The first of the assailants leapt easily over the courtyard wall from its perch high on the stone castling.
"Go for help, Lena." Jaster commanded dryly as two more of the dark silhouettes leapt into view on the wall above.
"But you can't possibly …" She started to protest.
"NOW!" He boomed as the first Sith braced and leapt down to the courtyard floor. Lena took a last look, then fled off to the courtyard doors. The Sith saw her, snapped his head back up to his companions and barked an order in a cold, deathly voice.
"Kill her."
"No!" Mereel bellowed, charging the first Sith, his red blade gleaming dangerously in the jungle darkness. The Sith, caught off guard by what he would have assumed a mere student's speed, had barely the time to dodge the killing blow and ignite his own blade.
"You're a quick one, Jedi student; but your rashness will betray you to me." The black form laughed the surprise off of his face and replaced it with a sneer as he leapt in for the attack.
Parrying the blows of his opponent easily, the Mandalorian chanced a look over his shoulder to look for Lena and the other Sith. She was running, but impossibly slowly, as the two Sith from the wall seemed to be floating in slow motion down from the high wall. His head snapped back to the Sith in front of him, but the enemy hadn't seemed to have moved an inch, Jaster saw with surprise. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, everything being affected except for himself. Slashing with a shrug upwards and across the Sith, Jaster barely noticed the unearthly scream rip from the agonized enemy as he sank slowly to his knees and dropped his lightsaber. He had reached and locked up with the next two Sith as the first enemy hit the ground, his stomach torn open in a grisly, burnt wound, and he stopped his writhing to lay still.
"You'll pay for that, Jedi!" Hissed the nearest Sith locking blades with him. The other watched Lena for a split second before turning back to glare hatefully at Mereel. Lena was safe, but now he had two Sith to fend off and an eternity before the fastest of the Masters could get here. Even worse, his sudden burst of speed appeared to be wearing off as the two enemies closed in on him, their vicious slashes and swings deflecting thunderously off his own red blade. Backing up slightly, Mereel spied a decorative column behind him and to his left. Leaping suddenly between defensive strokes, he back flipped to level his feet on the tip of the temple column to gaze down at the furious Sith below.
"Coward!" The first shouted.
"Fool of a Jedi! Jump from here!" the second commanded, and the nearer Sith leapt up onto his partner's shoulders as he force pushed his feet upwards and, combined with the leap, propelled the Sith to the column's top.
Smiling mischievously, the Mandalorian threw a hand out felt the airborne enemy's presence, swinging his hand back over his head from his chest, summoning as much of the force as he could to jerk the Sith's unsuspecting form. The flailing body went flying high and well over the Mandalorian's perch on the stone pillar. The robed humanoid flew out of control, spinning and waving his arms frantically as he screamed in terror and landed with a sickening crunch on the stone plaza floor far away. He didn't move as his lightsaber cracked down next to him and sputtered dead.
Surprised, the final Sith stared, mouth agape and working in hateful spasms at his dead companions and then up to Mereel, who, though physically exhausted and mentally drained, motioned arrogantly with his hand for him to bring it on.
"Jaster!" cried a voice from the Academy walls, "They're on their way! Please be alive …" It was Lena, Mereel knew, as the Sith's expressions of fury shifted more to fear and outright panic as the girl ran back into the courtyard, her purple lightsaber casting an eerie light over the flinching Sith.
"I'll, I'll finish you later, you little bastard!" He stammered nervously, and leapt out of sight over the wall. Jaster jumped then down from the pillar and landed hard, his knees buckling weakly underneath him as he rolled over his shoulders and made to play off his exhaustion and fear. Lena had spotted him by then, however, and ran quickly up to his crouching, breathless form, her eyes scanning the darkened courtyard for danger. He felt her presence reach out to him to see if he was injured, and saw her surprised and happy expression at finding him in one piece.
"By the Hutts, I thought they'd …" Then she screamed as she saw first the Sith by the wall, his cold hands clutching his open stomach as his body lay slack against the high wall. She gasped again when she spied the next the broken and crumpled form of the second intruder across the courtyard; his head and neck tilted at an unnatural angle and his body unmoving. "You … you …"
"I killed them." Jaster sighed tiredly, snapping his lightsaber into his belt. "They were going to kill you." He told her, seeing her shoulders slacken and begin to shudder as she looked away from the dreadful corpses behind them.
Seeing her frightened and confused, he shook his head wearily; searching for words to explain to a person he was sure had never seen death before. He pulled his helmet off and let it drop with a thud into the grass as he put his arms around her shivering form in the twilight. He saw several Jedi instructors and Masters come tearing out of the upper doors, several leaping down from that height into the courtyard below. Without speaking, Lena ceased her crying gradually into his suit and looked up with still wet eyes into his face; his eyes conveying perhaps a touch too much emotion for his usual taste, but he had just killed two people. He grinned at her reassuringly from under his wispy brown youth's moustache because he didn't know what else to do. She silenced her heavy breaths and looked down and away.
"Your thoughts are so cold, Jaster." She said, still holding onto his shoulders. He thought perhaps he was being too cold, and tried hard to do a thing for her he had done for no one he had ever known.
"Search harder, you will find some warmth …" And as she met his gaze again he concentrated as hard as he could on the happiest thing he could think of with her so close to him in his arms.
As he opened his eyes Lena's face was close to his, and he had barely the time to close them again as their lips met and she made from his thought a reality.
"This is no minor event, young Mereel," Master Orleans was telling the Mandalorian the next morning, "To take on three Sith unaided is not the sort of recklessness we strive to teach here at the Academy!"
Jaster sighed wearily as the early morning stretched into the day with no end to the interrogation in sight. Azekel sat behind the Master's circle and would in turn no doubt stand to raise his own objections to Mereel's 'recklessness' as the young man tried wearily to explain.
"I was meditating, then Lena and I spoke briefly before we sensed the disturbance in the force," He began, recounting for the millionth time his actions, and seeing Lena nod approvingly to the frowning Orleans, who cut in.
"You sensed them? Both of you?"
"Jaster felt it first, I believe; he stood and had his lightsaber on just as I felt their hatred." Lena said, and Jaster nodded as Orleans turned back to him.
"How did you know it was the presence of the Sith you sensed?" He demanded skeptically. Jaster grinned to spite the disapproving Jedi Master.
"If you recall, Master Orleans, the circumstances in which I myself was, discovered, I think you would not disagree I know something about how the dark side feels." Orleans' eyes narrowed perceptibly as Jakome smirked at what must have felt like to him the understatement of the century.
"Yes, I suppose you would." Was the reply as Master Skywalker motioned for Jaster to continue.
"I saw them on the wall, and I told Lena to run for help," He narrated the events flatly, "When the first of them ordered the others to kill her, I …" He trailed off, stopping suddenly.
"You what?" Orleans fairly snapped, but Skywalker spoke up quietly, reassuringly.
"What happened next, Jaster?"
"After that I wasn't going to sit around and let it happen." He said, then continued, "I charged the first Sith, the one who was by the wall … and I killed him."
Several of the crowd of Jedi Masters and Knights grimaced as Mereel next outlined his killing of the other Sith, and Mereel got the distinct impression that, despite their being full Jedi, many of them had probably never been in a real, life or death lightsaber duel before. Only recently had the Sith reemerged, and Jaster noted that in his scanning of the room only Skywalker, Jakome and a scant few other instructors kept straight faces throughout his detailing of the fighting and events. Those were the ones who had either been around long enough to have fought some of the first new Sith, or, as in Skywalker's exclusive case, had tangled with the dreadful Darth Vader and the Emperor himself; and won, as evidenced by the battered lightsaber hanging from Mereel's own belt.
As the interrogation came to a close Master Skywalker and the council dismissed Mereel and Lena to their dormitories for the Jedi council to meet and discuss this recent surge of audacious Sith activity. On the way out, Mereel saw Azekel over his shoulder make as if to follow him to the hallway, but the Knight was called back to the council room as the doors shut and Mereel made his way to his room with a quick sideward grin to Lena in the opposite elevator.