Author Note
Beta Read by James Pratt.
Review
Alan
The Jedi are way less fun to write about than the Sith.
Sith Gothic 3 -Gotham
There is no passion; There is only obsession.
There is no knowledge; There is only conviction.
There is no purpose; There is only will.
There is nothing; There is only me.
Power is control. It's better to be in control than to be a mad man drowning in the dark side.
- Darth Ruin's code
Part 9
Penthouse. Gotham.
Lee sat across from me, with the Gotham city skyline framing her through the massive windows as she sat sipping her coffee while she and I read different parts of the morning paper. Lee was looking good enough to eat herself, in her mostly transparent nightgown an outfit that showed off the sexy bra and panties that she was wearing. It wasn't the kind of thing most women would wear outside of the bedroom, and Lee would have changed if I'd allowed it. However, I wished for her to sit through breakfast looking all sexy for me because it made me happy. In time I wouldn't have to even give her a gentle nudge, soon doing this sort of thing would be second nature.
Her only real protest had been Kat seeing her, so I'd assured my future wife that my ward wouldn't be getting out of bed before midday and it wasn't as if anything Lee had to show off would be unknown to Selina. She wasn't exactly a little girl.
"Did you hear about these murders?" Lee asked while motioning to the paper she was reading "Some monster is going around killing people through fear somehow"
Giving this some thought, and going over my meta-data I kept in my head I realised that this must be Gerald Crane at work, a biology teacher who has been harvesting the adrenal glands of his murder victims, his son Jonathan would become the villain called The Scarecrow unless I happened to alter events.
"Do be careful when you go out my dear," I said to Lee as we ate a breakfast of fresh fruit and croissants "I'd hate for some psycho to come after you on your way home from work."
I would indeed be upset, I'd invested way too much time and energy moulding Lee for my public persona to let her die. Her role was far from over yet. When the time came to head to Smallville and make a start on weaponising the meteor freaks then I would need a wife and children to complete the illusion that I was a happy family man who went on a lot of trips. Rather than a Dark Lord trying to spread his influence over this world.
"Don't worry Tony," she replied, "I have my pepper spray and rape alarm."
I'd considered placing a tracker inside her body, but since she was a doctor she might become aware of such a device. Since she must know more than a few surgeons then she would be able to have it removed without too much trouble and if she did the technology would draw a lot of attention to her, and by extension to me, so I figured it best not to plant the tracker.
As for Crane, it might be worth going after him just to rip out his knowledge so that I could make my own fear toxin in the future. I could well imagine what a potent weapon that would make. With enough of the toxin, I could cause whole cities worth of people to destroy each other in fear. The sheer amount of Dark Side energy that such acts would create might be useful to me.
There were several problems with this idea. For starters, I wasn't one of those Sith who wanted to cause massive amounts of death for a brief power rush. I might be a Dark Lord, but I liked to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning, and destroying a city's worth of innocent people wasn't something I'd do unless it was a last resort. Besides, it was wasteful as I didn't wish to destroy places and people who might have some use to me, and I could milk most places over the long term, netting me a much greater amount of power during that long term, assuming that I was willing to put in a bit of hard work into. My work here in Gotham was a good example of how a Sith should operate. At least in my view.
As for ripping the knowledge out of Crane's mind, I'd done that to Dollmaker and it was best not to do that sort of thing too often, madness had a way of creeping up on you if you didn't keep a close watch on such things.
Musing on it as I sipped my tea, one of the things I truly missed while I was running around in the other galaxy as they lacked proper British tea. The thought struck me that I could grab Gerald fairly easily and put him to work in the basement along with the creator of the viper drug or just find the records of Crane's work. His type of people were obsessive note-takers. Releasing the Fear toxin on a large scale would be too disruptive in most situations, however, in smaller amounts, it could still be a potent weapon.
That would also perhaps spare his son from becoming the Scarecrow thus removing a future problem. That would be wise as letting Gerald Crane be gunned down by the police would be a waste of a brilliant mind. A mind that I could turn to my purpose. Yes, that should work quite well I thought.
"I best get going," I said as I finished off my tea "I want to pick up the supplies for me and Selina that we'll need for the camping trip".
After getting up to leave I bent down so as to give Lee a soft kiss as I got ready to go out. Smiling Lee nodded in understanding thinking that I was about to start my day and this weekend I would doing nothing that she would find to be wrong. In reality, Selina and I would be leaving the planet for a week and since Lee would notice us being gone I'd come up with an excuse for us to be out of contact for a while. Since Kat was a city girl she'd never been camping so it did sound like something she might want to try.
"Me too," Lee said. "I need to shower and get dressed before heading to work".
I gave her a slap on the butt as she headed to the bathroom, which elicited a small squeal and a laugh from Lee. As the door to the bathroom closed I dropped the act and became the Dark Lord once again.
Today I had an errand that needed doing soon, one that perhaps Selina would be better suited to carrying out if she were further along in her training. I really needed a good lackey, someone strong enough in The Force to be useful, but not strong enough to resist my control. Alas, such people were few and far between, but it was definitely something I needed to keep an eye open for, my amount of work would only increase in the times to come if I couldn't find some good help.
Grabbing Crane took less than an hour out of my day since I'd known where we would be what with his old address being registered online. Securing him in the basement so that I work on his mind this evening. Once that was done I went to wake up Selina. The normal routine was to make it as unpleasant as possible, to get her used to people trying to sneak up on her while she was asleep, so she could counter-ambush them. This morning it was a bucket of ice-cold water that I threatened her with. Another day it could music that I knew she loathed
I made sure that my intent could be felt clearly via The Force, as I headed towards her room. As I opened her door I saw her on her bed under her covers, a quick sweep of the room with my mind showed me that it was a decoy, while she was quite impressively balanced on the door frame behind me. Smiling internally as I felt her above me, I noted she was quite well hidden in The Force and from mundane senses, but she still had a long way to go before she could really hide from me, even if she was showing good progress. I walked into the room with the bucket of ice-cold water floating beside me and I made it look like I was about to pour it over the decoy.
As the water poured out from the bucket I reached out with The Force and grabbed hold of the liquid, redirecting it towards my young apprentice so that it would splash all over her. Seline was already moving before the water had started moving towards her, looking to flip over the incoming cold liquid. A flick of my finger had the water change direction while she was still in mid-air catching her in the stomach mid flip, sending her neatly onto her bed. The whole event had taken less than three seconds. Groaning Selina pushed herself up onto her elbows while looking at me trying to frown\pout.
"I almost had you that time," Selina said.
While laughing I shook my head.
"Not even close, still I was impressed, you were well hidden from mundane senses and reasonably well cloaked in The force, you've been practising on your own. Which is good" I praised "Clever work with the decoy. And I see you reinforced the door frame to hold your weight, that was smart".
The wardrobe would have been more predictable as would hiding under the bed.
"You are coming along nicely," I told her "But you still need to learn to mind your surroundings. Now get dressed we have things to do before we go camping".
Next time she'd be more creative so I would have to be even more mindful around her. That way we both remained in top form.
Federal Reserve Bank. Gotham.
While my memories of my first life on Earth were becoming harder and harder to access as time went by, even with me using memory enhancing techniques that were favoured by both the Jedi and the Sith, I did recall that the Federal Reverse Bank was a place in New York. Gotham was this world's counterpart to that famous city so it made some sense for the gold depository to be here, but only some due to the high amounts of crime around.
"There it is," I said to Selina. "Our next target. Inside the vaults is all the gold we need for the next part of my plan".
Kat gave me a look that expressed her confusion.
"How does robbing a bank help us?" she asked.
I'd drilled into her that any major action we take must serve the Sith Order and our grand plan to dominate Gotham in order to be worth the risks involved. She'd taken that lesson to heart
"As you know there are two ruling crime families in this city," I said to my apprentice "The Falcone Crime Family and the Maroni Crime Family, every street gang, drug dealer and protection racket owes its fealty to one of the big crime families. They pay a fraction of their profits to one of the underbosses who in turn pay taxes to Falcone or Maroni, but where does all that money go?".
Selina gave it some thought.
"I know the Falcone family used to keep their savings in the old armoury because you told me about it," she said, "I guess the crime families still have to pay for stuff."
They did because if they simply took the guns, ammo, and other supplies that they needed then they'd soon find that the suppliers went out of business giving them no way of easily acquiring the resources they need. Something I understood well as even Dark Lords of Sith can't magic up ships and armies, well the Starforge had come close to giving Revan and Malak, but even Malak had needed to pay his troops and infrastructure.
"According to my agent inside the Maroni Crime Family, Don Maroni keeps a lot of his ill-gotten gains here in this bank. Which has been converted to gold bars," I explained to Kat as we watched the building from across the street. "I plan to take that gold and use it to fund the next part of my plan. This will cause Maroni to increase the taxes paid by the under-bosses just as Falcone has been forced to do, and that will upset his underlings. When my stooge takes over he'll lower the taxes and that will help to smooth things over".
I explained the Kat how I'd given a lot of thought to building a base in this star system that was off Earth. Mars was looking like a good spot, but since Jo'nn the Martian Manhunter might be real in this universe, meaning that there could be a civilization on Mars or some dormant threat, so maybe one of the moons of Saturn would be a better choice. I'd have to dome scanning.
Since I didn't have the manpower for such a project I'd need to buy droids, a lot of them. Machines that were capable of constructing a proper base using local materials and whatever supplies I could purchase, I knew this wouldn't come cheap. However, I would need the base if only to have a fallback position should I have to leave Earth in a hurry for some reason. Something that could happen when the super-powered aliens and meta-humans became active. Hopefully, I would be prepared, only I wasn't going to assume that my Earth identity would remain secure.
The base would have to be self-sufficient, and while this was possible it wouldn't be cheap to set up. I also wanted to add some stealth system to the Ebon Hawk, something that would keep it off the scanners used by the military forces of this world. This would be another drain on my resources, and sure I did have some stashes hidden back in the Star Wars galaxy, but I didn't want to use them for something like this. Not when I could just get my enemies to fund it, while simultaneously weakening my enemy. Gold was only really still used as currency in Hutt Space, but they could easily supply me with the equipment that I needed quickly and with minimal fuss.
"So we're going to rob a bank and then go into outer space," summarised my student.
That was the basics of my plan.
"We'll go in tonight," I said.
That would give me enough time to grab an employee, get what I needed from their mind, and return them to work with no memory of ever meeting me.
Federal Reserve Bank Gotham.
The Federal Reserve Building's gold vault rested on Manhattan's bedrock, 80 feet below street level and so the only way to get down there was to go through the oldest tunnels while using a mapping feature on a portable computer from the Star Wars galaxy that had scanners good enough to find the weakest point of entry into the bank that didn't involve using any entrance on the street level.
Not that this was in any way a pleasant option. The maintenance tunnels weren't too bad as these were often used. But the old sewers contained garbage and things I'd rather not think about, considering it was Gotham we'd be lucky if there were only rats down here with us. Lucky for me I was able to influence the minds of the vermin to make them run, all I had to do was convince them that predators were around and soon they were all running from us. Where they went didn't concern me as long as it was far from here.
Even with the droid intelligence that I'd set loose on the security system, using some of my old Slicer skills, we still had to be careful as the human security personal would be on guard. There was no need to blow our way into the vault as I had a lightsaber and The Force to call upon. My blade melted its way through the concrete and steel fairly easily, it just took time as even the thinnest wall was eight feet of concrete and steel so it was a good thing that my apprentice and I had all night.
Once the edges of the hole had cooled Kat and I entered the vault. There were no alarms or lights as my droid intelligence came from a civilization that had been refining computers systems for thousands of years. As such it was pitch black down here, and while sight was not an issue for a master of The Force even the Dark Lord of the Sith wasn't above using a torch.
Thanks to my insider information I knew that inside the vault I would find 122 gold compartments, each containing the deposits of one account holder, as well as various shelves for smaller account holders. The account holders are identified by numbers for anonymity, however, Oswald Cobblepot had gotten his sneaky mitts on those account numbers while infiltrating the crime organisation. The numbers were useless by themselves as anyone wishing to withdraw the gold of an account would need more than the numbers, but they had used to me.
"How much is all this worth?" Kat asked me.
I had a rough idea since I'd questioned an employee of this bank.
"One bar of gold from this place is 28 pounds of gold which is somewhere around half a million dollars," I told her. "It can vary depending on stock market prices".
A single bar could bring most families here out of debt and see them leaving in reasonable comfort for many years, yet the rich just hoarded them away down here. It wasn't as if they needed the money, I was a Dark Lord of the Sith and I donated quite a bit of money to charity. What did that say about those who had accounts with this bank? Not of the gold down here belonged to a country or another large organisation.
"There's our target," I said.
Don Maroni's gold didn't amount to much when compared to the wealth of entire nations, or some of the richest people around, yet for a lone man to have amassed this much wealth it meant that he must have done some very shady and profitable things over the years, or maybe he'd just stolen the gold from someone. He might have just inherited it. The man's history wasn't very well known even by me.
I opened the way for our thieving hands using The Force so that we made as little noise as possible and minimised the damage, thus lessening the physical evidence, and took all of Maroni's gold, an amount heavier than expected so I had to call upon The Force just to make my way out.
As I'd mentioned earlier to Kat I doubted that this bank would ever even report the robbery and since no one had been hurt they would be able to cover it up. What they'd do if Maroni came for his gold I didn't know or care, but he'd be dead soon enough so that was good for them.
The Ebon Hawk. Hyperspace.
Not long after stealing gold from the Federal Reserve and getting it loaded onto my ship. Something that went so smoothly, I could not help worrying that I'd somehow screwed up without knowing it. I'd taken Selina and myself off-planet. We would be stopping off at two planets while out in the wider universe, Dantooine and Nar Shadda. There was a certain cave that I'd visited long ago which I wished for Kat to visit as well. As for Nar Shadda, well when you wanted upgrades for your ship, legal or otherwise, and you had money to burn there was really only one place to go.
Since the wormhole between this galaxy and the Milky Way had its entrance in this galaxy in a mostly unknown part of space there were no direct hyper-lanes to Dantooine so it would take us a while to get there. I'd decided to use this time to begin the next stage of Kat's training in the ways of the Sith.
Now that she could call upon The Force to aid herself in a controlled way, she should be able to wield a training sabre without risk of harming herself. Jedi and Sith apprentices years younger than her had been allowed to carry the deadlier versions of the weapons, but Kat's training was no were near as intense as theirs and that was fine since her natural talent was great, yet if she was to be my successor than she would need to apply herself more to her training and nothing motivated a Force Sensitive like getting their own lightsaber. Not that I should judge Kat as my owning training had been spotty at best. I'd been rushed through the academy and I'd only survived due to raw power, strong allies, and the will of The Force.
Since I knew that Ravager would at some point go after my apprentice in order to replace her, as I could only have one apprentice, and when that day came if Kat failed it would reflect badly on the both of us. Hence why I wanted her focused on learning to use the iconic weapon. The lightsaber. Ravager would have swords created with Sith Alchemy rather than sabres since I didn't want to have to train Ravager in their use and she could learn the sword from others.
Calling Kat down to the training area, really the cleared out cargo bay, we stood a few meters apart, both barefoot and dressed in work out clothing. I handed her a wooden sword, and she gave it a few experimental swings.
"Now that you can call on The Force reliably and have some decent muscle on your bones, we can move on to some more interesting things," I told my student "Have you looked through the books I gave you on The Sith and The Jedi, those that tell you how they fight?"
Kat nodded with a smile. I knew that she had been waiting for this.
"Good then as you know most apprentices by your age underwent the Gathering and built a weapon of their own. And that's one of the reasons I've brought you out into the greater galaxy. We'll be starting with simple weighted wooden swords".
Selina gave the heavy wooden sword another clumsy swing. Hitting her sword hard I knocked the sword from her hands.
"Pay attention! Once you learn to build your own Sabre then we'll move on to more advanced work" I promised "If you don't pay attention and learn then you'll wish you were dead before the end of this. Because if you don't learn you will be killed".
Due to Selina's petite frame, something that served her well given her stealth and agility, I'd decided that the little Catwoman would be well suited to Form 3 of lightsaber combat, a style I'd never been trained in, but I was familiar enough with all seven forms that I could teach them. I ran her through several basic Katas, correcting her footwork and balance. After a couple of hours, we took a break to get some water. I could see Kat's arms were shaking from having to hold the sword for so long, ah that took me back.
After Kat tried to drown herself she turned to me with a question on her mind
"How long do you think it will take me to master form three, boss?" she asked.
I knew before saying anything that my answer would surprise her.
"The greatest master of form three has been practising for more than seven hundred years," I told her, thinking of Yoda "What does that tell you?"
Selina gave it some thought while sipping on her water.
"That I'll never truly master it. I can only keep trying" she said.
Smiling at the answer I nodded.
"Okay, enough rest" I ordered "Back into position".
Much to learn to she still had.
"At first I considered having you focus on Soresu," I said to Kat as we walked back onto the mats. "As Soresu works to allow its user to defend ones self indefinitely against multiple enemies with minimal effort, only switching to the offensive when your adversary as weakened or become frustrated. However, since we're unlikely to come across anyone with weapons that can withstand a lightsaber, at least when on Earth, I figured that form four, Ataru is the best place to start for you".
By now Kat's wonder at being in space had been given time to lessen. Most of the views from a starship really aren't that interesting since space is mostly empty and hyperspace while interesting to look at first, isn't healthy to look at for too long. There were stories about pilots who looked at hyperspace for too long and went mad when they started claiming that there were creatures living in hyperspace. I tried not to think about such things and kept my mind focused on the lesson.
"Ataru is in many ways the inverse of Soresu, as Form IV focuses almost exclusively on offence rather than keeping up a good defence" I explained "Its practitioners seek to end a fight as quickly as possible rather than try to outlast the foe. Since you will be best served by striking from the shadows this aggressive form will suit you well."
As I talked I displayed more of the Ataru stances and moves that I knew.
"Ataru places greater emphasis on the use of the Force to enhance movement, focusing on speed and agility, these like stealth are your strengths" I let Kat know "You lack the physical strength required for the powerful attacking strikes of Djem So. Which I combine with the more defensive form Shein for a well-balanced lightsaber form".
Shien, considered by many Sith and Jedi to be the classical variant of Form V, was more adept at blocking blaster bolts than for blade-to-blade combat, whereas Djem So was developed later and was specifically intended for use in lightsaber combat. Both Shien and Djem So were designed to use an opponent's attacks against them, as evidenced by Shien's focus on returning blaster bolts to their origin and Djem So's emphasis on immediate counter-attacks. Although some Jedi felt that Form V encouraged aggression and domination, that sentiment did not stop many Jedi from practising the form. I'd chosen the form for myself because it was often used by the most powerful of Sith and Jedi such as Darth Bane, Kyle Kartarn and Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader all of whom had a lot of raw power.
"Since Ataru doesn't focus much on defence you will need to get around my guard to strike" I was now telling Kat "Don't try to block my blows or divert them, use The Force to enhance your speed and agility as I know you can so that you can dodge my attacks and strike at me when I am not prepared to defend".
We started off with me making a few slow strikes that were not really meant to hit and as hoped my student would avoid the strikes rather than try to block my blows which would too powerful for her to withstand in a lightsaber duel. She rolled around or leapt about, trying to strike in unexpected ways. She still had far to go before she was skilled enough to win a sword fight or lightsaber duel, yet I could see much potential in her. One day she would strike at me in training while bouncing off walls and moving so fast she would a blur to anyone other than myself.
She might still learn to use the Light Whip, but that would have to be something she taught herself to use once her command of The Force was much greater and she'd learned the power of such weapons. I imagined that she'd do well with a shoto sabre, maybe she would even carry two. Technically the lightsaber shoto was nothing more than a scaled version of its larger sibling and differed very little in its internal mechanism and construction. Generally speaking, a shoto would be half the size of a standard lightsaber in both blade and hilt length and usually featured hilts that were considerably slimmer and more streamlined to allow for maximum dexterity
"Good," I praised my apprentice.
Kat had remained silent during this lesson. Eagerly taking in all the knowledge that I had to share on the subject of lightsaber combat, as I'd expected. She would soon have her crystal or crystals required to make her own weapon even if it would be some time before she'd be wielding any kind of lightsaber.
The Crystal Cave. Dantooine.
I was mildly surprised about how easy of a time my student and I had when it came to finding the caves. Of course, it helped to have the Force as well as decent scanning equipment. But the Crystal Cave could be odd in that you wouldn't find them unless they seemed to want to be found, even if you had been there before. Over the years I had given a lot of thought to these crystals, which seemed to be life forms of a sort as their strength in The Force suggested as such. Since they were strong with The Force then they could call out to us in some way. I'd never really come to a solid conclusion on the matter despite all my studies into them.
As we walked up to the cave entrance we both looked around at the wildlife and the two visible moons in the sky. I could see that Kat was trying to play it cool and that all the things she had seen hadn't affected her, but she was still only a thirteen-year-old girl. I had made sure to park the ship a good hours walk away from the cave entrance. Making a point to use The Force to draw some of the more exotic local wildlife to us while we walked towards the cave, those had been harmless creatures. However, the tunnels leading to the crystal caves are known to become infected with some of the more dangerous local lifeforms. Perhaps they would make a good test for my apprentice.
The Crystal Cave was located on the south-east end of the Khoonda which was the closest thing they had on Dantooine to a capital city. Despite all the troubles that were inflicted on this world, some of which I'd even had a hand in dealing with, the planet was still home to many farmers. It had also once been home to a Jedi Enclave, which I'd once visited. But that had long been rendered into ruins and picked over by scavengers. The only things left now were dust and a few memories.
I knew that after the Enclave was set up the Jedi Order was given sole access to the world's wealth of precious crystals, which were vital to the construction of the Order's lightsabers, both for training sabres and the more deadly version of the weapon. Naturally occurring crystals that could be used in a lightsaber and were once believed to only grow on Adega, which produced blue, green and yellow along with several other variations.
While I knew that both Revan and myself, as well as others strong in The Force, had once walked this very same path that we were I could only feel faint echoes in The Force of them. When I mentioned this to Kat she told me that she could feel no trace of anyone who had been here before. Not unexpected given her lack of experience with The Force.
"These crystals also have value in trade," I told my apprentice. "But we can't take too many since we made need to return here one day and it might take decades or even centuries for these crystals to regrow."
While walking along the narrow path up to the cave I could feel that The Force, both light and dark was strong here and as such, the cave should still had plenty of crystals.
Stopping at the entrance I gave a quick rundown on what the different colours meant to the Jedi, and how ridged they had become in their twilight years by limiting what colours were used.
"This cave offers crystals in many colours and in the past different coloured lightsaber crystals were used to indicate a Jedi's chosen class" I explained "If you were drawn to a blue crystal that indicated that you might become a Jedi Guardian, a Jedi who used the Force on a more physical level, a warrior in truth. Green indicated a Jedi Consular, a Jedi who preferred to reflect on the mysteries of the Force and fight the dark side at its heart. Yellow indicated a Jedi Sentinel, a Jedi who honed his or her skills in a balance of combat and scholarly pursuits. However, this was not a rigid rule and there was nothing stopping a Jedi from having a purple bladed lightsaber or any colour other than red, and there were a few places in this galaxy other than here that a Jedi could find the right crystals".
Having a variety of different coloured blades was something that fell out of practice in later years, and the more modern Jedi, those seen in the movies, nearly always used blue or green crystals that came from the Ilum caves. To me, that was a sign of how stagnated and cult-like the Jedi Order had become by the Clone Wars as while each lightsaber was still unique due to the range of different materials used during construction, in times past a much wider range of crystals from across the galaxy had been used. It was if the Jedi Master were trying to limit variation among the lesser ranking Jedi so as to make the Jedi more uniform, more rigid in both actions and thought. The Sith understood that those who did not adapt would die.
"We Sith normally use red crystals, that can be manufactured or found naturally in some rare cases" I was now telling Kat "Some Sith perform an action called The Bleeding in which they wound a kyber crystal, by channelling hate and anger into it, this bends the crystal to their will, but I consider that to be needlessly cruel. We don't use red crystals as while in this galaxy most people don't know the difference between a Jedi and Sith a witness could remember the colour of the blade and the Jedi do understand its importance. On Earth, we have the Star Wars movies so as long as avoid using red blades we have the option of playing the role of Jedi if we need to convince someone that The Force is real for whatever reason".
That might never happen, it was just good to have the option.
"If none of the crystals here calls to you then there are other places we can try," I told my student "Like the Adega system and we might be able to land on Illum if we can find on a star chart".
The Adega system was located in the Auril sector of the Outer Rim Territories, it was once a major centre for Jedi activities. Again its abandonment was a sign of the Jedi Order's failure in their twilight years. They'd been so focused on maintaining the Republic that they kept nearly all their operations on Courscant, a world that was not strong in the light side of the Force. Something that only aided Palpatine in the years leading up to The Empire.
Not this mattered to me as that was centuries away. More time had passed on this side of the wormhole than the other, something not unknown to those few who had used hyperspace wormholes, but I still had many centuries to wait before The Brotherhood of Darkness became an issue and Palpatine wouldn't be an issue for a thousand years after the Brotherhood.
Kat gave the cave entrance a long look.
"No I think this place is right, I just need some time alone" she stated.
I took the hint and moved to the side before taking a seated position as Selina walked inside. Once Kat had disappeared into the caves I began to meditate letting the light side of the force flow through me, slowly cleansing me of the dark side taint I had built up while in Gotham. It was unpleasant, to say the least, as the dark side never wanted to let go once it got a hold of someone. But I would bend for no one, even The Force so I endured and let the light side of the force cleanse me.
Since I'd been using the dark side a lot recently it was good to bathe myself in the light as it would help stop me from going too dark. Balance and moderation were sometimes called for. I sat there for several hours with my eyes closed feeling the planet and the universe around me, the only thing to mark the time was the slowly lengthening shadows.
Long after the sun had gone down and all three moons had risen. Kat came out of the cave, she looked like she had been In there for far longer than seven hours. I could feel her elation and exhaustion in equal measure. I could feel the two crystals in her hands and another one in one of her pouches. Strange that she would be drawn to three so different crystals and that she wanted to hide one from me. No doubt The Force had guided her in that action and for a good reason.
I looked at the two in her hand both of which were odd colours, purple and orange. The colour of the crystal chosen mattered a lot to Jedi though it had never been totally agreed upon by experts what the colours actually meant. Most Jedi used green and blue because blue was used by those who favoured using their lightsabers over talk to solve problems, but with the intention of defending others and preventing greater conflict. Green was the diplomat's colour.
Someone who had a purple crystal could mean that the user was unsure which side they would choose, and might up using a mixture of Dark and Light in an aggressive combat style. The colour purple is said to be a mix of red (Evil) and Blue (Good). Both Mace Windu and Mara Jade wielded a purple lightsaber. As for the orange colour I'd never even seen that colour used in a lightsaber before, it was almost red rather like a sunset in some way than the colour of the fruit. I was starting to wonder if my apprentice was unsure of her path, or maybe she would be something different than Jedi or Sith. I looked forward to finding out.
"I think I'm supposed to have these two," she said to me.
She was no holding up her to crystals for me to get a closer look at. They were both very pretty to look at and I could understand that she must have spent time struggling to chose between them only to realise while connected deeply to The Force that she was should take both.
"Well done you've taken a big step along the path to your destiny" I praised.
Wayne Manor. Outside of Gotham.
Bruce didn't know how he knew it, but he always could tell when it was Selina who about to drop by. She never stayed for long, and this time she'd brought him a gift, a small blue crystal that seemed oddly warm in Bruce's hand. If it had been a living thing rather than an object he'd have sworn it was happy to be near him like a content kitten purring or a happy puppy wagging its tail. It was a silly thing to think, yet he kept the crystal close as it felt good to have around.
Once his friend had gone. The Wayne heir had begun to feel drawn to something. There was something in this room or near to it that called to him. He'd told Selina about this feeling during her visit and she'd encouraged him to pay attention to what it was trying to tell him. Bruce didn't know what it could be, but he had to find it so as soon as the former street kid had left he'd started taking apart his father's study.
The television provided little in the way of distraction as it informed him that the crime families of Gotham were at war once again, and it didn't seem as if the police would be able to deal with the violence. Perhaps this latest bout of fighting would end soon as the others had, yet Bruce couldn't help thinking that the growing darkness in the city would not be contained. Little did he know that there was a mastermind behind all of this trouble that had decided upon its return to move forwards with his plans.
Bruce sat on the couch gently rubbing the small crystal in-between his fingers absently watching the news, when he heard a faint voice. Quickly sitting up he looked around the library trying to figure out where the sound came from. He sat there for a minute without moving, just as he thought he must have imagined it. The voice came again. Frowning he looked around the room, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. He didn't feel threatened or as if he needed to call for Alfred. It kinda sounded like his mother, he thought as he got up.
Once he started moving the voice sounded again still faint but definitely there. Still, he was standing in front of the fireplace. Not sure how he knew he reached up to one of the small decorations on the mantel place, and giving it a push and turn. Causing the whole fireplace to move so as to expose a hidden passage. Shocked at what he had just found, the faint voice sounded again. He moved into the room beyond the fireplace, coming up to a large reinforced door.
Almost as if in a trance, as if something guided his actions, nudging him along a certain path. There was no other explanation for how he'd know the code for the door. This thought was distant and unimportant as what he sought was behind the barrier. Walking quickly down a flight of stairs he came to what he thought looked like an underground bunker. It was huge. From what he could see as the flickering lights came on.
Once he was inside the underground space he ignored the computer, the bulletproof vest that had been used for its purpose, the weapons, and even the cabinet that had blood packets within it. Bruce was drawn to a strange cube object that was in the far corner of the room it glowed brighter the closer he got to it. Looking at the small cube-shaped box, he could see strange writing along its edges in a language he'd never seen before. He could feel the warmth and some sort of energy coming from the cube.
Still feeling as if he were in a dream he carefully picked up the box, when he touched it the device emitted an image of a strange creature, the creature looked up at him for a moment while he looked at it wondering what it was. This image was that of the Holocron gatekeeper as Bruce would soon learn.
"Greetings young student of The Force I am Master Zhar Lestin," said the image.
Bruce could hear an alien language in the background and he knew that somehow the words were being translated into English for him.
"Do you wish to learn the ways of the Jedi?" it asked.
The Wayne heir was understandably confused as to him the Jedi were fictional, but why would his father, because this had to be father's hidden place, hide something that must be a piece of merchandise down here? His father wouldn't, he'd not been one for science fiction, and this device was clearly no toy.
"How did you get down here?" Bruce asked.
He soon discovered that the device, which was called a Holocron, had been sent to a distant Jedi outpost during a terrible war for safekeeping only for it to become lost after a failed hyperspace jump. Assuming that this wasn't some sort of trick that meant the Star Wars movies were based on real events in a distant galaxy. This was something Bruce struggled to believe yet here was the proof, he held it in his hand. The cube had brought him to it after he'd made contact with the blue crystal, which the gatekeeper knew to be a lightsaber crystal. Contact with the crystal had awoken him to The Force, a power within and outside of him that gave the Jedi the means to perform feats beyond those possible by other people.
Bruce couldn't imagine where Selina hadn't gotten such a crystal from. Perhaps it had arrived on this world with the Holocron, which had somehow ended up the possession of the Wayne Family. Bruce learned the device would have only responded to the touch of someone strong with The Force and while his father must have known it was special perhaps it had just been a curiosity until now, a priceless object that no one understood the purpose of, yet all understood that it had some value. He could ask Selina about the blue crystal without tipping her off to the fact that he had The Force. He couldn't tell anyone other than Alfred about this.
If this cube could make him a Jedi then perhaps he would be able to solve the mystery of his parent's death and maybe even become strong enough to clean up Gotham. It would take years, but he was young, he had time and it would all be worth it if he could save his city.
"I wish to become a Jedi," he said, looking at the gatekeeper with a firm expression on his face.
The gatekeeper was silent for a few moments. Bruce felt the creature was measuring him somehow. Then The image nodded.
"Let us begin," said the hologram.
Little did Bruce Wayne know just what had begun here.