A/N: Welcome to my newest OC-insert fic! This time, I'm doing Star Wars. Hopefully I don't screw it up, and can learn a few things that I can use in my other fics. One caveat: I have never watched TCW, nor read any of the novels, comics, etc., that take place in that period. Nearly everything I'm doing here will be based on what little I do know combined with centuries' worth of wiki-walking. I'll try to keep things as consistent as possible, though.

I do not own Star Wars. That belongs to Disney, as does the soul of the first-born child of every successive generation. All hail Darth Mouse.

You ever notice how, whenever the world turns crappy, people tend to rush for fantasy or science fiction stories? If you think about it, it makes sense in general. After all, when reality hits you too hard, the urge to escape can be tempting. But that doesn't explain why, sometimes, the stories they run to are almost as depressing as the reality they're running from. And yet, that's precisely what people have been doing for a long while. You see, we often underestimate the relationship between fiction and reality—we write the stories, but at the same time, the stories we read affect our actions and mindset, which in turn affects OUR story.

In a sense, it's kind of a vicious cycle; we see the world going down the tubes, we flock to fiction as an escape—and at first, we head for the inspiring ones, the ones that give us hope. We take that hope, try to put it back in our world, and sometimes it succeeds and the world goes back on its merry way. But sometimes we give up way too early, and lose that hope—at which point we discard the very concept of hope and idealism as "foolish", "unrealistic", or worst of all, "childish". That's when we turn to the "gritty realism" (or, more accurately, "grimderp that is designed to cater to people who have no hope in a cynical moneymaking opportunity while attempting to pass itself off as realism") kind of fantasy or science fiction, where heroes fail, where villains win, where the only real choice is to either burn everything to the ground and start over, or—more often than not—just grab what you can for yourself in what little time remains before the fire consumes you. And when we read those stories, we take that cynicism, put it back into our world, and when the world continues hurtling toward oblivion we act like it was inevitable, when in fact, we are partly to blame; we gave up. Because evidently, giving up is "cool" and "edgy".

I was one of the few people who didn't buy into that crap. That said, I was still part of the problem; I read the hopeful stories and fantasies, but I saw them as nothing more than an escape from a doomed reality. After all, when you're a scrawny 15-year-old geek with no life and no real friends, there's not much you feel you can do aside from read/play/watch your favorite stories—in my case, Star Wars. This was all well and good until the new movies started coming out. Now don't get me wrong, I've actually enjoyed most of J.J. Abram's stuff, and the special effects in the latest movies were top-notch in a way that the franchise had not been for a good while. But as much as it felt like Star Wars for the first time in ages, there was one thing missing, some vital ingredient to the Star Wars recipe that the old canon had, that the new films lacked: hope. These new movies, as much as I loved them, seemed devoid of true hope. Even in the darkest moments of the other ones, even Episode III, there was always some sense that, sure, evil triumphed today, but the heroes will kick ass and everyone will walk away happy in the end. But not in these new tales. Yeah, story-wise, it's obvious the heroes will win in the end. But you don't feel at all optimistic about it. Even when the heroes do succeed, there seems to be some all-pervasive worry that it all might end up being in vain. And that's when I started to feel like giving in and joining the lemmings chuckling to themselves as they walk off the cliff complaining about how much the cliff sucks: when the last truly hopeful stories that I held dear were tempted by cynicism. Fortunately for me—and the rest of the world—that's when fate intervened.

"Status?"

"Temporal distortion and null quantum field emissions all within optimal parameters, sir."

Lieutenant Commander Orson Krennic was not an idle manager; on the contrary, when projects of this scale were being undertaken, he made certain that his input and direction were involved at every possible level. Even in this early stage—when the battlestation as a whole was little more than a theory—nothing could be left to chance. Today's test of a prototype hyperdrive system was of particularly vital importance; the fortress, when complete, would be far too massive for any conventional hyperdrive to operate properly. Not only would they need to design something that could, when scaled up, move an object the size of a small moon, they would have to create an entirely new method of controlling space-time distortion just to ensure that the sheer size of the superweapon did not cause it to tear itself apart while in hyperspace. After all, what use would a planet-destroying station be if it could not move without obliterating itself?

Krennic observed his technicians from a walkway overlooking the experiment control room, which was isolated from the testing area by thick glass and several layers of stasis fields. As he continued to watch the experiment, a smile grew over his features; this weapon would be his masterwork, he could see that already. That said, he knew the project would proceed much faster with the input of Galen Erso, but the scientist would never willingly work on such a weapon, even now that the charges of espionage with the Separatists had been dropped (via Krennic's own influence). He would have to consider alternative measures of gaining the scientist's aid—perhaps deceiving him as to the nature of the project itself?

His musings were interrupted by a minor alarm. Remaining calm, he leaned over the edge of the walkway and glared at the lead technician, who was currently at the main computer.

"What's going on?"

The lead technician's eyes went wide as he looked at the readouts. "We have a problem, sir—"

"The alert told me that already, idiot! Tell me what the problem is!"

"The distortion field is fluctuating beyond acceptable parameters!"

Krennic facepalmed. This was not how he wanted the day to go. "Dammit... very well. Shut off the experiment for now."

"I can fix this, sir. Just a moment—"

Before Krennic could object, the technician had already begun making his adjustments in the main computer. The result was a yellow light above the main window flashing, and the alarm shifting accordingly. What was at first a simple alert was now a site area emergency.

"I get the feeling that didn't help! Shut it down!"

"Isolating the problem—"

"Did I stutter, you dolt?! I gave you an order!"

"Sir, it's not on our end! There's some sort of interference from outside the facility!"

To say this was not good was an understatement. This particular research facility was located on Coruscant, carefully hidden in the underlevels, away from prying eyes, and an incident like this one could easily expose its location. Thinking quickly, Krennic began giving further orders.

"Shut it down anyway! Then switch to our backup generators immediately!"

"But sir, those are for emergencies—"

"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! What do you think will happen if people notice an unexplained draw on the power grid for this area occurring at the same time as whatever is going on out there?!"

"Sir, I can fix—AUGH!"

A shot from Krennic's blaster silenced the lead tech as he pointed to the man's immediate subordinate. "Congratulations on your promotion. Now TURN THE BLOODY THING OFF!"

At that moment, in another universe, a 15-year old boy was running back and forth between two larger teens in an alley as they threw his cell phone back and forth between them. Yup, that was me.

"Come on, Marshall, give me my phone back!"

"Why don't you make me, wimp? Hey, Tommy, catch!"

Marshall Dalton was, in my mind, proof of the normally joking stereotype that gingers didn't have souls; either that, or I had been on to something when I theorized he was part ape. The latter hypothesis didn't seem too much of a stretch, considering his massive frame, even for a Junior in high school. His longtime partner-in-crime, Tommy Marko, was just as bad; the fact that his pretty-boy brunette features made him insanely popular with the ladies seemed an unnecessary insult to injury. Both of which he and Marshall regularly inflicted on me.

"Stop it! I just got that phone—"

Tommy responded with a mocking tone. "Aw, what, you afraid we're gonna break it? Hey, Marsh, go long!"

Time seemed to slow down as my phone flew through the air towards Marshall, who began to hold out his hands as one would catch a thrown football, only to deliberately drop them and allow the phone to smash into the pavement. Crushed, I knelt before my murdered phone as the two stood over me, jeering.

"Heh, whoops! I guess I got butterfingers!"

"Good one, Marsh!"

Now, to be frank, I was terrified of these two, so under normal circumstances, fighting back was something I never considered. But a guy can only take so much abuse before he cracks; my poor phone, combined with the mocking laughter, was the last straw.

"Shut up..."

The two looked at me with mild surprise as Marshall chuckled incredulously. "Excuse me?"

"Shut UP!"

I quickly stood to my feet and spat in Marshall's face. Several moments of shocked silence passed before the bully in question wiped his mug clean, glaring at me with pure hatred. It was at that point I realized that I had just done something insanely stupid and potentially suicidal; the roll of thunder at that moment only highlighted my impending doom.

"You... little... shit!"

Before he could finish the curse, I bolted in the direction of a nearby municipal playground, abandoning the remains of my phone as the two gave chase. Sadly, as both were on the football team, I didn't stand a chance in hell of getting far on foot, a fact that was driven home when Marshall grabbed me by the collar from behind and spun me around. Rain began to fall, but something like a shower wasn't going to save me from the redheaded gorilla's wrath. Snarling, he punched me right in the gut, knocking the wind out of me and dropping me to my knees.

"You're not going anywhere!"

Before I could comply, Tommy roughly yanked me off the ground and threw me back into Marshall, who responded with another gut punch, knocking me down again.

"Get up, asshole! I ain't done with you! GET UP!" Once again, I was dragged to my feet, only for the next punch to strike me across the jaw, sending me on a sideways trajectory toward the ground.

Now, most people don't believe in fate; after all, coincidence can explain a great many things. But sometimes, a series of occurrences happens in such a way that design is the only explanation. Just as Orson Krennic was conducting his experiment, a star several thousand light-years away from Earth went supernova; slightly closer, another star happened to collapse into a black hole. On the exact same line of direction, a minor natural shift in space occurred, completely independent of both previous incidents. It would not be independent for long, though, as the combined energy of the supernova and the formation of the black hole exacerbated the shift, causing a chain reaction in the direction of Earth. Thankfully, each successive shift in the chain was progressively smaller—otherwise, the planet would have been destroyed. As it happened, by the time the chain reaction reached the surface, the shift was just the exact size of a single person; at that same instant, lightning struck the spot where that shift happened, causing it to open a hole between universes just long enough to permit safe passage, the bolt passing through first and miraculously avoiding anything else in the vicinity.

And what do you know, the spot in question just happened to be the very patch of grass Marshall's last punch sent me falling towards.

Had the interference on the other side of the portal been anywhere near the facility where Krennic's experiment was conducted, this story would have been over very quickly. But again, fate, not coincidence, was ruling things that day. And fate decreed that the disturbance happen far above, in the sky above the upper levels of Coruscant where two Jedi Knights, accompanied by a padawan, were traveling in a speeder towards the Jedi Temple.

"Anakin, we are no longer on a battlefield."

"I'm aware of that, Obi-wan."

"So why are you still flying as if we are?"

The younger knight shrugged playfully as he dipped, ducked, dived and dodged his way through the busy Coruscant traffic. His padawan, Ahsoka Tano, managed to keep her composure even as she held on for dear life. "Master, not to be disrespectful—"

"A phrase people say just before being disrespectful, snips."

"—but aren't there better ways to beat the rush?"

Obi-wan rolled his eyes as the speeder missed a transport by a hair. "Forget it. I gave up trying to stop this nonsense years ago."

Anakin was about to respond with snark of his own when all three felt a massive disturbance in the force directly above them. Quickly looking in that direction, they saw a hole open up in the sky and a small humanoid shape falling out of it. Without any hesitation, Anakin veered straight up, pushing the speeder to its limit to reach the falling individual in time. As they neared the mysterious person, Ahsoka reached out with the force to slow the figure's fall as Obi-wan used his telekinesis to pull them safely aboard. Upon closer inspection, the figure turned out to be an unconscious teenage human male wearing odd clothing. Ahsoka frowned.

"Okay, either of you have any clue what just happened here? Where did he come from?"

Anakin turned around in his seat to look at the rescued teen. "I don't know, snips. We can figure it out when he wakes up."

"There may be even more to this child than meets the eye, you two..."

Both turned to the elder knight, puzzled... until they noticed a familiar sensation coming from the boy. Obi-wan finished his sentence, worry crossing his face.

"He's force-sensitive. And powerfully so."

Review if you have any opinions or suggestions!