Chapter 3: Loud Storms

Zarya felt… disorientated, to say the least. And it had nothing to do with the sand storm happening outside the safety of the orphanage.

Only the day before, her life was normal, as much as you can call the life of a most likely future slave in a universe that shouldn't exist, normal. But at least it was simple and, apart from planning her escape a little bit more each day, there wasn't much excitement around.

Worryingly enough, senseless murder and gun fights didn't count for excitement to her anymore when they happened almost daily.

But since she became aware of her force abilities, her boring days, while still the same, were now much more emotional. And by that, she literally meant emotional.

Every time she looked in a being's eyes, sentient or not, she could feel their emotions, as if they originated from her.

Zarya wasn't stupid, she knew it was a force related ability that, god only knew why, the force decided to give her. Or curse her with. Right now, the cursing seemed more accurate.

It wasn't quite empathy and telepathy like she thought at first, but something much more intimate than that. When she was near someone, she could feel their emotions disturbing the air around and when she locked gaze with them, it was as if she could gaze into their very soul, without any barrier between theirs and hers. She could hear their thoughts and feel what they felt, to the point where it was hard for her to distinguish who felt what. That led to many embarrassing moments.

The first day her ability awoke, right after her long punishment, she got very angry when one of the toddlers had a temper tantrum, which made her snap at a little boy when he bumped into her, who then broke down crying, making her cry with him and apologize profusely, then said boy ran away from her and bumped into a keeper, who got angry, which made her angry again, and this resulted in her going on a tirade on how this place was horrible with all the snivelling children around and the long days of work that stretched to night and how she wanted to whack everyone present in this place.

Obviously, those complaints and threats were the sentiments of the keeper, but since no one but her knew that, everyone who were in proximity now thought she wanted to kick everyone into submission, since the thoughts were verbalized by her.

Now some kids were wary of her.

And she had gained herself another five hours of punishment.

She really had to learn how to control that power, or these scenarios will become more frequent each time she looks at someone's eyes or stands to close to them.

"Do you always stare at those storms with that vacant stare to pass the time or do you actually have more constructive hobbies?"

She immediately stopped humming, the rude boy interrupting her botched up version of some song she forgot the name of. With one last look at the deadly storm raging outside, she turned her stare to Tarrik, avoiding looking directly into his eyes and making sure to keep it 'vacant', as he called it. His discomfort was shown by the way he couldn't hold her gaze for very long, and she childishly cheered inwardly at the small victory before she threw away the thought.

She was in a very low place if winning a staring contest with an eight years old brought her any amount of pride. She was 18 years old, for crying out loud!

Well, six physically but that was irrelevant.

Letting a mirthless smirk touch her lips, she stopped starring at the boy to prevent meeting his gaze again, redirecting her gaze to the ongoing sand storm.

"I stare at chaos, you seek the attention of the local weirdo. I do wonder who has the best hobby."

"It's not your attention I want. I want in on your plan for the future."

Now that gained her attention.

As annoying as this kid was, Zarya knew he was smarter then most children their age, probably something to do with his specie. She had never seen another Chiss like him around, and they couldn't be hard to miss with their dark blue skin and red eyes. This led her to believe he was here by mistake, perhaps sent here with his family for one reason or another only for them to die, or maybe he was kidnapped and left behind. Either way, he was completely out of place. At eight years old, the only reason he wasn't adopted or bought yet was because of his eyes, which unsettled most people.

"What plan?"

"Don't pretend you don't know, I figured it out already."

He stared at her unwaveringly, determined to get his point across without speaking it out loud. He was smarter than she gave him credit for, saying it could have been overheard by the wrong person.

She didn't need to hear his thoughts to know he was talking about leaving the orphanage before someone chose him. He knew that no one would adopt him, since most people prefer to take babies or toddlers. His only option left was slavery, and she could feel his fear for this fate making the air around him heavy and troubled.

"How do you know about that plan? And why not make one for yourself?", she inquired.

"Yesterday was different then the other times you got yourself in trouble. You normally always have this contemplative face, like you were analyzing something you learned before you got caught, and the consequences were worth it. But yesterday, you seemed more confused than anything."

"Which made you follow me, hoping to figure out what it was about.", she cut him off. "You were insulting me to get a rise out of me, so I would defend my actions and tell you what I was up to. That's why you're always following me like you do, isn't it? To discover what I was doing, and why"

His surprised yet knowing look told her all she needed to know. He was never jealous or insulted by her quirks, he was confused, even frustrated by them, leading him to investigate. Zarya couldn't believe she'd been so blind, mistaking his actions for childish pettiness. Now, he had discovered, on his own, that she was planning an escape.

She wasn't proud to say that she had planned to leave everyone else behind, considering that none of the kids were strong enough to fight their way out if necessary, and being sneaky with a few dozen children, toddlers and babies wasn't exactly easy. She had played with the idea of coming back for them, but by the time she would have the skills and resources necessary for that, she might as well plan to deliver everyone on Tatooine since the children currently here would be gone from the orphanage. But that wasn't for at least a decade, and right now, she just wanted to focus on herself, and figure out what she wanted to do in this life, and this universe in general. Star Wars or not, she wasn't suddenly a hero, going around fixing the story and basically immortal. She could die again, and she had already decided to not throw this second chance away.

All this considered, maybe having someone else with her could make things easier. But she wasn't going to give him a free ride; he needed to get his hands dirty too.

"So? Can you include me or not?"

Zarya sighed. She understood his restlessness, but making a decision like that isn't simple. She already had a pretty good idea on how she was going to leave, and she doubted Tarrik would like her ideas, especially since some of them could end up being painful, like getting rid of their tracker. She could deal with pain, but could he?

"How far are you ready to go to accomplish this?", she asked.

Not being able to speak freely was quickly getting annoying, she really wished she could just ask directly.

"As far as necessary", he answered with certainty.

After another minute of staring, that only succeeded in giving Zarya a stomach-ache because of his tangible apprehension, she gave a nod of acceptance.

"Tomorrow, same place and same hour. Don't be late."

He gave a nod in return before going back to one of the boys' room for the night. Right after he turned a corner and disappeared from her view, she felt a small change in the heavy air around him. As if a big weight was lifted off of him.

Zarya turned back to the sand storm, already questioning her decision. She couldn't help feeling like she was responsible for him now, even if he didn't ask for it. If something happened to him while he accompanied her, the blame would be on her, and she didn't know how she felt about that.

But she would think about this later. Right now, she had modifications to her plan to think through.

(( ))

"Ouch! Be more careful, will you? That's my hand you stepped on!"

"Well what is your hand doing here in the first place? Stop following me so close and you would be out of my reach!"

"To be fair, it is very cramped here and we can't see much."

"Forget cramped, the dust is worse! Has anyone ever cleaned this place?"

"We're in an air vent, mate, no adult is small enough to go here to clean it up."

"What about the cleaning robots?"

"Yeah, like a droid could climb and slide in those vents without being severely damaged"

"I feel severely damaged, and I'm not a droid."

"Boys, focus please."

Zarya sighed when the human, the rodian and Tarrik ignored her, continuing to bicker amongst themselves in hushed voices.

When she had come to meet Tarrik this evening, she was surprised to see his two friends with him, when she should have seen this coming. Just because she didn't make friends (Snot nosed brats, the whole lot of them. Maybe she was only disgusted to be considered one of them, since she normally liked kids.) didn't mean he didn't. Although some kind of warning from said boy would have been appreciated. She had not prepared tonight's excursion with three loud children tagging along in mind. With all their volatile emotions around, they were really starting to give her a headache. And her patience was rapidly fading away.

She, along with Tarrik and the two others, were currently crawling in a very small air vent, trying to reach the computer room. She doubted that was its name, but it's were the keepers placed all the screens that kept a tab on the location of every child who possessed a tracker. The only reason they didn't know the four of them were not where they are supposed to be is because no one was near the screens at the moment. They rarely were, preferring to trust their system, which sends an alarm every time one of the merchandize was not where they are supposed to be.

Since they were still in the orphanage, the system didn't see anything amiss. Ah, how she loved loopholes. Always handy to find. Even if it cost her good amount of time in the punishment room/dark closet.

Finally, she spotted the wire rack that lead to their destination which, at this point, looked like a sign of freedom to her. Since she led the unusual group, she reached the exit first, gently pushing it out, turning it on its side and laying it on the other side of the now open hole. Thankfully, the kids behind her were now silent, probably eager to get out of there as much as her. Tiny they may be, this place truly was too narrow.

Or maybe they were silent because this all felt like some kind of spy mission, like they heard in stories. Even Zarya couldn't help but feel giddy and excited, like all her self assigned missions did.

Slowly, she maneuvered her body to put her feet forward, so she could jump out safely. When she met the ground, the teen-turned-child didn't wait for her companions to catch up before she headed towards the first screen she saw, hoping to find some kind of map, the layout of the whole building or something. The keyboard, while unfamiliar, was in a certain way similar to what she was used to, so it didn't take her long to figure out the basics of its functions.

While she searched for any important information, the last kid fell down, landing clumsily on the floor with a worryingly loud thump, making Tarrik laugh. Zarya turned to them, a disbelieving look on her face.

"What are you idiots doing?! Do you want us to be found?", she whispered loudly.

"What, you wanted me to stay up there instead of coming down to help, is that it?", the human boy, Hostias, asked with sarcasm while he got up, dusting his pants.

"Yes, that's exactly what I wanted you to do! How else are we going to climb back up?"

Hostias looked up at the hole in the ceiling, a good four meters high, the back down at the barely-more-than-a-meter-tall children that they were.

"Oops?"

"Oops is right, but it doesn't solve our problem. Tarrik, you and him try to find a way to climb up there while-"

"Guys? I think I found something you might want to see."

While she got distracted, the Rodian boy, Novi, had the time to head to another screen and quickly searching its files with ease, giving away his familiarity with the device. His statement, said in a hesitant voice made Zarya shut up, jogging to his position to observe his discovery, the other two hot on her heels.

When they saw what he found, a feeling of dread settled in their stomachs, threatening to make Zarya sick.

"That might complicate things a bit.", Hostias whispered, wide eyes locked on the computer look alike.

"You think?", she bit back, her unbelieving gaze still on the screen.

Their attention only strayed when they heard the unmistakable sound of the door unlocking.

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Thanks again to Mads-Chikistorm and thatfanboi, as well as fantasy.92 for the reviews! I won't say that every single time, but right now reviews really are a big part of my motivation for this story as well as followers, and thanks are given when they are earned!

I know it took me a bit more time to update than before, and while I am sorry, not every free time I have is dedicated to writing, so thank you infinitely for your patience! (I read fanfics too, I know how frustrating it can be to wait.)

On that note, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and do tell me what you think they found, I am curious!

Until next time!

-Maginary

*Disclaimer: I don't own anything Star Wars related, only my OCs*

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