Usual disclaimer: See earlier chapters.

A Star Wars-Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy/Ranma 1/2 Crossover
The Jedi of Chaos

Chapter 3 (1st draft)

This was turning out to be one of the most easiest assignments Allura ever had. In the beginning, she'd thought it'd be much more difficult to infiltrate the Jedi Academy.

Now she could barely keep from derisively laughing out loud as she casually walked down the hall. Currently she was on the second floor of the Academy, and according to Brakiss's information, it was at the other side of the building.

In fact, the only difficulty so far was to avoid the oblivious Jedi students. With most of them off training, studying, eating or doing whatever they usually did, that was accomplished without much trouble. Ironically, it was her belief that the infiltration would've been nearly impossible had she attempted it during the night, when everyone congregated in the Academy. In the daytime, it was almost deserted. But on the side of the caution, Allura had managed to steal a Jedi robe from one of the instructor's rooms and had worn it over her very distinctive black cloak.

Also, it had helped that the students were from different planets and races, so her Twi-lek features and red skin only rated a passing look. The relaxed expression she'd fixed on her face also helped in that regard.

Next time, she swore to be assigned to a mission that would provide a bit more ... action. Though she wasn't the combat addicted freak that Crimson was, she did enjoy the thrill of a good fight as it helped break the everyday boredom of life.

She snorted in contempt of her rival. Crimson, now that was truely one of the stupidest names Allura had ever heard. Her hair wasn't the color and neither were her eyes. Allura had learned her real name after eavesdropping on a meeting Tavion and the human girl had.

In the Disciples of Ragnos, it was a well known fact that many of them, for their own personal reasons, had changed their names. Allura had joined before her rival had, but by the time Tendou had officially taken her place as one of Tavion's two disciples, a running joke had sprung up about there being two Crimsons for one job. She hated that pathetic excuse of witticism and had no qualms about letting her displeasure be known, via a Force lightning attack.

Ah, there, she'd finally reached Skywalker's room. Glancing around to make sure there were no one around, she walked in and pulled out a data pad from beneath her cloak.

She was just about to begin her search for Skywalker's diary when she saw that it wasn't even necessary. Apparently, Skywalker trusted his students enough to leave his diary on top of his desk.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Allura reached out and connected the pad to the diary with a data cable. This would only take a few minutes at the most.


"We'll see."

When Rosh had so foolishly run off, Ranma hadn't even bothered to start looking for him. Although he had a low opinion of the other boy's intelligence, the young Korr knew that Penin would decide to head towards the Massassi temple because it was the only thing he could do. Penin had gotten such a headstart that even tree-hopping hadn't enabled Ranma to catch up to him. And when he finally did, he'd almost been too late.

Witnessing the appearance of the three mysterious women, Ranma had been immediately suspicious of them. This had only been confirmed when their apparent leader had activated her lightsaber. Ranma had quickly hypothesized that she and her crew had something to do with the shuttlecraft's ambush. At that instant, he'd made a tactical decision.

Penin was unarmed, a mistake of his that Ranma had readily admitted, and still had the beacon. Their job was still not yet done, and so with crystal clarity, Ranma knew that he had to distract and hold the trio's attention until Rosh could do his part. He hadn't expected to get one of them with his blaster shots, which had been a pleasant surprise. It had raised his estimates of his survival by twenty percent.

Judging by the speed of which the remaining two had reacted and deflected his blaster's shots, he'd been certain that he couldn't stop the taller woman from pursuing Penin. If he'd done so, he would have earned a lightsaber in the back from the leader for his effort. Penin had a headstart, true, but from Sensei Galdern's lessons about the Force, Ranma assumed that the subordinate would use the Force to increase her running speed.

If that were true, then Penin was in a lot of trouble.

However, Ranma couldn't help him at the moment because, quite coincidentally, he found himself in some trouble of his own. It had seemed that his flippant response had struck a VERY responsive chord as he was extremely hard pressed to defend himself.

For her part, Crimson's eyes flared up in anger at her opponent's casual attitude and suddenly broke into a dash. The river proved to be an insignificant obstacle; a single Force-enhanced flip was all it took to get over it. The instant she hit the other side, she charged at him, determined to make him regret he'd ever underestimated her.

The brilliance of her lightsaber's blade, deliberately chosen for her namesake, became a blur of red as she slashed, stealing the offensive right away. Enraged by the man's ambush on her and the death of Talna, she attacked relentlessly but not recklessly. She held back at first, wanting to see how much skill he had.

It came as a bit of surprise when all her of strikes were blocked or parried. Obviously he was no mere new recruit, he had to have some kind of training before. But then, she had somewhat expected it; after all, he'd chosen to walk out from his ambush spot and challenge her to a lightsaber fight. That had suggested to her that he had to know some moves; just how much was the question.

However, against an opponent of her caliber, 'some' didn't cut it. Not even close.

She was mildly interested in seeing how long he could stay alive when she upped the ante.

Anger, that familiar friend, flooded anew through her veins anew and fueling the Dark Side within her. Her initial tempo, in concert with her building battle lust, began to gradually speed up.

Her blood began pounding in her ears; her entire being screamed at her to kill the man in front of her. Her eyes thinned, her mouth curled hatefully, and her battle rage kept on pumping. An image of her worthless, deadbeat father superimposed over her opponent, only to be faded out eventually, just to be replaced with the most hated figure from her past, the bastardized rich snob who had---

A dark red haze appeared in her vision, absorbing everything else except for her target. He was a demon from the pits of hell that just wouldn't stay dead, despite her vengeance years ago. Solely focusing on him, she let years of hate, rage, and anger explode from within.

She slashed left to right, descending, and then right to left in a reversal, nearly catching him by surprise. It was obvious from his slightly hesitant movements that the pathetic wretch lacked actual combat experience with a lightsaber. Either that, or he hadn't faced an opponent like her before. Snorting in open contempt, Crimson slashed down, to be predictably blocked. Disengaging, she struck down again and again, willingingly, challengingly slamming her blade against his.

He took a step back, then two, retreating under her onslaught. Well, well, he did have half a brain after all.

Pushing her advantage, the Disciple of Ragnos came at him in a rush, all the while directing the Force to empower her upper body's physical strength. When it had reached a certain level, Crimson changed her attack stance to the one that fit her like a glove; the one that Tavion had said that takes great advantage of strong emotions.

She began attacking, making use of tight, forceful sweeps, angled high, low, and in the middle. Her tempo was now increased; three attacks where there had been two and her recovery time was lessened by half a second. Her energy blade, a perfect match for her motivation, blurred in front of her as she easily knocked aside a pathetic attempt at a counterattack and quickly followed up with a low cut.

The increased physical force behind her strikes began to have an effect as the Jedi was clearly finding it more difficult to solidly block her attacks as they were beginning to force him back. He began to give ground quicker.

The fact that her opponent was still alive concerned Crimson very little. All she had to do was to knock his weapon out of line in order to clear some space for a finishing technique. She was confiden that it would happen, sooner or later.

She idly speculated how long would it take before his arms would tire and become numb so she could finally cut him down like the dog that he was.


In Ranma's opinion, the only reason why he wasn't dead yet was because her skill in lightsaber combat wasn't that extensive, though she possessed more experience than him. He'd seen evidence of that in the way she held her lightsaber and her somewhat rough stances. She wasn't one with her weapon, at least not yet. In his personal opinion, she had a long way to go before she reached the status of a Master of someone like Sensei Galdern.

If this was a duel of skill vs skill alone, he would've eventually won, after a dangerously prolonged fight. Although the training under Sensei Galdern had included instructions in extensive lightsaber dueling, the fact was that it was flat out impossibe to practice with lightsabers against a spectral presence in the Force, so the best that Ranma had been able to do was memorize the stances and techniques.

In all consideration, this duel was Ranma's first practical use of his lightsaber training. As it was, if it weren't for his immensely high learning curve and pre-Galdern training with vibroblades and other such weapons, he would've been dead five seconds into the fight. Currently, he was holding his own, yet he knew he couldn't maintain a successful defense forever. The beginning of the duel was spent testing each other, getting a feel for the other's skill. Now as the situation stood, Ranma found himself at a severe disadvantage. Thanks to the 'Soul of Ice', his mental shield was up and dutifully keeping him from attempting to use his abnormal Force energy. Added to that was the fact of the real, potential harm to himself if he dissolved said mental shield; in all likelihood ending in his body exploding from the sheer, chaotic, uncontrollable power being released.

This girl, on the other hand, seemed to be getting faster and the power behind her blows were increasing steadily. Although he couldn't feel it the way Sensei Galdern would've been able to, it didn't take long for him to figure out that she was drawing on the Force to augment her base physical ability.

Genma be damned! If it weren't for him...

Ranma shook his head while barely deflecting aside a high slash, than parried a low thrust. No time to think about the past now. He refocused his attention on her; analyzing every shift in her stance, every attack she threw at him and commiting them to memory and adding to his own style as he saw fit. He calculated unless he changed the course of the duel, in the next two minutes her speed would be such that it would become extremely difficult for his reactions to keep up, thereby enlarging his margin for error considerably.

As it was, he was entirely on the defensive, his arms and shoulders were beginning to hurt from the sheer physical shock of clashing against her increased strength. However, despite his handicap and his disadvantages, his sharp, tactical mind had already found out a weakness in her style. She, whatever her name was, was falling into a pattern that was becoming more predictable as the fight went on. Apparently, she was becoming too overconfident from keeping him on the defensive, and was becoming sloppy, leaving small, yet growing exploitable holes in her stance.

The reason why he hadn't taken advantage of those holes yet because simply, she was just too damn fast, and getting faster as they fought. He wasn't able to effectively counterattack without weakening his guard, which was definitely not an option. At this rate, Ranma wasn't able to see a path to victory because her speed was a major roadblock in his way.

However, there was something he could do, yet at such a great risk that he'd purposely held it back, counting it as a last resort.

But now it seemed that he had no choice now, despite that using it would possibly weaken his mental shields enough to...

Ranma shook that though off, not wanting to dwell upon that. It was his best shot at winning this fight, though he might die from using it. How ironic; his best hope was also his harbinger of doom.

No time to think about that now. He had to do it while he was still alive.

Ranma's eyes narrowed, and backpedaled faster, widening the distance between the two of them. Decision made, he began to concentrate on calling up his ki, as taught to him by one of his former instructors six years ago...


Rosh Penin had always wanted to be chased around by attractive women, but this was getting ridiculous.

It seemed that he was running for his life the entire day, and it was becoming rather annoying. Once more, he cursed Ranma Korr for not lending him a weapon.

He was positively certain that those lightsaber wielding evil-Jedi types were on his tail. After seeing up close and personal how fast they could move, he was pushing himself beyond his limits. Thanks to whoever had fired upon them, he had been given a couple of seconds headstart and he took full advantage of that.

At least the Massassi Temple was visible through the cracks in the trees; he refused to think of what would happen should he had been forced to climb trees to recheck his course.

It took some doing, but he restrained himself from running all out. It would be stupid of him to do that, then run out of breath, just to be cut down from behind as he tried to get his wind back.

In Rosh's person opinion, that was definitely a very BAD THING.

So he found himself now running at a pace more than a jog, but a little less than an all-out dash. He was making good progress as the Massassi Temple was slowly growing larger, and was not sparing any attempt at stealth. That would have only slowed him down; speed was the key here, which he was practicing with an almost religious zeal.

Several times, he risked quick glances behind him but failed to catch a glimpse of his pursuers.

The young Penin didn't know how lucky he was. In another reality, he and another potential Jedi trainee by the unlikely name of Jaden, in order to reach the Massassi Temple, would have to go through a couple of stormtroopers and one Disciple of Ragnos. In this life, however, Rosh approached the Temple from another direction and thus avoided them by sheer luck.

Then again, he had no weapons and was being chased by lightsaber wielding women. Maybe lucky wasn't the term...

Rosh broke through the bush and circled around a wide tree, panting and sweating. However, what he saw made his discomfort all the worthwhile. He was standing at the top of a small vale, and right across from him stood the Massassi Temple!

Sighing with relief, he looked down, noting that it was downhill all the way to the base of the Temple, about a hundred feet in distance. When he reached the bottom, he would have to climbing up the Temple steps until he reached a spot right above the treeline.

He was about to begin descending when he heard something from behind that nearly made him soil his pants.

Snap-hiss


Crimson sensed that victory was just within reach. She was being saturated with the Dark Side and her speed was still growing. Right now, she was half again faster than she was normally, without being Force enchanced while her strength had also been increased, though not as much as her speed. That was all right with her; at the beginning of her training, she'd wanted to focus almost purely on combat. When informed of her decision, Mistress Tavion had accepted, with a condition that Crimson would concentrate mostly on speed, along with a smaller focus on strength.

And she still had more to go until finally hitting her limit. If she chose to go beyond that, she risked causing her body irreparable harm.

Not that she would need to go that far of course.

She had no idea how this so-called Jedi was able to defend himself so well without using the Force, but she was certain that it couldn't last. With the Dark Side giving her strength, she wouldn't tire for a long time and her speed and strength would just continue to grow. It was only a matter of minutes.

This Jedi had provided her with a little amusement, but time was growing short and she really had other things to do. And it really was pathetic; he could have used more training. Ever since the start of the fight, it had been made completely obvious to her that the fool wasn't even using the Force to aid him in the fight. Like when she'd first sensed him with his companion, it looked like his Force potential really was that small.

Truely, it was one of the most pathetic things Crimson had ever seen.

On the otherhand, the whole affair was getting tiresome. She had her fill already, and now, this little comedy needed to come to an end. However, it seemed that he'd somehow sensed it and was rapidly backing away from her. As if that would save him; she would easily match his speed by directing the Force to her legs and did so.

Grinning ferally, Crimson charged after him, attacking the moment she got within range. Aiming at his right shoulder, she slashed down hard.

Out of nowhere, with a speed faster than what he'd shown before, his lightsaber came dancing in at her left, smashing into her blade with unexpected strength and forcing it further to her right than she wanted. So unprepared was she for that attack, so surprised was she that her mental processes stalled for a moment. Tavion's student blinked once and had but one thought.

'What?'

Than her eyes widened in surprise and panic as she suddenly realized the full ramifications of what had just happened. With her lightsaber out of line, she was completely open! With that, it finally occured to her that maybe she should bring her lightsaber back where she could appropriately block or parry the next attack that was coming. On that count, she was just a tad bit too late.

Feeling his ki burn through him and clenching his teeth, Ranma kicked out at her open front, striking her full in the stomach. He could've easily thrust his lightsaber into her heart, but there were questions he wanted to ask of her. Disabling her would just have to do.

With the wind suddenly knocked out of her, she hunched over a little, one hand reflexively going to her stomach and the other maintaining a loose hold on her weapon. However, she was still able to see her opponent's cold face as he lifted up his light-green energy blade and cleanly slashed off her hand just after the elbow.

"Cho-mai," whispered Ranma as he brought himself to a basic neutral stance. (1)

A howl of sheer agony erupted from her lips as the pain overwhelmed her. Dropping to her knees and clutching her wrist tightly, as if to squeeze out the hot fire playing on her nerves. Her eyes dropped on the person responsible, the damned Jedi, hating him even more. Amidst the pain, it was suddenly clear to her that he had purposely held back his Force abilities in order for her to underestimate him. And when she got overconfident, he took advantage of that and tricked her! Blast him!

"Ya-ya-ya babab! Ollkalya! Ollkalya! Ollkalya! (2)" she mumbled through her broken jaw, trying to fight past the pain. In her current state, she missed the fact that the despisable man was glowing faintly with a white-bluish aura.

For his part, Ranma was thankful that he managed to end the fight without having to rely on the prolonged use of his ki. Already he could feel the strain on his mental shield; it was still holding but it was also growing more difficult to do so. If he had to keep using his ki for several more seconds, the toll it would have on his ability to maintain the shield would have been more than he could handle. Taking a deep breath, the ponytailed man went through the necessary steps to end the use of his ki and the aura around him slowly faded away.

Then he noticed that she was still yelling and making dire threats. In his opinion, a silent, unconscious enemy was more preferable to a conscious, boisterous one. With that in mind, he calmly walked over to her, made a tight fist, drew it back and solidly punched the side of her jaw that wasn't broken.

"Quiet!" he demanded as she slumped to the ground unconscious. A second later, Ranma himself fell to the ground on his knees.

Breathing heavily, his muscles were on fire from the extremely strenuous fight and his mind wasn't doing too good either. Use of his ki had forced him to stretch to the very limits of his mental shield and when that happened, it felt as if a razor sharp blade was constantly stabbing in and out of his brain. He only hoped that there wasn't any permanent harm done; brain damage was no laughing matter after all.

As he rested, Ranma looked at his opponent impassively, thinking of what to do. He suddenly realized that he didn't even know her name, not that it was that important. In his opinion, perserving his life had a much higher priority than that.

Originally he had wanted to interrogate her but being unconscious and having a broken jaw (not his greatest idea, he admitted silently) clearly put a damper on that plan. Then, should he bring her along as a prisoner?

After a moment's consideration, he decided against that; she would just slow him down and cost him precious time. All right, he would just have to leave her here in order to check on Penin and see what his condition was; if the other boy was dead, then that would be unfortunate. In any case, Ranma was hoping that the beacon was still in one piece.

Their job was not yet finished, after all.

But before he left, there was one thing he had to do. After he felt he had enough rest, Ranma quickly retrieved his blaster from where he'd left it, as well as his opponent's weapon (his eyes betraying the slightest grimace as he slid it out of the detached hand), and then jumped over the river, throwing the black and red lightsaber high over his shoulder while doing so.

Landing on the other side in perfect balance, he turned, quickly drew his gun and blew apart the dead girl's lightsaber (which had fallen near her), and then, in a display of superior hand-eye coordination and accuracy, tracked and blasted the other one out of the air.

Nodding in satisfaction, Ranma started walking into the forest. It was possible that those two had allies elsewhere on Yavin. No sense leaving behind weapons for them to salvage.

It was right then a group of people emerged from the forest treeline, way down the river. Thanks to his near perfect vision, although he saw that some of them did have lightsabers, not for a moment did he think that they were from the Jedi Academy. The four stormtroopers were a pretty big hint in that regard. With all that in mind, he did the only thing he could do.

Ranma turned back towards the treeline and quickly ran for it.


"Well, well, little rabbit. I've finally caught up to you," Narissa remarked in a sultry tone that sounded suitable for a holonet model. "You led me on quite the chase, not bad, but everything has to come to an end."

Despite his fear, Rosh suddenly found himself checking her out. Very attractive, mid-twenties, great figure, beautiful eyes, the blonde hair would've looked better if it were longer, and he was dead certain that if she smiled, his heart would probably stop. Her chest size was also quite impressive, especially for someone with such a slender figure.

Then he slapped himself on the forehead. 'Idiot! What the hell am I doing? She's going to kill you unless you do something!'

Unfortunately for him, he couldn't think of anything that could be done. He couldn't go forward or to either side, and behind him was all downhill, not exactly the most steady of places to be running, now was it?

What the hell was he going to do?

Narissa lifted her saber up in an aggressive forward stance, holding it above her head with the blade facing behind her. "Too bad, you are kinda cute. Pity we're on different sides and I've got my orders, anyway, so I'll make this quick." That said, she charged at him.

Rosh had always heard about that when people thought they were going to die, their lives would flash in front of their eyes. Well, strangely, he kind of felt cheated because it sure wasn't happening to him. What was happening to him that he was certain of was that he was very afraid for his life, angry that he was going to die, and incredibly, hating a certain someone for once again getting him involved in such a situation.

When he saw Narissa coming straight at him, his eyes widened in panic. Stumbling back against the wide tree, he reflexively threw his hands up protectively before his face, much like what he'd done with the wildcat. Two things were rampaging through his mind; how much he wanted he wanted to live and how much he wished that she would just...JUST go away and leave him ALONE!

She was just three feet away from him when IT happened.

Rosh felt an invisible wave of ... something suddenly burst out of his hands and picked her up as if she were nothing and literally threw her away. She yelped in surprise before vanishing in the forest's shadows. Jaw slack with amazement, Rosh heard the passage of her body as she swept pass bushes, snapped branches and whatnot before eventually fading from sight.

"Holy rancor droppings, Penin! W-Was that the Force I just used?" Rosh asked out loud, completely stunned by what he'd just done and looking at his hands as if he'd never seen them before. Then he blinked his eyes, suddenly feeling drained and utterly exhausted. His legs wouldn't support him and he slowly slid off the tree which had supported him earlier.

Rosh had forgotten one small, little detail. The tree was right at the edge of the slope; thus, when he finished sliding off the tree, there was absolutely nothing to keep him from accidentally somersaulting backwards ass over teakettle and happily rolling down said slope.

"Oooof, oohhhh, accckkk!"

There was yet another thing he'd forgotten. Said slope wasn't exactly only packed dirt and grass; it also contained average-sized rocks and stones.

Many average-sized rocks and stones.

"OWWW! OUCHHH! AAAAARRRGGHHH!"

And of course, all the while Rosh was thinking of just how much all of this was Ranma Korr's fault.

It was a long, hard, PAINFUL trip downhill.

Unknown to the hapless Rosh, he wasn't the only one who was was letting their agony be known to the world.

Moaning at the pain she was feeling, Narissa Kaltic groaned as she slowly regained consciousness. Although she wasn't aware of it, she was now thirteen meters away from where she'd been before being Force-pushed. How that idiot managed to pull it off was something she had trouble understanding.

Was it was an accident?

"Damn, he didn't have to hit me so hard," she cursed, blinking her eyes. From what she could tell, she was still in one piece. Miraculously, she didn't collide with a tree and get impaled by a broken branch, two of her worst fears during her unintended flight.

"I must find him," she stated in grim determination and tried to sit up. However, her body decided that it had other ideas and made her black out again.


For the most part, Tavion Axmis (3), human leader of the Disciples of Ragnos, was having a good day. So far, the mission was turning out to be a success. Ten minutes ago, she'd just finished draining the Dark Side Force energy from the Massassi Temple using the Sceptre of Ragnos. She smirked; stealing it from that old, dead trader who dealt in ancient items was the best idea she had in years.

Also, Allura had sent her a heavily coded signal consisting of two beeps on a certain frequency that had informed Tavion she had successfully completed her part in the mission.

The Massassi Temple had possessed a great deal of Dark Side energy. Tavion nearly shivered in delight at how many cultists (a.k.a cannon fodder) she would be able to empower with the stolen energy. Hopefully, Skywalker's diary would be able to provide more places similarly saturated so their numbers would continue to grow and she would be able to execute her ultimate plan.

Suppressing an urge to start laughing out loud maniacally, Tavion settled for a grin of sheer greed. To imagine, all that power would be hers in the near future, she could barely wait!

Her entourage broke free of the forest and unfortunately that was when her good mood took a severe nosedive.

She caught sight of a black-haired, ponytailed man who was downstream from her group. However, before she could say anything, he dashed into the forest they'd just exited like a coward. Then again, her group did outnumber and outgun him, so she couldn't blame him for retreating.

It was right then that her gaze fell upon the two motionless bodies of Crimson and Talna, and her anger spiked, along with a huge amount of disappointment and irritation. Now she knew why he'd suddenly made himself scarce; he was the one responsible!

There was no sign of Narissa, and frankly at the moment, she couldn't bring herself to care about that. She was too busy dealing with the surprising and unsettling fact that one, untrained Jedi initiate managed to defeat two of hers, and one being a prime student!

Tavion had expected Crimson and her subordinates to be more than capable of wiping out a bunch of Jedi initiates. However, it seemed that reality proved her wrong. It was evident that Allura's rival wasn't as ready as she thought she'd been. Allura herself would probably be ecstatic with the news that Crimson had utterly failed. Though the infiltration of the Academy was the main priority, Tavion had thought that in the process of doing so, why not kill two birds with one stone and weaken Skywalker's little group?

It had been a good idea, in theory. In execution, well, it had turned out to be otherwise. Damn that Crimson. It was enough to make Tavion wonder why she even bothered putting all those five years of effort into training the younger woman. All that, just so she could lose to an untrained little snit? Pathetic, extremely pathetic.

Shaking her head, Tavion was tempted to leave her fallen student behind, but changed her mind. She needed a convenient target to take out her anger on and Crimson had just appointed herself as such.

Quickly directing her men to pick up the unconscious Crimson and her detached hand, Tavion proceeded to lead the way to the rendezvous point. She had already felt for Narissa's Force signature, and it looked like she was unconscious in the forest behind them. Well, they had no time to waste and retrieve her; Tavion could feel that Skywalker and his Academy brats were nearing the area. It was time for them to retreat without anymore interruptions.

Eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one... there, made it!

Summong what little strength he had left in his battered and bloody body, Rosh smirked victoriously as he held the beacon aloft. Finally, after all the pain and agony, he'd finished the mission!

Punching the necessary keys to activate the beacon, the young Penin sat down and looked around. He was sitting on the sixty-second step on the Massassi Temple, at a height which was a good twenty feet above the tallest tree. Surprisingly, after finally reaching level ground, except for his nose nothing was broken, though he was a walking bruise and pain tore at him with every single movement he made.

Rosh wearily looked at the amount of steps he would have to walk back on the way down and was promptly discouraged. He decided that he would lay down and rest for several minutes first. Good thing that these steps were fairly wide, just enough to accomodate his admittedly thin frame.

In a few seconds, he was snoozing blissfully, the beacon on the step above him and singing out its electronic S.O.S.

It was this way that Kyle Katarn found him. (4)

"Poor kid," he muttered sympathetically as he noted the vast number of bruises on him. "What sort of brute would do this to someone unarmed?"

With no answers forthcoming, Kyle gently picked him up in his arms and began walking down the steps.

"Luke Skywalker, I presume?"

"That's me. And you are...Ranma Korr?"

The tow-headed Jedi Master gave the younger man in front of him a once over. Two inches shorter than him, cleanly cut raven black hair tied back in a small ponytail, steel gray-blue eyes, slightly worn travel garments... Yes, although the oldish looking lightsaber was new, his description fit that of his file. This was Ranma Korr, the one Mara Jade had said possessed a 'peculiar problem' with his Force energy. (5)

Using the Force, Luke had managed to pinpoint the exact location of the shuttlecraft and had immediately dispatched himself, Kyle, two of the three doctors currently assigned to the Academy, and instructors and senior students, four each. Using one of the Academy's short-range transport craft, they had arrived at the scene quickly, where they had been greeted by a chatty Aserna and an extremely relieved group of injured new arrivals. The Rodian, with Aserna's help, told them everything; the belief that someone had fired on the shuttlecraft, the crashlanding, Ranma and Rosh deciding to go out to the Massassi Temple.

It was then that Luke and Kyle had both felt several Dark Side presences leaving the planet. Greatly concerned about the well being of Korr and Penin, they decided to leave immediately. After quickly bidding the doctors to go with the rest of the new students, Luke and company used the Force to enhance their running speed and made for the Temple.

Along the way, they had come upon the dead body of a suspiciously dressed woman and the blasted remains of a lightsaber. Quickly deciding that they would go back there later, the Academy group leapt over the river and finally arrived at their destination.

To their surprise, they had met Ranma Korr, along with an unfamiliar, unconscious woman lying at his feet. He was about to go check on Rosh when they'd caught up with him. Luke kept him from going, however, and asked Kyle to go instead. Ranma had merely shrugged and remained where he was.

Then the Q&A session began.

"Ranma, if you don't mind, can you please tell what happened with you and Rosh Penin ever since you left the shuttlecraft."

While Ranma was giving a summary of what he and Rosh had just been through, one of the Academy's instructors walked up to them.

"Kam," Luke greeted the older man. Ranma cut short his tale and looked at the new arrival with a neutral gaze.

Kam Solusar (6), a hardened, bitter man who was the Academy's most experienced teacher, glanced curiously at Ranma and then turned his attention to Luke.

"Master Skywalker, you were correct. Those Dark-Siders who left the planet earlier did indeed pass through this area earlier. There are traces of several individuals, possibly five or six." He grimaced, then continued, "I can almost smell the remnants their Dark Side stench."

"Same here," Luke said. "I've managed to track their movements; three of them went up there." He gestured near the top of the Massassi Temple.

Kam blinked in confusion. "But isn't that where we began picked up the distress beacon shortly before we picked up the group in the wreck back there?"

The younger man nodded. "Yes, that's correct. I've already sent Kyle up there to see what he could discover. He should be back soon. I just wish that we could have caught those Dark Side users, whoever they were, before they left the planet. Well, it's all right; we had to take care of our wounded new students first."

"Yes, though I have a suspicion that whatever mischief they were up to, it was nothing good."

Luke agreed with him. "I've got a bad feeling about what happened here." Sensing a presence, he looked up at the familiar figure carefully walking down the steps with a someone in his arms. Narrowing his eyes, Luke reached out with the Force to ascertain that Kyle's burden was alive and only unconscious.

Motioning for Kam to follow him, the Jedi Master went to meet Kyle and to hear what he had to tell them. Not caring whether he was allowed to or not, Ranma followed behind them.

He got there just in time to hear Luke say, "My god, what kind of monster would torture someone like this?"

"My thoughts exactly," Kyle said grimly.

Ranma looked over Luke's shoulder. "Impressive, he's still alive. I half expected him to be dead."

The other three men shot startled glances at the young Korr, not amused at all by his matter of fact tone.

Luke turned to confront him. "Mr. Korr, what do you mean by that?"

Ranma shrugged and jabbed a thumb over his own shoulder at the unconscious woman. "She'd been ordered by her leader to get him. Penin was unarmed and she had a lightsaber; him dying was the most likely scenario I could think of."

His eyes narrowing, Luke had already noticed that Ranma had both a blaster and his lightsaber. "And why was Rosh unarmed? You got two weapons there; you could have given him the blaster so he could protect himself." Already, the Jedi Master was beginning to form a bad impression of him.

If Ranma was bothered by Luke's sharpening tone, he failed to acknowledge it. His reply was interrupted by Katarn.

"I'm sure this discussion can wait. We still need to call the transport and get Rosh some medical attention. Luke?"

Luke met Kyle's eyes and nodded, though by the way his mouth thinned, it was obvious that he wanted to continue said discussion. However, he saw the wisdom in Kyle's suggestion and decided to follow it.

"Ranma, we'll continue this later back at the Academy," he told the ponytailed man firmly. Kyle, his burden, and Kam had already started walking towards the unconscious woman.

Ranma casually nodded and silently followed him.

With a low grunt, Kyle carefully laid down Rosh several feet away from the blonde. "I'm getting too old to play packhorse," he commented wryly.

Luke's sense of humor asserted itself, replacing the negative thoughts he'd had of Ranma. "No one's fault but your own, Kyle. You did volunteer to go all the way up there."

Kam snorted in amusement and gestured towards the blonde. "Anyone have an idea who she is?"

Ranma replied, "I don't know what her name is, or where she came from, or why she's doing here. All I know is that from what I've seen from her group, she's been trained with a lightsaber and probably in the Force, as well."

"Group?" asked all three older men at once with their eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, group. The first of them I saw was back at the river. There were three of them, all women armed with lightsabers and wearing the same kind of clothing. The angry girl, whom I telling you about earlier, was about to make Penin history when I shot at them with my blaster. I managed to catch them by surprise and eliminate one of the underlings. Their leader ordered this blonde here to chase after Penin and engaged me in a lightsaber fight."

"Shortly after I disarmed her, another group appeared upstream consisting of storm troopers and some people who I believe were Dark Jedi of sorts, according to their lightsabers. There was also a human woman with them and I also believe that she was in charge of everyone. I knew I couldn't fight them all so I chose to retreat into the forest. After a few minutes, I came upon her lying unconscious and decided to bring her along for questioning. After destroying her lightsaber of course."

"Sensible of you," Kam commented finally.

Ranma shrugged. "I know what my current limits are, and winning against a group of Dark Jedi with storm troopers for support are definitely beyond those."

"So you've had some lightsaber training prior to coming here? Are you sure they were storm troopers?" Luke asked in rapid succession.

Solusar decided to add his own contribution. "Their ultimate leader, what did she look like?"

Had not the Soul of Ice been active, Ranma would've rolled his eyes in disgust at the Jedi Master's question. As it was, he decided to ignore the first part, at least for now, and merely gave further clarification on the second.

"They were four of them, all dressed up in white, shiny field armor and carrying standard Empire-issue blaster rifles. You will understand that since I was rather reluctant to get within accurate range, I did not have the opportunity to ask them in order to affirm my observations."

Though the answer was delivered in a clear, concise and flat manner, Luke couldn't help but be suspicious that the younger man was being subtlely sarcastic. He also noticed that Ranma didn't answer the first part of his question, but he put it aside for later.

Feeling that he'd satisfied Luke's questions, Ranma answered Kyle's. "She was above average height, I'd say. Very well conditioned, short, brown hair, and she had some wierd, colored tattoos on her face. She was armed with a lightsaber, though it was at her belt, and in her hands she held some sort of long, odd-looking scepter."

Kyle's eyes widened, but before he could say anything, a question was asked by a hoarse, slightly pained voice.

"W-what's going on?"


Rosh Penin found himself surrounded by three strange men, and an aura of reassurance around each helped dispel any thoughts of panicking.

He took a closer look at each of them. Two of them were completely unknown to him, but the third looked very familiar to him somehow. All three had lightsabers attached to their belts.

One of the three, a brown-haired, bearded man with graying hair on the side, knelt down and introduced himself.

"Kyle Katarn, at your service."

The name was unfamiliar, but Rosh guessed that he was an instructor or something at the Academy. "Nice to meet you, give me hand, will you?"

Katarn shook his head and admonished him. "Rest easy for a bit, kid; you've had a pretty rough day. You're lucky to still be one piece." (7)

"You have no idea," grumbled Rosh. "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere; I'm just going to sit here for a while."

With that, Kyle was satisfied and pulled him to a sitting position.

Shaking his head to clear the last remaining cobwebs, Rosh looked around him to get his bearings. He noticed some other people besides the three standing by him. Past them, he saw...HIM.

Sudden rage flooded through Rosh, giving him strength as he forgot that he was supposed to be still exhausted. He surged upwards, a snarl on his face that promised a whole lot of retribution for the ponytailed man. Rosh was so mad that he couldn't talk straight.

"KORR...Bastard...YOU! You .. I.. kill.. must.. promise... forget.. never.. damn... torture ... types .. of ... ARRGGHH!" He flexed his fingers and prepared to leap upon his bane to throttle the life out of him.

Kyle and Kam were both going to restrain him when someone beat them to it.

"OHhhhhh HOOooonneeeey!"

Too absorbed in his anger, Rosh didn't even hear the sudden exclamation. What did get his attention was the impact of another body throwing itself upon him.

"Who the --- Gaacckkk!" The young Penin discovered that somehow he'd suddenly lost all capability to speak coherently as he recognized his blonde lightsaber wielding pursuer, Narissa.

Rosh proceeded to do the only logical thing he could. He began panicking.

"Someone help me! She's gonna kill me, oh god oh god, please get her off, get her off before she kills me, will someone help me already?"

Responding to his cries for assistance, Kyle and Kam quickly rushed to comply. After some difficulty, they managed to extract the young blonde from Penin; a task much harder than they'd initially thought as she had an incredibly tight grip.

With her arms securely handled by the two men, Luke thought it was an opportune time to get some information. But before he could open his mouth, Narissa frowned at each of them, and shot a dark look at Rosh.

"Hey, what was up with that reaction of yours?" she threw at him.

"My reaction? MY REACTION? You're a fine one to talk!" he spat right back. "First, you try to lightsaber me into tiny little pieces and then, the next thing I know, you're trying to squeeze the life out of me!" He paused, then added for good measure, "You're a complete psychopathic nut!"

A hurt expression found its way on Narissa's face. "W-wh-what kind of monster are you, to say such, such BAD things about me like that. In public, no less!"

For his part, Rosh was too dumbfounded to compose a proper answer to that. Luke, Kam and Kyle had a similar reaction while Ranma was just curiously observing to see what would happen next.

The blonde continued speaking. "I mean, is that anyway to treat a person? Especially someone like me?"

Rosh replied in rising annoyance, exasparation, and not a little anger. "AND WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

Despite her arms being held, Narissa still managed to stand proudly somehow as she gave him her answer in a proud tone of voice.

"I am Narissa, formerly Xi-an Phu of the Joketsukou Clan, from the planet of Dathomir. According to the laws set by the founders of Joketsukou, since you," she nodded in Rosh's direction, "have defeated me in combat, I am now your legally attached consort in matrimony."

She suddenly winked at him and smiled gently. "In other words, I'm your wife."


Within a certain distance of the Massassi Temple, the wildlife were suddenly disturbed by one of the most agonizingly loud wails they'd ever heard in their short lives.

"WWWWWHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT?"

End Chapter 3

Began June 18, 2006 Finished June 28, 2006

Author's Notes:

Heh, poor Rosh (yeah right). Well, there you have it, one of the NWC besides Ranma making an appearance. Why blonde hair instead of purple, you ask? You'll have to wait for the next chapter for the answer! Hope you've enjoyed it; I had a blast writing this!

C&C is appreciated and welcome, as usual.

1 'Cho Mai' is the name for an ancient Jedi term used to describe the action of cutting off an opponent's weapon hand, just one of the many things Sensei Galdern had taught Ranma. See here for more details: http/starwars. Translation: "You, you, you bastard! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

3 See here for more information on her: http/en. http/en. http/starwars. http/starwars. A bit of a play on Obi-wan's words to Luke in A New Hope