In what could only be considered taboo, this Star Wars FanFiction takes us to planet Earth! Where, Jacob, a young human in Chicago, is befriended by a Sith, Darth Harest. Her hopes of adding him to a new struggle of the Sith against the Jedi Order is confronted by Jedi Salvitor; whom is also on his own mission to recruit humans to fight an emerging Sith power on Earth!
CHICAGO; PRESENT DAY...
Jacob decided to take State street to get home after the Independence Day party at Eddy's house. He had to work at his office job as a filing clerk the next day, so he couldn't stay out too long like he normally did on a party night. The city's fireworks display was still going at it; loud and brightly illuminated the large city blocks of downtown Chicago while Jacob, dressed in his brightly-colored suit for the occasion, casually made his way through the urban maze. He had to dodge quite a number of people, of course. But Jacob felt safe in the knot of those celebrating...you knew what they were up to.
To save some time, he decided to go down an alley he didn't normally go; just off of North Prairie. Here, it was a little darker than Jacob wanted, so he kept at a brisk pace and kept his head low--until he felt something! Felt, as in he had a feeling something wasn't right...
At first, Jacob chalked it up to the fact that, well, it was an alley he did not usually walk through; in one of America's biggest cities, no less. It was similar to the uncomfortable feelings he used to get whenever he walked the streets of Chicago after moving there from Madison, Wisconsin--by no means a small town. But compared to Chicago? No, this was a different kind of sensation. The sensations he always had every since he was a child: With his mother at a car mechanic's garage and Jacob suddenly grabbed his mother from turning a corner while she was walking--where she would've been killed by another customer backing up in a van. Stopping his brother from crossing a street in Madison when the brakes to a truck had malfunctioned. Or that time when his late-father was playing Mr. fix-it-yourself in the basement while Jacob was playing with a friend in the basement (that same friend, Eddy; whose party he just left). Jacob's father would've been crushed by a falling supporting beam, but Jacob just happened to see the beam and merely thought about moving the heavy column as he gently waved the beam over to the side with his tiny hand at the age of five...
Yeah; that kind of feeling!
Jacob clinched one of his hands into a fist, as well as his jaw; ready for whatever it was that was in that alley...and there she stood. No one else around in the fairly clean alley. Nor was there much light, either! She was wearing a long, black jacket with a hoodie, and the rest of her attire was all-black. Kind of strange, Jacob thought, given i just came from a Fourth of July party! She definitely looked threatening, though she was not terribly large. But she was athletically built. Her hair was extremly long and bundled up into three lining buns--almost like a mohawk. Her eyes seemed to smolder in the night; almost like cigarette amber!
"Hello, Jacob," her voice came out from the alley corner as she slowly approached him, then stopped; about twenty feet from Jacob. He, understandably, said nothing. She breathed out a slight laughter. Jacob did notice an accent on her, though he couldn't place it's origins. "Oh, you don't have anything to worry about with me, Jacob...in fact, I came to warn you of someone."
Now Jacob's slight-fear was mixed in with confusion. "What are you, some kind of spy? How do you know who I am?"
"I believe you call it the Internet," she said with absolutely no irony. Jacob found the very statement odd. It's not like the Net was of "foreign" locations. It was everywhere on Earth...
"If you're so concerned about me and trying to warn me about someone else, why are you the one hiding in an alley," he put to her with more assurance, after seeing it was apparent she was not going to do any harm to him.
"Let's be honest, Jacob, had I gone to your apartment and simply knocked on your door with the same message, would you have let me in?" She gave a knowing look. And, indeed, there was a slight nod of consent from Jacob. She continued with a nod of her own. "I am D. Harest. And to answer your earlier question, No, I am not a spy. I do not work for any governing body or agency...I simply come as a potential friend."
The sounds of an emergency vehicle with sirens were now blaring somewhere in downtown Chicago while Jacob laughed at D. Harest's words. "You sure have a hell of a way of picking friends, lady!"
"You're laughing, aren't you?"
In some sick way, Jacob thought, she's right. He gave her an appraising look and nodded again. "Ok...you got my attention, Dee."
"D. Harest, please."
Another look by him. "Sorry..."
Now it was her turn to give an appraising eye, but the way she looked him over was as if she were inspecting him for something!
"You are special, aren't you," she asked in such a way that was more of a statement.
Usually, Jacob would've claimed ignorance to what D. Harest was talking about. But given the circumstances of their meeting, that would've been counterproductive. "Yes...how did you know? To find where I live on the Net is one thing; but knowing about my abilities is quite another!" Now Jacob took one step closer to her. "So, how did you know--"
Out of no where, D. Harest--in one smooth motion--gestured with one of her hands and a large trash container from one of the alley's corner flew right at Jacob! And with just as much dexterity as D. Harest, Jacob ducked from the thick, large barrel; leaving it to crash into a pile of other containers. When it was all over, Jacob noticed that he was standing upright; as if nothing had happened. Of all the odd little abilities Jacob had lived with all his life, he had never seen anyone else use such powers besides him! His eyes were wide and askance toward the young woman.
"You have it, too," he said with excitement.
She gave a sardonic laugh. "Jacob, actually, you have it, too...in fact, the One that I came to warn you about wants to exploit you for all he can."
Jacob looked upon D. Harest with confused eyes. "This Other that I speak of, he belongs to a very ancient Order that seeks out young ones from birth and incorporates them into their way of life! I cannot get into the details at this very moment, but I trust after my little display that you can at the very least believe what I tell you!"
Jacob silently nodded.
"Good..." D. Harest looked around the alley and nodded her head in a direction. "We should probably walk as we talk."
They were now in the midst of all the Independence Day revelry in downtown Chicago. They weren't walking to any particular place. Just to stay in the midst of the crowds was, obviously, what D. Harest wanted. The thing was, Jacob couldn't tell if she was simply trying to stay hidden from this Other she spoke of, or she was afraid of him...
"You are what my people call Force-sensitive," D. Harest explained as they continued their casual walk; her bright-orange eyes darted all over the place. Jacob presumed she was on the watch for this Other. As for her eyes...Jacob guessed it was some new color-contacts that so many young people were putting in their eyes lately. "Basically, you have a high-concentration level of energy that gives you--and me--the ability to move objects without touching them; to sense events before they happen; even to sense the death or approach of others with high Force-abilities."
"So there are others with this ability," Jacob asked.
"Oh, yes...thousands, upon thousands. If not, millions. The challenge is to find such beings--uh, people, with these abilities."
Jacob gave a face as he thought. "It sounds like you're not sure where exactly all these people are with this Force."
"True," she responded as they turned down, yet, another street full of party-goers. "And, again, this is the connection for the One you and I must beware of: his Order is trying to re-build after an eon of near-extinction! As I said, Jacob, we are able to sense when other Forcers are nearby. So that is one advantage of our abilities."
"Like I was able to sense you back in the alley!"
"Exactly!"
The two walked quietly for a few seconds before Jacob began to think more in detail about the situation at hand. "So, what is this One's order? You said his Order was basically extinct for an eon! As I remember from my geology class, isn't that like thousands of years? The only orders I know to last that long are the major religions on Earth...is it some sect of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, or Islam or Christianity?"
Her response was a bit slower to this particular question from Jacob, he noticed.
"Well, most others definitely consider his Order a religion. He would tell you otherwise. But what's most important, Jacob, is my job to protect you from him."
Jacob's head whipped around