Star Wars Rebels: Into the Light

Chapter 1: The Birthday Present

I awoke to the sun peering through the closed blinds in my room. Lothal reminded some travelers of Tattooine, with the exception of us having one sun. On my table was part of my brother's collection.

Ezra had a thing for collecting helmets and pieces of broken things that we stole from the Empire. Why he was crazy enough to steal the helmet off a dead stormtrooper? I didn't have a clue.

It dawned on me. It was my fourteenth birthday. I wasn't going to get a party, or anything special. Today, the Empire was getting some ship loads of crates, and there was Ezra and I loved more than to make problems for the Empire.

I pulled myself out of bed, and I brushed my hair. I was wearing dark blue skinny jeans, a black tank top with a skull on the front, black leather gloves, with the fingers cut off, and brown boots, matching the dusty ground of Lothal. My black hair had a blue tint, like my brother's, and it reached the small of my back. Unlike Ezra's dark purple-blue eyes, mine were a dark green shade, like the color of a forest.

I put my brush down, and went to the front door. It was unlocked, and that meant Ezra was waiting for me. I stepped outside, and he was leaning on the railing.

"Morning, Ezra." He turned, and his face lit up.

"Hey, happy birthday Shadow," In his hand was an old shoebox taped closed. "I got you something." I felt the look of shock on my face.

"You didn't have to." He handed me the box, and I pulled out my pocket knife to cut the tape. It was black with green tubing on it, reminding me of old storm trooper helmets that Ezra had.

"I know, but I had to get something for my big sister." He was ten, four years younger than me. His birthday was two months after mine.

I cut the tape, and I took the lid off the box. I gasped, and pulled out what was inside.

Ezra had gone and gotten a blaster, just like what the storm troopers had, but it had the same coloring as my pocket knife.

"It's perfect! How did you know?" I asked jokingly, and we both laughed.

"I thought you might need it for when we go and steal those crates."

Over our heads, a TIE Fighter flew over our house, and into town, about a mile and a half away.

We looked at each other and simultaneously we said, "It's time."