Young Writers Society

Chapter 3: New Beginnings

Three Months Later

“Dingdingdingdingding.” This was the sound that came from Kwest’s alarm on his holoscreen. From the top of the object the time was projected in a translucent bluish-green glow.

“Un….huh? Oh yeah, gotta wake up. Ah,” Kwest yawned. He glanced at his holoscreen, which projected the time as six hours zero minutes. He was right on time.

Crawling out of bed, he drowsily looked out the window into what was known as the never-ending city. Dawn had barely broken, yet almost all citizens seemed to have awoken. He noticed all kinds of small ships and speeders pass by in the different sky lanes, as well as large cargo craft zooming into space. They flew past enormous skyscrapers, most over one hundred stories high.

Beyond and below these things stood his workplace, endless alleyways, and many more cantinas and restaurants.

Kwest walked out of his plain room, much like the one he’d had on Zorrac, but smaller. He went into the main room of the apartment he and Cere had been able to rent about a month ago, when they’d finally gotten enough money. It, too, was also very plain, consisting of a bedroom, a central hallway, a bathroom, and a kitchen. Kwest and Cere had never furnished it well, and they took turns sleeping on a fairly comfortable couch.

He walked into the kitchen. Inside there was a refrigerator, a sink, a miniature oven, and a dining table for two. He was then greeted by Cere.

“Happy birthday!” Cere’s voice exclaimed. Usually the teen was calm, composed, and somewhat more mature than Kwest, but today was different.

“Huh? Oh, right, my birthday,” Kwest remembered.

“Yeah, you’re fourteen now,” Cere proclaimed, a bit more calmly this time. “And your present…well-” he grabbed something on his belt, clipped it off, and showed Kwest its lustery, cylindrical surface. “I call it a plasmasword!”

Kwest took the object from Cere. “So this is what you were working on? A metal stick?”

“Ah, but it’s much more than that, my friend,” Cere began to explain as he took the item from Kwest.

He pressed a button, located near the top of the cylinder-shaped rod, and a glowing green energy immediately burst from the plasmasword.

“I made one for myself, too, out of spare parts I found or purchased.”

“Cere, you really are a mechanical genius. But why do you think I’ll ever use that? A blaster is all I need to carry around for protection.”

“I don’t know, maybe it’ll come in handy one day. I’ll bring mine to work, anyway.”

A short silence spread through the room, and Kwest decided to change the topic.

“So,” Kwest continued, “what’s for breakfast?”

“I made your favorite,” Cere answered. “Gibba and Lutoan Doshi.”

“Thanks,” Kwest said.

He took the somewhat spiky red meal, and began to eat it with gorda bread and iada juice.

After the two friends were done with breakfast, they went out of their apartment, locked it, and hopped into one of the apartment elevators. They went to the level where the Barrier (S-14) was parked on a landing platform, and strode up the ship’s ramp into the vehicle, which had been repaired a few months ago. They sat down on the soft, plastoid-cushioned seats, and Cere fired up the engines. This had been their home for a while before they’d purchased their apartment. There were two small cots onboard the ship, so their life on the Barrier wasn’t very bad.

The ship soon lifted off into the skyways that led toward their workplace, zooming past many kinds of speeders, with reds, silvers, blues, and other colors all a blur in the distance.

They landed at their workplace-- a middle-class, well maintained restaurant.

“Here we are,” said Cere.

They both exited the ship with the landing ramp that comes from the side of the cockpit. Checking they had their blasters with them for protection, they casually walked over to the entrance. Inside, the restaurant was mostly quiet, but the rough-looking yet friendly manager was standing there to greet them at the colorful metallic entrance.

Half an hour after they had arrived, at seven hours and zero minutes, the restaurant Spice Pot opened for breakfast. Cere stood at the reception desk, and Kwest was a waiter. There were cooking droids in the back of the restaurant, and other people and different aliens were servers.

Soon, the popular Spice Pot began filling with customers, and the cash register began filling with gaswas. By noon, the restaurant was bustling with customers.

At the end of the workday, at sixteen hours zero minutes, it was time for Kwest and Cere to leave. They picked up a copy of the Daily Galeonian on their way back to the apartment.

Once they returned, Cere headed off to buy groceries, and Kwest picked up his new plasmasword. He pressed a button, and the plasmasword began emitting a vivid lime-colored glow, white hot in the center.

He lifted the sword up, slicing through the air, until it was facing straight ahead. He took an iada fruit from a shelf on his fridge, its cobalt surface shining as the setting sun hit the fruit directly. He tossed it up in the air, and swung his saber at it.

The sword neatly sliced through the fruit, splitting it into two pieces. A bright blue stickiness oozed from each piece of fruit as the objects plopped to the apartment floor.

“Wow,” Kwest stated in shock.

He swung the sword around a few times, then shut it down, the green plasma disappearing into nothingness.

A few hours later, Cere came back to the apartment with many tons of groceries.

“Hey, Kwest,” Cere gave out in a muffled voice because the bag was covering his mouth. “What’ve ya been doin’?”

“Acually, I messed with that….uh….that sword you gave me.”

“Plasmasword,” Cere prompted. “But I never even explained to you what the saber originated from. Quite an interesting background.”

“I thought you just conjured up this random idea…or something. Okay. Shoot.”

“Well, a long time ago, there was a man who called himself Rogue Master. It was said that he could manipulate time and space, and he wielded one of these weapons, or something like it. The man came out of nowhere, some believed he was a god, some a legend, and some a hero. He helped our galaxy in a time of need, but he is all but forgotten now. I modeled this weapon after what that man used.”

“Quite an elegant weapon it is,” replied Kwest. He decided that he would bring the weapon to work tomorrow rather than a blaster for self-defense. The reason he’d been bringing weapons to work was because there was turmoil throughout the galaxy, and you could never be too careful. Many gangs were at large in Galeon.

Soon after, they ate, and then the dark void of sleep captured them.

* * * * *

It was an ordinary workday in the restaurant Spice Pot. A regular day, that is, until this occurred. It was around noon in the crowded restaurant, when suddenly, the doors burst open.

“Nobody move,” a gruff figure near the doorway gave out. Almost simultaneously, twenty or thirty strangers with machine guns, shotguns, or one pistol in each hand barged in with weapons pointed at everyone in the restaurant.

“Put yer weapons down,” the man gave out again, this time still more demanding. A clatter was heard as people dropped all different kinds of guns and blades to the floor. “Good.”

The man, presumably their leader, came to Cere’s side and held out a large brown bag. “Put the money in, kid.”

Cere hadn’t been this afraid in all of his life. A shaky hand lifted a few chips and pieces of paper gaswas into the bag. “Yer too slow, kid.”

The man grabbed the cash register from Cere and shook it violently until all the money was in his bag. “Thank ye for yer business.”

Suddenly, the doors burst open once again, and police rushed into the restaurant in an orderly fashion. The gang had tried to be careful, but they had never seen the manager call the police in a whisper.

The gang scrambled in every direction, but most were caught by the police force on their way out, whether that way was shattered windows, emergency exits, or surrender. Cere tried to stop their leader by tripping him, but the man was too strong, and he back-hand slapped Cere away from him. Their leader and a few others escaped by shooting down the wall of policemen and aliens in their way. They were obviously a well-planned and organized group, or at least those men that escaped, who were identified by screams and shouts from the police as the elite inner circle of the gang.

Kwest came to Cere’s aide immediately after the teen had fallen. “Are you okay, Cere?”

“Yeah, just fine.”

Cere stood up on his two nearly fully developed feet. “Come on, we gotta get that man.”

“Right.”

Their instincts gave chase, and they ran faster than they’d ever run before. They immediately caught sight of the inner circle of the gang, and ran after them along with a few policemen.

“Shouldn’t we get into the Barrier?” asked Kwest to Cere.

“No, we might lose them that way.”

Their bodies continued after the other men, dodging every bullet shot at them with incredible speed.

The chase was on!

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It was much longer than my other chapters,

but a neccessary length. I hope you enjoyed!