Mos Eisley – One Month Later
The suns burned high over Mos Eisley's dusty skyline, their harsh light glaring off cracked stone streets and rusted holoboards advertising cheap drinks and pit fights. Wind curled between alleys, carrying the stench of hot garbage, dried blood, and exhaust fumes.
Anakin walked slowly, each footfall sending small puffs of grit swirling around his ankles. His ribs no longer burned with every breath, though the deeper tissue still ached when he twisted too fast. The burns on his arms had faded into dark, knotted scars. Pain was no longer constant – only a dull, lingering reminder.
He walked with his gaze lowered, half-focused on the sand under his boots.
His mind flickered elsewhere.
'The holocron…'
He hadn't thought about it in weeks. Not truly. His training had left no room for distraction. The drills, the forced meditations, the beatings… every hour was consumed by Maul's silent, brutal expectations.
But now, the thought returned. The holocron still lay hidden where he buried it. Far beyond the outskirts of Mos Eisley, inside the cave. Part of him itched to go. To hold it again. To feel its cold power snake through his mind.
But Maul would notice if he left now. Even if he survived the trip through raider lands alone, Maul's questions would be endless. The holocron would remain his secret. No matter how powerful Sidious was, how generous he was… Anakin wanted something of his own.
The world is cruel. He had learned that early. Sidious showed him power. Maul showed him fear. Both taught him pain. The holocron was different. Its promises were cold and empty, but they belonged to him alone.
It was childish.
But he was still a child, after all.
His comlink buzzed at his hip.
He flicked it open without stopping. Maul's voice crackled through in a flat, cold command.
"Command tower. Now."
He clipped it back onto his belt and changed direction without hesitation. The slave crowds parted around him instinctively, eyes lowered. None wanted to risk his attention.
Command Tower
The outer halls reeked of sweat and rotting meat. As Anakin climbed the chipped durasteel steps, he passed rows of bodies hanging from rusted hooks bolted into the stone walls.
Some were stripped naked, their flesh blackened under the sun and bloated with decay. Others wore burned fragments of mercenary armor, dried blood crusted around blaster wounds. A few had ropes around their necks, their faces twisted into purple masks, tongues swollen and stiff.
They had been there since the battle.
Anakin didn't care. They were dead. Useless. Perhaps he had killed them himself. It didn't matter. Dead things held no meaning.
He stepped over a dried trail of blood and entered the private command room.
Maul stood before the flickering holotable, its faint red glow casting long shadows across the cracked tiles. He did not look up as Anakin entered. His yellow eyes remained fixed on the projection.
"Sit," Maul ordered.
Anakin obeyed silently, folding his legs beneath him on the cold stone. His eyes flicked up to the holomap hovering above the emitter.
It showed Tatooine's northern territories. Outposts, fortresses, tribute routes, slave markets. Dozens of markers pulsed across the grid. Some glowed a steady red. Others flickered erratically. Several remained dark.
"What is it ?" Anakin asked.
Maul's gaze swept across the scattered glyphs.
"After her defeat here," he said, voice flat, "Gardulla's power fractured."
He gestured to a cluster of dimmed markers ringing Mos Eisley.
"Her forces saw weakness. Some of her captains seized remote outposts for themselves. Others abandoned her entirely – forming their own gangs or pledging to rival syndicates. Tribute routes are raided by her own former men. Convoys hijacked. Fortress garrisons refusing her orders."
He flicked to a southern sector overlay, showing disrupted supply lines.
"She retains control of her core holdings near her palace and the main slave pits.."
Maul paused, jaw tightening faintly.
"But beyond that… she holds nothing securely. Her credit lines are drained. Offworld contractors withdrew. What remains here is fractured, opportunistic… and afraid."
Anakin watched the flickering glyphs with narrowed eyes. His heart pounded with bitter, silent hunger.
Finally he spoke, voice low.
"She's weak now. Why can't I just kill her directly?"
Maul's gaze shifted down to him, unblinking.
"Because that is not your place," he said, his voice edged with quiet contempt. "Lord Sidious has not ordered her death. She remains useful… for now."
Anakin lowered his eyes quickly, hiding the flicker of rage twisting in his chest. The thought of her surviving – sitting fat and safe in her fortress while her men tore each other apart – burned like acid down his throat.
He wanted her dead. Wanted to watch her choke on her own mucus as his saber burned through her bloated flesh. Wanted to see her eyes roll back in terror as her life bled out into the sand.
He clenched his fists until the knuckles ached.
As he calmed his breathing, Anakin asked quietly, without lifting his gaze:
"So… what does it have to do with us?"
Maul turned back to the projection, flicking off the emitter with a sharp gesture. Darkness fell over the room, broken only by the faint hum of distant generators.
"They will be your lesson," Maul said flatly. "Prepare yourself."
Anakin rose without a word.
As he walked back into the dim corridor lined with cooling corpses, his steps echoed softly against the stone. The taste of blood and metal lingered on his tongue, and behind his quiet focus burned a cold, unwavering hatred.
Dawn broke grey over the outer dunes, casting long shadows across the scattered ruins of a half-collapsed spice processing station. Wind howled through broken durasteel beams and flapped torn tarpaulins tethered to rusted scaffolds.
Anakin stood in silence atop a sand-swept cargo sled, his eyes half-lidded in fatigue. The night had been spent marching across dunes behind Maul's silent form, the only sounds the rasp of wind and the crunch of their boots on fractured stone.
Before them, the ruins crawled with life.
Dozens of mercenaries moved among the shattered walkways – Nikto riflemen, Rodian scouts, a squad of human raiders with makeshift blaster carbines and durasteel chestplates scrounged from old salvage. They were dirty, loud, disorganized, their discipline eroded by weeks of infighting and dwindling spice rations.
Maul spoke without looking back.
"Your task today is simple."
Anakin's fingers twitched against his saber hilt. Sweat gathered at the nape of his neck under the thin cloak.
"Kill them?" he asked quietly.
Maul turned, his yellow eyes burning cold under the rising sun.
"No," he said softly. "Defeat them."
Anakin's brow furrowed.
"Break them without ending them," Maul continued, his voice low and edged with contempt. "Leave them crippled, maimed, gasping for life. Their bodies ruined, but their minds aware enough to feel it. Precision. Discipline. Control."
He stepped aside, gesturing with one clawed hand toward the encampment below.
"If you cannot master your rage, if you kill them, I will make you suffer."
Anakin swallowed, the taste of bile rising in his throat. The prospect of holding back burned like rot under his ribs.
Maul ignited his saber with a low hiss, its crimson glow painting his tattooed face in stark shadows.
"Begin."
Anakin dropped from the sled in a silent blur, the Force coiling around his limbs. His boots slammed into cracked stone. Dust plumed outward. Three Rodian sentries turned, mouths opening in alarm.
He moved before they could scream.
His saber burned through the first one's blaster carbine, severing the barrel. In the same motion he kicked the Rodian's knee sideways with bone-snapping force, dropping him to the sand with a shrill wail. As the second turned to run, Anakin thrust out his free hand. The Force gripped the alien's throat, slamming him face-first into a steel support strut. Blood sprayed from a shattered nose. The third sentry raised his rifle, but Anakin ducked beneath the clumsy swing and drove his fist into the Rodian's ribs with augmented power. Wet cracks echoed as bone splintered into punctured organs.
Anakin pulled his fist back, slick with blood. The Rodian fell to his knees, coughing red foam across the sand.
'Don't kill them… control…'
He exhaled, trembling.
A vibroaxe whistled through the air behind him. Anakin twisted aside, the blade grazing his cloak. He flicked his saber in a tight arc, severing the Nikto raider's left arm at the elbow. The cauterised stump smoked as the alien screamed, dropping to his knees with the axe still clutched in his remaining hand. Without thinking, Anakin raised his saber to finish him—
Agony exploded across his side as Maul's saber slammed into his ribs, cutting a shallow but searing line of burned flesh. Anakin staggered forward, gasping. The Nikto collapsed at his feet, wailing in agony.
"Control, boy!" Maul snarled from behind him, his voice like iron scraping bone. "You strike without thought. Restraint. Precision."
Anakin clenched his teeth against the pain, tears gathering in his eyes. His ribs burned with pain. He drew the Force into his chest in a ragged breath, ignoring the trembling in his arms.
Another group of mercenaries rounded the shattered archway ahead – four humans, two Nikto, shouting as they raised their weapons.
Anakin moved into them like a storm.
He darted forward, blade flashing in tight arcs. The first human lost his right arm at the bicep; blood sprayed across broken durasteel plating as he fell screaming. Anakin spun, pivoting on burned feet, and slashed the next across both knees, dropping him in a wailing collapse onto broken glass. The third brought up a vibroblade in a wide overhead chop. Anakin deflected it with his saber, then stepped forward and drove his knee into the man's groin with enough force to rupture organs. The human's scream choked off as he folded to the ground, vomiting blood.
The last Nikto fired a plasma bolt. Anakin raised his small hand, feeling power coil through his chest and arm. The bolt halted midair with a sharp crackle, energy fizzing into red lightning before vanishing into his palm. The Nikto froze, eyes wide with horror.
Anakin stepped forward unsteadily. His burned thigh throbbed with every movement. He reached out with the Force.
The Nikto's throat constricted. He clawed at his neck, gasping in ragged, bubbling wheezes as his airway closed. Terror radiated from him in frantic waves.
Anakin felt it – that life spark, flickering and frantic. Rage burned hot in his chest. He clenched tighter with the Force, watching the alien's eyes roll back as his knees buckled.
'Stop,' a faint thought whispered inside him. 'Don't kill him. Control it.'
But his rage was a storm, wild and blinding. The Nikto's life flickered toward extinction, his skin darkening as blood flow slowed.
A sudden boot slammed into Anakin's burned thigh.
He screamed, falling sideways into the blood-slick dust. Pain erupted through him, searing white and hot, shattering his focus. The Force choke snapped away. The Nikto collapsed on his hands and knees, coughing and vomiting bile onto the stone.
Maul stood over Anakin, saber humming with cold menace.
"Pathetic," Maul snarled. "You think this is control?"
Anakin gasped, tears streaking grime down his cheeks. His thigh burned with every heartbeat, pain blotting out everything else.
Maul flicked his wrist. The Force seized Anakin's chest, lifting him half a meter into the air. The boy dangled limp, choking on his own ragged breath.
"Control is not choking a half-dead raider," Maul hissed, his yellow eyes narrowed to slits. "Control is holding back your hate when you want to kill. It is wielding power like a blade… not swinging it like a club."
He released Anakin. The boy crashed to the stone, ribs jarring painfully against his heart. He coughed, spitting blood onto the ground.
Maul turned away, cloak sweeping the dust.
"Again," he ordered, striding forward into the next cluster of gang fighters.
His saber ignited with a crackling snarl. Red plasma swept out in tight arcs, severing weapons and limbs. Hands fell from wrists, ankles from calves. Screams rose from broken bodies as Maul moved among them, each cut deliberate – disabling, never fatal.
Anakin forced himself to stand. His burned thigh trembled, blood soaking into his torn boot. Pain blurred his vision. But under it, he felt the Force – cold, sharp, hungry.
A wounded human raider crawled across the stone, dragging himself by shattered arms. Anakin reached out with the Force. The man froze mid-crawl, eyes bulging in terror.
Anakin clenched his fist. The life ripped free in a rush of searing warmth. The man's skin shriveled, collapsing into dry parchment over bone. Strength flooded Anakin's limbs, knitting torn fibers, numbing the worst of the pain.
But his hand shook with the effort. He had pulled too much, too fast. His heart skipped with dizziness. The world blurred, tilting sideways before he forced himself to steady.
He moved forward. Two Rodian scouts raised carbines. Anakin flicked his wrist, ripping the weapons from their hands with the Force. They scrambled back in terror, hands raised.
"Don't…" one choked out. "Please…"
Anakin raised his saber. His thumb hovered over the ignition stud, trembling. Rage clouded his thoughts – the desire to cut them down, to feel their blood mist his face. But Maul's words twisted through the haze:
'Wield your power like a blade. Not a club.'
He lowered his hand. Instead, he reached out with the Force, gripping both Rodians by their shoulders. He shoved them backwards into the stone wall. Their skulls cracked against the sandstone, leaving them limp but breathing.
Behind him, Maul watched in silence. His saber retracted with a hiss.
Anakin turned, chest heaving. Blood dripped from his burned thigh, pattering softly onto the floor.
"I… controlled my power," he rasped, voice trembling with pain and exhaustion.
Maul approached, boots crunching over spent power cells and broken blasters. His yellow eyes bored into Anakin's with silent contempt.
"Barely," he said flatly.
His saber ignited in a flash of red plasma, slamming forward into Anakin's thigh – the same wound as before. Pain exploded through him. His scream rang off the stone walls, cutting into the chorus of distant sobs and moans.
Anakin crumpled, clutching his leg as blood gushed down his shin. Tears blurred his vision until Maul's silhouette loomed above him once more.
"Control," Maul snarled, voice vibrating with cold fury. "Control is not a single choice, boy. It is every choice. Every strike. Every breath. Until you wield yourself as perfectly as you wield your saber… you are nothing."
He deactivated his blade and turned away, cloak whispering over shattered stone.
"Get up," he ordered, voice flat and final.
Anakin tried. His burned thigh gave out instantly, sending him crashing onto his side. Blood soaked the dust under him as he gasped, vision pulsing red-black-red with each ragged heartbeat.
Maul didn't look back as he strode away into the smoldering halls.
"Again."
Anakin forced his burned leg to move. Sparks of agony shot up his thigh with each twitch, but he clenched his teeth and pushed himself upright. Blood dripped down his shin, darkening the dusty stone beneath him.
He limped forward, following Maul's shadow into the next chamber.
Smoke curled from overturned braziers, filling the room with a choking haze. Scattered before him crouched a dozen armed raiders – Rodians, humans, Nikto – scavenged armor plates strapped over ragged tunics. Their eyes widened as they saw the small, bloodied boy approach, saber clutched loosely in his shaking hand.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then a blaster bolt cracked from the darkness. It slammed into Anakin's left side, punching through burned fabric and searing into him. He screamed, dropping to one knee as white-hot pain tore through his chest. His vision pulsed red and black. His saber fell from numb fingers, clattering onto stone.
He gasped raggedly, tasting blood on his tongue. The smell of scorched flesh filled his nostrils. Another bolt whined past his head, singeing a lock of hair as it exploded against the wall behind him.
Somewhere within the haze of agony, his eyes snapped open.
Sith yellow burned through the smoke.
He reached out with the Force, driven by pain, fear, and hate. It roared through his veins like burning ice, drowning the pain under cold, seething hunger.
He felt life flickering before him – the Nikto gunner reloading his carbine, the Rodian scout creeping sideways with vibroblade in hand, the human raider fumbling for a thermal detonator.
He clenched his fist.
The Force rippled outward. The Nikto screamed as his chest convulsed inward, lungs collapsing as moisture was ripped from his flesh. The Rodian dropped his blade, clutching his throat as his eyes sank into their sockets. The human convulsed violently, veins bulging black under ashen skin.
Anakin inhaled sharply. Warmth flooded his torn muscles. The blaster wound in his ribs closed with a painful twitch. His thigh wound stopped bleeding, flesh knitting together in ragged, knotted scars. He staggered upright, swaying slightly as he looked around.
They were alive… barely.
The Nikto lay gasping in shallow, rattling wheezes. The Rodian's skin clung to bone, every breath a painful rasp. The human's eyes stared blankly, brain cooked under sunken skin, but his heart still flickered weakly in the Force.
Anakin's vision flickered. For a moment, he felt only savage triumph. They lived. He had controlled it. Hadn't he…?
A sudden, searing pain tore across his back. He cried out, stumbling forward as Maul's saber retracted from where it had struck.
Maul stood over him, gaze hard and cold.
"That is not control," Maul said flatly. "You drained too much. They are half-dead husks, unable to scream or obey. Leave them crippled, but conscious."
He gestured at the Nikto raider slumped against the wall. The alien wheezed through collapsed lungs, eyes unfocused, body limp and twitching.
"When you drain, take only what you need," Maul continued. "Leave them alive. Able to scream. Able to obey. That is control. That is power."
He grabbed Anakin by the back of his tunic and hauled him roughly to his feet. Pain shot through Anakin's healing thigh and ribs, but he kept his face blank, eyes locked on the next target – a human raider clutching his blaster with trembling hands, staring at him in horror.
"Again," Maul ordered, releasing him with a shove.
Anakin stumbled forward but caught himself. He forced his breathing steady, ignoring the raw ache in his chest. He raised his hand, channeling the Force slowly this time. The human convulsed, choking as life drained from him in thin pulses. Anakin felt his own injuries tighten and knit under the flow, pain fading to a dull ache. The human sagged to his knees, alive but barely conscious, eyes wide with terror.
Anakin lowered his hand, sweat dripping down his face. His heart pounded with adrenaline and cold rage, but this time, his vision remained clear.
Maul nodded once.
"Better," he said without praise in his tone. "Do it again."
He turned away, cloak snapping behind him as he moved deeper into the ruined corridor to clear the next room.
Anakin wiped blood from his mouth, straightened, and stepped forward. Without the life force he stole, his legs would have failed him completely
Another raider crawled across the scorched floor ahead, dragging himself by one arm, the other burned to blackened bone. Anakin approached, feeling the trembling fear radiating off him through the Force. His own thigh still burned where Maul's saber had pierced it, and each breath sent knives into his ribs.
He raised his hand again, fingers splayed. The Force coiled within him, sharp and hungry. He closed his eyes briefly, centering his focus like Maul had drilled into him.
'Only what is needed,' he thought.
He drew in the life of the Nikto in measured pulls. The alien gasped, convulsing under his grip, but did not collapse fully. Warmth spread through Anakin's chest as his broken rib knit with a painful pop. His thigh muscles tightened, stabilizing his stance.
But as the pain faded, something inside him snarled for more. His fingers tightened. The Nikto's breathing faltered, eyes rolling back as his skin greyed.
"Enough."
Maul's voice cut through the haze. Anakin forced himself to stop. He opened his eyes. The Nikto lay gasping, chest heaving weakly, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. Alive. Barely.
Anakin released a shaky breath, his vision clearing. His chest no longer burned with each inhalation. He turned to Maul, waiting.
Maul regarded him coldly.
"You take too long," he said. "If you were under fire, you would be dead before finishing. Faster. More precise."
He gestured down the corridor where two more raiders cowered behind a collapsed durasteel beam. One – a Rodian – clutched a blaster pistol in trembling hands. The other, a human, held a vibroblade, eyes wide with panic.
"Finish them," Maul ordered, his voice flat.
Anakin's heart pounded against his ribs. He stepped forward, boots crunching over shattered stone and discarded cartridge cells. Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging them as he raised his saber in his right hand, feeling its comforting weight. His left hand stretched out toward the Rodian.
This time, he moved faster.
The Rodian shrieked as his blaster flew from his grip, yanked sideways by an invisible force. Anakin lunged, his saber blade cutting down across the alien's chest in a shallow slash, searing armor and flesh but not deep enough to kill.
The human charged with a desperate yell, vibroblade raised high. Anakin twisted sideways, pain flaring through his thigh, and slammed his small fist into the man's stomach. He reached out with the Force as he struck, shoving the human back against the stone wall with bone-jarring impact. The blade clattered from his grip.
Anakin raised his hand, drawing a thin thread of life from the human. Enough to ease the burning in his thigh, to tighten the raw muscle torn by Maul's earlier punishment. The human sagged to the ground, coughing blood but still conscious, eyes rolling in terror.
Anakin staggered back, chest heaving, saber humming low at his side. His vision flickered with exhaustion but did not blur out completely.
He turned to Maul. The Zabrak's yellow eyes burned with scrutiny.
Maul said nothing for a long moment. Then:
"Better," he repeated, voice hard as durasteel. "But your strikes are sloppy. Your draining remains greedy. You survived today. Next time… your mistakes will cost you limbs."
He turned away and began walking toward the next chamber, saber igniting with a snarling hiss as he advanced into deeper shadows.
"Move, boy," he snapped over his shoulder. "Your lesson is not finished."
Anakin swallowed the bile rising in his throat. His legs trembled with strain, blood dripping from half-healed wounds.
But he followed.