Disclaimer: I own none of this. Star Wars belongs to George Lucas and
Company.
The two women were locked into a fierce struggle, neither willing to back down. Slowly but surely Jaina forced her lightsaber up, shoving Callista back away from Mara.
Carefully Callista circled around Jaina. "Back to save your weak little Master, Jaina," she taunted. "Do you see how easily she falls? She is no Jedi. Mara Jade isn't even worth-"
Jaina's amethyst blade flashed through the air, cutting Callista off as she tried to parry Jaina's blows. "You-" Jaina's lightsaber crashed into Callista's amphistaff. She pivoted into the powerful strike and snapped her elbow hard into Callista's face. "Are-" She forced Callista to jump back as she swept her lightsaber towards Callista's legs. "Wrong." Her purple blade swept back up and slammed into Callista's amphistaff with enough momentum to knock the other woman off balance.
Callista's laughter echoed through the room. "You think you can defeat me so easily."
Jaina could feel the Dark side gathering around Callista. Even Jag, who had moved to check on Mara once Jaina had lured Callista away, could feel its presence in the air. Jaina simply looked at Callista in disgust. "Please not this again. We've already proven that I can dispel whatever you can create."
"The power of the Dark side is beyond what you can imagine. You can do nothing to stop me."
Jaina didn't waste the time to point out that she had already stopped Callista twice and that she had more than enough experience with the Dark side, herself. She switched her lightsaber to a one handed grip. With the other hand, she slipped loose one of her vibroblades. In a blur of motion, the vibroblade flew towards Callista. It stopped inches from her face and hung in mid air. Callista's expression was disdainful. Jaina surged towards her, lightsaber raised. Callista didn't move as Jaina quickly covered the two meters between them.
Dark energy bled out from her, channeled away from Callista. As Jaina's lightsaber began its downward descent, Callista screamed a single word. Even in her state of complete focus on her target, Jaina recognized the word as Yuuzhan Vong in origin. Her lightsaber crashed in Callista's amphistaff and then Jaina was spinning away from her at the same moment that Jag shouted a warning from behind her. Before Jaina could even focus on the source of this new threat, she was flung away from them and slammed into the far wall with enough momentum to break the stone like substance and bring it crashing down around her. She lay crumpled on the floor in an unmoving heap.
"Jaina!" Jag's anguished shout was lost in the rest of the noise. In a frenzy of whipping tentacles, a large beast rose out of the recently created hole, shaking off the last of the dirt and flooring that had covered it, as it rose. As one tentacle lashed out towards Mara, Jag quickly pulled the Jedi Master back away from it. He wrapped one arm around Mara's torso, pulling her towards the relative safety of the corner and used the other hand to send a barrage of Charric fire at the giant creature. It didn't even seem to notice.
"Mara," Jag said softly under his breath, "If you're conscious, now would be a really good time to come up with something to kill this thing." He had hardly come prepared to fight something like this, especially not while Callista was stomping around, unchecked in all of her Dark fury.
If the creature hadn't noticed Jag's attack, Callista definitely had. "We meet again, Jagged Fel." She glanced towards Jaina's half buried form. "You seem to have a bad habit of following the wrong people."
Jag didn't reply, he simply aimed his charric at Callista and fired. Callista knocked the first few shots away with the palm of her hand and then seemed to grow bored. With a flick of her hand, she used the Force to rip his charric out of his hand and throw it harmlessly aside.
"It's a shame your girlfriend won't be awake to see this." With another gesture, Jag felt himself rise off of the floor and slam into a wall hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. What had been a gesture of trust between he and Jaina was nothing more than another method to torture him, coming from Callista. She released a burst of Force lightening towards Jag.
He struggled to move, to avoid it, even to fall to the ground several meters below, but he was effectively pinned in place by her Force grip. Jag had no chance to avoid it. The first burst made him forget that he was suspended in the air. The second and third had him writhing in agony as his screams echoed around the large room. Callista smiled at her work. "Or perhaps," she added speculatively, "I'll wait until she wakes up. Then she can watch you suffer."
In her preoccupation with Jag, Callista never noticed a small silver cylinder as it flew across the room. It landed with a comforting slap in the palm of Mara's hand. The Force, which had been surging around the large chamber as Dark battled Light, was drawn subtly towards Mara. Callista never sensed the subtle display of power until it was far too later. The small channels of energy that Mara had carefully been drawing up since the creature had knocked her down, surged through Mara. With almost inhuman speed Mara gained her feet.
Callista was barely able to block Mara's first and second blows. The third sheared the crested head off of her amphistaff. Mara's fourth blow never struck its intended target. Callista moved forward instead of away from Mara, deflecting the lightsaber with the edge of a coufee held in her right hand. The couffee in Callista's left hand found its mark with a sickening noise. Mara staggered in surprise, one hand automatically going to grip the couffee lodged in her abdomen, but didn't falter. Her next thrust, which still had surprising power behind it, found its target with lethal accuracy.
Callista fell to the ground beside Mara in disbelief as her life seeped away from her. "You think you've won, Jade," her voice gurgled with her injuries. "You will never win. You think that I am your sole enemy. You have no idea of the power of what you are truly facing." She twitched a finger towards the beast that somehow seemed more or less dormant now. "I didn't create that or call it forth." Callista laughed, painfully. "He did. He is the ultimate product of the Yuuzhan Vong. You will not escape from him. He will destroy you all." Her insane laughter echoed in the room until her last breath left her.
[hr]
Mara couldn't see anything as she peered into the shadows of the room, examining the destruction that they had created. She could see Jag and Jaina, both sprawled immobile and mostly unconscious on the floor against far walls. It wasn't a sight that inspired hope. She might have killed Callista, but Mara could see her own wound. She could see her blood slipping away despite her best efforts to keep pressure on the wound. If she didn't get medical attention soon, she would die too.
As Mara tried to regain her feet, her mind went to Jaina and Jag. It was impossible to know which one was more severely injured. Jag, however, was closer to her.
"Mara," the voice was distant in her ears. An unsteady hand slipped under her arm, supporting Mara somewhat. "You're injured." Mara could hear the shock in Jaina's voice. It was mixed with fear and disbelief. "Aunt Mara," the voice was more demanding this time.
Mara responded by clenching her hand around the arm supporting her in a vice like grip. She felt Jaina gently lower her back to the ground, and almost fall on top of her, as Jaina stumbled. "Jaina," her hand squeezed Jaina's arm for a moment, stopping her from moving away.
Her niece leaned back towards her. "I'm here, Aunt Mara."
"Call, Kyp. Teara's extracting prisoners," she stumbled over the words.
Jaina nodded, "I will. I am. He already knows that I need help." She looked up to meet Mara's eyes and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "I'll be back. I have to go get Jag."
Even through the haze of her injury, a corner of Mara's mouth lifted up into a shadow of a smile. Despite the dire nature of the circumstances, she could hear it in Jaina's voice. Something had changed between Jaina and Jag. For the better, Mara would guess, just since they had appeared. Mara made a mental note to ask how Jag had gotten to be there, if they ever made it to safety. Her mind wandered for a moment in a barely coherent manner. She barely even noticed as Jaina sat Jag down next to her.
"Mara," Jaina's voice was calling her again, intent on regaining her attention. "Mara, I can't remove the coufee." Jaina's voice was worried. Even in the few moments that she had been gone, Jaina could see how much blood Mara had lost. "I think it would cause more damage if I tried to remove it. Can you manage a healing trance? Help should be on the way."
"Jaina!" Even in her injured state the sudden move by the large creature which had been lurking on the far edges of the room, caught her attention immediately. It seemed to glide across the floor effortlessly, using its numerous powerful tentacles, to approach them. Mara didn't have to use the Force to sense that the creature was furious at being disturbed and threatened.
Jaina pivoted quickly, rising to her feet more easily than Mara would have thought she could after the beating that Callista had inflicted. Jaina's lightsaber cast a pale purple shadow over all three of them as she held it in front of her defensively. A dozen meters away from Jaina, the creature slammed to a stop in mid motion, thrown back as if it had run into a solid durasteel wall. Mara's gaze flickered to Jaina quickly, expecting to see the evidence of such an incredible expenditure of the Force written on Jaina's face. All she found was a look of surprise as Jaina looked back at her.
"Mara did you-"
"It wasn't me."
"It was me." The voice was low, barely carrying to Jaina and Mara. The words were spoken with the harsh accents of the Yuuzhan Vong, but the voice was wrong, lighter and somehow smoother.
Jaina peered into the shadowy corner behind them where the voice had come from. She could see movement, but she couldn't see what was actually happening or identify the speaker. Acting with instinct born of almost a lifetime of Jedi training, Jaina moved quickly so that she was standing between the shadow cloaked being and Mara and Jag.
"Really, is that necessary?" The voice seemed almost genuinely hurt that she wouldn't trust it. "After all I am only here to help you."
In the dim light she could barely make out the sharp gesture that the being made. She whipped back around to face the creature as it gave an earsplitting shriek of agony. Invisible forces- forces that Jaina couldn't sense through the Force- seemed to have caught it. It continued to shriek and its tentacles beat the air, the walls, anything it could find, wildly. In a chilling display, Jaina watched the creature be killed in front of her without a blaster bolt, thermal detonator, lightsaber or any other kind of weapon ever touching it. Jaina turned back to face the being in confusion. Uncertainty was etched on her features.
The being walked out into the light and Jaina's still ignited lightsaber almost slipped through her suddenly nerveless fingers.
"I think my pet had outlived her usefulness don't you?" Yuuzhan Vong growths covered his body and tattooed scars stood out on his face, rendering him almost unrecognizable. His head was covered in long wild hair that matched her own in color and texture. Eyes that matched hers in everyway, except for what lay behind them, bored into her own. "It was time for us to meet again, without any annoying distractions. After all our destinies our bound together, aren't they, sister dear?"
Thank you for all of the reviews everyone. I've enjoyed reading them. Also expect daily posts for a while.
The two women were locked into a fierce struggle, neither willing to back down. Slowly but surely Jaina forced her lightsaber up, shoving Callista back away from Mara.
Carefully Callista circled around Jaina. "Back to save your weak little Master, Jaina," she taunted. "Do you see how easily she falls? She is no Jedi. Mara Jade isn't even worth-"
Jaina's amethyst blade flashed through the air, cutting Callista off as she tried to parry Jaina's blows. "You-" Jaina's lightsaber crashed into Callista's amphistaff. She pivoted into the powerful strike and snapped her elbow hard into Callista's face. "Are-" She forced Callista to jump back as she swept her lightsaber towards Callista's legs. "Wrong." Her purple blade swept back up and slammed into Callista's amphistaff with enough momentum to knock the other woman off balance.
Callista's laughter echoed through the room. "You think you can defeat me so easily."
Jaina could feel the Dark side gathering around Callista. Even Jag, who had moved to check on Mara once Jaina had lured Callista away, could feel its presence in the air. Jaina simply looked at Callista in disgust. "Please not this again. We've already proven that I can dispel whatever you can create."
"The power of the Dark side is beyond what you can imagine. You can do nothing to stop me."
Jaina didn't waste the time to point out that she had already stopped Callista twice and that she had more than enough experience with the Dark side, herself. She switched her lightsaber to a one handed grip. With the other hand, she slipped loose one of her vibroblades. In a blur of motion, the vibroblade flew towards Callista. It stopped inches from her face and hung in mid air. Callista's expression was disdainful. Jaina surged towards her, lightsaber raised. Callista didn't move as Jaina quickly covered the two meters between them.
Dark energy bled out from her, channeled away from Callista. As Jaina's lightsaber began its downward descent, Callista screamed a single word. Even in her state of complete focus on her target, Jaina recognized the word as Yuuzhan Vong in origin. Her lightsaber crashed in Callista's amphistaff and then Jaina was spinning away from her at the same moment that Jag shouted a warning from behind her. Before Jaina could even focus on the source of this new threat, she was flung away from them and slammed into the far wall with enough momentum to break the stone like substance and bring it crashing down around her. She lay crumpled on the floor in an unmoving heap.
"Jaina!" Jag's anguished shout was lost in the rest of the noise. In a frenzy of whipping tentacles, a large beast rose out of the recently created hole, shaking off the last of the dirt and flooring that had covered it, as it rose. As one tentacle lashed out towards Mara, Jag quickly pulled the Jedi Master back away from it. He wrapped one arm around Mara's torso, pulling her towards the relative safety of the corner and used the other hand to send a barrage of Charric fire at the giant creature. It didn't even seem to notice.
"Mara," Jag said softly under his breath, "If you're conscious, now would be a really good time to come up with something to kill this thing." He had hardly come prepared to fight something like this, especially not while Callista was stomping around, unchecked in all of her Dark fury.
If the creature hadn't noticed Jag's attack, Callista definitely had. "We meet again, Jagged Fel." She glanced towards Jaina's half buried form. "You seem to have a bad habit of following the wrong people."
Jag didn't reply, he simply aimed his charric at Callista and fired. Callista knocked the first few shots away with the palm of her hand and then seemed to grow bored. With a flick of her hand, she used the Force to rip his charric out of his hand and throw it harmlessly aside.
"It's a shame your girlfriend won't be awake to see this." With another gesture, Jag felt himself rise off of the floor and slam into a wall hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. What had been a gesture of trust between he and Jaina was nothing more than another method to torture him, coming from Callista. She released a burst of Force lightening towards Jag.
He struggled to move, to avoid it, even to fall to the ground several meters below, but he was effectively pinned in place by her Force grip. Jag had no chance to avoid it. The first burst made him forget that he was suspended in the air. The second and third had him writhing in agony as his screams echoed around the large room. Callista smiled at her work. "Or perhaps," she added speculatively, "I'll wait until she wakes up. Then she can watch you suffer."
In her preoccupation with Jag, Callista never noticed a small silver cylinder as it flew across the room. It landed with a comforting slap in the palm of Mara's hand. The Force, which had been surging around the large chamber as Dark battled Light, was drawn subtly towards Mara. Callista never sensed the subtle display of power until it was far too later. The small channels of energy that Mara had carefully been drawing up since the creature had knocked her down, surged through Mara. With almost inhuman speed Mara gained her feet.
Callista was barely able to block Mara's first and second blows. The third sheared the crested head off of her amphistaff. Mara's fourth blow never struck its intended target. Callista moved forward instead of away from Mara, deflecting the lightsaber with the edge of a coufee held in her right hand. The couffee in Callista's left hand found its mark with a sickening noise. Mara staggered in surprise, one hand automatically going to grip the couffee lodged in her abdomen, but didn't falter. Her next thrust, which still had surprising power behind it, found its target with lethal accuracy.
Callista fell to the ground beside Mara in disbelief as her life seeped away from her. "You think you've won, Jade," her voice gurgled with her injuries. "You will never win. You think that I am your sole enemy. You have no idea of the power of what you are truly facing." She twitched a finger towards the beast that somehow seemed more or less dormant now. "I didn't create that or call it forth." Callista laughed, painfully. "He did. He is the ultimate product of the Yuuzhan Vong. You will not escape from him. He will destroy you all." Her insane laughter echoed in the room until her last breath left her.
[hr]
Mara couldn't see anything as she peered into the shadows of the room, examining the destruction that they had created. She could see Jag and Jaina, both sprawled immobile and mostly unconscious on the floor against far walls. It wasn't a sight that inspired hope. She might have killed Callista, but Mara could see her own wound. She could see her blood slipping away despite her best efforts to keep pressure on the wound. If she didn't get medical attention soon, she would die too.
As Mara tried to regain her feet, her mind went to Jaina and Jag. It was impossible to know which one was more severely injured. Jag, however, was closer to her.
"Mara," the voice was distant in her ears. An unsteady hand slipped under her arm, supporting Mara somewhat. "You're injured." Mara could hear the shock in Jaina's voice. It was mixed with fear and disbelief. "Aunt Mara," the voice was more demanding this time.
Mara responded by clenching her hand around the arm supporting her in a vice like grip. She felt Jaina gently lower her back to the ground, and almost fall on top of her, as Jaina stumbled. "Jaina," her hand squeezed Jaina's arm for a moment, stopping her from moving away.
Her niece leaned back towards her. "I'm here, Aunt Mara."
"Call, Kyp. Teara's extracting prisoners," she stumbled over the words.
Jaina nodded, "I will. I am. He already knows that I need help." She looked up to meet Mara's eyes and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "I'll be back. I have to go get Jag."
Even through the haze of her injury, a corner of Mara's mouth lifted up into a shadow of a smile. Despite the dire nature of the circumstances, she could hear it in Jaina's voice. Something had changed between Jaina and Jag. For the better, Mara would guess, just since they had appeared. Mara made a mental note to ask how Jag had gotten to be there, if they ever made it to safety. Her mind wandered for a moment in a barely coherent manner. She barely even noticed as Jaina sat Jag down next to her.
"Mara," Jaina's voice was calling her again, intent on regaining her attention. "Mara, I can't remove the coufee." Jaina's voice was worried. Even in the few moments that she had been gone, Jaina could see how much blood Mara had lost. "I think it would cause more damage if I tried to remove it. Can you manage a healing trance? Help should be on the way."
"Jaina!" Even in her injured state the sudden move by the large creature which had been lurking on the far edges of the room, caught her attention immediately. It seemed to glide across the floor effortlessly, using its numerous powerful tentacles, to approach them. Mara didn't have to use the Force to sense that the creature was furious at being disturbed and threatened.
Jaina pivoted quickly, rising to her feet more easily than Mara would have thought she could after the beating that Callista had inflicted. Jaina's lightsaber cast a pale purple shadow over all three of them as she held it in front of her defensively. A dozen meters away from Jaina, the creature slammed to a stop in mid motion, thrown back as if it had run into a solid durasteel wall. Mara's gaze flickered to Jaina quickly, expecting to see the evidence of such an incredible expenditure of the Force written on Jaina's face. All she found was a look of surprise as Jaina looked back at her.
"Mara did you-"
"It wasn't me."
"It was me." The voice was low, barely carrying to Jaina and Mara. The words were spoken with the harsh accents of the Yuuzhan Vong, but the voice was wrong, lighter and somehow smoother.
Jaina peered into the shadowy corner behind them where the voice had come from. She could see movement, but she couldn't see what was actually happening or identify the speaker. Acting with instinct born of almost a lifetime of Jedi training, Jaina moved quickly so that she was standing between the shadow cloaked being and Mara and Jag.
"Really, is that necessary?" The voice seemed almost genuinely hurt that she wouldn't trust it. "After all I am only here to help you."
In the dim light she could barely make out the sharp gesture that the being made. She whipped back around to face the creature as it gave an earsplitting shriek of agony. Invisible forces- forces that Jaina couldn't sense through the Force- seemed to have caught it. It continued to shriek and its tentacles beat the air, the walls, anything it could find, wildly. In a chilling display, Jaina watched the creature be killed in front of her without a blaster bolt, thermal detonator, lightsaber or any other kind of weapon ever touching it. Jaina turned back to face the being in confusion. Uncertainty was etched on her features.
The being walked out into the light and Jaina's still ignited lightsaber almost slipped through her suddenly nerveless fingers.
"I think my pet had outlived her usefulness don't you?" Yuuzhan Vong growths covered his body and tattooed scars stood out on his face, rendering him almost unrecognizable. His head was covered in long wild hair that matched her own in color and texture. Eyes that matched hers in everyway, except for what lay behind them, bored into her own. "It was time for us to meet again, without any annoying distractions. After all our destinies our bound together, aren't they, sister dear?"
Thank you for all of the reviews everyone. I've enjoyed reading them. Also expect daily posts for a while.