A/N- Thank you for the reviews and new followers! I have a steady flow of time now that school will be out for summer. Updates will come once a week. Please review and follow if you'd like to continue reading this version! This chapter is where you will notice differences from the last version.

-GP

Chapter 4- Force Abilities

Summary: Alternate World: The Empire Prevails and the Jedi have all been in hiding for thirty years. Emperor Palpatine searches for a way to live long past his dying body through cloning technology and his attempts at descendants. One of his " experiments" escapes and comes to live a slave's life on Naboo. He will meet and forever his destiny changed by the fateful meeting with none other than one young Naberrie girl…

Location: Outskirts of Theed, Naboo

Year 32 BBY

The dust blows fiercely, as the speed racers sweep past the onlookers. Shouts for certain racers blow past the racers' ears. They have one goal- reach the finish line. The finish line is several meters within the distance of every racer. The finish line is nothing more than the tree line, but the danger is spoken between the racers and the trees. If the racers did not lower their speeds at the precise moment and use their modified breaks to slow their course, there would be a bloodbath. The racer who did not slow down would be roadkill, slammed, and thrown against the trees. Their remains would be twisted and bloody and broken. One such racer had died among those trees in the past year, a young 15 year old boy named Kit.

Kit had been racing since he was nine years old amongst these racers, but he had grown bored and tired of the same speeds and desired to be able to cross the finish line without slowing down the routine speed. He yearned to be the first to reach a record speed and be able to gloat with friends. He had tried and failed- and had lost his life in the process. The other local racers hadn't attempted this since. Anakin included, as Kit had been one of his closest friends and he had learned to be careful about his speeds since his friend had perished.

Anakin's eyes stay focused on the course. His heart pumps blood faster and it feels as if it is in his ears. He grinds his teeth as he focuses on his lead. He had the lead by a mere few meters but that is all. He has an advantage after all that no one knows about. He has the ability to use the force and the force alerts him when it is time to precisely alter his speeds and to alter his positions to block the other racers. He is one of the best and unbeaten by many of the competitors. But today he has several racers on his backtail.

His senses pick up as the treeline creeps closer. It would be a matter of minutes before he reaches his destination and another victory lap will be in order. His eyes peer out of the corner of his eyes to his right. The racer in second place is gaining on him. He is distracted for a moment as his eyes peer at the smaller form with a serious expression on her face. Her hair is flying back behind her and her brown eyes are focused on beating her friend. Anakin smirks as he can see such focus on her features.

Not today will she beat me. She's a newbie- I should give her a break… but nah!

Anakin turns his eyes back to the front as he awaits the force to signal to him when it is time to slow down- to break. And then he feels a sudden abrupt change- the young girl is no longer behind him. She is picking up speed edging to where their speeders are aligned. She turns to him then and smirks wide. Blast! She is a quick study!

She laughs at the perplexed expression crossing his features and keeps passing him. Her speeder roared to life as she picked up her acceleration. Anakin whirls back to his peripheral vision to see if any other of the racers are catching up to his pace. None are close enough behind him.

I only have to worry about beating her. His mind whispers to him to focus. He cannot be beaten by his friend. He is the champ around these parts. He leans into his bike to focus on the task at hand. He picks up the acceleration so that he and his friend are neck in neck. Faster, and faster the treeline comes into view. Anakin knows it will be a matter of seconds before they both need to slow down.

He feels the alternation in the force which he knows all too well. He slightly presses the brake and waits for his friend's speeder to slow as well. And yet she doesn't slow down..

His expression changes to one of fear as he watches her continue to accelerate towards the treeline of death. Slow down P- . Slow down!

He grits his teeth as he suddenly senses her fear through their bond. She begins to slow down but it isn't enough. If she doesn't receive any help, she'd splatter against those trees. It will be his fault if she dies. She asked him to teach her to race a few months ago. She is only 14 years old, far too young to be killed in an accident.

Anakin forces his bike to a halt. It whines and screeches from the abrupt change in speed. He peers at his friend who knows she's toast. He focuses on her bike and not her fear. Any force sensitive within a few miles can feel her terror. She is terrified because she knows she'll hit the treeline without assistance.

Anakin! Her mind screams to him as he concentrates on the speeder. The speeder whines underneath the girl, but begins to slow down, but not enough. The speeder begins to turn on the girl and she screams in terror as she's thrown from the bike.

NO! NO! NO!

The crowd holds their breaths awaiting to hear the smack and crack of her neck, and other important bones in her body. And yet it does not happen. Anakin opens his eyes as he watches in awe. The girl is floating in midair- only inches from where her body would have been crushed by the nearest tree to the right. Anakin focuses on bringing her down onto the ground gently.

Her body hits the ground with a soft toss of the leaves and grass surrounding her.

Padme' stares at the sky above her. Her breathing is labored and she cannot move. Her body screams with adrenaline. She should be dead right now. Her eyes are wide with fear. How had she been able to survive that fall? Kit had died being thrown just as she had.

" P!" She can hear her friend shouting her name as he comes running to her aid. She lays there and finds bright blue eyes again watching her. She cannot fathom any words at this moment.

All that leaves her lips is , " Ani,"..

He can see the solid tears beginning to form in her eyes. The realization that she had almost died settling in. He kneels down and holds the young girl as her body shakes under his hold. He hears her soft sobbing into his shirt. She clutches on as if she is fighting for dear life.

They hear the sounds of the other racers at the edge of the treeline as well. Several of the onlookers have reached their position as well.

They eye the pair and murmur whispers and one boy states, " It was like something out of those holomovies! Padme' you're amazing! Do you have some kind of powers?"

Padme pulls away from her friend's blue shirt which is now soaked from her tears. She wipes her tears away. She doesn't want to be seen as a little girl. She hangs out with all of these teens who are two to four years older than her. She smiles at them and says excitedly, " I don't think I have powers. Maybe the force has other plans for me."

Anakin helps his friend shake hands. He is the only one who can see her break down. He knows her pride has fallen and he chimes in, " Yeah you were like those superhuman Jedi just then!"

Padme's head turns to her friend's comment and she nods back laughing. Her hand squeezes his hand in knowing. It is a small gesture of a thank you.

One of the other racers turns to Anakin and asserts, " I think she's still the winner."

Anakin turns to his friends and shrugs, " I guess I taught her too well."

The group laughs as they make their journey towards the awaiting speeders. Padme' fakes her laughs and smiles to get past her group of friends. She won't break down. She won't act like a baby.

Her sisters' loved to tease her about her wild behaviors. She hadn't changed much in the four years she'd been hanging out with Anakin. Believe it or not it seemed she found herself in more trouble than she had been before. Katrina always disapproves of her behavior. There were many times she came home with rips in her dresses or her hair wild around her. Moreover it doesn't help that she enjoys learning about how to take apart the speeders and learning the different portions of the moving parts. She enjoyed it because Anakin is able to explain it in a way she can understand it. She proudly helped him build the speeder she had just wrecked.

The group had been able to retrieve the broken and crushed speeder. It churned her stomach eyeing the twisted metal, which had the handlebars twisted around a tree and broken in two.

That could have been me…

Her mind whispers through the thick silence that encroaches on their way back to the estate. She had managed to keep it together as her friends had disappeared into the awaiting twilight. Her hands shook and she clenched her friend's hips tighter. Anakin senses her fear and terror through the force. She cannot read his thoughts as he can hers. She knew she had come close to dying. The question she had is should she be telling her father about this.

Her father will be furious with her and Anakin. He hardly became furious with his youngest daughter, but she had knowingly put herself in danger. He had knowingly allowed a rookie to race. He had thought he was old enough to watch out for her. Padme' is like his little sister most of the time. He always watches out for her well-being. They had become inseparable after their first conversation 4 years prior. Gradually, Sabe and Dorme', and Sola had grown to like Anakin as well. They thought of him as part of their family. He might not be blood but they felt he was like their brother after spending so much time with him.

They reached the mansion within a matter of minutes of leaving the outskirts. The large house lights are bright in the distance and full of gathering crowds. Katrina and her father had local friends and family each summer come visit their household. Katrina loved the endless line of parties.

Anakin steers his speeder into the garage that is several meters from the main house. The garage is large enough to hold several regular speeders, a few mini speeder racers and the tools needed to attend their upkeep as needed.

Anakin spends most of his time in this garage. He had arrived as part of a group of slaves bought when he turned 9. They had come to Tatooine in search of laborers for the Inner Core Worlds. Watto had felt at the time the price given to him by the slave traders was adequate in value of his worth. He had cried his eyes out when he had to say farewell to his mother. She had told him to be strong and to not look back.

The speeder winds down as he turns it off. Padme lets go of his hips and hops off the bike. She peers down at her clothing and sighs. How is she going to explain her teared clothing this time? Her tan pants had rips in both knees. Her blue flowing shirt had a slight tear at the bottom of the shirt. The rip must have happened as she had been thrown off her speeder. There were cuts on her stomach through the tear. She is lucky that is all that has happened to her.

Anakin eyes her clothes as well. He sighs and mumbles, " I'm sure your mother is going to have a fit when she sees you've torn your new clothes again."

Her brown eyes narrow at the mention of Katrina being her mother. " She is not my mother."

She hisses through her teeth and mutters, " I don't need to be reminded that she'll scold me for my behavior."

Anakin's brow furrows in annoyance. " You're a child and adults should remind you of your limits."

She crosses her arms and snaps, " I'm not a child! I'm 14 years old and why can't you and anyone else stop seeing me as one?"

Anakin snaps back at her, " You almost died tonight. Then had to swallow your damn tears because you didn't want to cry in front of our friends."

Padme' dark eyes shine with fury. Is it her fault? He's the one who promised to keep her safe! He's the one who promised to guide her and help teach her to race. She retorts, " It isn't all my fault. I was only following your guidance!"

His chiding cackle is like a scolding without him saying his next words, but he does anyway, " You didn't follow my guidance at all! I told you to not accelerate so much to the end of the bank. You must finish at a slower pace. You were selfish and didn't listen! If I hadn't saved you-" He stops himself almost revealing the truth. The truth that he must keep to himself unless he wants to be taken away from his home. Anakin had been able to escape this as a slave. They didn't have the resources to check his midichlorian count as a child. He had trained himself in learning to listen to this mysterious power. He still had much he could learn.

" That was you?" Padme' says in astonishment. Her brown eyes are wide. Her lips tremble as she realizes what this means. Anakin had those mystical powers they had heard about back in school.

She remembered reading about those Jedi Knights from long before her time. Her father had even allowed her to watch old holos from the Clone Wars. Nowadays, anyone who had these kinds of powers trained in the Imperial Navy or joined the Rebellion.

Anakin steps forward and Padme' steps back as if she's afraid of her friend. She remembered hearing the horror stories of those Jedi who had fallen. . Anakin can sense her fear of him. " You think I'd hurt you? Really P?" He whispers with a tone of hurt in his voice.

She gulps with wide eyes at realizing he could hear her thoughts. Her mouth drops open at this mention. " Can you read my mind?" She shudders as he tries to pull her back.

He shakes his head and mumbles, " Only sometimes. I only hear your thoughts when they are loud. But I don't want you to be afraid of me. I'd never hurt you."

She bites her lip and eyes her dear friend. She does trust him with her life. He is one of her best friends in the entire galaxy. But the idea of Anakin having some mystical connection scared her. She doesn't want to see her friend get hurt or taken away because of his gifts. She needs to keep it a secret even if it means lying to everyone around them.

She steps forward and asks, " So what else can you do?"

Anakin's smile returns bright as ever. He stretches out his hand and a screwdriver laying on the nearby stool floats into mid air. Anakin focuses on the object which is light within the force. He places it into his friend's hand and states, " That is one of the many things I can do. I've had them since I can remember."

Padme' nods in awe at this newfound information about her friend. She sits down on the hood of a golden speeder she and Anakin had begun to put back together in the past week. The speeder had much work to be done before it can be used, but her thoughts are quiet and dwell on her own thoughts. She remembers the nightmares she's had much of her life- most of them had been of people dying on worlds and then she had witnessed the newscasts on the holonet. She had trembled in fear of the unknown- and the one other time she had known that she would drown. The day she met Anakin. Did she possess force sensitivity too and now has someone who had some knowledge on the subject?

Anakin grabs a tall clear glass bottle from inside the trunk of the speeder. It holds Cornellian whisky which he had bought not long ago. As he is of legal drinking age, and adulthood on Naboo of 16; he enjoyed on occasion a drink of fine whisky with his buddies from university. He will have to decide what he wants to pursue within the next year or so and he isn't sure what he is interested in doing. He plops himself next to his shaken up friend and offers her the bottle. She appears perplexed as he gestures towards it and says, " Take a swing. You did, after all, almost die."

She nods accepting his offer and the burning liquid fills her senses. She sputters on the burning sensation as she attempts to swallow. She gulps it down and he chuckles at her reaction to her first shot of whisky.

" How do you drink this shit?" She curses as she coughs more on the brown burning liquid.

Hearing the curse coming from his friend only makes his laughter louder. He takes the bottle from her and takes a swing of his own. He gulps down the burning liquid of courage and suggests, " You have to drink several shots of this, and before long, you don't notice the burning. I don't like that water down garbage that Dorme' has tried to get me to drink."

It is her turn to chuckle. She takes the clear whisky bottle from him and takes another shot. She clenches her eyes shut as the burning passes through her throat a bit smoother this time. She shrugs and hands it back to him. He takes another swing and they sit in silence for a few moments, gathering their own thoughts.

Can you hear me? She whispers through their bond.

Yes

She can feel his satisfaction emanating from him. This is something else she wanders about. At times, she has been able to sense others emotions when they are strong. Is this what the Jedi could do?

She takes another thoughtful swing before she admits, " Since I was little, I've always felt different then my sisters' and other friends. I've had these nightmares-." She pauses and takes a third swing, feeling the warmth in her belly. " That I've seen come true on the holonet. I've always been too afraid to tell my father or sisters' about my dreams because they would brush them off when I was little as if they were nothing but a child's imagination. Have you ever had dreams like these- what I mean is- someone that is force sensitive?"

He stares at her, and senses her worry. But he has wondered at times over the four years they have known each other if she could be. She felt different from other people and could easily sense the other's needs at times without having to ask. The day they had met, he had felt this overwhelming connection to her through the force, which he had done some reading on can happen with others that are not force sensitive, but most who are force sensitive can achieve these bonds over time and years of training. It has always felt natural with her.

He shrugs, " Maybe you are. Have you seen your midichlorian count from birth?"

She nods. " It was normal- no different than Sola's or Sabe's."

He takes the glass container and drinks from it again in thought. How would she be able to do the things she's saying if she didn't show signs of being force sensitive at birth…

It hits him. Katrina. " Katrina delivered you right?" He asks, knowing already the answer, all he wants is confirmation.

She nods and questions, " Yes, why does that matter?"

He gives her the bottle and responds thoughtfully, " Unless, your records were changed by someone who had access to them. Don't you find it a bit odd that your father started dating your mother's midwife eight years after she died? Perhaps she and your father had an arrangement of some kind."

Padme's thoughts churn harder than before. She had noticed since their marriage of the distance between them. They hardly spent time together and it was more of a considerate friendship than the love shared between a man and wife. Had her father asked for Katrina's help protecting her and in return Katrina had asked for her own favor. It did change her respect for Katrina a bit. She may not agree with her on her rules about her behavior, but it did change her perspective a bit. Katrina had protected her secret for her entire life and was only trying to help raise her. Perhaps she should be kinder to her in the future..

She takes another swing and considers her options. If she does have a higher count, then she could train in these abilities. " Ani, would you teach me about the force? I mean- that is if you want to?"

Anakin presses a hand to her shoulder in reassurance. " I don't know much P- but I can teach you what I have taught myself- and definitely how to sense when to stop when racing."

She chuckles a bit- feeling the effects of the alcohol starting to reach her system. He takes the bottle from her and suggests, " I think you've had enough for now. But I'll teach you what I can."

To Be Continued