AN: So today I discovered that I absolutely adore lightsaber fights and in depth analysis of them so uh yeah this monstrosity just kind of happened in my brain and yeah.
So first of all let's be clear: We already know this ain't going to have a happy ending. You're not here to feel joy you're here to watch shit go down. This is not about Vader and 501st getting their asses thrown out and Palpatine getting rekt and everything being happy again, this is about me sitting alone in my room, suddenly saying "Wait how the fuck did one dude and a troop of normal clones manage to take down an entire temple completely filled with superpowered badasses that must have been some awesome shit that went down off screen" and here we are.
There's probably already a canon rendition for what went really went down but fuck that we're on fanfiction for a reason.
And while the majority of the jedi we will be meeting here are OC's, feel vindicated knowing that 99% will be dead by the end. Fun! And since this is obviously a fanfiction about literally everyone but the antagonist fucking dying, perspectives will be bouncing between various jedi a LOT. Because it's a big temple and there is a lot of shit going down all over it at the same time, and for this kind of story it's important to cover all your bases. Also, please know, not everyone that shows up is an OC. I won't say who, but there's one character that shows up between RoTS and ANH whose backstory is literally just "used to be a Jedi." Enjoy guessing who!
Also if you know anything about RoTS you already know this, but I'm going to say it anyways, this fic is absolutely going to have people dying, children dying, and an ungodly amount of violence. There will also be some probably unnecessary breaks in the action for a few paragraphs expositing on strategy or lightsaber forms or whatever, but I LIKE that stuff and if you don't then buddy friend pal chum amigo you've come to the wrong place.
Also so I found this star wars character creator online a few months ago and that thing is literally my favourite thing every because I've made like 10 000 random OC's on it, literally the only problem is that it only has a feminine model. So if you're curious every single girl OC in here is absolutely one I have made and have a good image of. So if you get curious about any of the ladies hmu and I'll send you an image of her because I am always down to talk about my OC's with people.
Enjoy!
Chapter One: How Lucky We Are To Be Alive Right Now
Keira absently hummed under her breath as she searched her apartment, trying to find her datapad.
She was an extremely organised person, and normally, the datapad would be exactly where it was supposed to be. Namely, her top right desk drawer, which was reserved for relatively small objects she needed on a day-to-day basis. However, Keira's teenager padawan did not have her organizational skills. Or any particular hang ups about privacy.
So once again, Keira had entered the apartment to find her padawan off somewhere else, and the doors to both of their rooms wide open. This didn't particularity phase her, as it was not an uncommon thing for her to return to.
Her datapad being missing was cause for a spark of annoyance, but seeing as she didn't need it for anything too important, she wasn't overly irritated yet.
Conveniently, her padawan chose then to enter the apartment, giving an overly innocent smile upon seeing her normally put together master searching the apartment.
"Hi master, how's your day going?" The fourteen year old said cheerfully, closing the door behind her.
"Fairly well. It would be considerably better if I could find my datapad. I don't suppose you'd know anything about its whereabouts Lilianah?"
Lilianah scowled, giving her master an annoyed look.
"Come on. Master. How many times do I have to tell you, it's just Lilly. Seriously." The dark skinned girl complained, crossing her arms and scowling.
"Padawan. My datapad."
Lilly sighed, and went in to her room.
"I dunno, I think I left it somewhere in here… hm… Oh, found it! It was in my blankets!" She announced triumphantly, returning to the main area and handing her master said pilfered datapad.
"Thank you. I don't suppose you're planning on hanging around this afternoon at all?" Keira asked, brushing a lock of her extremely short golden blonde hair back.
"Yeah, if you don't mind?"
"Of course not, Lilianah- sorry, Lilly, I do actually enjoy spending time with you."
"I like spending time with you too you big sap. If you're not busy right now, you mind helping me with my hair? The buns got kinda messed up when I was sparring…"
"Alright, sit down on the couch. Honestly, I don't know why you wear it the way you do, you can barely do your own hair when you have to." Keira said, sitting down behind her and letting out the teenagers four buns of pink hair.
"I like it! It looks like a butterfly, and butterfly hair matches my aesthetic. Besides, when I get knighted, it'll be the same length as the hair in my braid, and that always looks much nicer."
"Kids today are strange." The master sighed with a hint of teasing in her voice, carefully forming the first of the upper buns.
"You're strange."
Tor walked on his usual patrol through the temple, his rounds carrying him through the halls.
Most Jedi would probably be bored with just walking the halls every day for a few hours alone, but Tor enjoyed the solitude and time for quiet reflection. And besides, his duty as a temple guardian was something he took pride in, enjoying being able to spend most of his time in quiet contemplation, while still defending his home, and his massive family of fellow Jedi inside it.
Things had become tense after the beginning of the clone wars, but this only meant that temple guards were sent on less missions, and their scenarios of defending the temple began to be aimed more at stopping an outright siege, potentially from Sith.
But Tor took it all in stride, and continued to serve his duty while learning the drills and tactics as quickly as possible.
Anything to keep the temple safe.
Micah completed a particularly tricky flip, vaulting cleanly over Xarieks head, and aiming a strong blow at her unguarded back from mid-air. Despite this, Xariek was quicker, neatly dodging the lightsaber strike. Micah stumbled briefly on her landing, which prompted Xariek to kick out, and knock the other girls legs out from under her, following through with a lightsaber aimed to the throat.
"I will never understand how you're so good at this." Micah complained after the lightsaber was moved, taking the hand up that Xariek offered.
"It's cause I'm amazing. Also I spend so much time working on my lightsaber forms that I think I might as well live here by now." She said cheerfully, pulling Micah up, and then absently straightening out her short, bleached undercut.
Micah rolled her eyes, grinning good-naturedly.
"What is with you and your hair?"
"Hey man, I gotta look good. 'Sides, this is low maintenance, I just need to trim it sometimes, shave the side again, and touch up the roots. Worth it to look this awesome. Also, I have to have an undercut with the colour altered somehow, how else are people going to know I'm a lesbian? I can't start wearing flannel everywhere, that's gotten taken over by the straights." Xariek said jokingly, grinning cheerfully.
"Oh my god, we're the worst Jedi ever." The darker skinned woman sighed, covering her face with her hands.
"Oh, don't be so uptight Micah, we're awesome. Wanna go another round?"
"Eh, let's take five and get some water first." The more sedate knight replied, tucking some of her curly black hair behind her ear, and heading for a bench. Her companion shrugged, and followed.
"Works for me. Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I fought Ventress? Because that's absolutely a thing that happened and it was amazing"
Aaron sat at a terminal in the archives, going through research in an attempt to write an acceptable paper to turn in for his Republic Law class.
Normally this would a fairly easy task for the studious young man. He was reaching the latter stages of his apprenticeship, and the eighteen year old was fairly certain that a knighthood was in his future within the year. And normally, his academic classes weren't much of a struggle for him at all.
However, in the last three years it had become very apparent that spending the majority of your time off fighting a war did terrible, terrible things to your studies. Namely, they took a backseat to other priorities. Like staying alive, and training more so that he could stay alive.
But now Aaron and his master were on leave, so Aaron's focus had switched back to his academic work, and then stayed on it because dear Force was he ever behind. On everything.
It really wasn't his fault he was so behind, and his teachers clearly understood that, several of them having sent him messages boiling down to 'Turn in your late work whenever you can.' He wasn't about to use their lenience to betray them and take time off, so here he was. Working away at an essay.
"This had better get me some good karma or something." The teenager muttered under his breath, typing out another few lines about the intricacies inherent in the Republic's legal system.
"Hey Rina. Glad you decided to show up some time today!" One of the healers called, a laugh in his voice.
"Y'know what man, you can fight me, let's go!" She called back with a grin, washing her hands in the sink as she got ready for her shift in the Halls of Healing.
"Yeah, yeah. Your charts are on your datapad, like always. Have fun with your first patient, she's a riot let me tell you." He replied, pulling a face that made it very clear that the first patient on Rina's rounds was going to be more then slightly uncooperative.
"Ugh. What kind of riot are we talking about here, do I have to glare her in to submission, or fist fight her back in to bed?"
"Rina no. Don't fight the patients. You're a healer. You're not supposed to do that. Don't do that."
"I'm just saying, sometimes you gotta show the patients that you're not screwing around. Punch them in the face, that always solves everything and will never cause any sort of complications ever." Rina said cheerfully, grabbing her datapad off one of the shelves.
"Anyways, have fun. You remembered that you're the senior healer on duty for today, right."
Rina fumbled, dropping the datapad on the table.
"Wait what the fuck? Seriously? God damn it, why didn't someone tell me before right now!? I would have been even later if I knew I was the boss today."
"Haha. Anyways, me and my five minutes of overtime that SOMEONE caused are leaving now. Later loser."
The other healer left the room, leaving Rina alone with her datapad. She sighed, and leaned over to pick it up again, frowning as some of her short red hair fell in front of her face.
"Damn, time for a trim soon, that's not hygienic at all," She muttered, before grabbing a hair tie out of a drawer and putting it up in a short ponytail. "Yeah, that'll do for today. Fuckin' yolo and all."
And with that noble statement truly befitting a healer of her skill, ability and current station, she left the prep room, and headed to check in on her first patient for the day.
Ji-Lien was not happy.
She was not happy for many reasons. The first reason was because she was stuck in a bed, which wasn't her own. The second reason was because she was stuck in a room that wasn't her own. The third reason was that her back was still stunningly painful, due to it having four blaster shots in it that were healing at an obnoxiously slow rate.
The fourth reason for not being happy was that she only had two pillows. Which was honestly the last straw, and an absolute outrage. Ji-Lien needed a goddamn nest of pillows with varying levels of size and softness before she could comfortable sleep, and two identical pillows did not meet that requirement. At all.
A fifth reason decided to enter the room, in the form of a healer with tanned skin, and short, dark red hair tied up in what would have to be the worst attempt at a ponytail Ji-Lien had ever seen in her life.
"That is the worst attempt at a ponytail I've seen in my life." She said, proving to the world that her brain-to-mouth filters were questionable at best.
"You're no painting." The healer shot back, clearly not appreciating the jab at her hairdressing skills.
"Of course I'm not, I'm stuck in a goddamn bed wearing a goddamn dress because I couldn't dodge a few goddamn blaster bolts from a goddamn droid!"
"Ohhh yeah, you're going to be an interesting one, I can tell." The redhead muttered under her breath, as she put down the datapad she was holding and got Ji-Lien to sit up on the edge of her bed, back facing the healer.
"And it's a hospital gown. Stop whining, everyone has to wear them." The healer's berating continued, as she removed said hospital gown, leaving Ji-Lien in nothing but pants and bandages.
"You don't have to wear one." The young knight grumbled, scowling at the floor while the older woman undid said bandages.
"That's because I have to deal with people like you whining every damn day. I'm allowed to upgrade to scrubs and a labcoat."
"Sure, sure. Asshole."
"You really want to keep insulting the person caring for your exposed wounds? Really? I admire your faith in my patience, really."
Ji-Lien realised that the healer made an excellent point, and decided to change tacks in the conversation. Immediately.
"So uh, who are you anyways? And where's the dude from earlier?"
"I'm Rina, and I'll be your healer for the rest of my shift. So, from now until dawn basically. Whose idea was it to have a night shift start out in the late afternoon, I mean really? Er, and the other dude clocked out for the day, he'll be back tomorrow."
"Aright, cool."
The two sat in silence for a while, with Rina cleaning out the wounds, and Ji-Lien occasionally hissing in pain. After a few minutes, bacta was re-applied on to the injuries, and a fresh set of bandages were applied. The healer helped her put the long, loose shirt back on, before getting her settled back in the bed.
"And there we go. Anything else you need?"
"Some more goddamn pillows."
Rina snorted.
"Yeah, there's a note on your chart saying that you don't need more pillows, and not to give them to you. So… sucks to suck. Enjoy the rest of your day, hit the panic button if you start dying or something!"
And with that cheerful parting line, Rina left the room, presumably moving on to the rest of her patients.
Ji-Lien continued to be not happy.
Alex was having what was simultaneously an excellent day, and a somewhat terrifying one. It was excellent, because it had been fairly quiet and peaceful. It was terrifying, because it had been fairly quiet and peaceful.
The reason it was so alarming, was because Alex was a crèche master, and if the younglings under his care were being peaceful, that was usually a sign that either something was wrong, or all hell was about to break loose.
The most worrying part was that one of his main hell-raisers was suspiciously absent. Most people would think that a small ten year old girl wouldn't be able to single-handedly run circles around several crèche masters that wanted to keep her adventurous nature directed in to constructive pursuits, but those people would be wrong.
Still, young Lin had said she was going to go hang out with one of her friends in a different part of the crèche, an area with a different master running it. She wasn't his problem for a while. Alex could relax. Really.
Somehow, telling himself this didn't help him relax at all.
His younglings were fine. Alex needed some tea.
On the other side of the temple, a young Mirialan girl slipped through the gardens, using the trees and bushes to hide her small frame from the occasional grown up that passed through. Fortunately, none of them seemed to be looking for her, so she was free to continue her explorations.
This was the best idea Lin had ever had. She was a genius.
And so, without any stuffy, boring masters to tell her not to do what she was doing, she continued her private adventure, blissfully unaware of the minor anxiety attack her absence was causing for her beloved crèche master.
She giggled quietly to herself. Life was awesome.
Lin was awesome.
Korin was enjoying his walk through the gardens.
He had really been away from the temple far too long, too busy out on the warfront. Fortunately, the attack on Couruscant, and subsequent losses the Seperatists had suffered meant that the clone wars were tilted firmly in the Republic's favour now, and he and his padawan were finally able to return home.
He paused briefly, stopping on the path.
There had been the faint sound of a giggle from the heavy foliage off the path, to his left.
For a second, Korin moved to go in to investigate, his battlefield instincts screaming danger. And then he remembered that he was at the peaceful temple, and that battlefield awareness was very much not necessary.
And considering that he was in one of the more secluded gardens in the temple… odds were good the source of the giggling was some padawans having a private rendezvous away from prying eyes. Force knows almost every Jedi had a small fling somewhere in their teens or early twenties. The giggling occupants of the bushes were probably some padawans doing family un-friendly activities.
Korin decided that in the case of this scenario, he was absolutely willing to stay in his fucking lane. He didn't want to know any details. Any of them. At all.
He turned, and kept walking through the gardens, pace slightly quicker than it needed to be in order to leave the area.
The temple was peaceful, the afternoon turning in to evening. None of the inhabitants inside were under any extreme distress, there was no crisis that they knew of, and all was well.
That was ready to change.
In front of the temple, the newly named Darth Vader led the 501st division up the steps of the ancient building that he had once considered a home, and was now preparing to slaughter.
He would see it burn.
AN: So how's that shit for an introduction?
Alright, hang on to your asses, because this is going to get CRAZY. Like, I got three sentences in to Keira's part and I was like wait fuck hold on this is gonna be complicated I need to summarize it and keep this all straight, and long story short I spent a few hours planning out this story, which is weird because I usually don't do that. Like, I made a 3000 word summary just to plan this shit out.
So thanks to that, I can confidently say that there will be 11 chapters and an epilogue. They just get worst, trust me. Also, much like the outline of each chapter did, I'm pretty sure the chapters are all going to get progressively longer as we keep going, so, that's something to look forward to.
I'm a nice person, and I get that the dump of characters might be a little hard to keep track of. So I will be nice, and provide a quick cheat sheet for you all right here because I like my readers.
So our cast is:
Keira, a middle aged master with a padawan.
Lilianah/Lilly, Keira's 14 year old padawan.
Tor, a middle age temple guard, holds the rank of knight.
Xariek, a knight in her early twenties. Excellent fighter.
Micah, a knight in her early twenties. Close to Xariek, but is much calmer than her.
Aaron, an 18 year old padawan, close to knighthood.
Rina, a master in her forties. Fully trained healer, and begins her shift as the healer with the most seniority on duty, placing her in charge of the Halls of Healing.
Ji-Lien, a knight in her mid-twenties. Recovering from several blaster bolts to the back.
Alex, a crèche master. In his fifties, and very protective of his charges.
Lin, a 10 year old youngling. Adventurous, and enjoys defying authority to run off and do her own thing.
Korin, a knight in his early thirties. Somewhat of a rebel.
And that's our squad! Now, who wants to take bets on which one dies first?
Hint: It's the asshole that delayed me for HOURS BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T WANT TO FUCKING COOPERATE AND BE WRITTEN WELL. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE FUCKER.
But yeah. Try not to get attatched to any of them, because they're all going to get rekt. Possibly. One of them is a canon character, and who it is will be revealed in the epilogue. So all I'm saying is that at least one character is going to live. Everyone else, who knows! Well, I do. But you don't and that's the point.
Oh, and because I took the time to plan this shit all out, next chapter should be up pretty soon? Like a few days maybe, I don't know. Until then, I'm going to go make myself some pasta and go to bed, I deserve it.
Reviews are always appreciated!