Code Of Justice
A gentle breeze past over me, causing the plant life around me to sway with the wind. My golden eyes were looking at the vast fields that stretched as far as the eye could see.
There was a random loth-cat seated next to where I had stopped my bike.
And by next to me, I meant several yards away. I haven't let one near me since that one loth-cat tried to bit my hand off while I was feeding it. Their species is more vicious than Rin and Luvia combined.
So, I did then only reasonable thing and drove past it, towards the place that seemed to be calling me to it.
Today marks the fifth year since I've been reborn on this strange new world known as Lothal. My new homeworld is an agricultural world located on the outer rim of the galaxy.
Agricultural world, Outer Rim. Before I regained the memories of my past life, these terms were just normal things. Now… those terms bring out a sense of awe in me.
As Shirou Emiya, the greatest feat of space travel was setting a man on the moon. Now I live in a world where space travel is commonplace, and there's even a giant galactic community.
The Galactic Republic.
It's apparently an organization of countless star systems, spanning the entire galaxy. My parents said that it has lasted over a thousand years, protected by superhero-eques guardians known as Jedi. True heroes
Though, I doubt some of the things my parents say about the republic, not that I think there lying to me. But my new ancestors have lived on Lothal since it was first settled, and not a single member has left this world. Lots could have change in that time, and we of Lothal would never know it. Especially members of isolate communities like my own.
As I thought about that, I reached the giant rock formation that seemed to be calling out to me.
I felt drawn to this place for as long as I could remember, but it's been too far for me to walk to. And unfortunately, my parents wouldn't let me take their vehicle, something about it being too unsafe for me to drive.
Luckily, my parents got me my very own, miniature, speeder bike for my fifth birthday, and this was the first place I choose to visit.
I sighed as I got of my bike. Mom and Dad didn't get me this bike just for my enjoyment. No, that got it so that I can get supplies from one of the larger settlements and deliver stuff. Basically, it was my parents' way to prepare me to start working. As is the life of farm children, at least for now.
As much as I love my new family, from my new mother and father to my sister, I can't live my entire life here. To become a hero, I must eventually leave this world.
I walked towards the rock, not knowing what I was expecting to happen, when I heard a voice callout to me from out of nowhere.
"Awfully young to be adventuring alone, youngling," a strange voice dryly called out to me.
The voice caused me to slightly jump in surprise before turning to see where it came from.
As I turned and looked at the man, I prepared myself to run if I need to. I know my chances against an adult in my current state. Even with magecraft, it would be a hard fight to win.
The man was a tall human, he had to be over six foot. He had brown eyes that matched his dark brown hair, at least the parts that weren't white. He was wearing an exquisitely craft brown robe, their quality far beyond anything I'd seen since my rebirth.
Based on the clothing, and his foreign accent, this man wasn't from Lothal.
"Who are you?" I asked carefully, not letting any emotion show on my face or in my voice.
"No need to be alarmed," the man said as he walked towards.
For some reason, I felt like I could physically sense his power, and it was enormous. I don't think I would have been able to beat this guy, even if I was an adult.
"Sorry, but my parents tell me not to trust strangers," I said while not letting my guard down.
"Wise advice, you should heed," the man admitted. "But fret not, youngling, for I mean you no harm."
"I applied your moral character then, not many have the strength of will not attack little kids on sight," I responded sarcastically. "Now what are you doing on my world."
The man raised an eyebrow, "your world?"
"This clearly isn't your world; your accent and clothing clearly aren't Lothian. Besides, almost everyone on Lothal is a farmer, but you walk like a warrior trained with a sword, Mom and Dad would have told me about someone as powerful as you."
The man seemed to be slightly impressed with my analyzes, "you are correct, I am not of Lothal. I am here seeking knowledge."
"Knowledge?" I asked, before letting out a self-deprecating chuckle. "Sorry Mister, but the only knowledge you're going to find around here is on farming."
Lothal is my new homeworld, and I am very attached to it, but even I have to admit that our planet is worthless.
"I wouldn't be so sure," the man responded while taking a long look into my eyes. "You can find the most marvelously of things in the strangest of places. Now tell me, youngling, what are you doing here?"
The man waved his hand while he said that.
"I don't know. I just felt called here," I responded without controlling my mouth.
"Hum, the same as me, very well. This temple needs two to open it."
I blinked, completely confused, "What did you say?"
"I sense The Force in you, youngling," the man said as walked right up in front of me.
"The Force?" I think I might have heard about that from one of the bedtime stories my mother read to me before I regained my memories, but I couldn't remember the details.
"It's a field, that unites all living things. Those who possess the ability to manipulate the force are known as force-sensitives."
"And you think I have that power?" I asked, not believing what he was saying. "Sorry, but I don't think I'm that special."
"You'll find that often, reality doesn't care about what you think," the man scoffed. "Now, then its time for us to open the temple."
"Temple?" I asked, again confused by this strange old man.
"Yes, that large stone pillar must be lifted to access the temple below. I could lift it on my own, but the force requires to force-sensitives to open it."
As he said that, I looked at the giant monolith this crazy old man was referring to. It would be easier to blow it up with a noble phantasm then to try lifting the whole thing up.
In fact, the mere idea of me and this old man picking up that giant rock was almost enough to make me laugh.
"What is so humorous?" the man asked, somehow knowing my emotions despite my attempt to hide them.
"The idea that some old man, who's name I don't even know, wants me to help him lift a rock the size of a mountain."
"Yes, it might be appropriate to share our names," the brown eyed man repeated, unphased by my mocking him. "You may call me Master Dooku."
"Oh, master," I repeated mockingly. "I would thank someone of your lofty position, should they even remember just my first name as Shirou."
"It is truly rare to encounter a youngling with such a mouth," Dooku said more matter of factly. than with any real annoyance. It felt as if he thought responding to my provocations was beneath him.
Dooku didn't show any emotion as he looked towards the rock, "Now then focus on the temple's exterior, and I'll do the rest."
For some reason, I didn't feel like arguing. It was like I didn't know what I was doing.
Then, out of nowhere, I felt myself painting on the ground.
I felt more exhausted than ever before, it felt like someone had drained me dry of all my life force. It was only though my sheer force of will that I didn't pass out.
"Truly impressive, youngling. Even if all you did was leave you fingerprints on the temple, while I lifted the doorway, I had expected you to pass out."
"What did you do to me," barely manage to puff out.
"I simply helped you focus your mind," Dooku said before looking up at the rock buried in the ground.
I held my breath when I followed his gaze.
No, the lifted rock. It was as if the giant stone had been unscrewed from the ground, revealing a stairwell.
Dooku started to walk towards it.
"Where are you going?!" I asked him from the ground.
"Into the temple," the man replied curtly.
After his words, I found the force of will to stand up.
I don't know what's in this temple, but I can't let this man have it alone. I've fought to many mages to not know the value of knowledge.
The man didn't stop me as I followed behind him.
I had a bad feeling about this.
As we entered the temple, the temple fell behind us, seeing me and Dooku in the chamber room.
"Hum, it seems it was the correct choice to allow you to follow me," Dooku said as he sat down on the floor.
"Do you know how to get out of here?" I asked, concerned. "While I'm not afraid to die, I'd rather not dying of starvation."
"Settle down, youngling. We open It once; we can open it again."
Dooku started to meditate after he said that, ignoring any of my attempts to get his attention.
Seeing nothing better to do, I leaned against the wall and started to mediate.
I mediated for all of minute, before being brought back to reality by the sound of stone moving.
I opened my eyes to find Dooku gone, but a pathway had opened.
It was almost impossible to describe, but it felt like that pathway was for me. Yet, it felt like I wasn't ready to walk down it. It almost felt deadly.
So, I did the only reasonable thing I could at this moment and walked into the pathway.
Dooku seems to have mysteriously disappeared, and I don't know if he will come back. And its not like I can wait around forever.
I only walked through the pathway for a couple minutes before everything went sideways.
Out of nowhere, the scenery around me disappeared, replaced by a nostalgic dojo.
"Shirou," I felt chills run down my body as I heard a familiar voice call out to me.
"Sa- Saber," I barely managed to respond.
Standing in front of me was saber, she held a familiar wooden sword in her hand. The memory of which almost causing me to flinch.
"You're not ready yet," my old friend regard me coldly.
"Not ready? What do you mean? What are you doing here?"
This has to be an illusion… Right?
"I'm here because you're here Shirou," Saber readied her sword.
I opened my magical circuits and tried to spread magical energy throughout body, in a vain attempt to dispel this illusion, but it didn't work.
Saber's expression was cold as she charged at me, one minutes she was across the room, the next her sword was in my gut. She sent me flying into a nearby wall.
Saber is an opponent completely beyond me, even if I had my adult body. I need to retreat.
"Trace On!" I barely managed to scream my incantation, as a familiar set of black and white blades appeared in my hand, just fun-sized to match my current height.
I barely managed to block Saber's next attack, and only because she let me.
I did my best to fight my way back to the entrance.
"Do not return until your ready Shirou, next time we won't be so lenient."
"We?!" I barely managed to ask in a shouted as Saber blasted me through the entrance, all the way back to the chamber.
As she did so, I could have sworn that I saw to other familiar girls alongside her.
I lost conscious as I felt my back hit part a wall.
I moaned as I regained conscious. My body felt like it had been used as chew toy.
But I suppressed the pain and managed to sit up. I was still in the chamber, but Dooku was back, sitting across from me.
He had slight cuts on clothing, as if he had been in battle.
"So, you've finally awakened," the man stated.
I had a ton of questions about what just happened, but there was something I need to say first.
"Thank you for bandaging me," I told him as I looked over my body. It seems someone had gone through the effort of bandaging my wounds, and he was the only one who could have done so.
The man didn't respond to my thanks, "Now that your awake, we can get out of here."
He started to get up.
"Wai—"
I didn't even finish before I found myself breathing heavily on the floor, the temple door was open again.
"Is this funny to you?" I asked as I got up. It felt slightly easier to get up this time, but it still took all of my will not to pass out.
"I find no amusement in the suffering of children."
I just glared at him, annoyed.
We walked outside the temple, the temple falling shut behind us.
"I had what almost felt like a vision while I was in the temple. Just what was that?" I asked after we were out of the temple.
"It was the force testing you," Dooku said while looking the direction of my village. "But that doesn't matter right now."
My gaze followed his towards my village. Worry started to well up inside me, as my senses were focused in that area.
"I got to go," I said, forgetting all my question for the enigmatic stranger. Something was wrong.
I ran towards my speeder bike, while I heard Dooku sigh.
Jumping on my child sized bike, I sped towards my village.
"I see… So, this is it, huh."
I felt nothing as I reached my village, only to find it burned to ashes. There were only a few burned bodies left.
There were no feelings left inside me as I walked through the ashes of my new life, that had been nothing new left for me to feel.
Coldly, I examined the corpse of my fellow villagers, not daring to go anywhere near my home.
There were blaster shots through their chest. This wasn't some accident, but I have no way to track who did this. How do I bring someone to justice when they could be anywhere in the galaxy?
And besides, revenge is pointless. It won't being those I love back.
Yet again, I'm left with nothing but my ideal.
"As I sensed," a familiar voice said from behind me.
"Did you have anything to do with this."
"No," Dooku sounded almost sympathetic when he said that.
"I see," was all I felt needed to be said in response.
Dooku gave me a few more moments before speaking again, "do you have any relatives?"
"No, this village was my entire family."
"Then you will come with me."
I turned and looked at the man as he said that, noticing that he was pulling something out of his robes.
My eyes widened as the object was recorded in Unlimited Blade Works, it was a lightsaber.
"That's- that's a laser-sword!" I couldn't hide my shock, Mom said that they were weapons wielded by the legendary Jedi.
"Lightsaber," the man corrected. "It is the weapon of the jedi."
My face slowly became neutral.
"You are force sensitive and have the ability to so cleanly detach yourself from your attachments."
He said that while studying my face, "This is the second time now that you've managed to impress me, so I shall give you the chance to become a jedi, like myself."
I swallowed. I didn't have time to go through the entire history of the blade, but a quick glace told me that this guy wasn't lying.
This man was a true jedi, a hero of justice, even if he didn't act like it.
With my home destroyed, and my family dead, there was only one possible response.
"Please teach me how to be a jedi, Master Dooku."
Hi, I hope everyone's having a wonderful day.
Anyway, the idea for this fic popped in my head, so I sat aside all my schoolwork and wrote it.
Unfortunately, my knowledge of star wars expanded universe is lacking. Overall, my knowledge is tied to the mainline movies, the animated shows, and some Dooku books I read in middle school. So I'm sorry for any lore inconsistencies in this chapter. Oh, and the Kotor games plus the new Thrawn novel. I plan on reading some of the prequal novels for this fic, but I have done that for this chapter yet. (Anyone have any suggestions?)
Now then, on some of the things in this chapter-
Giving Shirou a sister, yeah, it's obvious so I'm just going to say it, she not dead. I thought it would be an interesting arc for Shirou to track down the people who destroyed his village, then decided it would be cool for him to have a little force-sensitive sister to. Jedi siblings or something.
Also, for opening the temple, I figured that Rebels said that it need to open it, but not that they had to put equal effort into opening it. So, I figured that it would be fine to have Dooku do 99.999% percent of the work while Shirou just places his methodical fingers on the temple to qualify as to people opening it. There only going to be able to truly get into it as master and apprentice.
Next up, in terms of the timeline, Shirou's about five now, and I want him to be around 10 to 12 when the Phantom Menace happens, so that he can form aa sort of friendship with Ani.
Lastly, this is a nebulous no route Shirou that was only ever seduced by his ideal of justice, and still believes in it. More details are going to be revealed when he goes back and confronts the force vision versions of saber, Rin and Sakura, with each of them representing something in his trial.
Have a great day!