Chapter Text
I’m not the type to wake up groggy. I’m one of those people who wake up and get up—no dithering. Coffee in hand, cigarette in mouth. (Don’t judge, and kids, seriously, don’t smoke.) That go-get-’em morning switch has served me well in more ways than I care to admit.
Today… wait.
God. Is that. Is that sand?
That single grainy realisation slapped the sleep out of me. I sat up too fast—way too fast—and my skull sloshed like someone had taken and melted my brain, then poured it right back in. The world tilted. I leaned sideways and emptied my stomach into the grit.
Sand. Why is it sand?
The air was so dry it bit my tongue, now with a generous top note of vomit. I pressed my palms to my eyes and groaned. Something was wrong. Not “late to work” wrong—cosmic wrong. Behind my lids, white-hot flashes stuttered—memories, except… twisted at the edges, doubled like bad film.
Graduation.
My first paycheck.
Watching a guard shoot a blaster.
My first job.
A speeder bike flying past me.
A word drifted through my head uninvited: frak. I hadn’t said it out loud—it just appeared. Frak? Since when is that my vocabulary? And—blaster? Speeder bike? The confusion pitched my stomach again. Mercy of mercies, there was nothing left to eject except dignity.
I rolled away from the mess and flopped onto my back. Best plan my rattled brain could produce: deep breaths, keep my eyes shut, hide from that hateful, pitiless sun clawing at my eyelids.
Time stretched rubbery—minutes, hours; who knows. The headache went from tidal wave to dust devil, still mean but survivable. The memories didn’t fade. They sorted. Two piles. Two lives. That should be impossible unless your psyche is a condo complex, and mine—while not pristine—used to be single occupancy.
Pile One: me. Twenty-first century: divorced parents, awkward rites of passage, the usual cocktail of mistakes and small victories.
Pile Two: me, but not. Same face in the mirror. No parents. Fewer ups, more downs, and a chain somewhere in every scene.
I grunted something eloquent like, “Uurrghh,” and lay there while it all kept sharpening. Slave. I was a runner as a child. Then a server as soon as I could hold a tray. I was property, catalogued and forgettable. Average looks that, in ugly ways, were safer than beauty. (The palace’s darker appetites preferred spectacle. I wasn’t spectacular. Lucky me.) My mother died while bringing me into the world. Healthcare? Not for us. No one bothered to ask who the father was. Why would they? Especially with my mom's supposed job.
Death came twice. In one life, I tripped and fell down a staircase—ridiculous, mortal, human. In the other, I tripped again—because apparently some things are cosmic habits—and went over the rail of Jabba the Hutt’s sail barge. The desert swallowed me headfirst.
I peeled my eyelids open, crust cracking like old paint.
Two suns glared back.
“Frak indeed.”
Twin stars, hard and white, dominate the sky. So that settles that. Today is officially the single worst day across both of my lives combined.
I shut my eyes again, as if that could unmake it. No luck. The memories had settled into me now like sand in a boot—abrasive, undeniable. I was still me—the coffee, the cigarette, the petty grievances—but my other life unspooled in my head with the clarity of a holofilm I couldn’t pause.
Whatever had happened had left me clearly my twenty-first-century self, but with the memories of my Star Wars self replaying in my head like a holofilm.
God, this didn’t make any sense. If anything, I would’ve expected the twenty-first-century life—the parents, the jobs, the coffee and cigarettes—to be the dream. But no. That was solid. Real. The slave life was real too, but different. I could already feel it. I wasn’t thinking the way he had. He’d been meek, cautious, careful to stay invisible under Jabba’s gaze. I wasn’t. I was me. The 21st-century me.
And then there was the strangest part: the knowledge split. My slave self had known nothing of the wider galaxy—nothing of the Force, nothing of the Jedi beyond hushed rumours about “sorcerers with glowing swords.” But my Earth self? I’d grown up drowning in Star Wars media. Movies, books, games, comics—you name it, I’d eaten it up. To me, Jedi weren’t rumours. They were an entire mythology I could quote chapter and verse. The irony was sharp: the life that should’ve taught me something about the Force had left me ignorant, and the life that should’ve had nothing to do with it had armed me with trivia, canon, and fan debates.
And now both lives were crammed into my head, tangled together. The movies, the lore, the stories I’d obsessed over—and the dust, chains, and bruises of growing up as Jabba’s property.
It was too vivid to dismiss. Too sharp to ignore.
So I made the only assumption that fit: I was still my twenty-first-century self. The slave me had died on the sail barge, gone into the void—or the Force, whatever it was. But his memories had stuck, haunting me like a second skin.
The suns licked at my skin. Heat pooled in the hollows of my body; sweat refused to form, too dry to bother. One set of memories suggested shade, water, and a plan. The rest of me argued for lying very, very still until the universe apologised.
Eventually, survival won a narrow vote.
I forced my eyes open again. The sky wobbled. Heat shimmered over dunes, over a dead flat plain. My mouth tasted like copper and regret. I hauled an elbow under me. Then another.
Okay. Facts. I am not my Star Wars self. I’m the other me, wearing his past like a second skin. Whatever happened when I kissed the sand beneath Jabba’s balcony, it ended for him. And started this for me.
I needed shade. A plan. A horizon that didn’t burn.
“Get up,” I told myself. My voice sounded wrong in my ears, dry and thin. “Move.”
I staggered to a knee. The world veered. I waited it out. One breath. Two. The dizziness eased to a tilt. That was good enough.
Also, a note to self: sand? It really is everywhere. And I hate it.
I took a step and felt something strange under my foot.
Looking down, I lifted my foot and found—half-buried in the sand—a… card pack? Not a hallucination. A real, shiny foil pack, exactly like a Pokémon card pack. The bend of the foil confirmed there was a card inside. Something that really should not have been in the middle of a Tatooine desert.
The pack was bronze, with smooth, flowing text stamped on it: “Chaos Gatcha”. Beneath that, smaller letters read: “Bronze.”
I frowned. Chaos Gatcha? Bronze? I had never heard of it in either of my lives. Finding it here made exactly zero sense.
Curiosity, or madness, won. I tore it open. Inside: one card, bronze like the wrapper. But that wasn’t what stopped me. It was the text on the back. I stared at it, confused and vaguely terrified:
‘I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
‘Wake up on Tatooine and start your adventure…’
Flipping it over to see what was on the front of the card confused me for a long second
52. Novice Shooting (1.6 Rarity, 2.18% odds)
-Common Skill-
You know how to handle firearms; you are no marksman, but you are as good as the average soldier at aiming and shooting projectiles. You will however improve much faster than other people if you choose to train yourself.
What.
Before I could even fully process the card, it shimmered and vanished. I jumped back, heart hammering, but then something strange happened: knowledge flooded into my mind.
I… knew how to handle a gun. Pistols, rifles, even sniper rifles. Not like I was suddenly an expert marksman—more like I’d spent the equivalent of a few months’ training in one, slow, focused push. I could aim, fire, and not embarrass myself. I wasn’t a sharpshooter. I was… competent. The kind of competent that would make the average soldier nod and say, “Yeah, they’ll survive this.”
I groaned, trying to wrap my head around it. A magic card that granted knowledge? Waking up on Tatooine with two sets of conflicting memories? That was—well, it was a lot.
I sank back onto my knees, doing my best to avoid the now-dried pile of vomit, while my mind whirred, trying to reconcile two impossible lives.
It took me longer than I’d like to admit before my racing thoughts slowed enough for me to consider actually moving—and, you know, being a living human again. But when I looked around, that plan might have to change.
I had tripped off Jabba’s barge in the middle of the Dune Sea. No idea how far I was from civilisation. No resources. No way out. No water, no food. Not a promising prospect. Honestly, I had no clue how I was going to survive this.
Was that Chaos Gatcha card a one-off? Some skills I’d never get the chance to use? Kriff. I had no choice but to wing it, take things step by step.
Step one: stand up.
Step two: reach the top of the dune to get a lay of the land.
Step three: Something. Something Survival.
Right.
The hill was more of a crawl than a walk, but eventually, I made it to the top. The desert stretched for miles in every direction. To the east, a crevice promised some shade, maybe cover, maybe a clue to which way was right. Even half-dead with the odds stacked against me, I managed a small, smug smirk. It vanished quickly when the enormity of my situation sank back in.
I started walking.
The walk gave me time to think about what the hell was going on, and what exactly this Chaos Gatcha thing was. The name offered hints but not much clarity. Chaos: complete disorder. Gatcha: a game where you pay—or do something—to get a random reward. Put together? I guessed it meant I’d receive random skills from doing… stuff.
I sighed. One point of data wasn’t nearly enough to make a solid plan. I’d just have to take it one step at a time. If more cards showed up, great. If not, well… at least I had a working knowledge of guns and the uncanny ability to improve faster than average. That was something, right?
When I reached the crevice, I was pleasantly surprised to see a pockmarked cliffside riddled with caves. I had no idea whether the formations were natural or carved by some race—or worse, some beast. I prayed I was the only thing down here. My knowledge of Tatooine wildlife was limited, but I did know about Sarlaccs and Krayt dragons. Neither of which I wanted to meet today.
As I made my way down into the canyon, I found a small cave that would be perfect to hole up in until nightfall, when walking would be safer than baking under twin suns. God, this planet was a nightmare. Terrible wildlife, brutal temperatures, and sandstorms that could leave you dead and buried in minutes if you got turned around.
Why couldn’t I have woken up rich on Coruscant? Or—hell—why not as a Jedi? That would have been fun… Actually, depending on the era, that was likely a short, painful life.
I sighed and eased myself into the back of the cave, lowering my head onto my knees.
And that’s when I saw it. Another bronze card. Sitting there innocently between my legs, as if it had been waiting for me to notice. Had it always been here? Did it know I would pick this cave out of dozens in the canyon, or had it simply appeared wherever I looked next?
Too many questions. Not enough answers. Well… maybe this would help me survive.
I tore open the bronze card and read the back.
‘Let yourself be shaped by the flow ― like the Grand Canyon ― instead of drowned by it’
‘Manage your first steps and find shelter’
That was actually a rather reassuring read. That quote. It resonated with me and my situation. I smiled softly and turned it over.
72. Dire Wolf (1.5 Rarity, 2.56% odds)
-Common Familiar-
A large vicious prehistoric wolf the size of a man, they are very strong with tough and sharp teeth and claws, they are also big enough to be used as a mount. By default, they are female and can reproduce.
With a whoosh, the card vanished—and suddenly, sitting in front of me, was a massive wolf.
Massive, as in: standing up to my shoulders, three meters long, built like a predator that could turn me into an appetiser. Ash-grey fur rippled over muscle, and those piercing blue eyes locked onto me. The beast sat, staring. Huffing. Then—tail wag.
I froze. Here was something that could kill me in one snap, yet it looked at me like I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Tentatively, I reached out. The wolf sniffed my hand, then headbutted it, very clearly demanding scratches.
I started to smile. This… this was nice.
Within minutes, we were playing like old friends. Somehow, I ended up half sprawled across the giant beast, rubbing its belly while it kicked one leg like an oversized puppy.
“Who’s a good giant woofo-woofo? Who’s the bestest girl?! You are! Yes you are!”
The wolf answered with a huffing noise and what I swear was a grin. Okay—this was amazing. Even better: I realised I could ride her. And more than that, I could feel something in my head. A toggle. A bond. I just knew: I could summon and unsummon her at will. If she died, she’d reappear, perfectly fine after twenty-four hours.
For the first time since waking up here, I felt something like hope. Alone in the desert? Not anymore. The Chaos Gatcha had given me a companion. A ride. A friend.
She needed a name.
I was terrible at names. I brainstormed out loud, surprised when she seemed to respond.
“How about Fenrir?”
The wolf shook her head. I blinked. “…You can understand me?”
She nodded.
Okay. Bestest Woofy Wolfy ever.
“Alright. Not Fenrir. That’s a boy’s name anyway. How about Shadow?”
Another shake.
“Too boring?”
Nod. Nod.
“Oooh! I’ve got it. Nyx. Greek for night. You’re not black, sure, but you’re dark grey, and it’s kind of distinguished, don’t you think?”
She tilted her head, thinking it over—then leapt forward and gave my face a giant, slobbery lick.
“Hah! Nyx it is.”
She panted happily, but I could feel her discomfort. The heat was too much for her—Tatooine was not built for wolves.
“You must be sweltering. Want to go back into the inside-space?”
Nyx nodded, and I unsummoned her. The bond remained, a resting presence at the back of my mind. She was tired, hot, but otherwise fine. I could feel it. Tonight, when the stars came out, she’d be ready to carry me across the sands.
And for the first time since waking here, I had a plan.
The rest of the day passed in a haze of heat and worry. Sure, I had a more concrete way of reaching civilisation—though on Tatooine I used the word “civilisation” very loosely—but what then? I’d been so focused on not dying in the desert that I hadn’t stopped to think about what I’d actually do once I got to a city.
From the jumble of memories in my head, I knew Mos Espa was closest. Which also meant Jabba’s sphere of influence. Great. Slavery central, spice runners everywhere, and technically the hometown of Anakin and Shmi Skywalker. Thanks, trivia brain, very helpful. I also knew I was not in the Imperial era. The Clone Wars hadn’t happened yet, meaning I knew nothing about when exactly I was.
And that was ignoring my real problem. How was I supposed to avoid being dragged back into chains? Right now, I had nothing—unless you counted slave rags, a giant wolf who preferred colder climates, and some average grunt-level gun training uploaded into my skull. Not exactly a résumé.
I sighed and looked up at the cave ceiling glowing faintly with early evening light.
“Hey, uh… God? Mr. Gatcha?” My voice echoed pathetically off the stone. “I could really use some guidance here. Not to be greedy—I’m grateful, Nyx, and the gun stuff is great—but I really don’t want to end up a slave again. If you’ve got any tips on… You know, how to not get chained and sold at market, that’d be—uh, pretty great…”
Silence.
After a few seconds, I sagged. Figures. Worth a shot.
So… options. Salvage? Jawa-style scavenging? Maybe I could find some busted tech to barter for food and water. But there wasn’t enough easy scrap lying around to live off of. Spacers? No. The only crews landing here were smugglers and slavers. Joining either was a shortcut to misery. That left bounty hunting.
At least I had the baseline skillset for it—on paper. The problem was: I had no weapon. No armour. No credits. Nothing. I was a would-be hunter with no teeth.
My chest tightened. Breath hitched. Panic crept in fast. Before it could spiral, I shoved a hand in my mouth and bit down—hard enough to sting, not enough to bleed. The pain was grounding.
Slow. Think. Breathe.
I pulled air in through my nose, forced it out slow, focused on the gritty texture of the cave wall beneath my other hand. I thought about what I actually had. Myself. Gun skills. Nyx. And… the Gatcha.
Always the Gatcha.
It had pulled me through already with Nyx’s timely arrival. If there was a pattern, then progress equalled cards. Reaching the city? That had to be worth at least one. Maybe even silver tier—because bronze felt like “starter pack,” and trudging across the Tatooine wastes sure as hell wasn’t a freebie tutorial.
So maybe the answer wasn’t to sit here paralysed. Maybe it was to move. To risk finding something in the desert, push forward, and see if the Gatcha deemed me worthy of another spin. With luck, it would be something I could turn into food, credits… survival.
Because right now? Survival was the only game I had.
The night was cool, but what was even cooler was riding a giant wolf, the wind blowing my dark hair back. This was a hell of a rush—almost enough to make me forget my predicament. Almost.
I worried about the Clone Wars. About Sidious pulling strings in the dark. About all the people who were going to die because of his games. The Jedi, the clones, civilians caught in the crossfire—too many to even count.
And then there was me. Should I even get involved? What good would it do? What good would it do me?
The Republic… I couldn’t bring myself to believe in it. Everyone spoke about it like it was this noble cause, but all I saw was corruption layered on bureaucracy layered on more corruption. No wonder half the galaxy wanted out. The Separatists weren’t innocent, but I couldn’t exactly say they were wrong either.
What right did I have to pick a side? I’d been a slave on Tatooine, bought and sold like spare parts. That was my experience of “galactic order.” Who was I to tell other people their suffering mattered less than mine, or that their anger was misplaced?
Honestly, it all felt like a rigged game. The Republic, the Separatists—different jerseys, same crooked match. And here I was, stuck in the middle, trying to decide if I even wanted to step onto the field.
So, yes: a moment ago I’d been panicking about not becoming a slave, and now I was stressing over the fate of billions. Classic me.
My spiralling thoughts were cut off by a cheerful bark from Nyx. She’d spotted something on the horizon. A wreck, not too big, but it lay on the path to Mos Espa. My heart kicked up a notch. A point of interest. And maybe, please, a new card. The Gatcha was my best bet for surviving this galaxy, and I needed every edge I could scrape up.
As we drew closer, the wreck resolved into a hauler. Not a model I recognised, but then again, there were enough ship variants in Star Wars to fill a library. What mattered was this one looked somewhat intact and—miracle of miracles—unscavenged. Shiny doodads inside meant barter. Barter meant water. And water was rapidly becoming my entire definition of hope.
I slowed Nyx and scanned carefully. No footprints, no scrap piles, no movement. With a hand on her scruff, I whispered, “Smell anyone, girl?” She sniffed, then gave a firm shake of the head. Good sign. Still, I wasn’t stupid enough to trust the silence.
Step by step, we crept through the open hatch. The air was stale, the corridors dark. Every creak of metal made my heart slam. More than once Nyx growled low, ears pricked, only for the shadow ahead to be a loose panel or a hanging wire swaying. My nerves were fraying fast.
Room by room, we cleared the ship. Empty bunks. Empty mess. Empty cockpit. No droids, no skeletons, no nasty surprises. Just the ship’s hangar bay left. I braced myself—because of course, if anything was still functional, it’d be hiding there.
The bay was mostly empty. Mostly.
Two crates squatted in the middle of the floor. Nothing else. I eyed them suspiciously, then spent ten sweaty minutes prying at the first lid. My reward? Nearly wrenching my arm out of its socket—before I noticed the big, obvious button on the side. Typical. With a hiss, the crate popped open to reveal… nothing. Empty. Figures.
I moved to the second crate, muttering, “Alright, lucky number two, don’t let me down.” Another hidden button, another hiss—and this time the sweet, impossible sight of water.
Glorious, blessed water.
Nyx and I practically dove in. She lapped furiously while I drank in great, greedy gulps. My throat burned in relief, my body aching with the sudden flood of life. I hadn’t realised how dry I was until the taste hit. Whoever abandoned this must’ve just found it too unwieldy to move. Their loss. My salvation.
Five minutes later, Nyx and I were sprawled against the crate, bellies full, exhaustion finally easing. For once, I felt almost… human again. And that’s when I saw it.
Sitting innocently on the lid of the crate, gleaming in the dim light, was another card. Bronze.
I stared at it, heart hammering.
“Well,” I muttered, reaching out. “Guess it’s showtime again.”
I tore it open.
‘A good landing is one you can walk away from, but a great landing is one when the plane can be used again for the next day’
‘Find water in the middle of a desert. How’d you do that?’
I giggled. Not a dignified laugh, not even a chuckle—just the kind of cracked, half-mad giggle you let out when life has been a meat grinder of panic, vomit, giant wolves, and sudden windfalls. Honestly, the last few hours had been the biggest rollercoaster of ups and downs I’d ever experienced. It was… almost funny. Almost.
Still, the galaxy had decided to give me a breather, and I wasn’t about to complain. Humour, even the scrappy, slightly delirious kind, was a survival tool just as much as water.
I turned the card over, my fingers trembling slightly. Please be something useful. A weapon, a tool, a way to not die horribly in the desert. Anything but “congratulations, you can juggle.”
The bronze surface shimmered faintly as the text revealed itself.
62. Iron Man (2.4 Rarity, 0.84% odds)
-Uncommon Trait-
You are unusually tolerant, you can sleep under horrible conditions, endure strain far better, and push through wounds and exhaustion more easily. Overall, you are very hardy and enduring.
I could feel it already. Not refreshing, exactly—not the cool drink of water kind of relief—but something deeper, heavier. An innate… strengthening. Like someone had reached inside me and quietly tightened a few screws that had been rattling loose. My back straightened from its half-crouched posture, shoulders squaring without me even thinking about it. The ache in my legs didn’t vanish, but it suddenly felt tolerable, like I could push further if I had to.
My situation hadn’t magically improved. The desert was still lethal, I was still broke, and slavery still loomed over me like a rancor’s shadow. But the feeling in my chest was different now. Not optimism, not hope—those were luxuries. This was something else. A stubborn, iron-edged determination. My problems weren’t going away, but maybe, just maybe, they weren’t unbeatable either.
Time to scavenge, then move on.