Star's first errand.

I turned back to the camera as Star jumped through the portal, and smiled.

"Now, I know that a whole lot of you are probably thinking.

'GameBreaker you're a bad father. You shouldn't send your three year old son to fight the Nine.'

And you're right. I'm not a good father.

In fact, I am a shitty father all things considered.

When my wife died I left him with a foster family for three months as I plotted revenge on the people who took her from me.

I barely even visited him during that time, when I'm sure he was grieving as much as I.

And I have no excuse for that.

But I am trying to be a better father.

And to that end, I will not leave him to face the Nine all alone. He's still my baby boy.

I am going with him. I'll shadow him all sneaky like, and if something goes wrong, I'll save him and kill the Nine myself, so don't you worry viewers at home.

Everything's going to be just all-right!

But this is still something I want Star to do on his own, kind of like that Japanese show, what was it called again...right! My First Errand, where they send kids to go buy something from a local shop, alone. Except you know, a thousand times more dangerous.

And so, I would like to present the newest feature of my making." I said, pressing on my belt.

A field spread over me as my body disappeared from view, except the glitched face mask.

"Tada! Invisibility belt!" I exclaimed.

"Now, for my face." I added, running my hand across it like a magic trick, and made it disappear too.

"Alright. Let's not dilly dally anymore. Time to go see how Star is doing!"

I picked up the camera and walked to the portal, jumping in myself.

.

Star jumped through the portal, finding footing on the rubble of the city block that the bad people had broken.

His small feet, balanced awkwardly on the cracked pavement as he let the force seep through his body, empowering himself.

He looked around in the purple red mist, and couldn't see anything past his hand.

But he could hear things. People. Moving around on the street before him.

Usually, Star would spread the force through the whole place and see that way, but he knew Papa didn't like it.

Wastes too much power, Papa told him.

Must conserve energy in forrin worlds, whatever that meant.

So he had to find a different method.

He remembered a technique Mama'Soka had taught him, to mimic her mondrals. To help him see when seeing was hard.

He built up a ball of force on his tongue and clicked, sending out a wave of power rippling across the street bouncing off of everything that came to touch it.

Soon though, it returned to him, like waves in the pool, and he could feel the shambling of the people on the streets.

He realised, they weren't people at all. They were something else.

He had seen them in his video games that Papa gave him.

Zombies.

Star smiled.

He liked the zombie shooting games even though he couldn't beat Papa in them. He was just happy Papa was there, with him. Having fun.

It made him happy.

He unclipped his lightsaber, and activated it, the familiar yellow glow and soft hum comforting him.

Papa said it was going to be easy.

And he believed Papa.

But he was still nervous. He didn't know why.

In the end chose to trust Papa. Papa is never wrong. He nodded to himself.

He just had to go and do this fast.

Just like with the droids.

Force pulsed at his feet, glowing a light grey.

He crouched low, pushing against the pavement.

He felt the pavement crack beneath his feet, and he burst forth, leaving a deep imprint in the concrete. Two small feet.

With blinding speeds, he zigzagged through the streets, slicing through zombies like butter, not letting a single drop of blood hit him.

He made clicked his tongue again and made a sharp turn at the end of the street, heading further in, when he found something strange before him.

Glass floating in the air.

It was just dust, but it was glass dust. He stopped before it, and poked at it lightly, curious.

Suddenly, a hail of glass hit his forcefield, shattering upon it, startling him out of his curiousity.

It was a trap!

Star looked up at the direction the glass came from and sent out a wave of force over, finding the glass lady flying in the air above him.

Papa told him to kill the knife man first, but he also said to do what was easy.

He decided, easy it was.

He pushed the force into his shadow and recalled what Mama Offee taught him.

Shadows like hands, but ropey.

He merged the force with his shadow, and his shadow to him, before he kneaded the two into a clay of shadow matter, forming tendrils of darkness from it.

The tendrils rose up from his shadows, their base wrapping around him, while the ends picked along the ground, bringing him with them as they scaled the side of the half crumbled building.

When he reached the top, he used the momentum of the climb, and coiled his tendrils into springs, pushing off the building.

He shot into the sky, at the glass lady, who looked down at him in shock.

Star smiled, feeling proud.

He was strong.

He was smart.

He had surprised the bad woman!

Leveraging his tendrils, he spun mid air, his forcefield blocking the glass lady's attacks, and swung his lightsaber through her, splitting her in two.

She looked at him, aghast, one last time as she fell from the sky.

Star, though was looking elsewhere.

He scanned the area, now from the air, and found the source of the fog.

A supermarket building some ways from him.

By now, his jump had run it's course and he began to descend too, falling from the sky.

Quickly, he wrapped the dark tendrils around him, forming a ball of shadow, and hit the ground below, bouncing off of the road harmlessly.

He unfurled the tendrils from around him and clicked his tongue again, regaining his sense of direction.

That way! He thought, finding the location of the supermarket, and took a step forward.

But just then, something tingled in his mind and he jumped back, narrowly dodging a stream of flame.

The fire flooded into the street, forming a wave dozens of feet high.

From within, Star could hear the angered grunts of a girl.

"You killed her?!" She screamed, "How dare you?!

The fire swirled, slamming into his forcefield, like a river into a stone, parting around it, lighting the whole street aflame.

He remembered what Papa had told him.

This was the burny lady. She could move through her fire.

And now the fire was everywhere.

She could be anywhere.

He shook his head.

No. Uncle Annie had shown him how to use the force to see the future.

And he had his forcefield. So he wasn't scared.

Once more Star clicked his tongue and echolocated his surroundings.

There was no one else here.

He trusted his power in the force.

If she came to attack him, she would never reach him.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing on the force, letting it flow out from him in a bubble.

Star felt it. He felt the ground below him.

He felt the fires crackling around him.

He felt his shadow tendrils wiggle gently behind him, inside his shadow.

He felt everything that existed in the bubble.

He took a step forward into the fire, using the force to part it, like moses parted the sea, to force the burny lady out.

And it worked.

A hand reached out from the fire, right in front of him and time seemed to slow down for him.

From the hand, a jet of flame shot out.

Star stepped to the side, the fire missing his chest by inches, singing his robes.

But then he felt something else, a dire premonition.

Without even thinking, he flipped his lightsaber around and stabbed back, behind him, where the flame had shot to, and heard a gasp and a sizzle.

He turned around and saw the corpse of a woman fall to the floor, and the fires around him seemed to dull.

But they didn't go away.

He knew that if he was in danger, he would have to run back to Papa from here again.

It was better then to make sure that it wasn't on fire, so it would be easy to navigate.

He shut off his lightsaber and gathered a ball of force in his hands.

He brought his hands apart, spreading the force like a glove around his palms and clapped.

The force clashed against itself, and pushed outwards from his hands, sending a wave across the street, extinguishing the fires instantly.

On his fingers, Star counted.

Nine minus two. That means seven more to go.

Maybe it really was easy. Maybe he didn't need to feel so nervous after all.

He turned back to the direction of the supermarket building and broke into a run towards it.

He passed another block and a half this time before he came face to face with another bad guy.

The doggy man.

He squared up against Star, and he remembered what Papa had told him.

'Avoid the beast if possible. If not, use the bomb.'

Star pulled out the bomb and showed it to the doggy man.

"Ca....n....yo..u...h...urt m...e?" The man asked, in a slow, labourous breath, as if he was gargling beans.

"Yes." Star replied.

"Ohohohohigiogo!" The doggy man laughed, rearing up and and stood tall on his hind legs like a bear.

"G...o o..n. Dhu...o it!"

Star nodded and pressed on the finger sized bomb, throwing it at the doggy man.

The man for his part, lunged at the bomb, face first and swallowed it whole, looking pleased with himself.

But that look didn't last long.

The doggy man's eyes began to glow green and purple, before something pulled him in.

His stomach collapsed like a deflated balloon, and his skin wriggled with a greenish purple glow.

Star had seen this before. He knew what was about to happen.

Immediately, he pulled on his earmuffs, and held them tight to his ears, just as the street shook.

The doggy man blew up and blew away turning to dust in the wind, without a trace.

Even with the earmuffs, Star could feel his ears ringing.

He shook his head again, and a wave of comfort washed over him.

The ringing disappeared slowly, and he didn't feel dizzy anymore.

He cracked his neck and stretched a little, looking around.

Three down. Six to go.

He walked on turning another corner, clicking his tongue again, echolocating in the fog.

Nothing seemed wrong here either, so he walked in, moving on.

He took a step into the street, then another, and suddenly a something pulled at him, a force, sending him tumbling to the ground.

It dragged him across the street, to the side of the road, to a fire hydrant.

No.

A device, cleverly disguised as a fire hydrant, which now showed itself, emerging from within.

A foot high beacon emerged from the hydrant pulsing with some power, pulling him towards it.

He tried to turn back, swing his lightsaber towards the device but it was carefully placed, as if made to catch people from blind angles.

He couldn't get a good strike in, instead getting his hands caught in it as his lightsaber fell away.

Thinking quickly, he extended his shadow tendrils and slammed them into the device, trying to pierce it through to no avail.

It was made to endure.

Something flashed in the corner of his eye, and a drill struck his forcefield, bouncing off of it.

He turned to see a doll, featureless and white as porcelain, come out from a hatch in the ground.

The drill retracted back into its arm as it stood up, revealing itself to be as tall as the one story building behind him.

He looked like slenderman, if he didn't wear his suit but instead walked around naked.

He remembered this one. The doll man. Mannykin. Like uncle Annie.

He wasn't a problem if he could just get his hands free. Or he could use the force.

The doll man came closer, his body shifting, opening up to let more arms out, each with a different weapon.

Two sickles. One spear. One drill, one long gun, another smaller gun, and an injection with a white milky thing in it.

Star on the other hand, focused on the force, and telekinetically clutched the lightsaber that had fall out of his reach, waiting.

Papa had taught him to wait for the best time time to strike.

Never too early, never too late, he recalled Papa telling him.

Just when the enemy had his guard down, just right.

The doll man came closer, tilting his head at him curiously, as if he was a doctor.

Star did not like the look he was giving him.

It was scary. And uncomfortable.

Or it should have been. But somehow, it didn't feel so.

The Zoloft, he thought.

Papa did say it helped with feelings.

He liked it too.

It felt like when Mama Offee hugged him.

Star missed her. Sometimes he would even see her in his dreams. Sad dreams.

He didn't know where this far away place was, but he hoped Mama Offee would return home soon.

The clinking of the sickles against the forcefield woke Star from his thoughts as he focused again.

He saw the doll man try to slice through the forcefield.

But nothing gave.

The doll man stopped for a minute, and looked at him closely, before nodding as if he understood something.

He pulled back his arms into his body, and pulled out another two drills.

He knelt to the floor and placed the drills into the road and began to ... dig?

Was he trying to come at him from below?

But that wouldn't work!

Star knew how the forcefield worked.

Papa had taught him. Forced him to memorize it.

The forcefield protected from all directions.

Was everyone here stupid?

Star wondered.

But, he realised, this was a greated opportunity for him too.

The doll man was distracted!

He immediately grabbed the lightsaber hard with the force, and lifted it up, while also grabbing the doll man.

His lightsaber shot forward, as the doll man sttuggled in his force grip, spearing through the doll man.

The milky glass shell on the doll man's head hissed, smoking as the lightsaber burned through it, all the while he used the force to hold the man in place, until the struggle stopped and the marbled armor began to char black and brown, burning away.

He breathed a sigh if relief.

Four down, five to go. Star counted.

But first he had to get out of this fire hydrant trap.

He used the force to pull out his lightsaber, and levelled it at the fire hydrant now, slowly cutting across it.

The device flickered, before going dark, and he could feel his hands get free.

He stood back up, and rubbed his little wrists, scrunching up his face at the bad smell coming from the doll man.

He kicked the man away, and pulled out the lightsaber from the hydrant, shutting it off.

He clicked his tongue, and found someone else on the street, just standing there, watching him.

A fat man with a piggy face.

He had a hachet in his hands, and he was licking it, like an idiot.

Doesn't he know knives are sharp?

"Don't lick the knife! Papa says you shouldn't lick sharp things. It's bad for you!" He cautioned.

The piggy man snorted, raising his hatchet and swung it at Star, faster than he had expected.

Thankfully, he had his forcefield and the hatchet bounced off of it, chipping in the process.

The piggy man furrowed his brows in anger and swing again, chipping his hatchet further.

Star looked at the man curiously.

His attacks weren't working. The forcefield blocked everything.

But he couldn't understand.

Why does he still swing the hatchet?

Shouldn't the piggy man have learned by now that it won't work?

Star decided.

The man really was stupid. Even he knew not to make the same mistake again and again if it didn't work!

Finally, the hatchet slammed into the forcefield one last time, before it cracked and broke in two.

The man looked dumbly at the hatchet, then back at him.

Star laughed at the piggy man.

He was so stupid.

Then, focusing on the job at hand, he leveled a gazed up at the man before him.

"My turn." He said, activating his lightsaber.

The burning yellow blade relfected fearfully in the piggy man's eyes, and he tried to turn around to run.

But Star was faster.

He swung his blade low, parting the man from his legs, causing him to fall to the floor, screaming in pain.

He rose back up, walked over to the man crawling away at a surprising speed, and stabbed him through the head with his lightsaber, killing him instantly.

Five down, four to go.

Star stretched, imitating his Papa, and looked at the building before him.

The supermarket, and inside, the rest of them.

He was nervous before but now, he felt better. Calmer. That was a word he had learnt last week.

He smiled.

"Let's do this!" he said, pumping his fists as he walked in.