(SHATTERPOINT) A LUCKY BREAK

They came fast, just as Skidmark had screamed for them to. At least a dozen, maybe more, spilled out from the warehouse’s broad industrial doors in a disorganized, frothing wave of noise and aggression, teeth bared and weapons raised. 

Some carried knives, dirty and no doubt dull, or broken bottles with their jagged edges glinting under the light. Others wielded crowbars, chains, rusted pipes, and lengths of rebar—whatever they could grab on short notice, it seemed. A few even had guns, mostly pistols, but they held them like they didn’t know which end was more dangerous. Their hands shook too, so their aim was off. If they weren’t aiming too high, they were spraying too wide or too slow to track him. 

Whatever cocktail of chemicals fueled them, it didn’t grant skill or mastery.

Anakin didn’t let that lull him into a false sense of overconfidence. He’d been a general in the Clone Wars, then the Dark Lord of the Sith and Palpatine’s apprentice. He’d led legions, fought armies, and dueled masters. But, though these people were weak and ill-prepared compared to the ones from his past, this was still a battlefield, and overconfidence killed the same as any lightsaber or blaster.

He had not survived this long by making mistakes like that. Instead, he tempered his exhaustion with discipline, drew in his breath and narrowed his awareness—not through the Force, which remained stubbornly absent—but through the instincts honed across a lifetime of battles. He focused on their movements, reading every twitch of a shoulder, every shift of weight, and every widening eye. 

Each was a signal waiting to be used against them. 

A lead pipe was swung low toward his ribs. He sidestepped the arc, drove his knee into the gut behind it, and tore the weapon free. He used the pipe once to crush a forearm, reversed his grip in one fluid motion, and hurled it into another face too close for comfort.

A broken bottle came slashing at his neck next. He batted the wrist wide, slammed an elbow into the soft flesh of a throat, then shoved the attacker into two others who had rushed in too close. They fell in a tangle of flailing limbs and curses.

Hands grabbed him from behind, clumsy and desperate. Anakin shifted his weight, dropped low, and flipped the person clean over his shoulder. The attacker landed hard against a metal crate with a dull crack, then slid to the ground without a sound.

Someone screamed. Gunfire erupted, and two shots missed by meters, sparking off concrete to his left. He closed the distance before a third could go off, struck the wrist, broke it with one brutal twist, and followed with a palm to the jaw. Bone gave, and the pistol clattered across the ground.

Bodies surged towards him, yet he didn’t slow down.

Each strike brought an attacker down, and every movement was a swift, decisive end to a threat. Anakin was no stranger to violence; he had been forged in it. Combat was the place where everything made sense, where his instincts were sharpest, where his thoughts cleared, where hesitation died.

And somewhere beneath the calm, beneath the discipline and the control, the darker part of him—one he must find balance with—revelled in it.

The fight lasted less than ten minutes.

When the last body hit the ground with a wet, broken thud, Anakin stood still in the ensuing silence, shoulders rising and falling from his quiet ragged breaths. A thin line of blood slid down his cheek, just above the old scar over his eye. He didn’t wipe it away.

He turned, scanning the aftermath, and found nothing of Skidmark. The cape was gone, and so was Squealer. A long skid mark, ironically, ran from where the monstrosity of the vehicle was parked into the dark.

Anakin clenched his fists. 

While he was engrossed in the fight, too focused on every action, he hadn’t seen them flee. In the end, he had indeed made a mistake. One he might have avoided if he hadn't grown too reliant on using the Force to scan his surroundings.

But, they’d be back. Cowards always crawl back when they thought the danger had passed. And next time, they'd bring backup, capes and muscles and better weapons. Maybe even a plan this time. 

But he would be ready too. Because in their haste to leave, they’d left the doors wide open, the thugs were down, and no one remained to stop him.

So Anakin stepped over the bodies and walked inside.

After all, spoils belonged to the victor. 

. . . . .

The warehouse interior wasn’t what Anakin expected, not the flashy chaos of a villain’s lair, nor the rotting filth he associated with the gang’s reputation. It was somewhere in the middle: haphazard, half-functional, and reeking of desperation barely masked by the chemical tang of spilled product.

Makeshift bunk areas lined one side of the warehouse, little more than piles of stained mattresses and crates for end tables. A gun rack had been knocked over near the wall, several firearms scattered across the ground. Some were clean; others looked like they’d been stored in engine grease.

The walls bore burn marks and graffiti—most crude, and some strangely artistic—while nearby tables were cluttered with burner phones, tangled cords, modified tasers, and half-assembled tinker tech that reeked of trial-and-error over actual design. A small plastic tub overflowed with pill bottles and plastic baggies.

But what caught Anakin’s eye were two heavy-duty cases stacked beside a stripped-down motorbike, both cracked open to reveal bricks of hard cash, banded and unmarked. Drug money, no doubt. Sloppy to leave it out.

Anakin moved fast. 

There was no telling if Skidmark would come back immediately with help, so he grabbed anything that looked like it might be valuable or usable: clean weapons first—pistols and a shotgun that looked serviceable—then tools, cables, hard drives, a military-style radio, and power cells scavenged from what might have once been a repurposed tinker battery rig. 

In the back, tucked beside a broken vending machine and beneath a shredded tarp, he found a vehicle: a battered and rusted cargo van. Its front bumper was held on by wire, and its side had been spray-painted with crude slogans and threats that weren’t anatomically possible.

It was disgusting, but the engine worked and that was enough. 

He hotwired it quickly—whoever last drove it hadn’t even tried to hide the wiring job—and began loading the spoils into the back: crates of gear, the cash, spare fuel, anything not nailed down and not dripping with something unidentifiable.

His mind was already working ahead of his hands, even as he slammed the van’s doors shut, slid into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.

It coughed, growled, then roared to life.

Anakin had vowed to be a guardian of peace. It had sounded noble, almost naive, when he’d said it aloud on the rooftop.

But now he knew better.

Peace in this world wouldn’t come from councils or codes. It would come from action. From preparation. From striking first, if necessary.

He had the skills, training, and now, the resources he needed and a plan. He just needed a base of operations and allies, and soon, Earth Bet would learn what it meant to be judged by the man who had once been Darth Vader.