章 8: Chapter 8
Running away or fleeing was not something Jedi particularly liked to do. Sneaking about, waiting for the right time or retreating to a better location was not the same. Those were akin to dodging in a lightsaber duel.
Right now, it was undeniable to the Padawan Aayla Secura that they were fleeing for their lives, she and her Jedi Master, Quinlan Vos.
Actually, to be correct, they were fleeing for her life. She wasn't sure what her master could do against that...Darkness, but she knew that he believed she was not ready to face something like that. She wasn't sure she disagreed.
She continued to meditate in the small ship they had used for their undercover mission on Tatooine. It had been going well, but her Master chose to save her instead of confronting what she could only assume was a Sith. Vos had more insight, she was sure. The Jedi Knight was one of the strongest Jedi she knew, in a way, as he regularly struggled with the Dark Side. While that carried great risk to him falling, it had certain...advantages. Such that what the Dark Side concealed, Vos could still see. At least somewhat.
And his expression hadn't changed since, ever this hardened visage. As if he was watching and waiting for a great predator to make itself known. It was a face he only had when trying to deduce the best course for them to survive and it didn't leave until he believed he had found the way or been shown it by the Force. It never remained for this long.
She cringed in her meditative stance. She could feel it, feel the Sith's anger overflow as waves in the force, rolling over everything too close to it.
Apparently, being in the same region was still too close.
It had been doing that for a while now, random bursts of growing anger and frustration. She dreaded to think what had put this titan of darkness into such a foul mood and pitied the one blamed for it.
Meanwhile
'DAMN YOU SIDIOUS FOR NOT INSULATING THESE LIMBS!' Vader screamed into his mind as he pulled back his hand, again, from getting zapped by a broken fuse.
Nearby, R2D2 beeped and whirled some comments.
"I am not using the Force to do this," Vader refuted bluntly.
"Are you worried you might crush the device?" Obi-Wan asked with a hint of something he wouldn't dare call teasing.
"Padawan, do you have any conceivable idea of how to repair a null quantum field generator safely, short of dismantling the entire hyperdrive?" Vader inquired in exasperation, not looking away from his work.
"Granted, no," Obi-Wan admitted with a grimace. "I didn't think it could be damaged without ruining the rest."
"One of the other astrodroids seems to have overloaded it by mistake, likely due to being shot and malfunctioning," Vader mused with a mental hum. If he was right, that was the Force keeping the group on route to meeting his younger self. "Now grant me silence so I may get us off this planet."
Obi-Wan, honestly, couldn't agree more with that sentiment. "Very well, but should I ask the boy to come down here? I hear he's some sort of prodigy with mechanics on top of being..."
"Absurdly powerful in the force, yes. And, no. The boy may be gifted in mechanics, but as far as I am aware, he has only worked with droids and pod-racers until now. The latter of which are just similar enough to this for him to believe he is fixing something while dooming us all," Vader warned as R2 beeped. "Tell the boy the droid sends his thanks. He'll know what for, I believe," Vader translated before removing his hand as the hyperdrive started to hum, the noise rapidly increasing in sound and speed for a few moments before evening out.
"Did you do it?" Obi-Wan asked curiously.
"The pilots will have to make certain, but I believe so," Vader answered as he turned to make his leave.
"Vader," Obi-Wan called, the cyborg pausing. "Do...you have an apprentice?"
The Dark Lord understood the nature of the question instantly: Was he not trying to take Anakin as a student because he already had one? A plausible theory, but not one he was obligated to deny or confirm. "Jedi, even if I had an apprentice or acolytes, I would be a fool to tell you considering your Order's first instinct is to exterminate or brainwash any organization of Force users with even a hint of the Dark Side," Vader reminded bluntly.
"The Sith-," Obi-Wan began to retort with a scowl, only for Vader to hold up a hand, commanding a pause.
"I did not say the Sith. Not to mention your Order hardly tolerates its own sects sometimes," Vader clarified.
"We only try to protect he Galaxy and those in it from mishandling and misusing the Force," Obi-Wan retorted firmly.
"Misusing, by your definition, is a very broad and vague category," Vader countered without even raising his voice. "And I will restate what I have already said: I have no desire to have a religious debate with you, Jedi."
Obi-Wan scowled to himself as the Sith departed from the engine room. Yes, he was aware that the Jedi were forceful, no pun intended, in discouraging some primitive religions from making use of the force in their practices, especially if they were overtly dark in nature: Blood Sacrifices, varying forms of "magick", etc. It wasn't a practice many Jedi enjoyed, but it had to be done for the security of the galaxy and maintaining the balance.
Despite that, Obi-Wan knew there was some legitimate point in Vader's reasoning. His master had already informed him of Vader's implication that the Rule of Two among the Sith was either not in use or not as strict as they believed. With that, Vader had already exposed enough to them. Given they were supposed to be enemies, it made sense that the Sith Lord would not reveal just how many, if any were under his sway.
Darth Vader, on the other prosthetic, made his way through the ship with a sense of satisfaction. After that stunt Obi-Wan pulled, it felt rather pleasing to ruffle his ideals, and by proxy, those of the Jedi Order in general.
"Lord Vader," Shmi greeted pleasantly from her seat as he passed.
"Madam," he answered instinctively as he continued on...and suddenly stopped as he processed who he had just seen and heard. He resisted every urge to do a double take before quickly moving along to the cockpit, where the captain was waiting for the pilots to finish checking the systems.
"Vader," Panaka greeted with a nod. "I take it you are finished with repairs?"
"I take it by your question that the repairs are functioning," Vader returned as he tried to hold his patience. "Has the Jedi Master appraised you on our passengers?"
Panaka grimaced. "I'm not entirely fond of using this ship as a recruitment transport for the Jedi, but given where the boy came from and what he has done for us, the Queen and I understand," he accepted civilly. "Especially given the alternative might land the boy and his mother back into slavery."
Vader nodded. "I was not aware he was able to liberate the mother as well," he admitted, tilting his helmet slightly to show his curiously.
"Apparently your display, as the handmaiden refers to it, coaxed some...generosity on the slave owner's part," Panaka elaborated, trying not to shiver. He approved of Vader's action in a roundabout way. After all, it certainly stopped a street brawl from developing and endangering the real queen, and likely made the junker they were dealing with not only give up his slaves, but put enough fear into him to not consider double crossing them. They get their parts and freed a small family from the horrors of slavery. As a proud man of Naboo, that smelt like a small victory.
Vader himself simply stood there, doing everything he could to contain how shocked he was. His mother was free? He had freed her on accident?! Granted, he had been planning to ensure her freedom for sometime now, after the Naboo Crisis was dealt with. His reasoning for leaving her being that, well, he wasn't sure where'd she stay while they were dealing with the Trade Federation's invasion after bureaucracy failed once again. But he had about twenty different plans to get her freedom, all the way up to calling in a favor from Jabba the Hutt or suggesting Padme buy Shmi's freedom after things were settled.
In another time and life, he actually had asked Padme about that at one point, if she ever thought about freeing his mother after they parted ways when he was a child. It hadn't been accusing, it had just been Anakin Skywalker musing on the what-ifs of life. It turned out the former, and now current, Queen of Naboo had assumed that the Jedi would help with that. He couldn't say for certain that was Sidious's doing, but he wanted to.
In the end, Vader shook it off. The Force gave the most pleasant boons at the weirdest of times, so he'd do what he'd been doing since this whole time-travel thing start: take the situation for what it was worth and run with it.
"If you have need of me, I shall be in the droid bay," Vader informed, turning to leave without another word.
And with every intent of staying there and avoiding his mother at all costs. The fact that he was now stuck on a ship with her was making it very hard to crush his own tumultuous emotions, emotions bubbling from the sheer fact that she was alive and she was here and she wasn't going to die in his arms after months of brutal torture and-
The Dark Lord quieted his mind before it ran away with him.
Panaka watched the man go curiously, but didn't question it. The man was clearly a cyborg of some degree, and he hadn't done any maintenance in the past few days to the captain's knowledge. And while he had very little interaction with people in such states, he assumed fixing one's augmented and prosthetic parts could be a bit of a private thing.
Meanwhile
"GRAHHH!" Maul screamed through gritted teeth as Sith-lightning wracked through his body.
"You have failed me greatly, Maul," Darth Sidious scolded with the start of a sneer on his hooded face. "Not only did you not even attack the Jedi and attempt a capture on the queen, you couldn't even best this pretender to the Sith legacy!"
"H-he was powerful, Master!" Maul growled out in retort, the agony still fresh in his veins as he stared up at his teacher. "Only with you have I ever felt such power, Master."
"You dare claim him my equal, to deflect your own weakness?" Sidious mocked in disapproval.
"No, Master! I have no doubt you could defeat him," Maul lied as expertly as he could. "But the Dark Side clearly favors him more than myself."
"Hmmm, troubling," The Dark Lord murmured thoughtfully, his intellect taking reign now that his displeasure was shown. "This is not some young pup in the force. Most likely he is a Dark Jedi, a master that feigned death to explore the Dark Side unhindered. Perhaps even with a holocron of old," he mused in displeasure.
"Forgive me, Master, but could he truly hide himself from you all this time?" Maul asked in genuine curiosity, keeping his rage and suspicions buried for now.
Sidious was surprisingly patient with the question, nodding. "If a fallen Jedi hid himself adequately and the maker of the holocron was well versed in hiding one's self in the Force? Yes, there is a chance he could hide himself from us for a time. More so if he ventured to someplace strong in the Dark Side to mask his training," he admitted with venomous undertone.
What he failed to mention were the other, more disastrous possibilities. That this was another Sith Order, or another apprentice his master ha secretly trained or failed to put down.
"The greater question becomes why he so willingly travels with the Jedi. A bold deception on his part, I'm sure, if he is presenting himself as an ally of all things while flaunting his true self to their senses. Yet, even deeper than that is why involve himself at all? This Vader is plotting something, I am sure of it. But did his plot involve Naboo and merely become entangled in our own? Or is the plot itself to become involved in the situation?" Sidious mused suspiciously.
Maul narrowed his eyes as understanding came. "You are wondering what allies and tools he has in wait," the child of Dathomir realized bitterly, now comprehending how much deeper of a problem this could be.
"And how many of them are pretending to be our own. How compromised has the Order of Bane truly become under our very nose?" Sidious wondered, looking away in deep thought and frustration. "I can sense that it will not be long before this Darth Vader reaches Coruscant. To our benefit, however, is that the Jedi no doubt sense this as well. At the very minimum, they shall be monitoring his activity at all time, thus constraining what he can do without attacking. If we are fortunate, the Jedi may perform a rash action against the Sith Lord, in their zeal to destroy the Dark Side. A victory for them that would serve us well. Sympathy for the Sith, a route rarely considered in our lineage, but a tool nonetheless," Sidious commented, more rambling to himself than instructing his apprentice.
He had long since mastered the art of filtering out what details and subjects he should speculate on with any given company: Never muse on anything Plagueis related in front of Maul, never let Plagueis know his involvement in the assassination attempt, never converse about the Force in front of a Jedi he wasn't sure he could turn. If he were honest, he'd admit the skill develeped from his childhood, mastery emerging more from years in politics than from learning in the Dark Side. Mundane skills had their use, no force-wielder would deny.
As for Maul, he knew his master well. Well enough to know that the man's musing words were not a sign of worry or fear, but of annoyance and instinctual scheming. He didn't fear they were ruined, only that they might be too greatly delayed with executing the Grand Plan. Still, he knew his master VERY well. He could see the displeasure that went beyond mere, minor setback. No, beneath the Dark Lord's plotting exterior, the Dathomirian knew the black hole of his existence was churning in hate and perhaps even outrage. He had not foreseen this, at all. But that didn't mean he didn't know this entity existed, just that Sidious wasn't awarre that this Vader was alive.
Too many questions.
Time for answers.
Or, at least, a clue.
"There is...something else, Master. He knew of you. He knew your true name as a Sith," Maul informed hesitatingly.
Sidious narrowed his eyes, keeping a tight lid on the emotions and paranoia bubbling in the grip of his power. It was possible that this supposed Sith had learned of his name through associates the Dark Lord had made secret dealings over the decades under the guise of his Sith persona. He knew this, Maul knew this. So Maul wouldn't be acting like this if that was all that was said. "What does this Darth Vader claim to know of me, my apprentice?" Sidious demanded in a deceptively calm and soothing voice.
Maul kept his mind from wandering back. Back to the words that planted doubt in him, claiming that Plagueis was never slain, that Sidious had no intention of making him a true apprentice. Instead, he focused all his attention on his master as he prepared to give Vader's message. But Maul could never have imagined the fury his Master would unleash in that moment.
All because of two simple words:
"Hanna Cosinga."
Meanwhile
The Sith weren't the only ones anticipating the arrival of the mysterious Dark Sider.
Contrary to popular belief, Yoda did not use a power chair because he was elderly. He originally found it as an inventive force exercise, as all the controls the device were turned off, the entire thing manipulated by his use of the Force. He also used it because it was less distracting. Unknown to most these days, his fighting style involved rapid and agile jumps because that was actually his preferred way of moving around. Which tended to distract younger and even older Jedi around the temple when they stopped to observe the Grand Master's impressive feats, such as ascending a floor by means of jumping and flipping between two pillars.
In his youth, he never understood why it was so impressive, but he took some amusement in it. As his age and fame increased, his wisdom showed him it was a bit distracting. Albeit, he missed the days of Younglings wanting to imitate him...he even missed his fellow consulars scolding him for being a poor example at the time. Good times, they were.
But anyone who saw the ancient Jedi knew he was not thinking of good times as he floated through the halls with a scowl on his face.
Yoda didn't get angry. This was simply a fact for the Jedi Master. He became disappointed, displeased, stern, and resolved. But anger and rage were emotions that did not touch his soul.
That said, he was becoming displeased.
"Master Windu? A word, I need," Yoda called after his fellow member on the Jedi Counsel Member.
"Master Yoda," Windu greeted with his ever serious expression, turning as the Grand Master floated up to him. "Is something troubling you?"
"Trouble me much, it does, when out of the loop, I am left," Yoda retorted sternly, pointing at Mace. "Many Guardians and Knights, spoken with and gathering, you are?"
Mace almost looked amused with how easily the Grand Master still saw through them all. Almost, but not quite. "The Sith is on its way to Coruscant. Surely you are not suggesting we do not prepare for their arrival?" the Shatter-Point user asked in a tone that could only be called respectful disagreement.
To this, Yoda shook his head. "Your preparations, disapprove of them, I do not. Your priorities? Question them, I do," Yoda countered sagely.
"Is capturing or destroying the Sith not our greatest priority?" Mace questioned with a raised eyebrow.
"Eager and worried, you are, Master Windu. Many of the Jedi, feel this way as well, they may. Tunnel vision, is the term, I believe," Yoda forewarned in a gentler tone.
Windu scrunched his brow for another ten seconds before letting out a sigh of defeat. "You believe this is a trap?" he summarized.
"Prepared for this, expecting this, I believe, is the Dark Sider," Yoda corrected simply. "Know this, we do: Qui-Gon and the Queen, traveling with the Sith, they are. In danger, I sense, they are not," Yoda reminded. Admittedly, he was lying a tiny bit. From what he could perceive in this shroud of darkness, Qui-Gon was safe, but the diminutive Force-wielder was growing concerned for the Padawan Kenobi. Why, he wasn't sure, but it was there.
"Then what do you believe we should do?" Mace inquired, knowing the Jedi Master would not point out the mistake without a counter solution. Unless it was a teaching lesson, but with a Sith in route, there was no time for such things.
"Senate matters, take time, they do. Our fellow Jedi, bring them home, we must. Learn more of the situation, from them, we will. Observe the Dark Sider, we must. A last resort only, should confrontation be. After Qui-Gon's report, confront him we will," Yoda assured patiently.
Mace took a deep breath at that. "Many will not be happy with this. They will see it as passing up our best chance to deal with this threat."
"Our way, to take the quick and easy route, it is not. To the Dark Side, perhaps not, but in one manner or another, fall we would," Yoda cautioned, knowing all too well that a Jedi could succumb to their own arrogance as they could the Dark Side.
Mace Windu nodded, seeing the wisdom in those oddly constructed sentences. He was about to take his leave when a look of hesitation graced his face. "Are you certain they are in no danger, after that surge we felt?" he reminded, a bit bewildered by the idea of a Sith using the Dark Side and nearby Jedi NOT being in potential danger.
Yoda sighed deeply at that. "Shown me little, the Force, it has. Safe, they are, however. Reluctant acceptance, Qui-Gon felt, I sensed. Necessary, the death was. The manner, was not," Yoda answered thoughtfully.
Mace took a second to take that in. Nothing was going how they expected it since they felt this Dark Sider project himself onto the Galaxy. In fact, some of the consular and other more in tuned members of the order were saying they felt two signatures in the Dark Side of the Force fighting each other. If that was true, then this one- the victorious and clearly stronger one- had to be the Master. The other was probably a rebelling or failed apprentice, hence the duel.
At least, that's what his conventional wisdom on the matters of Sith told him.
"I'll make sure the others know that this is primarily a Rescue mission," Windu assured with a nod.
"I believe I can take care of that myself, Master Windu."
Yoda's ears perked up as he heard that voice, smiling before he even saw the speaker.
Meanwhile
Vader had no galactic clue how long he stood there staring at it once he found it.
The remote to the explosives in his younger self and mother. He had never seen the thing, but Qui-Gon had made sure his was deactivated in the past timeline. He had numbly checked just to make sure this time around and removed the power source afterwards for good measure.
It was strange to think, this little rectangle of metal and wires could hold sway over the life and death of anywhere from one to...twenty people, he wanted to say. They disobeyed, they could die. They didn't serve well, they could die. They leave the planet, they will die. All by a nice little explosion that was impossible for the victim to sto- and he suddenly realized some of the subconscious reasons he disliked the Death Star.
The Death Star was basically a slave-chip, but reusable and for planets.
That comparison made him also wish he had destroyed the device hims-
If it could, the Force would have made a light bulb appear over Vader's head as he went rigid, right before the Sith Lord suddenly stood up and grabbed the remote, along with another very important tool.
Traveling mostly on instinct, he made his way through the ship, down towards the ship communication area, passing two guards that all but leapt out of the way of his determined stride. When he arrived, he was only briefly surprised. By his memory, this was where Padme was comforting him for having to leave his mother behind while wrestling with her own issues about her people suffering. Something he sensed but didn't really understand at the time. Because A, he didn't know she was the queen and B, he didn't really get what the whole Blockade-Invasion thing had been about.
But Shmi Skywalker was free and on this ship, and he had assured Padme's body double and crew that her peoples' suffering was exaggerated mostly.
Hence why he found the Former Slave and Teenage Queen not comforting one another, but playing a card game.
The fact that they had any card deck on this ship surprised him for some reason.
Also, wasn't Jar Jar suppose to be sleeping in here?
Padme rose an eyebrow at his sudden arrival while Anakin smiled and waved. "Hey, Vader! You want us to deal you in?" the boy offered.
His younger self just invited him to play cards not even a full day after the Sebulba incident. He did not recall being that suicidal at that age. "Dare I ask what card game you are teaching?" Darth Vader inquired dryly.
"I'm not teaching him anything," Padme answered in confusion.
"I was asking the boy," Vader clarified bluntly as Anakin grinned shamelessly. "I need a moment with her, Skywalker," he requested.
"Huh? What for?" Anakin questioned with innocent curiosity.
"Politics," Vader answered simply.
"Oh," Anakin accepted with an almost comical lack of interest that Padme wasn't sure to laugh at or take offense to.
"Here, I believe these will keep you...preoccupied for the mean time," Vader assured, passing the items to his younger self.
Anakin Skywalker looked with wide, bulging eyes that rapidly jumped between the two objects he now held and the Sith Lord. After about the third time, he jumped out of his seat and made his way to somewhere more...private.
"Why did you just give Ani a machine and a hammer?" Padme asked in concern.
"Therapy," Vader answered, factual but noncommittal as he looked down at the cards. "I ask again, what was he teaching you?"
"Why do you assume I'm the one that doesn't know how to play?" Padme question, resisting the urge to glare.
"You are a prodigal idealist from a planet with an elected monarchy, he grew up on the bottom of a crime ridden dust-world," Vader answered simply.
"Meaning?" she prompted with folded arms.
"That your free time is probably spent lamenting and/or considering your every decision and their consequences, such as how well received your decision to limit yourself and all future Monarchs to two terms would be, while that boy has spent every spare moment of his life trying to find some distraction that would allow him to forget that he was a slave," Vader elaborated pointedly.
"..." Padme stared for a moment before clearing her throat. "Conceded. But I know how to play Subac just fine."
As did nearly everyone in the galaxy, he refused to point out. "And yet, this is not Subac," he settled with.
"No, it's some variant of Pazaak," Padme answered with a scowl. "He was still teaching me how to play."
"Did he explain the victory conditions?" Vader questioned idly as he glanced at Anakin's hand. He was aware of several versions of the game.
"Not yet, but there is a lot of card trading," Padme explained with a shrug.
She blinked, almost startled as Vader stiffened, a movement that looked more like him outright jerking himself back. She watched in all enveloping intrigue as he started to slowly look between her and where Anakin had run off to. "Did he just make the game up?" she tried after the third time, if only to get the Force-wielder to explain his behavior.
Vader, for once, was very uncertain about what to say or think. Was he THAT devious at that ag- Yes. A thousand memories during his young years as a Padawan screamed yes, yes he was. Too clever and sometimes too unaware of people's feelings. Even with the best intentions. Or especially. "No, it is an established variant. The issue is that, to be frank, there is no way to win."
"...Huh?" Padme asked in the least dignified manner she probably could have. "How can a game have no way to win?"
"Some choose a winner by who ends with the most cards or cards of value. But ultimately, it is simply a way to entertain two or more people while wasting a lot of time," Vader explained with a touch of caution. This woman, a proud defender of democracy, might not react well to this. Or rather the game's name.
"What kind of Pazaak game is this?" Padme muttered, wondering why Anakin chose this game.
"You might not want to know."
The pair looked up and saw a perplexed Qui-Gon and an anxious Obi-wan. Between the two, it was more obvious that the Padawan had ran here, even though they both did. It was also obvious why they were here, by Obi-wan's glancing toward Anakin's direction in the ship. "Leave the boy be," Vader stated, less commanding and more factual, not even rising from his seat
"I might if you explain why I sense a great amount of anger and sadness from him," Qui-Gon offered with a raised eyebrow.
'Therapy," Vader answered simply. The Jedi looked to Padme, who put on her political mask as she suddenly found herself between ideological enemies. Vader waved off her concerns with a simple nod, muting the issue, on her part at least.
"Lord Vader gave Anakin a hammer and some device? He seemed...a bit happy to see it," Padme explained.
"Device?" Obi-wan repeated with a furrowed brow while his master rubbed his forehead.
"You gave him the control device for his slave chip?" the Jedi Master deduced while his student and the true queen went wide eyed in shock and understanding.
"You deactivated it, I removed the power source. He is perfectly safe," Vader pointed out, not at all trying to be reassuring.
"Why thou-?" Obi-Wan questioned only to stop as something surprising hit their own presence in the force.
It was powerful, it was bright, and it was...peaceful. A small star of tranquility in the black night of Vader's shadow over the force
Obi-Wan was openly gaping while Qui-Gon just looked a bit...impressed
"I know this is difficult for Jedi to understand, but proper venting is a very effective tool in helping release one's hold on their old life, among other things," Vader mused absently.
Sith or Jedi, this was something he felt ultimately good about for his other self. His issues as a former slave had never been properly resolved in his last life as a Jedi. The fact that he was free didn't always register and Darth Vader could hardly be called "free" under Sidious.
Admitted, few beings were free under the Galactic Emperor.
The star dimmed into a a ball as Anakin Skywalker emerged into the room, smiling brighter than any of them had seen. His eyes were no less bright even as he looked around in confusion at the Jedi, Vader, and Padme. He looked to the sole female in the room, giving him a hopeless shrug as she was entirely unsure what had the force-wielders acting so weird.
Accepting that non-verbal answer, the truly free Child of the Force smiled at his new friends. "Anyone else want to play?" Anakin offered hopefully.
The three men all shared a look at the sheer absurdity of the idea. Sith and Jedi, playing a card game?
"I have work that needs to be completed," Vader stated as he rose to leave.
Padme rolled her eyes at this. "With respect, can't you all just leave your ideologies aside for a short time. We are all allies here," she reminded in mild exasperation.
The words of "For Now" floating in the air were practically verbal to their Force senses.
Vader reluctantly ignored her words as he strode off, Anakin's mood dampening only a few degrees as he looked to the Jedi.
"So, do you both know how to play Republic-Senate?" Anakin asked curiously
"Wait...that's what it's called?" Padme deadpanned,hoping it was a joke. Said hopes were dashed as everyone in the room nodded.
"It is...admittedly a favored game among some youngling groups," Obi-Wan admitted awkwardly, sheepishly as he glanced at his master.
"Who do you think introduced the game to the Temple?" Qui-Gon confessed with a small grin on his bearded face, enjoying the shock from Obi-Wan
Still, the Jedi Master glanced at the departing back of the Sith Lord. A Sith Lord that might have just helped close one of Anakin's paths to the Dark Side. Qui-Gon knew that Anakin would be a special case, even without being the Chosen One. Handling a child that had been a slave his entire life, the disciple of the Living Force understood he'd be helping the boy overcome a lot of esteem issues and personal problems. He hadn't had time to think about how to do so in finer details, what with getting the Queen of Naboo back to the Heart of the Republic, but Vader understood what the boy needed almost inst-
As Vader turned a corner and out of view, Qui-Gon gained a sliver of pity for the Dark Sider as he finally understood.
Literally or not, Vader had been a slave once.
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