Chapter Text
Anakin, his Master would often tell him, was born Marked. Master says it with pride, with satisfaction, with glee. Every great Sith Lord had Marks. Marks made one powerful. They fuelled and channelled the Force like nothing else. Hate was power. Hate was his birthright. His legacy. His destiny.
It was the gold lacing his arms that caught Maul's attention, he was told. A criss-cross of short, straight-edged golden lines covering his arms, his legs, his side as if branded repeatedly by something sharp and burning. Something like a lightsaber.
Only Jedi got these marks. Only Jedi carried scars from the de-powered lightsabers they used to train the children. Powerful enough to burn, but not to maim or kill. The Sith didn't care for such things. Losing a limb punished better than a training ‘saber ever could. Having a Jedi Enemy, Master Sidious said, was a rare achievement, even among Sith. There hadn’t been a hate-bond between Sith and Jedi for several thousand years.
Of course, Maul took him.
Maul was not a kind caregiver. Punishments were swift, violent and unpredictable. He left Anakin on his own for days at a time under the cold care of protocol droids, while running errands for Master. Anakin took to tearing them apart when he was angry, and then learned to put them back together when he was bored. Coruscant was a city-planet teeming with life, and yet, in Anakin’s prison cell among the clouds, the ever-present feeling he learned to associate with the planet was loneliness.
Then, when Anakin was nine, Maul died. Anakin felt it happen half a galaxy away, the tenuous bond he had with Maul pulling taught and then snapping out of existence. The backlash sent Anakin to his knees. He screamed until C-7R9 came tottering into the room, fussing about him in a panic. Anakin scrambled for the Force, adrift and in agony, and lashed out, rent the droid in two with the power of his pain and curled into a ball among the sparking wreckage, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down his face.
The door opened twenty minutes later and Master Sidious found Anakin still curled in on himself, giggling into his hands.
Master Sidious’ new apprentice Tyranus and his pet lived on Serenno. She was only a few years older than Anakin was, a Dathomiri named Asajj Ventress. She had been a Jedi youngling Tyranus had taken from the temple, the heart-place of the enemy. Anakin hated her instantly. Her and her master.
Anakin remembered their arrival, being greeted in the courtyard by Tyranus, a tall, proud human, and Ventress, a small, hooded figure in Tyranus’ shadow, meek and scared-looking. Anakin would have hated her just for that. He watched them cross the grand courtyard together with his back to Master Sidious’, whose soft pale hands rested firmly on Anakin's shoulders. He liked to touch Anakin, always a hand on his shoulder, in his hair, his gentle grip always one misstep away from becoming vice-like and harsh. It was a constant reminder: weakness was repulsive. Weakness was damning. Weakness' only rewards were pain and death.
Maul had believed it, right up until he'd proven himself right and gotten himself killed. Master Sidious believed it. He'd made sure Anakin had learned it swiftly. It made Anakin wonder how Master Sidious could have chosen a Jedi as Maul's replacement over Anakin. Tyrannus was old and he'd been a Jedi, been the enemy, for far longer than he would ever be Sith. Anakin was Maul’s heir. Anakin had lived and breathed darkness for as long as he could remember. But he was too young, Master Sidious said, and what Master Sidious said was law.
Master Sidious left Anakin on Serenno. It could have been a relief, if Ventress and Tyranus hadn’t been stalking the halls of the grand mansion. The few days he’d spent solely in Master Sidious’ presence had been suffocating. He wasn’t used to having the Sith Lord’s golden gaze focused solely on him. It felt like he imagined being pulled into a black hole would feel; inevitable, fatal, crushing. Anakin had spent more than enough time on his own. He could have managed. He didn’t need looking after – Maul certainly hadn’t thought so.
Anakin watched Ventress for days, trying to catch glimpses of her arms, anything to prove what he already knew: she was his enemy, too. More than that, she was his Enemy. His most hated nemesis.
And he would be the one to destroy her.
Tyranus took over Anakin's training and immediately Anakin could tell he was different. Maul had been incandescent in his rage, less reliant on the Force than his own hands. ‘All power and no refinement,’ Tyranus often said with a sneer during those first few months, looking down his nose at Anakin. On one of those occasions, Anakin seethed and exploded a vase behind Tyranus' head just to be petty.
Refinement can't do that, Anakin thought with a smirk on his lips.
Tyranus' sneer twisted and Anakin felt a tiny flash of satisfaction that he'd broken through the Jedi's serene exterior before he yelped as he was lifted into the air by his neck. His eyes bugged as he thrashed and gasped for air, the invisible weight of something threatening to crush his throat.
‘That was a priceless antique,’ Tyranus murmured, barely loud enough for Anakin to hear over the thrashing pulse in his ears. Fear seized him as he realised exactly how badly he'd messed up.
Anger, Anakin had thought, had always looked like Maul's constantly simmering fury, always ready to boil over into a flash of violence. Anakin had narrowly missed death-by-lightsaber many times in his childhood, his ability to see these rages coming before they happened saving him more often than Maul's investment in his continued existence.
Tyranus' anger was cold, crushing, immovable, and Anakin hadn't seen it coming. He wasn't like Maul, whose fury had to be expressed physically somehow, or Sidious, who Anakin was convinced didn't feel anger at all, only a twisted joy in dealing out punishments for failure. Tyranus barely moved, his expression never changing as he crushed the life from Anakin. It was cold, calculating, focused in a way Anakin didn't know anger could be. Refined .
Just as Anakin was certain that the vase was going to cost him his life, Tyranus dropped him and he crashed to the floor. ‘I expect you to take more care with my possessions, boy,’ he said. ‘Come find me tomorrow when you've learned some respect.’
That was a tone Anakin recognised. Instinctually, he all but folded in half, his eyes on the floor as he executed a low bow. His voice was hoarse and insubstantial when he replied, ‘Yes, master.’
Tyranus never raised his voice. Somehow, that was worse.
Somewhere nearby he heard Ventress' laughter echo down the hall.
Anakin's first lightsaber scar came when he was eleven.
Ventress didn't sleep like a Sith. She slept like she trusted the two others she shared this mansion with not to kill her the moment she stopped watching her back. Anakin had never made that mistake, not even when it was just him and Maul in that high-rise penthouse on Coruscant. Her lightsabers were laid out beside her pillow, inches from her hands. Anakin hadn't had much practice with the weapons before, Maul's saberstaff was too big for him to practise with and Tyranus' curved hilt was awkward for his still-small hands. Ventress' ‘sabers were also curved at the hilt, but they were smaller and would have to do.
Anakin called one to his hand where he stood over the girl's bed, adjusting his grip on the unfamiliar hilt. His heart pounded with anticipation. He was going to end her and prove that he was worthy of Maul's legacy, of Tyranus' respect, Sidious' attention, not this Jedi. She was weak, she was worthless. Sidious would thank him for ridding the Sith of her.
He ignited the lightsaber.
Ventress' eyes snapped open. Her other blade was out and blocking Anakin's downswing with her second blade before he could carve her head from her neck. ‘You're dead, kid,’ she spat and was standing on the floor in an instant, towering over him. Anakin immediately found himself on the defensive, half of his concentration focused on not cutting himself on the lightsaber in his hand, half on preventing Ventress from doing it for him.
He staggered back under Ventress' onslaught. Calling on the Force was second nature, even then, and it had already saved his life enough times. He used it to his advantage, twisting the Force to lend strength to his lightsaber arm and threw random objects in the room at Ventress' head, forcing her to split her focus.
Ventress was better than Anakin had expected. It didn't take long for her to get past his meagre defence. Nudged by the Force, he twisted out of the way of a killing blow and screamed as the tip of her lightsaber carved a shallow path over his right eye. Frantically, half blinded with pain, he reached out with the Force, pushing her back a few steps and flinging her cloak, left forgotten in a dark corner, at her face.
His enemy distracted, Anakin turned and bolted for the door-
-only to find it already blocked by a tall figure.
‘Enough,’ Tyranus said, and a blast of Force energy sent both students flying in opposite directions. Anakin's back slammed into the wall hard enough he heard a crack and he slumped, dazed, breathless and whimpering, to the floor.
‘Master!’ Ventress cried, ‘The boy tried to kill me!’
‘I said enough .’
Ventress went deathly still. Anakin watched her face through his one good eye, waiting, waiting...
But her face remained clear. No new Marks.
‘You,’ Tyranus rumbled, pointing at Ventress. ‘Clean up this mess. And you-’ his dark eyes fell on Anakin and he waited for the inevitable swell of the Force, the inevitable punishment-
‘Come with me,’ Tyranus instructed, then turned and left the room in a swirl of dark cloak.
Anakin scrambled to his feet and scurried after the Sith Lord, one hand still clamped over his burning eye.
‘Your technique is appalling,’ Tyranus said, not stopping to let Anakin catch up on his much shorter legs.
‘I’m sorry, Master.’ It would do no use to point out he had barely been taught the basics of lightsaber combat.
‘Tomorrow, we shall see about getting you your own lightsaber. Until it is ready, you use one of Ventress’. It seems you both need some revision of the lightsaber forms. I shudder to think how far behind you are, Skywalker.’
Anakin ground his teeth together to stop himself from saying anything more than, ‘Yes, Master.’
Tyranus nodded and flicked a wrist dismissively in Anakin’s direction. ‘Now, get out of my sight.’
Anakin took to lightsaber training the way he did to taking droids apart; as if he’d been doing it all his life. Even Tyranus eventually had to admit that Anakin was performing better than expected. Ventress never forgave him for his attack that night – he had never expected her to. Every day they were both at the mansion they sparred, neither caring if they harmed the other, both secretly hoping for it.
Tyranus’ training grew increasingly rigorous and varied as Anakin matured. Ventress spent more and more time away from the mansion, returning in the garb of a bounty hunter, or with a smug smile as she regaled Anakin with her latest accomplishments in the name of the Sith. Each time she returned, Anakin gripped his new lightsaber tighter in his fist and grit his teeth against the satisfaction she radiated into the Force, projecting the feeling his way just to spite him.
Then, when Anakin was fourteen, Tyranus ordered him to accompany the Sith on one of his missions off-world. It was the first time Anakin had left Serenno since he’d arrived shortly after Maul had died. Anakin had jumped at the chance, of course, right up until Tyranus had demanded his lightsaber from him, opened the ship’s boarding ramp, hundreds of metres above the surface of Nal Hutta, and pushed Anakin out of it with a twitch of the Force.
Anakin only stopped screaming when he realised that he only had a few seconds before he hit the ground. Instinct saved him from splattering across the marshes of the backwater skughole just in time, catching himself with the Force. He still hit the ground at speed, hard enough he felt several places in his body snap as the breath was thrown from his lungs. He rolled with the impact of the landing, and came to rest half drowning in fetid, stinking water, his whole body ablaze with pain.
A sharp pain spiking with each shallow breath told him he’d broken several ribs. He’d practically landed on his shoulder, which screamed every time he so much as thought about moving. Hot, fat tears slid down his cheeks and clogged his ragged breaths, and he would have wiped them away angrily if he’d been able to do so without blacking out.
The pain was so intense he felt himself drifting away, sinking deeper into the Force, letting it smother him and the worst of his injuries. Beneath the shock and the pain there was something else, and Anakin waded towards it through the Dark of the Force that had been in his core for as long as he could remember. He latched onto it, felt the incandescent rage fill him, pushing through the shock and pain, breathing new life into his limbs.
Anakin sat up, reset his shoulder with a jerk, breathed through his broken ribs and stood with murder on his mind. He was going to kill Tyranus. He was going to find a way off this rock, and he was going to plunge his blade through Tyranus’ heart.
It took the better part of a day for Anakin to limp his way to the nearest settlement. The whole time, he let his anger fester, used it as fuel to keep moving when by rights he should have faltered. Master Sidious would be proud, Anakin thought, to see him now. Anakin would not stop until he was on a ship and off this kriffing planet.
Even so, the going was slow. He was bleeding profusely from a wound in his side in addition to his broken ribs and useless arm. He’d hit something on the way down that had scored a long and deep gash down his ribs and abdomen beneath his bad shoulder. Blood pulsed from the wound with every step. He pressed his good hand to the wound to stop the worst of it, but he knew that even with the Force as his servant, he wouldn’t last long without treatment. Already, he could feel the heat of infection settling into the wound after spending so much time in that blasted swamp water.
The settlement he found was a small town, but it was still large enough to have what he needed. Anakin stuck to the shadows, making himself look as small as he could. Showing weakness wasn’t in his nature, but here, the deception was to his advantage. He had nothing on him, nothing to sell except the ruined clothes on his back, and he knew what he must look like, close enough to death that not even any of the slavers that might be around would touch him.
It was dark by the time Anakin found somewhere that sold medical supplies. He waited until the teller, an older Ithorian with a nasty golden scar ringing his neck, was distracted by a disgruntled customer, and ducked between the cluttered shelves, stuffing all the bacta, bandages and stimpaks he could find under his shirt. A nudge of the Force had the disgruntled customer pulling a blaster on the teller and in the ensuing chaos, Anakin ducked out again and into a deserted alleyway with his prizes.
The first stimpak entered his bloodstream with a wave of relief. It took the edge off enough that he could peel the ruins of his shirt from his body and start plastering his various wounds in bacta patches. He stayed sitting in the dirt and the dark hidden behind an overfilled skip and waited as the medical supplies did their work. When his breathing started to ease and some of the light-headedness from the blood loss began to recede, Anakin bandaged his ribs tight as he could with one arm out of commission and used the rest of the bandages to create a sling for his injured shoulder.
For the next three days, Anakin kept to the shadows, scouting out the town. By the first morning, he’d liberated a blaster and a vibroknife from a dead bounty hunter he’d looted in the aftermath of a brawl gone wrong. A heavy dose of Force suggestion and the proprietor of the local saloon donated a hot meal to Anakin’s continued existence. He learned the ebb and flow of the town quickly; the quiet hours, when he should make himself scarce, when he was able to walk about town without issue.
On the fourth day, Anakin felt healed enough that he could try stealing a ship.
He didn’t have the credits, despite lying, stealing and cheating his way into a tidy handful, to afford to buy a ship, so instead he stole a swamp speeder and dashed across the marshes towards the nearest settlement with a spaceport.
Even one-handed, Anakin still pushed the speeder hard enough, weaving through trees and rock formations at breakneck speed, to make excellent time.
The spaceport he found was a vile, seedy place, much like everywhere else on Nal Hutta. Anakin stuck to the shadows, made himself as small and unnoticeable as possible and waited.
Ships and pilots came and went. Anakin watched them, bounty hunters, smugglers, pirates, and took note of their ships. He needed something small and fast, fuelled up, too, if possible. If it was armed, even better. He didn’t want to risk being shot down by some overzealous pirate wanting his ship back.
He settled on a light freighter belonging to a pair of smugglers, one a human - or near enough - with brown skin and golden tattoos, and the other a young blue twi’lek that looked around Ventress’ age. He waited until they were long gone before sneaking out from his hiding place and creeping around the back of the ship, searching for the outside controls to the boarding ramp. In minutes he was sprinting inside, throwing himself in the pilot’s seat and gunning for open space.
Dooku and Ventress were both waiting for him in the courtyard when Anakin landed the ship he'd swapped his stolen freighter for right in front of the mansion’s front door. The sight of the Sith Apprentice was enough to send him flying back into a rage. He contemplated for the barest second just shooting him with the ship’s forward cannons but no- he wanted to do this himself. With his own hands.
He charged down the ramp, his stolen blaster up and firing indiscriminately at both figures - if he took Ventress out at the same time, even better. Dooku didn’t even flinch, just snapped a red blade out and redirected the bolts back at Anakin close enough to send him twisting out of the way. Anakin howled and tossed the useless blaster aside, charging instead with his vibroknife in his fist.
The Force snatched at him and lifted his feet from the ground. Anakin thrashed and choked, his injured ribs protesting sharply, but he couldn’t stop the involuntary movement. Dooku watched him struggle silently, black eyes glinting coldly under the afternoon sun. When Anakin’s vision began to blacken at the edges, Dooku released him and let Anakin drop to his knees, retching and gasping for air.
‘You tried to kill me,’ Anakin snarled, his voice broken and hoarse.
‘You survived,’ Dooku intoned, measured and sure. Anakin heard the unspoken reprimand: if Tyranus had tried to kill him, he wouldn’t be alive.
Something hit the stone between Anakin’s hands. A lightsaber. His lightsaber. Anakin watched Dooku’s boots turn away and walk back towards the mansion, Ventress skulking behind him.
‘Shame,’ Ventress’ voice carried back to him on the breeze. ‘I was hoping he’d died.’
‘Hush, child,’ Dooku murmured. ‘He may prove useful yet.’