Disclaimer: Joss, WB, UPN et al. own Buffy. George Lucas, Lucasfilm, LucasArts and others own Star Wars. Michael A Stackpole owns the X-Wing and I, Jedi novels. I do not.

Title: Xander the Jedi: Chapter 7

Author: Paradigm Shifter

Rating: Same as before.

Pairing: Err… Xander/Other characters (mine)

Feedback: Please, I beg.

Thanks: All my reviewers. You know who you are. Thank you.

Continuity: General season 5 (Dawn)

Crossover: Buffy/ Star Wars. Old Republic.

*

"So your saying that the Holocron would not allow you access to information regarding dimensional travel?" asked Mace, trying hard to hide his surprise.

"Correct." Replied Yoda. "Allow me the knowledge, it would not. Things, there are it seems, that even I do not know yet."

"So Xander does not come from our dimension then?" asked Adi Gallia, who despite having an unwanted haircut had got to quite like the young man.

"No." replied Yoda.

"He is human though, isn't he?" asked Mace.

"Yes." Yoda nodded the affirmative.

"What shall we do?" asked Adi, concern showing in her perfect features.

Yoda sighed and closed his eyes. "There is very little we can do. Find his own way home, Xander must."

Mace closed his eyes and said quietly, "And in the mean time, we must keep Xander safe…"

The three nodded and began talking about how that could be done. The only real decision made was to keep him out of way of the council, and make sure any missions he was sent on were 'blue milk runs'.

*

As soon as Xander felt the presence outside his door, he knew it was trouble. He quietly muttered 'lock' to the doors computer and headed for the balcony. At the heavy bang on his door he assumed, correctly, that whoever it was, they weren't there for a social call.

When the red light-saber blade pierced the plasteel of the door, he further decided that it was time for a very quick exit. Looking around at the surrounding balconies, Xander came to the decision that going down wouldn't be a good idea, and so drew on a small amount of the Force to aid him in the jump up to the balcony 30 feet up to the left.

The 'visitor' seemed to be slightly angry at Xander's refusal to meet him, and quickly destroyed the few items that Xander had in his room, before following him onto the balcony. Assassins don't like it when their targets run. It's not fair. They hate it even more if they hide.

Xander had disguised his Force presence well, making it impossible for anyone to find him by sensing his 'soul' in the Force. Unfortunately, even the smallest amount of Force use opens the gate, allowing someone who is searching for that presence to find the person. As Xander, for the third time jumped up to the next balcony, the assassin felt him. Eyes snapping upward to where the presence was felt, and using his dark side enhanced Force abilities, he followed Xander.

Voices were whispering in Xander's head. Come down, my friend, and I'll make sure this is swift! You are a coward! Do you fear me? And mockingly, May the Force be with you…

Panicked by the voice, and the subtle mental influece hidden inside it, Xander became sloppy and desperate. On the next jump, he overshot and only just managed to land on the pad. The one after that, the assassin seemed to have caught up with him and gave him a vicious push with the Force, sending him flying off the balcony and straight through the transparisteel window of the quarters it was attached to. Xander's vision swam as his head hit the opposite wall, but he managed to remain conscious and active.

The thud as the assassins boots landed on the balcony which Xander had just got flung off of snapped him back to reality. The further snap hiss of the man's light-saber reactivating gave urgency to his movements. Feeling the assassin use the Force to grip his hair from behind, Xander nearly resigned himself to the inevitable.

Only the assassins wish to toy with him saved him.

The light-saber remained on, but the assassin stood back, examining him. He slammed repeatedly against the wall of the room, losing his grip on one of his light-sabers in the process. It clattered to the floor, only to be pulled over to the assassin by the Force and similarly examined. After the examination, it went flying out the window, to fall the miles down to the surface of Coruscant, presumably lost forever.

An anguished look formed in Xander's eyes as he watched the light-saber go flying over the balcony to disappear forever. It gave him enough to snap out of the haze he was in for a second, long enough to give the man a shove with the Force, causing him to stumble. As the man recovered, he reminded Xander that it was very stupid to anger someone who had your head in a Force grip. It tightened, causing Xander to scream in agony as his skull started to fracture. A further vicious slam into the door took him further toward unconsciousness until one particularly forceful one sent the door flying outward, Xander on for the ride.

He landed at the feet of Adi Gallia and her newest Padawan, a Corellian girl about Xander's age, who had been judged too powerful for a normal Jedi Knight as Master. To make matters worse, she had an attitude problem that meant one-on-one teaching was probably easiest for everyone. Except for the teacher.

 Adi's eyes widened as she saw Xander on the floor, bruised and bleeding. Looking into the room he had come flying out of, she saw a young man dressed in grey standing watching with interest, a red light-saber gleaming in his hands. He looked familiar, a student who had nearly completed training, but had shown amazing callousness toward all he encountered, and had killed a barman in cold blood when he would not serve Jedi. Seeing that others had found his little plaything, he raised his blade and charged.

Adi's swiftly activated yellow blade clashed against his red blade as the Jedi Master defended herself and her charges against the intruder.

She called over her shoulder to her apprentice as she pushed the man back, "Check on Xander!"

Her apprentice nodded and moved to kneel by the prone form of Xander. She backed off in surprise and a little fright as Xander struggled to his feet and began to approach the duelling pair. His eyes glowed a deep, angry red as he stepped forward.

Adi heard a gasp behind her as she pushed the intruder back. Then she heard a voice: "Get down!" She followed instructions and fell to the floor, rolling as she did so, in time to see the assassin's eyes go wide at something in the doorway. Her eyes flicked there, to see Xander, looking like the Sith Lord Exar Kun himself, standing where the door was previously. She flinched from his eyes.

Xander stood in the doorway, seeing the cause of his pain, all of it, and hating him for it. Only Xander's desperate grip on the Force allowed him to stay conscious. Clenching his fist tightly, he flung it forward toward the assassin, even though he was standing metres away.

An almost solid wall of air flowed out from his fist, rippling visibly as it moved.

It caught the assassin full in the chest, and sent him thought the wall he was standing against, having backed up at seeing Xander. Parts of the wall went with him. The body of the would be assassin continued on through the air, right through the back of a transport airship, before gravity inexorably won the battle and he fell toward the surface of Coruscant, so many miles below.

Back in the devastated room, Xander passed out from the pain of his fractured skull, his connection with the Force broken.

*

Adi Gallia thumbed off her light-saber and flicked on her commlink.

"Gallia to Medical. One of our Jedi was just attacked by a dark side apprentice, or what appeared to be one. Prepare a bacta tank. Tell Master Yoda that a Ysalamiri may also be necessary."

Her apprentice looked at her with wide eyes. "A Ysalamiri?" she asked. The small, slightly wormlike creatures had a natural defence against the predators of their planet. Since the predators hunted with the Force, the Ysalamiri created a Force negating bubble around themselves, confusing and disorienting the predators. If a Jedi was placed within a Ysalamiri bubble, all connection to the Force would be broken, and the Jedi would feel as if someone had removed a limb, or even worse, a necessary sense.

Adi nodded slowly and looked at the prone form of the greatest Jedi the Temple had ever found, unconscious on the floor.

*

Adi Gallia, Mace Windu and Yoda sat in the council chambers. Xander's response to the dark side attack had been worrying to say the least. His attack on his opponent certainly killed him, but it would be impossible to find the body. A fall from that height would leave only a greasy smear on the walkways.

"Found, a way must be, to alleviate Xander's anger and fear." Said Yoda.

"But what does he fear?" asked Windu.

Yoda shook his head. "From what I found in his mind, he fears for the girl he calls Dawn. Overwhelming, his sense of protection for her is."

"What? So we have to find Dawn? Or put up with Xander until he can return?" queried Gallia.

"Neither, can we do, really, Adi Gallia. Find his own way, Xander must…" Yoda trailed off, a thought forming.

Mace looked at Yoda thoughtfully. "Could we send Xander to see Obi-Wan and Anakin? After Anakin's recent brush with the dark side, and his subsequent recovery when he married Padme Amidala, he could help Xander."

Adi looked sceptical. "And I suppose you also want us to find him someone to marry? Anakin broke one of the fundamental rules of the Jedi Council. We cannot allow someone as powerful as Xander to do the same."

Yoda looked one, but slowly shut his eyes as his two closest friends in the council began to argue over the merits of a decision that was taken by Jedi nearly 25 millennia ago.

"Be quiet, you both will be, hmm?"

Adi and Mace both quietened at the subtle reprimand. Yoda continued. "Send him to see Obi-Wan, we will, for a short time. Maybe he can help him. A test it can be for both of them…"

*

OK. Chapter 7 finishes there.