Slash, stroke, step.
Slash, stroke, stroke, jab, twist and slash.
Slash, stroke, jab, slash, slash, stroke, jab, jump, and slash.
This was the repetition of practicing sequences Jaden utilized to practice her own basic alterations in between the known forms. While she had realized her knack of it when she first started studying the Old Order's styles of lightsaber combat, she was still not perfecting any of them to feel comfortable enough to single them out. The two forms she felt more than confident enough to use without switching was Form I, Shii-Cho and Form III, Soresu.
The ones she needed more refinement was the dueling style of Form II, Makashi. Lacking the formal training of more experienced Jedi and developing a knack for improvisation, Jaden only used this form when forced to clash against especially strong saber strikes. Form IV, Ataru, was something she wasn't assured in her own ability to extend herself aggressively without facing repercussions -as a testament of how this method failed by her less-than-qualified adversaries in the acolytes-. Form V, Shien was the only other form she felt she was making any progress as it ties closely to her technical prowess of Form II.
Her polishing of this saber forms had come after a restless night of half-sleeping, half-fevered tinkering. She felt she was making a bit of a headway, understanding what direction to take with her acquired salvage now that she had a proper vision in mind. It was slow going but she understood how to best formalize an end goal to reach; how to get there was still an entirely other matter.
Wanting to get some fresh air she passed by some aides to the Academy and the odd droid here and there, not seeing anyone of recognition before she took a transport over to the training course. She had been at it nearly all afternoon, with the moon's daylight almost petering into the distance. It was a light drizzle as she practiced her forms within the open courtyard where she had -in past- dueled with a properly programmed Jedi Droid, though they've yet to replace the last disposed one on account of the current business being dealt with.
Her training was the only thing she could do to keep her mind off of things in between given assignments. At the moment, the amount of requests being handed out that were of the ordinarily standard were being denied in favor of keeping students help in a mandatory capacity. No one was to be wasted in their assignments.
Finally come to a rest as the Sun began to set in the distance, letting darkness rivulet against the jungle entangled vista. She was holding her lightsaber with both hands, casting a brighter halo in the daylight receding shadows of her surroundings. Her breath came out in deep exhales and inhales, her eyes nearly closing as the desire to sleep had crept up her. Muscles ached, sweat lingered within the moisture that wet across her skin and clothes. The sensation was all through even her efforts of using the Force to mitigate her natural limitations, as her body was reaching a limit near the end.
"Koooooooooooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..."
Her eyes widened, the fatigue enhancing her fright as she scuffled back on stiffened legs and a sore back straightened up. Swinging her blade forward and back, she tried to find the source of the haunting whisper that drawled out. Silver eyes blinked erratically, her exhaustion playing into an avid sense of fear now clawing at her throat.
"Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssssssssstennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, Kooooooooooooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..."
Cold chills crawled up her spine, the dampness on her exposed flesh turned into goosebumps and her breath came out shaky. The darkness began to fully set in as the Sun vanished completely from the jungle landscape, leaving the training grounds in a vaporous field of damp atmosphere and the soft drizzling that echoed faintly in the backdrop. The hissing whispers ebbed into her mind, her heart beating rapidly as her blood began to course through beneath her chilled skin, reflected from shaky breaths she kept breathing.
"Yoooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuu musssssssssssssssssssssst liiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssstennnnnnnnn, Kooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrr..."
The haunting voice continued to grow in volume, intensifying the shift of horror in her surroundings. The damp vapor caused by the normally warm atmosphere of the moon soon became cold in an unearthly manner. Soon mist seemed to ensnare her environment, layering thick around her as all but the light of her saber remained of her immediate vicinity. The Echani-blooded woman swung her blade around, trying to part the fog, only succeeding in creating faint whiffs and swirls in the chilled air clouding her training grounds.
"Trrrrrrussssssssssssssst noooooooooooo ooooooooooone buuuuuuuuuuuuut yooooooouuuuursssssssellllllllllllf, Kooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Trussssssst nooooooooooo oooooooone buuuuuuuuuuuuut yooooooooooooooourssssssssssellllllllllllllllf!"
"G-Go away," She croaked out, finally finding her voice after the relentless chant cascaded over her. Clenching her chattering teeth together, her silver eyes gained a shimmering hue, reflected off the peerless glow of her majestic weapon. Raising the lightsaber up with both hands over her head, she called upon the Force, her eyes glaring into the impenetrable barrier surrounding her.
"Kooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrr," The voice swirled around her, a distinct impressionable shape moving with an almost wraith-like quality within the surrounding icy vapor. "Heeeeeeeeeeeeed myyyyyyyyyyy wooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrdssssssssss-"
"I said," Jaden finally cried out, driving her lightsaber down to the ground with a flash of luminous white light escaping the blade itself. "BEGONE!"
A faint shriek was heard all around her as the flow of the Force channeled through her body and out of the weapon's unstoppable blade. Light sheared through shadow laced water particles, emaciating the voice and dispersing what form that was on the verge of manifesting. Just as she began to stand up, she heard the faintest remainders of the hissing, echo in the background of the now night-filled courtyard of her training course.
"Wheeeeeeen yoooooooooooooou arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre lossssssssssssssssst iiiiiiiiiiiinnnnn theeeeee liiiiiiiiiiiight, fiiiiiiiiiiiind meeeeeeeeeee iiiiiiiiiinnnnn theeee shhhhaaaaaadoooowsssssss offfff thisssssssssss moooooooon...Koooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrr."
Huffing breaths, she finally departed the training course back to the shuttle, jogging the whole way. She couldn't have felt more relieved being within the cockpit of the Academy provided vessel. Leaning her head against the cushion she couldn't suppress a wave of shivers overwhelming her. Even her hands trembled at the steering wheel and the memory of the haunting warning trickled into her forethoughts. What did it know? Did it see into her future? It knew her name, so who was it?
There were still mysteries of this moon she had yet to learn. Perhaps, if she were to talk to Cale V'eel later, she could learn something?
Shaking her head, she cruised back on auto-pilot to the Academy, nearly drifting to sleep within the seat she slumped against. Not feeling safe anywhere but her room, she all but staggered out of the vessel and through the hangar, ignoring any looks she got from personnel and any stray Jedi she might have encountered. Her head was filled with fog as she finally found her room, stumbling over random scrap lying strewn across the floor. Finally finding purchase over her tent-erect bed's opening, she crawled in and shoved some of the scrap set on the sheet aside, pulling them over her as she shivered into a deep, dream-less sleep.
A rapid knock broke her out of her sleep. It felt like time had sped up from the moment she returned back to sleep. She had no concept for what time it was, but the overall feeling she had was replaced with the aches of a late work out from the day before. It was a common feeling she was growing used to, but still had no liking for it. Rolling out of her bed with a series of clangs from scrap around her, she did her best to change into something more 'fresh' that didn't smell like training.
"Just a minute!" She urged the knocker, finally finding something akin to field wear. A long red-striped black sleeved top with a high collared long-sleeved flight jacket that was unfastened to show off her undershirt beneath. With a pair of tight leggings that showed off the definitions of her athletically toned lower half, she strutted over with a pair of dark shoes to answer the door.
Strangely enough, it wasn't a person at all, but a golden plated protocol droid.
"Hello," It greeted in a bland, neutral tone it was programmed with. "Master Skywalker and Master Katarn are still away on missions. Until contact can be appropriately reached, I shall be your handler; C4P4, at your disposal."
"Ah, thanks, C4," She awkwardly waved to the droid. It was an unusual thing, as she had worked much on machines but never really kept them around, let alone had them talk to her. Droids were always that oddity in her mind that they had an imitation of sentience but were really just fare more automated than the standard tech she was used to handling. So while this was definitely odd, it was far easier to talk to something you know from the inside out than a person you have no knowledge on.
"A mission has been designated as befitting of your current caliber," The Protocol Droid dictated, gesturing for her to follow it. "If you follow me to the hangar, I shall debrief you as instructed."
"Yeah, fine," Jaden sighed, yawning a little as she trotted out with the machine.
Light had yet to seep completely in through the temple's cracks, signaling to her that it had yet to be late morning. She felt like she had slept for a long time and awakened earlier than she'd like. Had it not been for her strict regimen she put on herself when she was helping Rosh build his lightsaber she would've been a late riser every day as she'd like. But as it stood, she couldn't afford to waste a single minute of the day if she was to become stronger in body, mind and spirit.
Only a minute later of casual walking -or the maximum speed of a protocol droid- C4 began to speak aloud in his monotone, "There's been intercepted transmissions coming from Dosuun, a planet with its own solitary system in the fringes of Wild Space. Its remote position and its location dictate it being a potential suspect for the strings of attempted and successful terror strikes across the Outer Rim, from Bakura onward. Due to your familiarity with this particular sect of the Remnant, and your ability to maintain stealth when the need is called, you were picked to scout out the facility where messages were triangulated to be originated from."
"Makes sense," She replied glibly, all too familiar with Rosh and her's mission to thwart the terror act on the innocents of Bakura. Even Corellia, a Core World, wasn't free of this plot but it was conspicuously carried out by mercenaries and acolytes. It seemed odd that, while they seemed to be entangled with one another, the Imperials and Cultists have yet to be seen -outside of Yavin IV- to be working cooperatively at the same time, in the same place.
"Master Katarn was very insistent that you don't engage the Remnant, due to what had transpired with the currently MIA Rosh Penin," It added, much to Jaden's dismay on how tactless it was in mentioning her friend and fellow student. "You are to confirm the sightings of Cult and/or Remnant operations. Report back to the Academy and we shall forward resources to take care of the facility in a rapid manner."
"I got it, C4," Jaden nearly snarled, growing weary with the droid's persistent pestering all too quickly.
"You'll be given a choice of armaments in the hangar. Safe travels, Apprentice Korr," It finished, departing her before she'd smack its head.
She didn't like this scouting idea. As per usual, she was given a mission that sounds easy on the surface but was far more difficult in practice. The droid recovery, the rescue op and even the assistance on Bakura all seemed to be normal on the surface. But they always escalated when she arrived, proving that descriptors for these assignments were anything but accurate.
Gathering a handful of rifles, a bandoleer of grenades and her standard pistol, she got into her Headhunter like before and took off, wondering what exactly awaited her on the other side.
This being another trip out into Wild Space, her hyperspace venture took half a day in retrospect of her leaving the Academy. The last time she headed out this far, she had Rosh to at least pass the time by, his absence all too impacting of her usual routine. Studying more from her texts, she had an inkling to do research based on Yavin IV and the ruins that covered the jungle. In doing so she found some enlightening research that was uncovered by an archaeologist independent of the Empire and the Republic, who made some interesting hypotheses.
According to the date of the structures' creations, some of them dated back to being well over four thousand years old, while others were a thousand years younger in comparison. The ones that seemed to be the most intact were those of the newer generation and were temples similar to the one that the Alliance had used as a headquarters years ago. The architecture was similar, at first glance, but a myriad of other places dictated that a new ruler had taken the place of its former architect and only used its predecessor's likeness in construction to further its own goals.
Theorized to have once belonged to the ancient sect of sorcerers linked to the Force -as the archaeologist stated- it was likely many grounds and temples were used in arcane rituals of an unknown volume and degree of practice. Much of the inscribed lettering had eroded from age, pirate tampering and the elements of the moon itself, but what he had uncovered was that, unlike the predecessor's telltale demise linked to a distant dead world Korriban, the newer imitator architect never seemed to have been written as dying. It was an unsettling idea, even if it was done for pure hypothetical study on the history of the old moon of Yavin.
Realizing that she was on the precipice of arrival, Jaden broke out of her stupor and gripped the control stick, angling her vessel out of hyperspace and towards the signal locked into her navicomputer. Strangely, she received no feedback or even the slightest sense of activity from the radio or holo waves. Either a jammer was in play or the facility in question is long since abandoned; neither prospect sounded pleasing to her.
Dosuun, much like Corellia, was a terrestrial world full of lush green forests, grasslands, mountains and broad sweeping oceans of blue hue. The atmosphere was less humid than the Academy's moon base and the atmosphere was easily accessed once her Headhunter maneuvered just above the treelines. Even now as she approached the base, she found it eerily quiet and lacking any real projected activity. The Force was telling her something was there, but she couldn't figure what at the moment.
"Better put it down, see if they're hiding in the facility's underground," She intoned to herself out loud, gingerly turning her craft to land in an old perimeter wall, partially rusted from prolonged exposure but still predominately possessing its grey-matte tint. Landing with a thud, she saw that most of the alleged Remnant facility had the same texture, seeming all but a dreary uniform in texture and partially obstructed by some forest flora on the outlying area of the fairly sized base.
Telling her astromech to buckle down and wait for her, she opened the canopy to hop on out. Once she landed on the ground she felt an immediate sense of danger. The faintest sounds of steps could be heard and the light flickered slightly in several, no a dozen, different places around her craft. Withdrawing her lightsaber, she began to cry out to her droid, "R9, start it up, it's a trap-!"
"Drop your laser sword, Jedi," A thick, guttural drawl was heard from above to her left. Turning she looked up with a sneer as she gripped her weapon. There, flanking him were two flickering figures that disengaged their own stealth units, revealing the burly commandos she's seen on Bakura. The others also promptly disengaged their light refracting tech, exposing the line of top of the line illegal and dangerous weaponry. Disruptor Rifles, Imperial Repeaters and FC-1 Flechette Launchers; the latter of which looked like a broad rectangular shaped shotgun, known for firing superheated flechettes with enough force to tear through armor and flesh completely at close range.
"If you surrender now, we may spare your life," The man up top sardonically pointed out, and from this distance, she could tell the man was grinning. "Or, maybe you'd like to take your chances?"
His belting laughter burned into her mind as she defused her lightsaber. She didn't need to use the Force to know when she's been played, and played right into their hands she did. This whole operation felt like a trap from the beginning yet she couldn't foresee this outcome. She wished she was a Seer like Cale, so she wouldn't fall for such an obvious ploy.
Disarmed, the burly men led her to a partition of the base that was all but barren. Surrounded by luminescent lighting, she was pushed into a red force field barricaded cell of steel plating from the back and two sides, framing the ceiling up with its own pulsing transparent field and the other straight ahead. It was a five foot radius circumference with nothing to sit on apart from the floor, while the barrier above her was at most ten feet if she was generous. Leaning against the far back wall, she had to resist the urge to bash her head against the metallic plating at the sensation of failure wrapping around her from the gut up her spine.
She would've curled up on the floor, had this been anywhere else. Tight spaces weren't a stranger to her, often by choice and circumstance. But she was in an enemy cell, and she was all alone. With things as they stood, she couldn't give them the satisfaction of being subdued by something of miniscule obstacles such as a brig quarters.
The sound of metal clinks were heard as heavy boots were coming down from nearby. Looking up at the ceiling field, she'd see the red static outline of the man who was responsible for catching her. He was a heavyset man, with a gut implicating him for being in charge of an outpost like this that rarely sees action. His stature told her he was a big man, perhaps an even six foot, and didn't look terribly out of shape apart from the aforementioned beer belly. Wearing matte grey coat over what she assumed was a plain undershirt, the cargo pants and boots looked standard issue for Imperials but he looked horribly unkempt from the neck up. Shadows of encroaching facial hair led up from his jowels up his face, not enough to form a beard but on the verge to doing so. Curly brown hair lie in a messy heap atop his head and his blue eyes stared with an obvious laziness one could expect of a person who looked like he did.
"My name is Rax Joris, the commanding officer of this Imperial Prison," The main introduced from above, grinning more sloppily as he intoned with a wave of his hand. "Or, I was, until the damned Empire loss so pathetically. Remnant, they're called, and what a shell of their glory they've become. In exchange for running this facility without interruptions to my authority I've become a little bit of a celebrity as of recently. No doubt that's why you've come here in the first place, no? To investigate this place and corroborate it to ties of the particular Remnant fellows harassing your Republic space?"
Part of her wanted to snap at the man, immediately thrash him around with the Force from her position. But still, there was a relative army of Imperials here if not a large enough contingent to make things trouble if she couldn't get out of this prison block. If she was to stand any chance, she'd have to play along, at least for now.
Still, if Rosh has taught her anything, it was to not let bad situations ruin one's countenance.
"Maybe I like sight-seeing?" Jaden lied with a half smile, crossing her arms over her chest as she continued to lean against the cell wall. "You looked like a good place to set up a Junk Shop, what with how run-down everything looked. You sure you're not in the market for selling the property?"
"It seems you have a bit of a mouth on you, for a prisoner," Rax snorted with amusement, withdrawing from his coat's pocket a familiar cylinder shaped object. Seeing that got the expected reaction, as the silver eyed and platinum haired Echani Jedi clenched her mouth shut. The glare he received brought a broad smile to his face, enabling him to ask with a slight tilt of his head. "On that note, what do you think of our accommodations?"
"Why don't you come down here and find out!" She snapped, finally standing upright with fists balled at her hips.
"Ah, feisty," He drawled out, nodding as he tossed the saber up into the air and caught it with measured motions, much to her obvious chagrin. "Good, good."
Leaning down, he lowered his voice and spoke to her in a more frank manner, "You see, ever since my superiors' went dark things have been dreadfully dull around here. I've came up with a solution to cure my boredom in the way of letting my prisoners run free. The only catch is, they'd have to outrun me, and I've yet to lose a single one. As you can see," He gestured to the many empty cells both adjacent and across from her. "I've long since run out of prisoners to pass the time. So I'd like to play this game with you."
"I'm guessing you're not going to make it easy," She stated obviously, almost on the verge of laughing at the mocking prospect of letting her run around without being restrained. "Otherwise you wouldn't just let me go free."
"You catch on quick," He smirked, pocketing the lightsaber back within his coat as his hands graced the bare space just next to the ceiling force field. "If you can somehow manage to get away, you're free to leave. But, if I catch you, I'm going to have to shoot you. Hopefully you'll be better sport than that bounty hunter I caught a few days ago..."
"And if I don't play along?" Jaden inquired with an arch of her brow.
"Then you can rot in your cell," Rax spat out with a sigh, pushing himself with effort back onto his feet. He eyed her with a bored expression, shrugging with emphasis. "I'm sure someone will come looking for you. Eventually."
Turning to walk away, she heard his voice insidiously growl out as his boots clang noisily away from her.
"Let the games begin!"
Five minutes. That's how long it took for the force field to finally shut off. And it wasn't just the floor level one, it was the field above her, forcing her to use a Force propelled jump to make the distance. Feeling naked without a weapon, she bent to a precautionary crouch and hugged the nearest safety glass framed wall, an octagonal shaped interior bunker that was an immediate observation center to the rest of the lower floored cell block. Hearing the whooshing sound of an automatic door opening, the clang of boots clicking in, she could tell it was just a single trooper; his feet were too light to be Rax.
After hearing nothing and turning around to exit, she made a quick hobble around the corner into the post. Thankfully the observation post was home to a pair of weapon racks, each containing two fully loaded E-11's and one Repeater a piece. Grabbing a single E-11, she unloaded the clips of the others and stuffed what she could into her jacket and pockets, while hefting the Repeater over her shoulder.
Exiting the door, she leaned left and right, it was the outdoors to the facility grounds. Arched light posts of grey hue spaced evenly paved the way along the equally dull colored flooring placed along the way. The immediate forward direction was the vista of mountains and forests, a vertical drop ensuring escape through any other way than the ship she came in on was ill advised.
Turning around the corner, she saw some five troopers, all passing each other in different patrol routes.
One of them spotted her, immediately raising his weapon to fire.
Thankfully, her use of Speed enabled he wouldn't get that chance.
"Hey you-gragh!" He began to exclaim, until he was pelted several times by her laser rifle.
The others began to turn and fire in junction, only to find themselves faced with a blur white and brown, twisting around to physically knock into them before unleashing a slew of blaster bolts in their chest cavities. Ordinarily a single shot or several could be absorbed by the plasteel plating these troopers wore but the precision and number of shots she expended was enough to ensure they wouldn't get back up. Ending the conflict in a matter of seconds, she took a jog over their strewn corpses only to dodge a thunderous bolt of cobalt energy.
"This Jedi sure moves quickly," Rax muttered to himself as he took aim with his Stouker concussion rifle. The massive weapon could easily be mistaken for a mounted cannon, but its heft could be managed through experience and endurance training. The black barreled, handled and stock weapon had a round grey coloring that extended past the ammo chamber and the shaft up to its tip. Releasing sonic propelling slugs of destructive energy, this Remnant adopted tech was once used by a savage alien species known as the Sissk; now in the hands of a madman, touting the colors of the old Empire.
Had Jaden not felt the prudence to keep moving, she swerved left and right, narrowly avoiding the seismic shockwaves of the rifle's projectiles launched. Seeing that he took time to aim in between his attacks, this gave her the opportunity to heft around the Repeater, unleashing a slew of golden orbs towards him. She had a brief smile as they made contact on his unarmored person, till a flicker of energy appeared around his person, entailing that he had a personal force field activated on his person.
Still, she had lay enough damage on his last resort defense that he backed away through the upper floor balcony, sealing it from the inside with a visible lit inclination of Green to Red.
"Coward only likes to hunt when he's not in danger," She spat, ensuring she strapped the E-11 around her shoulder as she walked towards the nearest entrance the path led to.
This time, she was within a tall ceiling and narrow corridor path. To her right, a squad of stormtroopers were assembled outside of what she could only assume was a break room, now armed and walking casually out. On the left was a cadre of similar numbered troopers near the elevators, though their lights were all Red, with the exception of a single nearby Green door that showed it was unlocked.
Turning the right corner, she unleashed a potent Force Push towards the first two troopers, sending them tumbling into their friends. Even as they tumbled awkwardly into each other, they couldn't mount a sufficient counterattack as she hefted her Repeater and fired its secondary fire. Explosive, fiery violet energy arched up into the air and detonated over their bodies and heads, much like a plasma grenade of sorts. As they cried out in agonized death throes, the troops by the elevator noticed her presence and began to open fire.
Hugging the corner, she unleashed a salvo of Repeater rounds, aiming for a trooper that fired hissing sprays of flechettes that cracked the metal plated wall with each recoiling shot. It took a number of bolts, but he eventually went down, forcing her to change weapons out and burst fire her E-11 at the other three troopers, downing each one as she ducked and rolled out of the way of their own exchanged blaster fire. Once the last one went down, she was quick to exchange energy cells, reloading her rifle and adding the Flechette in exchange for her Repeater.
With the molten fragment shotgun in hand, she easily cleared the occupied room housing an officer who was beside a lever-accessed panel that would disengage the lockdown. Firing the weapon gave her an exhilarating rush she didn't feel with other weapons, as the heft and destructive force was addicting to feel as much as witness its results. White armor exploded in close proximity, shredding them and bloodying their bodies with its incredible shredding potency. The officer himself turned into eviscerated chunks, almost causing her to retch at such a gory execution she invoked.
"There goes the lockdown," She sang aloud, hearing the faintest of whirs of the doors being unlocked.
"ATTENTION! THERE'S AN ESCAPED PRISONER ON THE LOOSE IN THE FACILITY! SHOOT HER ON SIGHT! I REPEAT, SHOOT ON SIGHT!"
"And here I thought you wanted me to escape," She clicked her tongue, smiling almost ruefully as she began to make her way out of the room and back into the corridor. Approaching a doorway that led to what she assumed was another exit, she pushed past a pair of pistol-toting personnel. They had bulkier helmets on and looked like what she'd assume were engineers. They fired in a panic, missing as she casually strut in and unleashed flechette spray that took them both down easily, accessing the elevator of the broad room upwards.
Then, she found an interesting room. A vaulted ceiling, surrounded by luminescent lights in a much more darker coloration of near ebony tiles from odd steps up and down. Strategic data was being cycled around on random holo-screens, entailing specs for what she could tell were different unit types and technology used by the Remnant sect working with the Cult. One of which was the obvious commando training process, one seemingly intimately laid out all around her in this office.
Stormtroopers came barreling in near the back of the platform raised computer, unleashing a hail of projectiles in haste to catch her off guard.
"You know," She began to say, her body Speedily juking around her shots while unleashing more molten grenade fire at their ranks. "I have to wonder just how much you're paid by your boss. Because, in my opinion," She finished as a few more shots of her flechette tore their armored bodies apart, finishing the last of the near dozen troopers in a bloodied, fragmented mess around the office. "It wasn't enough."
Jogging around, she glanced at the computer lay-out, noticing it must have been linked to the whole hub of the former Imperial Prison. Now it was keeping check of everything, from incoming calls and signals to ongoing progress of training regimens of commandos. Even assistance in providing assets to create the bombs for the Remnant was facilitated here, even if by a third party they were running interim to their terrorist activity.
"Well, at least we know what they're doing out here," She muttered aloud to herself, looking at the desk and spotting another lever-panel. Smirking, she grasped the handle and pushed it forward with a satisfying clank. "And, there goes the last of your security measures, Rax."
She wish she could see the look on his face now.
Rushing out of the most straight path of the office exit, she stumbled into what she'd see was a barracks of sorts. The troopers were in the midst of gathering their stuff, more than likely just armored up by their positioning near their beds. Whipping out their weapons, they were unprepared for the Jedi Apprentice to begin to duel wield the flechette and the E-11, unleashing a hail of superheated metal and arrows of red light. Unprepared and uncoordinated, the two dozen plus troops were annihilated along with their officers, leaving them all but in ruins as she found a doorway leading back to the outside.
Curtailing through more resistance, she found what she could assume was a shooting range, with images of inhuman holo-monsters for the tripod mounted turrets. Switching an obvious lever off, it turned off a blue static field over the wall, meant to absorb the punishing blows of a turret gun. Grasping one, she unleashed a salvo of turret fire, almost giddy at the jolts she received from her hands up her shoulders by the force of the weapon's recoil. Blasting apart the wall till it was nothing but a pile of rubble, she finally let go and jogged back outside.
Making a turn left, she saw what she assumed was a possible entry towards the hangar...that was blocked by an stomping AT-ST.
The Chicken Walker, as it was affectionately named was the little brother of the AT-AT. Mobile anti-infantry machines, these dual-piloted walkers came equipped with two rocket launchers and a nose mounted twin-turret that fired in conjunction with each other. Unleashing fire towards her, she'd be forced to hide around a support beam as it stomped far more quickly than she'd like.
Looking down at her Flechette Launcher, she realized she'd have to go all in without holding back. Turning around the corner, she Sped up to outpace the head's pivot over its awkwardly placed legs, unleashing molten grenade after grenade at the exposed pilot viewing ports. The blasts melted the plating around it, concussively affecting the pilots and their mechanisms on the inside. Nearly half a dozen made successful contact, and finally brought the walker to a creaking, buckling crash onto the ground.
Tossing her weapon aside, she pulled her rifle out and fired at a pile of precariously placed explosives next to the structure window, entering it through there. Her jaunt through led her to a walker bay, making her thankful not all of them were active at once. Taking an elevator up, she'd find a switch that'd take her through the upper wall path to the hangar bay. Leaving it on a distant corridor, filled with supply crates angled here and there, she'd see Rax distantly on a podium where the hangar door was sure to be.
"You've done well, Jedi," He complimented dryly, pulling out his concussion rifle to bear towards her from the distance. "Too well! It's time to end this game!"
"I agree to that!" She shouted back, ducking down and weaving between the durable crates. Had it not been to the shocking vibrations upsetting the air, she wouldn't have noticed a commando's presence right up next to her until the last moment. Having burst fired her in hopes of catching, she engaged Protection, the barrier sustaining itself enough to deflect and absorb a few shots as she narrowly rolled away, firing back. His armor beneath his grey suit took a few blows before his face was shot, searing flesh and scoring through his skull with a gurgled cry.
Another commando weaved in between his maddened superior's shots, unleashing Disruptor beams her way. Yanking the weapon from his grip towards her own hand with the Force, she threw him into a forward tumble that ended with an unintentional shattering by the distant concussive blasts. Speeding from cover to cover, she took down a few more commandos before she fired a Disruptor at Rax, dispersing his shield and burning his shoulder.
He snarled and ran inside, a handful of stormtroopers coming out in exchange to exchange fire at her to slow her approach.
"Out of the way!" She shouted aloud, her body blurring into them in what seemed like a tackle. Then with a thrashing swing of her arms, came a throttling Force Push, throwing them off the upper storied area to a series of clanging crunches on the grassy ground below. She would've taken time to acknowledge her near effortless feat of the Force had it not been for her urgency to get to Rax.
Even as a noticeable mirage of a commando tried to fire at her, she all but casually thrust him into a nearby wall with a loud crunch. Her emotions were wracking her mind, the need to escape far from her mind and the desire for revenge against this putrid man was all she could think about. She practically craved to see this man in torment for the humiliation she subjected her. Even more, she took what belonged to her; what was hers by right!
As she tried to walk around the corner, she saw at the bottom of the hangar was the recently acquired Headhunter ship she flew in on. But, as she took a step, she felt a pang of alarm, recoiling her to back step away as a seismic blast of cobalt energy almost shattered her body. Up at the top of the hangar, looking down past many floors of suspended TIE Fighters, Rax drawled out over the near empty space, sparsely populated by pilots and troopers alike.
"Well played, Jedi," He droned out, his weapon held behind his back as he stared at her from the distance with a thinned glare. She could practically envision his sneer as he spoke. "Tragically I can't have you leaving to tell anyone about my...little operation."
"Who said I was leaving yet, Rax?!" She snarled out, unleashing a barrage of blaster bolts from the distance. It was shot too automatically to be accurate, but the effect was enough that it ensured she wouldn't be fired upon again. He hid away, more than likely finding some good perch or cover to hide from her in an efforts to land a significant blow.
Sadly for him, she was much too fast to be hit. With her heart beating like a drum in her chest, she all but felt numb to any potential aches she may have had at the beginning of her day. She was now a rushing movement without any real definition and detail to the human eye. Even as pilots, troopers and commandos alike tried to heft weapons up at her, she blitzed passed them, simply pushing them aside physically with enough velocity that they were broken by mere touch. The distant thunderclaps of Rax's concussion rifle filled the periphery of her senses as she vaulted from floor to floor, gaining ever closer to her goal and her prized possession.
Reaching the top floor, her form had all but ran along the side of the wall towards him, the distant hammering shots now near deafeningly close. Each came within a few feet of striking her, the momentum allowed by the Force pushed her closer and closer. Seeing him perfectly exposed, a look of near panic crossing his eyes, she grinned uncharacteristically savage in the blur of her own Speed.
Kicking off the wall, she flipped around in an aerodynamically beautiful motion that avoided his pounding shots, her plait whipping behind her head as she landed with a nearby crouch. Anticipating he was going to turn to fire, she leaped forward in a pounce, wanting to claw at his face.
But he surprised her as he twisted away at the last moment, watching her sprawl helplessly in a hugging whiff where he once been. Sweat slapped from her sleeves as she fell awkwardly to the floor, the Speed finally inactive and her stamina was all but sapped. It took all she had to not keel over, but remaining on all fours was an effort in of itself. Turning to look up at him, she'd suddenly feel a boot to her ribs, causing her to croak out a wind full of air from her lungs.
"Ha! Not so nimble now, are you?!" He guffawed, watching her hug her torso in agony. Pulling back his foot again, he began to stomp on her shoulder, her back and her chest, repeatedly pressing the military issue leather into her with all of his weight behind each kick. He spat out as he all but forgot the massive weapon in his hand, aiming to drag out the game now that it was fun to him again. "You shot me in the shoulder! You killed my men and wrecked my complex! Do you realize how long it's going to take me to get restaffed? To get anything back to the way it was?! If I wasn't having fun kick your little body in, I'd be even more furious than I am now!"
Each pummel drove into her just how close she was to victory, how wrong she was to assume her enemy wasn't agile enough to avoid her last attack. Her body couldn't handle the level of Speed she was enacting, so fiercely for so long. Had her head been clear...no, she couldn't think clearly at all. Not while she was getting pounded into the ground by this fat, sadistic cretin!
Pressing his boot onto her hand covered side, he squeezed the heel against it, grinning with a eye-widened jeer. She could practically taste the sour breath, the noxious odor of his body's perspiration and the hunger for her pain being whetted. This cruel sport was nothing more than a joke by a man who had lost all dignity and stature for years. She was just another victim, another body to add to the pile. Her lightsaber would be just a trophy, kept in his palms as something to remember how he bested his strongest prey.
No.
She wasn't prey.
That was the last thing she was to be if she were to die.
"Fun as this is, I think I'll end it now," He grinned, hoisting his weapon up to be nearly flat against her face. "Goodbye, Jedi."
CLICK!
The weapon clicked but nothing came out. The faint sound of a cartridge ejecting caused Rax to arch a brow with bewilderment, watching it clatter to the floor and skid away. Turning to look back at her, he'd blink indignantly as a glowing pair of silver eyes looked his way.
Without warning, he was sent flying. An intangible field enveloped his whole being, throttling him across the top floor rampart until he crashed against the wall with a savage crack. Hacking out blood, his eyes bulged, his face spewing ichor as he was shoved in place.
"You're right, Rax," Jaden spoke lowly, pushing herself up as she felt the Force flow through her once again. The anger she felt fueled her body's sapped reserves, her ire and focused hate was now but healing the damage done in by the obese, corrupt Imperial. With a boundless flow of wisping energy of an eerie grey hue, she extended a single hand in a claw-like manner, her teeth bared in complement for her silver orbs' glare aimed at her captive. "This is goodbye!"
A pain-filled scream was heard as his backside was ground up the wall, bowling through the infrastructure over her head till he was jerked just into the ceiling. Feeling bones break and ligaments snap, she'd twist him around in a gesture of her wrist, before clenching her fingers into her palm to form a fist. Thrusting her knuckles down, she'd smash his body with a loud thuum, echoing with a meaty crunch that splattered blood and shreds of his uniform.
Surprising even her, he let out a rasping wheeze as he hacked up blood in the spot she dropped him into.
"I guess...I underestimated you...Jedi," Rax coughed, a trembling hand reaching into his coat. Without even touching it, he'd feel it wiggle in its depths before soaring out, being caught by Jaden's outstretched hand as she wearily clenched it in a now sober grip. Noticing her expression shifted, he grinned with bloodstained teeth, chuckling aloud. "What's the matter...hm? Don't have...the...stomach to kill me now?"
"I doubt you'll live long after this," Jaden stated in a cold, factual manner. "You're tougher than you look, but even if you still have men left alive in this facility, I doubt you have bacta in plentiful supply to put you back in good condition. At the very least, maybe being crippled will put some humility in you."
"Then...why not...finish me? Hm?" He asked with a raspy cough. "What? Jedi...forget...the concept...of mercy?"
"You slaughtered inmates for your own amusement. I don't think a warden dying a cripple would be a huge injustice," She dismissed, turning away from the man with a slow gait. "Stay here for whatever time you'll have left."
"Hey! Coward!" He rasped out, wheezing out his cries as he struggled to sit upright. "Jedi! I've seen your face! You'll be sorry you left me alive!"
"Sure," She dully answered with a wave of her saber armed hand. "Sure I will."
"I know people! I'll make sure anyone who matters to you suffers far worse than what you did to me!"
She stopped short.
"Yeah, you know, haha!" He laughed, choking a bit in between before spitting out a wad of dark ichor next to his face. Without turning, he could tell she was visibly shaken by this information. Cackling aloud, he raised a shaky finger at her. "You know what Imperials do to captives, don't ya? I'll find the weakest, feeble of your friends. And when they're through, they'll wish they were crippled!"
"Shut up," She snapped.
"Or what?!" He hacked with amusement. "What's to stop me from making a call now?! I bet your friend is one ugly two-faced freak; bet he deserves to be put into the ground like the deranged mutant that he is-!"
"I SAID SHUT UP!"
Jaden lit up a storm of virulent energy. All at once she had conjured up a powerful, white-hot hatred that physically manifested as a torrential surge of electrical energy. Coiling outward in a wide berth of forked tongues of flashing bolts, the sorcerous power engulfing the back prone man in his indented plating. A howling shriek ripped through his throat as he was penetrated past flesh, through blood and bone marrow into the circulatory and nervous system. His whole body, while visibly cooked and scorched on the outside, was highlighted in the midst of azure transparent flashes of his skeleton, painting a grisly display of pure unadulterated murder at the hands of an enraged Jedi.
But, just as quickly as it happened, it ceased in a withdrawal of absolute horror.
Her free outstretched hand sought her mouth, cupping it to mask a scream of fright of what she had done. Nothing remained of Rax Joris other than a blackened skeleton and a charred pit he was crushed into. The man who had mocked, imprisoned and made sport in hunting her was slain in the most brutal of ways by her hands. He deserved nothing less, but what she did to someone who was all but unarmed and defenseless was...so cruel, to her.
Gripping her lightsaber tightly, she quickly staggered away from the hangar, taking heaving breaths as her body wracked with blood curdling horror and guilt she was feeling. Quickly finding access to her craft, she all but tried to distance this place from her mind and escape this facility. Exiting the hangar, she'd leave all but a fraction of the ex-prison's staff alive from her breakout and throttle up into space.
Where she'd be alone to contemplate her use of the Dark Side to murder.
A/N: This was a Chapter I took a bit of liberty to set up for. Not only does Jaden not feel like she deserved the rank of Apprentice after failing to stop Alora, but the disappearance of Rosh is starting to mess her up. Her training is all that strives her and now, a shadow on the moon of Yavin IV lurks nearby, telling her to trust no one but herself and to seek it out should she wish its aid. What does this mean? The plot thickens, surely!
I liked and disliked this mission simultaneously. Not only did I HATE Jax for stealing my Player Character's lightsaber and forcing me to play his game, but I generally hated the fact that in a game where you're supposed to be a Jedi, you're given a mission that takes away your trademark weapon. However, on the other hand, it feels good to have a level crafted with Dark Forces fans in mind. While it isn't a perfect mission, it's challenging just enough to keep players on their toes and to feel badass as you use Force Powers in conjunction with the game's fun slew of weapons to get revenge of Rax.
Wanting to set up some foreshadowing, I gave a little more purpose to Jaden's encounter to our fat Imperial foe before she ultimately succumbed to the Dark Side to annihilate him. As someone who's only killed out of defense or necessity, Jaden feels horrified at the prospect of murdering someone due to them making threats. Even if they touched a little close to home, her training in the Force has unlocked something both useful and terrible to abuse if she'd allow it. How will this affect her for missions to come?
Find out in the next chapter, of Jedi Knight: Temptations!