2 The early days

A nine-year-old ran down the road, slipping through people as he headed towards a certain destination.

Occasionally, his hand would move to the side, leaving someone a few credits poorer, and him that much richer.

He was getting the hang of pickpocketing, which was good enough to fool the bust adults, no one would suspect a nine-year-old of stealing.

Turning another corner, he ended up on the road of abandoned buildings. He was still living in the storage room of one of the houses.

There wasn't much in there, only a few trinkets he managed to pick up while scavenging, it wasn't anything grand.

Sliding inside the same opening he did a year ago, he landed on his feet with a crouch. Straightening up, he extended a hand and a bar of rations flew into his hand with the help of the force.

Opening it, he took a bite and got closer to one of the corners where he kept whatever he found in the streets.

There were some machine parts, a scout trooper helmet he stole from a drunk imperial, and a few wrenches.

The helmet was way too big for his head for the moment, but that didn't matter, he was going to disassemble that one anyway. Always wondered what the helmets consisted of.

Lothal was only getting worse as the days went by, the Empire was making things worse and the ones in the military were getting cocky, showing off their "Power" and abusing the citizens.

It was stupid of them, but he didn't think they cared much. Well, their loss, his win.

For the past year, he has been trying things with the force in his free time, trying to get familiar with it, he could pull things and force things away, lift things up and suspend them mid-air.

The force came easy, he just had to direct it to do what he wanted, forcing it was exponentially harder. His emotions influenced the force and it was everywhere. It would fluctuate around someone when they were lying, it would remain calm when they were telling the truth, and when he was mad, it was stronger but it was inconsistent, but being calm kept the power even and consistent. It felt nice when he was in control of the power the force granted him. One thing he remembered about the force from his previous world about it was that Force had two parts, there was a "Dark side" and a "Light side". Looking at it like that was simply idiotic, too black and white. Force was just that, the force, it was up to the user to determine how to use it, emotions like anger granted the user temporary power, but that was all it was, temporary, the only reason it was called " The dark side" was because that boost was addicting, but if a person had enough willpower, they could just ignore the temptation.

Sitting down on the ground, he reached out and picked up the helmet, looking inside.

Using the force to detach the visor, he placed it on the aide and turned it around. The mouthpiece was the next to go, there was a receiver there, along with what looked like a re-breather, grabbing the screwdriver, he detached an ear-pad that revealed some wires along with an earpiece from which the troopers received the orders, the wires most likely connected the earpiece with the receiver.

Placing down the disassembled parts, he turned to his backpack and called out to the force. The backpack flew towards him and he caught it with both of his hands. Turning it around, he opened the front compartment and placed the credits he stole there for safe-keeping.

Still, though, he wondered what else he could do with the force. That would have to wait, however, he had stuff to do, like stealing to survive, and for profit.

Knowing what he had to do, for now, the black-haired boy walked over to the opening again and crawled out, leaving his stuff behind.

Moving out of the abandoned neighborhood, he started walking back to the open streets. this was how he stole, steal small, secure it and go out again to steal more.

-Half a year later-

The nine-year-old boy looked down at the stormtroopers from a roof nearby, they were transporting something but that didn't interest him right now, no point in wishing for something you couldn't steal... For now.

The mutters from the people suggested that they were moving equipment from an abandoned tower outside near the city.

Looking in the direction of the tower, he reached out with the force but frowned when he couldn't reach it, it was too far for him to feel out the area.

Sighing slightly, he decided to go back to his residence to get some rations, he was hungry and would only get hungrier if he was going to make the trip to the tower and back.

He really hoped that they were done moving out, otherwise, he would have to make the trip again, and he didn't want to do that more than necessary. If someone saw him it would be too suspicious.

But for now, he could only do what he could do to find a permanent residence because when he did, he would have more time to do more if he didn't have to worry about someone finding his place, stealing his stuff, and leaving me to steal more just to scrape by.

And... He would have more time to look into the force. It was long overdue, nine years and he could only push, pull, and boost his jumps. It was very stupid to stop there. From what he remembered, there were a lot of aspects to the force and he wanted to explore them to ensure his survival, maybe even set up a life somewhere quiet, there was still a chance to have a life away from all the Jedi and Sith business... Right?

...Probably not.

The boy could only sigh.