ARRIVAL
"Nooo!" Her scream was thrown at the beast through the Force at the same time she opened fire. Now in atmosphere the energy beams cut several of her wings away. Skye cut around to get another pass and shot at her again as it attempted to flee back to space. A human figure flew past her broke her out of her rage at the impossibility of it. It was enough to remind her of her master. She flipped her craft and several sonic booms reported her near impossible change of speed and direction.
"I am coming master." She piloted the fighter around the smaller debris as the ship plummeted to the ground. She moved around and under the largest section feeling for her master and she denied the truth of what she felt. He was gone that much she could tell, but his presence was still there. She reached out with the Force and grabbed the remains of the ship and held firm as she used the fighter as an anchor. Two drones dropped from the Benign to land on her fighter which was not a good sign. Closer and closer the ground came up on a foreign shore. The ship impacted with the water several meters from the shore as she pulled hard on the controls.
"Kark a Hutt, Sithspit!" With another jerk of the controls, she landed on the shore and was out of her fighter before it even settled. The top of the Benign was barely out of the water as she jumped easily the ten meters to the craft. Crawling through one of the large rips in the ship she gathered different equipment with the Force and sent it to the beach. Within a minute she was in the cockpit only to find that her master was gone. His helmet and lightsaber the only thing remaining. Her scream in the Force disturbed hundreds of birds in the area along the coast.
Reason came quickly due to the lack of blood and body parts, but it was still hopeless to think he could have survived that fall if he was unconscious. She spread herself with the Force and felt nothing of him but his Khyber crystal in his lightsaber. With a wave of her hand, she opened her quarters and removed her travel pack. She hefted its weight on her shoulder as she forced the door open to his quarters only to get soaked as the water shoved her away. With effort she made it out of the ship as it rapidly sank. With the Force being stronger she rose up enough to jump pushing against the water with the Force to get to the shore. Ayfour whistled sadly in his socket of the fighter.
"He was not in there. Only the Force knows. I did not feel him join with the Force so maybe." Ayfour whistled and beeped several times. Several craft were coming in her direction and the Force told her to move. Without needing to verify she jumped back into the fighter and lifted up just enough to fly further in land. The repulsors doing her a favor and removing any marks left by her landing gear. She was several kilometers away as the aircraft flew over the area seeing nothing along the beach. The boats that came after and the flying hero saw no sign of any downed craft.
"Looks like another Alderaan planetary type. Cold enough for it." She mumbled as she looked over the bay in the distance. The forest was thin enough in places and the rolling hills along the coast provided aerial cover. She had landed on a rise looking over a former water shipping area and the docks. Out in the bay was dozens of ships lying in the water obviously sunk in a way that meant more than just an accident. The largest ship she could see blocked the bay access from any other ships.
That they had not in at least a decade removed the obstruction bothered her as not being right. The Force agreed with her on this. Perhaps with a dozen Jedi they could get the ship moved. Even as strong as the Force felt on this planet there was no way she could do it alone. Maybe once she found her master? The Force was silent on this matter. Darkness came soon enough, and she moved the fight further into the city finding a large warehouse with a collapsed roof suitable to hide the auxiliary craft.
Getting out of her fighter she pushed at the ground and moved much of the debris to the side. She did this in every direction and pushed a part of the ceiling back into place. An upper room was still covered by the main roof, and she jumped to the balcony as Ayfour dropped out of the fighter with the drones going over the craft looking for damage. The enclosed bay was surprisingly whole compared to the rest of the building. With a twist of the Force, she got the door open. Dust covered most of the furniture of the former office.
"Well, it could be worse." She feels Ayfour lift himself up to the balcony as she scans the desks and filing cabinets with her eyes and the lights from her suit. She sees a couch that has survived and shoves air at it blowing the dust off. Ayfour whistled the obvious.
"I know that didn't do much." She moved to the windows and got most of them open. Once that was complete it was not much more to focus on the Force and the entire room. Cleaning with the Force was not encouraged, but the techniques were good practice for finer control and most padawans would use it over picking up a broom. It not only did a better job but removed the potentially risen dust in the air. She laid down to sleep in a town Ayfour had figured out was Brockton Bay on a planet far from the Republic and the Galaxy she called home.
Restoring power to the building was not too hard. The Force helped open the valve for the gas that supplied the heater and the droid Ayfour bypassed the box on the outside after power was detected. She did not need much and the few lights once she had them spread out did not take much energy. The biggest draw was the fan on the gas heater and the water tank that once ran long enough had fairly clear water. Taking a water shower was nice after several months on a ship.
After a walk around the building there was no easy way into the place. The doors were strangely welded shut and no one had thought to scale the walls. The filing cabinets did not supply much. But finding the dictionary was the best find so far other than the radio that broadcast music. Strange and as she learned the local language part of their version of The Life Day end of the Year Celebrations.
Her vision was very disturbing as she was finding and seeing many of the bugs she saw in her vision around the warehouse. She even thought of the bottle of alcohol she found in the locked desk in the back. A crude slugthrower was found in there as well. It was not until the bay filled with fireworks that her visions started to reveal the faces in them. The biggest reveal was the name of the building it was in Winslow High School. Several of her trips outside told her that her armor was not common and would stick out. Her robes as well but not so much more than receiving several curious looks.
The cold air had been invigorating as she learned this part of the city. She found the school, but it was closed, but from a hand sensor it showed the heat, and a few lights were on. She raised her hood again as she walked off unaware of the ones following her. The Force was aware in all things and did not need to warn her of them. As they got close enough that they went quiet she used the Force to jump on top of a building stopping the gang members in their tracks.
"Did you see that?"
"Ya and you had us following a cape."
"What a fucking idiot."
"You trying to get us killed."
"Just thought she was an easy target. I mean what girl in her right mind walks around at night to a school for Christ's sake."
"A cape is what. Better go tell the boss."
"Come on my nipples are freezing off."
Skye watched the group wander off. The Force warning her as she landed on the roof. She looked back to listen to their words. Repeating how they sounded before picking up the lyrics of the song that was going through her head. The echo of the words to Without Whisper. Ayfour had managed to get access to this world's version of the holonet that was simply called the internet. She had learned of this song as the writer was facing trial for mentally convincing her ex-lover to mutilate himself and this caused his death. The Force screamed that this was a crime against Justice, but there was not much she could do about it.
Third of January 2011, the students of Winslow were returning to school none of them felt happy to be there, but the dark side hung over the school in anticipation. Walking through the school where you did not belong was somewhat difficult and nearly impossible without the Force masking her presence and making the humans there ignore a young girl in strange clothing and pointed ears. Her platinum hair would have been enough of an oddity.
She felt the uneasiness of the students as she walked the entire first floor. She could feel the distress of the girl from her dream, but the unfamiliar halls had many a dead end and turn around before she finally found the correct level. She felt something horribly wrong as the images of her vision became reality as she froze. She was not far from the locker in question as the smell finally reached her sensitive nose.
But the vision changed and shifted to these enormous beings. Beings so large they covered several different realities. To simplify they looked like two large worms one felt like it was dying and the other sad, lost, but clearly geared against sentient life. The dark side gleefully rejoiced as she raged against this impossibility. The vision ended with several words then repeated itself staggering Skye. This caused her to fall to her knees as it was more powerful as the person inside the locker screamed in rage. Mentally projecting her thoughts for a kilometer around the school.
A synergy affects both of them as the Force allows her to see and feel what the girl in the locker experiences. She manages to get to her feet as a man with a cart appears at the end of the hall. She reached out to him and found he was here to find the source of the smell but stops as Skye brings her lightsaber to her hand. With a flick it melts the lock, handle, and mechanism of the locker. Taylor comes out swinging and screaming as the man gasps in horror. His own breakfast being released missing the opening of the trash bin on his cart as he fell to the side.
Even his long exposure to this school had not prepared him for the smell. Something had he not been drunk he would have noticed as he checked the school before it opened. His horror is doubled as he places the blame for her being in the locker instead of her being angry at the lack of a locker and the contents that used to be inside. The bell rang as the laser bladed figure somehow had the sobbing girl in her arms. Dozens of students stopped in the hall and gathered as the figure held the girl helping her build a hasty mental shield against the thoughts of thousands of insects in range. Thankfully it is winter and many of them are frozen or in stasis.
The head of the figure came up as she sensed the ones responsible coming near. Their glee to hear the girl of their torment wailing into some stranger's shoulder. The crowd made space for the Trio. Many show fear or a misguided sense of respect. Anger was felt as helplessness at the pain of another student was a product of their own lack of action that was taken by a complete stranger. Sophia, Emma, and Madison got a good look as the figure turned slowly. They did not feel the danger they were going to be shortly exposed to.
The hood that had concealed the figure came off revealing her darker skin, full lips and round angry eyes the color of cold titanium. The platinum hair barely concealing the clearly elven ears to those who have never met someone of Sephi blood. The cloak billowing out as if a wind blew it back but not felt by anyone nearby. The blade of pure white and tinted with pink pointed right at Sophia and ending mere centimeters from her nose.
"Responsible you are. No longer torture this one you will."
"Sophia?!" Emma squeaked as she rapidly backed away to only be stopped by the frozen students behind her. Madison whimpered as the full scope of their deed is felt somehow radiating from the strange cape. Sophia is not cowered by the threat of the blade of Force energy. She is however not stupid as she switched to her breaker state turning her into shadow as the blade flicks and strikes out. Pain that she could not fathom hits her arm before a powerful shove sends her and several dozen students down the hall into a pile.
Sophia found herself out of her breaker state with her arm showing a red burned line encircling it. In a panic she screams again before turning to shadow to vanish through the floor to the next level. She just sees Emma and Madison lifted off the ground with a gesture from the stranger before her head drops below the level of the floor. A cape that in the last second looked like they would kill her friends. No not friends, minions who were too weak to survive. Sophia was no fool as she did not have her weapons here and anything she tried would not hold up to such an obviously powerful weapon. What she did not see was what happened next.
Skye held up the two so easily with a mere gesture of her hand. Both kicked their feet uselessly above the floor of the hall. The blade of light was held behind the woman's back and would at any moment strike. Most student's new they were going to see the two bitches die. The very dark side was gleefully anticipating their demise from an agent who would call it justice, but I knew deep down it would be revenge and a solid step into the sickening twisting grasp of the dark side.
"Please don't." The raw voice of a girl who had been screaming or retching for the last hour held the weapon arm with little strength to stop the stranger from killing both of them. The pinkish blade vanished like it had appeared causing a sigh of relief echoing down the silence that was held by the students.
"Why?" For such an act it was clear that they needed to be arrested at least and then punished to the full extent of the law.
"Because... because it was not bad enough for them to die." She relaxed her posture slightly as the girl thought she was going to just kill them. She searched them with the Force, and she was hit with how far they had gone into the dark side. Thankfully they could not use the Force.
"Youngling, traumatized you are, beyond measure. Justice must be served. Evil they will forever be. Controlled by the dark side."
"Then let them confess. Let them go to jail. To be punished." Skye thought on this and then dove deep inside the Force feeling what she had almost done was a step to being just like them. She set both of them on their feet and then knew what had to happen.
"Go, confess all of your crimes to hurt another, to hurt this one." The two girls suddenly were free, and they ran as the other students made a path for them. Both ran into the teachers standing in the back and started confessing of every time the bullied Taylor or someone else. Skye felt that the Force was warning her that she needed to leave. The vision had not urge her to do anything more, so she pulled up her hood as she looked down on Taylor.
"Who are you?"
"I am a Jedi. You may call me Knight Skye."
She turned away from the frail girl and walked the opposite direction of the confessing girls. Mr. Gladly raises his hand slightly to stop her and she looks at him before she glimpses a general thought in his mind. With a flick of her finger, he is slammed into the wall. She waved her hand, and the bared window suddenly flew open with the squeal of twisted steel and jumped. Sirens were heard in the distance, but the few students that rushed to the window only looked out on the mildly moving snow with not a soul in sight.
Mr. Gladly was helped to his feet by several of the members of the football team as a few students who had never helped or talked to Taylor helped the now catatonic girl to her feet and in the direction of the nurse's office. Another set of students helped the janitor clean up the mess in front of the locker. Both wearing colors of different gangs. Each in turn a member of the ABB, E88, and Merchants. At any other time, they would have been at each other's throats, but seeing the stranger help where no one else did shocked them out of their petty issues.
The BBPD came and went as Taylor was loaded into an ambulance. The PRT was not long behind the police as the girl's confessions and the witness reports of what the Trio had done had involved a student turning to smoke and sinking through the floor. It did not take much time to figure out who the shadowy figure was as her name was spoken on nearly every witnesses' lips. Two APB notices went out. One for an unmasked cape of elven description with an energy blade calling themselves Jedi and another for the whereabouts of Shadow Stalker.
Skye made it back to her hideaway feeling guilty for what she had nearly done. She forced herself to meditate as she listened to her master's holocron. His voice soothing the edge of her pain in nearly taking two young human lives. She still felt in some way that they deserved it and she gave these thoughts and emotions to the Force over and over again. It was not until her droid beeped and whistled that she opened up her data pad. She read several of the reports still not completely understanding English, but enough to know she was being sought.
The Force worked differently, and people suddenly had powers here in this world that varied greatly. She had only been her for a few days and was completely confused as the police, the PRT, the Protectorate and the military could not stop the villains or other criminals from controlling things. She had seen gang control in the Undercity or Coruscant and other city worlds, but what little she had learned it was never so open. She opened the special site and look at the latest posts.