7
They recited together, the words a source of power and wisdom and inspiration for the two warriors as they prepared to go into battle. It was power and wisdom they would need, for tonight they would duel a worthy foe. Not something the two Dark Twins could often say.
"Peace is a lie; there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me."
The words of the ancient Sith Code, a corruption of the Jedi Code (although some Sith argued that the Jedi Code was the corruption) and a source of knowledge and enlightenment for any who followed the Sith Path as the Dark Twins did.
Their Master had ordered them to kill the Jedi Knight that hid in the dark forest, and they were eager to get on with it. That part of their orders, the killing, they liked more than any other.
"Remember," Karoc said to Vinoc as the prepared to engage their enemy. "Be careful. He's Jedi. They're tricky."
"I know," Vinoc replied, snapping slightly. He calmed himself, saving the anger as fuel for the battle ahead. "I'm ready. Let's do it."
The two stole off into the night, preparing to slay the Jedi Knight.
Araphis was busy once again meditating when he sensed his foes - another thread of darkness in the great tapestry. He was up in an instant, his blue blade drawn and his fighting stance prepared – the stance of Niman, the moderation form. His ace-in-the-hole of battle, for everyone he knew underestimated this form... until they lost, that is.
There they were - the two enemies revealed themselves, stepping out of the forest depths, both of them tall, young, pale skinned, and both stinking of the dark side.
"Who are you?" the Jedi asked, his voice taking on a threatening tone. He raised his lightsaber in a high guard.
"Ah, you must be the Jedi Knight Araphis," said one of the Darksiders, his voice a Coruscanti accent with a mocking undertone. "I am Vinoc..."
"... and I am Karoc," finished the other, the same accent and mocking tone present and correct. "We hope you have enjoyed your existence, Jedi..."
"... for now it is about to end!" Vinoc finished, with a snarl. And with that, the two Darksders drew lightsabers and ignited them - both the blades were the deepest of blood reds. The two Dark Assassins saluted and then both stood in the traditional Juyo stance. Araphis shifted his guard slightly to compensate for the disadvantage he suffered in numbers.
All three combatants stood still for a moment, as if they were waiting for some hidden signal, and then as one, all three leapt into combat, lightsabers spinning.
Araphis dodged Karoc's first blow, and leaped over Vinoc, landing behind the two, enjoying their surprise at his Ataru flourishes - no one ever expected a Niman fighter to use the more advanced moves, a surprise that Araphis enjoyed delivering.
Vinoc spun and brought his sabre down in an arc, which Araphis blocked quickly. As he kicked the Dark Jedi away, he blocked a crude blow from the other, before spinning into a striking assault that sent both jumping backwards in order to avoid impalement.
"You are good, Jedi," said Vinoc grudgingly.
"Indeed you are," agreed Karoc, frowning. Then the Dark Jedi smiled. "But we're better."
The two leapt at Araphis, who blocked blow after blow. He spun his blade in an arc, forcing Karoc to jump back, before attacking Vinoc and slicing his lightsaber in half. Believing him to be no further threat, Araphis Force-pushed him back and turned to Karoc, and launched an assault that had the Dark Jedi on the defensive and gradually giving ground. He spun, swung, thrust, uppercutted and jump sliced, each blow being blocked only just by the panicking Dark Jedi. Vinoc however, had an ace up his sleeve. He drew a second lightsaber, and attacked from behind. Faced with this sudden onslaught, Araphis couldn't block every blow, and jumped backwards, surrendering the advantage for the moment.
"Why are you here?" he asked the two Dark Jedi, scrutinising them.
"The Jedi Padawans are wanted by our Master," Vinoc smiled, thinking nothing of telling his enemy this information since he was about to die anyway.
"Silence," Karoc snarled, realising the danger. but it was too late. With this knowledge, Araphis knew what he had to do. He deactivated his sabre, Force-pushed the two Dark Jedi back and ran for the school.
Karoc snarled, and leapt after the Jedi, followed closely by Vinoc. They would kill the Jedi Master and then the Padawan would be theirs - to kill.
Hermione concentrated, her eyes closed, her mind as open as she could make it. It was the fifth day of their training, and still, she had been unable to use the Force properly. Harry had commented that this was understandable. He mentioned something about a... "holocron?" And how older trainees sometimes took a great deal of time to access the Force, as their inhibitions and own beliefs about the physical world prevented them from doing anything.
She was sitting cross legged on the floor of the common room, a lightsaber - one of Harry's spare training blades - on the table in front of her.
"That's it," Harry's voice came floating through her concentration. "You've got to feel the Force, flowing through you, around you..."
She felt something, she was sure of that. A sort of - tingle. She focused in on it, and felt a slight warmth flow through her body...
"Keep going," Harry's voice said, encouraging her. "Now, concentrate on the sabre... concentrate... imagine reaching out for it, taking it, and holding it in your hand..."
She imagined, concentrated, and put into practice all the things that Harry was telling her. And she felt it - the Force. Like light flowing through her veins. Suddenly, before she could tell what had happened or how, the lightsaber was in her hand; she stood up quickly, eyes opening, looking shocked at the sight.
She looked up, to see Harry smiling at her. He was wearing his Jedi robes, and she was wearing some of Kara's spares – "train as a Jedi, dress as a Jedi," as Castor had said.
"Very good," Harry congratulated her. "Very good. You've taken your first step into a larger world. Time to test your reflexes..."
He was considered one of the best lightsaber duellists in the temple of his age, and a promising young student, and was eager to begin teaching what he knew to others - he was pleased that he could share his knowledge. Both Qui-Gon Jinn and Jacen Araphis had always told him that teaching was the duty of a Jedi Knight, to pass on what they had learned to the next generation, and Harry had always taken this to heart.
Never mind that Hermione and Ron were his age, he still felt as though he could help them, and it made him... content, in a way he had never before experienced.
As he was about to impart some other element of Jedi knowledge, though, he felt something. Something wrong, very wrong, like a sudden squirt of murky ink into clear water.
He closed his eyes, and concentrated on the feeling, trying to discern what it was… he couldn't quite tell what the feeling was, but it stank – it stank of the Dark Side.
"Do you sense that?" he asked Hermione, unsure whether her senses would be that attuned yet, but reasoning it couldn't hurt to ask.
Hermione was about to shake her head, when a shiver ran through her whole body, and the same dark feeling reached her, though rather than "smelling" the Dark Side, she felt a coldness spreading through her body.
"I think I did," she said, frowning at the horrible feeling. At that point, Castor, Kara and Ron, who had been doing some lightsaber drills in the common room main area, (empty for the moment) ran in, Ron following the two Padawans, who both looked extremely nervous.
"Did you sense that?" asked Castor, breathless. Harry nodded.
"What does it mean?" asked Kara, worry etched in her face. "What could be causing it?"
Before any of them could answer, another feeling ripped through them - a voice speaking, forcing its way painfully into their minds, so full of hatred and loathing that it could only belong to a darksider...
"Jedi Padawans, the age of your order is at an end. I offer you another way. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hatred. Hatred leads to power. Power leads to victory. Let your anger flow through you. Your hate will make you strong. True power is only achieved through testing the limits of one's anger, passing through unscathed. Rage channelled through anger is unstoppable. The dark side of the Force offers unimaginable power. The dark side is stronger than the light. The weak deserve their fate. Remember these words, Padawans. Surrender to my servants, and you will be spared much pain."
The voice faded from the shocked Jedis' minds. The three Padawans stood rooted to the spot in utter horror. Such words, the darkest known to the Jedi, the Code of their enemy, spoken inside their very minds... the experience made them feel utterly violated. While Ron and Hermione didn't know what it had meant, they knew they didn't want to.
"Tell me that wasn't what I thought it was," Kara said at last, tears streaming down her face at the agony of it, not to mention the violation of her mind.
"A Dark Lord of the Sith, speaking to us through our minds? I think it was," said Castor dryly, his calm tone belying the fear and horror in his eyes. "And I think that that's a problem with a capital 'P'."
As if on a hidden cue, the three Jedi ran out of the common room, Ron and Hermione running after them, both confused and scared.
The group ran into the entrance hall. A few people milled about, looking at the quintet in their strange robes with humour on their faces. Harry tried to feel for his Jedi Master, and he found him – running towards Hogwarts. He gasped when he sensed the pursuit.
"Master Araphis is under attack..." he choked, shock running him through like a sabre. He couldn't believe it - the brave Jedi Knight was under attack by Sith? The Sith, the darkest order, who had been extinct for millennia? Here? How? More importantly, why?
And then the meaning of the dark message was suddenly clear to him. The Sith wanted him and his friends. He blinked as this realisation hit him, making him feel utterly hollow. He was in mortal danger here.
At his report of his Master's peril, Kara had gasped and Castor took his training sabre out of the folds of his robes. Ron and Hermione stood still, waiting for someone to tell them what to do, to give them instruction. They didn't understand what was going on, but at 'Dark Lord' they'd already known that it was bad.
"Now what?" asked Ron at last, looking around edgily.
At that point, as if in answer to the recent induction's question, the doors to the entrance hall exploded open inward, and a man came flying in backwards as though propelled.
"What the bloody -?" Ron yelled, staring in shock.
"Thermal detonator?" Kara asked, assessing the damage to the door.
"Can't be," Harry replied shrewdly. "Wouldn't have caused so much damage to that door."
And then, two robed figures entered, eliciting screams from some people. They marched into the hall, where Professor Snape and Hagrid, the gamekeeper, went to intercept them, both looking grim. The figure who had apparently been blasted in stood to his feet, and looked over at the knot of Jedi.
"Harry!" he called – it was Araphis. Harry ran to him, relieved, followed quickly by the others.
"I'm glad you're alright, Master!" Harry said, a smile appearing on his face.
"I'm glad you're safe too," Araphis said, smiling too, albeit grimly. Then the older Jedi caught sight of Castor, Kara, Ron and Hermione, all in Jedi robes. "And these are…?"
Meanwhile, Snape and Hagrid confronted the two Dark Jedi, Hagrid backing the Potions Master up.
"Who are you?" demanded Snape of the two figures grimly. "What do you want?"
"I am Karoc," one of the men said, as if speaking to a child.
"And I am Vinoc," added the other, equally condescending.
"We want the Jedi Padawans," continued Karoc.
"We are to take them to our Master," added Vinoc. "So get out of our way little man."
"I don't know who you mean," Snape said slowly, eyes narrowing as he sized the two Dark Jedi up, "but you will not get anywhere through use of the Force. I know of your kind, Darksiders..."
He reached inside his robes, presumably for his wand, but before he could draw it out, one of the men raised his hand and unleashed a bolt of Force lightening the gripped Snape and threw him across the room to land in a smoking huddle. Hagrid ran over to him and looked at the downed man in shock.
"Get... Dumbledore!" Snape hissed angrily, before passing out. Looking at the two figures, Hagrid seemed on the verge of doing something else. Harry could sense his rage building.
"No Hagrid!" he yelled quickly. "Go! We'll handle this."
Araphis nodded to the large man grimly. Hagrid wavered a moment more, unsure whether to trust this stranger, but he trusted Harry Potter, and so he ran for help, picking up and carrying Snape as he did so.
Araphis quickly turned to Harry.
"You go too," he said grimly. "I'll take them."
"You can't do it alone, Master," Harry said desperately, but Araphis shook his head and held up a hand.
"You are but a Padawan," he told his apprentice, "and my duty is to defend you. I will do what I must."
He ignited his blue blade, nodded grimly at Harry and the others, who retreated up the entrance hall stairs, and then with a cry the Jedi charged into battle.
From the top of the stairs the group of young Jedi watched the fight. Araphis' first blow was blocked by Vinoc, barely, and his second sent Karoc stumbling off, disbalanced. He parried a series of Juyo strikes from the two, and jumped backwards, before engaging them with – was that Makashi? It was powerful and balanced and a Form of skill, but against Juyo Harry knew from Qui-Gon it didn't have enough kinetic power to hold its own.
It happened in a flash. The two Dark Jedi outflanked Araphis as he twirled, blocking every blow that came his way, and then, with a slice, the brave man was on the floor, slain by a cut to the chest. The Jedi Knight's eyes went wide in shock and then he exhaled and was still.
"No!" Harry yelled, feeling the severance of their bond. "Master!"
Ron and Hermione had never seen death up close, and it frightened them to witness it now. Castor and Kara, however, looked at Harry in sheer disbelief. Now what could they do?
The hall was now deserted (the other students having run away in terror) save for the Jedi Padawans and the Sith murderers. The two assassins stared up at the group of Jedi expectantly.
"Sith scum," Harry snarled from the top of the stairs, grabbing for his lightsaber. "I'll kill you for that."
He started forward, but Castor and Ron gripped his arms and stopped him. The two assassins smiled at the sight, and decided to wait for the Jedi to come for them, deactivating their blades.
"We'll wait!" Vinoc called up. "Take all the time in the world."
"We aren't going anywhere," added Karoc, with a malicious grin.
"Let go!" Harry said, looking at Castor and Ron angrily. "We have to take them."
"Are you insane, Harry?" Castor asked, hissing. "They're highly trained Sith assassins. We can't win."
"We're the only ones with a chance. We have to try," Harry replied, gravely. His anger quickly dissipated, the attachment to his late master flowing out of his mind as he assessed the situation with a cooler head. Now, he had to think like a Jedi, and he knew – with no small degree of certainty – that he and his friends were the only ones who could stop these assassins. Hermione and Ron moved forwards.
"We're helping," Ron said determinedly.
"No," Harry snapped, holding a hand up to stop him. "You won't last two seconds in a fight against these two."
"And you will?" countered Ron angrily. "Castor taught me the basics with this thing," he held up the borrowed training sabre, "and I can always improvise."
"I'm fighting too," added Hermione before Harry could object to Ron some more. "I'm not letting those two run amok. They've already killed someone."
She took out her borrowed sabre as well, but neither of the new initiates ignited their weapons, waiting for Harry's cue as they were.
Harry shook his head at them, admiring their bravery but at the same time thinking them both incredibly foolish.
"You aren't strong enough," he said, determined to keep them from this fight. "I don't think any of us are, but you especially not."
Castor and Kara looked at Hermione and Ron sympathetically, knowing full but then looked back at Harry with an expression of grim determination.
"Plan?" Castor asked, ignoring the melodrama that seemed to be starting.
"You and Kara take one," Harry replied softly, looking down at the assassins. "I'll take the other. You know less of the forms than I do so two on one is your only hope."
The twins were getting impatient, and it was beginning to tell – they were shifting their sabres from one hand to the other, looking around as if sizing up the terrain. Harry held out his hand, Kara gave him her training-sabre and he fixed the settings, before handing it back to her.
"You two can finish yours off, in time to help me with mine," he added to his two old friends. He didn't add the silent 'I hope', but he didn't really need to.
"And what about us?" Hermione asked grimly.
"I told you already, you aren't fighting," Harry told her. "Either of you. It's us they want, not you."
Hermione sighed, sensing that there was no point arguing. Ron looked angry and disappointed, but he nodded at Harry curtly. Harry smiled encouragingly at his friend.
"Maybe next time, eh?" he said, grateful that no one was bothering to point out that there might not be a next time.
"Excuse me for interrupting," one of the twins (Harry couldn't tell which) said loudly, "but if you are the Jedi Padawans, you can surrender now. Goodbyes to your pals aren't neccesary."
Harry grimaced, and turned back to face the Dark Jedi, his body subtly shifting into a battle stance.
"Leave this place, and live," he told them calmly, his voice resonating with power beyond his years. "Or fight and die."
"You think you can fight us?" sneered Vinoc in disbelief.
"Yes," said Kara simply, confidence brimming from her.
"We're Jedi, you're Dark Jedi," said Castor, his bravado belying his earlier words of pessimism. "We've been killing your kind for millennia."
The twins snarled as one.
"Just because our Master wants you alive, doesn't mean you have to be in one piece," Karoc sneered, igniting his blood red lightsaber and taking a Juyo stance. "Prepare to lose some limbs, younglings!"
For a single moment, the combatants stood, silent, watching each other, waiting for the same silent signal, then they all ran into the fight as one.
Harry jumped up in an Ataru attack and brought his lightsaber down on Vinoc, who blocked the strike with practiced ease, while Castor and Kara flanked Karoc, spinning into a Shii-Cho assault. Harry spun into a counter as Vinoc brought his blade down in a vicious arc which the boy barely blocked, then Harry unleashed an uppercut to try and drive the Dark Jedi back.
Castor and Kara were forced onto the defensive, Karoc swinging his sabre left and right, nearly decapitating Castor with his last swing, and kicking Kara into a wall, where she banged her head nastily. Hermione ran to help her, her blade at her side. Karoc Force pushed Castor away from him and stood over the girls, raising his sabre and smiling evily.
"You die now," he said simply.
He raised his sabre and then brought it down viciously, but rather than cutting through flesh it impacted on a blue lightsaber blade. Ron had joined the fight, a dark expression of anger on his face.
"I dunno who you are, what you want or where you came from," the young initiate said, "but as far as I'm concerned, you hurt my friends, you pay for it."
He brought his borrowed training sabre up to block Karoc's first strike, and forced him onto the defensive with a powerful (if highly unfinessed) assault. He had no form, but his righteous fury seemed to be doing the trick, surprising the Dark Jedi into giving ground.
Castor ran to aid Ron against Karoc, sensing where the ginger trainee was going to strike and quickly perfecting a method of striking where Karoc's guard was weakest, which in turn forced the dark assassin back even further.
Meanwhile, Vinoc was backing further and further back, Harry's blows getting closer and closer each time. The Dark Assassin was skilled but Harry was lucky - Harry was marvelling at his luck at driving the Dark Jedi back, in fact, but he kept his mind as focused as possible. Their skill was great and though he had extra training from Qui-Gon it might all prove for nothing if he got cocky. Vinoc swung a desperate counter strike that Harry blocked with ease, and backed against the wall.
Harry held his sabre up to Vinocs throat.
"You're beaten," he said simply, a grin on his face. He had actually won!
Vinoc, far from being worried, actually smiled at that, a leer that chilled Harry to the bone.
"I don't think so," the assassin said calmly. He quickly took a second lightsaber out and lunged. Harry jumped back in time to avoid being impaled by the rapidly igniting blade, and drew himself into a defensive posture drawn from Soresu.
Karoc was faring less well than his brother. Faced with Ron's furious, if hardly finessed and formless, attack, and Castor's accurate strikes that drove him further and further back, he mis-stepped, and Castor slashed his sabre across the Dark Acolytes face. The Assassin screamed at the burning pain the sabre caused, and dropped his sabre, and Castor stabbed him with his blade.
The Dark Jedi looked down at the protruding lightsaber in shock, and then slumped when Castor retracted the sword, dead before he hit the ground.
Seeing his brother fall, Vinoc screamed in utter rage, and went straight for Castor, knocking Harry aside with a punch that stunned the Padawan.
"You'll die Jedi swine!" the assassin bellowed in fury.
Castor ducked under Vinoc's first blow, and parried his second. Vinoc then launched into a series of badly judged but powerful strikes, Castor dodging each one, barely, slowly giving ground. Nonetheless, he was confident.
"Surrender now," suggested Castor with a grin, as he blocked yet another of Vinoc's attacks. Vinoc responded by kicking him in the groin. Castor staggered back, and tried to block the Dark Jedi's attacks with only one hand, but Vinoc sliced the sabre handle in two, and aimed his blade at Castor's throat.
Castor Force-propelled himself out of the way of the death blow, but rammed himself into a wall, and slumped to the floor, stunned.
All this had taken place in less than a minute, but now Kara and Harry could react, while Ron tended to Hermione. They attacked Vinoc from behind, but now the rage was flowing through him, and he parried their blows with practiced ease.
Castor stood up, watching this. Harry and Kara would be killed by the lunatic if he didn't do something soon...
He reached out in the Force, concentrating on Karoc's fallen lightsaber. It flew to his hand and he caught it with ease. He felt the grip - a little better than his training sabre's actually. Easier. More grip, sturdier. He ignited it, spun it a couple of times, getting used to it for a second, while Harry and Kara held out (he couldn't rush, he had to know the weapon or he would never use it well enough), and then he launched himself at the Dark Jedi's unprotected rear. Vinoc couldn't turn in time... and Castor impaled him in the back.
The Dark Jedi screamed in agony, and then collapsed to the floor in a heap.
The three Jedi (not to mention Ron and Hermione) stood silently for a moment, each panting from exertion. A moment's elation rushed through each of them - somehow, they had won! The Dark Jedi had been defeated!
"What in the name of all that's holy?" came a voice from above them in shock.
They turned to see Professor Minerva McGonagall looking down at them, in horror at the mess that had been caused, and in shock at the dead Jedi and Dark Acolytes.
"You five - headmaster's office, now!" she barked sternly, her face showing half fear, half fury.
Castor looked at Harry. Harry shrugged, and followed Professor McGonagall up the stairs. The others followed him.
