, who is a geek, but I get to see it tonight!
Countess Jackman: Well, it should get more detailed anyways. Ya, but I'll send an e-mail your way; perhaps we could talk about just how sexy Anakin really was.
KathrynValmont: Ya, I read a couple of your stories and they are not at all bad! In The Hand of Our Children and Jealous and A Father's Salvation and Best Friends or Lovers too was really good. Update those that aren't completed!
Gimmeabreak: Love it you shall, I hope...
Cornett: It will all come in due time, my young padawan... Oops, sorry, I'm kind of getting a bit too into it...
Cat: This chapter should answer that question.
mrssandyclarkgable: Yeah, I had kind of been hoping that after Anakin ignited his lightsaber he would be all like, "Just stick behind me, kids, and we'll be alright." But he killed them instead... Oh well.
Burning Phoenix: Yeah, I've seen Episode 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and I saw the very last scene from Episode 2 last night, which totally sucks (I tried to rent it but apparently my best-friend had rented it, grrr!) I'm going to have to wait to see it, I guess, but this story must go on! calms down May the Force Be With You...
Ani's Girl: Soon enough, I hope.