Chapter 16 – Revolution

Author's Note: Anakin might be in hiding on Tatooine, he might have a child he's adopted as his own, but he's still Anakin and he's still a warrior. :D

~ Amina Gila

"Wait," Owen calls as Anakin pulls his helmet on, turning back towards the speeder, "Is it really safe for you to go alone? If you wait a few hours, I can contact other members of the Trail. We can launch an attack, provide a diversion for you to get in and out without being seen."

He hesitates for only a moment, knowing what it will mean if he goes there, if he goes in through the front door. He's the Shadow. The cover works because he's a shadow, elusive, anonymous. If he's seen by people other than slaves, by Jabba or his goons, he'll be outed. It'll be more obvious that he's a Jedi, or at least a former Jedi, and the game will be up. If he goes in through the front, which is the only way for him to get Reva back on his own, he'll have to kill everyone.

Everyone.

Only the slaves will be able to survive.

It'll be a slaughter, and Anakin hesitates, because he doesn't know if he should really go that far, but the Dark Side gives him the answer. Do it, it whispers, the coldness of it sending power humming through his fingertips, ready to obey his every command. Do it. The Dark demands blood. It demands pain and suffering and death, and Anakin is willing to feed it, to give it the lives of Jabba and his goons, if it means Reva will be safe.

He'll do anything for her, even burn down the planet, and that level of protectiveness should scare him, but it doesn't. Once, he would have done the same for Obi-Wan, for Ahsoka, for Rex or his boys, for Padme. And maybe even for Aayla. In truth, he knows that he would do the same for them even now.

He can figure out the details later, but for now, he knows what he has to do.

It's time to take this all the way to the top.

It is time for Jabba to die.

"She can't wait," Anakin answers, the vocoder hiding the fear in his voice, but he knows Owen can feel it all the same. "I cannot leave her there, to suffer."

"I understand," Owen replies, nodding, acceptance in his voice and eyes. "I'll get the Trail, bring them in to get the slaves out. Let's end this." A pause, and then, "It's past time anyway. Go. Bring her home."

Anakin inclines his head, swinging onto the speeder and flying away, following Reva's trail, going to Jabba's palace. He won't get there until daybreak, but it seems fitting that the Shadow's first major attack would be in the daylight.

Once it's all over, he can do damage control.

Saving Reva comes first. It always will.

**w**

Hours earlier

Reva is half asleep when she feels the tremor in the Force whispering of danger, and she's up in a flash, scrambling from the room before she even fully registers the need to move. Anakin isn't here. He'd mentioned that he had something to take care of for Beru, something… illegal, if she had to guess, based on the way he'd worded it, and that worries her, because he's gone, and there's danger coming.

"Something's wrong," Reva blurts out, startling Owen and Beru where they're conversing in quiet, hushed voices. "Something's coming."

They trust her instincts, and she feels a small flare of gratitude and affection for them when he goes to the other side of the room, drawing a rifle and blaster, passing the latter to Beru, before giving her a look. "Jabba's sending out his tax collectors," he tells her, not one to mince words. It makes her feel better that he's not treating her like a hapless child. Anakin is very similar, but not… quite. Owen is straight-forward, and she likes that about him, just as much as she likes Anakin's gentleness. She loves all of them; they're her family.

"Reva, go back to your room," Beru tells her, voice calm and even, though she knows the coming danger. "Stay there. If something happens, escape through the window and go hide."

She balks at that. "I'm not gonna leave you here!"

"It's our job to protect you," Owen answers firmly, "And we need you to listen."

She doesn't want to, and she hopes it won't come to that, but she obediently goes back to her room. And waits.

And waits.

And when she feels the approaching Force presences of people, hears the harsh voices, she creeps to the door, trying to listen, picking out muffled words about "taxes" and "credits", Owen trying to convince them to come back tomorrow when he collects the payment.

They don't take no for an answer though, and she hears them force their way into the home. She should run. She knows she should run, because it would be safer, but she's frozen in place, memories of what happened at the Temple flickering on the edges of her mind. The danger comes closer, and it spurs her into motion. She scrambles to the window, shoving it open, and using the Force to scramble out, glancing back as she makes a break for the desert, for the safe place that she knows of there.

A blaster shot tears past her head, and she yelps, startled, scrambling back, as two large men cut her off. They'd been watching the homestead, maybe expecting someone to escape, she doesn't know, but she can't –

One of them grabs her, drags her back to the homestead, and she's panicking too much to try and fight back or break free. Besides, she can't openly use the Force since it's not safe. Owen is attempting to dissuade the men from doing anything, but he cuts off mid-word when she's dragged up, eyes widening with unmistakable fear.

"She was trying to run," the man says roughly, shoving her forward a step.

She twists in his grip, trying to hit him and break free, using what she's learned from Anakin. The blow she lands makes him grunt, and he pushes her hard, sending her stumbling to her knees. Beru starts forward, hands tight on a small blaster hidden in the shadows of her dress, face hard and angry.

"Take the girl for insurance," orders the leader, and Reva chokes on a gasp, because no, no, they can't take her they can't –

It all happens so fast.

Beru raises her blaster to fire, but one of the men is faster, and it's going to be a kill shot, Reva knows. She reacts without thinking, throwing up a hand to push Beru back, enough that the shot only hits her shoulder and not her chest, because that's her aunt, and she's not going to stand by and just watch her die.

Everything freezes, and one of the man curses, throwing a bunch of Huttese slurs in her direction, and she's grabbed and yanked backwards. "Jedi kid," says one of the others. "Jabba will like to hear this."

"Let her go!" yells Owen, but he's pushed backward by the end of a blaster, a second pointedly waved in a fallen Beru's direction before Reva is dragged, kicking and flailing from the homestead.

"Lemme go!" she shouts, biting the arm of the man holding her. He hisses, but doesn't release her, unfortunately. "My dad's gonna make you regret this!"

They only laugh at her. "No one can save you anymore, girl," he mocks. "We know what you are, and the Empire will pay a handsome bounty for locating a thing like you."

A thing. She's not a thing!

A blaster fires, a stun bolt slamming into her and jolting her unconscious before she can think up a suitably scathing response, and her last thought before darkness blacks her out is 'Anakin will come for me.'

**w**

The first sun is just starting to rise when Anakin gets to Jabba's palace. He parks his speeder a distance away, behind a rocky outcropping, before he activates the scanner inside his helmet to get an idea of what he's up against. Unsurprisingly, the heat signatures reveal that most of the people inside are in one place. Probably, Jabba is in his throne room with his goons, the majority sleeping given the time of day.

Good.

It's the perfect time for the Shadow, for Vader to make his first major public appearance.

He wants to charge in, but first, he reaches for Reva. He can't rush in there, not like he would have if he was alone, or if this was during the war. Reva's only a child. She isn't Ahsoka. He has to… be careful. She's conscious, but her Force presence is dim, indicating that she's probably been put into Force restraints. It makes him angry. Angrier, that is, and the need to destroy is slowly rising up inside of him in much the same way it did when he went after Palpatine. He's losing control, but it – if he stays realistic about his abilities and limits, he'll be fine. Jabba deserves to die. All of them do. They're slavers, scum of the worst level, and with them gone, Tatooine can be free.

Anakin – Vader, for that is who he is now, jumps from his hiding spot, landing lightly in the sand in front of the palace, stalking towards the door. He doesn't wait for anyone to admit him, instead reaching out with the Force and using it to unlock the mechanism and force it open. Slowly, it rises, and he stalks inside.

The halls are dark, lit only by a few torches along the walls, and he moves towards the throne room, meeting no resistance at first, until two Gamorrean guards approach, blocking his path. They're wielding axes, as is normal for them, but these are different. They're make of phrik – a metal that Vader only recognizes because it's used in electrostaffs, and he fended off those many times during the Clone Wars – and they have blades that very much resemble… lightsabers. When he pauses, listening, he can hear the song of the kyber crystals inside, and it makes him angry, because those crystals were looted from dead Jedi. Using them, especially like this, in a place such as this, is wrong.

Lightaxes, then?

He's never seen such a thing, or heard of them, but it makes sense that Jabba would have them, especially since he's afraid of the Shadow, no doubt.

"Stand down, Shadow," demands one of the guards, but he's leaking fear into the Force, concealed under false bravado.

Vader doesn't even bother to draw his lightsaber, not for them, lifting a hand and clenching it, stepping aside easily when one of them swings the blue-bladed axe towards him in a haphazard manner before dropping it as he clutches at his neck. The female has dropped her own gold blade as she, too, struggles fruitlessly for air. With a tightening of his telekinetic grip, their necks break, and he drops their bodies to the ground, stepping over them as he moves deeper into the palace.

The next to approach him is Bib Fortuna, Jabba's majordomo, and Vader feels the pit of rage within him only increase. He flicks a hand, hurling the Twi'lek into the wall hard enough to knock him unconscious as he storms forward. Fortuna could have used his influence to help other slaves, but instead, he's only used it for himself. He deserves to die, and die he shall, but he's the most likely to take charge after Jabba dies, so Vader needs him alive… for now.

Because of how early in the morning it is, most of the rest of the walk to the throne room is quiet, and the stragglers that Vader encounters are immediately killed. It only fuels his bloodlust, making him and the Dark Side crave the violence that is yet to come, a building storm simmering in his blood.

A revolution is at hand.

He steps down the stairs into the throne room slowly, moving casually with the air of someone who knows he has already won. This is just for show. The outcome has already been decided, no matter that he'll be facing down dozens of armed individuals inside. The Force is with him, and he will come out on the other side unscathed, at least relatively.

When his booted feet hit the floor, it sends a faint echo through the room, and if that wasn't enough to draw the attention of those slumbering inside, the snap-hiss of Dooku's red lightsaber is. There's a moment of stillness, as Jabba and his goons realize just who is present, and then, everything descends into absolute madness.

And Vader loves every bit of it.

He throws himself into the fray, deflecting blaster bolts that are fired, using the Force to shove back his opponents, blocking them from swarming him, as he cuts through them all. They are here, and they are fighting, and they will die for it. Everyone in this room, aside from the slaves, will die here.

A blaster bolt catches him from behind, from someone who was injured but not quite dead apparently, hitting him in the shoulder, and the resulting pain that shoots down his arm makes something snap inside of him.

They took Reva.

They would have enslaved her the way he had been, the way Jabba's slave girl is now, and he just… loses it.

The lightning comes unbidden, a blinding red energy crackling down the blade as he aims it at the mercenaries on the other side of the room who are trying to flee, sending them writhing to the floor. No one is leaving. There is no escape for them, for any of them.

The fight goes on, and it's easy with the Force as his ally, and then, all at once, it's over.

The room is quiet, filled with the faint groans of the dying, the only living beings who are still alive – the slaves fled already, and Vader let them go – are Jabba and the girl that is chained to him. It's not until now that he actually looks at her, and his blood runs cold, because… he knows her. He knows her.

Aayla Secura, a Force-dampening collar around her neck, her skimpy outfit hardly even concealing her body, is the one who is chained to Jabba. He blinks, but she doesn't disappear, and he feels frozen for a moment, just staring at her, another Jedi survivor who somehow came to be here, of all places, before he turns to Jabba, leveling the red blade at his neck.

"It is over," he proclaims, "I win."

Jabba cowers back in fear, a fear that makes the Dark – and him, too – curl with glee, but he knows he's done for. There is no escape from the Shadow; there never was. "Who are you?" he demands in Huttese, and it's a fair request, for him to want to know the name or face of the man who is ending his rule. "Why are you doing this?"

Vader – Anakin extinguishes the blade, hooking it to his belt as he reaches up and removes his helmet, showing his face for the first time. "Guess," he says mockingly, seeing out of the corner of his eye, the way Aayla's eyes widen with shock.

Jabba blinks at him, and he, too, recognizes him. "You're a Jedi," he accuses. "You must let me go. The Jedi do not kill the defenseless!"

Anakin glares, his red eyes narrowing. "I am no Jedi," he snarls. "They are gone, dead, because of the Empire. I am what remains. I am Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith." Well, maybe that's not entirely true, but it is partially true, at least, and that's what counts. He gestures casually with his hand, unlocking the chain and collar from around Aayla's neck, and she's quick to move away from the Hutt.

"I am your death," Anakin snarls, reaching out and wrapping the Force around Jabba's neck, strangling him. "You touched my child, and you will die for it."

Jabba flails and struggles, and Anakin uses the Force to open the trapdoor in the floor of the throne room to where the rancor is kept, tossing the Hutt inside. There's a terrified yelp from Jabba and a roar of hunger and some struggling and screaming before it all goes quiet as Jabba dies, fed to his own pet. Personally, Anakin can think of no fate more fitting for him than that.

"Anakin, I – I can't believe you're really here," Aayla says finally, her voice faint, and Anakin turns from the trapdoor to look at her, grimacing.

She's practically naked.

Not that he hasn't seen her like that before, but it's – she's a slave, and Force knows what's been done to her. It horrifies him as much as outrages him, because she was his friend before she became anything else. They'd known one another well when he first came to the Temple – she was still a Padawan then, and she'd helped him with his studies, helped him catch up. She always tried to include him and never ostracized him like so many of the other Jedi did. She cared.

"I'm here," he replies, and it feels lame, but it doesn't really know what else to say. He hesitates a moment before using the Force to tug the cloak off one of the dead bounty hunters, handing it to her. "Here. Most of the guards are dead, though there may be some resistance still. Can you get the slaves to safety outside? I will meet you there."

"Of course," she replies, her eyes sharpening with determination. Anakin is glad to see it, because it means that, no matter what she's endured, her spirit is still unbroken. She's strong, he knows, and though her Force presence is a little darker, a little sharper, she's still her.

He needs to talk to her, because he can understand what she's going through, especially if – if –

It's a line of thought he shuts down, the mere prospect of having been hurt like that, enough to make him sick, the sensation of unwanted hands crawling over his skin, even as he tamps the memories down.

But they can talk later.

Reva comes first.

They part ways after they leave the throne room, Aayla taking a side exit to find the other slaves while Anakin puts his helmet back on and makes his way down to the dungeon. There are only two guards there who he dispatches quickly and quietly, so either the others are all dead, or they've fled. He doesn't look around him, the Force guiding him straight to where Reva is being held. She's curled in the shadows against the stone wall, a collar around her neck cutting off her access to the Force, the only light in the cell coming from the grate overhead, letting in the golden rays of the rising suns.

She looks up when he approaches, and the fear on her face makes him angry enough to want to kill Jabba all over again, but he merely holds out a hand, using the Force to unlock the collar. It opens, and she yanks it off, throwing it across the cell and scrambling to her feet, relief flooding her features when she realizes who he is.

Anakin doesn't waste a second, ripping open the cell's barred door and dropping to one knee to catch her when she throws herself at him with a strangled sob, wrapping her arms around his neck and clinging to him. He holds her tightly, and with her so close, the Dark Side falls away, the song of the Light rising up to welcome him in its soothing glow.

It's over.

She's safe. She's here. She's safe.

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