Anakin glanced at the corner of his helmet, the eye tracker sensing the command. Looking back at the table, he watched as the cybernetic hand opened its fist, the fingers uncurling one at a time before wiggling and then snapping closed again.
Leaning back, he looked up to see one of the ex-ABB teens walking out of the room at the end of the hallway and hurry towards his friend, grabbing the heavy box from one side and helping him move it towards its destination, a stern faced young woman watched them.
The girl was young, no more than 20, and Anakin caught the wave of fear that emanated from her when she caught him looking. Grabbing both boys by the head, she forced them to the floor and then knelt herself.
“Susanoo-sama, we have finished,” she said, her voice steady despite the fear. “Will you require anything else?”
“No, it is sufficient,” he dismissed them from his mind, turning back to the robotic hand. “You may leave.”
Almost as one, they hurried out of the workshop, doing their best to not break out into a run until they thought to be away from his perception.
After killing Lung, the ABB had been perfectly content to supply him with all the components they had previously reserved for Bakuda’s use. Most of the surplus supplies had been inside her main lair and, thus, apprehended by PRT, but there were several stashes left on separate locations. More importantly, they had a secondary workshop a half-step away from being fully operational for her use.
The location was lacking in many ways, but it did have a variety of advanced tools and enough room for him to work, as well as accommodations for the girl and the basic amenities of an average house.
With everything, he had easily been able to build an advanced geological compressor for improved crystals, work on Dinah’s temporary hand and start several other projects.
Taking the mask off, he put it on the table and glanced aside. “You are not pushing up.”
The youngling just growled at him, her arm trembling from exhaustion as she took her eyes away from the prosthetic and pushed, lifting her body up, a bead of sweat falling down from her neck to join the others on the floor.
Ever since Coil’s attempt on the girl, Anakin had fulfilled his promise, forcing the girl to double her efforts. Her days started and ended with Matukai training, a few hours of rest between the sessions.
She also had two hours of body conditioning every day before lunch. That should teach her not to bury herself under rubble, or at least to survive doing so.
While that hadn’t really made Dinah an expert, the liberal use of Force Healing had made her week of training the equivalent of three months for a normal human, the Force accelerating her natural healing and muscle development.
Coupled with the fact Matukai teachings naturally empowered her body with the Force, even minimally, Dinah had gone from barely doing 3 push-ups with one arm to being able to do three sets of 15 between healing sessions.
Yes, it did not make her a match for an adult man, far from it… and her Force sensitivity only had a very minimal increase, but the training made her much stronger than before and, more importantly, vastly more dexterous.
Finishing another four push-ups, she collapsed to the floor, a groan leaving her lips as she pitifully glanced at him, her body almost melting against the floor.
He ignored her.
Shaking her body on the floor, Dinah groaned again, her stare burning a hole through the back of his head. With a sigh, Anakin turned his chair and lifted a hand, Dinah’s body rising in the air and floating towards him.
“You are not finished with your exercises.”
“Yeah but… are you done?” she asked, taking off the small mask she had on and throwing it away before righting herself in the air. “Is it ready?”
“Yes,” he sighed, pulling the robotic arm towards him with a thought. “Grab the glove from your other hand.”
“YES!”
Rushing away, Dinah grabbed the first makeshift hand he had given her, a very simple thing adapted from a local prosthetic store. He had installed a few magnets and electronic commands so it could grab things. The device had lasted her a week until he could build something better, but Dinah had NOT appreciated the delay.
“Come on, you promised me a robot hand not… this,” she growled with disgust as she stripped the padded inner glove from the primitive prosthetic, trying to fit it on her stump. “I want my robot hand.”
It was a pity Anakin could not just take the girl to a hospital and use Mind Tricks to have her be treated by Panacea. He could compel the healer to use her power, that would not be hard, but the Force warned that a subtler approach simply wouldn’t work.
No, contacting Panacea in any way would lead to a heavy Protectorate response and, while he could deal with that and any subsequent attacks with relative ease, it would mean constantly having to fight, not having time to properly train the youngling or build the things he needed.
Regardless, Dinah was far more interested in getting a prosthetic than her full arm back, at least for the moment. Her power told her she’d have the chance in a couple of months and she was content waiting for that moment.
Unfortunately, even if he had the necessary materials or equipment to build the biomechanical device, the synth-net neural interface to connect it to her organic tissue AND the facility in which to perform the surgery, it would only mean having to take it all off when that time came to restore her organic limb.
Anakin hated to admit it, but the best he could do was create a droid hand, made with subpar materials and controlled by visual, voice and movement commands. He had coded a few common responses such as grabbing things, shaking hands and other common movements, but that was the extent of it.
Well, the girl HAD asked for a robot hand, not a cybernetic one.
“Come here,” he said.
Glancing up, Dinah hurried towards his chair and handed him the glove before extending the remains of her arm.
With Force healing, the stump had healed completely, leaving a nub of perfectly pink skin without even a scar. Anakin gently grabbed it, turning to see if there was any irritation from using the glove, but it didn’t seem to hurt her.
Finally, he fitted the padded glove on her limb and lifted the robotic arm from his lap, gently adjusting it on her glove before securing it in place.
Stepping back, Dinah lifted the prosthetic and pumped a fist, the metal fingers squeezing tightly.
“Cool!” Looking up with shining eyes, she asked. “Did you put one of the lasers inside it?”
“No, I did not put a laser inside the prosthetic,” he sighed. “If you wish to shoot someone, you’re perfectly capable of doing so with a proper weapon.”
“Less cool. So, how do I control it?”
Extending his hand again, Anakin pulled a pair of glasses from the table, the assessor slowly settling on Dinah’s face. “Like your mask, the glasses will track your eye movement and translate it into commands. You can also command it with your voice or program common responses with your computer.”
“Huh, middle finger,” she immediately said, smiling as the hand obeyed. “Knife hand, Vulcan salute.”
The last one didn’t happen, he had no idea what such salute meant and so hadn’t coded the response. After a moment, the hand simply relaxed back into a neutral position. Still, Dinah seemed content with the new arm, forgetting all about her exhaustion and starting to play around by grabbing a discarded bar of metal, having the hand squeeze it until the material started to bend.
“Back to your exercises,” Anakin said after a few moments.
“Really?” Dinah stopped, turning to look at him. In her mechanical hand, the metal bar broke in two, a piece falling to each side. “I mean, really?!”
Anakin just lifted an eyebrow.
“Hal, help me out here,” she said, glancing at the droid resting on top of the shelf.
The TRD-01’s frame had been a complete loss, but Anakin managed to save all of its programming, as well as fixing the gravity controllers, installing it all on a new frame, one that better resembled a head. Later, when he had the time, he planned to finish building the rest of the body with Bakuda’s supplies.
“I’m sorry, Dinah, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the droid said, taking advantage of its newly installed vocabulator.
“Ugh, I really shouldn’t have given you that name,” the girl grumbled, dropping down to the mat. “Just don’t start killing humans like the one in the movies.”
“Hal 9000’s actions were perfectly reasonable and in accordance with his programming. Any mistakes were a result of human error,” said the droid in an emotionless, and yet still haughty voice. “His primary directive was to ensure the success of the mission. Being clearly far superior to the meatbags present, his continued function was, factually, the preferred option.”
“Riiight,” shooting Anakin a look, she asked. “You sure everything’s fine?”
“Yes,” Anakin shrugged. “Some droids develop… unconventional personalities, but his programming is entirely safe. At least he’s not repeating ‘roger-roger’.”
Looking at her annoyed eyes, Anakin couldn’t help the small smile from reaching his face. Shaking his head, he let her restart her exercises and walked towards the kitchen, igniting the primitive gas stove.
Grabbing a pan, he filled it with water and started to heat it up before getting the pasta from one of the cabinets, spreading the spaghetti evenly inside the water and waiting for it to soften before pushing it entirely under the water.
Staring at the food woke up old memories inside him, his hand pausing in the middle of getting another pot.
Standing in a simple kitchen with his mother. Sharing time, laughs and memories as she made him fetch pots. Measure flour or slice the hauron bread when he was old enough to hold a knife, even learning how to cook on the fireplace. The ever-present feeling of family was so different from the distance he always felt in the Temple.
Did Luke experience something like this? He knew the boy had grown up with his half brother… Anakin hoped he had received the same love.
In truth, Anakin had barely known his brother and, even seeing his body and walking through his house, he hadn’t felt anything. No, he had only felt anger. That Owen had dared hide Luke from him. That he and his wife had died before Vader could get his hands on them.
Shaking his head, he glanced back towards the girl, her back against the mattress as she rested between reps. Eyes widening, he felt it, the beginnings of the bond, his power stretching towards her through the Force even when she couldn’t truly reciprocate.
With a flex of his mind, he gripped the connection and thought about snapping it. A Force bond was a powerful thing, allowing it to form would let her have a deeper understanding of him, a greater ability to sense his thoughts and feelings… he did not think she deserved that burden.
Even now, it was a struggle to contain his anger, his hate. He did not want to expose her to that.
Still, he stopped himself, releasing the fragile connection and letting it continue. The girl was still weak, far below the level of even the youngest in the Temple, even if the bond was fully forged, it would be such a small thing, only giving her a hint of his moods and nothing more.
More importantly, it would be another safety net, allowing him to locate her even on a different planet in case anything happened.
Releasing a breath, he finished getting another pan and started to prepare the sauce. It had been decades since he last cooked anything, but he trusted the Force… and the recipes he found on the computer.
Anakin and Dinah finished at the same time, the girl making a point of pushing herself up with her new arm, the action taking a couple of seconds as she fiddled with the visual commands.
“I think I’m getting the ‘hand’ of this,” she said, smirking up at him.
“Oh?” he asked, putting her plate on the table.
“Yep,” she nodded. “89% chances I learn to use it fully by next week.”
After stretching a little, she sat down and frowned at the cutlery, her eyes moving around to try and command the arm with the visual tracking software, her eyes flickering around and the tip of her tongue unconsciously poking out of her mouth.
Lifting a finger, he flicked her forehead with the Force, causing her to rear back. “You are going to give yourself a headache, again.”
“Humph,” picking up her fork with her good hand, she gathered the spaghetti and started eating, a moan leaving her mouth as she tasted the food.
“Tell me of your progress,” he finally said, wiping his mouth.
“Well, Coil controls the Undersiders, the Travelers, Circus, and a lot of mercenaries. But there’s like, a 4% chance the mercenaries agree to anger you and Undersiders would happily leave him if given the chance,” Dinah said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “I know they betray him eventually. It was how I was supposed to escape before you. I just don’t know why. Still, there’s like, a 68% chance I can poach most of them away from him.”
“Good. What of his power?”
“I’m pretty sure he can try things and his power tells him the result, but I think he’s more versatile than me, like, I think he can see the results, not just the numbers, or a yes and no answer,” Dinah said, slurping some more spaghetti. “I know he’s testing us, but nothing is happening…”
“How many times? How much time between the tests?” Anakin asked.
“I… don’t know?” she huffed. “I mean, it’s so annoying, the numbers keep changing.”
“Find out. Discovering your enemy’s limitations is essential to defeating him.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“Yes,” he promptly answered, ready to tell her if she pressed, but Dinah just released another frustrated huff and didn’t ask anything else.
Anakin almost snorted when he saw she had managed to get the prosthetic tapping a finger on the table, her eyes closed as she used her power.
“He… his probes take time, there’s almost 0% chance he makes two tries at the same time, I think he also can’t do it too often.”
“What does that indicate?”
“His power isn’t instantaneous? He doesn’t get numbers like me so, maybe he gets a vision or something and it takes time to watch?” she wondered to herself. “Or maybe he gets headaches and has to rest, but no, the pain doesn’t go away that fast.”
Angrily biting into the fork, Dinah finished her meal and sighed, massaging her forehead.
“Your enemy is not invincible, his power has limitations,” Anakin said, pushing himself up and gathering the plates. “Very likely, your power also interferes with his. Do not feel pressured. Remember, it is likely he is as frustrated as you by this impasse.”
Walking around the table, he took a second to mess with her hair, earning himself a glare before taking everything to the sink.
Moving towards the heavily curtained windows, closed to keep anyone from being able to look inside, Anakin stood with his back towards the girl, his Force senses spreading out from the room and towards the watcher on a nearby building.
They had been getting bolder every day, less careful. As the girl said, Coil was clearly testing his range and ability again. It was… irritating.
“His kind are manipulators. They do not have allies, only pawns” he finally said without turning. “Masterminds such as he require influence, information and, more importantly, a projected sense of invincibility to keep their pawns from turning on them. While Coil still appears strong, his power IS limited and he must have burned much of his influence to keep away from the light, to shift the blame fully onto the Travelers.”
“So… you’re saying he’s vulnerable?”
“Yes, with two failures that resulted in losses, he is finding it more difficult to project that aura of invincibility,” Anakin nodded.
In many ways, Coil reminded him of a pathetic reflection of Sidious, of how he acted before rising as Emperor. His moves were familiar, his way of thinking, his control over information and perception. It was likely they also shared the same goal.
While Sidious played with the Galaxy, Coil played with this city. Anakin could feel his influence, small as it was.
The meeting he had attended had been about how to deal with the ABB. Supposedly a communal discussion and yet, three of the teams there were working for Coil, with the villain looking to hire Faultline too.
He had no doubt Coil already had plans on how to deal with the Empire and PRT, either destroying or taking control of them, probably the latter. Another reason not to join the organization, not that he needed it.
Refocusing on the watcher monitoring them from the building at the end of the street, he felt the mercenary’s mind, the fear, but also the malice and greed there. If allowed to remain, the man would be quite happy to eliminate them given the chance.
Anakin lifted his hand, thumb and forefingers pinched as he used the Force to squeeze the man’s throat. He had tolerated their presence enough; it was time to remind them of Coil’s failures.
Inside the clean room, one of Coil’s mercenaries collapsed to his knees, dropping the listening device he had been installing and grasping at his neck in desperation, his eyes going red as Anakin choked the life out of him. With a ‘crack’ the man’s bones collapse inwards, his body losing strength and flopping to the floor.
Standing in place, Anakin’s expressionless face reflected on the glass window, his blue eyes staring straight ahead without a hint of emotion as he managed to channel the dark side without losing himself.
With a sigh, he stopped channeling the Dark Side. He should not have done that. It was hasty and a step back, but the comparison to his former master had left him feeling aggrieved.
Once again, Anakin reminded himself he planned to let Dinah deal with Coil herself. Still, that did not mean he’d allow her to be under any risk, or that he could not give her some help.
People as a whole did not enjoy the prospect of dying. Soldiers, gang members, slaves… they all accepted the risks involved, by it from a sense of duty, belief, fear or desperation.
Mercenaries did not.
No, trained mercenaries were only interested in payment and, more importantly, being alive to enjoy said payment. They did not fight for the losing side and this death would only make things harder for the villain, eroding their trust in his power even more.
“What’re you doing?” Dinah asked, peeking at him from the sofa.
“There was an insect,” he said, lowering his hand, his eyes growing warmer as he turned towards her.
Dropping her head back down against the pillow, the girl lifted her new hand, playing around with the visual tracker to give it several commands, watching the metallic fingers making complex movements in front of her face.
Lifting his cape, Anakin unclasped the lock on the second lightsaber at his belt, grabbing the smaller white hilt and pulling it out, the weapon feeling fragile in his large hand.
“You really should have taken Lung’s place, I so wanted his rocking chair,” Dinah commented.
Upon meeting the ABB, the gang leaders had offered him the deceased dragon’s place in their hierarchy, including his house. Anakin had no interest in the location and, outside of freeing the two slaves Lung kept imprisoned; he did not care what happened to it.
When he walked inside, he could feel an echo of the suffering done there and, while small in the face of what Anakin himself had done, it would still slightly disrupt anyone meditating on the Force, forcing them to block the pain and suffering done there.
As for the Dark Side, he did not need any help with it.
“This place is acceptable,” he said, throwing the handle towards her. “Here.”
Registering the movement through the camera in her glasses, her robot arm moved with precision, snapping up and grabbing the Lightsaber from the air with ease.
Nearly catapulting herself up, the girl stared at the weapon with sparkles in her eyes. “I thought you weren’t going to make me one?” she asked, barely contained glee in her voice.
“I… have changed my mind.”
“I knew it was working! The puppy-dog eyes always work!” she almost yelled, jumping up from the sofa and standing on a poorly executed attack stance. “Although… Dad usually lasts longer than a week.”
Somehow, despite being able to feel her emotions and knowing what she was doing, Anakin felt like he had lost.
Before he said anything else, she found the button, causing the blue blade to nearly instantly ignite, a wave of displaced air flicking her hair away from her face as the light illuminated her features, the characteristic hum of the weapon filling the room.
“It is only a training saber. You will still be capable of cutting through inanimate materials, slowly, but the containment field can detect organics and will refuse to completely open, only causing minor burns.”
In truth, the containment field could be easily adjusted, allowing the weapon to function as a normal lightsaber at any moment, but he would not be telling her that anytime soon.
Deactivating the weapon, Dinah threw herself at him, her arms wrapping around his waist and squeezing, the lightsaber’s handle hitting his back.
For a full second, nearly a lifetime with his reflexes, Anakin did not react but, eventually, he forced himself to hug her back, the action feeling almost foreign to him.
I'll be honest here, I'm personally not a big fan the idea behind the change. Of course, everything's in the execution, and I'll have to see how it goes, but if you'll allow me to rant for a bit?
Personally, I've always really liked the "legends" interpretation of the force. (in some of it's variations). And, honestly, for lack of better words, I find the alternative a little un-nuanced and boring. The force has never really been a pure supernatural force storytelling-wise. It's effects, uses, and strengths have always been very connected to ideals of morality and human nature. Making it something like "there are only two parts, the part that's supposed to be there, and the evil/addictive/misinterpreted part" seems really reductive to me.
Also, I tend to see this interpretation of Lucas Cannon having a different opinion of the force, but, as far as I'm aware Lucas has stated on multiple occasions that he considers The Clone Wars cannon, and that explicitly mentions "the light side" quite a few times. Of course, that doesn't mean that they're equal, in both the original Lucas movies and in the clone wars the dark side is shown to be a terribly corrupting force; the idea of a "grey jedi" type balance being best still seems to be a letter idea. But It's not as simple as "the force" and "the cancerous part that's not supposed to be there."
Of course, you're the author, and you can write whatever you want, (and I trust it to be good based on what you've written so far) so have fun, do what you think is best, and thank you very much for the chapters!
Did he ever say Clone wars was canon? I know he worked closely with a lot of projects such as KOTOR II and others, but I was unaware he ever explicitly anything but his two trilogies as canon.
He did comment on which parts of the extended universe he liked or didn't like, but I don't remember him ever saying if it was definitely canon or not
As for the Force being nuanced, well I think this interpretation still preserves that, after all the Jedi aren't the be all end all of the Force, they're a sect that was extremely powerful and lasting, with teachings that THEY believed were the correct.
In short, Jedi were the priests/paladins of the Force, but there were other Force sensitives in the galaxy that followed a diferent path, with different interpretation and were still using the Force, not the Dark Side.
The Jedi themselves knew they didn't understand the Force fully so, there's a lot of options.
But, well, I do enjoy the other interpretations, such as the Light and Dark side, with the dark being evil and others where the Dark is simply a half of the Force, I just came to believe the Lucas interpretation would serve this fic better.
If you take it to the extreme both the 'dark' and 'light' sides of the Force are heavily corruptive and dehumanizing. Detaching all emotion and becoming some emotionless robot and embracing all emotion with no rational thoughts, only impulses. In that sense, both sides could be considered 'dark', and what's left is only the the Force.
@Ploptian that's just the thing, The Force according to Lucas ISN'T that.
The light and Dark Side interpretation, taking into consideration that they're complimentary aspects of the same whole, so that's kinda right, but Lucas Canon isn't that.
Yeah, the Jedi in the prequels preached something like that, but they were distanced from the will of the Force by a 1000 years plot of the sith AND the Jedi code isn't the Force, it's just the Jedi Code.
Yeah gonna have to disagree with the argument regarding the force here. Lucas has been quoted identifying a light and dark side, heck he even used the concept of yin and yang. A quick Google search pulled these up just as easily:
"The overriding philosophy in Episode I—and in all the Star Wars movies, for that matter—is the balance between good and evil." -George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Making of Episode I, 1999
"In each of us we to have balance these emotions, and in the Star Wars saga the most important point is balance, balance between everything." -George Lucas, Time Magazine article, 2002
"The idea of positive and negative, that there are two sides to an entity, a push and a pull, a yin and a yang, and the struggle between the two sides are issues of nature that I wanted to include in the film." -George Lucas, quoted in L. Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
"The Force has two sides - [Light and Dark]. It is not a[n inherently] malevolent or a benevolent thing. It has a bad side to it, involving hate and fear, and it has a good side, involving love, charity, fairness and hope." -George Lucas, Times Magazine, 1980
"I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it's called yin and yang, God and the devil—everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation. Right from the very beginning, that was the key issue in Star Wars." -George Lucas, Times Magazine, 2002
This was just from a single reddit thread, I didn't even delve too deep in but yeah the argument that Lucas never claimed there was a light side is simply inaccurate. Now the argument that the Sith are perverting the force for their own means, using it in a cancerous and unhealthy way I agree with, but the force itself is derived from similar cosmic concepts in Hinduism of there being a cosmic force in everyone and everything, and the light and dark side are merely interpretations of the force, nothing more, nothing less. It is the Sith and their practices that are cancerous and wrong, heck he even says it here in this quote:
"So the idea of temptation is one of the things we struggle against, and the temptation obviously is the temptation to go to the dark side. One of the themes throughout the films is that the Sith lords, when they started out thousands of years ago, embraced the dark side.
They were greedy and self-centered and they all wanted to take over, so they killed each other. Eventually, there was only one left, and that one took on an apprentice. And for thousands of years, the master would teach the apprentice, the master would die, the apprentice would then teach another apprentice, become the master, and so on.
But there could never be any more than two of them, because if there were, they would try to get rid of the leader, which is exactly what Vader was trying to do, and that's exactly what the Emperor was trying to do. The Emperor was trying to get rid of Vader, and Vader was trying to get rid of the Emperor.
And that is the antithesis of a symbiotic relationship, in which if you do that, you become cancer, and you eventually kill the host, and everything dies." -George Lucas, TIME magazine, April 26, 1999
It's the Sith f*cking with the force, not the dark side itself, the dark side is simply just an aspect of the force, as is the light, nothing more nothing less. That is why the whole force gods arc in clone wars even happened. Now Anakin trying to avoid using the Sith's perversion of the force would make sense, but it does feel unnatural to just write off the dark side as the perversion the sith themselves made (and the balance isn't even necessarily that they exist in equal amounts, just that they exist, creation with destruction, order with chaos). But hey it's your story and despite my disagreement with the interpretation of the force, still interested to see where you take it. And if you want the link to the reddit thread where they discuss this stuff and their own interpretation, here you go:
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/7sxp3s/the_balance_of_the_force_according_to_george_lucas/
Honestly, I feel like you can easily get the best of both worlds here in this story, where Anakin tries to achieve balance in the force, understand and respect the good and the bad, but struggles with the Sith teachings that are a perversion of the concept, a perversion of the force, a shortcut as you said. But him recognizing that there is a dark side, it is natural, but how he was taught to wield it was anything but. Then you get the concept of balance and the cancerous actions of the Sith together for the story. Also I agree with you on the Jedi, they weren't really following the teachings of the force, hence their collapse. They tried so hard to represent the force they lost sight of what that meant, heck I wouldn't be surprised if someone changed their very teachings in the past out of fear of the dark side, thinking the Sith as representative of what it was, even when the Sith themselves are corrupting the force to their ends, not the dark side. But hey them be just my thoughts, looking forward to more, also love the Supergirl story too, keep up the dang good work.
The Lucas cannon would help explain the sith lords penchant for longevity. If there is the force and a corruption then there is no reason that one would no longer be able to heal. In fact it would be more likely that healing would be corrupted in some way, like no longer being burdened with cellular limitations. One could make a litch...
Thanks for the Chapter.
Thanks for the chapter