Anakin had woken up even earlier than usual to work on his pod in secret. Slaves woke before their owners to set the tables and prepare for the day, but it was early enough the slaves had yet to rise and the freepeople had long since gone to bed from their drunken revelries. His mom would've preferred he get the sleep, but this was important. He'd dreamed that the pod would bring freedom. He had to do this. As a result, he was perhaps the only person awake in the city when the darkness came.
It wasn't the suns setting or some sort of cloud, like Anakin remembered from Hutta. Instead, it was a more metaphorical thing, settling over his shoulders like a blanket. He shivered and dropped his hydrospanner.
A bone-deep coldness struck him. He felt his mother startle awake inside, felt a few of their fellow slaves stir next door-
And then they all started to – disappear. Anakin felt them all be torn apart, his mother, Kitster, their neighbors, all his friends, Watto, Gardulla, the Tusken tribe to the south, the banthas and womp rats and every being on Tatooine.
Their screams filled his ears. A cacophony of pain as life was ripped from flesh, flesh was ripped apart. Tatooine screamed, and Anakin screamed with it.
He screamed. He screamed until the final drops of life had been wrung from the planet, the very soil rendered deader than he ever could have imagined. The slave quarters had been reduced to dust. All that remained was ash in the sand.
And Anakin, alone in the center of it all, the only thing left alive on all of Tatooine. He screamed until his voice disappeared.
He did not cry. A slave could not afford it.
The darkness had not retreated, but now Anakin could feel it come closer. Take shape. He looked around himself, desperate for a place to hide, but all he saw was ash.
A figure loomed on the horizon. Anakin immediately understood it was the source of the darkness.
He ran as fast as his nine-year-old's legs could carry him. He stumbled through the piles of what had been buildings, tools, people, and tried to escape the figure before it killed him, too.
The suns were up by now. Anakin fell and stayed down, shaking with dehydration.
The figure arrived by Anakin's side and stopped. It said something in a language Anakin didn't recognize.
Anakin curled up into a ball. He was just a slave. There was nothing he could do.
He found himself being lifted to his feet. The figure took a hold of Anakin's hand and slowly led them through the ashes of Tatooine to a ship.
As they left Tatooine, Anakin couldn't help but think of how much he had longed to leave. Now, he'd gotten his wish. It tasted of ashes in his mouth.
Darth Sidious snapped awake in the early hours of the morning to a great shift in the Force. It was Dark, far from Coruscant, and inconvenient in timing. Scrolling the newsfeeds revealed nothing that could have generated such a shift in the Force. He had some important appearances the next day related to the Trade Federation's blockade, so he went back to sleep unsatisfied.
The morning had the press hounding him for comment on the Trade Federation. By noon, they'd moved on.
A look at the news revealed what had overtaken Naboo in the news cycle: Tatooine had had all its inhabitants wiped out with a heretofore unknown superweapon.
Sidious stared at the holoscreen. If it was a superweapon, he had to get his hands on it. However, he sensed it was something more ... complicated.
He grit his teeth. He had planned to kill Plagueis upon his election as Chancellor. With this sort of complication in the wings, though, it would do to keep the old bat around a bit longer. At least until they had a sense of what the thing was.
Three years after the destruction of Tatooine, the Jedi had found out that the planet-killer was a Sith by the name of Darth Nihilus, who lurked in the Unknown Regions and came out to consume the life forces of entire planets. There were some uncertain reports that he had an apprentice. The most credible of those reports, from a Master Dooku, who happened to be Obi-Wan's grandmaster, had said the apprentice was a boy powerful in the Force and too young to have undergone the Trials of Knighthood.
When Obi-Wan came face to face with the boy, he could only think forget the Trials, the kid hasn't even undergone puberty.
Next to him, his Master – former Master as of two years ago – turned from the President of Zirakos. “You're the apprentice of Darth Nihilus.”
“Yes,” the boy said. He sounded oddly flat.
Qui-Gon lit his lightsaber. “We cannot let you live, Sith.”
“I'm a person and my name is Anakin,” the boy snapped.
“Take the President to safety,” Qui-Gon snapped at Obi-Wan and leaped at Anakin. He'd always had trouble adjusting to Obi-Wan being an independent Knight.
So Obi-Wan led the President and her entourage into the hangar as Qui-Gon engaged Anakin. This Anakin was ... proficient in the Dark Side, yes, but felt somewhat repressed in the Force. His true strength was with the lightsaber.
Their routes were slightly different, but they ended up in the same hangar bay. Obi-Wan was loading the President into her escape ship when Nihilus himself arrived.
In the end, though, it was Anakin who killed Qui-Gon. Stabbed his blood-red lightsaber straight through his heart.
Nihilus consumed Master Jinn's life force. Obi-Wan ... probably collapsed. He didn't quite remember. The next thing he knew was being on the ship with the President, fleeing Zirakos as Nihilus destroyed it.
“Were you pursued?” Master Mundi asked.
“No,” Obi-Wan told the Council. “Nihilus and his apprentice were uninterested in the fleeing ships. The President's chief of staff said perhaps three hundred people made it out. They're petitioning the Senate for refugee status.”
Master Windu leaned back in his seat. “Thank you for your report, Knight Kenobi. Please report to the mind healers.”
“But-”
“Now.”
Obi-Wan bit back his objection and bowed. “Masters.” He left the Council Chamber.
Plo Koon had his starfighter's hyperdrive access panel opened and was staring at the guts. In the years after Master Jinn's death, Chancellor Palpatine had been pushing the Jedi hard to stop Nihilus's plans. Unfortunately, this didn't extend to funding, and thus, Plo was on a tiny rock called Hranth, population five hundred and some smugglers, trying to figure out how to fix his run-down ship on no budget.
“The fuel injector's blown,” a voice came from behind him.
Plo turned. Teenage human, gleaming yellow eyes, relaxed appearance. “You wouldn't happen to have the parts to fix it, ah...?”
“Anakin Skywalker,” the boy said.
Darth Nihilus's apprentice, then. Not that there had been much doubt.
“I'm Plo Koon, Jedi Master,” Plo introduced himself. “Nice to meet you.”
“Mm.” Anakin leaned over to look at the engine. “I think you could do a patchjob fix with just a spare T-join and some electrical tape. Here, let me.”
They opened up the engine together and juggled around some parts to fix both the fuel injector and some other subsystems that looked like they wouldn't survive the journey to Coruscant. Anakin was surprisingly good company and knowledgeable about mechanical things.
Repairs done, Plo closed up the access panel. “You're good with mechanics.”
Anakin shrugged. His eyes had turned blue and his Force presence calm while they tinkered. “I've always liked building and fixing stuff. I built my own pods, back on Tatooine. Mom didn't like the pod racing, but – I kept dreaming that it would free us.”
So the apprentice came from Tatooine. He was at most fifteen; he'd have been ten when Nihilus ate it. “Quite accomplished, for one so young.”
Anakin beamed with the praise. Plo wondered what had driven this child to help his enemy.
His thoughts must've leaked into the Force, for Anakin jutted his chin up defiantly and said, “Mom said we should help each other.”
“She sounds like a wise woman.”
“She was.” Anakin's head fell. Dead with the rest of Tatooine. Unsurprising.
“I'm sorry.”
Anakin made a noncommittal noise and curled up around himself. “I miss her,” he admitted.
Plo weighed his options. “Would you like something to eat? There's an establishment nearby that has mixed atmospheric dining tables.”
In the manner of all teenage humans, Anakin agreed.
Hranth was close enough to Dorin that they catered to Kel Dor. Plo let the atmospheric isolation chamber's force fields buzz on and removed his deox mask once the air was all helium and Dorin gas.
“I take it you don't see many Kel Dor?” he said at Anakin's wide-eyed staring.
Anakin shook his head and ordered half his weight in food. Plo gave a short explanation of Kel Dor physiology as they waited for their orders.
“Do you know why Nihilus does what he does?” Plo asked when Anakin had stuffed the first roast lizard in his mouth.
“He's hungry,” Anakin said with his mouth full and returned to stuffing himself. Food into his mouth, fast, like he wasn't sure when he'd next eat or whether the food would be yanked away from him. Or he yanked away from the food.
Hungry. Not like Anakin was, for the corpses were turned to ash rather than consumed. “What does he eat?” Plo asked, already suspecting the answer.
“Life Force,” Anakin confirmed and ate another lizard.
“And what does he feed you?”
Anakin froze. “I eat what's available,” he said.
“Mm.” Plo let the matter drop and turned to his own food.
Despite the mountain of food before Anakin, he was done at the same time as Plo. He burped contentedly.
Plo discreetly probed Anakin's mood with the Force before asking, “Do you think you could bring me to Nihilus?”
Anakin's panic was immediate. “NO!” he shouted. “No. It would be like, like bringing fire to a paradise valley. I can't.”
Left unsaid was who was the fire and who the paradise valley. “If that ever changes, then please contact me,” Plo said with all the calm of a Council Master. “The Jedi would very much like to speak to your master.”
“I guess.” Anakin looked unhappy, then reacted to some signal Plo did not sense and rose. “Thank you for the company, Master Plo. May you never meet my master.”
Plo watched Anakin leave with an unhappy tension in his young back. He tapped the table with his talon as the atmosphere cycled and he settled the bill. This child was more than just an extension of Nihilus's will. Plo wondered how far from Nihilus's the child's will would roam.
The repairs held to Coruscant. Plo made note.
A month after his meeting with young Anakin on Hranth, Plo was standing on a nondescript landing platform on the outer rim. Rain was pouring down on him and Mace Windu. He'd have to replace his deox mask's filters soon; they never dealt well with excess humidity.
“Will Nihilus even come?” Plo asked. “Lately he's eaten planets straight from his ship.”
“We will at least feel his arrival in the system,” Mace said.
Their transport hummed gently next to them. It was warm and dry, but also slightly shielded in the Force for ease of infiltration. Such shielding went both ways, however, which was why they were standing out here in the rain, trying to detect Nihilus's approach before he actually arrived on the planet.
“He's not coming,” a voice came from the rain.
“Anakin?” Plo asked.
Now concentrating on the landing platform around them, it took only a moment to find the figure in the gloom. The boy looked much like he had on Hrath, yellow eyes glowing in the shade of his cloak's hood.
“You wanted to meet my master.”
“Can you bring us to him?”
“Follow me.”
Plo and Mace exchanged a glance. “This could be a trap,” Mace murmured.
“Not for you,” Anakin replied.
They were led to a ship that might once have been a small freighter before being rebuilt from the ground up, having its hull and engines upgraded, the cargo module excised, and weapons retrofitted into it. In its current state it was a one person ship, though Plo and Mace could just about squeeze in.
Anakin was a coil of tension in the Force. Mace had settled down to meditate his Force presence to nothing. Plo hoped Anakin's tenseness wouldn't give them away and joined Mace.
Nihilus's ship was empty and dead. Plo's hackles rose as they paced through grave-silent corridors.
Anakin stopped before the door to the bridge. “He's behind here,” he quietly said.
“Thank you.” Plo squezed his shoulder as he walked past.
The bridge, too, was empty. Nihilus stood at the end, dark robes against dark sky. He hissed in a language Plo did not recognize.
“Yes, Master,” Anakin said from behind them.
“You are wanted for crimes against sentientkind and mass murder,” Mace said. “Surrender or be killed.”
Nihilus drew his lightsaber. No surrender, then.
Plo and Mace drew their own lightsabers and advanced on Nihilus. The Sith Lord fell into a ready position and swung.
He was not that good with a lightsaber. Plo parried, struck, sidestepped to let Mace get the perfect hit-
Something tugged at his chest. Nihilus had his hand out towards Plo. So this was how it felt to be consumed alive, Plo thought. The Force was lethargic in his grip.
“No!” Anakin shouted.
Something grasped at the thread Nihilus was using to suck Plo dry. It snapped clear of Nihilus, and Plo felt the vigor return to him. Nihilus-
Nihilus was disintegrating. The Darkness that had made him was spewing out of him like water from a leaky container. Plo was pushed back until he collided with Anakin. Mace waded in and cut off Nihilus's head.
The final vestiges of Darkness vested in Nihilus released themselves in the form of an explosion. Mace, Plo, and Anakin were all thrown against the walls.
Anakin rose. He walked with shuddering steps to Nihilus's corpse and fell to his knees. Plo watched as he removed Nihilus's mask. It was hard to tell his emotions with the lingering coils of darkness contaminating the Force.
Mace had also risen and walked over to Plo. “What should we do with him?” he quietly asked.
“He's just a man,” Anakin said, tone unreadable. He carefully replaced the mask and drifted away from Nihilus, gaze glued to the corpse.
Plo ... had an idea. “Anakin, how old are you?”
Anakin's head snapped up. “Fourteen. Why?”
Plo looked at Mace. Mace inclined his head; with the familiarity brought by years of friendshp, Plo took it as permission. “Anakin. Would you like to be my padawan?”
Anakin gaped. “You'd- But I was a Sith?”
“Yes. But you didn't choose that life, did you?” A shake of the head. “So I would like to offer you the chance to be a Jedi. It would be a dangerous life, but you could do good. You could help people.”
Anakin bit his lip and raised his gaze to look at Plo. “I... Yes. I would like to be your padawan.” He smiled. “Master.”
“Come here, padawan mine,” Plo said, and held his arms open. Anakin threw himself into the hug and let Plo wrap the Light around him.
Mace was smiling. Plo considered poking him with the Force, but then again, he supposed he was extremely predictable. Mace might rib him in private, but he'd help Plo make Anakin – his padawan – part of the Jedi Order.
Sheev Palpatine, Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, stared out the window of his office, sipping an expensive wine. Coruscant glittered beneath him. Dusk had turned to dark, but Coruscant never slept – speeders buzzed past in an unending stream of lights and people still lived, worked, and partied in the exclusive high-rises and clubs that had a view of the Senate Plaza.
Hego Damask was dead. Tomorrow, his cleaning service would discover his corpse in his bed. The room was locked. No-one knew he was a Sith Lord, so no-one would have cause to suspect anything but natural causes.
Mastery had passed from Plagueis to Sidious. Nihilus had delayed that long enough.
All that destruction of the outer rim worlds had drenched the galaxy in darkness, but it had also thrown a wrench in the Sith plans. Sidious had had to contact Kamino to get them to delay the clones' aging. He'd have to find new pawns as well; Dooku had been promising but unfortunately had been present on Serenno when Nihilus consumed the world. He was in need of an apprentice as well, since Maul had crashed his ship on a world soon after visited by Nihilus.
Too bad that Kenobi had disliked him; having seen his master get killed would've easily started him down to darkness if nudged. And while the Jedi had taken in Nihilus's apprentice, he would be much too conspicuous for Sidious's needs.
He'd have to delay some more and corrupt a padawan. Yes, that would be it. He'd ask for a padawan to aid him and turn the child over time. It would take years, but he had several ongoing experiments that could grant him immortality.
Tomorrow, he'd put in the request. Tonight, he celebrated his Masterhood. He smiled and took another sip of his wine.
With Nihilus gone, the lives of the Jedi went back to normal. A team of shadows was still investigating his origins, but for the most part, Jedi went back to the work they had been doing, diplomatic, judicial, or other. These were the circumstances in which Mace Windu found himself trekking through the woods of a backwater planet. The case he'd been asked to mediate was a land dispute between two technology-rejecting settlements; the actual mediation had not taken long, but all travel to and from the region had to be done on foot.
“Master Windu?” a voice called from the trees.
Mace stopped and reached out with the Force. Nothing. No face peeked out from between the dusk shadows of the trees. The natives had been content with the resolution and would not come out this far. “Who's there?”
“You took Anakin Skywalker into the Jedi Order,” the voice said. “Is this your new policy for Sith apprentices?”
Not a native, then. A critic, or a reject of Nihilus's? Mace stood serenely and asked, “Do you want it to be?”
“...yes,” the admission came.
“Then it is our policy,” Mace replied. “Come. Why don't you introduce yourself?”
A man stepped out of the shadows between the trees and removed his hood. A Zabrak perhaps in his twenties, slightly shorter than Mace. Red skin with heavy black tattoos and yellow eyes. A Force presence that was but a whisper, meaning he'd had training to hide it.
“My name is Maul,” the Zabrak said. “I believe you will be interested in what I have to tell you.”