As the Force courses through the palm of Tavion's outstretched hand, a satisfied smile slowly crosses her lips. The temple is rich with Dark Force energy, exactly what she is looking for. Her eyes open to behold the Massassi temple itself, sloping and magnificent in its strength of the dark side. She looks down at the scepter in her other hand, feeling its texture, its millenia of use, the sheer power and capacity for power and and destruction.
Tavion glances at each of the Reborn on either side of her. Without need for words, they understand that they must stand gaurd.
A small boom echoes in the distance, and the woman nods in satisfaction. The Academy shuttle had crash-landed several clicks west of the Academy, just as planned. This will allow her just enough time to finish the job at the Temple, and Alora her assignment at the Academy nearby.
Her gaze falls, again, to the scepter. Slowly, she points it up and forward, directly towards the highest point of the temple.
"For Ragnos," she murmurs.
Despite its large size, the study is simple and nearly bare, save for the wide desk bearing several monitors and keyboards. Light filters in from viewports at the top of the opposite wall, and glow rods on the walls provide additional light. The soft light gives the space a presence of peace, somehow reminiscent of its usual occupant's overall presence.
Alora takes care not to exude any feeling of stress or worry as she quickly scans the area. Even with all Jedi out of the immediate vicinity, she could not assume that a careless slip would go undetected. But, in plain tunics, with her lightsaber casually hanging from her waist, the young Twi'lek woman could surely pass for a Jedi apprentice.
And had, easily enough. She may not have gotten in so effortlessly, had all Jedi students and Masters not been preoccupied with the momentary chaos of the shuttle crash. Her Master, Tavion, had orchestrated the operation well. The diverted awareness had given Alora just enough room to slip past the Jedi as an anonymous apprentice.
Now, she stands alone in the study of the Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker, himself. She can hardly believe she is truly there.
But there would be no time to savor the moment. Swiftly and noiselessly, Alora moves to the desk laden with wide monitors, and reaches for Tavion's datacard.
The scepter holds so much power that Tavion must grasp it with both hands, using the Force to keep it from flying out of her control. The great vibrations of Force energy pulse in her fingers through her entire body, and a feeling of almost hysterical euphoria grasps her as she points the scepter towards the summit of the temple. The sensation that consumes her body is almost sexual, the tremors surging wildly throughout her core and making her tremble. This is power, in its purest form; this is everything she has ever wanted.
Jaden Korr had somehow managed to appear calm during the crash, but it had rattled her more than she had been willing to admit. Having been seized with panic as the Jedi Academy's shuttle began to jolt, Jaden is so relieved to be on solid ground that she is tempted to collapse onto the soft grass and postpone the task of finding her future classmates for a while, just to breathe in the sweet, damp air.
Nearby, the boy from the shuttle - what was his name? - chats excitedly with the shuttle pilot over his Com link while taking in the scenery, eager to meet up with their new classmates. Is he not amazed that they made it out of this one alive? Or is he just better at masking fear than she is?
"Awesome! We'll find it in no time! Meet you there!"
The young man's zealous, slightly-too-loud voice does little for the ringing in Jaden's ears. She cannot suppress the dismal thought that she may be stuck in the dense forests of Yavin IV with him indefinitely.
"It should be over this little...hill here. If only I could find a way up…"
The other initiate cranes his neck to see over the ledge that dwarfs both of them. Jaden watches with amusement as he jumps up and down several times, all to no avail.
The young man looks expectantly back at Jaden.
"Maybe you could use your lightsaber to cut those trees down and make a bridge," he suggests.
He looks to be approximately Jaden's age, eighteen, but his expression is that of an eager seven-year-old waiting for his mother to come help him.
Jaden sighs and pushes herself off her perch against a large rock. Apparently, there would be no time to savor the solid ground.
She walks over to her new companion in order to get a closer look at their obstacle, hoping to find any sort of grip or foothold. Cutting down trees had not been exactly how she'd envisioned her first mission with a lightsaber. But the face of the ledge is smooth and steep, and there would be no hope of making it to the top without help.
Jaden sighs again and walks back towards the tree the boy had indicated to. She unclips her lightsaber from her belt.
"Stand back." She motions for him to come towards her, out of the tree's path. He obediently trots to her side.
Jaden activates her lightsaber and gently tosses it towards the base of the tree trunk. It shudders briefly in the wood as she uses the Force to pull it back towards her. The weapon eventually breaks free with a hiss and makes it back into its user's hand.
The blade had not quite cut halfway through the trunk, but the wood is rotting and damp, and crackles ominously as it begins to split.
The two initiates watch the tree inch forward ever so slowly.
"Hold on, I've got this!" the boy says excitedly. He extends both hands and pushes towards the trunk with the Force. The tree continues very slowly forward by its own accord, inch by inch, with a succession of several loud cracks, while the eager initiate continues peppering the air around it with unfocused bursts of Force energy.
Finally, gravity wins out and the tree lands, with a bump and rustling of branches, on the edge of the cliff.
"Sweet! I didn't think I could do it! I guess you can't use your lightsaber for everything, huh, Jaden?"
Jaden laughs to herself as the boy mounts the tree trunk and scrambles towards the top. True, she had cringed at the thought of being stuck in the forest alone with him for an extended period of time, but she is grateful for the company, and admits to herself that his amusing over-excitement has helped to calm her nerves quite a bit.
"Jaden, aren't you coming?" his voice calls from the top of the ledge.
She jumps on the tree trunk and climbs after him. "Yeah, but don't get too excited. We don't actually know where we're going."
"I'm sure we can figure it out. The guy from the shuttle says we should come to a clearing to the temple if we follow a downward slope for a while, from the top of this ledge."
"In which direction?"
They are standing where the top of the tree had landed, amid a mangled pile of branches and dried leaves. All the area around them seems similar in terrain.
"Well, this looks like the clearest path," the boy points out, indicating straight ahead, where there seemed to be fewer large rocks and a slightly less dense covering of trees. "Maybe this leads to a clearing."
He starts ahead, and Jaden follows.
"I just can't wait to begin my training," the boy says as Jaden catches up to him. "Before we know it, we'll be learning the ways of the Force, traveling the galaxy…I'll even get my own lightsaber! Aren't you excited? We're going to be..."
A piercing cry interrupts him, stopping both initiates in their tracks. The source of noise, whatever it is, expels enough overwhelming sound waves to make them both momentarily freeze in shock, their hands instinctively flying over their ears.
Jaden looks around frantically for the source of the noise. It is too high-pitched to be human, but is unlike anything she had ever heard before.
There is a slight motion in the shrubberry as the shrieking continues. A sudden impulse inexplicibly causes Jaden to activate her lightsaber, and, without thinking, hurl it towards the bush that had rustled.
The shrieking intensifies.
"What is that?" cries Jaden, clamping one hand over her left ear with the other outstretched to pull her lightsaber back towards her.
Holding her lightsaber in front of her, Jaden draws closer to the patch of greenery where her instinct had somehow told her the noise had been coming from. She nearly misses the life form that blends in so well with the forest, but jumps back when a small animal leaps out from under the brush.
The green, reptilian-looking creature's mouth is opened wide, expelling the physically jarring walls of sound. Jaden freezes, too overwhelmed with shock and loud noise to make a move.
"It's a howler!" cries the young man, pulling a blaster from his belt. "Hang on, I'll take care of this!"
He begins firing frantic blasts at the creature when Jaden finally recovers. Her new classmate handling a blaster is somehow more unnerving than this howler. She tosses her lightsaber once more.
The noise ceases. Silence overwhelms the forest.
The howler is collapsed in an unsightly pile before them. The initiates exchange looks of relief.
"Well, wasn't that fun," Jaden mutters, deactivating her lightsaber.
"I'll say. C'mon, let's find our way out of here," says the young man, clipping his blaster back to his belt, to Jaden's relief.
The initiates do not get far before something stops them in their tracks once again.
Tendrils of warm sunlight flood into the opening in the thick covering of trees, forcing the two initiates to squint momentarily before they can see past the clearing.
"Would you look at that," the young man murmurs.
The Massassi Temple is surrounded by an expanse of crystal-clear water over a flat stone surface.
"That must be it," says Jaden. "Maybe the others are inside. Or didn't get there yet."
She ventures into the sunlight until grass meets golden-yellow stone and quivering water. The boy follows several paces behind her. She could see the stone floor clear to the temple; the water didn't look more than two feet deep at its deepest.
Suddenly eager to get to the temple, she jumps into the ankle-deep water. Noticing her companion has not followed, she looks back at the him.
"Well? Let's go."
"Ah, I'm going to find a way around. If we can find our way over there," he indicates toward the other side of the Temple, which is closer to dry land, "maybe we won't have to walk through so much water."
Jaden tilts her head slightly to one side. Up until this point, he had seemed like the overly eager one.
He colors a little. "Uh, new boots," he says sheepishly, lifting up one heel. "I don't wanna get them wet."
Jaden cannot suppress a laugh. "Okay then, but I'm going ahead, if you don't mind. I'm ready to get out of this jungle."
The boy hesitates. "Um, alright then! I guess I'll see you there."
Seeing him nervously eye her lightsaber, Jaden softens towards him. He must be worried about running into more howlers.
She grins at him. "Hey, they're nice. Good luck keeping them pristine while you're 'traveling the galaxy.' "
He laughs sheepishly. "Right. Guess I'll see you in a bit, Jaden."
"Sure thing, uh…"
"Rosh."
"Right. See you on the other side."
Jaden waves to her new classmate, then faces the temple and continues ahead. The sun warms her skin and seems to renew her strength and clarity of mind, and the water splashing around her feet is oddly refreshing.
Jaden begins to sense a strange aura about the temple as she draws closer and the water deepens to just above her knees. The area surrounding the temple is unusually silent; unnaturally silent. She shrugs it off. Most old temples give off creepy auras. But by the time the water level lowers once again and she reaches the steps, there is an almost physical sensation of silence, pressuring her temples.
She mounts the three steps to the platform and scans the length of temple for a way inside. She continues along the edge of the temple and finally comes to an opening to a corridor in the great, sloping wall.
Jaden hesitates. There is a disturbance in the Force at the opposite end of the temple. Best to see what is going on before going inside, she decides, then turns and walks back to where she left the water.
Back at the corner of the temple, Jaden determines that she is not alone. She senses another human presence, but some premonition tells her not to be seen. She hoists herself up to the first giant step of the temple to get a better view without being noticed.
Leaning close against the wall, she edges towards the opposite cornerstones of the temple. A humming, that she could not hear as much as feel, pulses in the empty air around her. The presence grows stronger as more of the adjacent side comes into her view.
Jaden stops and draws in her breath. The first thing she sees is a beam of golden yellow-light, then the long object it is attached to. Then, the three humanoid figures standing around the light.
She watches silently, crouched against the slant of the wall. Two broad-chested, masked men flank a scantily-dressed woman, who holds the object, some sort of scepter. She points it up towards the highest point of the temple. Its bright, golden-yellow light trembles. Jaden notices the violet makeup - tattoos? - embellishing her face. Is she some sort of cult leader?
"What?!"
The scepter jerks as a tap on her shoulder nudges Tavion from her Force-induced trance.
She registers a distant thud as her vision clears and eventually reveals a human figure sprawled on the stone floor, by the opposite end of the temple's sloping form.
Tavion lowers the scepter. "Oops!"
She had not meant to strike the person, but momentarily lost control of the scepter when that idiot Reborn had disrupted her. The beam of energy could have grazed him or her, or even just gotten a little too close. The scepter's beam, when activated, holds such a high concentration of Force energy that direct contact with it can be lethal. If a person were even to get too close, it could easily render him unconscious.
She would have liked to complete the siphoning, but the human presence was not a good sign. An unconscious body on the Temple's grounds would generate suspicion; a dead body could stir up more trouble than she had intended to. She sighs and makes her way swiftly across the Temple grounds, over to the body, with the Reborn following sevear paces behind.
Tavion studies the young woman sprawled before her. The scepter's latest casualty is oddly striking, having fallen in a sort of model's pose, with one arm lying above her head and the other resting across her abdomen, the smooth, brown-nearly-black hair falling around her features in an annoyingly flattering way. Tavion shakes her head. If only we all could fall this gracefully.
"What's this?" Tavion nudges the unconscious girl's arm with the toe of a tall, black bantha hide boot.
She does not need to look closely - she can sense through the Force that the girl has only been knocked out, and would regain consciousness momentarily.
Then, she notices the lightsaber clipped to her belt.
A Jedi initiate. Tavion draws back. It makes sense that the intiates may have scattered after the crash. Perhaps some had been closer to the Academy than she thought, and others, probably disoriented, would finding their way to the temple. She closes her eyes and reaches out to the Force, and realizes with surprise that multiple Force presences approach the temple. More Jedi.
Why are they coming to the temple? Did all of those idiot children lose their way?
Suddenly, it occurs to Tavion that it could be planned. Had these students been instructed to meet at the temple?
She sighs. They would have to cut their visit short.
"She'll wake up soon. We'll leave her here where she will find the other Jedi. They'll think it's just first-day nerves." Tavion chuckles to herself, but continues to examine the young initiate's face with curiosity as she reaches for her Comlink.
She presses a button to reach her apprentice, who is now at the Academy. "Alora, your status?"
Alora takes one last glance around Master Luke Skywalker's study as her Master's sharp voice crackles through the Com.
She checks the status of the portable drive nested in the computer containing the
necessary records.
"Complete, my Master," she assure.
"Excellent. Get back to the ship, now."
Tavion waits for Alora to confirm, then addresses the Reborn.
"We don't have much time before the Jedi get back to the Academy. Or here, to us.
Either way, our work here is done. For now."
