Anakin hefted his bag to have it slung over his back by the strap as he left the showers. Slarena was standing outside the doors, holding her own bags in her hands with her blaster holstered at her hip.

He blinked for a moment until he realized that her whole front was soaked in blood that he’d smeared onto her. Oh, the blood…

“My turn,” she said before noticing his stare, “Oh don’t worry about this. It’ll come out with a good scrubbing or two. Just wait for a bit, kid. We can talk with the people left together. I guess the two of us are sort of the leaders now.”

“Okay,” Anakin said absently, “I’ll wait for a bit.”

She went in and Anakin waited around awkwardly milling around the door, not sure exactly what he should be doing. Meditate? But his mind was all off kilter and he felt strange. He doubted it would be any use right now…

He looked up as he heard footsteps coming down the ship hallway and dropped his hand to his side and drew his lightsaber in a quick motion, on guard. He ignited it and leapt forward… Only to stop and freeze in place. There was a twi’lek man standing there cowering as Anakin stood there with his lightsaber raised as if to strike him. It was the man who had been in the bunk below him earlier.

After a few seconds of mutual shock, Anakin let out a sigh of relief and retracted his lightsaber and slid it back into the deep pocket of his cloak.

“Hi,” he said, “Sorry.”

“No, understandable, everyone’s jumpy…” the man said before gesturing behind him with a stuttering motion, “We’ve got a… problem back there. Three of the pirates survived, and everyone’s arguing what we should do with them. They’re disarmed and tied up and all, but things were getting out of hand when I left. With you being a… Jedi and all, shouldn’t you come and help calm everyone down?”

The man nodded towards the pocket where Anakin had put his lightsaber. It seems that even if the passengers hadn’t recognized the handle, then they knew the distinctive plasma blade of the lightsabers.

“Yes, that’s true,” Anakin said a little weakly before his voice strengthened, “Right, a Jedi would help with that kind of thing. Let’s go.”

The man turned and led the way back to the passenger’s quarters. Anakin tried to ignore all the bodies and scorch marks as they went, even as he felt his hand trembling slightly.

They didn’t travel the whole way, instead stopping a few turns from the actual quarters where a crowd of people were gathered and in a fierce argument. Anakin saw that everyone was armed with mismatched blasters that most of them held clumsily. Weapons likely scavenged from the pirates.

“He’s here! The Jedi!” the man who led him here shouted a few times, before his voice pierced through the crowd and everyone turned to stare at the two of them.

“I’m here,” Anakin said after the whole crowd went silent as they stared at him with not a little bit of fear and glances at the one or two splayed out bodies lying in the hallway nearby that Anakin had sliced in half during his rampage through the pirate’s ranks.

“There’s prisoners?” Anakin said as no one responded.

“Right,” one of the burly men said and the crowd shifted to give Anakin a good view of their surroundings. Three men lay on the ground, their arms and legs bound as they lay there with everyone else staring down at them. Based on their gear and poor hygiene, Anakin was sure that they must be the captured pirates. They looked terrified, and their faces were bruised and they looked injured.

“Master Jedi!” One of them cried out with a rasping breath, “Please spare us! We’re unarmed! You wouldn’t let them kill unarmed prisoners would you, Master Jedi?”

The passengers shifted…

“Shut it, slaver!” the man who had spoken before shouted angrily and waved his gun threateningly at the man on the ground, “We should just finish the Jedi’s good work and be done with it already!”

“We can’t!” the Twi’lek man who brought Anakin back protested, “They’re no threat to us anymore. They can go to the Republic to stand trial.”

“You’d spare people like them? They’d have killed us all given half the chance! You heard their captain before the Master Jedi here attacked them. Somebody has to kill them.”

Anakin opened and closed his mouth, not sure what to do as what seemed to be two groups descended to arguments again. A large fraction wanted to kill the three pirates out of hand, while a smaller but vocal group wanted to take them to the Republic to stand trial for their crimes.

“Stop! Stop!” Anakin shouted, and everyone immediately quieted down and looked at him. He stopped, but then started again after a deep breath, “We can’t kill them. They must stand trial, it’s the right thing to do. We’ll deliver them to the Republic.”

It was the kind of thing that Obi-wan would do. What a real Jedi would do. Not like what…

“Anakin! What’s going on?!” Slarena came running down the hallway, her blaster held at the ready and her lekku and head still wet from the shower and her clothes ruffled like she’d thrown them on in a hurry.

She stopped and paused and seemed to take in the situation.

“What’s going on?” she asked after lowering her weapon and relaxing as she saw that Anakin was just standing there looking at her in confusion.

The crowd wasted no time in telling her what happened and either protesting or supporting Anakin’s decision.

“I understand,” she said after a moment and her eyes lingered on Anakin for a moment as she walked forward before she passed him and walked right up to the pirates lying on the ground.

She stood over the three pirates who were staying as still as possible as if staying frozen in place would prevent anyone from noticing them.

Without another word, Slarena raised her blaster and with three quick shots killed the captive pirates before anyone else could react.

The world exploded into noise as the argument erupted again and accusations were thrown as Slarena calmly holstered her pistol at her side again and turned to start arguing with the crowd to defend herself.

Anakin turned and fled from the noise, a deep sting of betrayal biting in his chest. He barely even knew Slarena, why did he feel so betrayed that she’d done that?

He ran until the noise faded from behind him and then sat down heavily and leaned against one of the pristine metal walls behind him. There had been no fighting here. Anakin crossed his legs and did his best to remember his training as he sat there. How to meditate, how to drain himself of his emotions and know peace. He didn’t find much success, but he still tried to do it harder than he ever had at the Jedi temple.

“Anakin? You alright there?” Slarena suddenly said from across from him. He opened his eyes and saw her sitting there leaning against the opposite wall, staring at him. Her legs were sticking out in front of her as she leaned back on her hands, her blaster still strapped to her hip. He hadn’t even heard her approach through his efforts to meditate.

“That was wrong,” Anakin said, “You just killed them. They were unarmed prisoners. We should have taken them to the Republic.”

“I’m sorry. You’re a good kid, Anakin. But mercy is wasted on scum like that.”

“Wasted!” Anakin said, getting a little angry at her calm reply, “So what, we’re just supposed to go around killing everyone that we don’t like? I’m a Jedi, we’re not supposed to let these things happen. We were supposed to discuss it as a group, to… to… To be better than them.”

“I know. I took the decision from you. It was your decision. Everyone out there was too spineless, and didn't want to kill those pirates themselves. Even the ones arguing for execution. Instead, they just stood around arguing and dragging it out, waiting for you to do something for them. They were going to make you do the honors eventually when they started having second thoughts about keeping prisoners. We’ve still got days or even weeks before we could reach a system with any real Republic presence. Probably, I don’t know. I’m not a pilot. A lot can change in that time. I was just trying to spare you from getting your hands any dirtier. You’ve been through enough already.”

“They… That’s… You made my hands dirty! I just stood there and watched as you did it! What kind of Jedi am I, to just let you execute prisoners like that? They could have stood trial, been punished for their crimes by the Republic!”

Slarena sighed and shook her head, “They were slavers, Anakin. They always work in packs and conglomerates that look out for each other. At least out here. Too kriffin’ unlikable to have anyone else able to stand them. Out here in the Outer Rim, I’d be surprised if they spent even a few days in jail before they were free again and ready to hurt more people. We had to kill them ourselves or let them go free. That was the real choice, and everyone else but you knew it.”

Anakin knew that the Republic’s reach didn’t go everywhere, especially in the Outer Rim and his home planet of Tatooine especially. But he just hadn’t connected it in his mind.

“We should have talked about it. It’s still not right,” he insisted.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re angry, but I really was trying to do my best to help you.”

Neither of them spoke for a while, both of them just thinking and mutually staring into nothing.

“Why?” Anakin eventually asked, “Why do that for me? After we practically just met?”

He thought he understood what she meant now that he’d had some time to calm down and think about her words. Even if he still didn’t agree with her actions, the sense of betrayal within him had faded away into nothing. He could tell that she was telling the truth, and really thought that she’d been doing him a favor.

“Like I said, Anakin. You’re a good kid. Just felt like the thing to do, to help you. Would you like to look around the pirate’s ship together? Maybe it could help take our minds off of things, if we had something to do.”

“Sure. Let’s go,” Anakin said and stood up as he latched onto the idea, “Maybe we can find out if these pirates were working with anyone that might come after us.”

“We should probably head to the command deck,” Slarena said and trailed slightly behind him as they started walking to the hallway where the pirates had docked to their ship. The airlock that Anakin had sliced through with his blade, “We’ll have to look around and see if we can find a command code or key or something…”

“Don’t worry, I used to build my own droids from components. Even if we don’t find something then I should be able to get in and get some control of the ship,” Anakin said confidently.

“You built your own droids?” Slarena said with an impressed look, “Like custom? How old are you again?”

“Fourteen. I stopped doing it when I was nine though. Too busy with Jedi training, I wasn’t allowed to do it when it might distract me from my meditation.”

“Well, that’s stupid. Building droids is way harder than some meditation, I’m sure. Building droids at nine years old… You must be a genius, Anakin!”

“Well,” Anakin said a little embarrassed, “It’s not really that great. I’m sure there’s plenty of kids who can do things like that.”

“Pffft. Duh, it’s a big galaxy,” Slarena said, “There’s geniuses everywhere. But no one I knew growing up ever knew how to fix a droid, let alone build one ourselves.”

“I… I built my own podracer too!” Anakin said, surprised at her support for his old hobby, “I won the planetary Boonta Eve Classic race with it. The money from it let the jedi who found me get the parts they needed to fix their ship to get off the planet.”

“A podracer? Is that like some kind of speeder?” Slarena asked, “I’m not familiar.”

“Yes, but they’re made for speed. We race through the canyons of Tatooine, and you have to put defenses and overclock the engines for your racers. There was this racer Sebulba who had a slow speed compared to the others, but used all sorts of traps and weapons to take out any racers that tried to pass him. He won for several years in a row before I managed to beat him! Even after he sabotaged my racer somehow. I’m sure it was him, even if I still won in the end anyway.”

“Whoa, that’s a lot more dangerous than I thought,” Slarena said, sounding taken aback at Anakin’s description, “Was the prize money so good, to have so much danger? How’d you convince your parents to let you go?”

“Well… uh, I was a slave back then,” Anakin said, “The money was enough to buy me and my mom from our owner. Or at least I thought it was. Master Qui-gon made a bet that if I won the podrace then I could leave and be freed by Watto. But my mom wasn’t part of the deal, so Watto refused to sell her unless the Jedi paid ridiculous prices. So I had to go and leave her behind.”

“Well you’re a Jedi now, right?” Slarena said encouragingly, “Surely they’d pay for your mother if you asked them?”

“Jedi aren’t supposed to have personal attachments. Master Obi-wan said that seeing her again would only be more painful for the both of us. He told me that she was still safe though a year after I left.”

“That’s… cold. Is that what you want? Actually I forgot to ask. Do you have some sort of mission that you’re on as a Jedi? Maybe we can go see if we can free her on the way.”

Anakin thought about her words and let them roll around his head. Did he have a goal right now? He’d just planned to flee to the outer rim, but not anything more than that. Could he… Maybe Slarena had a point. Why shouldn’t he go to Tatooine and free his mom? It wasn’t like he was going to listen to the Council anymore, not after running away from them.

“Wait, we?” he said suddenly, “What do you mean? Don’t you have something to do on… Raska? Why would you come with me?”

“Well, I don’t have anywhere to go,” Slarena said with a shrug, “I’m a bit of a drifter. Find work where I can, blast any fools who try to mess with me if I have to. Seems like you’ll be up to exciting things, I wouldn’t mind traveling with you for a while. If you want to, of course.”

“Hmmm. Okay, I don’t mind. I do have to tell you one thing though,” Anakin said as they backtracked a little in their search to try to find the main command deck of the pirate’s ship.

“I’m not a Jedi anymore. Well, not… I’m a Jedi, but not like the other ones. It’s hard to explain. Point is, the Republic is after me because I ran away. You might be in trouble if you stick around.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Slarena fiddled with her holstered blaster for a few seconds before letting go, “Alright. That’s maybe a bit too exciting. But what the kriff, when am I going to get another chance to hang out with a real Jedi? Let alone such a little and cute one.”

She smirked and reached out and ruffled Anakin’s hair with her hand, and he didn’t use his force prediction to dodge.

“Hey! I’m not cute!” Anakin protested and reached up to smooth down his hair, “Quit it, I’ll be taller than you in a few years anyway. I’ve grown at least a few inches this last year.”

“Sure, sure shrimp,” Slarena said, “Keep telling yourself that. That’s what all of the shorties say.”

Anakin opened his mouth, but stopped as Slarena’s head turned to the side. He saw the door she was looking at. It was different, thicker and more reinforced. Slarena diverted and tapped at the pad to the side of the heavy door, and it slid open, revealing a space filled with blinking consoles and two pilot’s chairs. The two of them went inside and inspected everything.

“You understand any of this?” Slarena asked after a few minutes with a faint note of embarrassment in her voice, “I’ve never been in a spaceship cockpit before.”

“Yeah, I think I understand,” Anakin said, “It’s an older model, shouldn’t take too long for me to figure it all out.”

He sat down in the pilot’s chair and rifled around and smiled when he felt a little compartment underneath.

“Score.”

He flipped down the flap under the chair and pulled out a heavily bound book sitting inside.

“What’s that?”

“Pilot’s manual,” Anakin said as he started flipping through as he sat back against the pilot’s chair, “Everything we need to know to pilot this thing is in here.”

“What about codes or passwords or… something?”

Anakin peered between the page on the manual and the console and small screen in front of him for a few seconds before answering her.

He cautiously hit a few buttons and after navigating through the menus while consulting the book, nodded to himself as he finished.

“What was that?”

“The pirate captain never logged off from the controls, so I went in and changed the passwords. There isn’t a physical key from what I can tell. We should have full control of the ship now. Now I just have to read this thing and figure out how to fly it.”

“Is there anything that I can do in the meantime? I’m feeling pretty useless standing here like an idiot.”

Anakin thought about it, before his better mood crashed down a little as he thought of something.

“The… The airlock door that I sliced through. That connects the two ships. We need to fix that if we want to detach the ships. Otherwise neither will be able to go to hyperspace properly.”

“I will… get right on that. You got this, Anakin. I’ll ask around and see if there’s anyone else who’s a pilot who could help too.”

She left and Anakin kept reading the manual, glad that he had something to distract himself with rather than dwelling on what had happened with the pirates. With the Dark side.

— — —

Anakin thought about the pile of blasters and assorted armor stuffed in various closets around the ship. It was all a little gruesome, but credits were credits. Anakin had nearly nothing to his name, and Slarena didn’t have much more than him. It was everything that could be taken from the pirates' bodies that could still be salvaged. They’d gathered everything that could be valuable from the bodies before dragging the bodies into the transport ship so the Raska government could identify them. Well Slarena and the others did that, Anakin was mostly still looking over the pilot manuals and learning to pilot the pirate’s ship.

It had been a few days, and everyone was ready to go. None of the survivors were pilots, but Anakin was able to explain to one of the smarter ones the basics for working the transport ship. All of the normal crew were dead, killed by the pirates to the last. Anakin personally charted the hyperspace course to Raska and set it to automatically blast an emergency distress call once it arrived at the planet. Better to have the local government bail everyone out rather than risk the new ‘pilot’ blowing them all to bits trying to land the ship on the ground themselves.

But that was for the others who just wanted to finish their trip to Raska. Anakin’s plan was always to leave as soon as he arrived at Raska on another ship, so this was the perfect opportunity not only to get his own ship but make sure the Republic wouldn’t be able to track him buying another ticket to transport him to another planet in the outer rim.

Slarena was coming with him, but all the others were leaving on the other ship. Anakin pressed the button, and with a hiss and rumble, the pirate’s ship detached from the transport. Fifteen minutes later, there was a flash and it disappeared into hyperspace and was off to its destination.

“Got the course all plotted out?” Slarena said as she walked to the door of the cockpit and stood there, “Off to Tatooine?”

“Yep,” Anakin pulled the lever in front of him and the ship’s drives and activated until with a rumble the stars around them blurred and they were surrounded by the blackness of deep space and were replaced by the blue flickering form of hyperspace.

“Should be there in a few weeks,” he finished as he stood from his chair, “I still feel like we should plan more. It seems too simple.”

Slarena shrugged, “We can’t register her to you, with you being on the run and all. It might flag in their databases. Me… Well, I’m not from Hutt systems so I should be fine. Those slugs don’t care what people do as long as it doesn’t touch their interests. I’ll buy her and get her control chip removed right after. I promise. Selling off all of this gear should give us enough that this Watto will sell her to me if he doesn’t know you’re around and willing to pay a higher price for her. The second he knows you’re there, the price for her will double or even triple. So you can’t talk to her until the deal is done and she’s freed. No matter how tempting it might be.”

“Fine,” Anakin said a little petulantly, even if she knew she was right.

— — —

“Wow, the Jedi temple sure has gone to the dumps in the last few months,” a voice suddenly said as Anakin idly fiddled with some of the mechanical components that had been lying around the pirate’s ship. He’d been hard at work deconstructing the collars and holding bays for the slaves as quickly as he could so he wouldn’t have to see them every time he walked by.

“Draeth? You’re here?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? What did… Ohhhhhh, wow. Done some fighting, have we? And the dark side too, how rebellious. How’d these Jedi not jump all over you for that? You’ve given me so much more energy than I expected to have by now.”

“We’re not in the Jedi temple anymore,” Anakin said as he put down the component and recovered from his shock, “We’re on our way to Tatooine. On a ship.”

“What? Your birth planet? Why would we ever want to go back to that old dustball? How did you convince the Jedi Order to let you do that?”

Anakin explained everything that had happened since Draeth went to sleep months ago.

“And we just finished selling off all the pirate’s gear on a nearby planet so we’re ready with the credits for when we buy my mom on Tatooine.”

“Huh, never thought that you could use the mind shield that way… Blocking against the dark side, that’s actually more useful than I thought it would be. You could practice the dark side freely and then just use your shield to pull yourself back if you ever went too far!”

Anakin shivered, “No thanks. Even with the shield, I still almost killed Slarena. I barely managed to stop myself, it was like I wasn’t even myself anymore…”

“Fair, fair. Yeah, that can wait until you have more natural control over yourself. So, are you ready for your next ability?”

“Next ability?” Anakin asked, surprised, “Won’t that drain you again?”

“True, you got a budget for your portions of power. You could wait for a long time and build up enough energy for a real planet shaking power. But you’re all weak and in danger right now with everybody chasing you. I mean, sounds like you handled those pirates pretty easily but still. You won’t always be facing an unorganized rabble like that. Best to give you power now when you need it the most. You don’t have years to sit around accumulating power like that when you’re so weak right now.”

Anakin wanted to be offended, but honestly Draeth was right. He needed power to survive now rather than worrying about whatever might happen later.

“Okay. Do I get options? Or do you have an idea of what is best?”

Anakin wasn’t as suspicious or defensive with Draeth as he had been last time. He had his mind shield now, and it had already been months that the creature had been connected to him and he hadn’t felt anything malicious or strange happening to him. At least not anything that he thought couldn’t be from everything that had been happening around him.

“Hm. Abilities, abilities. We did a bit of an internal one last time. You want to keep looking human, right?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Okay, so half of these can get thrown out. No, no, Maybe? No, let’s see…”

Draeth kept muttering to itself as its blue tentacles waved and it kept muttering to itself incoherently as its single eye stared into nothing.

“Blaster fire is your biggest weakness right now,” Draeth finally said, “We need to protect you from that. I’ve got two options for you. First, a reflexive energy blast that destabilizes the plasma blasts cohesion. Basically if someone shoots at you, then their blaster shots will disperse and wash over you instead of being one concentrated ball of plasma that can punch through and do serious damage. It’ll still hurt, but normal blaster shots shouldn’t do much more than give you some light burns if they land. The second one is deflection. It’ll still be reflexive, but it’ll divert the shots so they’ll miss you. Unfortunately, you can’t control when it activates so whoever’s standing behind you better watch out. They’re mutually exclusive, you can’t do both. You can control the power in both methods though. So how much dispersion, or how much or how powerful a blast will get deflected. ”

“For the dispersion, how does it work?” Anakin said, “Is there a limit? What if I want to block something with my lightsaber instead of with the dispersion?”

“That’s fine. It should activate only after something is closer than where your lightsaber would normally be in a guard positon. About fifteen centimeters from the skin on your torso. Watch your fingers and toes, it still works for them but is less effective and at five centimeters or less above the skin. Wearing some armor would also help protect you from the blowback of the dispersed blast. Both abilities cost you energy. That’s through drawing on the Force if you have it active, or your own stamina or reserves if you can’t pay the cost to activate just through that. More powerful blasts or multiple hits from multiple directions at once will increase the cost of it all or even make the ability not able to fully disperse them all in time in the worst case. But the deflection ability costs much less on your energy since the force to deflect the plasma blasts is much less than trying to disperse them to be less dangerous.”

Anakin thought about the two abilities. The deflection ability seemed much more powerful. Less cost on his energy, and he wouldn’t be hit by the blaster fire at all and just have it miss him entirely. Whoever was shooting at him might just think that they missed and had bad aim rather than assuming it was something stranger.

But Draeth’s warning… No, he couldn’t stand it if one of the deflected blasts hit somebody innocent or somebody he cared about who was nearby. Mom, even Slarena now. Anyone else that he was trying to protect while being a Jedi. Just one hit, and they could be dead. No, the dispersion ability was much better. Safer. Even if it would be a little more exhausting and still make him get hurt a little by each blast he tanked.

“Dispersion. I choose the dispersion ability.”

“Good, good. Makes sense for you. And hopefully it’ll only be a backup either way. Best to not be hit at all, right? I’d lay down if I were you. I don’t know how long I’ll be out for this one. This is going to cost much more of my energy than it did last time. And be more painful than last time. Way more painful. Try to not die on me while I’m gone.”

Remembering the pain from when he received his mind ability, Anakin quickly put down the mechanical part that he was holding and lay down on the cold metal floor on his back. He lay there tensed for a moment waiting, but nothing happened.

“Hey, Draeth? Are you– AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!”

Waves of pain washed over him and his body started flailing and thrashing. Anakin only vaguely registered the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps and a Slarena’s concerned voice from above him before everything faded into an indecipherable wave of pain.

— — —

Slarena held her hand hovered over the Jedi boy, unsure what to do as his body contorted and twisted, his mouth open in a frozen scream as his eyes stared empty into nothing. He was slightly twitching, his hands and arms curled inwards as every muscle in his body seemed to move all at once.

What should she do? Did they even have any medical equipment? She hadn’t thought to check. She could only stand there helplessly hovering over him as he kept twitching and spasming on the ground at her feet.

Why was she so invested in him? It didn’t make any sense, they’d only met weeks ago. He could probably snap her over his knee with his mystical Force powers if he wanted to. Yet something about him made her feel like she had to protect him. Maybe it had been that look after he backed away from almost killing her. She knew that look, of realizing the horror of what you had just done. Fearing what you might do next, but relieved that the people who had hurt you were all gone at last. She knew it so well. Someone so strong, stronger than anyone else she’d ever met befoer, yet he had that same kriffing look…

Without her able to do anything, Anakin stopped his motions and his body went limp all at once and he lay there on the floor. Then he opened his eyes and stared back at Slarena from the ground.

— — —

Anakin blinked as he saw Slarena leaning over him with a concerned expression on her face.

“Anakin, are you alright? What happened?” she asked, “Do you need medicine? We should stop and get you to a med droid before we get to Tatooine. Maybe dump a few tons of bacta on you if we can afford it.”

“I’m fine,” Anakin said despite his pounding headache and aching limbs, “It was just… Something that will help us out. I shouldn’t have to worry about getting hit by blasters anymore.”

Slarena’s concerned expression didn’t go away and she reached out and put the back of her hand on Anakin’s forehead as if to check his temperature, “Definitely needs a med droid. Just last a day, would you? You’re talking crazy.”

“I’m not crazy,” Anakin said and brushed off her hand lightly, “Look, I’ll prove it. Shoot me.”

Slarena gave him a blank look and grimaced.

“With armor!” he clarified, “I’ll be fine. I’m sure we have something that could take a blaster shot.”

“This seems dangerous,” Slarena said skeptically as Anakin stood to his feet and brushed himself off. They went to one of the closets and after a few minutes found one of the armored chest plates that they’d chosen to keep that roughly fit Anakin. Even if it hung big on him like it was two sizes too big because of how small he was.

“Alright shoot me,” Anakin said confidently as he turned around with the armor properly fastened and with Slarena a step away.

“Anakin, I’m not going to shoot you. You’re being ridiculous,” she said, “Have you lost your kriffing mind? That armor’s junk, what if the shot goes through?”

“Just wing me on the side,” Anakin insisted, “I’ll be fine. C’mon, you’ll see what I mean when you do it.”

She hesitated, but at seeing his confidence she drew her blaster and carefully aimed it with two hands so that it would sail just by his side without actually hitting him. But enough that it would normally burn him a little just from the heat of the passing plasma.

After stabilizing herself, she fired. It came by, the same normal. But fifteen centimeters from Anakin’s skin on his torso, he felt something within him lash out and strike it. Again, it felt instinctual, like a new instinct. Something that was natural and had always been there.

The plasma of the shot wobbled before starting to disperse and spread out. It splashed over Anakin’s side, the plume of cooling plasma still hitting him. He hissed slightly as the heat washed over his whole side and little bits of flame slightly burned his skin where it made it through the gaps of the armor. But besides the minor damage he was fine and the blaster bolt was completely dissolved. He felt a little exhausted like he’d just sprinted for a few seconds without using the force.

Slarena blinked and looked at her blaster, confused about what had just happened.

“What?”

“It works!” Anakin said excitedly, “Hit me again, Slarena!”

She shrugged and carefully aimed her blaster again and fired. It dissolved again and bathed Anakin in flames. He hissed and rubbed his side again as he felt the slight burns there. He started breathing heavily as if he had just run a mile and started sweating a little. The burns were nothing that a packet of bacta or two wouldn’t fix. He thought he saw a few packages sitting around somewhere…

“How are you doing that? Is that some weird Force magic?” Slarena asked in confusion.

“Well… Pretty much. It should disrupt any blaster shots that get close enough to me. Still stings, but pretty useful right?”

“I’d say so,” Slarena said and looked at her blaster again, “Can the other Jedi do that? How would anyone ever beat them?”

“No, this is special just for me,” Anakin said, not exactly wanting to get into Draeth and how it was living in his body, “But Jedi Masters can use the Force in all sorts of ways that I can’t imagine any of them getting defeated unless someone attacked them with a literal army from all sides.”

“Well… This is incredible. Did you really have to… Was the spasming and screaming part of it? I suppose that for something that amazing, you have to pay a price…”

“I had to,” Anakin confirmed, “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking about how it would look to you.”

“Is it… going to happen again?”

“No, not anytime soon,” Anakin assured her, “Look, I got the cool power and it’s all over so it’s all good now. We’re only days from getting my mom, I need all the help that I can get.”

“If all goes well, we shouldn’t be attacked at all,” Slarena pointed out.

“You were the one that told me that we have to plan like everything would go against us,” Anakin pointed out.

“True, true,” Slarena said with a sigh, “You remember the story, right? You’re my mute little brother?”

“Why do I have to be your brother? Why can’t we just know each other as friends or something? And why do I have to be mute?”

“You’re fourteen and look it, Anakin. No one will believe that you’re wandering around anywhere by yourself. Not with how well fed and clean you look. It’s either sister, aunt, or mom. Take your pick.”

“Fine, I guess sister’s fine,” Anakin grumbled, “But why can’t I talk a little if I have to? Why do I have to be mute too?”

“You’re the one who said that Mos Espa was a tight knit community. Anything we do will reach Watto’s ears if he’s interested enough to ask. He can’t expose you or force you to speak if everyone thinks you’re mute.”

“I get it, I get it. But I don’t have to like it.”

“You know about the control chips, Anakin. If we don’t free your mother the legal way, then Watto or the slave consortiums can remotely activate her implant to kill her remotely. To any slave living at that spaceport or one that’s more valuable than normal at the click of a button. They don’t want to risk any of them managing to escape on some ship off world. We can’t risk anything that would make Watto want to refuse to sell her to us.”

“I know. I promise I’ll be quiet.”

“Good.”