Chapter 10

Star was up as soon as she was asleep. She had received the vision that she had seen many times before and she wanted to meditate on it. She slipped away from her secret love.

She wondered the castle for a bit, but decided to stand at the window in the room she and Zan were sharing. Then a comforting hand rested on her flesh shoulder.

"You're up early," Zan commented as he tried to pull her into a hug, but she walked away in silence once she felt the bandages on her flesh. "Then I'll leave you alone, unless you'd like to join me."

Star remained quiet as Zan went back to his bed; she could feel his hope that she would have followed him at this early hour. But all she did was stare out the window. Night turned to day; she felt the presence of her assigned apprentice.

"I've never seen you up so early, Master," Jack replied.

"If you were trying to sneak away, that won't do you any good. Besides, my arm was causing me problems," she lied as she placed her flesh hand over her metal shoulder.

"That doesn't matter to me."

"You're uneasy," Star said. "I feel your emotions. You don't want either girl to fight."

Jack then started to throw shadow daggers at Star, but she was in the shadows before they could touch her.

"You still think that that'll work on me?" her voice echoed through the room. "That is sad. What you always do is attack before you see," came from another side of the room, causing Jack to turn. "Until you realized, that it was the wrong move." Then Star kicked Jack in his shoulder blades. Then she took his arms and held them behind his back. "You still forget one of the first lessons I taught you." Her eyes were starting to burn as her pitch black eyes turned into the furious Sith yellow.

But Jack didn't want to hear anymore of her babbling. Enraged, he use a shadow to push Star off of his back. She was pushed off of his back and fought to get unpinned. Jack ran to grab the shadow and change it into a sword. When he went to strike, Star had jump out of reach and went for Reed's face. He whiplashed the shadow and it caught on her mechanical arm, throwing Star with it. She managed to repositioned herself so she would slide across the floor.

Star retrieved a lightsaber using the Force, and throw it at Reed.

He ducked but he was almost decapitated.

He then yelled as he threw a shadow sword at her. She jumped out of the way, her feet contacted with his shoulder. She flipped and landed perfectly as he was sent falling backwards onto the floor.

"Give up, Apprentice?" she mocked as she rose to stand on her feet.

Jack round kicked, as he sent Star off her feet, to get off the floor. "Never!"

All she did was laugh. "Very good. You are finally getting it." She throw her feet over her to get onto her hands and feet. "I can see it in your eyes. All that pain that you came here with is starting to turn into the anger. You must turn that anger into the strength that will allow you to accomplish anything." While she was saying this she was starting to get very shaky. She fell limp, except for her mechanical arm. All her weight seemed to be be hanging on the non flesh limb.

He stood up, taking a shadow and turned it into a sword. He walked toward his same aged master with blood lust in his eyes. "Any last words," he challenged her.

She looked up at him. The yellow met burning blue. "You shouldn't let your anger-" her head went down as Reed felt something around his ankle. "Blind you!"

He was then thrown into the air, hanging by his ankle; both with a simple hand motion. Reed looked down at Star. She was standing on her feet now as she had her hand in the air as if she were physically holding him up.

"It has taken me years to master, but now I am able to remember when I let my anger take hold of me."

Jack spared no time. He started to climb up his legs.

Star starting to laugh when she saw his useless action. Her laugh was like that of a child's, but there was evil behind it.

Jack was trying to figure out how to get out of her grasp, but after a few minutes, he finally gave up; seeing that there was no way out of this. Her laughter stopped the moment he had given up.

"Are you done?" she asked as if it wasn't obvious.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, my master."

Star let him drop right there.

"Having fun."

Star spun around and saw Poke in the doorway.

"Exquisitely," Star said as the burning in her eyes went away.

Jack sat up and rubbed his head in both pain and embarrassment. Zan finally decided to stop pretending that he was asleep and see what damage that Star had done. He was impressed that it looked like nothing had happened.

"What is it, Poke?"

"They'll be coming to take us to the arena soon. And I figured that you were all going to be here."

"Oh," Star said. "Do you want a medal, Poke?"

Poke narrowed her eyes at the other Near-Human. Star surked. Jack passed Star and neared Poke. Zan got out of the bed and came closer to Star. Each pair stared at each other till one of Zann's entered the room.

"It's time," he said.

The four followed him out of the room and journeyed to the arena when the two women would duel.

When they were about one hundred yards away, Star jumped the height of three stories; landing on the second. At the end of that hall there was a machine covered with a cloth. Star tugged on it and it fell. She stared at the broken contraption as he tightly clenched the clothe in both of her hands.

It was big. And there was a hole for anyone in this galaxy would walk through; even Jabba himself could. Yet it was broken and covered in a twenty layers of dust.

She dropped the cloth as she placed her flesh hand on it, closing her eyes, envisioning what it must have looked like. She opened them and took a step back. She ripped her right tattered sleeve off and said, "Let's get started."