A dizzy feeling began to creep over him as Ezra sped through the streets of Capital City. He felt weary too, and he nearly crashed into a market stall as he swerved around the corner of a large building.
Focus, Ezra, he told himself. You've got this.
Within the chaos and exhilaration that folded itself out before him, avoiding people and traffic and trying not to crash his vehicle, the boy concentrated on the Force, allowing himself to gradually gain back the energy he had lost when he revealed the snippets of events that would follow. When he wanted a lengthened precognition, it took longer to recover. Although information was not often handed to him to completely understand what was about to happen, he learnt to accept what was given to him and allowed it to play out however it needed to.
It was a truly special gift, but one Ezra tried not to take advantage of.
He could sense the strange man and his Lasat friend trailing close behind him, closing the gap he had widened for a time. He used every short cut that popped up, every space he could fit through, but the outsiders were always quick to catch up.
Questions racked his brain as Ezra tried to figure out why this man bent the Force so fluently around him. He wish he could to stop to think about it, but instead sent all kinds of things flying out from market stalls, apologizing to everyone he whizzed past.
All these years of practicing many different things, but multitasking while being chased was something he hadn't quite mastered yet.
With a grunt of annoyance, the kid made a sharp turn to the left and appeared on the long highway that stretched for miles across the surface of the planet.
If only his precognition mentioned a chase, he would have been more prepared.
But you can't always be completely prepared for the unexpected.
He glanced behind him and noticed three Storm Troopers on Speeders were slowly closing in on the Lasat and the man. Then he heard the loud whirring of TIE Fighters appearing from the city.
Whatever is in these crates must be really valuable if everyone is chasing me, Ezra thought with a smirk of amusement. He pictured himself on the Speeder with the three crates hovering behind him, closely followed by the strangers who were closely followed by Imperial troops.
What a day.
The turrets on the TIE Fighters began blasting at Ezra, causing him to swerve about to avoid the trails of energy and leap to the other side of the highway. Traffic sped towards him as he drifted around to avoid collision.
On the opposing side of the long road, the Storm Troopers on the Speeder Bikes began to fire at the man and the Lasat, It wasn't long before one went crashing to a halt and the two strangers sent their Speeders leaping over to Ezra's side of the highway.
They were not the kind to give up easy.
The TIE Fighters were easily keeping up as they let off another series of blasts. At the same time the man shot at one of the crates attached to the boy's bike, loosening it and sending it to a halt where the Lasat was ordered to stop and take control of it.
Ezra felt a surge of anger sweep over him. He had mistakenly thought this was going to run smoothly, but now everything was annoying him.
At that moment, his father's words floated into his mind.
"The Dark Side is powerful, but it is filled with hate and malice. If you venture too far into the darkness your soul will be lost. Even though you will feel as vigorous as you have ever felt before, you will no longer be the good soul you are now. You will no longer be yourself or know yourself."
It gave him nightmares for weeks afterwards, of what could become of him if he let himself disappear into the Dark Side of the Force.
Anger, hate, frustration and madness were hard emotions to control sometimes. Over the years it occurred to him that a Jedi couldn't just randomly slip into the Dark Side just for getting angry over something. He did realize, however, that if those gloomy emotions were to fog his mind for days on end, he would eventually let go, therefor lose himself forever.
Ezra had never met another Jedi in his life, so he couldn't be sure if the anger he felt sometimes was different. It wasn't easy to control when the Force was involved, and it was somewhat harder to use when there were no dark emotions stirring inside him.
It was confusing, but then again, he was still young, and he had only been self-taught.
The TIE Fighters fired again, but the boy was ready.
He clicked his bike into autopilot and stood up on the seat. He raised his hands and concentrated, feeling the Force manoeuvre its way around the single-pilot ships. A faint red tinge reflected over his eyes as he curled his fingers to gesture grabbing the TIE in his hands. He then quickly lunged his arms sideways, causing the TIE to smash into the other. With a few explosions they both went crashing into the dry grasses of the semi-arid savannah that covered the planet.
Exhaustion was creeping up on him as Ezra sat back down and put his bike back on manual. He sat there for a moment to gather his missing thought process before he swerved and leaped off into the grasslands.
He still had two crates, and it was the only thought in his mind. The strangers could deal with the other Storm Troopers easily from what he had briefly seen.
Out of nowhere, an image flashed into his mind. A large ship hovering just above the ground, the sound of TIE Fighters, burnt grass and smoke.
A pain shot through Ezra's skull, and his bike spun out of control and flung him into the grass. The Speeder continued for a while before it stopped further away in the distance, the crates still attached.
There he lay, half unconscious.
The visions that came to him like that always shocked him enough to lose control over everything. It didn't happen all the time, but when it did it was painful.
He lay still as he listened to the sound of bikes crashing on the highway and two other bikes approaching the Speeder he was on moments ago.
A tall, abandoned communications tower loomed nearby, the place Ezra had lived for the past eight years. It was filled with collections of small items and spare parts, helmets and armour, dust and spider webs. There he felt safe, listening to radio frequencies and meditating.
It was a place he called home.
Ezra hoped it was only temporary, but he had recently accepted it to be his home for the rest of his life.
He moaned quietly as pain pulsed through his head. He lay still and allowed the aching to embrace its boundaries before gradually fading away.
Slowly, he lifted himself into a sitting position, holding a hand to his head as the pain attempted to take over again before fading out once more. The kid looked up just as a large ship drifted down and hovered above the ground. He watched as a cargo lift lowered to the ground and the man and the Lasat pushed the crates onto the platform. They had seized the crates from the Speeder Ezra had been on earlier, and he managed to count five all together.
They didn't seem to notice him for the grass was tall enough to hide in.
Who are these people? he thought as he watched the ship begin to ascend.
The loud screaming of TIE Fighters suddenly filled the air as they rained down bullets of energy onto the larger ship. They bounced off the shield as the cargo ship lifted up into the air and attempted a retreat into the atmosphere. There they vanished into the clouds above.
With a grunt, Ezra pushed himself to his feet, nearly toppling over doing so but catching his balance.
He felt sore, hungry, and as usual, lonely.
His attempts at stealing had failed miserably, and like other days, he busied his mind to find where he went wrong.
As he headed to the communications tower, the boy glanced at the area where the ship had been a short time before. The grass was almost black, having been scorched by blazing bullets of plasma that had reigned down from the TIE Fighters. Faint plumes of smoke rose into the air.
Ezra closed his eyes and sighed. He could feel his hands shaking.
The moment he had Force-grabbed that TIE he had touched the Dark Side by mistake, as if his mind were drawing power from it. This didn't happen as often as his visions, but when it did, it scared him. He felt cold, even though the evening was still warm.
As the teen made his way up to the top of the tower, he thought about the strangers who had been so eager to take the crates from him.
A Lasat and, he figured out later, a Mandalorian warrior, working together alongside a strange human man?
His mind raced as he entered the top of the tower and walked along the railing of the balcony.
He was no ordinary man, for sure. There was something so unfamiliar about him, as if he could be…
A Jedi?
"No," he announced to himself, shaking his head. "He can't be. They're all gone."
Unless… some still remained.
It was a slim chance that Ezra could be right, but he refused to hold himself to that.
He sighed again and looked up. Stars were beginning to appear in the darkening sky as clouds lazily drifted by.
A long day needed one thing – meditation.