Thankyou for all your reviews!!! *hugs everyone in sight, everyone else runs off screaming*
Anna Skywalker: Now that i read back on what I've wrote - you're absolutely right. I made the change waaayyy too sudden. But i could use, "Being high on 2 Panadol and 5 Soothers" as my excuse!! (I currently have a bad cold!) [Panadol are aspirin, by the way!]
Culf: You don't know how relieved i am that you like the story! i was scared that you'd hate it because it's not a H/L. In this chapter, you'll find out why Obi is dying. I think this will be my last SW fic. I wanna do another proper LoTR one but i don't have any time. Maybe when i go off to uni.
Kenobisgirl: AWWW!! You're back!! I'm glad you're liking it!! Its weird cause i'm seeing more people that i never got a review from in my last story!! I like it!
Andrea: Verge of tears? You serious? Also, i'm pretty sure i've read something of yours (The Jedi squirrels, that is). *thinks deeply but out of her last 2 remaining brain cells - one dies*
Remnants: REMNANTS!!! *huggies* Remnants: o.O Get owf me!!! I'm glad you like this story too! Just letting you know that it was your reviews that made me finish WOYM when it got that tacky middle part! It's nice to hear from you again! Hows the site going?
And FINALLY!! The story......
*****Qui-Gon paced his room as he wondered where the boy could've wandered off. 'Wandered off' was the wrong choice of words, the Master wryly thought. More like, 'ran seeking sanctuary'.
For the last 2 hours, they had gone over what had happened in the boy's last day at the Temple.
He had found out about Bruck's little 'good luck' speech in the early hours of yesterday morning. He had found out about his incident at the breakfast table. He had even found out about the situation between the little initiate and his friends. It was not good. Not good indeed.
Qui-Gon winced as he thought about the part that he played. Admittedly, the boy would've been told that anyway but the tall Jedi realized that he had been the one that had thrown the boy off the, metaphorical, edge.
Needless to say, the trip to save the granules of Hysja had been cancelled and all available 'troops' had been sent out to find the missing boy. The friends hadn't realized the big part that they had played in the boy's day until everyone that had had contact with Kenobi had been called together.
When they found out what they had truly done, they were horrified.
But time was running out. All they could find out was that the boy was in the lower levels somewhere. He wasn't dead yet, but the lower levels played havoc with the Master's and Knight's feeling with the Force and the boy's Force signature was getting dimmer and dimmer.
That could only mean one of two things. Either the boy was descending deeper into the lower levels of Coruscant or the boy was dying. Whichever way you looked at it, the situation wasn't good.
Qui-Gon Jinn made up his mind and strode off to join any of the search parties.
There was something about this boy………….
He would not see him lost.
****Obi-Wan cracked open his eyes and desperately wished that he could go back to the wonderful gray haven of oblivion. Everything just hurt way too much.
What happened? How did I get into this position? The boy tried his best to sort through his mangled and confused mind and he violently flinched as he touched upon what he was looking for.
It had started around 15 hours ago, when he had stepped off of the shuttle bus.
****The young Jedi Initiate looked around him and drew his damp robe closer around him. He was definitely somewhere in the lower levels of Coruscant, but apart from that - the young boy had no idea where he was.
"It doesn't matter. I'm away from the Temple. I am no longer am a Jedi. I will go wherever I want. I will find a place where I will be accepted." He whispered to himself as he turned away from the bus and headed in a random direction.
The rain had continued while he was on his bus journey and still continued to pour. Maybe they had a malfunction with the 'off' button? Obi-Wan smiled at his stupid thought and kept walking. He had to find a place to sleep; it was going to be dark soon.
Two hours later saw the young boy still wandering around, trying vainly to find a place to sleep. It had grown pitch black and without realizing it, Obi-Wan had entered the most dangerous level in all of Coruscant. The people on this level consisted entirely of prostitutes, murderers, spice dealers and people that had a reason not to be found by people like Jedi.
It was a level that even the Jedi feared to tread.
But ignorance is bliss and the young initiate wandered willingly into his death.
Where one instant the Force was telling him there was nothing there, the Force was yelling in another instant to run. And run fast.
Obi-Wan was too tired and too mentally drained to move fast enough. A chain sailed past his face and wrapped itself viciously around his arm, ripping his robe, pinching and tearing his skin and putting almost unbearable pressure on his arm bones.
The shock dropped him to his knees and instantly another chain wrapped itself around his leg, making the young boy fall flat on his face.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here Nick?" A man about 24 asked his counterpart and tugged violently on the chain around the boy's leg.
The counterpart bent down and roughly grabbed the stunned boy's face and studied its features in the moonlight. He pushed the boy away, as if physically repulsed by him, and hissed, "A Jedi Lasgo."
"A Jedi!" The man called Lasgo pulled on the arm chain and dragged the boy back up onto his knees, "I hate Jedi. Skulking around like they own the universe, believing that they can do anything and push around anybody. What do you have to say to that boy?" He tugged on the chain and Obi-Wan gasped as his arm bones creaked ominously.
"I am no longer a Jedi sir. I was training to be one……but……" At this he faltered, "…I -I …….left."
Nick laughed, "A Jedi reject!"
Failure.
The boy bowed his head, "Yes sir."
"And what are you doing down here?" Lasgo's voice was dangerous.
"Trying to find a place to fit in." The boy answered simply.
"Well, I hate Jedi. I think they fit in a grave."
The boy swallowed, "But I am no longer a Jedi."
"Aye, but you have been tainted. I see it in your eyes, you still believe you own the whole GODDAMN UNIVERSE!!" Nick snarled and kicked the boy viciously in the stomach. "I HATE THE JEDI! THE JEDI SHOULD ALL DIE!! PATHETIC!!"
Failure. Pathetic Failure.
Lasgo grinned, "So what should we do with him?" He gestured to the retching boy.
Nick grinned back, his teeth glinting evilly in the moonlight, "I think we should have a little fun."
"I agree!"
Lasgo gave the chain to Nick and put his hands up to his mouth. What issued was the loudest, deepest, foghorn sound that the boy had ever heard. Within two minutes, the area in which the three stood, or in Obi-Wan's case, lay, was packed full with men and women - all of which either had torn or old clothes, tattoos, piercings, and to Obi-Wan's dismay and fear, they all carried some kind of sharp primitive weapon.
Obi-Wan remembered with clarity what he had been taught about these people. The people living on levels this low could not afford the real painless, expensive weapons so they used the simple, painful instruments of death. The ones that had always worked and would continue to do so. Knives and jagged glass bottles. Heavy wooden staffs, wrenches, shovels, anything that they could lay their hands on that would hurt and/or seriously wound a person.
Lasgo was speaking to the crowd, like a preacher to his pilgrims, "I have found a Jedi. He claims to not be a Jedi anymore but I say once a Jedi, always a Jedi!! He must be killed. He must not live. So what are we going to do about it?"
There was silence for one second, then the crowd yelled as one, "Hunt! Hunt! Hunt! HUNT! HUNT! HUNT!!!"
Lasgo nodded his approval, "Yes, that's what I thought!" He bent down to the boy and none too gently ripped off the chains. "You have ten minutes boy."
Nick pulled him up by the hair and Obi-Wan shakily scrambled to his feet. "What's going on? Why do I have ten minutes? Are you letting me go?"
"Yes, we are letting you go!" Nick laughed and whispered in the boy's ear, "We are going to hunt you down like the cur you are. You have ten minutes, so that this is made more interesting."
Obi-Wan blanched and started running.
Soon the sight of the bloodthirsty crowd was lost in the darkness but he could still feel their eyes on him.
This wasn't right. It wasn't meant to go like this. So, he didn't belong in the Jedi community. He would go back to being a normal human being. But the people in the community didn't want him either. Because he had been a Jedi. There was no way that the boy would win. He wasn't wanted either way.
Failure.
If he wasn't wanted, then what was the point of living? What was the point of running? He stumbled and fell, his foot having caught a kerb of some sort. It didn't matter. He slowly regained his feet, careful of his throbbing arm, when a knife flashed out of nowhere and sliced deeply into his chest.
The boy stumbled backwards and cried out in pain. Instinctively, he grabbed his assailant and threw him/her backwards where his/her head hit the concrete with a sickening thud and the assailant lay still.
Obi-Wan stayed on his knees, his hand covering his chest where the wound bled. The cut was deep but not life-threatening. He had been lucky. Next time, he might not be as lucky.
The thought had just crossed his mind when he heard a battle-cry to his left. He sprung to his feet and leapt off into the night, all thoughts of surrender forgotten as his primeval instinct of fear took complete control there and then.
The chase had gone on for hours, the adrenaline and fear, the only thing keeping the boy on his feet. Many a time, a predator leapt out onto the boy and gave him a whack or a cut or a punch or a kick. Every time the boy just managed to best his opponent but he knew that it wouldn't last forever……….and it didn't.
The chase ended dramatically, and definitely not the way that the predators wanted it to end.
****Obi-Wan stood in the middle of some straight pathway and squinted fearfully into the night. It was quiet but that didn't mean anything. He slowly turned a full circle in a crouched position, his body ready for instant flight, his ears reaching out to hear anything.
For some reason he didn't realize the danger, until it was virtually upon him.
He had a split second warning before a dark shadow hurtled into him, slamming him down onto the concrete and stunning the boy with its ferocity and force. A split second warning was all that a good Jedi should need but the little Initiate was tired, wounded, shocked and sore.
As it was, he only just managed to dodge the knife that had been aimed at his throat and arched his back in pain as it buried itself up to the hilt in the fleshy part of his shoulder.
He gasped and uselessly tried to force the assailant off his chest, but the person just grabbed his head and pounded it into the concrete. When the boy was sufficiently stunned, it straddled the boy on the chest and pinned him helplessly to the ground.
Obi-Wan stared up into a pair of anger-filled eyes and realized he was looking into his death.
"Jedi!" The word was hissed, years of spite and malevolence compressed into a single word. "Useless scum. Tonight, I shall spill your worthless blood and we shall celebrate the death of another defender of the galaxy." The last comment was full of hatred and loathing.
Obi-Wan could see enough to know that the person on top of him was a young man. Not much older then himself. Fourteen at the most.
"Please! I'm no longer a Jedi! I am not accepted there! Please do not! I beg of you!" The boy pleaded with his assassinator.
"You claim that you are no longer a Jedi, you pitiful bastard, but you have been a Jedi. And you are not wanted here. Nobody wants you alive! And tonight I shall be the one honoured to slit your insignificant throat." The boy leaned down and whispered confidentially in his ear:
"For what it's worth - hunting you was the best thing that's happened in my life so far. And killing you will be the highlight of my life!" The attacker raised his knife and Obi-Wan watched with disbelieving eyes as the moonlight caught it and shone briefly on his attacker's face.
He had been mistaken. It wasn't a man, it was a young woman.
Obi-Wan's mind froze. A mere girl wants to kill me because I am a Jedi. But I am not a Jedi. She wants to kill me because I was a Jedi. Why does everyone hate me? What does it matter?
The knife started on its downward descent, the young girl intent on stabbing the boy beneath her.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes. What does it matter? It doesn't matter. No one wanted him. No one cared for him. No one would notice if he was gone. No one had noticed him from the years gone past. Bruck was right.
Failure.
He might as well die here. Here was as good as anywhere. And his death meant something to this girl. Maybe for once in his life, he could do something right and let the girl take his life.
After all, it didn't matter anymore. Nothing did.
Obi-Wan breathed out deeply and flinched only slightly as he felt the cold steel bite into his neck. He could feel the blood start to flow.
It would all be over in a millisecond.
The knife stopped. The girl gasped, her body stiffening in horror and then suddenly, the crushing weight had disappeared off his chest. The girl had fled.
What? Why? The girl had had her chance to take him. He lifted up a trembling hand and gently caressed his bleeding neck. What was going on?
He shakily stood up and his eyes widened in horror as he realized that the straight pathway he was on, was a 'road'. No less then a metre away a black shadow was rushing towards him.
He only had just enough time to realize that it was a speeder with no headlights on before it slammed into him.
****Uhm, sorry about the cliffy! It appears, i'm beginning to realise where to put them huh? Sorry!! Review and tell me how much you hare cliffies, because i sure do!