I love you all thank you TTATT the writing goes a lot faster with reviews, hopefully the reception to this chapter isn't bad ^^;;;; Everything in this story has been pre-planned and pre made for like years now lmao rip it's just writing it down that is the problem.
Chapter Warning: Drunkenness, romance scene, LGBTQ

Mission jumped away when she heard my voice, as if my words had stung her. She looked over, embarrassed, at her date, with whom she had just been holding hands with.

Juhani's mouth was hung wide open just like mine was.

I got up and walked over to their table.

"Mission! Are you... On a date?" I asked. You would think it would be obvious, but I was so flabberghasted, I couldn't help but blurt it out.

She blushed a deep shade of purple, all the way to her neck. She looked at her date, and then looked back up at me, blush disappearing. She crossed her arms. "Listen, I respect that we have a great mission and all, but I'm 15 now. I can make my own decision to date."

I just blinked at her. I turned to her date, then, and my surprise went up even more. I suddenly felt lightheaded at the shock of it all.

Her date looked at me oddly for a second, before his eyebrows shot up in recognition. "You!" He then noticed Juhani, who had come to stand behind me. "And you!"

Juhani's mouth was open in shock at his words, too. She then abruptly turned to Mission and threw her hands up, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Mission! What have you done? Did you consider how others in the party might feel?"

Mission looked confused and taken aback. "What are you talking about?"

I lightly brushed Juhani's arm as a signal to try and get her to calm down and take a breath. I shook my head. "She doesn't know."

Juhani looked back at her date, who was now frowning at us.

"Is this some kind of set up? Did my father put you up to this? What's going on? How do you know these people, Mission?" He asked.

I looked at Mission in realization, giving her almost a pitying glance. "Oh no. Mission, tell me you didn't start seeing that boy you told us about a few weeks ago? Is this him?"

Mission opened her mouth to answer, but Juhani answered her unasked question with an exasperated, "This is Carth's son!"

Mission's mouth fell open. She looked from us, to Dustil, and then back again. "Carth is your dad?" She asked.

Dustil stood up, as if he were preparing to leave. "I don't consider him anything but dead to me. My dad left a long time ago. I told you that." He brushed the loose strands of hair off his forehead, looking like he were just coming to a bunch of horrible realizations. "Kriffing Force. Did he set you up with me to try and get closer to me? Well, it's not going to work! Consider yourself dead to me, too."

And with that he started to walk away.

Mission stood up and started after him. "Dustil, wait! This is all a misunderstanding!"

He kept speedwalking away. She chased after him, trying to explain the situation. Juhani and I watched them get further and further away. Out of earshot, she must have said something to him that made an impact, because he stopped and turned to look at her. She was explaining something with what looked like begging gestures. He looked back at us, then appeared to sigh. He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Mission was shaking her head, glanced back at us, and then took his hand. He removed the hand pinching his nose and looked at her, head cocked to the side.

She clasped his one hand in both of hers and said something to him. He sighed again, nodded, and then she led him back to the table with his hand in hers.

She was smiling, kind of nervously, by the time they were back.

"Pull up a seat, you guys. We might as well make this a family dinner." Mission said.

Juhani moved our chairs from our table to theirs as I flagged down our waiter and told him we were merging tables.

As soon as we all had a glass flute full of Juma, we all began telling Dustil about our origins, our experiences, and our mission (the quest, not the girl).

Dustil had settled down some after his second glass, and he actually seemed to be tuning in to our explanations once he realized we actually weren't there to set him up with his dad.

Mission's cheeks were tinted a light purple from the alcohol. She grabbed Dustil's hand and gave him a compassionate look. "Do you see now? We've been traveling together now for almost a year. Just like yours, my homeworld is gone. These people are my family."

I scooped up the last of my mashed potato-looking mixture and washed it down with a big swig of Juma. "And we have no intention of forcing you into seeing your dad. Tha's your own business." I added, trying my best not to slur my words. Juhani nodded in agreement, although I knew she knew we both hoped he would make up with Carth.

His eyes cooled over. "I still don't trust any of you." Mission winced. Dustil looked at her and then looked away, as if he felt guilty for making her upset. "Well, except maybe you, Mission." He murmured, almost too low for me to hear. As if to speak over his words, he continued, in a louder voice, "But I'm not going to punish Mission for my dad's crimes."

I nodded sagely, the alcohol making the situation seem of the highest importance. "That's good of you, Dustil. You're a good one." I raised my glass to toast to his awesomeness. "To the future."

Juhani raised her glass. "The future."

Mission chugged her glass. "To the future."

Dustil shook his head and said nothing, but finished his glass in acknowledgement.

By the time we were leaving, me and Juhani were both leaning on each other to make sure neither of us fell as we walked.

Before we left, I pulled Mission aside. "Hey. Yer not going to g'home with him and do anything dumb, righ? Bercause," I slurred, wobbling into Juhani. "No babies on the ship. Make sure you use..." My drunk brain briefly contemplated the existence of condoms. This then led to a string of other things I wondered about the existence of. Was I even real? Maybe the past 9 months were just a wild drunken dream. "Make sure there's no babies." I finished.

She looked embarrassed and cringed. "Ughhh... Please quit talking. You just get yourself back to the academy without vomiting, alright? Dustil can walk you guys back to the door. You two don't look that great."

I stuck my hip out in an exaggerated way, not really by choice, but more to make sure I kept myself standing. "Why aren't you drunk?" I asked.

She tapped behind her ear. "Anti-toxin chip. I installed it yesterday to win a drinking contest with Canderous. Easiest 50 credits I've ever made. Don't tell him, though."

My brain could not understand. "Serr...Wha? You can't get drunk?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No, I'm definitely buzzed. I just can't get as drunk as you guys." She began herding us towards the door and out into the hallway. "You guys should get back. You look like you need sleep already. Isn't it only, like, the afternoon? We were in there for a good few hours. Get some rest and some caffa in your system. Alora needs you guys in top shape."

I gave her a strange look while I wobbled back and forth. Alora? So Revan hadn't told everyone yet. That would come in her own time, I supposed.

I put a heavy hand on her shoulder, leaning most of my weight on her. "Mission." I stated, trying to get my tongue to work with me. "I support you and Dustin."

She gave me a weird look. "Uhh... Dustil." She corrected.

I nodded as if that was what I had said. "Yes. And I need to know. I thought you hated the Shith." I smacked my lips together, looking for moisture. "I just want you to be careful. He sheems like a good guy. A great pal. He came out of Carth's nut. He hash those good genes. He could be a pilot. But," I shook my head, feeling like I was about to cry. I stared her in the eyes. "Tell him not to wear an orange jacket. T3 hates it."

It was at this moment I whipped around, almost falling, to look for him. "Teeeeeeeeeeeeee threeeeeeeee?" I warbled.

I gasped, turning to both Juhani and Mission. "He'sh gone. We need to... We need to find my buddy. My baby."

Mission steadied me. "Force. Okay, you guys are going home now. T3's standing right behind you!"

I turned around and saw him, immediately overwhelmed with joy. I wrapped him in a big hug. "MY BABY. I love you."

I rested my overheated cheeks on the cool plates on his head. I swear I nearly fell asleep right then and there. Mission shook me awake.

"Come on." She said as she helped me stand up.

Dustil came out of the restaurant, I assume after paying for us all (what a gentleman), and awkwardly stood behind us all.

Standing between the both of us and carrying one of my arms and one of Juhani's arms over her shoulder, Mission slowly helped us back to the academy.

On the way there, she looked at me. "And to answer your question... at first, I thought it would be fun to date. I'd never been asked before." She grunted a bit as she tried to make sure we didn't both faceplant as we walked own the ramp outside.

She shook her head and gave me an accusing look. "But then I saw that he was actually a good person. You're the one who taught me that the Sith isn't just black and white. If anything, this is all your fault."

I nodded. At that moment, that made total sense to me. "And they aren't. Good, Misshion. You're a good, smart, pretty girl." I painstakingly raised my heavy arm to pat her head. "You'll do good. We love you."

She chuckled and shook her head. "Iyiyi."

About 50 feet from the door, she let us go. "Alright, they're your problem now." She said to Dustil.

He pinched her chin softly, bringing her just a tiny bit closer to him. "You're lucky you're so cute." He said teasingly.

She blushed a little purple and gave a kind of girlish laugh I'd never heard come out of her before. "See you later, flyboy." She leaned on her toes and gave him a tiny kiss on the cheek before running up the ramp back to Dreshdae.

He watched her go, and when she was no longer in sight, he turned to us. "Well? What are you waiting for? My permission? Get going!" And he shooed us into the academy.

We broke off before we made it to the rooms, that way it didn't look like we knew each other.

As Juhani and I came into the room, clinging onto each other for dear life, one of our shoes got snagged on the stone floor, and we went tumbling down.

As we both fell on the ground, we both bust up into uncontrollable drunken laughter. What was funny? Falling, apparently.

After our laughter had died down, we were both caught into a suddenly very intense moment as we looked up at each other and caught each other's gaze.

Her eyes were so unique compared to any other eyes I had seen on a person before. Bright, golden, and filled with a purity that made my heart clench. I wondered how so many people could have treated her so wrong throughout her life, especially for the traits I thought were beautiful.

I swallowed hard. It felt like there was a lump in my throat caused by the intensity of which we were staring at each other then. The amount of exposed skin her dress showed and the feeling of her body on mine on the floor left me breathless. She glanced at my lips and it was then that I knew we were both thinking exactly the same thing about each other, and I wasn't sure if it was my own self or the Juma that compelled me to shift forward towards her.

Just then, before we had gotten too close, my holo beeped rapidly before Carth's voice burst through the comm, sounding panicked and staticky.

"We need backup... Zzht! ... van got herself ... that teacher... Zzt! Zshht! Third tomb on the right... eed help NOW!"

Juhani and I sobered up almost immediately as much as we could.

Both of us embarrassed, we instantly started grabbing our weapons and got dressed in our regular adventuring clothes. Still wobbly, we ran as well as we could out to the valley. On our way out of the foyer, one Dustil Onasi saw our urgency and stopped us.

"Woah, where are you two drunks going? Mission said you needed rest." He frowned.

We pushed past him, with me only slowing down to say, "Your dad and our leader is in trouble. Come witsh'us if you want, but Juma or no Juma, they need uur help!"

He seemed torn at that moment, but he also still had alcohol in his system, and at that moment, the Juma must have said yes.

About halfway through the foyer, he followed after us. We all jogged to the tomb Carth had specified.

Both Juhani and Dustil seemed to be sobering far faster than me.

"What, 're you Jedi immune to drunk?" I asked, jogging as fast as I could and trying not to fall over to keep up with them.

"Jedi do sober much faster. We can use the Force to hurry along the process." Juhani blushed then and looked away. "I am sorry. We should not speak of this."

So many things had happened in the last 8 hours that my drunken brain couldn't comprehend all of it. Before I knew it, we were at the tomb.

Before we went in, Dustil stopped us both. "Listen, we're not getting anywhere with her," He gestured to me. I put a hand on my heart and gaped at him in offense. "She's going to stumble all over the place. I think our best bet is to leave her at the entrance and go in ourselves, stealth mission. I've heard about this guy - He enjoys killing students here. She doesn't stand a chance."

Juhani looked at me with concern, time-pressed to make a decision. "She is not going to stay behind on her own. We have traveled much together, so I am well aware of her aptitude to meddle."

I gaped at her, in, again, mock offense. "Uh, rude! I just care. I wouldn'dt call it meddling." I sounded like a chain smoker trying to enunciate the last word.

The last thing I heard was Dustil saying, "No time!" and seeing Juhani try to stop him too late before my world went black.

/ / / / / /

I woke up some time later. The sun had gone down and it appeared to be the middle of the night now. I groaned. My head felt like it was exploding.

How much did I drink? I thought to myself as I touched the back of my head. I gasped some as I felt a damp crusty texture. I pulled my hand back to see it was red-tinted.

I gasped again as the last events I remembered ran through my head.

Revan! Was my first thought as my heart clenched in terror. I stood up on my feet as fast as I could, which was a mistake. I immediately fell over.

I took a shaky breath. Where was everyone? Had they failed? If they had won, why was I still out here?

I opened up my comm. No new messages had come in since the last time Carth had sent the SOS message.

I was trying my best to get myself under control. My brain was foggy and I was trying not to hyperventilate. Okay, think. What is the first step? What is the best plan? Should I call for Canderous? What if there isn't any time?

I sent a comm to Canderous still, even if it would be practically impossible to get here since you had to go through the academy.

I was no longer drunk, but I felt mildly buzzed and almost hungover. There was no way I was walking into that academy without everyone hearing me. I took off my boots just as I had done so many times to sneak around the academy. I turned on my stealth generator. As silent as the dead, I snuck into the crypt on my hands and knees.

I tried to breathe as quietly as possible. While on the floor, it was easy to see which way the last people had gone through here, since they had left indentations in the dirt.

Juhani's light toe-step and Dustil's heel-based walk were easy to follow. The dirt turned into dirty laid stone and it became harder to follow. I came to a crossroads at last, and had to choose where I was going to go.

More panic was just setting in when I heard a loud cackling laugh come from the left-most path. I followed it.

The deeper I went, the more I could hear talking. I finally came to an area where it sounded like they were talking in the next room over, but to my despair I realized there was no way through. The voices were coming through a gap in the wall that had deteriorated. I could just see through to where it looked like I was on an upper level that had broken down over time, peering down into a dilapidated portion of the crypt in a large room with a sarcophagus in the middle.

The orange of a jacket caught my eye, and my heart stopped in my throat. A small pool of blood was puddled next to it.

There was no way I was fitting through that crack. I moved to the next room over and found a larger hole in the wall. I barely fit through.

I had thought at first that I might have made too much noise coming in, but it didn't seem to matter. No one had noticed.

About 12 feet below me, standing in the middle of the room in front of the sarcophagus was an abomination. Even from where I was standing, I could see that the bald man in front of me should not have been alive. He looked like a corpse from a zombie movie. From my position, I could see the large purple veins popping out of his skin. It made me want to gag.

Several huddled forms were on the ground around him in a half circle. It was dark enough that I couldn't see them well, but two figures were on their hands and knees, conscious.

"I love it when they play hard to get. I can go for hours, you know. I don't tire." Said a gleefully cruel voice. He had an accent that suggested he might have once lived on Coruscant.

I immediately started searching for a way down. In each corner of the room were large statues of people praying in the direction of the sarcophagus. There were doors on all walls of the room. Each of them had stone hexagonal ledges outlining the frame. I could easily slide off of one of them to get to the bottom safely, but the one underneath my door looked like it could collapse at any second.

I jumped in shock as lightning from the laughing corpse-man filled the room with electricity. His laughter bounced off the walls and filled the catacombs, echoing in such a haunted and malicious way that fear immediately crept up my spine. I watched in horror as the two conscious bodies were filled with electricity that flew from the master's fingertips. Every single cell in my body told me to run.

At that moment it felt like everything moved very slowly. As if my mind were racing at a million times faster than usual, I felt myself come at a mental and spiritual crossroads. The feeling of fear trembled in every bone of my body, and I knew inside myself that this was the moment where I would either fail, or finally become.

It had to be Revan down there. The thought of her suffering like this outweighed my own personal fear, and the shivers in my body turned into heat in my blood.

Two words raced through my mind: Be fearless.

I slid off of the ledge without hesitation and pulled out the short black engraved vibrodagger Boc had given me so long ago back on Taris. Up until today, I had never used it. I was always afraid of close-quarter confrontation.

Courage overwhelmed my steps and I jogged forward carefully to keep quiet, preparing in my head as I stepped exactly what would happen, and in one swift and clean motion I came up behind him and used all the strength in my body to slit his throat.

His body struggled against mine. In shock and twitching uncontrollably, the master tried to turn around as his body contorted from the blow. Noticing a saber at his belt, I unclipped it and stepped back from him. As he managed to turn around towards me, I flicked on the saber and decapitated him. I had wildly overestimated the strength it would take to do so, however, and ended up spinning all the way around in a full circle, striking the statue on the sarcophagus behind me.

I struggled to keep my balance as I raced to turn off the saber before I injured myself. A piece of rubble fell off of the statue, hitting me in the shoulder. Ouch!

I fell onto the ground right away to check the bodies strewn around. I gasped in horror at the state of everyone. Revan lay right in front of me, hair still sizzling. To my left was who I could only assume to be Mekel from the academy, in pretty much the same state. To the right of Revan was Juhani, knocked unconscious (or maybe worse) with burns covering her body. Next to her was a groaning Dustil, almost conscious but not enough to move on his own. And next to him... Oh, Carth!

Carth was laying in a pool of blood that looked too large. I immediately ran over and began injecting him with medpacs. I checked his pulse. It was very low, but it was there. I checked Juhani next. She was in the same state, but Carth was the only one out of them who was bleeding. I injected her and Dustil both with a medpac for good measure.

I shook Revan and helped her sit up. "Rev. We have to get out of here. We have to get you guys to Jolee or something - you need medical attention!"

Revan looked up at me through a scorched eye. She had a dark red line running from the middle of her eyebrow down her eyelid and to the middle of her cheekbone.

I stepped back in a bit of shock. Before I could stop the words, I said, "Oh, GODS! The famous Skywalker Evil Mark™! Anakin got that right before he turned darkside!"

I might have still been a little buzzed.

Revan groaned. "Shut up already and help me onto my knees." She managed to grunt out.

I did just so. She howled as we stood up and had to stop halfway, leaning her forehead on my shoulder heavily. She was sweating.

"Medpac." She ordered softly, sounding very drained.

Duh, of course. I hurried to get her one. Good thing I kept a good stock in my bag. Maybe I should start carrying around everyone's blood types, too! I thought with a visible shake of my head.

She shuddered some. "You gotta..." She gasped. "You gotta help me concentrate. Concentrate."

She clasped my forearms as I shook my head, not understanding. "Of course, Rev. Anything. What do I need to do?"

She rested her forehead on mine. "Just... Concentrate. Think of healing. Imagine the healing of the waters in Dantooine," She gasped, "That's how I do it."

I closed my eyes and did just that. For all the good it would do, I thought as long and hard as I could of the healing waters in the caves of Dantooine, how they felt, and how much we needed Revan to be alive and strong enough to heal everyone else.

I have no idea if I actually had any part in it, but she seemed to be recovering. She gasped and grabbed a medpac out of my bag and stumbled over to Mekel. She injected him with it and helped him sit up. He seemed to be in worse straights than Revan, but better straights than Dustil.

As if hearing my thoughts, she moved to Dustil next and began moving her hands over him. A blue glow enveloped them as she moved around to find the worst parts of the injuries.

It seemed to only take an entire 5 seconds before he was conscious and trying to sit up on his own.

"You need to help her." She ordered, pointing to Juhani. As if using supernatural Jedi speed, she then moved to Carth and began healing him.

Fuck, it sucks to not be a Jedi! I felt so useless.

Mekel was sweating, sitting down with his eyes wide and his arms hung over his knees. "I can't believe I'm alive. You saved me... Your companions bought us time. You could have easily just answered those questions and let me die."

Revan was taking deep breaths. She shook her head. "No one deserves to die like that. No one."

We heard a large crack then, followed by a scream from Carth. It sounded like bones being put back in place.

Mekel cringed at the sound, as did we all. When it was silent again, he continued, "Yes. Well... I see what you mean. I've never... I mean, I've never been on that side of the fence before. It makes you think." He stood up but kept his eyes focused on the ground before looking at Revan. "I'd be dead if you weren't... I mean, if you were a proper Sith. But you're not, are you? Don't worry... I won't tell anyone."

Revan took her attention away from Carth and looked up at Mekel. "This could be your chance to change your ways, you know."

He looked taken aback, as if he had never thought about this in a million years. "You mean... the light side? I've never thought about that. Can you... Can you even go back? I've done some..." He shook his head, pushing away the thought. "I mean, I've hurt a lot of people."

To this, Revan let out a laugh that definitely sounded like she was on the brink of insanity. Mekel jumped a little in shock, not understanding at all what had happened to cause such laughter.

Revan turned away from Carth, who seemed stabilized. "The dark side. The light side," She pretended to hold them in her hands as she said each one. "The Jedi are self-righteous assholes who never step in during a problem. The Sith are assholes who always start the problems with no regard for anyone else. I'm getting just about sick of people telling me to be one or the other. Maybe I'm both. Maybe I'm neither. Maybe the light side isn't contained to just the Jedi. Maybe the dark side isn't contained within just the Sith. Maybe we need to just do our best as people and shut the fuck up about putting a name tag on it."

As if imbued with vigor from her speech, all 5 foot 7 inches of pure Sith Lord muscle leaned down and picked Carth up bridal style. "I've done horrible things too. I really doubt you can keep up with my track record, Mekel. But if you think torturing people and being utter Sith shit isn't for you, there's better things out there than this."

A calm voice interrupted Revan's psychotic break. "You can always turn back to the light." Said one Juhani, who was sitting up with the help of Dustil.

Mekel seemed to be taking in all this information in as much as one possibly could. He shook his head as he brushed off his pants. "I... I don't think the light side is for me. But... Maybe neither are the Sith. Maybe it's time for me to leave. Thanks, I suppose... And good luck."

With that, he limped down a passage, and that was the last we ever saw of him again on Korriban. I wondered if we would ever see him again or if he would even make it out of the Jedi civil war alive.

"Is he...?" Dustil asked, his voice choking at the end as he saw the puddle of blood Revan had lifted Carth out of.

"He's going to be okay. I had to pull his ribs back into place. He will have a long recovery time unless we can get him to Dantooine." She said, moving towards an exit.

I know it wasn't exactly the proper time, but no one else was checking for relics, so I began ransacking the tomb. I had become a pretty good scavenger in the past months, and I knew what to look for that would be useful and what to leave behind that would be worth nothing. I had the whole tomb checked and scavenged in about 5 minutes. I especially had become adept at looking for hidden passageways, since we had found so many in our journey.

I listened to Revan and Dustil talk while I scavenged.

"I never... I never wanted him to die. And not like that." Dustil said shortly.

Revan shook her head. "It's okay, Dustil. I understand. Your father loves you. He really didn't know you were alive all this time."

Dustil looked away, with an angry expression on his face. "I wish he had never come back. I hadn't even thought about him for years until he came back. And now he's here, and all those times I wished he would have died on Telos bit the dirt the second I saw him get beaten by that Sith master. All to try and keep me from being tortured..."

He shook his head and turned away. "Please... Just..." He took out a holo and made a sweeping motion over the top of his towards hers, which made a small sound to indicate something had happened. "There's my comm details. Just give me an update, alright? I don't want to see him again until he finds that evidence he talked about." He ran his hands through his hair, "I shouldn't have even come to help. I just..."

He looked at the unconscious form of Carth. After analyzing, he came closer to him. In his ear, he whispered something to Carth. He leaned back then and looked at Carth with a scorn. "And don't you forget it."

With that, he left, walking ahead of us by about 20 paces at all times even when we began to walk out of the crypt as well.

I came over and helped Juhani up, wrapping her arm around my shoulders so I could carry most of her weight. She let out a cry at first from the pain, then relaxed some as we settled into a walk.

Together, Juhani, Carth, Revan, and I all made our way out of that tomb for the first and last time, and during the middle of the night, stowed away on our ship and high-tailed it to Dantooine.