"Surrender now, Miss Sebatyne," Lobi said as she leveled her blue-bladed lightsaber up beneath Saba's jaw.
But with her lightning-fast reptilian reflexes, which were further enhanced by the Force, the Barabel dropped to her haunches and swiped her tail at Lobi's legs, knocking the Chev down to her back. And before Lobi even landed, Saba had already commenced three back-flips before landing in a cat-like crouch; she then sprung up to her full height and activated her own green-bladed lightsaber along with Tesar and the other remaining Wild Knights.
At the back of her mind, Saba felt a sense of justification with the weapon that she now wielded; following the destruction of her lightsaber in that attack that took out seven of her Wild Knights, she had found this lightsaber simply lying near a tree in the forest. At first, she thought it was a trap by a Nightsister party, but she found nothing in the Force or otherwise to indicate that that would be the case, not even a suspicious air that would indicate Nightsister activity through the Force.
The only thing that she could sense from this forest was that it somehow made Saba remember Kirana Ti; and she couldn't help but silently thank the rogue Jedi-Witch for giving her this spare lightsaber. However Kirana obtained or fashioned it, it was a great gift; and one that Saba would use to defend Kirana from Lobi and her Knights.
In response to the Wild Knights activating their lightsabers, Lobi's Jedi Knights activated their own laser swords even as one of them - a male Rodian named Twool - helped the Chev back up to her feet.
"Saba Sebatyne is no longer a Jedi Master in the Order," Lobi announced so that everyone in the area could hear her. "You Wild Knights, stand down."
"And let you get away with unnecessary killing?" Tesar spoke up. "None of uz would dare betray my mother!"
"Very well," Lobi said with a grimace; it was evident that she didn't want to do what she was about to do, but she knew that it was her responsibility to do it. "I have been granted the authority by Master Hamner to revoke all of your statuses in the Jedi Order; therefore, since you are all resisting, you are not only all expelled from the Jedi Order, but you are also all criminals."
"Good," Saba responded. "If being a criminal meanz helping thoze in need like Kirana Ti, then I'd rather be that than a Jedi."
Lobi frowned. "Come on, Saba; do not do this. You will be going against those you once fought alongside in the Yuuzhan Vong War."
"And you will not?" Saba replied.
Lobi's expression straightened into one of determination. "So be it. Knights, attack!"
Then she and her Knights attacked while Saba and her Wild Knights adopted battle-ready stances.
Slightly outnumbered by one Jedi, Saba decided to even the playing field by breaking away from her incoming opponent, Lobi, by flipping off to her right and slashing down Twool, diagonally, across his torso. With that, Saba turned back and clashed blades with Lobi even as the two competing groups of Knights engaged.
Lobi took to dueling off against Saba in the offensive fifth form of lightsaber combat, Djem So, but it didn't put the Barabel on the defensive; instead, Saba adopted the aggressive fourth form of lightsaber combat, Ataru, and was thus able to drive the Chev back toward the Blastboat. After a few moments, Lobi switched up her fighting form to that of Soresu, the defensive third form of lightsaber combat, and it eventually allowed her to leap off to the left.
The Chev landed lightly on her back and swiped her lightsaber toward Saba's tail, sheering the whip-like limb off. The Barabel screamed in pain, yet was still able to swing her blade down toward Lobi, who blocked the strike off with her own lightsaber. The Chev then placed a Force-enhanced double-kick against Saba's sternum, sending the Barabel tumbling back.
Saba landed in a backward roll and, from her the position that she was in on her hands and knees, she allowed Lobi to rush up to her. Upon reaching Saba, the Chev increased the aggressiveness of her attacks, and Saba started to bat the strikes off one-handed; her free hand, meanwhile, pressed against the ground in preparation for the Barabel's next move.
Then, with Force-enhanced strength, Saba rocketed up into the air, flipping over Lobi before coming down with her blade at the Chev's head. Naturally, Lobi intercepted the opposing blade with her own, but was unable to stop Saba's non-lightsaber attack, which was the deliverance of a drop-kick upon Lobi's pelvis. Lobi flew back and ended up past the treeline behind her, and this time, Saba rushed in at her.
Lobi then used the Force to rip the trunks of nearby trees before flinging them down toward Saba. The Barabel slashed at some of the incoming logs while dodging away from others before finally coming down upon the Jedi Master; and once again, as Lobi blocked off what would have been a decapitating swipe from Saba's blade, the Barabel used her free hand to plunge her talons right in the small of the Chev's back.
Lobi shrieked in agony, and it only spiked for a few seconds once Saba's bloodied hand pulled out. The Chev's lightsaber then rolled away from her weakened grasp, and Saba slashed the hilt, destroying the weapon.
"I should kill you right now," Saba said, "more to put you out of your mizery than to remove you az a threat to either the Wild Knightz or to Kirana Ti. But that would be too eazy for you, Tresina; az you writhe there in agony, I want you to think about how following Kenth Hamner and the Galactic Alliance haz made a disgrace of a Jedi out of you. If you live, and find successful recovery, then I hope you will come to understand the folly that has forced me to do this to you. But if you die... then I am sorry."
As alien as apologizing was for Saba, as Barabels had little to no understanding of the concept of apologizing, saying that to Lobi did relieve some tension as the former Jedi Master looked down at the wounded Lobi.
"This is not the Jedi way, Saba!" Lobi screamed.
"No, but it is better than what you were going to do," Saba said.
"You turned against us, Sebatyne!" Lobi cried. "You are no better than a Dark Jedi or... or a Sith!"
"If I were Sith, you'd be dead; me sparing you, even in thiz time of pain, iz a mercy. I am allowing you time for introspection, to let you know where you went wrong. If I were Sith, I would not care about you at all. The fact that I am allowing you to live at all increases your chancez of returning to me as a threat, one which may very well end my life.
"So tell me: if you were in my position right now, and I was in yourz, would you do the same for me, for the same reasonz?"
Lobi was silent.
"That iz what I thought," Saba said. She then turned and began walking away before stopping a moment later to turn her head back to Lobi. "And besidez; I am no longer a Jedi. So do not speak to me of the Jedi way again." The Barabel continued on her way, and ended up right back at the site where the duels between Lobi's and Saba's Knights commenced.
The Wild Knights were victorious, as none of them had fallen, and all of Lobi's subordinates lay dead at their feet... except for one.
"Where iz the one named Tyria Sarkin-Tainer?" Saba asked her son.
"She escaped," Tesar replied. "She waz the last one alive, and when she saw the odds against her, she fled into the woods."
"Indeed," Saba mused.
"What do we do now, Mother?"
"No doubt that after Master Lobi reports in to Hamner," Saba said, "he'll send a new squad of Jedi to not only go after the remaining Nightsisterz and Kirana Ti, but us az well.
"Therefore, we must leave Dathomir and find somewhere we can hide."
"Where do you suggest?" Tesar asked.
The thought that came to mind was one that made Saba both happy and sad. "I think I may know."
