The sun was merciless. It did not descend with compassion, nor did it rise with mercy. It watched from the height of the desert sky, unchanged, slowly-moving, and ever-burning. Below it, in a metal cage, two figures lay, a man and a woman. He did not know how long he had been here; he had stopped counting the hours as they passed and only held his wife. The corpse of his wife, Sora, decomposed very slowly beside him, her skin dry and almost brittle from the heat. The scent was unbearable, but even that had no effect on him now. He was filled with despair as he held on to her, brushing the strands of her black hair out of her face and caressing her face lovingly. He was about to lose his mind, but never would he allow her to lie in the sand.
Despite being close, the man had not yet broken down. Not in front of his wife.
He had been a physician once. A healer and a man of knowledge, of reason. He had been interested in science from an early age. Unable to learn any living in he nomadic tribe he was born in, he abandoned his tribe to live in the city, where he could conduct his scientific research. He became a physician and married a woman named Sora, the love of his life. It was years later that he discovered the secret of the Lazarus Pit. Things were going very well, and he had been happy, but then things took a turn.
One day, he saved the prince of the city, the son of the ruler, who was dying, by lowering him into the Lazarus pit. The prince, who had been sadistic to begin with, was driven completely insane by the Lazarus Pit. He proceeded to strangle Sora, whom he had already had his eye on for some time. It was a disaster; the man's life had ended then and there, seeing his love being strangled. The ruler of the city, unwilling to admit to himself his son's crime, declared the man guilty of the crime and sentenced him to a slow, tortured death in a cage with Sora's corpse at his side.
And here he was. Left to rot in the cage under the open, merciless sky, holding his dead wife in his arms and hoping that he can soon follow her. He thought back to his life. Something had always set him apart, even as a child. He believed it was a combination of intelligence and curiosity. Perhaps it was fate. But now, as the sun shone down on him, eager to dry him out, he wondered if it had always been something else.
The air changed.
He felt it... not just the wind but something deeper, curling beneath his skin, just out of reach. A sudden vibration that pressed into him like a heartbeat from another heart he had always possessed, but never knew about. Pain surged up his spine, and his back arched. His lungs burned as he gasped and tried to fill them with hot air. His vision blurred, then cleared again. He saw the world differently... as if a curtain had been lifted from his narrow view of reality.
Images flooded his mind. A man with a face shrouded in darkness, moving through shadows, unseen by everyone. His body was perfectly built, stronger, faster, more enduring than any mortal's. A predator in the skin of a man. It looked like a warrior, no, more like... an assassin.
He saw weapons dancing in his hands like extensions of will. Knives, swords, bows, and some he had never seen before. He could feel every heartbeat around him and see their weaknesses. If he wished it, he could mimic their faces, their voices, their memories - become them. He saw himself killing, cutting through immortality.
This was the first flood of information he received.
.
Then, without warning, the second wave of information came crashing down on him. This one was different from the first. His body hummed, not metaphorically, but literally. The blood in his veins vibrated in harmony with an unknown and new energy; something infinite. An ocean of energy, boundless, timeless, alive and connected. It was not something he reached for; it was he himself. And he received the name... The Force.
He saw stars forming, galaxies being born, and then collapsing. He saw the threads of light and dark, the symphony of creation, and he saw himself at its source. He was the eye in the storm, the centre.
Lightning crackled under his skin, invisible flickers of a new spectrum. It did not scorch him. It waited for his command. He saw visions of himself shaping storms, lifting mountains, calming seas, affecting minds, creating and destroying. He saw the future and the past simultaneously. A single gesture could sever a soul, or heal one.
And time? Time bent strangely before him. He was not bound by its cruel line. He was no longer affected by it. He knew it now. Death would never again claim him. And even if it tried, his soul would not fade. He would linger, as the new fundamental Force lingered. Always.
.
The man fell forward, gasping in shock and surprise. More sweat than he could have possibly had left fell into the sand. His pulse was slow and steady, seemingly too steady for what he had just experienced. His body was no longer his old, mortal frame; it had changed. He looked at himself and noted the changes that had occurred. He had grown more muscular, stronger and taller. His senses had sharpened, and his mind had been opened.
He sat up.
The air around him felt alive. He could feel the flies buzzing near Sora's skin, feel their tiny emotions, the simple drive of hunger. He turned his gaze to the guards behind the dune. One of them was dozing, while the other chewed on boredom and walked back and forth.
He calmed himself down. It was a bit much all at once, and he still had to go through the final pieces of memory he had received. The memories of another life. He saw parents, siblings, and a different country, and what looked like magic... no cars, that's what they were called. He saw the life belonging to the memories, and then he saw something that made his eyes widen.
DC Comics.
He saw himself, and he saw Sora. He saw what had just happened to him and also what would happen to him. He saw what he would become and how he would handle things. And he was unhappy. So he was given another chance, and with it, tremendous knowledge. Because he also saw information regarding The Force. He saw what was known as the Star Wars Universe, the comics, movies, TV shows and more. He saw what was possible and understood that with this gift, he would have the chance to change his life and the way he did things originally.
...
After processing all the memories, he made up his mind. Sora was dead, and with her, his old self as well. It was time for him to change, and to do that, he would have to grow his control over the limitless energy he had been gifted. He was now the Force, but to achieve his full potential, he would still have to train. Using all his power would destroy his physical form and the surroundings... the earth and who knows what else. So he got to work.
He entered meditation and let his instinct guide him. It didn't take long for him to gain the first inspiration. The application of his own power whispered its name into his mind: Prima Vitae or Life Detection. Through it, he felt every living being for meters around; their vital energy and presence were like small lights. The longer he used it, the stronger his mastery over it became. If he were in the Star Wars Universe, the speed at which he was progressing would not be understood as even remotely possible.
He stopped and went further: Tactus Otium or Sense Force. Not life, but energy this time. He reached out, not physically, but with his entire being and felt the Force permeating everything in existence and nonexistence: in the sand, in the sky, in the decaying iron of the cage. Sometimes it hummed like music, and sometimes it thrummed with power.
What he didn't yet fully understand was that the moment he became the Force itself, and it was introduced in the Multiverse that was DC, the Force permeated everything there was, had been and would be. This included all the other energies of creation: Crisis and Anti-Crisis Energy. And even the Source Wall as well.
.
But he didn't concern himself with this for now. He took things slowly, now that he had the time to do so. After he played around with Prima Vitae and Tactus Otium, it was time for Force Sense. Not Sense Force, but Force Sense. Force sense was among the most basic of Force abilities. It could be used to sense another being's feelings, the future, ripples in the Force caused by momentous or traumatic events, impending danger, and the presence of the light and dark sides.
The man closed his eyes and saw the patterns of emotion ripple from far away. A spike of fury came from the Sultan's son, who had hidden in a chamber miles off, watching, waiting and angry that the prisoner was not dead. After anger, he felt another emotion: fear. Fear of what might happen, should it become known that it was he who had killed Sora.
Then came Precognition.
The man saw glimpses flicker in his mind one after the other. The guards found a young man. They're killing him and spilling blood on the sand. The prince laughed in the palace. Then, the vision stopped, and another one appeared. He saw the young man open the cage and stand in front of him with fire in his eyes, and both of them walked into the desert.
The future was not fixed, he understood. He could change it, shape it, should he wish. He breathed out, slowly and deeply. The air tasted different from it did before he had awakened these gifts and memories, before he had made his decision. He looked at Sora again, the love of his life and the one who had been taken from him. He felt that, should he choose to, he could find a way to get her back, just not now. But he was different now; this was his new beginning. The man he had been before was dead now, and a new one had taken his place.
"I accept," he whispered, having made his decision.
He looked at his hands. They trembled lightly, not out of fear, but with potential power. He needed to learn how to control all that power, and through it, he would grow stronger. He reached out, gently, probing and touched the bar in front of him. He allowed himself to arrive at the aspect he required to do what he wanted. And right away, he did.
Shatterpoint Perception.
Shatterpoints were a complex Force phenomenon, perceivable only by immense focus and concentration on the part of the Force user. They were akin to fault lines, similar to different pathways of action. Adept Force users could perceive these faults through the Force and influence them. And that's what he was going to do now.
He pushed his will and focused his power to do what he wanted, and a moment later, he saw them: shatterpoints. They were all around in each of he metal bars. He followed his instinct and flooded his power through those lines. They resisted only for a brief moment. Then the bars broke into dozens of pieces. His head throbbed lightly because of the effort of holding back, but he smiled through the pain. It was like lifting something with your pinky, because you knew it would otherwise fly into space.
Right then, the young man he had seen arrived. But instead of seeing him in the cage, he saw the reborn man stand in front of him. The young man looked surprised, but remembering the hurry he was in, he started to speak.
"You remember me?" the young man asked. "My mother... You tried to save her. You failed. But at least you tried. No one else did."
"I remember."
"What is your name?" the young man asked.
The man paused, realising that he hadn't thought about it yet. He knew what he was supposed to be called. But he didn't really like that name. It wouldn't be suitable for his new self. And then it came to him.
"Ra's... Ra's al Talab."
"Talab? The Order, the order of what?" the young man asked.
"The one I will create. The one who will change and watch over the world."