Note: Hello there! I'm Transformers g1's-Prime, and I'm happy to welcome you to the story "The Saga Reborn - The Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker the Chosen" v2. I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to StormEyeDragon for letting me help him/her work on this. I am honored by this, and hope that I won't disappoint you.

And here's the disclaimer. I do not own anything that is officially part of Star Wars, Legends or Canon. I do not claim ownership of any of the property of Lucasfilm, Disney, or any published authors. I am not making any money from this story.

Anyways, on with the show!

Encroaching Shadows

33 Years Before the Battle of Yavin - The Separatist Crisis is building…

1 Year Before the Invasion of Naboo by the Trade Federation

The yellow-orange sun illuminated the jungles of Doyavu as it hung low in the evening sky. A spring gurgled from the base of a mountain, trickling into a small pool before spilling over a lip of rock on its way downhill and disappearing into the jungle. Small reptiles bathed in the fading sunlight as they lay on heated stones and sipped from the spring.

Jedi Knight Alek Barramere felt all of it as he sat at the edge of a clearing, the spring to his left. His eyes were closed, but he didn't need them to experience the beauty around him. The very Force around him teemed with sensations, fueled by the very life in the primal jungles of this unsettled Outer Rim world. It was so far removed from the way the Force felt on Coruscant, how it felt as he completed his duties in the Temple…

A voice behind him interrupted his musings. "Master?"

Speaking of his duties…

Alek opened his eyes. "Ah, yes. Vozani. What do you need, my Padawan?"

His Rodian Padawan stared at him for a brief moment as he turned to face her.

She gathered her breath, looking as if she had just stopped running. "I've... completed the Form Five exercises that you prepared for me." Her expression shifted from exertion to anticipation. "Is there anything else?" She asked, her voice sounding eager. "I am willing to practice another set if you have one for me."

Alek shook his head. "No, no, no. That is enough blade work for today. Go meditate, perhaps in the center of camp." He paused. "Just not in the ship please." She needed to get a feel for meditating when surrounded by non-sentient life. Meditating with access to the teaching holos on the ship's computer would ruin the experience, at least in his view. He would have suggested to meditate in the clearing where he was, but it was getting late, and Doyavu had several nocturnal predators that he'd rather not deal with yet.

Their camp, along with their ship, was in a similar clearing several kilometers downhill. Not unbearably far, but enough that Vozani didn't look thrilled to travel the distance again so soon. Not after just running it to come and tell him that she had completed the blade training that he had prepared for her.

Vozani held his gaze for a fleeting moment, her large, dark Rodian eyes meeting his pale blue human eyes. She seemed conflicted about something. Perhaps she was considering what he had said?

Her gaze hardened. "With all due respect, Master, no. I think that I need to improve my blade work." Her tone was polite, but tense.

Alek suppressed the urge to scoff. It never paid to openly dismiss your Padawan's thoughts after all, even if they seemed slightly aggressive. There was always a better way to deal with negative emotions. After pausing a moment to collect his thoughts, he responded.

"Alright, but why do you feel that way? Please tell me." He tried to emulate the tone of voice his Master had used only a couple of years prior.

Vozani blinked. "I just … feel that I need to get stronger, Master." Her speech started getting faster, and her eyes widened. "I can feel it every time I meditate. Something just tells me that danger is coming and—"

"Padawan." Alek's voice was firm. Fear, on the other hand, needed to be stopped. Smiling, he stood and faced her. "Vozani." His eyes held compassion, and he let his tone grow gentle. "Do not let fear of danger cloud your meditations. You need to let go of your fear. It will only lead to darkness and death." The teachings of the Temple rolled off his tongue, but felt a little hollow. He needed to be a good teacher, and assuring his student she had nothing to fear was what a good Jedi did, right? He felt that he should say something more, but didn't know what to say. She sensed his hesitation, and made use of it.

"Master, the Force itself is telling me that there is danger. Surely the teachings of the Temple, of the Jedi, do not tell me to ignore the Force?" Her tone was respectful, but demanded answers. Answers that she very much deserved, but ones he did not have.

"Vozani. Think on this for a moment. The Jedi have no enemies to fear at the moment." That wasn't necessarily true, but he pushed that thought aside and continued. "The Sith have been gone for centuries. The galaxy is, err, mostly at peace."

Vozani looked into his eyes, her face tightening in a Rodian expression of disbelief. "But surely the Force is right that danger is coming, right?" Her voiced carried hints of agitation.

Alek sighed. "Walk with me, Padawan." Without another word, he turned and began striding along the path through the jungle back to their camp. He heard Vozani turn and walk after him, matching her pace with his.

"Search our surroundings, my young Padawan." He slowed his gait, and turned to look at her. "There is no danger here, only life, and the Force."

Vozani looked right at him, frustration now creeping into her voice. "But the Force is telling me that danger is coming. Can't you feel it?" She stopped and stared at him, her arms crossed.

Alek suppressed a groan. "Just drop it okay? Let's just get back to camp and call it a night." He thought for a moment. "Tell you what. I'll have more exercises ready for you in the morning if it makes you feel better." He paused, waiting for her reaction to his offer.

She grinned, the tension dropping from her stance. "That sounds good to me." She turned away from him, and started jogging back to their camp, her footsteps kicking up loose dirt as she maneuvered through the plant life.

Alek grinned. Maybe being a teacher wouldn't be so bad after all. He had had his doubts about his ability to teach a combat-oriented pupil, but the Council had assigned her as his Padawan, so that had been that. At least they had granted him this first training mission rather than sending the pair of them into a disaster zone right off the bat. He wasn't a very combative Jedi, so sticking him with an aggressive Padawan would not have been helpful if he had say, been sent to deal with the border disputes in the Outer Rim.

Alek looked to the sky, and noticed that the clouds were starting to show hints of the coming sunset. He picked up his pace. It wasn't quite the jog that his Padawan had used, but it was more than the slow, methodical plodding that he had just been at. He immersed himself in the fading light of evening, and grew happy as the Force responded with echoes of life. He felt something then, a touch of cold. A touch of darkness. It vanished as quickly as it had come.

He brushed it off. This training mission was going well. Nothing would ruin it. And there was no danger here. He increased his pace again, racing the light of the setting sun as he tried to make it back to camp before dark. He needed to complete the training holo for Vozani before all of the light was gone, after all.

Dawn filled the sky with color, the sun appearing red on the horizon as the sky shifted to a light blue. The clouds still held some of the darkness of night, but the sun slowly banished the darkness leaving only shadows beneath the canopy of the jungle below.

Alek rolled out of his cot, joints popping as he stood. A lovely day indeed. The Force reverberated with the feeling of morning, all the creatures around the area preparing for the day.

"Up!" he called. "C'mon, Padawan. It's a brand-new day!" His voice brimmed with amusement.

Vozani appeared quickly enough, fully dressed, but rubbing sleep out of her eyes. "Yes, yes. I know. It's your turn to make breakfast though."

Alek grinned, mischief creeping onto his face. "Oh, come now," he said in mock seriousness. "You are the Padawan. It's part of your training to make all the meals."

The glare that she gave him could have melted durasteel.

Alek raised his hands. "Alright, alright. I'll cook the meal." He grinned. "How do you like your caf again?"

Vozani's expression shifted back to a more neutral face. "Plain. You make it taste horrible any other way."

Alek focused for a moment, and pulled the caf mix over to himself. "Well then. I can do that." He lowered his voice. "I still say that it tastes great when I do it." Shrugging, he started the cookpot, and opened the caf mix. Today would be a long day.

Out in the darkness of the void, a ship dropped soundlessly from hyperspace. Its sharp front pointed like a dagger at Doyavu, which filled most of the viewscreen of the cockpit inside. A hooded figure sat in the pilot's seat, staring at the display before it.

After a moment of motionless observation, the figure began to move. The figure lifted an arm and pressed a button, eyes searching a display on the screens before him. The screen pinged once, placing a blip on the image of one of the continents on the surface below.

With his target now in sight, the figure piloted the craft down towards the planet below, and the ship slid silently into the atmosphere.

Master and Padawan made their way to the distant clearing. The overall setting of the clearing was much the same as yesterday. The spring still gurgled, the reptiles and other small animals scurried about in the sunlight. The only difference the position of the sun. Its light grew stronger as the morning dragged on.

When they arrived, Alek handed Vozani a holo-recording. She nodded, and began to walk towards the center of the clearing. He watched as she settled into the first stance, and pulled out her lightsaber handle.

Vozani took a breath, and willed the blade into existence. The bright blue blade burst from the hilt, matching both the color of the sky. As always, she felt the currents of the Force churn around the weapon, like it was telling her to move the blade. She grinned.

Satisfied that she was doing well, Alek turned and walked along the tree line and stopped near the spring that he had found the day before. Taking his seat at the edge of the clearing, Alek once again lost himself in the Force around him. He embraced the warmth of the jungle morning.

Vozani swiftly and surely moved through the forms that the holo displayed for her. It was obvious to her that her Master was uncomfortable with his blade. It showed in the way he stood, how he performed each form. That didn't really matter to her though. She knew enough to guess how the form should actually look. Form Five wasn't that difficult for her. Its aggressive style suited her.

Eventually she lost herself in the training. She let the currents guide her blade, let them focus her movements. Then she felt it. The Force was screaming at her! Darkness, danger, death, shadow, enemy! Vozani stumbled, and deactivated her lightsaber. She started gasping for breath, willing her heartbeat to steady.

For the briefest moment, Alek felt it too. He shivered, and stopped his meditation. Noticing Vozani's state, he rushed over to her.

"Vozani!" he called desperately. "Are you alright?" His normally voice was now colored with concern. He stood over her as she recovered.

Vozani slowly lowered her heart rate, remembering the techniques that she had been taught as a youngling. "There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no emotion, there is peace." Which wasn't entirely true, she knew, positive emotions like compassion kept the Jedi sane. But the mantra did its job well enough. She was calm, everything would be fine.

Then she heard a strange noise. Alek noticed it as well. A shadow hung in the sky over their heads. The pair looked up as a strange ship hovered above the clearing, and a ramp opened. A hooded figure dropped several meters, and stared at them.

Alek stared in confusion as he tried to keep the fear out of his mind. The Force seemed awash with danger as the figure approached. Alek called out to the figure. "You there, what do you want?"

The figure did not stop or respond. It simply pulled a long, double-bladed metal spear off of its back and charged towards them. Its speed seemed unnatural.

Alek drew his lightsaber and ignited it, the emerald-colored blade springing to life with a hiss. This would surely stop the assailant. While the Jedi were hardly universally adored, the sight of the legendary nigh-unblockable sword usually gave all but the most aggressive foes a reason to pause.

But the figure didn't stop. In fact, the sight of the galaxy-renowned weapon only seemed to spur them forwards. It was at that moment that Alek realized that something was truly wrong here.

The figure would be on them in less than ten seconds at this rate. Alek turned briefly to Vozani. "Stay behind me," he ordered. "And be prepared to flee back to the ship if I, actually, just go now!" With that, he assumed a generic Form One defense stance. With a brief nod, Vozani turned away from him and fled towards the ship. The figure raised an arm, and Vozani stumbled to the ground.

Alek's blood turned to ice as the figure lunged at him. 'A force user!' he thought. He attempted to slice the attacker's weapon apart, although he had a sneaking suspicion…

His suspicion was confirmed when his blade bounced off of the figure's weapon with an unearthly squeal. Cortosis. His lightsaber blade would be hard pressed to affect the weapon.

The figure spun, giving him no further time for thought. Even when immersing himself in the Force to fight, Alek was hard pressed to match the speed of his assailant.

They clashed blades for several seconds, giving Vozani the chance to escape into the jungle.

The figure paused to note her path, and Alek took the opening to jump back and send a large Force Push at the attacker. However, the figure was not as distracted as it looked, and braced itself, so that only its hood was knocked away.

Alek got a brief look at its face. It looked like a red skinned male Zabrak. That was all he noticed before the attacker lept at him with speed surpassing anything that he had revealed so far.

The attacker shoved his left arm towards Alek, and Alek's backwards jump turned into a rapid flight into a tree that ended with a sickening crunch. Alek felt his ribs and spine crack, pain coursing through his torso as his lightsaber fell from his numb hand. Not that it mattered. Shortly after, the spear the Zabrak held in his right hand found its way into Alek's neck.

The Zabrak spoke then, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Know that Maul appreciates your sacrifice for the future of the Sith."

After Alek's corpse slumped to the ground, Maul pulled the lightsaber to him with the Force, and sprinted down the path after the fleeing padawan.

Vozani was rushing back to the ship when she felt it. Her Master-Padawan Force bond was severed. The shock was so great that she stumbled once more, though she caught herself this time. She steeled herself then. She would avenge her master or die trying. She turned back towards where her master had died, and reignited her sapphire-blue blade.

She didn't even have time to react. The spear, thrown by Maul and accelerated by the Force, slammed into her torso with enough force to send her hurtling into the dense underbrush. The lightsaber flew from her grip as she bounced off of a tree and fell into a pit in the ground. A slow moving carnivorous Gondavoya rose out of the pit and bit her arm. Slowly, it dragged her beneath the surface, into its den for consumption.

Not quite dead, Vozani struggled for a few moments until her lungs collapsed fully. After that, she accepted the sweet bliss of oblivion, and her conscience faded into the Force. The spear stayed lodged in her torso until it was yanked out of her with a sickening squelch, called to its master. Maul secured it to his back, and summoned the second lightsaber to his outstretched hand. He stood there for a moment, as if pondering something. Without a word, he strode back to the location of the first corpse. Some time later, the Gondavoya would reemerge from its den to find an even larger meal had appeared in its pit trap.

Maul walked purposefully into the camp and strode onto the Jedi transport vessel. Pulling a datastick from his cloak, he inserted it into the dataport in the cockpit, and left the ship. No sooner did he step off of the boarding ramp did the ship take off, its hacked autopilot plotting a course straight into the system's sun.

Looking at the camp around him, Maul quickly moved all the leftover materials in the camp into one big pile of bedding and machinery, and ignited it with a short burst of rather weak Force Lightning. He shook his head in distaste as the materials burned. He never did like the Lightning, it wasn't his style. He was much better at the much more combative facet of the Dark Side. The mystic lightning did not come easily to him.

Once the pile finished burning, he levitated a mass of dirt over the ashes and let it fall. After that, he strode out of camp, walking through the sunlit forest back to his waiting ship. Once there, he jumped upwards several meters onto the ramp, and walked into the cockpit. Once there, he pressed a button on the main set of touchscreens, and sat back in his chair.

The ship slowly turned upwards, and accelerated upwards out of the atmosphere and into the void beyond. Once in space, Maul turned on his long-range hypertransmitter, and waited as it bounced the subspace signal off of several hidden Holonet nodes until it reached his Master on Naboo. Once it had, his Master appeared in a burst of blue light and static.

"Well, my assassin. I assume this means that you have killed the pair of Jedi?" His tone suggested that he already knew the answer.

Maul nodded, his expression betraying no emotion.

"Good," his Master intoned. "Very good. You are one step closer to being my true apprentice. It is time to construct your new weapon as I have taught you. Contact me again when it is finished."

Maul nodded once more. "As you wish, master."

The hologram cut off, and Maul was left in a silent cockpit. He set the course for Naboo. He would return to his master's private estate, and present his new weapon to his master for inspection, and when he would finally be graced with the presence of the current Dark Lord of the Sith himself, Darth Plagueis. It would be quite an honor. But he was getting ahead of himself. First, he would need to forge his new weapon.

With that in mind, he waited for the ship to jump to lightspeed, then left the cockpit and traveled down to the lower deck. He entered into the ready room, where a large assortment of lightsaber parts lay on a high-quality cloth that covered a raised table with an open space in the middle.

Removing the deceased Knight's lightsaber from his belt, he deftly took his spear in one hand, and placed the lightsaber on the table with the other. He then swiftly brought his spear down onto the silver hilt, shattering it and revealing the nigh-invulnerable Kyber crystal at its heart. He grinned, and levitated the rest of the shattered assembly into the bin at his side. Repeating the process with the fallen Padawan's lightsaber, he soon had two faintly glowing Kyber crystals on the tablecloth in front of him, both singing melodies that he could not hear.

Now came the only hard part. The assembly of his hilt would be just a few minutes of focus. The task of taking the crystals for his own would require his full attention. And so, he did just that. He levitated the first of the crystals in front of him as he sat on the cold metal floor of his ship. Concentrating on the crystal before him, he began to pour his pain into it. And as he did so, the crystal's song began to dim, and Maul began to hear a sound in his soul.

The crystal was screaming.

On a desert planet in Hutt Space, a slave boy of a dozen years or so had just finished his walk home for the night. He opened the door silently, so as to not wake his mother, who he hoped was sleeping right now, rather than working on whatever project that their master had her working her fingers to the bone over at the moment.

She was sleeping when he walked in. Thank goodness for small mercies at least. He allowed himself a smile at the thought. Closing the door to her room, he made his way to his bedroom.

Once there, he removed the circuit piece that he had lifted off of one of the traders that had tried to cheat his master today. His master allowed him to keep some of what he stole from people who tried to cheat his master, so long as his master got a majority of the stolen tech. But that suited the boy fine. He would make his droid, piece by piece using the skills his mother taught him. The droid would help his mother with her technical work. He had made it using parts of old C and R-unit droids.

But truth be told, the droid had another purpose. The droid's memory banks would eventually surpass that of the average R2 unit, and it would be used to plot their hyperspace route off of this rock. If they could get their hands on a ship, that is. But if he continued to win small time podraces for his master, he knew that they would eventually work off his mother's lifedebt, and they would be free.

But until then, the boy would work for his master, build his droid, love his mother, and stare up at the night stars, hoping for a future as bright as the twin suns.

"But you know that won't happen, child. If you want a future, just turn to me."

The boy winced. The voice in his head had been there for as long as he could remember, but the doctor visits, which added to his mother's already heavy lifedebt, said that there was nothing to be done about the voices in his head. They couldn't even find a reason for there to be voices in his head.

But the boy knew that it was there. It spoke to him in the night, like just now. It promised a good future, if only he let it take control. His mother had believed him, and told him to trust in her, and in himself. So he did. The voice didn't care. It assured him that it would be with him until the day that he died, and beyond.

AN: This story will cover roughly the prequel era. If you have any questions, please PM either me or StormEyeDragon. This is technically a collab at the moment, but we could always use more help. The tentative plan is to switch off who has the current 'Main' story and who has side stories. We also have a Community set up that all stories set in this Saga are posted to.

For any of you that care, Alek looks like a 25-27 year old Sean Bean. Vozani is Rodian, which for those of you that might not know, is Greedo's species. Cortosis in this Saga doesn't short out lightsabers because they both work differently, which will be explained later.

And here's the disclaimer. We do not own anything that is officially part of Star Wars, Legends or Canon. We do not claim ownership of any of the property of Lucasfilm, Disney, or any published authors. We are not making any money from this story.