After a proper funeral for Han, Anakin practiced walking around inside Luke's house with his new body. While he wobbled at first, he was quickly standing strong. He hadn't felt real knees, ankles, and feet in decades. For the first time in years, he wore regular clothes that didn't need to fit over his bulky machine parts. He wore a mixture of red and black similar to the old jedi style he had long left behind.
Still beside herself in grief, Leia said, sitting at the table, "We're at war."
"We've been at war for a while now," Anakin replied, "you've just been in denial."
Leia chucked a cup at him hard, but he used the force to catch it and launched it back onto the table with ease.
Mara chimed in without skipping a beat, "I can try to identify that black ship that helped us. I don't recognize it from the old empire or this new people's republic."
"Maybe it was neutral," Luke said.
Leia asked, "Why would they help us? And why was the First Order so spooked by them? This makes less and less sense the more I think about it."
Anakin did a little spin on his toes and found his balance once more. Then took off out the front door. Mara asked, "Where are you going?!"
Luke and Leia ran after him. He ran past the city buildings and out to a field of long grass as it waved in the wind. It only took a moment for Luke and Leia to understand what was happening. For the first time in over 50 years Anakin could run again, so he did so with great glee. Yipping and hollering the entire way.
Some of the children in the city noticed and ran after him. He cartwheeled and rolled down a hill and they tumbled down after him.
"What a child," Luke remarked.
"What?" Leia defended, "If I was suddenly 40 years younger, I wouldn't just be standing here." She gestured to her father laying in the valley of the hill he had just rolled down.
Anakin laid in the field laughing, similar to the one where he spent time with Padme before the war. He couldn't believe he was surrounded by children who had no idea who he was and the atrocities he had committed. He couldn't help but compare it to the day he stormed the temple. He knew he couldn't wash away his past. The painful memories never went away. Never dulled.
He was so lost in thought and in the moment, he didn't sense Luke walking up behind him.
"I'm glad you have a real body again," he said genuinely, "but we have work to do. We can't let the First Order enslave half the galaxy."
"I have unfinished business with Palpatine," Anakin replied, "slaves outnumber masters. If you can rally them and convince them to fight back all you have to do is cut their chains and send them in the right direction, they'll do the hard part of going home for you."
Leia walked up from around Luke and said, "The inner systems are recruiting soldiers as we speak."
Anakin asked, still laying down in the grass, "What's the plan?"
"While they want Zygerria," she explained, "the senate is well aware that it's too heavily fortified for the numbers the republic currently has. We're thinking of making them come closer to us. Raxus is much more obtainable."
Luke said, "If we strike a heavy enough blow early enough we might not have a full fledged war to deal with."
"With Palpatine?" Anakin said, "Don't count on it. He'll drag this out for however long he wants it and strike with something crazy in the end."
Leia asked, "What is he planning?"
Anakin finally sat up and said, "That's what I'm going to find out."
"You think he'll just tell you?" Luke asked.
"If I pretend to be too weak to resist him," he answered, "it's a possibility we can't overlook."
Leia said, "You're making me nervous."
Anakin stood up and said, "It'll all be pretend, my dear Leia."
Before Luke and Anakin left in their tandem ship, the family said their goodbyes on the runway. "I'll do what I can to get through to Ben when I see him next," Anakin said.
"The force is shifting," Mara said anxiously, "can't you feel it?"
He replied, "The force is always shifting, that's it's nature."
"You know what I mean."
Luke said, "I feel it, Mara. That's why we're bringing Ben home and stopping all this. If we don't do something now this could spiral out of control." He glanced at his father who looked away to the children.
"You're staying here," Anakin said, pointing to Rey, "and I know your scheme was her idea." He pointed to Annika.
"I just wanted to see Ben again," Annika said, "are you really going to bring him back?"
Anakin wanted to tell her he was, but he knew it wasn't that simple. He remembered what it was like be Ben's age and to have such a powerful person offer him promises he couldn't refuse. Clearly Ben wanted something more than an ordinary life on Naboo and Anakin thought he should have seen that sooner.
He said sadly, "I can't guarentee anything, Annika, I'm sorry."
"We'll do what we can," Luke tried to assure her.
Inside the ship, Anakin prepared the ship for take-off.
Luke said, "You don't seem worried about the changes happening within the force."
"When I was young I worried over everything," he answered as-matter-of-factly, "and then everything fell apart anyway. Worrying did nothing for me nor the jedi council nor Padme or anyone else in that time."
"And you don't think it'll help here?" Luke asked.
"That's right," he said, "R2 set a course for Zygerria."
Luke said, "Let's hope the distraction Leia's causing on Raxus will give us enough of an entryway."
As Anakin had done a million times before, the ship started for space easily enough. R2 set the coordinates as they exited the atmosphere. It was only when they entered lightspeed that his head began to hurt, and his bones felt suffocated inside in own body.
"Are you alright?" Luke asked.
"My head," he covered his eyes in pain. The hydrosonic blue color of space was too much for him to look at. The ship around them felt as though they were being closed in.
"I think you're getting hyperspace sickness," Luke said.
Anakin put his head in his lap and said, "That's impossible! I've been in starships since before I could walk!"
"This new body of yours hasn't," he explained, "it's spent 30 years trapped inside a glass tube. It hasn't traveled across the galaxy for decades like you have." He patted him on the back, "Go in the back and lye down."
Anakin sat up and tried to focus on not feeling ill as he said, "I didn't feel this terrible when we left Zygerria."
"You fell asleep, remember?"
Knowing he was moments away from retching, Anakin stood up and said, "I'm going to go lie down." He couldn't believe it. He had a young body again for the first time ever and it couldn't handle hyperspace. How was he supposed to live like this? He didn't have time to think of that, not with a galaxy in peril.
Meanwhile the People's Republic organized their cruisers and their battle plans outside Naboo. Leia joined the rest of the volunteer fighters on a starship and headed off toward Raxus. Mara stayed behind to help out at the temple.
Anakin only threw up four times by the time Zygerria came into view. This time they were swarming with radar near the First Order base, so Luke had to improvise and make his way around the northern side of the planet instead.
Once they landed in hiding, Luke found Anakin still in the medical cot. "How are you feeling?"
"I didn't know hyperspace sickness could feel this terrible," he said, coughing and catching his breath. "I thought it just caused dizziness."
"Careful regaining your land legs," Luke warned, "the First Order is on high alert. The battle on Raxus must have started by now." He helped his father onto his feet as they made their way outside.
Once on the ground, Anakin said, "R2 stay with the ship."
"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Luke asked.
"I only have Palpatine and Ben on my mind," he insisted, "I'll head straight for the base, you go for the slaves and help them escape the system." The two of them split up and headed off into the unknown.
When he had to, Anakin used the force to make sure no one spotted him and or reported seeing a strange man walking around in the city. The emotions were so raw, filling with anxiety and nervousness from both the slaves and the brand-new soldiers ready to fight in a war.
First, he tried the side entrance he did before, but this time it was heavily guarded, and he didn't want to start a scene. Instead he used the force to try and find Palpatine. It was harder than decades earlier. With this new body, both himself and the old emperor felt ever so slightly different. From what Anakin could tell though, Ben felt exactly the same and was nowhere near Palpatine.
He moved in the farthest back entrance and snuck around until he found the back corridors once again. They felt oddly familiar to him. In his new body, he had memories as it grew and aged inside a bacta tank. They came in odd flashes, from storm troopers being creeped out by him to Palpatine assuring him he'd come to good use someday.
This time Palpatine didn't wait inside his throne room for Anakin to come to him, he met him within the maze of halls.
"Anakin my old friend," he said, "I for one am quite excited you've decided to return, my friend.
Anakin's skin crawled at hearing "my friend" in his voice once again. He reached for his lightsaber and demanded, "What have you promised Ben to make him turn to the dark side?"
"He merely wants to live his own life," Palpatine insisted, "sound familiar?"
He couldn't let him get inside his head. He lit his blue saber up and said, "I can't let you take over again."
He asked calmly, "Aren't you going to ask what I've been doing all these decades?"
"I can see it!" Anakin answered, gesturing around them, "You're rebuilding the empire right in front of the republic! There's no need to waste my time!"
Palpatine replied, "That's just politics. I want you to know about the best tangible thing I've created. You see, my friend, like you, I also have a son."
Anakin knew he couldn't show his surprise. He needed to stay calm. He replied coldly, "You mean you made another clone of yourself like this one. Another 'you' I'll have to deal with, so be it. One at a time I'll make sure you fall apart."
Palpatine continued, "No, I'm speaking of a true son. One I crafted with my own DNA, alongside a female's."
Anakin couldn't hide his horror as he gasped. "What? Who's DNA did you steal!?"
"I think I remember her name now if I try hard enough," he answered coyly as he toyed with Anakin's emotions, "actually, I recall it may have been beautifully etched into a stone on a planet far, far, away." He paused as Anakin glared at him, desperate for an answer. "Her name read...Shmi Skywalker."
Anakin pointed his lightsaber directly at him out of anger. "You're lying!" he insisted. He couldn't help as memories of his mother flooded his mind. He remembered watching her die in his arms as he was too late to save her. How he massacured an entire village. He buried her body instead of burning it, leaving it beside the only happy home she knew on Tatooine. Palpatine couldn't have been so vile as to dig it up and steal part of her to create an entirely new person. Could he?
"We discussed this the last time you were here," Palpatine insisted calmly, "I've never lied to you."
As Palpatine watched Anakin stand in desperate horror from what he just heard, he could practically feel the dark side creeping back into Anakin's soul. His light was fading. It was as if the shadows were forcing their way across his skin, seeping into his depths, and leaving nothing behind but the coldness of Darth Vader.
"You violated my mother's grave to create a son?!" he desperately shouted. He couldn't focus long enough to leave his lightsaver activated. The last blue light of the room disappeared. The only thing Anakin could mutter was a quiet plea. "No...tell me you didn't."
Outside, Luke stood above the hundreds of enslaved people from across the galaxy, raised his lightsaber up, and cut of their chains by rows. At first, everyone was confused, and then the First Order noticed. They directed their blaster fire at Luke, but he dodged and redirected every attack.
Soon there were more slaves freed than trapped, and they quickly helped each other. As Luke directed them to the nearest transport station, he felt a shiver from within. His father was turning to the dark side. The light was fading fast.
Luke hit his communicator. "Dad, what's going on?" he asked, "Answer me!" Nothing. He knew if he had R2 pilot the ship to where he was the First Order would do what they could to shoot it down. He had to make a run for it.
What did Palpatine say to you? Luke called out to the force as he made he way back to the base. He had to reach his father before it was too late!