“This is where we part ways,” Obi-wan said at the entrance of the shuttle, “Despite my being cleared of any compulsions by now, it seems the Council still doesn’t wish for us to speak any more than strictly necessary. When we arrive at the Jedi temple, we will sort this mess out. As Master and Padawan.”

  “Yes… Master,” Anakin said, the word feeling so strange on his lips now.

  “Very well. I will see you on Coruscant then.”

  Obi-wan left and Anakin was flanked by two unfamiliar stony faced Jedi and ushered into the interior of the shuttle.

  The shuttle blasted off from the surface of the planet as Anakin idly looked out of the window. They went into orbit and he was led into the hallway of a much larger ship.

  “Put these on,” a gruff man said as he came forward and presented Anakin with an open set of bulky stun cuffs that were rigid with the connection between the two ends as the man held them out. Anakin stared at them.

  “Do I have to?” he asked, “It just seems…”

  “Put them on, dark side user,” the Jedi to Anakin’s right said, “It’s for all of our safety. It’ll shock you if it detects you using your powers to escape. Don’t use them and you’ll be fine.”

  “I’m on a ship, where would I even go?” Anakin protested.

  “Who knows what you dark siders think. Just put them on,” the Jedi said rudely before gesturing to the cuffs and letting his other hand drift over to his hip where his lightsaber dangled.

  “...Fine.”

  Anakin put out his arms and let himself be cuffed and led through the ship and put in a bare cell.

  After a few minutes, the ship thrummed before shuddering slightly as they entered hyperspace.

  Anakin lay down on the bare cot and adjusted the uncomfortable weight of the stun cuffs holding his arms in front of him as he lay on his back. He did his best to sleep, something that took him an excruciatingly long time to finally drift off with the uncomfortable cuffs digging into his wrists and forcing him to sleep in a strange position on the cot.

  Anakin woke up sometime later and groaned as he flexed his arms a few times to get the blood flowing through them before awkwardly maneuvering to go to the bathroom in the toilet attached to the nearby wall of the cell. He really hoped the Republic hadn’t put a camera in here.

  “So, what’s the plan, friend?”

  Anakin flinched as Draeth was suddenly sitting there staring at him from his cot just as Anakin just finished his business.

  “You scared me…” Anakin said, “Plan? What do you mean?”

  “What? You’re not actually planning on going back are you? That’s a terrible idea. Even in the best case you’d be forgiven by the Jedi and thrown right back into sheer boredom in their temple. That’s not what you want. And that’s the best case, the worst is they kill you for being a dark side user. And while the Jedi Council is usually pretty benevolent you know how they act when it comes to the dark side… I mean look at how those Jedi in the shuttle treated you, even when the Council probably hasn’t even confirmed if you’ve actually used the dark side or not yet. No, no. We got to get you out of here as soon as possible.”

  “How?” Anakin demanded and raised his stun cuffs, “I’m trapped here! Even if I got out of this cell, then we’re in hyperspace. I have nowhere to run to.”

  “Hey now, I think you’re underestimating yourself. If you do it right, then you could seize control of the ship and fly it wherever you want to. The Republic will be after it of course, but you can just dump it somewhere in the outer rim and take another ship that’s less conspicuous to escape back to the CIS. I’m sure that Dooku has his own little plan to get free, and the CIS has hidden itself for this long from the Republic and Jedi. If you get to them then you’re probably safe.”

  “That could work… Wait, no. That doesn’t work. How could I manage to do that? This is a Republic Hammerhead class battle cruiser. The crew complement is over three hundred usually as well as those two full Jedi that came up with us. I’d be crushed the second I left this cell. Not to mention all the defensive anti-boarding measures. Sealing doors to block my way, camera coverage to show them where I am wherever on the ship I go… And who knows what else. It’s hopeless. And that’s even if I can escape this cell.”

  “Yes, as you are now you can’t escape,” Draeth corrected, “Now you’re not going to like this next part. But just hear me out first. You’re going to have to draw on the dark side as much as you can. That newest upgrade to adapt to damage? You trigger another fall to the dark side, and we just wait long enough to give us enough energy to give you that. Then all you have to do is run around and survive for a bit until you become immune to their blasters and then lightsabers. It’s perfect, you’ll be unstoppable. Even the shock cuffs will stop working as your body adapts to them.”

  “No! I won’t do that again. What if I lose control? I can’t…”

  “Would you rather die?” Draeth said to cut him off, “Because that’s where things are trending right now with how the Council is acting. Would you rather go crazy in the Jedi temple around the Padawans when they inevitably try to kill you?”

  Anakin paled and shook his head. No, even if the Jedi grandmasters could stop him he still might be able to hurt a few people in the temple in the worst case. But the people here didn’t deserve getting hurt either…

  “I’ll be going crazy, what if I can’t pull myself back this time?” Anakin asked in concern, “It was close last time, and it took three whole months in Bacta to recover afterwards…”

  “Hey, it’s all good,” Draeth said, “I’ve got a plan. So here’s how it’s going to go…”

  — — —

  “Master Jedi! The shocks, they’re not working! It’s…”

  “I can feel it,” the Jedi master said tensely. Waves of the dark side of the Force blasted out from the Chosen One’s cell in thick billowing clouds. He grimaced as he grabbed his lightsaber from his belt and activated the plasma blade. He dashed forward and let the purpose and calmness of the Force guide him forward to stand in front of the cell of the Chosen One.

  The boy inside was howling and screaming like an enraged animal, and the Jedi master was disturbed as he saw the boy standing at the door of the cell and scratching at the surface of the slightly transparent blue forcefield holding him inside of his cell with his bare hands. The boy’s eyes were bright yellow and he was twitching from the electric shocks pulsing through his body through the stun cuffs even as he pounded their metal frames on the forcefield with all of his might.

  The Jedi master grimly raised his lightsaber as his colleague and fellow master arrived next to him with his own lightsaber activated.

  The dark side of the Force pulsed through the boy like nothing that he had ever seen before, letting the boy continue his enraged assault on the shield with his fists even as the cuffs remained fully activated and sending arcs of electricity running down the boy’s body.

  The boy’s hands were still within the bounds of the cuffs, but the Jedi master could see the unnatural strength of the Dark side pulsing through the boy’s limbs was increasing his strength dramatically and making the metal of the stun cuffs to strain and squeal.

  The strength of the Chosen One’s blows grew ever more frantic and strong as the Dark side pulsing through him kept building larger and larger the more time passed. The Jedi master exchanged an uncertain glance with his colleague. They could still easily handle the boy… For now. But his strength was still growing even as they waited outside of the cell.

  The boy kept pounding on the shield keeping him contained and started yelling incoherently at them both, spittle and drool spilling from his lips as his bright yellow eyes remained fixed on them and filled with animalistic hate.

  The shield flickered and both of the Jedi immediately raised their lightsabers and prepared for combat.

  The shield flickered again. Two more times, three, as the boy’s blows began to grow so powerful that the shield started to fail on the stronger hits. The boy was about to escape…

  But suddenly with an agonized scream, the boy collapsed to the ground and started spasming and twitching on the floor. All of the cloying clouds of the Dark side of the Force filling the ship vanished in an instant as the boy’s eyes closed and his body twitched one more time before he started breathing deeply. Asleep.

  The two Jedi looked at each other incredulously before looking back at the sleeping boy curled up on the floor just on the other side of the containment shield in his cell.

  — — —

  Anakin woke up and immediately felt the madness of the Dark pressing on him, the swelling rage telling to thrash and scream to destroy the indescribable thing that was making him feel this way. But he managed to wrench hard in his mind and pull on his mind shield. The rising tide of the dark rose and rose and rose even as Anakin fought it… Until it suddenly slowed. Then crawled to a stop and then eventually started receding and fading away again.

  And then twenty minutes later, it was gone, the last remnant of its corruptive whispers were fully purged from Anakin’s mind.

  He regained awareness of his body and felt his sweat covered body and sore muscles. Not anything like the bone deep exhaustion on Tatooine though. More like how he might feel after a hard training session at the Jedi temple. Tired, but not extremely so.

  Anakin opened his mouth to say something before closing it as he sat up. Oh right, Draeth would be unconscious considering Anakin could feel the power within him. His new ability to adapt to damage.

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  He looked around and didn’t see anyone else around at the moment outside of his cell. He stood to his feet and went over to the containment shield and raised his warped stun cuffs and started pounding the durasteel on the shield again. He tensed his body and closed his eyes in preparation for what he was sure would come. Sure enough, he groaned and fell to the floor spasming as the cuffs sent electricity pulsing through his body. After a full second of twitching on the ground, the current stopped.

  Anakin stood up and kept pounding on the shield. He was shocked again, and this time he stumbled and collapsed forward to lean against the shield, struggling to stand as the electricity pulsed through him. He had some control over himself even if he could only just barely stand as his muscles involuntarily twitched.

  The current coursing into him and he fell to the floor again, even as he felt his ability at work more and more as the electricity kept increasing as Anakin stood up over and over again as soon as he regained control over himself again.

  Then at some point… The cuff’s couldn’t give anymore as Anakin stood there in place, gritting his teeth and panting from the pain. He stood there unmoving for a few minutes until the electricity coming from the cuffs stopped affecting him at all anymore, feeling like nothing more than a wave of pleasant warmth running over his skin.

  His muscles were even more sore than before, and his body still twitched involuntarily in small shivers. Muscles trembling from the trauma of so long of being shocked by the cuffs.

  Anakin calmed himself and drew on the light side of the Force to strengthen himself. He reached up his hands in the still sparking cuffs and pressed them forward to touch the containment shield. The spark of electricity from the cuffs jumped across the gap and went into the shield and overloaded it and caused it to shatter in a bright flash of a light and an electric warble and a sound like a piece of paper being ripped in half.

  The shocks from the cuff stopped just an instant too late as Anakin stepped out of his cell. He felt something approaching at high speed from the left hallway, so he turned to the right and started running while reinforcing his body with the Force as best as he could to flee.

  A woman in a Republic navy military uniform was at the end of the ship hallway as Anakin rounded the corner, not looking behind him as he felt what must be one of the Jedi masters rapidly closing in on him.

  Anakin sank deeper into the light side of the Force as he charged the woman full speed just as a blaring alarm sounded out across the entire ship and flashing red lights started flashing in the hallways.

  The woman’s eyes widened and she fumbled at her side and drew her blaster and pointed it at Anakin as he charged at her. She started shouting him. C’mon… C’mon… He didn’t hesitate and kept charging her full speed, completely ignoring her shouting. After another moment’s hesitation, the woman’s gaze hardened and she pulled the trigger on her blaster and fired at him.

  Anakin raised his durasteel cuffs and the blaster bolt seared away the top portion of the locking mechanism keeping the two cufflinks connected across his arms. The other half of the bolt sailed past directly towards Anakin’s face. His dispersion ability lanced into it and dispersed the blaster bold just before it washed over his head. Anakin swore and closed his eyes at the heat and light, and his face get slightly singed as he stumbled slightly in his charge.

  His body was warm. The stun cuffs were firing at full power again, but it felt like nothing more than a warm tingle to him now after his body had already adapted to the electricity.

  But he recovered in a split second and kept charging as he heard the woman in front of him gasping. He opened his eyes to only to see her fire at him again, only at his chest this time, a desperate look in her eyes.

  Anakin only managed to twist his cuffs so a small portion of the bolt ate into them. The rest washed over his chest and burned him again, although he could feel that it was even less than the first blast to his face.

  The woman fired at him three more times before he reached her. The last blast finally managed to be the last straw for the battered stun cuffs and they sprung open and fell to the ground.

  Anakin was barely a few steps from the woman with his arms extended forward towards her. She backpedaled and screamed as she fired one more time as Anakin leapt forward.

  The blaster bolt landed directly on his neck, his dispersion ability only working at half power to dissolve it. Since Anakin had already adapted to the heat, he just tanked the weakened blaster bolt while taking barely any damage. It seemed that the dispersion ability only worked on things it considered ‘threats’ to him, so now that his heat resistance had increased it activated less strongly.

  The woman closed her eyes and cringed backwards as Anakin’s outstretched arms reached out towards her…

  But then his arms moved down and gripped around the blaster she was holding. He ran right past her and ripped the pistol right from her hand. She gasped and fell to the ground as he wrenched her arm to the side at high speed as he ran past.

  Anakin felt the Jedi Master behind him barely a few seconds away from catching up with him with their force enhanced running. The Jedi Master had mastered their Force enhanced acceleration far better than Anakin had.

  Anakin took the blaster and held it out and turned it on himself even as he ran. He pulled the trigger and shot himself in the chest as quickly as he could while he kept running. His dispersion ability lessened its power more and more as the quick blaster bolts kept leaving him with small burns and his heat resistance increased more and more.

  By the time the Jedi Master caught up with Anakin and was only just behind him, the blaster bolts were hitting Anakin’s raw skin and completely splashing over his skin harmlessly.

  He had adapted to the raw plasma of the blaster bolts hitting his skin without using his dispersion ability at all. This ability really was overpowered. Now it was time to test just how overpowered it really was. Because the heat that a fully powered lightsaber could produce was massively above what any normal blaster could.

  Anakin turned around to see the Jedi master dashing towards him with a lightsaber active and held down towards the floor. The man’s expression was fixed in grim determination as the tip of his lightsaber sank into the floor slightly and left a glowing trail behind him as he ran towards Anakin.

  He came to a stop just before he would have reached Anakin, and after a few steps Anakin stopped as well. The blaring alarm and flashing red lights continued around them as they stood there in a standoff. Anakin with his blaster pistol and the Jedi master with his lightsaber that he had raised into a fighting stance.

  “Stand down,” the Jedi master said grimly, “You are truly corrupted by the dark side. If there is a chance that you could escape back into the galaxy to cause chaos, then I must strike you down where you stand.”

  “Do I feel corrupted to you?”

  “I don’t know what foul technique you’re using right now to hide it. But I’ve felt it for myself. Be lucky that the Council’s orders were extremely specific, or I would not be offering you this chance to return to your cell.”

  Anakin saw the woman from before fleeing around the corner.

  Going back to that cell would probably be as good as giving up and dying at this point. He’d already gone too far in drawing on the Dark side before.

  He raised his blaster and fired on the Jedi master. The man expertly blocked the bolt and sent in reflecting back at Anakin where it hit him and splashed on his skin without doing anything. The Jedi master’s eyebrows furrowed as he dashed forward and slashed out with his lightsaber diagonally to slice Anakin from shoulder to hip.

  Anakin frantically launched himself backwards, empowered as much as he could with the Force. But it wasn’t enough. A painful line of heat carved across his chest, only ending at his pelvis just above his hip.

  He grimaced, and lurched to the side as the Jedi master flicked his lightsaber upwards to drag the blade up the right side of Anakin’s body, scorching his whole torso. Only Anakin’s last second lurch managed to pull his shoulder back enough that the end of the lightsaber just missed it and let Anakin keep his arm.

  The lightsaber was now just above the level of Anakin’s head, and slashed down diagonally again to remove his head from his shoulders. Anakin ducked, the Force thrumming through him, and still felt the blade scorch and blacken the skin on his forehead and nose as it passed just over his face as he leaned his head back.

  The Jedi master was frowning now, confused about something as Anakin raised the blaster and fired it again.

  The Jedi master leapt a half step back and blocked the blaster bolt and reflected it back at Anakin again. The bolt hit his left collarbone and did nothing.

  “What Dark Force sorcery is this?” the Jedi master said in disbelief as Anakin stood there panting heavily. Not only from his abrupt and frantic motions to save himself, but his dispersion ability that had fired to attempt to disrupt the lightsaber every time it passed close to him and tired him out.

  Anakin didn’t answer and used the brief pause in the battle to recollect himself and assess his wounds. His whole body was covered in light and some not so light burns from where the Jedi master’s lightsaber had passed over him.

  Realizing that Anakin was stalling by not answering, the Master darted forward again. Anakin again barely dodged the Jedi’s strikes by the skin of his teeth and pushing his body and usage of the Force to its absolute maximum to dodge. But this time the Master didn’t let up and after the first combination of strikes let out a second just as quickly.

  By the seventh strike, Anakin was boxed in, with a wall of the hallway to his left now that he’d been expertly maneuvered towards. The Jedi master boxing him in and nearly ready to go in for the kill by the determined expression on the man’s face.

  Anakin threw the whole pistol at the Jedi Master’s face instead of blasting him, interrupting the man’s flow of battle as he used his lightsaber to slice the thrown blaster in two pieces before using the Force to send both of them splitting off to the sides so they wouldn’t hit him.

  But the desperate maneuver only gave Anakin a single extra moment before the Jedi master continued his assault and after two more frantically dodged blows from Anakin, finished his sequence. Anakin dodged directly into the metal wall to his side, and the Jedi master leapt on the mistake and plunged his lightsaber directly into Anakin’s gut, with his arms extended forward as if thrusting him with a spear to pin him to the wall behind.

  The Master blinked and looked at the point where his blade sank into Anakin’s stomach.

  “What.”

  Anakin’s arms reached out and he wrapped both hands around the lightsaber that had sunk five centimeters into his body before stopping. The Jedi master was so surprised by the action, that he didn’t manage to prevent Anakin from ripping the weapon from his hands and pulling it towards himself. While pulling inwards, Anakin adjusted his grip on the weapon and turned it upright, inadvertently carving a searing line of white hot pain upwards from the wound on his stomach up his torso and past his collarbone.

  He held the lightsaber at the ready as the Jedi master blinked at him before dashing back with his now empty hands. The other man’s face went grim.

  “I suppose we will go down together then,” he said before looking up at the ceiling, “Do it now!”

  There was a hiss from the ceiling above and Anakin heard heavy clunks and clangs of what felt like blast doors closing shut all over the ship. Anakin coughed as he held the lightsaber crackling in his hands and waved it slightly to ward off the Jedi who still looked like he wanted to attack Anakin even barehanded. With their vast difference in skill maybe he’d even win…

  But the air was growing hard to breathe as the invisible gas filled the hallway and made Anakin’s lungs heavy. Anakin fell to his knees and took heaving breaths even as the Jedi master opposite of him collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

  Anakin took a few more breaths before keeling over, luckily remembering to deactivate the lightsaber as he fell. He curled up on the ground and started taking short and shallow breaths as the air seemed to get thinner and thinner around him no matter how fast he heaved his lungs to take in more air.

  They were suffocating him by drawing the air out of the whole section of the ship, even with the Jedi master inside it with him…

  He felt his adaptation working even as he lay there, but it wasn’t quite fast enough. He breathed as fast as he could, but his head swam and the lack of oxygen made him fall unconscious in moments.

  — — —

  “What should we do, master Jedi? The… The prisoner has gone still. It’s been nearly an hour now. Surely we can’t leave the bodies of him and your fellow master Jedi in there for the rest of the journey?”

  “That’s exactly what we will do, Captain. Whatever dark powers the boy had, they were formidable and unexplainable. I don’t want anyone going near the body at all, we don’t know if there’s some unseen risk if we approach it. How long until we reach Coruscant?”

  “About two days, Master Jedi.”

  “Very well. Two days then. My fellow Jedi’s body will be dealt with honors then on Coruscant at that time.”

  “Condolences for his death, Master Jedi. Thank you for helping evacuate the rest of my crew from the compartment before we took drastic measures. Your colleague was very brave.”

  “Indeed. A true example of giving his life for others selflessly, an example of a true Jedi… I will take my leave then. Continue with your duties Captain. I need to rest in my quarters after these recent events.”

  “Goodbye, Master Jedi. Alert my crew if there’s anything else that you need.”