The Path of the Jedi

“Did you hear that?”

“Hmm? What is it?”

Marble’s mother was just cleaning a dusty pot when she heard her son speak up.

“It...it was nothing.”, Marble looked back and shook his head.

“Are you sure? I mean...this wasn’t the first time you’ve ‘heard something’ now…”

Marble’s mother was referring to something odd that Marble, in one’s words was “gifted with”.

When Marble was very young, still having the age of a foal, his mother had noticed very, very odd things that would happen around him. Sometimes, she would walk into his room, and find that a ball was levitating just slightly off of the ground. Being an Earth pony with very little magical values whatsoever, she immediately took him to a friend that she knew, a doctor that was a part of the revolution movement. She wanted to see if Marble had been deformed as a unicorn, and possibly could not have born as an Earth pony.

However, the doctor confirmed that due to his structure, he was indeed, an Earth pony.

        She wasn’t entirely convinced though, as these odd events kept happening even more when Marble grew up. Eventually, Marble managed to gain greater awareness of his “power”, and in his free time he would levitate objects. Sometimes, this lead to a pot or a glass broken, as Marble didn’t have complete control of it.

        However, what Marble’s mom meant about “hearing things” was that Marble had an odd experience when he dreamt. Not that it came to him when he was asleep, but he would describe it by saying that when he “heard things” that he said that he dreamed while he was awake.

        In short sense, Marble described having visions. But often, they were blurry.

        “Are you sure it wasn’t a vision Marble?”, his mother set the pot down.

        “I...I think it really was. This time, it was really clear!”, Marble exclaimed suddenly, “It was in...in space! And there were things flying around! Spaceships-!”

        “Okay, okay. Calm down there.”, his mother took his shoulders, “Can you explain to me in detail? If you said your vision was clear this time, it could be extremely important with fighting Sombra and- wait...did you say space?”

        “Yeah, and there were spaceships, huge spaceships.”, Marble calmed down and told his mother.

        “Ah...I see.”, Marble’s mother sighed, “No...it’s okay. Your first vision couldn’t have told me about how to reform the Crystal Empire. It’s fine- oh, somepony’s at the door?”

        Marble shifted himself around, “I’ll look.”

        He trotted up towards the peephole, squinted his eye to peer outside, and was met with a familiar shape.

        “Mom! It’s Pearl!”

        “What? In this hour? Well...let her in.”

        Marble pushed the door open with his hoof, and outside stood a very light pink and blonde maned filly. This was Marble’s only friend, Lavender Pearl.

        “Hey Hoofie!”, Pearl greeted Marble with her made-up nickname for his last name “Hoof”.

        “Argh...I told you to stop calling me that and- what in the name of Equestria are you doing here at this hour?”, Marble let her inside and shut the door.

        “Well, I just wanted to stop by and see if you guys needed anything.”, Pearl eyed the run-down hideout, “And it always seems you guys do…”

        Being in the upper class, Pearl had a habit of sneaking away from home to go and visit Marble, and this also explains her occasional discomfort around the lower districts and especially Marble and his mother’s hideout.

        “Well, I couldn’t get any food-”, Marble was quickly silence by Pearl dropping two small saddles that were fixed to her back.

        “Gotch’ya on that one!”, Pearl giggled.

        “Won’t your parents get worried once they find that you’re gone?”

        “You always ask me that. And again, I’ll be back before they wake up, and no guard will stop a little filly like me. Especially not one that belongs to the ponies that are higher than the rest.”

        Immediately realising what she had said wrong, she quickly waved her hooves and piped up again.

        “But my parents are still spreading the word about taking down that awful pony Sombra!”, she quickly countered her previous insult.

        “That’s good to know...hey, wanna see what I’ve been practicing?”, Marble waved his hoof, getting Pearl to instantly know what he was talking about.

        “You can make more things float?! Without a magic field?”, Pearl’s eyes brightened up.

        “Yeah! C’mon!”

        The two young ponies trotted away, with Marble’s mother smiling as she walked away.

        “Marble, Pearl can sleep over. I know how her parents always sleep in. If they don’t, they’ll understand where you are! I’ll just send a letter to them!”, Marble’s mother called from across the hallway.

        “Alright!”

        The two ponies entered another room, filled with all sorts of object ranging from pots, stuffed animals, a bed, drawings on the walls, a dresser with two pictures framed on top of it, and a tony desk.

        Marble told Pearl to sit down and remain silent as he concentrated. He shut his eyes, and extended a hoof. Marble inhaled, and exhaled.

        Then, a pot began to slowly float up from the ground, resting in the air as Marble held out his hoof. He waved his hoof to the side, and the pot followed. He did so again, this time to the right, and the pot flew across the air to match its position in front of him.

        “Marble, I’ve already seen you do this…-not that it isn’t cool or anything!”, Pearl still was amazed by the sight that was presented in front of her, as an Earth pony, like her, was getting a pot to float in front of them, something only a unicorn should be able to do.

        “Just warming up…”, Marble said as he set the pot down, “This is what I wanted to show you!”

        Marble quickly turned around, sat down, pointed both of his front hooves at Pearl, and concentrated with all of his might and mind.

        “Hoofie, what are you- woah, woooah!”, Pearl’s legs dangled underneath her as she slowly rose into the air. The feeling for her was very strange, but it felt exhilarating at the same time.

        “Woah-wooah! I-I’m flying!”, Pearl giggled excitedly as Marble had to keep his eyes closed. He breathed slowly in order to keep Pearl suspended in the air.

        “A-Am I really doing it? Please don’t tell me that you’re teasing me about this!”

        “I’m not! I swear!”

        At that moment, Marble opened his eyes to see what he was doing. For a split second, he was able to see Pearl floating above him, laughing in excitement.

        At that point, he lost concentration.

        “Oof!”

        “Agh!”

        Pearl suddenly dropped from the air like a rock and smacked into Marble who couldn’t have enough time to roll away. She fell on top of her friend, giggling and laughing the entire time.

        “That was so much fun! Can you do it again? Please Hoofie? Pleeease?”, Pearl begged Marble with gigantic “puppy eyes”.

        “I...I can’t. I really only happens once…”, Marble sighed while smiling.

        “Well...thanks Hoofie! Hope you can make me fly around the Crystal Empire when you’re older!”

        “Pearl! It’s bed time now!”

        Marble’s mother called out from the house, and Pearl departed after saying goodnight to Marble. The colt tucked himself into bed after visiting the bathroom to brush his teeth, and look over the necklace that was recently given to him.

        He decided to wear it often now. Maybe, all the time.

        “I know that mom keeps telling me what dad was like...but...I wish I could know for myself…”

        And with that, the light shut off as Marble waved his hand to pull the cord of the lamp, sitting several feet away from him.

        Gideon raced down the hallway of the ill fated Temperance, dashing as fast as he could to reach the hangar bay on the eleventh level. His back now stung and burned with pain from the previous electrostaff injuries, but something else hurt a great deal more that the shock injury that he received.

        “Urrgh...what the-”, Gideon muttered to himself when he had found that his cloak was burned around his waist section, and his skin was charred a good amount around the same location. Grievous had to have nicked him with one of his lightsabers.

        “Great, another injury. Hopefully my shuttle is still intact.”, Gideon thought to himself as he continued to fight his pain to get down to the hanger as fast as he could. It took effort to avoid the squads of droids that would seemingly never end, but at last, he managed to arrive at the rather small sub-hangar of the Temperance.

        Glancing inside, he found that his Eta-class Shuttle was still intact, with a familiar droid rolling out of it.

        “R-4! Get the ship ready! We’re leaving now!”

        “Ooohhh-rooohh”

        The astromech droid pitched its drony voice as it rolled back up the ship’s ramp, heading inside to prep the ship’s systems. Gideon stopped running to the ship, and looked back.

        “Going somewhere, Jedi?”, the hulking figure of General Grievous stomped into the ruined hanger bay, the lightsaber of Gideon's former Padawan clutched in his metal fist.

        Immediately, Gideon raced inside the shuttle just as the engines flared to life. With R-4 at the controls, the transport shuttle raised off its it landing gear, hovered for a few seconds, then zoomed out of the hanger into the mess of fighters and spacecraft that lay outside.

        Just then, Grevious’s personal starfighter entered the hangar, opened its cockpit for Grievous to climb in, and blasted out once its one passenger was inside at the controls. Grievous frantically used all of his arms to calibrate the ship, activate the weapon systems, and give full thrust in pursuit of the Jedi.

        “We need to prepare a direct hyperspace jump to friendly territory! When you get one, let me know!”, Gideon talked over the sound of laser fire streaming past his shuttle towards the Temperance. The Jedi and the droid worked in tandem to prep a hyperspace route to the nearest allied territory.

“Have one yet?”

“Orrrohhh…”

“Okay, I know you’ll still tell me-”

 *KA-BAM*

        The shuttle lurched as a torrent of laser fire struck it directly in the bow. Looking on the sensors, Gideon could see a lone fighter attempting to zero in on the shuttle. Since all the droid fighters were busy with the already lost Temperance, the Jedi suspected only one person who would want to pick out a lone shuttle: Grievous.

        “That cyborg sure doesn’t know the meaning of giving up. In that case, neither does a Jedi. Let’s give our 'general' friend a little suprise, shall we R-4?”

        “Rooahhh!”, the droid piped up with agreeance, and held a machine clamp over a custom built switch.

        The big mistake that Grievous had made was to not realise that the Eta-class shuttle was indeed, modified. Gideon decided to use this shuttle instead of a traditional Jedi interceptor after modifying it extensively. Calling it the Redemption, he would certainly get the ship to live up its name this moment by battling Grevious’s very well equipped fighter.

        “Time to see you die, Jedi…”, Grievous growled as he unleashed another salvo of laser fire into the shuttle. Instead of seeing the ship explode into a massive fireball, odd fluctuations of energy rippled around the area where Grievous had shot.

        The shuttle was coated in a shield.

        The warlord howled in anger as he overshot the slower shuttle. Once he was in front, he noticed something else about the supposed shuttle. It was far bulkier than others he had encountered, and a twin laser turret was mounted on the underbelly, with two fixated cannons on the front of the ship.

        “Open fire R-4!”

        The droid acknowledged delightfully and filled the general’s ship into the crosshair. The satisfying sound of the laser cannons firing their load pulsated through the ship and space as green lasers streamed towards its target. Unfortunately, the general’s ship was far too agile for the fixed cannons to track, as the Redemption was multitasking with fending off the bloodthirsty cyborg, and calculating a hyperspace route.

        “Here he comes again!”, Gideon glared at the incoming ship, giving another rapid blast of laser fire. The shields were now being hammered, and they strained to remain operational through the abuse that they were being put through.

        “Oooh, wooooh?”

        “No, don’t fire back. Let him overshoot again. Let’s give him our other ‘surprise’, shall we?”

        The astromech droid clambered to another lever, and readied itself to pull it at its master’s signal.

        “Not yet...not yet…”

        “Die, you Jedi slime!”, Grievous shouted as laser fire, again slammed into the shuttle, this time depleting its shields and scoring its along its hull. Once the general was past Gideon’s ship, Gideon smiled and spoke.

        “Now.”

        R-4 hoisted the lever down, and the bay compartment of the shuttle opened up, and jettisoned an odd looking device. This large black pod was found to nearly be outlawed by the Republic due to its destructive qualities, but now, Gideon couldn’t be more thankful that he kept one stocked onboard.

The seismic charge floated out into space where its timed detonator was ticking away until its explosion. Grievous knew well too much about what this device could do, but it didn’t stop him from trying to claim his now unshielded kill. He swerved his fighter around, aimed at the Eta-class shuttle, and poised his finger over the trigger.

Then, the seismic charge detonated.

At first, all in space was quiet. Even the laser fire being shot by the other ships in the distance was silence by some sort of invisible wall created when the seismic charge’s timer counted to zero.

Then, came a massive, blinding, and harsh flash of blue light. Seismic energy surrounded the device’s last location with tremendous force.

        Finally, one of the most ear grating and horrible noises was made when all of the energy finally released into a massive ring, expanding at tremendous velocity and slicing apart the chunks of debris that had drifted away from the larger ships’ combat. Energy raced around in a circle decimating anything that came into contact with it. Both Gideon’s ears and Grievous’s antenne ached with strain as the noise pounded against their eardrums.

        “I have a route! Prepare for the jump to hyperspace!”, Gideon shouted as he began to prepare the shuttle.

        “Leaving so soon?”

        Laser fire slammed into the hull of the shuttle, knocking it off center as the gyro stabilizer malfunctioned, turning the ship away from its initial course. At that moment, the ring of seismic energy slammed into Grievous’s fighter, tearing the frontal section of the fighter clean off.

        “Now! Enter hyperspace!”

        The shuttle’s engines gave a massive flare, and the Redemption blasted off at incredible speed, far faster than the speed of light.

        Gideon slumped back into his seat, thankful that the fighting was all over.

        “That...that was close...wasn’t it R-4?”

        “Rooo! Rooo!”

        Immediately, Gideon sat up and looked at the navicomputer. What was presented before him definitely wiped any sort of relaxation from him. The navicomputer had malfunctioned, not knowing where the ship had gone into, or where they will exit out of hyperspace. To make matters worse, R-4 had informed Gideon that they were knocked off-course due to Grievous.

        “Oh no...no, no, no! We might as well collide with a star at this point!”, Gideon buried his face in his hands, “Ugh...please, may the Force be with us…”

        Gideon could only watch the interior of the blue wormhole as their destination was still a mystery to the two.

At this point within the Crystal Empire, midnight had fallen on the giant city. Citizens slept, guards stood at their posts, and the slaves worked through their aching muscles. One citizen was still awake, and was packing up his cart.

This citizen was Shining Idol, the same merchant who sold Marble the fruit before it was squashed by a sour-tempered guard.

What a coincidence that this same guard, accompanied by about three others were approaching him. The armored ponies walked up, and stopped in front of his cart, swords holstered and ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice.

“Alright citizen, your information better be correct regarding the whereabouts of “The Revolution’s Hope”. Tell us. What is it that you called for our attention?”, the highest ranking guard, sporting a more decorated armor stepped forward and looked down at the elderly shopkeeper with a superior aura.

“Well, you won’t be disappointed. I can point you in an accurate direction to where she may be hiding.”, Idol smiled and nodded.

“Where is it? Tell us, now.”, one guard stomped his hoof on the cobblestone.

“Well, it isn’t as simple as that…”, Idol eyed the guards, who were beginning to glare at him, “...however, I know something for a fact. Her son visits my shop on a regular basis. And most recently, he’s been doing so at night. Tell me, did one of you run into a small colt about *this* high with a black mane and a white coat?”

One of the guards nodded, “Yeah, the shrimp that walked right into me. Wait...that was her son?! I should have beaten him until his legs were in a condition to be amputated!”

Idol laughed.

"Oh, I'm sure that would have been lovely."

"Enough with the talk. What's your information?"

"Well...", Idol stroked his beard with a crooked grin, "I know for a fact that the colt heads not to the center where the upper class live..."

"Impossible. For notice of a so-called 'revolution' to circulate so well, 'The Revolution's Hope' had to be based near the higher city. There are transmitters, messaging spires...", the captain spoke in objection.

"On the contrary, captain, the colt heads down to the far southwest of the Empire. The far, far southwest."

"That's where the poorest live...how could the revolution leader give messages so easily?!"

"Easy, through passing on messages, and taking advantage of the small guard force there. Plus, I've even managed to find the building they live in."

The guards stepped closer.

"Tell us. Now."

"Of course, of course. There is a small cobblestone building that has a torn-up roof. It's seemingly abandoned, but I've seen the colt through the corner of my eye walk around the back, and disappear. My guess is, you'll find the hideout somewhere by the back walls."

The guards looked over each other and nodded. Then, the captain inched forward.

"Thank you dearly, Mr. Idol. You truly have done your God-Emperor Sombra a true duty this night.", the captain smiled, while the other three guards began to circle around Mr. Idol as he was occupied.

"The pleasure is all mine...and I have to bring up another subject. There was mention of a 'reward' about information leading to the whereabouts of 'The Revolution's Hope.' So...how many bits are we talking about- OOF!"

In the end of his sentence, Shining Idol was forcefully interrupted as one of the guards gave a powerful buck to his frail back, sending him straight down onto the hard and unforgiving cobblestone road.

At that point, the captain drew his pure crystalline sword, glistening in the moonlight.

"H-Hey! What are you two doing?!", Idol panicked, as his back was now crippled from the other guard's kick.

"Well...all outside information needs to be silenced in the glory of the God-Emperor. In this case, you fall right under that category. The story will say: We found the hideout..."

"N-No! You can't do this! This wasn't part of the deal!", Idol stammered and his eyes grew wide, watching the captain's sword rise above his neck.

"It's Sombra's decree. What he says, will be carried out."

The captain's sword made short work of the merchant's neck. The cobblestone was now drenched in blood as another pony that was beheaded joined the list of the others under Sombra's tyranny.

        “Ahh! What? Huh…?”, Marble burst awake after having a flash come inside of his brain.

        “What…? Who’s there?”, he asked around as his eyes fixed themselves to the darkness of his room. He blinked twice, then fell back into bed.

        He had the oddest sensation. He felt that something was coming. Something was going to happen.

        He didn’t know what, but he felt it. He knew that he felt it, and he knew one thing:

He was a part of it.