EPISODE 2: SCHOOL DAYS

Top of the morning to ya ladies and lasses. And welcome to chapter 2 of the Shadow Chronicles. Please enjoy the read and no flames, constructive is allowed though your welcome.

The new Jedi academy stood within the vast deserts of Tatooine. Completely eclipsed from the Empire's sight. Keeden stood at 5'6" to 5'7" at the age of sixteen. His dark brown hair spiked back slightly and his piercing blue eyes scanning the crowd of possible students around him. His new attire consisted of a combination of the shoulder guard from his father's arena outfit, along with the bandages and shirt. While the lower half resembled Starkiller's old Sith robes. Except with the boots being strapped not covered by cloth and being in a combination of black and gray.

"Where the hell is this guy. He should have been here by now." Keeden shook his head; ignoring Jasmine's useless bantering and directed his attention towards the front steps of the building, as the sound of footsteps echoed ever closer towards them.

And after two long minutes of unconditioned silence they saw him.

A man stepped out of the shadows of the building, he was towering, taller even then perhaps Vader himself. His ice blue eyes surveyed the amassed students carefully, two sabers hung on each side of him, but the oddest thing about him was his outfit, it looked like stormtrooper armor but half of it was black while the other half was white. He was Master Ryuga Azool. The academy's head teacher.

"Pft," Keeden glanced at his childhood friend, who had her arms crossed over her red tube top with her fingerless red impact gloved hands resting on her elbows. And looked unimpressed with the Jedi knight that was their instructor's entrance. Like Keeden, Jasmine was sixteen years old now and wore a new attire. A pair of black wrappings laced around her arms, exposing her red skin to the hot sun above. Some blue pants with a diamond cut pattern on the sides. The mini skirt that had been attached to her pants had been shortened a great deal. To say the young gray Jedi felt slightly awkward by his female friend's slightly revealing attire, would be an understatement.

To make matters even more distressed he could see the looks some of the other male students were giving her. It made his blood boil at knowing what they could possibly be thinking. Master Ryuga could feel Keeden's frustration as well as a dark chaotic, almost feral presence nearby. Ryuga dismissed any more concerning thoughts from his mind and cleared his throat. "Please come inside. There is much to do." He said in a strong stern voice to the flock of students and they followed him inside.

The interior looked like the inside of the once glorious Jedi temple. Right down to the chambers for were the students would be sleeping. "All right first things first, names. I will point to you and you will state your name. Then I'll place it inside this holocron." Master Ryuga said calmly showing the translucent dimensional shape to the students. Each Padawan went one by one until finally stopping at Keeden and Jasmine. "Final two, state your names." "Keeden Marek," "Jasmine Tano," the two said in haste causing chatter to arise among the other students. From hearing their last names.

Master Azool smirked as he placed the last two students names inside the holocron and sealed it back up using the force. "Good now time for your first lesion; Survival 101."

The survival test was just as grueling and unforgiving for the students. As master Azool had said it would be. Miles and miles of vast sand dunes, Tusken Raiders perching on mountain tops and of course the dreaded sand storms had been bad enough for them. Master Azool had put them all into teams of two. Ironically Keeden and Jasmine had been put into a tag team duo, much to some of the other students displeasure. The goal was to stay alive for three months in the unforgiving wastelands of Tatoonie. And retrieve the flag. Using only their instincts, force powers and training sabers given to them by Ryuga. For protecting themselves from predators and raiders. When master Azool explained the test to them. Jasmine had told him straight to his face that she thought he was insane. For which Ryuga replied, "I am compassionate not insane." Keeden had found it odd that he would just throw them out into the desert like that. And with a limited amount of supplies he might add.

But Ryuga was after all the teacher and Keeden had been raised to respect his elder's wishes, even if he secretly found them to be very superfluous. "Remind me again how wandering aimlessly on a vast desert planet, teaches us about becoming Jedi?" The young Togrutan girl asked dryly from exhaustion and frustration. The two friends had been huffing through the sandy landscape for nearly five hours now. Trying to find shelter but no such luck was present. "I swear if I ever see that guy again I am gonna give him such a-" Jasmine's ranting fell short as she suddenly tripped over something in the sands with a loud clank. crashing into Keeden who was close by and knocking them both into the sea of sand.

"Sorry about that Spiky." She apologized after getting back up from the slightly awkward situation, they had recently found themselves in. Keeden looked to where Jasmine had tripped and saw a glimmer of metal shine in the sun's light. The two Padawans dug through the sand and found a deactivated holodroid with a missing eye. Keeden had noticed that everything on the poor machine was in good condition. Which begged the question as to why was it offline if its clearly fully functional? A few seconds later and he discovered the problem. An EMP chip had been placed on its back, causing it to shutdown automatically. "Hate to interrupt your little science project here, but I'd like to find shelter before we both die from dehydration, thank you."

Keeden nodded understanding what she said was indeed more important than tinkering with an offline droid. The youngling picked up the droid and continued on foot through the vast desert. Where thankfully in a few minutes later the two came across a large cave. As Jasmine sat against a cave wall, finally being able to relax herself. Keeden was busy trying to get the droid online. He had removed the EMP chip from its back and fixed a good bit of its circuitry. But it still remained nonfunctional. "Your not gonna work on that scrap heap all night are you?"

Keeden shook his head as he went back to rewiring the droid's remaining wires. All the while remembering master Azool's purpose for all of this. He had said it had been meant to help each student better understand each other and focus as a team. Keeden didn't really see the point of him pairing him up with someone he already knew so well. But then perhaps there was more to it than that. The young Jedi in training glanced over to his friend to see her sound asleep, against the wall. He gave a grim laugh and went back to work. Unaware of the pair of dark amber eyes that watched him through the darkness, waiting for when to strike.

Well that's chapter 2 hope ya liked it. Sorry it took so long. Hopefully the next will be upper a lot sooner than this one. Any ways thanx and don't forget to review, Jack out.