There wasn't a reason for the delegates to feel tense during the trip. A simple ceremonial party that was held between the leaders of two Worlds that once been part of the same Empire many millennia ago, but had split themselves apart amicably centuries before even joining the Republic. There was little that could go wrong with it, but as the Jedi Order had been the instrument of which those two groups had joined the Republic, they were considered important guests for the party. It was always held between the two's territories onboard an old CR70 corvette named the Prometheus.
Even that old class of ship was considered to be overkill for such an event, which was probably why it was understaffed in security and a large number of weapons from the ship had been gutted a number of years ago. This was a party vessel in the guise of a warship.
Along with that the Jedi sent to attend the event this time around were the duo of Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was famous for being the first Jedi to defeat a Sith in combat in living memory. Anakin Skywalker was rather infamous among the younglings of the Jedi Order for both his passionate displays of emotion and the older age of nine when he joined the Order. Even gaining a master right away too.
The typical age for joining the age was under five. The earlier, the better. It meant less attachments to the galaxy outside the Order.
These factors were some of the reasons many of his peers disliked him… or even felt jealous of Anakin. It wasn't a wholly good experience amongst the younger members of the Order, though these issues didn't appear with the members older than him. Obi-Wan on the other hand, felt somewhat chafed teaching while he was still so inexperienced. Like he sometimes didn't know his left foot from his right in regards to how to teach. But for many things, Anakin was a quick enough learner that Kenobi could feel proud to be Anakin's teacher.
They had been assigned to this party at Kenobi's request, after a rather traumatizing mission they'd undertaken the elder felt Anakin needed a slice of peace, from both the stresses of the Temple and the dangers that some missions brought.
So this party was the first thing that came to the man's mind. He'd been to this very party a number of years before with his late Master Qui-Gon Jinn. The worst thing he could've said about the people that went here was how they were amazingly casual for government officials. But Obi-Wan was sure that Anakin preferred such occasions, as his young Padawan always seemed to be nervous about how formal he should be around others.
The informal nature of the party should loosen him up.
But what Obi-Wan didn't know was that it hadn't been the last few missions that they had been on that bothered the boy, though it was majorly linked. What had troubled Anakin so much was the taunting that he had received during a training session with the other young Padawan. It had been his own solo practice, they had merely reserved the room right after him and arrived early. What happened had surprised Anakin, they started to whisper things about him to each other, proclaiming that he was 'a slave to his emotions'.
He had been excluded, whispered about, stared at, but never had someone made fun of his past life as a slave in front of him. Or at least, never had any of the Jedi before that point. This only helped to heighten the isolation among the Order that had gotten worse for him in the past few months as his only friend, Tru Veld, had broken their friendship with him some time ago.
Then there had been Ferus Olin, a Padawan two years Anakin's Senior and according to many just as gifted. Who'd appeared to have made it his mission in life to let as many know as possible that Anakin was not to be trusted.
Ferus had been the previous record-setter before Anakin amongst the Padawans. Known for his maturity, his nobility, and his rationality. He was being trained by the Jedi Knight Siri Tachi, a true peer to Obi-Wan in every sense of the word. So his words carried a lot of weight with many young padawan in the Order. This attitude hadn't changed after a few missions with Anakin, in fact, Ferus had felt confident enough to warn Obi-Wan of the dangers Anakin presented.
And that had been before the Incident. Now, Ferus felt he had actual ammo to use against Anakin, and while the older Padawans, the Knights, and the Masters didn't take much heed of the young man's conspiracy theory.
The younglings and the younger Padawans did.
Now, Skywalker didn't just have to deal with the stigma of being different, he had to deal with the constant whispering and rude phrases being used in his presence.
Anakin had started to feel the strain of isolation in the Order more and more with each passing day. With that isolation came bouts of frustration as he longed for more extended missions away from the Temple. So even this party, a style of event that was far too busy and noisy for Skywalker's taste, was a welcome reprieve from Temple life.
So for the first time in the last few days, the boy smiled and he let himself be invited into the room. It was easy given the warm environment, there was the very sense that these were people that carried so much about having fun that they weren't going to judge Anakin if the boy stripped naked before them and declared himself King of the Universe.
Not that Anakin had gotten involved, even with the dancing, merely the atmosphere itself was enough to lift his mood.
"Oh, our extreme guests," The rather drunken host, a Mr. Dondork Killgem, slurred his words as he approached the pair of Master and Student. "It is always a welcome surprise to see now faces."
Dondork wasn't the oldest man in the room, he was in fact a mere three years older than Obi-Wan. Though one wouldn't think so with the grey already setting in the man's hairline. His body had that potato shape that only came from coming down from a higher level of fitness.
But there was this sense of jolliness from this man like he lived simply to enjoy life rather than to achieve some abstract goal.
Dondork squinted at Obi-Wan, his chubby fingers pointed at his nose.
"Now… just wait a second!" He grinned triumphantly. "I didn't recon-recong-recognise you with that beard. You've been here before! Sly dog, tricking the Order to take a good gander at the festivities are we?"
Obi-Wan laughed good-naturally.
"Something like that," The Jedi Knight agreed easily, not revealing that he himself enjoyed the party little. It was mainly to bring Anakin to somewhere less stuffy than the Temple to relax in. While he had requested the mission, it was his peer Knight Siri Tachi that recommended the idea to him. Reminding the Knight of his own time with one of the prior occasions. "I have fond memories of the event, so I wanted to spread them to my own Padawan."
"Oh doing t-the good work of spreading joy," Dondork swayed with his drink in his head. He turned his attention to Anakin, a warm smile that reminded the young boy of the warmth of family. "We don't you go out and enjoy yourself young man! There are many free young ladies looking for a good dance partner… or even a bad one!"
The drunk must've found himself rather funny because he burst out into a large fit of laughter. Something that didn't go unnoticed but all it received from the rest of the room were bemused expressions that told Anakin that this was standard behavior from the man.
Anakin looked to his Master but found the man merely grinning at him with a nod and a wave of his hand to go off and join. This would be one of the few times that Obi-Wan could bring to these sorts of events and it is not important to hold oneself to a high standard, so it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.
Anakin walked forward with the same sort of steps that you'd expect to see from someone heading for the guillotine. There was already a barrage of youngsters dancing, the song wasn't familiar to him, but Anakin didn't pay attention to music so it wasn't a surprise. For a moment Anakin worried that he'd go without a dance partner, that would be embarrassing but then a brunette waved him over. She wore a soft green dress and had pale yellow eyes.
"Jedi Guest, if you wouldn't mind being my dance partner?" The girl spoke Basic as if it was her second language, far more formal than the host himself had earlier and as if she was unsure of her exact wording.
Anakin didn't know of what to say exactly, his throat became slightly dry. Still, the boy gave her a nod and followed her along to the dance floor.
There was an awkward moment where the young Jedi couldn't follow along with the girl, her moves so smooth that one could easily tell they were practiced. But with the eyes of the room focused away from Anakin, the boy didn't feel as if he would be judged.
He was nothing if not a quick learner in such an environment, and so he put his Jedi Training to good use to simply mimic the girl's movements.
It wasn't long before Anakin's dance partner started to use more advanced dance maneuvers. Twists and slides were common, but so was a flip at one stage. If she was attempting to make this more fun for Anakin, the act did the job. He added a flip he learned from the Ataru Form of Lightsaber Combat, the footwork from the Makashi form, and then Anakin ended with a slide timed directly for the end of the current song.
His partner couldn't help but drop her jaw in awe at what she'd seen, and the rest of the room were in similar awe as the music stopped just in time for the room to hear the loud clap of Anakin landing on the ground.
Obi-wan smiled from his corner of the room, glad to see Anakin enjoy his time here. It was sad for the Master's plan of a relaxing evening for the two of them when the ship suddenly shook, alarms ringing out. Dondork paled, his eyes glancing out the window to find the source of this trouble. From the man's face turned sober at the sight, Obi-Wan joined him. There was a larger corvette outside blasting away at them.
The red volley crashed into the bridge of their ship, the explosion vibrating throughout the ship. Obi-Wan instantly could tell that the bridge crew had been killed, feeling their lives pass with a sudden burtness that struck his heart.
"Oh no, the Captain and the command crew!" Dondork screamed in horror, proving that one didn't need to be able to sense death to tell when it occurred. "Master Kenobi! What should we do?"
Obi-Wan glanced over to Anakin as the boy made his way through the crowd of, now, panicking people. There was an expression that only briefly flashed over Anakin's face, a flare of rage that he'd started to become known for among the Padawans.
"He didn't used to do that," Obi-Wan grimaced, before turning to face Dondork with a calmer expression than the Knight was feeling. "Does this ship contain a secondary bridge?"
"It does, we were going to convert it to be a DJ center but Captain was worried about security risks. We've only had a single pilot for the ship, we never expected to be attacked like this…"
A pilot that had been on the bridge was left unsaid.
That meant that the two Jedi were the last line of defense for the whole ship. Anakin's mind instantly came up with the plan to deal with the parents. He'd go out in the fighter he'd recalled seeing in the hangar while Obi-Wan would deal with the boarders that would soon attempt to take over the ship. It would've been an arrangement that played to the two's strengths. But unfortunately for Anakin he had overlooked one rather simple problem, something that his Master hadn't.
"Anakin, I need you to gather up the party-goers and bring them into the secondary bridge. From there I want you to take control over the ship and if our attacker's board and start attacking you defend them."
Anakin didn't even get to open his mouth to protest, to say that the people on board would be better protected if they were to play to their strengths. But Obi-Wan cut him off with a typical stern expression.
"It's far too dangerous to send you alone out to fight over a dozen fighters," His Master explained quickly. More for the benefit of those watching rather than Anakin himself. "Especially not when you are the only one that can pilot the ship and maybe manage to use the weapon systems at the same time."
With the experienced Jedi Knight running off to the hanger, where an old Z-71 Headhunter lay in wait for his use against these attackers. It wasn't the greatest of fighters out there, hence the old adjective, but it was more than enough for a man of Obi-Wan's skills to take out some random pirates.
Especially as they were merely using old commercial small-scale ships. They weren't combat models, they weren't even meant to be equipped with weapons, they had merely been modified with them at a later stage. So even something as old and outdated as the Headhunter outmatched them by a rather large margin.
That was without his idea of merely boarding the pirates and taking them down on their own ship entered the Knight's head. Much more appealing than simply buzzing about the place and trying to take them out one at a time. But also something easier said than done when they had already closed the doors to their hanger.
While the fully-fledged knight dealt the pirates and their crafts, the Padawan was forced to horde the small mass of panicked party goers, people that had never seen the wrong side of a hand, never mind being attacked by pirates… or bandits… or any kind of crook really. If only because Anakin didn't know his way around the ship he let Dondurk lead the group towards the secondary command bridge. As a commercial ship it was odd to have such a room, it was merely the ship's former state as a patrol vessel that saved them all in this instance.
When they all finally managed to arrive into the command room, they could hear the fighting going on outside, the Jedi taking out several fighters without much of a hit on himself. This led Anakin to find the pilot's chair without much concern for being overwhelmed by the fighters.
Still, the young Skywalker couldn't help the sigh that went past his lips as he spotted the controls. It wasn't like he expected a ship of this size to mimic a fighter, there would be no practicality to that. It was too large to be that maneuverable. But at the same time, he hadn't expected to be given such a complicated control scheme. It was as if they had decided mid-way during removing the controls that they should merge weapon and flight controls together into a fighter-type control scheme.
A normal person would need four hands to deal with the two control schemes combined together, but a Jedi only needed one for each.
There wasn't a lot of seating in the room otherwise though. It was obvious that they had already started the conversion to being a DJ Room before it had been stopped, the lack of many of the older vital control panels was the indicator for that. But that meant something a bit more problematic.
There wasn't anywhere else for the people to sit on.
"Hold on to something," Anakin ordered the hurdled group behind. He attempted to smile reassuringly at them all, but he knew for a fact that such expressions always appeared more bloodthirsty than assuring.
He pulled down on the controls, arching below the slightly larger pirate ship and then firing off the few turbo lasers the party ship had straight under the bow of the ship. They splashed against the shields even as the enemy ship started to fire back. Anakin's skills weren't so much the reason for the pirate's attack missing as much as their aim was just so bad as to miss a target nearly the same time against a pilot that was both aiming their guns and moving the ship at the same time.
The young Jedi banked the ship left, moving it further away from the other ship while continuing to pelt it with laser fire. It used the fact that the pirates were chasing him to his advantage, forcing them to tank the fire if they wanted to continue to pursue.
But the rapid movements from the ship caused the others in the room to trip, to stagger around the room. They attempted to hold each other up but only found that more and more people were being gathered up into this pile.
"Gather up into a circle," Anakin yelled waved his hand, taking his attention from the fire controls but still keeping his secondary hand on the flight controls. While typically Anakin could weave out of the enemy's fire without much concern, his split attention and the rather large size of the ship he was currently piloting caused a rather alarming issue when a trio of fighters slipped past Obi-Wan's defense.
Photon Torpedoes suddenly struck the engines in a barrage that could only be described as catasphosic, it was merely the momentum that continued to push them forward. The fighters didn't last long before they were shot down by Anakin focusing on them. The damage was enough for the Pirate's mothership to catch up with them very quickly. It wasn't long before the ship's shields were starting to become strained. They wouldn't last long, so Anakin was forced to pool up the hyperdrive.
"Obi-Wan," He opened up a comms channel. "I need to jump to get away from them. The main engines are down. I'll send you my coordinates afterward. The headhunter should be able to follow us."
There was an odd crackle, a buzzing noise rather than anything that resembled Obi-Wan's voice. But eventually, his mentor's voice sprung out of the speakers;
"Ana-" Obi-Wan's voice cut out with that buzz before coming back. "-go ahead."
Before much of anything could be done, the pirate mothership blasted through the shields, the burning hot gasses of the turbo lasers now hitting armor. Anakin could feel heart start to race as he entered in the first codes for the Hyperdrive sproul off, his instincts racing. The old engine of the party ship took longer than Anakin liked to enter hyperspace and there was a series of loud explosions from the back section of the ship that caused him more than a little bit of worry.
But what worried him, and the other passengers, even more was that these explosions continued on even in hyperspace. He didn't even glance at any of the ship's viewers, any of the sensors. Instead, Anakin relied on the Force to tell him what the problem was. Like many other times, the Force supplied the answer to this question quickly. That and the person hacking into the ship's comms soon revealed themselves.
"SKYWALKER!" His shill voice screamed. Anakin could vaguely recognize the voice, but the name escaped him. "I will have my vengeance on you."
Dondurk, as well as the girl that had danced with him earlier, glanced over to him with expressions that implied that this reflected poorly on him.
"I have no idea who this is," He explained, turning around to shrug at them.
"He knows your name," The girl he'd danced with replied stoically.
"I said I didn't know him," he fired back. "Not that he didn't know me. I've angered a lot of criminals over the years, can't expect me to remember them all."
"Anakin Skywalker, I've waited for this moment for the last year," The voice continued, Anakin could feel the presence of this mysterious person moving up the ship. Obviously, they had boarded the ship before they entered hyperspace, when the shields had dropped.
At least that was what Anakin assumed?
Maybe in some sort of torpedo boarding ship? Anakin wanted to use one of those in the future. But for he simply sent the others to the back of the room, the opposite side of where the approaching man would come. Finally, after twenty minutes of glares from the party-goers, the man arrived. Blue skin, four red pupilless eyes, four arms, no hair, and massive scars across his chest. Anakin hadn't recognized the voice but the second he saw that face, he knew who this was.
"Krayn," Anakin muttered lowly, barely glancing at the five pirates wielding blasters that came in after their boss. His mind went back to those weeks he spent back in slavery. "I can see death has treated you well, your shoulder pads are actually bigger. Good job."
"I barely survived our encounter," Krayn replied, his eyes glaring at you, his mouth a snarl that showed off his dirty teeth. "It was only the hardiness of my race that allowed me to survive. The fact, we can assume a death-like state that can trick even the Jedi."
"Pity, it wasn't just death."
"What is a pity, is what I'm going to do with you and these… happy partygoers," Kryan's words caused some of his men to chuckle along with him. "You've done me some damage, not just nearly killing me. But destroying my slave business in the process. I think it'll start back up with slaving these fine folk."
Anakin had done that proudly, he would've done so a thousand times over if given the same choice that many times.
It had been during a mission. Anakin had been captured and once more enslaved, only this time by the creature in front of him. But eventually, he, and a helpful undercover Siri Tachi, managed to lead the slaves in a revolt and ruin the heart of Krayn's criminal empire. The former slave had even stabbed the slaver in what he had thought to be his heart. Attempted to rid the universe of this scum… but as Anakin could see, he should've gone for the head. Not a mistake he'd make a second time.
There was a whimper and a simpering from the party crowd behind Anakin. The young boy drew his lightsaber up to his hand, twirling the un-lit weapon about. No one moved for the moment.
Instead, they waited with abated breath.
Skywalker hoped that he could keep up the defensive lessons he could recall on Obi-Wan's preferred form of combat. Soresu. The form primarily was all about defense, of exhausting a person against a wall of defense, Anakin's training on it was sub-optimal… something he was sort of regretting at this time.
"Your one of the few beings that Force calls to die," Anakin's tone alone made the pirates squirm. When his words actually registered to them, they also pointed their blasters at him. But this was all in Anakin's plan. "I guess the universe just hates slavers."
With the flare of blue, his lightsaber ignited.
Anakin effortlessly deflected all the coming blaster bolts back to the casters, if not killing but knocking them to the ground, as he closed the distance between him and them, then he stroked out towards Krayn whose large size made it hard for him to get fully out of the way. But it wasn't a killing blow, merely nicking one of the large shoulder guards the blue man wore. He stumbled back, as if he was surprised that the child that had nearly killed him a few months ago was so effective with even more time and training.
"Don't be so hasty, Slave!" Krayn's words brought up a flame inside Anakin's body, but the young boy doused that feeling by emptying his mind. He could hear the words this blue monster was speaking, but they weren't understood weren't going to be understood from this point onward. Anakin wouldn't allow this beast to play mind games with him.
He sliced Kryan's blaster with the next but found an odd amount of resistance in the material. It wasn't functional after meeting his blade, but it was somehow still in one piece. Kryan used one of his massive arms to knock Anakin away from him.
Anakin didn't let the blow come close, merely leaning back as to let the arm wave over his chest before kicking Kryan's leg's out from under him. He could barely make out the odd sense of approval in the back of his mind, as if someone was telling him removing this pain in the galaxy would be the moral choice… but then as his blade neared Kryan's heart, he was stopped.
The Force appeared to scream in warning, so Anakin stopped mere centimeters from killing the slaver.
Kryan took note of this, grinning at the empty eye'd by before him. He slowly got back to his feet as he poked at his wounds, the cauterized nicks he'd received from Anakin were scars that seemed to remind the creature to scowl.
"Killing me will merely cause my ship outside to open fire once more," The Slaver explained as he regained his confidence. Anakin twisted around, glancing at the display that showcased the rear of the party ship. There it was, tied by a large mechanical arm that had drilled itself onto ship, the pirate mothership had attached itself to their ship before the hyperspace jump.
"... That would kill us both," Anakin felt his heart start to race once more. When he turned back to face the blue monster again there was an expression that he could only call glee that spread across Kryan's face, as if he could feel Anakin's anxiety start to heat up. "You wouldn't dare."
"I've already died once, I'd die four more to kill you once, Slave!" With a roar, Kynans leaped at the boy, as if the worry over his life was lesser than his need to kill the young boy. Acting on instinct alone, the Lightsaber cut through two of the slaver's four arms before a quick horizontal slash removed Kryan's head from his shoulders.
Unlike the prior deaths in front of them, this one was so brutally fast that the party-goers screamed. None were as loud as Dondurk, who leaped in the air, turned around, and huddled up into a ball while asking for his life to be spared.
"Everything is going to-" Before Anakin could finish the sentence though, it was already proven that he had been about to put his foot into his mouth. The ship started to shake once more, and the readings from outside the ship were ecstatic and garbled.
But even without those readings, the room could somehow feel the ship rumble from the assault the pirate mothership had started once more. There were some sparks that jumped out of the control panels, the firing ones in specific were blown clear off their plate, making that area pointless.
"Okay," Anakin leaped over the chair, his pulling at the wires underneath the panels, attempting to reroute them. Before he even got too far, the ship suddenly spasmed, the artificial gravity causing most of them to flip in the air before the young Jedi used the Force to pull back on the flight controls.
The ship righted itself while Anakin noticed the more worrying factor.
They were both free from the pirate mothership and were suddenly out of hyperspace. But despite both these pieces of good news, the mothership was still firing at them, and they were hurtling out at a rather smooth pace toward a planet Anakin wasn't familiar with.
Not only that, but from his own senses, the rather special ones granted to him by his Jedi Training, Anakin could also tell that the ship was falling about. The back of the vessel was losing chunks at an accelerated scale. While they also started to fall towards the planet, a state that the pirate mothership seemed to mirror as it continued to fire.
"Okay," Dondurk finally stopped squawking and started to dish out orders once the girl that Anakin had danced with whispered into his ear for a few moments. "Everyone to the escape pods. Chop, chop."
Anakin rationally thought the same, if the pirate ship was going to crash as well, then it was probably a good idea for them to leave the crumbling and crashing ship. But before he could go four feet past the dead bodies of slaver pirates, the young boy found that a chill running up his spine. His eyes found the coordinates below, the ship would be crashing into a rather large mass, right where a number of people were living. A whole city to be exact. That was if no one was at the controls to pull the ship away from the place.
"Sir Jedi," The Girl from before poked her head through the open doorway. "Why are you still trying to pilot the ship, we're crashing. It's time to head off before we become part of the crash."
He clipped his lip with his front teeth, shaking his head as he sat right back down. Anakin took hold of the controls with a tight grip he could only recall using back when he raced pods. It took him a while to make the words he turned to face the girl with a grin the young Jedi didn't actually feel.
"Somebody's got to be the one to make sure this ship isn't crashing into a city," Anakin winked at her. "Might as well be me. It'll be fine, as long as I buckle in-" he tightened the straps by the buckle. "-I'll be okay. You, on the other hand, need to get your ass in your escape pod seat. Only one safe seat in this room."
She looked at him, her eyes seeming to peer into his mind as she frowned. But then the ship shook once more and the girl lost her nerves, running off with a yell;
"We'll see each other on the ground!"
Anakin rather hoped that this was true as he took in a deep breath and prepared for the rush of g-forces that were about to come as the ship continued to lose vital systems. Two seconds and the ship was using the emergency lights, which meant emergency power.
It would usually be something to be concerned about but at the moment Anakin was just glad that none of the other systems were failing. The maneuvering thrusters were still operable even while the main engines were offline, or had fallen off, so the young boy was perfectly capable of keeping the ship away from destroying a city.
And that was the moment where he could hear the scream in the Force, a dozen voices crying out and suddenly were silenced. Suddenly Anakin glanced at the viewer, quickly finding out that the pirate mothership had resumed firing but instead of hitting the ship was targeting the escape pods.
"No!" Anakin screamed, his rage causing him to forget that the fire controls had been disabled. He slammed his right fist hand against the fire controls, the Force allowing him to smash through the hard metal with a merely heavily bruised wrist, but the pirates had already removed the ship's weapons with sustained weapon fire and so he could do nothing but watch as the other party-goers were killed in their escape pods. Every single one, from the slightly drunk but merry Dondurk, to the young girl that shared a dance with him.
He never learned that girl's name. He would never know her name.
Never one known for his rational decisions made under pressure, Anakin Skywalker used the only weapon he had on hand to take out the pirates. He twisted the controls and suddenly swerved right into the pirate's mothership as if he was a sports star tackling another player.
The resulting impact caused the two ships were flung from each other so hard as to send them to different parts of the globe below. The former Party Ship found itself landing on a rather large continent, with a rather large desert, while the pirate ship found its fate in the watery depths closer to the islands that came together as one nation, known as the Orb Union.

Author's Note: This has been on my back burner for a long time now. I'm finally happy with where I'm taking the story in terms of character, not just plot. Its going to be a long one and I've built up a decent backlog, I just have other projects that also need my attention. So I'll be updating this once a week,
I've always found the transition of Anakin Skywalker from PM to AOTC to be a interesting character arc, happened entirely off screen sadly. And I have read some of the books regarding to this time period back in the old EU, but I'm not a master lore dude of either the old EU or the current one. And as the tag says, this is a AU of the events of Star Wars, but nothing that would break the films themselves.
Just enough that Anakin's character is set up correctly for this story. I'm not going to gloss over alot of Anakin's flaws as a person, but the story will also come in three stages. This is the first stage. Don't think that all chapters will be this large however, this opening one is large because it has to introduce the AU in part, the situation Anakin finds himself in second.