AN: Need to post this before the idea leaves me.
KOTOR: To Be Heroes
Arc One: Through Dreams
Chapter One: Arrival on Taris
Revan was power…
The Force can do terrible things…
...it was like staring into the heart of the Force
...to a mind. It can wipe away your very identity.
There is no emotion…
I AM THE DARKNESS…
There is peace.
There is no death...
IN WHICH ALL LIFE DIES.
There is only the Force...and I am its master.
I woke up back in my apartment, no longer in the black void filled with voices that haunted the dark corners of my mind. For once I was thankful for the city buzz of Taris and how it drowned out the alien thoughts that made themselves known within my skull while I washed, dressed, and ate my first meal.
I had arrived on the city-planet of Taris through means unknown to myself, ripped from my home reality and placed into the universe of my most beloved franchise. From what I had determined, I had arrived about four-thousand years before the Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the Galactic Empire's first Death Star.
Thanks to several news holos, I figured out that I had been placed here during the time of Darth Revan-though I supposed it might be ex-Darth now-and his apprentice Darth Malak. Given the fact that Taris was not a smoking pile of rubble-and the lack of a Sith occupation-I estimated that I had arrived perhaps a few months before the beginning of the game.
Thankfully, whatever had brought me here saw fit to give me one-thousand credits and a blaster pistol-a DL-44 at that. Currently I was living out of an apartment that housed 'illegal aliens' as one of the few humans that lived in the building. I had also managed to find a decent job that did not require the use of weaponry, but I did head to the local shooting range quite often, since I knew that if I wanted to escape Taris alive, I would have to join Revan's crew on the Ebon Hawk, as that was the only way off of Taris without being captured by the Sith blockade.
Pushing those thoughts aside, I began walking towards my workplace-a small shop that sold weapons, speeders, ships, and other miscellaneous items. Thankfully, the traffic of pedestrians was not horrible, and I was able to make it to the Equipment Emporium. The owner of the store-a woman named Kebla Yurt-was already behind the credit exchange register.
"Oh, Isaac!" She greeted me with enthusiasm. "What a surprise! I didn't expect you to show up to your shift this early!"
"Early?" I asked her.
"Only by a few minutes, but yeah! You're usually not here at this time of day. You can check the clock if you don't believe me."
I did so. 8:45 AM standard Taris time.
Damn. Fifteen minutes early.
I shook my head. "Bloody clocks."
"Well, since you're here so early…" Kebla began, a sly smile on her lips. "You can help stock some of the weapons and make sure we have everything we need."
I sighed and went towards the back of the store. In the back was a storage room that Kebla used to...well, store any extra items that the customers may be interested in.
The day passed quickly after that-not counting my lunch break. A great many Upper City citizens and a few Lower City denizens visited the shop, most of them interested in weapons, but a few were interested in speeders and ships. One of the customers-an aquilesh wearing a dark coat-whom I suspected was a member of the Hidden Beks due to the banner on the chest of his shirt purchased a speeder which looked like the one used in the swoop bike race in the Lower City.
Another customer who may or may not have been Calo Nord also passed through, and purchased a few frag grenades. Soon afterwards, my shift ended and Kebla released me from my cashiering duties. It was night now, and most people-save for the drunks, thrill-seekers, night people, and shadier elements in this city-planet-had returned to their homes.
Still, a crowd had gathered to peer up at the night sky. A few even had binoculars. I could not see anything out of the ordinary save for a few bright flashes-Wait.
I turned towards one of the pedestrians, a man with slick black hair holding a pair of binoculars. "What in space is going on?" I asked him. He turned towards me.
"Some kind of space battle." He replied. "People are saying it's the Sith and the Republic!" The man turned his attention back to the night sky. "Man, I can't get a good enough view with these damn things." He complained.
The Endar Spire. Shit.
"Thank you." I withdrew some thirty-odd credits from one of my pockets and gave them to him. The man blinked and accepted the credits.
"Why thank you stranger!"
"Welcome."
I began to walk towards my apartment, planning on how I would secure my way onto a spot-on Revan's crew. Perhaps I could move down to the Lower City and join up with the Hidden Beks or Mission Vao and Zaalbar. No, that risked capture by the slavers, and there was no guarantee that I wouldn't be killed by the rakghouls or the slavers themselves. Canderous? That prospect carried its own risks.
As luck-or perhaps the Force-would have had it, I did not need to think of such things. As I approached the door to my apartment complex, I heard a faint whistling in the air. It reminded me of the bomb imitations made in the many Tom and Jerry cartoons that I had watched in my childhood. And as I turned towards the noise, I saw an ever-growing orb of flame and metal approaching the catwalk that me and many others were stationed on.
Many of the others who had noticed the object-which was most certainly an escape pod-began to flee off of the street and into the nearby alleyways and buildings. I dodged behind the door of the entrance as the pod collided with the catwalk-street with a mighty SKREE-CRASH, leaving a massive black burn scar across the street.
Against my better judgement-for I felt in my heart of hearts that the Sith forces would be here soon-I stepped out of my hiding place and into the open. There were surprisingly little flames, but people stayed inside all the same. Aside from the pod itself, the streets were empty.
I looked towards the sky once again, seeing several more flaming objects approaching the city, and turned back towards the first pod. The door opened, and a man with a familiar disturbingly orange jacket climbed out, a man with mahogany brown hair and a stubble slung over his back.
Carth Onasi. And unless I am mistaken, that is our resident amnesiac Sith Lord.
At that moment, an idea came to me.
"Hey! Republic!" I shouted at the good captain.
Carth turned towards me, eyes narrowed as the hand not holding the Dark Lord in place sped towards the grip of his blaster pistol. I held up my hands in surrender, hoping to placiat the paranoid wreck of a man and prevent myself from earning a hole in my head.
"Woah! I'm not trying to harm you! I'm trying to help!" I whisper-shouted. "I have a place you can stay if you can help get me off-planet!"
Carth seemed to consider my offer before lying the Dark Lord on the ground. "Can you take his legs?"
I nodded. And as we carried Darth Revan into the building, I smirked.
No such thing as luck indeed.