Fire.
Fire ate away at the buildings which surrounded her, forever burning away the memories that she had once held dear in its merciless inferno. Stone cracked and metal sagged. The few droids that remained functional worked futilely to abate the progress of the blaze.
There was no screaming. There was no crying from children. No, they were gone. Only the roaring of the flames that ate away at the once beautiful city she had called home remained.
She paid the fire no mind. If she were to be eaten by the flames she would not scream, she would not cry out for mercy. She did not want it.
The Sith Empire had come.
The moment the Star Destroyers had appeared over the planets surface chaos burst forth, like an explosion ignited from a simple spark, overtaking all that she knew in a matter of minutes. People ran for their personal ships, others merely packed what they could and fled towards the wilderness. Even her own family had scrambled for the nearest dock, hoping to find quick passage off of the planet.
They never made it to the dock.
In that chaos a local crime lord and his gang had seen the potential opportunity for profit and entertainment before the end. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of now homeless civilians ripe for the picking. Robbery, rape, murder. She had witnessed it all.
Even when her parents had been executed for the credits in their pockets.
Now all she could do was shriek and cry in anger as she watched the beginnings of a rainstorm spit on the still warm bodies of her parents, blaster holes through the backs of their heads.
She paid no mind as the sound of the encroaching Imperials bore down on her, she only continued to scream the few profanities she knew at the warehouse the crime lord and his lackeys had 'commandeered' to make a stand against the invaders.
Scream. That was all she could do. She had been powerless to stop them when they had fired the blaster bolts that had killed her parents. She had been powerless to stop them from ripping whatever valuables they could from their bodies before fleeing into the warehouse.
She was powerless.
The sound of a lightsaber igniting by her throat finally broke the girl from her trance.
She turned her head up and saw them. All around her Imperial soldiers stood, facing the warehouse with their blasters at the ready. The black and red armor and the emotionless helmets they wore were matted with blood and rainwater, portraying them as nothing more than the ruthless weapons of the Empire that they were.
Risking a glance behind her, she finally saw him.
The Sith Lord which held the red blade to her throat. He was dressed all in black, his eyes as red as the lightsaber he held. Hours before she would have screamed. Hours before she would have begged for her life.
Now all she did was stare into the man's blood red eyes, saying not a word as he inched the blade closer and closer to her skin.
Eventually, as if he had finally had his fill of toying with her, the Sith raised his saber high above his head.
She paid him no mind. Merely turning back to face the bodies of her parents. If her end was to come, then she would meet that end with the sight of the only loved ones she had ever had filling her vision.
That end that she expected however was not to be. For the moment she closed her eyes, ready to feel the momentary sting of the lightsaber's blade as it tore through her throat, she heard the sound of that blade being retracted back into its hilt.
When she finally dared open her eyes she found the Sith Lord kneeling beside her, his obsidian black cloak pooling around him, painted by what was no doubt the same blood which covered the Imperial Soldier's helmets.
"They... Were your family."
"They killed them... Those cowards killed them... " The girl muttered, pointing a shaking finger in the direction of the dilapidated warehouse.
She felt a hand come to rest on her bloodied shoulder.
Her eyes widened slightly she watched an Imperial communicator drop to the ground by her other hand.
"They have struck a blow against you. They believe to have chained you down with fear. With grief." The Sith Lord whispered, his voice searing through the rain like a hot iron through flesh. "You will not let them win. You must not let them win."
She pulled the communicator from the muddied ground, her hands seeped in the blood oozing from the wounds with glass shards sticking out of them.
"Only through victory will your chains be broken... Only then will you truly be free..."
The Sith Lord stood.
"My men await the order to fire."
She stared up at him in silent disbelief for a moment.
"Give it to them."
She stared down at the communicator.
She glanced up into the face of her father, his eyes long rolled into his skull, which had a blaster hole clear through the forehead.
Her eyes flashed a sickly yellow for a brief moment as she screamed the command into the communicator, fighting through the pain of her dry and scratchy throat as she kept screaming the same command into the communicator over and over.
Kill them all. Kill them all. Kill them all.
The streets light up in a symphony of blaster fire as the troopers and walkers which filled the streets obliterated the building, picking off whoever had been lucky enough to escape the initial blast.
With each scream she felt a part of her smile. With each man that begged for their lives, only to be shot down, she felt a sense of justice that she hoped she would never forget.
They had obeyed her. They had killed at her command. They had given her power.
"My Lord! We captured one of the gangsters attempting to flee the area." A trooper yelled as he, along with two other soldiers dragging a male behind them, approached the Sith Lord and the girl.
The troops threw forward the man in binders, the injured gangster drooling blood and bile from his broken jaw.
"Hmm?" The Sith Lord hummed, only to smirk in mild satisfaction when the communicator that had given the order to execute the other gangsters only moments before impacted against the remaining gangster's head.
"It was him..."
The Sith Lord glanced back at the girl.
She stared at the man with hatred in her now yellow eyes, tears still falling freely as she approached the man.
Without a word of warning the girl suddenly brought her fist forwards, snapping what few whole sections remained of his now completely shattered jaw.
"Bring him to his knees." The Sith Lord commanded, to which the troopers immediately obeyed.
"Yes M'Lord." They chorused as they dragged the man back to his knees, his cries of pain no more than pathetic moans.
The girl felt a sense of joy fill her as the cold touch of the Sith Lord's lightsaber hilt entering her palm.
"Make him pay..."
When she pressed the ignition switch on the lightsaber she felt it once more. The overwhelming sensation that sent a surge of power through her. The feeling that the man before her no doubt felt when he had executed her parents. The feeling she would receive as she took her revenge on him.
Freedom.
She brought the blade down upon the man's head, splitting it in two as the Imperial Soldiers who held the gangster down both flinched away as they watched the plasma blade cut down through the man's scalp, burning away the hair, flesh, and bone, until she finally ripped the saber away from the man, watching with a twisted smile on her face as the two halves of the man's head fell to either side of his shoulders.
"You have done well..."
The voice of the Sith Lord echoed over the sound of the still roaring flames all around her, a comforting hand upon her shoulder as she watched the Imperial Soldiers drag away the lifeless corpse of the gangster, throwing him unceremoniously over a nearby railing into the wilderness below.
"My new apprentice..."
Imperius...
Hope you enjoyed! Think of this as a... Sneak peak of sorts. Thanks for reading!