Mara studied the three newest members of their party

Mara studied the three newest members of their party. Master Bliance was a tallish Amin, while the other two were human. The Amini were a humanoid species, nearly human except for elongated features and extremities, and skin cast slightly blue-greenish, with deep violet eyes. Margara Mila was a pert blonde, and appeared to have been dropped in at about the age of nine.

As for the third member of the party Mara still couldn't believe that this personable, constantly smiling twenty-year-old was her father. She supposed part of it was the age thing, the same as Luke was having to deal with. The main cause of her difficulty, however, lay in how very nice he was. She didn't know why this made it so hard, but it did.

When her party had first caught sight of the three, Anakin had rushed forward to greet his old friend. They'd had a joyful, back-slapping reunion, chattering constantly about various subjects. That chatter had not ceased as everyone began the long trek back to the apartment to feed the new arrivals.

Margara Mila and Qui-gon Jinn were apparently old friends, talking softly as they walked. Luke had raised an eyebrow at how close the two seemed, until Obi-Wan had noticed his confusion and explained. "She's an old flame of his. They never really broke up—she got sent on a long-term mission, and he was killed before she got back. They reunited when she arrived in the Realm of Spirit courtesy of a nasty fever. They've been pretty much inseperable ever since."

Luke nodded, still eyeing the two. It seemed so funny, just looking at them. An apparently nine-year-old girl and ten-year-old boy, conversing like adults. "This whole situation is surreal."

Obi-Wan's mouth quirked, watching Anakin and Domion still talking energetically. "It is indeed, but I'm very glad of it. It's good for all of us—especially Anakin." He turned his gaze towards Luke with a fierce intensity. "The Realm of Spirit hasn't been kind to your father. The Grand Council—the spirits of all the Jedi Council members—had him before a tribunal, and there aren't any cruel or unusual punishment laws in the Realm. His sentence was very difficult for him, and in my opinion unfair. Coming out here It's very good for him. You see, we—all of us—are still the same people we were, but the age of the bodies we've been put in influences our personality. So Anakin isn't completely the person he was when he saved you, he's also partly the twenty-year-old he looks like. He's sort of an amalgam, and the sense of youth is helping him get over his past. He's a good person, really, but he was troubled. Being twenty again—and having his best friend with him—is helping a lot."

Luke grinned. "Those two seem to be good friends."

"Oh, believe me, they are. I just hope that feeling like a kid again doesn't mean those two repeating their behavior from that age."

"I don't know. If everyone's going to be staying at the Academy, I could use a couple of pranksters. Most of my staff are way to serious."

Obi-Wan laughed. "Well, if you're looking for mood-lighteners, the Triple T will do that for you nicely. He told you about that?"

Luke nodded. "Sounds like he had a fun time as a student."

Obi-Wan nodded. "He had a hard time at first—kept sneaking out to participate in all those illegal races in the underworld. He got hauled before the Council a bunch of times for that. Then he met our friend Jade over there. That got his troublemaking focused in somewhat more legal—and safer—areas."

Domion and Anakin burst suddenly into loud guffaws. "Care to tell the rest of us the joke?" Mara asked them sardonically.

"We were just remembering the fifteenth-anniversary cantina crawl," Anakin said, "and some of the excellent pranks we played. Remember that, Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan grinned. "I sure do. Remember the game of Hail Valorum' we played?"

Domion asked, "You mean the one where Anakin made a point of losing for ten rounds?"

A nod. "Yes,"

"Do tell," said Mara.

"Well," said Obi-Wan, "This game started in the original cantina-crawl, and Qui-gon," he nodded towards his master, who was still engrossed in conversation with Margara, "got completely wasted. The idea was that you had to toast the Supreme Chancellor. At that point in time, it was Valorum. You had to stand up with a shot of Corellian, toast, and say, To Valorum. May he be honest and wise and cover his lies, Hail Valorum!'. Then you had to sit down, stand up, turn around, sit down, bang your glass on the table twice with your right hand, stomp once with your left foot, bang your left fist on the table once, stomp twice with your right foot. Then you had to stand up, put your right hand over your heart, and say, Valorum, Gods bless him.' If you did it right, you got to knock back the whiskey and watch. If you screwed up, you had to drink the whiskey and do it again."

Anakin grinned at that. "When we played it at the fifteenth-anniversary crawl, Valorum wasn't Chancellor anymore, Palpatine was, but we decided that we'd stick with Valorum because his name had the proper emphasis. We needed a name with three syllables and the emphasis on the second syllable. So we decided that since the thing never mentions Supreme Chancellor,' that it wasn't breaking any rules. So we were using good Corellian whiskey—"

"I want to tell this part," Domion interrupted. "So anyway, Anakin the brilliant person here screws up his very first time trying—on purpose. Then his second time, third time, et cetera. By the time he got to his ninth shot, he looked like he was barely keeping himself off the floor, and he could barely talk. Then, all of a sudden, he does it perfectly, and so fast we could barely follow him. We all thought he been faking being drunk. But then he turns to Obi-Wan, and tilts his head to one side, sorta like this," Domion tilted his head way over to the right and closed one eye, "and he says, with a lisp, Mathster, why did you turn thartreuthe? I liked your other color better.' Then he passed out cold on the floor."

Everyone laughed, including Anakin. "Hey, okay, so when I get drunk I go colorblind. Big deal."

More laughter. "Remember the other time?" Obi-Wan asked. "The time I was going to propose to Anani?"

"Oh yes!" exclaimed Anakin. "I almost forgot!" He glanced again at Luke and Mara. This was being told mostly for them. "Obi-Wan and Anani Simis spent how long was it? They spent at least twelve years dating before he finally got up the courage to pop the question. So when he was finally ready to, he wanted to make it a big thing. So he asked Domi here and my good self to help."

"That was my big mistake," grumbled Obi-Wan.

"Don't knock it," Anakin said. "You asked the most brilliant planners in the temple. Anyhow, we saved up and managed to scrape together enough dough so that Obi-Wan could treat his girl to a night at a very exclusive restaurant."

"Then we enlisted a bunch of their friends to help. All during the meal, they'd walk by, disguising themselves, and whisper in her ear, Marry Obi-Wan.' How many people did we have doing that, Anakin?" Added Domion.

"Lesse, there were the two of us, Miriana, Padmé, uhm, Bant wanted in on the fun, so did Amilia" Anakin trailed off, counting on his fingers. "Must have been ten at least."

"So at the end of the meal," Obi-Wan took up the thread of discussion, "Anani leaned forward and said, all these people want me to marry you, Obi.' So I said I did too, and then these jokers," he nodded towards the two blond twenty-year-olds, "stood up behind me holding a sign that said, SAY YES' in big pink letters.

"With hearts all over it."

Luke grinned. "So did she?"

Obi-Wan laughed. "What do you think?"

Behind Obi-Wan's back, Anakin and Domion were nodding as big as they could.

"Oh," Luke said, "She had to have said yes."

Obi-Wan just smiled very, very broadly.

"And just to think," Domion told him, "you have us to thank for it."

"That I do, that I do."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Darth Maul stared at his face in the men's fresher at the fast-food joint. He couldn't believe his eyes. He just couldn't believe it.

He ran through everything that had happened since he arrived here. He'd stepped in cannoid droppings right away, then some hoodlum on a swoop had kicked up a spray of mud turning a corner, and soaked him. And now this.

He stared at his reflection; he couldn't believe his eyes. Below the crown of horns, under the red-and-black tattoos, his face was that of a teenager. A teenager!

What humiliation!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Okay, who's up for some saber practice?" Anakin asked that evening. "There was, last I recall, a facility near here that provided room suited for dueling. They still there?"

Luke nodded, and Mara said, "Oh yeah, Luke and I are regulars there. Everyone knows us, they've got a room they call the Skywalker room' since we're always in there."

Laughter broke out. "Rather like the Kenobi ward at the Temple Healers?" asked Qui-gon with a wink at his former padawan.

Obi-Wan flushed. "So I got a little hurt every now and then!" he exclaimed defensively.

Qui-gon snickered. "Every now and then? Remember how you were after the first Cantina Crawl?"

Kenobi ground his teeth audibly.

Anakin sighed and spoke up in his defense. "Uhm, we're getting a little off topic here, everyone. I asked if we could do some saber practice, not snipe at each other."

"Saber practice sounds great to me," Domion said. "I can't remember how long it's been since I got to do that."

"Far too long," A'jin replied. "I want to see how much you've forgotten, Padawan."

"So who all is coming?" asked Luke.

"I'm coming," said Domion.

"Me too!" exclaimed Anakin.

"Don't forget me!" added Obi-Wan.

"I'd like to," Qui-gon said, "but I'd rather stay here. I don't think I'd be very good at lightsabering in this body."

"He just wants to stay here with Margara," Anakin stage-whispered to Domion, who snickered.

Mara hooked her saber onto her belt. "Let's get going."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the walk down, they'd broken into little groups. Luke was talking with Obi-Wan and A'jin about training, a conversation Mara was not at all interested in. Anakin was just walking quietly, watching everywhere. Hesitantly, Mara moved closer to her father. She didn't know what to say, how to start a conversation.

He took the burden away from her. Glancing at her, his emerald eyes studying her features quickly, he said, "You look like your mother."

Mara tilted her head. "What was she like?" She'd heard some from Anakin, but she wanted to hear it from her father.

He sighed. "Beautiful. Deadly. The light of my life." He laughed, a brief, quick bark. "Everyone was amazed when Miriana and I were married. They thought we'd be strangling each other within hours."

Mara had to bite back a giggle at that one. He looked at her inquisitively. "Oh," she explained. "I'm not laughing at you. It's just that that's what everyone said when Luke and I announced our engagement. They figured we'd kill each other."

Domion laughed, too. "Thankfully, A'jin and Miriana's master, Ciaomi Mi'rek, were are good friends. It made it a lot easier for us to find excuses to get together often." He trailed off, unsure of what to say. "I wish you could meet her."

Mara smiled. "If this thing with everyone coming back keeps up, I just might get to."

Domion smiled at that, and said, "I hope so." Both lapsed into silence for the rest of the trip.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The saber room turned out to be big enough for everyone to practice. A'jin made the suggestion that they should switch off who they were dueling against, so that each person would be going up against different styles. This made sense to everyone, so they started out: Anakin vs. Domion, Obi-Wan vs. A'jin, and Luke vs. Mara.

Anakin spun to the right, and Domion countered with an indirect thrust to Anakin's right, to prevent him from spinning behind him. Anakin swatted Domion's blade and ducked beneath it, again to the right. Domion started to move in expectation of a spin following his arm, by letting go of his saber with his right hand, gripping it only with his left. Anakin seized Domion's left arm at the elbow and pushed it back, ducking. Domion swung at his friend's head, but Anakin's blade zipped in and touched Domion's tunic, on the left side, over his heart. "A burn to mark the strike," Anakin murmured as his blade scorched the cloth, leaving skin untouched, so precise was his control of the blade. Thrust, parry, riposte, feint, they moved all over the room, completely oblivious to their wide-eyed audience. But it was obvious that despite the skill of both opponents, the fight was one-sided. Soon, Domion's tunic bore a half dozen tiny black marks, each spot where Anakin's blade had touched in imitation of a killing thrust. Anakin's tunic was spotless.

Finally, they both stopped, closed down their sabers, and bowed, breathing heavily. Domion looked down at his tunic, then at Anakin's, and frowned. "I didn't get through your defense even once? Damn, I thought getting all those pointers from Miriana would've at least given me a fighting chance."

"The trick," Anakin said, "is to concentrate first on not getting marked. Marking your opponent is a second priority. I could have gotten you more times, but you would have gotten me some. If you'd concentrated on not getting hit, then you wouldn't have gotten a single mark. And you might possibly have gotten me a couple times."

"Hmph," Domion snorted. "I know better than that. No one can get through your defense, Skywalker. I don't think I've seen a single person do it since your knighthood tests."

"Well, there's a first time for everything. You plan to chatter all day, or do we do some more saber practice? I think it's about time for a change of opponents."

He glanced towards the others. Obi-Wan was grinning proudly; he deserved to, for he'd trained Anakin in the art of the saber. A'jin looked like he was going to give his student a little lecture on better saber-method. Mara's jaw was slightly open, but when he met his son's eyes, he saw no amazement, just cool observation.

"Well?" asked A'jin. "Who's going against whom next?"

Domion shrugged eloquently. "I don't care so much. I think the intent is possibly to have everyone go against everyone."

"That'd be a long day," Luke pointed out.

"Good endurance training," Anakin replied.

"If we're going to be drop-in hunting tomorrow, we won't want to tire ourselves out," Mara added.

"We don't have to go against everyone all in one day," Obi-Wan said. "We could do say two duels today, then the rest tomorrow or some other time."

A'jin replied, "That seems to be the most logical solution. One more duel for today, then finish up tomorrow. Maybe there'll be some fresh drop ins, too."

Anakin shrugged. "Could be."

They all looked around at each other. "Okay, who goes against whom next?"

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Darth Nacht studied the door to the exercise facility the Jedi had entered an hour ago.

"They'll have to come out soon," Maul muttered, standing slightly behind him.

Nacht chuckled. "Patience, young Sith. It is a Jedi virtue, true, but a useful one nonetheless. Nothing is gained by impatience, and much may be lost. Just wait."

So they waited, watching for six exhausted and worn-down Jedi to walk into their ambush.

|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|^|

A'jin's orange blade crossed Domion's green one. "Come now, Domion, you're better than that," he said coaxingly. "I've seen you do much better before."

Domion frowned and tried a low cut. "I wasn't already exhausted from fighting Jedi Unbeatable over there," he said, jerking his head towards Anakin. Then Domion turned and stared at his friend, wide-eyed.

To Domion's left, his daughter's blue blade impacted Obi-wan's similarly hued saber. Her eyes were half-closed, watching the bearded Jedi's every move, waiting for him to slip up. Obi-Wan thought, [i]It must be part of how she fights. That stare is unnerving. I'm making mistakes.[/i] Mara moved to glance towards her husband, then stopped, staring at Luke.

Green blade intersected blue as Luke and Anakin fought. Sweat dripped down both faces, two pairs of blue eyes narrowed in concentration, two figures moving over most of the practice room as they fought.

Luke found his father's style familiar, but yet far different from what he'd encountered in Cloud City or on Endor. More freedom of movement, more speed, more flexibility, and new youth made Anakin Skywalker a fearsome opponent.

Anakin felt as though he was at a disadvantage, though. Luke's style was honed, elegant, and yet wasted no moves. So different from Anakin's hack-and-slash. The blade was and extension of Luke's arm, and he treated it like a fencing foil. Anakin treated his blade like a cudgel. Both had little use for extraneous movement, preferring to conserve energy and feint as little as possible. But despite that, their fight was something to watch as they moved around the room, Anakin yielding ground at first, then ducking around his son and pressing Luke back towards their starting point.

Mara's mouth hung open. She'd never seen anything like this, ever. Neither, for that matter, had Obi-Wan, Domion, or A'jin. All four had stopped to watch this epic battle. "Bright Force," mumbled Obi-Wan. "This is amazing."

Finally, Anakin's blade struck just right, and Luke's saber went flying. But Luke held on just long enough that Anakin got sloppy, and the blue blade flew with the green. They stopped moving, stared at each other for a second, then bowed to each other, both breathing heavily, sweat running down their faces and arms. There were five black marks on Anakin's tunic, and four on Luke's. They seemed oblivious to the rest of the room until everyone started applauding.

"Good job, Luke," Anakin said with a broad grin. "You're amazing."

"You're not half bad yourself," Luke replied. "How'd you learn to be so good?"

"How'd you?" his father cocked an eyebrow. "You had less training than I did, and you're the best fighter I've ever seen."

"Jedi School of Hard Knocks," Luke said with a grin. "The best way to get good fast."

Anakin shrugged. "Can't argue with that."

Domion was staring at Anakin's tunic, wide-eyed. "I don't believe it," he said to Luke. "You got through Mr. Untouchable's defense five times! No one's been able to do that since he was a kid!"

Luke shrugged modestly. "I see an opening, I take it. I don't think about getting through or anything. I focus on the moment."

Anakin grinned. "Good philosophy."

"I think we ought to get going now," Mara said. "It's getting late."

"Good idea," A'jin replied.

|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|

Darth Nacht tensed as he sensed the six Force-sensitive minds heading towards him. "They're coming," he murmured to Maul. "They'll be out any second now."