Theed was too clean.
Not clean in the "fancy restaurant" sense — clean like someone deliberately pressure-washed every stone path before dawn and sprayed flower-scented guilt across every wall.
"This place doesn't feel real," one of them muttered.
The other was still barefoot, wincing with each step on the cobbled sidewalk. "That's because the water didn't give us shoes. Who gets reincarnated without shoes?"
A hover-cart whooshed past, carrying crates of glowing fruit and what might've been mechanical bird parts. The driver didn't even glance at them.
They weren't important.
Not yet.
They wandered the outer plaza of Theed in silence, the noise of the city beginning to rise around them: market stalls barking prices, tourists snapping holopics, the faint hum of something airborne passing high overhead.
It was a beautiful city. Wide archways, green roofs, everything the exact opposite of a Taco Bell parking lot.
But it felt wrong.
Not in a dangerous way. Not yet.
Just... too smooth.
Too curated.
"You ever get that weird déjà vu thing?" one asked, squinting at the way sunlight hit a statue just right.
"Like we've been here before, but in a dream?"
The other didn't answer right away. He was staring at his hands again — turning them over, flexing them.
Then he muttered:
"Do you feel... different?"
"Yeah. Like, stat-boosted. Mentally. Not physically. Still hungry."
"No, I mean... like I'm not entirely here. Like I'm half-tuned in."
"You're dehydrated."
"Or haunted."
"Also possible."
They stopped outside what looked like a small repair stall. Wires hung from the awning like electrical vines. A grumpy Dug cursed in Huttese as he argued with a younger human assistant over a broken power cell.
The one with sharper eyes tilted his head slightly.
"That's a Class-C fusion lock, but the input's wired backwards. It's shorting the regulator."
The other blinked at him. "You understood what they were arguing about?"
"…I shouldn't have."
A pause.
Then:
"I shouldn't know what a Class-C fusion lock is."
📟 [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION – Silent Mode: ON]
Basic Starship Circuitry LVL 1 Acquired
✅ Internal comprehension enhanced
🛠️ Blueprint fragment unlocked: [Power Relay Adapter – Type 1]
They kept walking. No chimes. No visible menus. Just a faint echo of awareness, like muscle memory for a body that didn't exist yesterday.
"I think something's in my head."
"Like… a voice?"
"No. Not a voice. More like... an understanding. Like the universe is whispering how stuff works directly into my brain."
"Cool. Terrifying. You're the galactic version of a YouTube tutorial."
They passed a group of students in gray Naboo uniforms, chatting around a fountain. None looked twice at the two wet, barefoot newcomers.
But a small animal, something like a space-ferret, skittered across the plaza. It paused mid-run and looked directly at the second boy.
It tilted its head. Then let out a strange, warbled chirp before darting away.
"Okay, did that ferret just stare into my soul?"
"Nah, man, probably just smelled the trauma."
The second boy frowned but didn't argue.
A Plan (Kind Of)
By the time they reached a quieter part of the city, they'd mostly dried off. Hunger gnawed at their stomachs. The fancy city smells had evolved from "quaintly floral" to "cruelly pastry-forward."
"We need food. Shelter. Names, maybe."
"We need shoes."
"How do people survive in these kinds of fics?"
"Usually by pretending they know what they're doing until someone pays them or tries to kill them."
"Cool. So we fake being locals?"
"We don't even have accents."
"I have confidence and a decent poker face."
"You have blisters."
"Confidence blisters."
They eventually found a side market, tucked behind a row of clean marble walls. It was the kind of place that sold spare speeder parts, old datapads, and suspiciously unlabeled food boxes.
A vendor with oily gloves was arguing with a Rodian over a power converter.
The taller of the two boys leaned down to his friend. "Hear that?"
"What?"
"They're selling junk from downed ships. If we can fix something, we can trade it. Maybe even find something valuable."
"You sure you can fix Star Wars tech?"
"…No. But I'm pretty sure something in me can."
The other hesitated, then nodded slowly. "Okay. I'll grab food. You barter for broken dreams."
They split.
📟 [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
New Passive Activated: Tech Instincts I
You intuitively recognize salvageable components within junk.
Bonus: Slight charisma buff when bluffing about tech knowledge.
Fifteen minutes later, they met back at the edge of a plaza bench.
The taller one was carrying a greasy bolt-laced box with an ancient-looking stabilizer core inside.
The shorter one had a stick of some kind of skewered meat and a loaf of something that might have been bread.
"Got it off a guy who thought it was scrap. Said it's useless without a conversion matrix. But…"
"You have a matrix?"
"No. But I remember how to make one."
The other raised an eyebrow. "That's not normal."
He grinned.
"Yeah. Starting to think we're not normal."
As the sun dipped lower, the city glowed golden. The waterfall mists glittered in the distance. A patrol of guards marched past, eyes scanning the streets for... something. Or someone.
Neither boy noticed they were being watched.
Across the plaza, a figure in civilian robes lowered a small holoscope. She watched the two boys quietly — one tinkering with a piece of junk tech, the other eating and laughing like a man who didn't belong here.
She tapped her communicator once.
"Target confirmed. No IDs. No memory trace. Unregistered pattern."
A pause.
"Initiate soft surveillance. Don't engage. Yet"