Disclaimer:

These things seem to be fairly popular, so I'll add one of my own.

I don't own Star Wars or any or the characters, this story is entirely fictional, any coincidence in character names or places are entirely unintentional. I also do not own a working lightsaber. The Star Wars computer games series is also not owned by me, neither are it's characters or story.

The Academy

Prologue:

Jedi Knight: The Academy

It has been almost a decade after Tavion's failed attempt to revive her dead Sith Lord and the galaxy has experienced unusual peace during that time. Whilst there are still small skirmishes and dangerous schemes enough to keep the fledging new Jedi Council busy, there have not been any major confrontations between the Remnant and the New Republic. The new galaxy order has been prospering and all is going well. Too well.

During the reign of the Emperor and his Imperials, the Empire had established many bases across the galaxy – and even beyond. The Empire had grown quickly in the relatively short amount of time it was in power, spreading its influence to even the most remote places in the galaxy, even launching several attempts to cross galaxies. Now, after almost ten years of peace, the calm waters are being stirred and a powerful, yet almost unnoticeable current is flowing beneath the still surface. It is the calm before the storm, and forces are at work – but no one knows who, for the dark side is both cunning and concealing.

Chapter 1:

Almost invisible in the dim lighting, a lithe teen crept along the cold metal venting in between the first and second levels of the complex. Silently, the black-haired boy crawled along the gap between the ceiling of the first level and the metal floor of the second. Having done this five times already (he kept count), he was a most experienced burglar – before breaking in each time, he would analyse different entrances and exits, always taking a different combination than before, but always careful to leave two exits untouched. He was not, by any means professional, just cautious – watching careless thieves getting caught and tortured was enough incentive for him to be paranoid. Shafts of light illuminating a square section of the vent-grating in front of him signalled the fourth open grate in front of him – this should be his last by his count, also the most difficult one; because just a few metres away stood some hired guards. Carefully approaching the light, the teen became even more tense and even more quiet (if that was even possible), he didn't know how good these guards were, but he didn't want to ever find out the hard way. Finally, after what seemed to be hours of inching towards the grate, he managed to peek out just a little bit. From what he gleaned and what he heard, he surmised that there were about two men walking towards him – he was not alarmed, it was simply part of their guard route. He sat down again in the vent, careful to be out of sight should they decide to look down.

"I dunno! Who knows where they came from?" It was one of the guards, "They came in their big flying spaceships and overtook the country just like that. They had laser-blasters for crying out loud, even our special-forces was hard-pressed. What did we have? Guns that shoot out little bits of metal and made loud bangs! They probably didn't even feel it! I dunno what their white armour is made from, but it's darn tough. Anyways, they cut right through us and that's when I decided to give-up and work for them. No sense in fighting on a losing side."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. But they aren't so bad, I mean they let us keep our government and stuff, all they did was take some land, ya know? As long as we keep to our business, they'll keep to theirs." The second guard's deep voice sounded as if he had been smoking since he was about…..oh, seven years old? Well, that was the dark-haired boy's guess anyway – he wouldn't know, he couldn't afford cigarettes.

"Well, at least we get paid well enough," The first guard continued, "It's not so bad, all we're doing is guarding their equipment and food supplies, and everything…Aw MAN! What is that stink! I swear, this is the tenth time I've smelt this and it absolutely reeks!"

The teen winced in the vent – he was going to need to take another wash when he got out of here. He didn't enjoy washing in the cold water streams and avoided it as much as possible, but he couldn't exactly have hot water – living in the streets meant toughing it out.

"Aw, you're right." the second guard pinched his nose shut, "You know, you should stop smelling your own farts and just own up if you're constipated or something, alright?"

"Just shut your mouth, wise-ass. I swear it's not me; it's always around this area. Far out, what do they have in these wooden crates? Fart bombs? They have tons of them here."

The second guard laughed, "What a way to take out a country. Fart bombs and stink 'em out. Let's just get out of here. Hurry up and get your card punched, let's go."

The boy peeked out of the vent when he heard them leave and breathed a sigh of relief when he wasn't discovered. He could be very hard to see when he wanted to disappear, but no matter how good you are at hiding, nothing can stop your stench, and his was a very bad stench. Living amongst the bins will do that to you.

He ran light-footed over the wooden crates that had been stacked up in the vast warehouse and aimed to get to the top-most crates – they were the ones that contained food ration supplies for their soldiers. As he reached the top crate, he pried it open with one blade from his four-bladed throwing-star, lifted the lid off and began shoving as much of the white-capsules as he could in his pockets. He was extremely thankful that these rations were small in size, but managed to fill him up more than enough. He was careful to leave some in the box though, just so it wouldn't look so empty and people would begin to suspect thievery.When he finished, he quickly danced up the boxes and aimed for the level 2/3 ceiling/floor gap to escape.

But before he could get there, a particular box grabbed his attention – but he didn't know why. It was not remarkable in shape, colour or size, in fact it was exactly the same as the other ones. But for some reason, this box nagged at his mind like no other. Driven by curiosity, he pried it open like the one he had pried before and peered inside. It was nothing more than just food rations inside their usually white packets. Before he knew it, he had his hand plunged into the box, his hand found its way around something hard and irregular in shape; he immediately pulled it out. He closed the box-lid again and jumped onto another, higher-up box. He brought his hand up to see what he clutched. In his hand was a semi-transparent green crystal; he shuddered silently. For some reason, when he held the crystal, he could feel a pulsing throughout his body. The teen gazed at the crystal, feeling the pulses through his body. At first, it was irregular, or of different intensities, but as he began to anticipate the next pulse, he felt it regulate out into even, steady beats.

Snippets of conversation far down below brought his attention back to the real world. The guards were back. The dark-haired thief blinked – they weren't supposed to be back for another hour! He quickly glanced at his watch (which he had stolen – naturally) and realised that he had been staring at the green stone for over an hour already. Feeling a little more than careless and wondering how he had managed to waste so much time, he quickly snapped his attention and wit to the present.He quietly slipped the green crystal into his pocket and jumped into the ceiling vent.

Back outside, the teen slowly lowered the roof-venting grate back down. A gust of wind brought with it much needed fresh air – even he was starting to become nauseated at his own stench. The thief scanned the horizon, the sun was almost down and the dark-blue of dusk was beginning to colour the roof of the world.

He quietly and nimbly climbed down the wall, using the jutting out bricks as hand-holds to secure his descent. After what seemed like an eternity of kissing the red bricks, the black-haired thief finally saw the hand-made scratch in the wall and promptly let go. He fell about 3 meters and rolled to avoid spraining his ankle like he did on the first time he dropped – boy, did that hurt.

Stretching himself, he satisfactorily heard his spine crack and fall back into place, the small cramped spacing in the vents had made his bones and muscles ache. In mid-stretch however, he saw something and froze.Whilst just idly glancing around when stretching, he noticed the shadow of a head peeking from above – the body hidden by the roof. Instantly, the thief looked up, he saw a glimmer of a black-haired head before it disappeared beyond his sight.

Adrenaline rushed through his body, he suddenly felt fear – the fear of being caught, the fear that causes the pit inside your stomach, the fear that makes your hands sweat and your face to pale, the fear that drives you to freeze and your brain to lock-up. The black-haired teen ran. He ran hugging the walls, zigzagging through the alleyways, inside the shadows, but he could not shake the feeling of being watched, being stalked, being targeted. He doubled his speed, throwing caution to the wind and began just pounding the asphalt road with his worn-out runners. Still he could not throw that feeling. A nagging feeling in the back of his mind; a pulsing at the back of his head. The thief was slightly surprised at this; normally it would go away after a while. Whilst his gut feeling had never been wrong, he was an extremely fast runner – he could outrun anyone he had ever met, outpacing them and outlasting them.The pulsating feeling in the back of his mind moved, it went around the left side of his mind, all the way around. Then he felt it weaken, distance itself, and altogether disappear.

The teen slowed down to an easy jogging pace and breathed a sigh of relief – he had finally outrun his chaser. Well, that or his pursuer gave up. The thief slowed down to a walk. After a moment, he took his bearings and decided that he was too far south to return to his 'home' – if you could call an abandoned warehouse building a home. He decided that he would need to find another sheltered area and spend the night there – hopefully it wouldn't rain, it gets awful cold when it rains.

After about five minutes of pondering where to sleep for the night, the nagging feeling returned. Suddenly and without warning, it was back in his mind. The thief looked around, his eyes once again betraying his fear, but his body ready to pounce. It was growing; the intensity of the feeling was growing rapidly, this time, from the front of his mind. Almost instantly, the feeling exploded and he could almost feel it pressing on his forehead.

Out of the dark, dark-blue sky dropped a cloaked figure, his robe fluttering behind him as he landed. It was too dark, so the black-haired teen couldn't see his pursuer.

"Haha!", gloated his pursuer in triumph, "Thought you got away didn't you?" The silhouette chuckled, "Boy, you can run fast. A good thing I can run faster. Did you know that I almost considered giving up on…"

The thief didn't want to find out what his pursuer had almost given up on and so he didn't wait for his attacker to finish his sentence. He whipped out his throwing-star and boot-knife and hurled it simultaneously at his pursuer. The two weapons arced and attacked, cutting through the air with amazing speed, speed that you could not follow with your eyes – one from the side, and the other one from the top. This attack had never failed him; whilst the one at the side distracted his opponent, the one from the top usually took him down. But he wasn't finished yet. Just in case he happened to miss his opponent with his throws, the black-haired teen rushed towards the pursuer, intent on using his fist to crush his opponent's neck and using his feet to land a good solid quick in the 'you-know-what' place.

With astounding dexterity and agility, his opponent lowered himself in to the classical martial-arts stance – one leg behind and one in front. Then he dropped, so that the throwing star that usually hit the neck safely passed over his head. The boy grinned as he rushed towards his opponent, quickly closing in on him – he could see the knife from above coming straight down on his head. Suddenly, his opponent rotated whilst still very low from the ground, bringing his back leg to the front in a great sweeping motion. The knife from above missed his robe by inches and clattered useless on the ground. The sweeping foot dragged the boy's feet from under him, landing him on his back. Before he knew what was happening, a strong foot was on top of him, restraining him. All of this took just under three seconds. If you blinked, you would have missed it all.

"Well, that was interesting. I wasn't really expecting that." His dark-cloaked opponent stated.

The boy was surprised too. He didn't really expect his opponent to be able to dodge the knives and take him down at the same time.

"What do you want? I didn't take anything. I swear I didn't!" The thief quickly responded.

"Luckily for me, I happen to know that you are lying. But luckily for you, I'm not interested in what you stole", the pursuer said with a smile. He then lifted his foot off the teen's chest.

The teenage thief quickly stood up.

"What do you want then? Why were you chasing me? Who are you?"

The pursuer chuckled, pulled back the hood of his robe and then angled his head so that the thief could see his face.

The thief was surprised – he thought that it would be a smirking, sinister face looking back at him, but he only saw an open and good-natured smile.

His pursuer spoke again.

"I'll answer your questions in order" he chuckled, "I want to know what's inside that building you just came out of. I want you. I was chasing you because I needed to speak to you."

The black-haired teen looked at him, "You didn't answer all my questions" the teen accused, "What is your name? What do you do, and why do you want me?"

His pursuer sighed. "Young people. Why are they so obnoxious?" he asked to the sky. Then he chuckled, "I'm the one to talk"

The thief didn't interrupt. His pursuer seemed to like talking to himself.

"Okay, I'll tell you who I am, if you tell me who you are. Deal?"

"Okay..." The black-haired boy really had nothing to lose. He wasn't anybody special anyway.

His pursuer took a deep breath and recited, "My name is Rosh Pennin, I work for the Jedi Council on Yavin-4 and I want to speak to you because I believe you are force sensitive." Rosh let go of his breath, grinned at his young captive and asked one question. "What's your name?"