Knight-Errantly Chapter Nine


Dead-Star walks in on the human fighting his shadow with his weird sword. He stabs at it multiple times before parrying. He does this little dance for a few minutes. Dead-Star wonders if the human is part of the demonstration that Ben's parents were talking about with the Zeltrons. He figures that this must have something to do with Nagai swordsmanship. He decides to lean back against the door and wait for the human to take notice.

"Dead-Star, your growls are awfully distracting." The human remarks without losing focus on his imaginary opponent.

"I haven't seen you practice so hard since the Sith Lord."

"Exar Kun was quite a motivator, especially with his dreamy voice." Armitage gushes with a goofy smile. "I wish I could've learned some katas from him; they could've been useful against my uncle."

"The way you fight your shadow seems like you're prepared to kill him." An accurate observation. I wouldn't forget the time he nearly killed me!

"I've got to be! But that doesn't mean I will. Besides, it's not like I had anyone to spar with at his level." The human looks pointedly at him.

"I eat dead stars and breathe fire." Dead-Star crosses his arms.

"And it's not like you had anyone to teach you how to fight. Or anyone, really." The human looks sad.

"Yes, and I was content." And you decided to ruin that by eating me. I didn't know what would happen! I just wanted revenge on Skywalker! And the lesson is vengeance rarely leads to anything good.

"I guess you wouldn't know loneliness if it was just you."

"You humans and your attachments." Dead-Star huffs. The human finally stops his practice and puts his sword down. He goes over to the dragon-prince.

"I'm happy to be attached to you." He smiles. Dead-Star feels his heart skip a beat and blames the Prince.


Han, Leia, Chewie and Ben are led to a room big enough to house an X-wing. There are shields raised to portion off a quarter room; it's the section where a couple of people already behind the blue-tinted shields. Leia sees two Chiss, a female with a red undercut and a male with white face paint, and five Nagai males. The Chiss woman briefly looks at them and then rolls her ruby eyes before returning to the nothingness that was happening.

"Welcome to the Danger Room!" Jahn announces grandly.

"The Danger Room?" Han raises a peppered brow.

"Bren named it." Rahul adds.

"[Of course, he did!]" Chewie huffs.

"It's the largest training room aboard the ship and even doubles as a simulation room, though it's not advanced as those in the New Republic or the First Order. However, the simulation feature shall not be used for this." Marruc pipes up.

"And the shields are for our protection?" Ben asks.

"Yeah, those were installed after Spiker took a Tehk'la blade to the cheekbone." Bahb hitches a thumb at the Chiss with the white face paint.

"Is that why he wears the face paint?"

"He's always been wearing it. Makes him look scary!" Bahb teases Ben.

"His hair does the job." Ben replies dryly, earning a smirk from Han.

"I didn't know Chiss could be redheaded." Han remarks as they join the crowd.

"It's a dye job, dumb ass." The Chiss woman in question snaps.

"Antaria Wellos!" Jahn acts the scandalized parent and gestures to Ben. She looks at him and then crosses her arms.

"It's a dye job, dumb youngling. Is that better?" She sasses back like a teenager.

"Fine." Jahn waves his hands up in defeat.

The doors finally open.

Armitage wears his black and white outfit with his hood up. His strange sword hangs off his utility belt in its sheath. His legs keep up with the long graceful limbs of Captain Den Siva. The Nagai has the same moon-white skin, pointed ears, and black mane as his compatriots. His body is wrapped in dark indigo with a belt filled with jagged Tehk'la blades. He wears a cape of deep purple with dark crystals dotting the violet. His eyes are a chilling blue.

Armitage stops halfway across the room, and Siva goes a few more steps and turns on his heel to face the youth. They bow before each other, thus beginning their demonstration.


"Anakin, when I said that you can come and watch the fight with me, it wasn't a blanket invitation." Desolous says tersely as Yoda's Line, sans Yoda, crowd around his door.

"Hey, I'm not missing the chance to watch Ben get the poodoo kicked out of him!" Bruck exclaims loudly, earning a swat on the back of his snowy head by a humorless Anakin Skywalker.

"Armitage is fighting his uncle." Desolous corrects him.

"That's going to be traumatizing." Xanatos comments.

"He's experienced far more traumatizing things." Desolous rolls his silver eyes and moves to let them all in. Dooku looks around the room with a bored expression, while Qui-Gon looks at the blood-red tea with some interest. Xanatos and Bruck take their seats in front of the holoscreen. Anakin is the last to enter with a sheepish expression.

"They're all invested in Armitage."

"Yeah, I have nonexistent credits on him being Ben's murder victim in the future." Bruck proclaims loudly, earning a warning glare from Anakin. Desolous goes to turn on the holoprojector and takes a seat at the tea table.

Den Siva and Armitage bow before each other as tradition dictates.

"The moon elf brought a knife to a–" Immediately, a Tehk'la blade is sent flying right into Armitage's face. He bends back, and the knife whizzes past him and embeds itself into the metal wall.

"He's as perpendicular as a caf table." Xanatos chuckles.

Armitage's agility is on full display as he's assailed by his uncle's blades. He does flips and somersaults like a circus acrobat, though with less flash. The first minutes are spent dodging until his uncle is on his last blade.

"I'm shocked that none of those blades went into his cape." Qui-Gon admits.

"I'm amazed he's able to move like a crazed hawk-bat without the Force. Is he truly without the Force." Dooku inquires.

"He is, but he can see Force Ghosts—" And with that slip of the tongue, Desolous realizes that he just threw away the minute chance of Armitage's victory.


Armitage wonders what the Prince thinks of the cape. It's Kob's masterpiece, a mesh of electromesh with Nagai tuning crystals, and always a surprise to his uncle's foes. Armitage has spent years being trained by it, hence his phenomenal dodging skills. However, he has yet to defeat the crystalline cape. He's tried drenching it in rainwater, but it was waterproof. Then, he tried rubbing honey all over it, but that just made it sticky. One time, he tried hacking away at the crystals with his sword, but the crystals were just as tough as his Sith Sword.

But now I have a cape. So when he's about to fire, I'll throw my cape between us to act as both a shield and a distraction for a few seconds while I rush him with my sword. He'll probably block it with his blade or with the cape itself, but I might get a cut in.

It takes a few minutes, but the crystals take on a reddish hue, warning him of their use. Armitage unclasps his cape and throws it between himself and his uncle. He unsheathes Curse Breaker and runs with all his might.

"Over here!"

Armitage turns his head to the right. He stops at the sight of a Force Ghost only a meter away. He has shaggy hair with limp curls. His face is sharp from years of war and various other stressors. His tabards are a unique dark, not at all common with the Jedi. He grins like the most pleased fool in the galaxy.

Oh no, it's Anakin Skywalker

His cape-shield crumbles to the floor, and Armitage is hit with the second barrage of lasers.


Author's Comments- Here are the links:

Here is an image of Spiker: a href=" . /starwars/images/4/4a/Spiker_ /revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/450?cb=20080620162209"Link/a

Here is an image of Antaria Wellos: a href=" . /revision/latest?cb=20200522014206"Link/a

Here is an image of Den Siva; it's been quite a while since he last appeared in this series. Also, he does wear a purple cape in the comics, thus continuing SW's tradition of cool capes: a href=" . /starwars/images/9/9b/Den_ /revision/latest?cb=20171021222716"Link/a

In Legends/EU, specifically in the original Marvel run of SW, Den Siva used lasers to torture people (specifically on a Zeltron named Dani), but they were actual lasers like in a Bond film. I decided to make it more like a cape of crystals that shoot lasers because, just like its medicine, SW's tech can be wildly inconsistent. Also, I kind of wanted to make a Dark Crystal reference because that movie and its prequel show do not get enough love in my works!

Next chapter: I swear this time the gang arrives on Nagi, and Luke receives some news.