Sol'lan Grey, Touching Evil

"Into the Fire"

An older man lorded over a mere child, his intensity was unmatched as he stared down at the child. "No! You MUST do it again! The time will come when you are alone, and I am gone. Now, AGAIN!" The dark robed figure stated. His hands clenched impatiently. His black leather clad hands...

The child looked up to his master. There was no fear in his eyes. The child of barely five years sighed. He was old for his age, having learned what other children learned much later in life instead of a childhood. From the moment that he could formulate thoughts he was training. In fact, his thoughts had formulated VERY early in his development. His father having a hand in shaping his own mind and its development. Many would call this unnatural and those many would be utterly and completely correct in their stance. This boy would grow up deprived of a childhood. This boy, merely a child, would grow up carrying a terrible burden.

He sighed. Allowing the focus to return to him. Then his master quipped "You must succeed, otherwise I have no use for you."

Again the child regarded his master. There was no fear, no distress, no pain, NO EMOTION. He simply shook his head and cleared his mind. The raging fire of their camp awaited him. Kneeling before it, he could feel the waves of heat roll over his body.

"NO..." The darkly clad figure stated in almost exasperated tones. "You will walk INTO the fire pit."

A moment passed, only a moment. Then the child stood, breathing in deeply, closing his eyes. The focus was there. He stepped into the flames and they engulfed him. He did not scream as the flames lapped hungirly at his body beginning immediately to sear and ignite his clothing. Then the flames impossibly began to recede. The child of five years turned to face his master. He stretched his arms out wide to the edges of the fire pit. The flames did not touch or consume him or his skin. Within moments, as the boy slowly brought his hands to his sides, the flames were swallowed into the child's hands until nothing, not even the smoking of embers remained.

"Good. Now hold it. Feel its struggling to escape you. Hold it until you cannot bear the pressure. Then, after targeting your prey, unleash the energy." The shrouded figured said to him.

The child began to sweat, slightly at first and turning into massive perspiration. His brow furrowed in concentration. The boy turned to their caged prey, one of the many native animals in the region. Something akin to a stag. The child reached out, palms facing the beast. His master spoke again "Now, slowly lad. Not like the past two evenings. You seared our supper beyond recognition. You don't want to go without food for three evenings do you?" the man asked

The child reflexively turned toward his master, an annoyed look on his face. However, his focus quickly returned and he raised both hands palms toward the beast. Slowly the energies he had been holding inside began to emerge form his hands. Searing the trapped beast. The animal began to scream, but was held in place by the child's master through the force. The child gradually unleashed his fire, circling the animal. He began to shake and exhaustion crept into his body. The boy completed three circuits of the animal, cooking it where it stood. By the seventh rotation, the boy looked as if he would die from the sheer burden. By the ninth rotation, the child sagged to his knees unable to walk further. Finally, the child unleashed the last of the fire he had consumed from the massive firepit. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed unconscious on the ground.

The child lay there, only for a moment. His master was at his side almost immediately. He gently picked up the child, kneeling he laid the boy across his legs and placed a hand upon the boys brow. "Heal now, child. You have done well. Better than I... So very much better than I at your age... If there is a god, a true master of the Force, then he would be proud. However, he could not be moreso than I. Rest my son. I will prepare supper and you shall dine like a king for days." The shrouded man reflexively ran a hand up past his face and into his hair. The motion gradually slid back his cowl revealing raven balck hair streaked with shocks of white and silver. He laid the boy down upon his bedroll and attended to the task of preparing the meal for the next several days.

"One Must Fall"

It was just like any other pre-industrial town in the area. In fact, this one was unremarkable. It was possessed of all the hallmarks of neglect. At one point in time it might have been slated to become a rising star in the communities on world, however, something had gone wrong. It was most likely due to the nearby mine becoming too unstable to work in. So, decades after its founding the town had become little more than a refuge for the lost. A place where wanderers and vagabonds gathered and nothing major ever happened. It was a place where the laws of man no longer seemed to apply. At least concerning to the growth and development of its youth. Just like most towns there was a bully. He was the de-facto leader of the town's youth. More a monster than anyone would actually suspect. The boy had committed any number of crimes, including rape, in his 15 years of life. His followers packed tightly around him as if he was some sort of paragon to be admired and worshiped. He wore the best clothes, and always got what he wanted. At least this was true until that new boy had wandered into town.

One day a boy of about twelve years made his way into the town proper. He was only twelve years old raw age, however, he didn't carry himself as such. He was tall, and well muscled and moved like a military man with purpose and grace only attributed to either the aristocracy or a man who had been trained for years as a leader in the military. He was efficient and brutal, with one exception, he never killed anyone... At least anyone who didn't deserve it. He had killed before, actually, taking an innocent's life at the command of his master. He knew it was wrong and carried the burden of that experience upon his shoulders. He would never forget. That was a strong distinction, because the town bully had indeed performed that select act too. However, the bully had neither the value for life that his child had nor the desire to prevent such atrocities. When the boy strode into town he encountered a pair of thugs, those belonging to the bully. These he dispatched with lethal efficiency. Those boys fighting skills paled in comparison to one who had been a survivor all his short life. Not to mention his combat techniques were those of a martial artist twenty years his senior. He beat both of his adversaries within an inch of their lives and left them for dead, only to be discovered by the "bully" who demanded to know where his "tribute" was.

As he always did, when entering a new town, the boy of regal bearing found himself in the poorest section of town and attempted to lie low. However, he had no measure of guile and it was obvious that he did not fit in. People were kind to him, but cautiously eyed him. Something about the boy was different, he had a sense of the grand about him. He naturally gravitated toward the points of "pain" in their town, eventually falling in with the "survivors" of the bully's antics. There he would stay and wait for his enemy to find him. There he would give these children hope as had been his role for the past two years. It was not much of a life, but it was a life... It was the only life he knew. These moments of purpose and hope building were all that kept him going these days. His father had abandoned him at the age of ten. Though he understood full well why his father had left, he found that forgiveness for what his father had done to him was many years from him. He had no family to speak of, and had only found rumors of his mother's existence. It was whom he was seeking, however, he sought her in all the wrong places.

The other "survivor" children treated him with apprehension and fear at first. However, the boy began to mend their wounds. It was something you would not expect from the boy of lethal efficiency. He said little, yet offered what little he did say in the form of consoling words. These were words that he, himself, had rarely heard in his short life. Within the span of a week it would become known to the bully as to his whereabouts. No, the bully could not have someone (an outsider) stirring up the downtrodden. He could not have someone helping and swaying them. No, he had to secure what was his. There was a girl that he had "claimed" among them. He gathered his followers and went to take care of this new boy once and for all.

The bully found them on the outskirts of the town. The rabble that had once seemed like easy prey and downtrodden was no longer present. In but a couple days, no more than a week, this new boy had somehow managed to give them hope. The bully would have never suspected that it would have been attributed to the new boy's seemingly otherworldly powers. Powers possessed by only the Church. Yet, here was a boy with those powers. His mastery of them made the followers of the church seem like children. Yet those very followers never learned that kind of power until well into their twenties. There were a few exceptions, namely, the twelve year old's sister. A sister he had no recollection of.

Once the bully's "prey" these children were his to torture no longer. The worked together. Led by the new boy. Their plan of attack looked more like military precision as they picked apart his entourage. However, in the end, the bully battered his way through their well laid defenses until he stood before the menace that was the new boy. "You have to die. This is my town. I want her..." He pointed to an attractive girl that he had often preyed upon, and his regard to her was only in the form of a mere possession not as a human. "It's time." And he drew a pistol, nothing fancy but it would accomplish the job. It was an unexpected turn for the twelve year old boy. Weapons were illegal here, and how and why the boy had managed to get his hands on one defied logic. The threat was evident, however, as the fifteen year old boy obviously knew what he was doing. He leveled the slugthrower and pulled back its primitive hammer mechanism. There was nothing but hatred in his eyes. No remorse for the others he had shot and killed on his rise to power.

Reflexively, the younger of the two boys drew a cylindrical object from within the folds of his clothing. It was an item which he had just, recently, constructed on his 12th birthday. It was an item that he reconstructed from scratch on each and every birthday since his tenth. This boy was innately familiar with its operation. "What!" Not a question, but a statement form the 15 year old "You're going to kill me with a flashlight! HAHAHA!" The bully exclaimed. Then he leveled his weapon once more. His adversary in the 12 year old concentrated momentarily. He seemed to wander off to a distant place in his mind. Then his focus returned renewed, as he held the cylinder before him.

The bully pulled the trigger and the slugthrower resounded with a sharp report. It was a crack that split the relative silence of the day's events, minus the grunts and exasperated wheezing of the bully's followers that had been dispatched. Time seemed to slow as the projectile left the barrel, then suddenly a SNAP-HISS resounded in response as the 12 year old's cylinder came to life emitting a stream of pure energy. Its Green energy was seemlessly placed in the way of the bullet with the greatest of ease. The blade's energy stopped and instantly destroyed the bullet. The bully watched in horror as the 12 year old drew his "magical" sword. First he feared his adversary, then his true intent manifested. He wanted this magical sword. The hatred returned "that's mine, now I'll take it." The bully said as he emptied the magazine of the pistol into the "magical" sword wielding foe. The child effortlessly parried each of the bully's quick motions, in the end having parried more than ten rounds of ammunition.

The bully stared in disbelief at the younger child. Fear dominating his features "Impossible!"

Then with skill of a trained warrior, the new boy closed the distance to the bully and ran him through, driving the lightsaber effortlessly through his heart. He closed the lightsaber. Picked up the Bully's gun and reloaded it. Then, he pressed the weapon to the boys chest and emptied the magazine into where he had driven the "magical" sword. It was not an act of brutality. It was, actually, an act of necessity. He had to cover the cause of death and the pistol would work nicely in this case. "Monsters like you don't deserve to live." The 12 year old boy said to the mangled corpse of the bully. The rest of the children all ran from the area, all save for one. The girl, that the bully had claimed as his property remained. The boy knew she was there, but he had more work to do. He lifted all evidence of his having been there from the pistol itself using his powers. Then he placed the gun in the bully's hand and positioned the weapon, barrel inward, to the bully's chest. As he walked away from the town the girl followed, not a single footprint remained to mark their passing...