A/N: Hey everyone! So I usually alternate back and forth between posting my One Piece story and this one, but I started TDoL way before this fic and I want to catch up somewhat, especially because I have more detailed plans for this story than I have for that one. So here's the second COR chapter in a row!

But first, reviews! The response to chapter three was absolutely amazing! Thank you all so much! Everyone gave me such great advice. I can't promise to include everything y'all mentioned but it has got me thinking for sure! I really love it when people give me useful feedback, so feel free to keep doing so!

Death Fury

Thanks! I appreciate the review!

cameron1812

I'm glad you enjoy the Outer rim slave culture as much as I do! I feel like it gives extra weight to Shmi's character, and gives the oppressed people that live in outer rim more soul. If you want to read more fanfics that have this element to them, the fanfic recommendations I posted in chapter 2 and 3 go much more in depth! I highly recommend reading them!

Immortal Potatoe

No, you're awesome! Thanks for the review! :D

frankieu

Thank you for your review! My version of the destiny of the chosen one doesn't necessarily match up with the values held by the Jedi. As for what that means? Who is to say? ;)

Flame Punch

Lol it's not Native American stuff but I can kinda see how you might assume that I guess. It's completely made up, but not originally by me. I have talked about where it comes from in my author's notes. My pacing does tend to be a bit slow, it's something I'm working on. I will say that this is going to be a very long fic if I get through everything I have planned, so don't worry. Thanks for the advice! :)

Manga154

Hell yeah you've been noticed lol! As always, thanks for the advice! It's helping me flesh out the mechanical scenes a lot.

EmaCnDf

While that's an interesting idea, the Jedi have too much knowledge and resources to help training and power growth to be ignored. That said, I really like a lot of the other force sects, and there will be interactions with some of them.

amerikhan786

Thanks for the advice! I can't say if I'll follow it or not, but don't worry! There will definitely be -some- bleed over from KOTOR as I am a huge fan! As for the Vong, I'm not really all that familiar with them, so I can't say I'll include them for sure. I currently have no plans to do so, but if they can serve a purpose in my story I might consider throwing them in. I said at the beginning of all this that I might ignore plenty of stuff from legends or canon. Unless something changes, the Vong might be one of those things. Sorry. Thanks for the tech ideas! I like the idea to base the ship design off of a different sci fi Rick Miller was a fan of.

I don't own Star Wars

I woke up with the suns streaming the first light of the morning through the small window in my room, and a jolt of fear ran through me! The sun was up?! We're late!

I was out of bed and was halfway to the fresher before I remembered that Watto was away, and we had the day off.

A smile spread on my face, "Heh. Oh yeah!" I sighed in contentment and returned to my bed. I tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use. I had the body of a restless child, and I simply had too much energy! Getting up, I went over to moms room and heard her gentle snoring through the door. I briefly considered making breakfast for the both of us, but we were all out of cooking ingredients and only had bland nutrient blocks left. There wasn't much I could do with just those, they didn't require much prep. I grabbed one, filled my water bottle with my morning water ration, and returned to my room. My room was quite small, only with enough room for my child sized bed and a small stretch of floor beside it. I sat on the floor with my back against the wall and had a bland breakfast, making sure not to spill even a drop of water or a crumb of food.

After I was done, I crossed my legs and rested my hands on my knees in what I thought was a good enough 'meditation pose'.

It was time. While I was pretty worried about accidentally drawing on the dark side and thus ruining my chances with the Jedi/driving myself to psychopathic insanity, the truth of the matter was that force was too much of an advantage to hold back from. I needed the power if I wanted to save my Mom. I would just have to be careful to not use it offensively or pull on it in anger or passion until I found myself a proper teacher. It shouldn't be that difficult. I could handle it.

I breathed deeply, in through the nose then out through the mouth. Completely fill the lungs with each inhale, completely empty them with each exhale.

Reaching for that feeling I had tapped into back in the desert, my mind opened once again, and I could feel the force flowing through me. I marveled at how something so powerful felt so… gentle.

I slowly opened my eyes, maintaining my active connection with the force. Reaching out my hand towards my parts pile in the corner, I tried to 'command' with my thoughts for one of the parts to fly into my hand. 'Summon.' I commanded mentally.

Nothing.

I pictured an invisible hand picking up a power converter and bringing it to me.

Again, nothing happened.

I felt frustration, and the force seemed disrupted by that. Like it was less gentle and more.. sharp.

Freaked out by this, I tried to calm myself and focus on my breathing, but the more hostile and violent the force felt, the more terrified I was of the dark side effecting me, and the more I fueled my connection to it. My senses expanded, and I could hear foul whispers of death, extortion, and slavery from all around me. I could feel the emotions and intentions of the scum and villainy that populated Mos espa, and the psychic screams of their victims crying out in despair and bitter hatred.

I opened my mouth, but I couldn't scream, choking like there was no more air in my lungs. I felt like I was drowning, like there was a dark pressure crushing down around me, whispering to be let in. To be used. Just once.

I could end it all. The pain, the savagery, the disorder. Those so called people out there?! I could break them. Force them all to heel. I just needed to claim the power. I just needed to let in the dark. I could be free right now! What was the power of an explosive transmitter compared to the force?! Nothing! Surely I would survive it even if it was activated!

The reasons for resisting were wearing thin in my mind. The pressure was increasing, and I knew I couldn't last much longer.

I'm not sure I wanted to.

I was doubled over, choking and gasping, my fingernails digging bloody tracks down my knees, when salvation arrived.

Shmi Skywalker, mother of the fucking century, came bursting into my room with bed head and manic eyes, slid down onto the floor, and threw her arms around me.

Her presence in the force was like a beacon of light, and as I focused on it, I could feel her energy wrapping around me like a gentle cloak, and as it did, the whispers subsided. I sucked in great gasping breaths, and she held me tight, physically and with her presence in the force.

As we connected in the force, I saw snippets of memory. I saw how as a young girl owned by Gardulla the Hutt, she had wished with all her heart to be unremarkable, unnoticed, safe. I saw how she had worn those desires like a cloak, and how, when she was particularly focused, people's eyes seemed to slide over her, sometimes not even realizing there was a person there at all.

It was this instinctive cloak of protection she wrapped around me now, and as she did, the darkness from the minds of the scum of Tatooine seemed to flow harmlessly around us, not finding anything to cling on to. Slowly, the pressure and whispers subsided, and the force settled back into a neutral state. I felt hidden in the force.

I felt safe.

I took more deep shuddering breaths, and pressed my face into her shoulder, silently crying tears of relief. Softly, Amu spoke. "Shhh Ani… it's alright." She rocked back and forth, humming a soothing tune.

Finally, when I had calmed down somewhat, she spoke again. "Ani… what was that? What happened? You felt…" she trailed off, not sure how to put her thoughts into words.

I spoke up, telling her what I had been doing, what I was feeling and how I could sense her protecting me.

She responded, "could this happen again? How do we stop it?"

"I need to learn how to do what you're doing. How to hide, how to shield myself." I answered.

She had never thought of it as a 'technique' per say, but as I walked her through what I was feeling, she began to be consciously aware of the force.

We talked back and forth, helping each other, and finally, I could produce the 'notice me not' shielding without assistance. I had the feeling it would have an even stronger effect now that we were aware of it. After checking a final time that I was alright, she went into the kitchen area to grab a nutrient block and some water for herself.

As she was getting breakfast, I looked down at the hand I had been trying to summon the power converter to.

Commanding the force with mental words didn't work, and imagining a physical image didn't work either.

The 'notice me not' field didn't use either of those things. It worked on… desire? No. Focus. Amu focused on a feeling of undetectability and safety, and her focus determined her reality.

I stretched out my hand again, making sure that my newly acquired shields were up, and focused. I had to believe that the power converter could be summoned. That it was possible. The force flowed through me, and I could sense my connection to the part on the floor.

It twitched, sliding closer to me.

I focused, trusting it was possible with the force.

It flew up into my hand with a small smack, and I fumbled in surprise, nearly dropping it.

Holy shit!

I opened my hand with the power converter resting on my palm, and focused with greater certainty. It was much easier to believe this time, After all, if it happened once, it could surely happen again!

The power converter floated upwards, levitating a few inches above my hand. I could sense how the force was flowing through me, and how it was interacting with the part. As the certainty that what I was doing was actually possible increased, it became easier and easier to manipulate the object, and I carefully weaved it through my splayed fingers without touching them.

A wide, joyful grin stretched across my face.

"Wizard!"

After I experimented with telekinesis a bit more, Amu finished her breakfast and we went to the market district. Keeping my shields up was starting to get tiring, so I experimented a bit and found something interesting. The technique had two major functions, safety and stealth. If I only focused on keeping other people's dark emotions out, but didn't make an effort to enhance my stealth, it was much less tiring to maintain. While I didn't know exactly why this was the case, I think it's probably because I wasn't constantly emitting the necessary energy for a AOE mind trick.

Whenever we would get anything, Amu would haggle for it, and I could sense the emotions of the vendors, and with humans/near humans I could even sometimes get a sense what they were thinking about, or if they were lying, and about what.

I briefly considered trying to mind trick someone into giving us a better deal on water, but quickly discounted the idea. Using the force to 'fly under the radar' was one thing, but directly influencing someone's behavior to make them do something they would never have done otherwise was just… I don't know. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Besides, knowing when someone was lying was enough of an advantage.

Nutrient blocks did the job of fueling our bodies, but they were slightly bitter and not very appetizing. Because of this, we often bought ingredients from the market to cook meals with. As Amu walked over to a produce stand to buy some pallies, she sent me over to a bantha milk stand with some money to get a small wheel of herb cheese.

While I was looking to try and find the one Amu wanted, a girl about my age came up to me and stared over my shoulder, watching what I was doing. As you can imagine, this made me nervous and a little irritated. When I had finally turned to tell her off, she spoke before I could get a word in.

"Hi!" She chirped cheerfully.

"Uhh… yeah. Hi." I responded.

"My name is Beru. Beru Whitesun. My folks own this stand. Are you a slave?"

I was thrown by her bluntness, so it took me a few seconds to realize just who I was talking to. After I processed meeting another 'canon character' as a real person, I responded in the typical fashion.

"I'm a person, and my name is Anakin. I want to buy some herb cheese. You got any?"

"Right there" she pointed into the booth. "I never said you weren't a person." She continued, "I asked if you're slave. I'm just curious." As I went and got a small cheese wheel, I tried to brush her off, but she kept following me.

"You're certainly dressed like a slave."

At this I looked down at my rough clothes and flushed in embarrassment. "Yeah? Maybe I am. What's it to you?" She cleared her throat obnoxiously, and I finally noticed she was subtly pointing to a symbol carved into the side of one of the shelves. It was a red bird, the sign of Ekkreth, the shape changer! It was used to signify members of 'the path' which was basically the Star Wars version of the Underground Railroad. My eyes widened slightly before I regained my composure, and falsely adopted my earlier irritated tone, but spoke in Amatakkan, holding up the cheese wheel as if I was bargaining.

"My mother and I both were born slaves. Our transmitters were placed when we were infants, between the heart and the spine. It would take more than a burnt knife and a wet cloth in a back alley to free us."

She responded in Amatakkan, a look of pity in her eyes that pissed me off. "I'm so sorry. My family just recently moved here, I thought…"

I cut her off, switching to huttese "I might not be a… customer, but I do know some people who could use your family's services. How much is this cheese?"

She blinked at the non sequitur and the language change, but then realized what I was doing.

"Really?" She responded, "we have a scanner to find foreign objects, in the cheese of course, and we will be checking people's health at midnight tonight behind the mod shop three blocks west of here. Just that wheel? That'll be 11 wupiwupi."

I threw up my hands dramatically, "11?! There's no way this cheese is worth any more than 5!"

While I outwardly continued arguing on the price of cheese, inside I was smiling a shark toothed grin. The Whitesuns were locating and removing slave-chips tonight! While all of the hutt's personal slaves (including Amu and I) had chips that would be lethal to remove without a dedicated medical bay, those slaves that were captured as adults or by third parties were different.

Instead of a costly surgery, they had their chips quickly installed by a device similar in appearance to an epi pen, known as a 'punch needle'. This usually done with the victim unconscious. They weren't nearly as deep or as dangerous to remove, and the only obstacle to removing it was figuring out where it was in the body. I'm sure Amu knew several people with those, who could taste freedom tonight! And since we didn't have work tomorrow, we could stay up as late as we needed without arousing suspicion at work.

After we got home, I talked to Amu about what had happened with Beru. Wide eyed, she kissed me on the cheek and immediately went to go share the news to the people who could take advantage of it.

While Amu was doing her preparations, I decided to do some of my own. We were doing some super illegal shit tonight, and I would need a weapon if we got caught. We would of course be concealing our identities, but I wasn't content with that. I needed firepower.

Going over to my collection of accumulated parts, I got out all the working droid shock arm attachments I had, which ended up being six, and some assorted blaster parts. I was never allowed to take home the gas cartridges, but everything else I was allowed to tinker with.

The blaster part that I was going to make use of was the plasma isolator, located in the barrel of most blasters. Blasters worked by creating superheated plasma encased in a 'bubble' of energy, which was accelerated out the barrel at roughly 1/4 to 1/3 the speed of light. The 'beam' that people saw was the ignition flash made from the blaster bolt passing through the air. The plasma isolator was the mechanism within the barrel that created the energy bubble around the plasma.

Instead of using blaster gas, which I didn't have access to, I would be using the shock arm attachments. While many believed that they were little more than glorified tasers, they were much more complex than that. They were able to cast a weak invisible path of energy at a specific target, and the electricity would follow that path to whatever target it was aiming at. If it was aimed properly, the lightning wouldn't arc to the nearest path to ground, but instead continue past it to whatever the droid arm was aiming at.

Using a plasma isolator from a blaster, I could in theory channel the electricity from the shock arm attachments into a condensed ball of lightning, and launch it like a blaster bolt! At least that was the idea.

I started by removing the shock attachments from the droid arms, and making all six work in tandem. Just to see if I could, I tried to guide the wires with the force instead of my hands, and while it was tricky at first, I found out it was much more convenient! Normally I would have to weave the wires over each other and lace them through holes by hand, which was annoying. But with telekinesis, I could just make the wire snake itself wherever it needed to go without hands or tools getting in the way! It was super nice.

I mounted the shock attachments on the stock of a heavy ugnaught hand cannon that sorta reminded me of an old sawed off shotgun from rdr2. Ugnaughts were small, so it fit my hand just fine. I mounted the shock attachments in a circle around where the barrel would be, with the wires snaked through the middle and connected to the main power cell. I smiled at how it looked. The shock attachments were cylindrical and about the size of a small handheld flashlight, and with them mounted on the gun like they were, they looked like the main cylinder on a cartoonishly oversized six shooter revolver that was missing its barrel.

While I still needed to hook up the plasma isolator, the weapon could theoretically work as it was, just as a ridiculously powerful shock arm for short range blasts of guided lightning.

Curious, I set up a piece of scrap plating in the middle of the floor. Stepping back about 3 meters, I powered up the half finished gun, and aimed at the target. When I fired off a shot, I was nearly deafened.

KKHKRAAAAKKK!

All six shock attachments working together produced a massive bolt of lightning as thick as my wrist, which traveled in a straight line to the scrap plating, blasting it away to be imbedded red hot in the far wall. I could feel the literally thunderous shock wave in my chest as I stumbled back in surprise, my ears ringing as loose dust drifted down from the ceiling.

Holy fucking shit that was fucking loud.

Looking at the smoking end of the weapon, I realized that the shock attachments were in a cooldown cycle, which shouldn't happen unless they fired at least 5 shots in quick succession. Checking the power cell and doing the math, that one blast had drained almost 30 shots worth of power! The way I had arranged them must have amplified the amount of power that the combined guidance beams could draw from the power cell, and by nearly five fold!

That was dangerous! I had intended on making a stun gun, but instead I ended up making some kind of hand-held ion cannon!

A Thor gun?

Heh. Yeah! A Thor gun!

Suddenly the front door swooshed open, and I reflexively chucked the Thor Gun (tm) under my bed, remembering at the last minute to guide it under with the force to avoid damaging it. If a slave owner found me making weapons, it would be really bad.

I needn't have worried, as it was Kitster and Wald with their families. They were the neighbors to either side of us, and I kicked myself at basically causing an explosion in a house that shared walls with other people. They questioned me about what had happened, where was my mother, ect.

I cooked up some bullshit about experimenting with max air pressure in a metal container, and they fussed over me and examined the metal plate in the wall, and eventually they left. I don't think they fully bought it, especially Kitsters mom, who tended to be suspicious of everything, but they weren't ever going to snitch on me to their masters, so they left it as is for plausible deniability. With it being clear that I hadn't been hurt, they left with a promise of "we'll be telling your mother when she returns!"

I'm a little surprised they left me alone again, but they also let Kitster and Wald run around graffitiing people's houses, so I guess they figured it wasn't their problem. The two boys wanted to stay, but their mothers dragged them back to their homes.

After they left, I locked the door and continued working. First, I installed an adjustable power limiter so I wouldn't deafen myself again. I was able to refract the guidance beams to focus on one point in front of the shock attachments. I eventually had to cannibalize the plasma isolators from three different blaster barrels, but I finally got a stable energy bubble!

With the beams focused on the center of where the energy bubble would form, I redid my power calculations with the x5 phenomenon in mind. After double checking everything, I stuffed some clean cloth in my ears, and tentatively pulled the trigger. A small bolt of lightning perfectly arched from each shock attachment, colliding in the center of the now visible energy bubble, quickly creating a bright ball of lightning the size of a golf ball, which hovered in front of the gun like a tiny electric sun.

It was pretty and all, but why wasn't it firing? My question was soon answered, as when I released the trigger, the ball shot forward and impacted against the wall, electricity crackling around the point of impact for a few seconds. The wall was scorched, but future me could deal with that. The shot was much weaker than the Thor Blast(tm) but that was intentional. With the power limiter, even with all six shockers firing at once it only consumed about four times the power as a single droid shock. With the reduced power, I could get about twelve shots of semi rapid fire before the cooling cycle engaged, which would take three seconds, and if I paused between shots to 'let them breathe', it wouldn't have to take a cooling cycle at all!

Doing the math, I would have 867.3 shots on a fully charged heavy power cell. The number was weird because blaster bolts and droid shocks didn't consume the same amount of power.

Just from looking, I estimated the speed of the Thunderbolts(tm) was significantly faster than a ring stunner, but nowhere even close to the speed of a blaster bolt.

I chuckled to myself proudly, spinning the awkwardly balanced gun on my finger like a cowboy, and mimed putting it in an invisible holster. I chuckled again.

"I'm such a fucking genius." I bragged, accidentally dropping the gun and barely catching it before it hit the ground.

Let me tell you there were some fireworks when Amu came home. Between the metal plate in the wall and scorched mark where the bolt hit, I was in a lot of trouble. After a lengthy lecture, Amu had me scrubbing the soot from the wall, and afterwards I would have to fill in the gaps with stone putty and paint them to hide the evidence. I was begrudgingly ok with this, as it was only fair that I be the one to fix what I messed up.

While I was scrubbing in silence, I noticed she had two cloaks with hoods big enough to obscure the face. While hers was the same sandy tan color as the buildings and the landscape, she had another one in the same shade of brown that the Jawas used. As I wondered what she would do with the second cloak, she began to snip into it with sewing scissors, and after a bit I realized she was making a rough approximation of Jawa robes. We had talked about my idea to disguise myself as one, and it looked like she agreed. I was in pretty hot water, but I decided to ask anyway. "Is that for me? To disguise as a Jawa I mean. I guess what I mean to ask is… am I coming along?"

She sighed, and answered. She was holding a needle in her lips, and was talking out the side of her mouth as she worked. "Normally I wouldn't have you come with me on a trip with this much danger, but I need your help." My heart soared and I felt like dancing a little jig, but I made sure to keep a neutral look on my face, "Ah yes… very unfortunate…" At this, she snorted in laughter and shook her head. "You're not fooling anyone with that grave look on your face." I smiled, caught, and she continued, "We are getting 14 people out." My jaw dropped. Normally, you would keep the group small, only one or two escapees and a guide to avoid suspicion. Seeing my shock, Amu explained. "Now that I know that 'technique' is actually a power, and not just luck, I've been experimenting with it during my house visits today. I can hide a total of six people along with myself completely from sight so long as there is physical contact between all of us. We were able to find fourteen people who were given their chips with a punch needle. To hide them all, I need your help. If we do this, all fourteen will be free by morning."

I was shocked. While a slave or two disappearing could be written off as just being killed by the hazards of Tatooine, it would be much harder to explain away the disappearance of 14. But that didn't matter. People that are members of 'the path' are extremely rare, and these 14 might never again get the opportunity to be freed this easily. It might ruffle some feathers, but it was worth it.

"You missed a spot~." Amu commented, and I returned to scrubbing, grumbling under my breath.

Once I was finally done with scrubbing, puttying, and painting the wall, it was almost time to leave.

Amu had finished my Jawa outfit a few minutes ago, and it honestly looked pretty good! To complete the disguise, I went to my parts collection, and quickly assembled the breath mask I had got the parts for for this very reason. With the glowing yellow eye lights and the robes, I'd look just like a Jawa! When it was all set up, I put the mask and the robes on along with a pair of small black work gloves, and took a look in the mirror. Instead of Anakin Skywalker, a Jawa stared back at me! The funny thing was, my Thor gun didn't even look all that out of place, as the Jawas often made improvised weapons out of scrap.

Since Watto traded alot with the Jawas, I knew some of their language, but only enough to get by and I had a distinctly human accent. I would have to avoid talking for now, at least until I had some more practice.

I turned around, and I saw Amu was already wearing her sand colored cloak with the hood up. "How do I look?" I asked.

She responded with a twinkle in her eye, "You look very cute son, just like a little Jawa."

I pushed down the childish irritation at being called cute, and responded, "thanks I guess. Is it time?"

Amu nodded, and after ramping up our 'notice me not' fields to full blast, we stepped out into the night. If everything went well, by this time tomorrow, 14 of our fellow slaves would be off world, chipless, and free to pursue their own destiny. A flash of jealousy rose in my chest, and I smashed it down. It was the bare minimum that they deserved as sentient beings, and there was no room for ill will. Amu and I would also be free in time. We would just have to be patient.

Damn slavery. Damn Slavers. Damn Chips. Damn Hutts. Damn Gardulla. Damn the deep tissue slave-chip Surgery.

But never damn each other. We could only survive hand in hand. Divided, we would lose what little hope we had left.

Tonight, we are united. Tonight, we fight back.

A/N: I know people want me to start zooming ahead to the Phantom Menace, but there's a lot more that needs to happen on Tatooine that will set up future plot points. Trust me, this isn't just random crap, it's connected. It might be slow burn, but it will pay off. Hope this chapter was a bit more exciting than the last one, even though it was mostly just set up. I initially wanted the slave freeing mission to be in this chapter, but it was getting long enough, and this was a good stopping spot.

Fanfic recommendation!

If you somehow haven't read Darth Vader: Hero of Naboo by AkumaKami64, do yourself a favor and read it! It's the top Anakin Skywalker fic on this website for a reason, it's fantastic! It also has a sequel posted, which is ongoing.

Ciao!