"I've had a realization
No one really listens nothing's really there.
I'm choosing sides
I'm keeping up with you and your invasion eyes.
You got the world in a coma
You put the knife in our back and no one even cares.
Ain't you had enough?
I've had enough.
Don't fuck with me."
Generation- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
"She said there was something keeping people from going in." Meetra mused, sliding off her Bol and stepping lightly through the grass, practiced eyes sweeping from side to side as she routinely for any evidence of mines or traps in the long grass. "But I don't sense any electronic interference like that of a shield generator or sentry droids." She bent and scooped up a handful of small rubble pieces.
"So what now, we stand out here and shout until someone comes looking?" Atton said, dismounting his Bol rather clumsily but still maintaining some semblance of poise as he lit a smoke and tilted his head to the sky, exhaling a cloud of smoke rather heavily.
Meetra just shook her head and turned away, towards the enclave, muttering, "This is stupid. This is child's play." She lobbed a chunk of rubble experimentally at the ruined building and the sky about fifteen yards from where she stood lit up briefly and shimmered before fading to darkness again. She made a derisive sound in the dark.
"Care to fill us in? The excitement is killing me." Atton quipped dryly.
"Zealots." She hissed into the blackness. "I love dealing with zealots." She tossed another chunk of rubble into the air and kicked it with the toe of her boot in the direction of the invisible force keeping them out. It bounced away and the shield glimmered faintly once again. "I suspected it as soon as the administrator told us what the messages from the missing kids were like: There's no dark lord lurking in there. Just some wayward idiot who's likely Force sensitive and has deluded himself into thinking he's a Jedi."
"People like that exist?"
"You never have to travel far in any one direction to find someone who does harm by trying to do good. Zealots though... they're annoying, and to a certain extent, they can be quite dangerous seeing as they are not in any way properly trained to yield the Force in any responsible capacity. Give them access to someone easily manipulated and vulnerable and they will twist that person without a care." She clapped her gloved hands, rubbing them together like some sort of witch about to immerse a careless traveller into a boiling pot of stew.
"I'm a little bit disturbed by how lightly you seem to be taking this." Mical chimed in.
"Lightly?" Meetra repeated. "On the contrary; I take this sort of thing very seriously. Whoever is behind this is using the Force and its laws and tenets as a means to manipulate these kids. I'm keen to put a stop to it is all." She took a few steps forward and stood toe to toe with the Force barricade that prevented them from getting any closer. "Starting with this sad excuse of a barrier..." She pushed out with her hands and her mind against the invisible conglomeration of matter that held her back and was able to muscle past it with little effort: Whoever made it may have been able to do so and have it be effective enough to prevent intruders from sneaking around, but it was a brittle and sloppy craft when put side by side with the inherent discipline and strength of a Jedi who had been born and raised such.
With the barrier dropped, she beckoned Atton and Mical forward.
"The air still feels... crackly." Atton observed, glancing around warily. "I have a bad feeling about this."
"We're not alone." Meetra said in a hushed tone, quietly sliding her blade free and crouching low, advancing in that sleuthing, cat-like manner of hers towards the crumbled entrance of the enclave.
"You're not going to hurt any of the children, right?" Mical whispered behind her.
"Did you hit your head when no one was looking?" Atton snarked. "Do you actually think she'd revert to something as completely over the top as infanticide?"
"That's a big word." Mical whispered coolly. "Try not to strain yourself, Atton."
"Guys. Shut up and focus on what we need to be doing right now. Mical, I'm not going to kill anybody, especially not children. Atton... just... just shush."
A night-time reconnaissance mission with two bickering men... how quaint.
"Stop!" A voice cut out of the blackness. "Who's there?"
"Ahhh... delivery for I.C. Wiener." She announced, standing straight and holding her hands in the air, but not dropping her blade.
"Drop your weapons. All of you."
"Not until I see what I'm dealing with." Meetra taunted calmly.
A teenage girl emerged from the shadows, her own rusted blade held in her shaking hand, its pointed edge directed at Meetra's soft belly.
"How did you get here?" She demanded, suddenly remembering herself, she waved the sword. "Your weapons! Drop them."
Meetra looked up at the sky and bent forward, setting her weapon silently on the pitted ground; they may have been caught, but she knew her chances of outwitting this young girl were far better off if she made as little racket as possible. The soft scraping sound on the ground behind her told her that Atton and Mical had done the same.
"Now answer me: How did you get here?"
"I walked."
"You're lying."
Meetra's mouth lifted at one side; indeed she was. It was a simple, unembellished lie, but one that gave her another piece of the puzzle. This girl was Force sensitive and was able to sense the deliberate deception Meetra levelled at her. Self-aware, yes... skilled, perhaps. Meetra had been at this Jedi thing for a very long time though.
"You're right." She admitted. "My friends and I here rode Bol across the night-time plains and I broke your little barricade to tell you that you and all the others need to go home."
It was a calculated risk: Hormones, popular media, music... teenagers were so volatile and telling one to do anything was a bit of a gamble, but this girl and however many were left needed to realize the danger they were involved with.
"You broke the barricade?" The girl said derisively, still pointing the sword at Meetra (completely necessary, Meetra thought, as she was itching to give her a good shove with the Force.) "Impossible."
"Mmmm... no. I mean, for your average rifle toting farmer, yes, I'm sure your glimmer little wall was completely confounding. Unfortunately for you, someone who actually knows what they're doing happened by this place and found it to be a good attempt, but laughable none the less." She took a step forward, her hands open in front of her.
"Stay back." The would-be padawan snarled, backing down despite her sharpness. "He said there would be people like you. Ones that would come to take us away. Ones that would pretend."
"Pretend what?" Meetra frowned.
"Pretend to be Jedi."
"Jedi is a rather... broad term." Meetra coaxed. "I myself certainly don't pretend to be one." She rested her hand over her heart as though swearing an oath.
"Then why are you here? Why are you trying to trick me into leaving?"
Meetra sighed patiently and sat into her hip. "Because your family misses you and they're very worried about you. Regardless of what happens in your life or what you choose to believe in, more than anything they want to see you safe and right now, they have no way of knowing that."
"Well good thing you came along then, you can deliver the message that I am indeed safe."
"Oh no, you're coming back with us." Meetra promised. "But first I need to speak with the one in charge around here."
"You must think I'm stupid, Jedi if you think I'll just let you walk in."
"Listen to yourself!" Meetra exclaimed, her voice rising only a notch above the patient whisper it had been moments before. "Listen to what you're saying! Stop for a minute and think about what you're doing! You claim all of this sovereignty over your own life by throwing a tantrum and running away from your family, hurting and worrying them and in the process, running right into the trap of someone who is using you and manipulating you to his own ends: It takes no Jedi Master to see that you're the one being tricked here, youngling." She took a rather threatening step towards the girl; she may not have been draped in robes and bearing lightsabers anymore, but she did still have a very dominating presence. The two tall men at her side likely added to the threat. "Doesn't that piss you off? Doesn't that make you angry, that someone would care so little for yourself and your family that they could take you away and still sleep well at night knowing what they've done... what pain they've caused? Your family is going to be there for you no matter what happens in your life: They will love you without question, they will sacrifice without a thought whatever it takes to make sure you are happy and safe, they would give anything for you yet you disservice them by rejecting these truths for the twisted words of a madman." She waved a finger through the air and pointed at Atton, ignoring the girl's flinch at her sudden movement: She was becoming impassioned; this topic was making her angry. "Him. This guy. He had a sister and she never really knew him on account of being taken away by the Jedi to be trained at a young age. No memories, hardly any kinship or contact. Know what she did? She died for him when the chance to do so arose. She died for a brother she didn't even know in order to save his life. I'm sure this fool preaches to you the Force as he wants you to hear it, but for any Force user, any Jedi out there, it should strike as simple common sense that abandonment of your own family for lunacy is a poor idea."
It fell very quiet once Meetra finished her tirade. It was easy to understand why she was so successful at rallying people to her cause; she spoke passionately but with control. She didn't shout, but her voice was loud and clear. She rambled a bit, but every sentence was well thought out and got to the point practically.
"Step aside, youngling." She said finally, her blade flying obediently into her open palm from the ground. "Or so help me it'll be the flat of my sword against your ass."
Tears gushed down the girl's freckled face and hit her chest.
"I do want to go home, miss. But he won't let me. He won't let any of us. He says we have to stay and rebuild the Jedi Order because they're all gone." Her lip quivered and revealed exactly how young she really was. How innocent. "Are they all gone? That can't be true, right?"
The desire to set aside her weapon and embrace the girl was steeled by festering irritation that coiled in her insides. This poor thing had been so taken in by some opportunistic crook that it made Meetra feel positively ill.
"It is no lie." She said. "But this endeavour is not how the Order will be saved… leave that to me. Now please... stand aside. Let me end this."
The girl dropped her head and nodded, the sword in her hand wilting to her side like a leaf in the first frost of winter.
"You'll find him in the remains of the council chamber... be careful. There are others like me."
Meetra nodded and walked past the would-be-Jedi.
"You'll find our Bols behind that ridge... go wait with them. We won't be long." She called out before disappearing into the blackness of the ruin with her companions behind her. Meetra trusted the girl would not sound any further alarms. She sensed the fear and the anxiety in the teenager; she genuinely was trapped by this zealot.
Having already been here recently and having grown up here as a child, Meetra navigated easily through the dark hallways, although she did observe that the creep-factor of the ruin was magnified intensely when the sun was gone. Things crawled past them in the dark with clicking pincers and beastly squeals and the unsettling calm in the ruin brought out the sensation that one was being buried alive in the thick, nearly touchable darkness.
Cautiously, she ventured into the room she knew to be the council chambers, allowing her senses to make up for her blindness.
Get them.
A voice whispered through the Force and Meetra felt her feet leave the ground and heard Atton and Mical fall around her as the leather of her jacket scraped across the gritty floor.
Blind and disoriented she cast around with both the Force and her hands, finding equilibrium again and hauling herself to her feet as quickly as she could, crouched low with her blade held defensively in front of her, fighting to see in the darkness.
She felt for Atton's mind and then Mical's, relieved to find them both safe despite the tumult that had been unleashed on them. It didn't end there; continuously she felt herself and her friends being pushed at and prodded by gales of the Force, helplessly blind in the dark.
How many of them were there?
One? Two? Her mind couldn't focus long enough to pinpoint the sources of the power and no one had yet spoken.
This needs to stop now.
She reached out with her mind and grabbed the first living thing that she could find, willing it to freeze instantly where it stood.
Whoops. Sorry Mical. She wordlessly apologized as she moved on to the next living essence it the room, crushing it into static submission as well; this mind was different. This mind was unfamiliar and she knew it was the mind of one of the missing children.
She cast out one more time, deliberately moving around the chamber as much as possible, aware of the graceless way she stumbled over chairs and tripped over cracked pavement. The more she moved, the harder she'd be to fight off and subdue. She started getting the hang of this game and in the madness she skipped over Atton's mind like a stone across water, touching it only for the briefest moment before flying to the next one she touched, which she immediately froze.
There were three of them left in the room that were still capable of moment; she, Atton and the one who could only be their suspected trickster.
Meetra felt the wave coming through the Force and held up her own hands in the darkness to deflect it.
"Behind me." She ordered Atton and she felt him scramble to safety as she pushed against the invisible weight of another Force user. She had to admit her opponent was quite strong and was putting up more resistance than she had anticipated: She felt her boot heels scratching against the ground as she lost ground to her foe.
"What should I do?" Atton called over the maelstrom of sound.
"Nothing. Stay there." She barked, pushing harder, thinking what to do next.
Her opponent made a mistake; a snapping sound broke the air and two blue lightsabers cut through the darkness.
Idiot.
He had revealed himself; only an untrained fool would have the gall to blow a perfectly reasonable advantage over a foe to brag about his ability to wave around a lightsaber.
"Push!" Meetra shrieked, still weighing against the Force.
"What?!"
"Did he deafen you? I said push! With the Force!" She gritted her teeth, "Now, Atton!"
Relieved when he didn't argue any further and sighed before heeding her order, Meetra seized the opportunity to close the distance between herself and their foe while he was distracted. With one fast movement that looked much simpler than it was, she knocked the gleaming blades down from their offensive hold and jammed the hilt of her sword into the gut of the person who wielded them. A muffled gag issued from the darkness. "Atton, start squeezing." She said over her shoulder as her assailant, illuminated only by the lightsabers, began to rise again and re-form for attack. A cracked groan came this time and Meetra batted aside the lightsabers with ease once again. "Do you yield?" She asked the zealot.
"I will not yield to a fallen Jedi…"
"Atton, squeeze harder." She said lightly, waiting for what she now knew was a pattern; this moron was going to continue standing and trying to fight. She let him gain his feet again, knowing it'd take him a while longer due to the constricting pressure of the Force that was wrapped around him. "A fallen Jedi?" She repeated, once again knocking the clumsy attack aside and whacking the flat of her blade against what she knew to be the delicate kidney area of the man's abdomen; she was in no way fighting to kill. The lightsabers came up again and she threw the man back with the Force, tearing the lightsabers from his hands as she did this.
They came to rest in her hands and she looked down at the humming blue blades for only a moment, revelling in the undeniable familiarity and power she felt flowing through them.
"I don't think you have the slightest idea who you're dealing with." She said darkly, her glowing reflection shone in the man's wide, fear-filled eyes as he tried to scramble away. "Do you yield?" She repeated.
"I… I yield."
She shook her head and cast him into stasis as well before turning to Atton and switching off the lightsabers. With the leader in stasis, the permeating darkness in the room seemed to lift and she was able to at least make out the shapes that composed the room and everyone in it. It appeared to have been a weak fear technique that made the place so desperately dark. "Take him out to the Bols. I will be out shortly with the others."
Atton nodded wordlessly and set about tossing the limp body of the zealot over his shoulder, able to pick up on the volatility of Meetra at this moment; her knuckles were white around the lightsabers she held in her hands. Hands he knew hadn't held such weapons in over a decade.
Her fingers twitched around the hilts of the weapons and she considered loosening her grasp around them and letting them drop to the broken floor. Instead she waited until Atton had left and slipped them inside the inner pockets of her jacket.