Shadows of Heroines and Heroes
.:Judgment and Battle Part 2:.
Jaden swung his blood-red lightsaber with the utmost speed and accuracy and neatly severed Kail's cyan double lightsaber in half. One end then faltered and died, the other end was damaged and was now only at half power.
With another display of speed, Jaden pulled his own single lightsaber back and drove the blade into Kail's stomach.
Padme screamed in fury and anguish as Kail fell to his knees. Jaden, his lips curling into a dark smile, removed his lightsaber from Kail's body and backed away.
Kail screamed, not just the pain from the lightsaber blade, his stomach acids were burning away at him from the gaping hole Jaden had made.
Padme reached to her belt and withdrew one of her lightsabers. She ignited the crimson blade and lunged for Jaden, her eyes burning with hatred.
"Alison, snap out of it!"
Rain's voice got Alison's attention as did the hand slapping Alison's face, knocking the enraged girl back into Rick.
"What did you do that for?"
Alison's hand shot out and grasped Rain's throat in a tight grip, choking her best friend without a second thought.
"She must die!" Alison spat out, her eyes changing to the colour of a Sith as Rain's face turned blue in front of her, their faces almost touching each other.
"Fool! Distracted as ever!" A laugh caused Alison to drop Rain. She fell gasping to the ground, Rick at her side, talking rapidly into his comlink as Alison followed up to meet the Master, still standing on nothing.
"Look at you," the Master snickered openly, "you have resurrected yourself in the body of a sixteen year old girl, instead of a proper Sith Lord or Jedi. Someone foolish enough to harbour you, dear daughter."
"I'll live longer in a younger body and this young girl is not as helpless as you have decreed, Mother. You do not realize who her mother was, do you, Mother?" The rough voice still issued from Alison's mouth and as she spat at the Master, a grin stole across her face.
"I think I'll let you see just how powerful Stareth's daughter is." A hollow laugh echoed as the Master gasped in sudden recognition.
"Stareth's daughter? No, she, Revan, Revan and Malak died."
"Not Malak's daugher, that would have been Kari, who I know we are well acquainted with. No, this is Onasi and Stareth's dauhger. Enjoy, Mother, she'll be the last thing you'll ever see."
"What, what's going on?" Alison looked up with a confused look on her face and saw the Master in front of her.
"No!" Alison shouted and called her lightsabers back to her, Rain and Rick's falling to the ground as Alison clutched her double bladed lightsaber in her hands.
"You'll die before you could hope to save them." The Master snarled and pointed a hand towards Rick and Rain far below them on the ground.
"This isn't over yet." Alison warned the dark master as she jumped off the invisible ledge and back towards the ground.
The dark master smiled and looked on at Alison.
"Oh you'll wish it had been, you'll wish it had been."
Jaden staggered back under Padme's vicious attack against him, her crimson lightsaber a blur as she swung and struck and stabbed at him.
Then, without warning, Jaden suddenly deactivated his lightsaber and raised his hands that blasted volts of cyan-blue electricity.
At first, Padme was able to catch the lightning in her lightsaber blade. In fact, it started to bounce back to Jaden, but it seemed to enter his body and simply cease to exist.
Then the lightning snaked its way into Padme's lightsaber hilt and the blade faltered and died. But the lightning continued, and it surrounded Padme and began coursing through her body, lifting her up off the ground.
And something else was happening. As the lightning emitted from Jaden's hands, he started to change. His skin paled, and then began to turn grey. He appeared to grow older and his face changed into a much older man's.
His white-blonde hair became a grizzly mane of grey hair. And his seemingly innocent green eyes grew into bloodshot eyes with black pupils like a beast.
Padme's eyes widened in horror, horror that quickly fuelled her anger further. At first it seemed Kail's cousin killed him, now it was apparent that some shape shifting freak killed Kail.
This anger gave her the strength to feed on the Dark Side power, rather then be harmed by it. As she did this, the black and red tattoos slowly became visible again, signifying the spectre that had taken possession of her mind and body.
"What! What is happening? No Jedi can do that!" Jaden hissed, recoiling fromher.
"You think me a Jedi?" Padme hissed. To demonstrate how unlike a Jedi she was, she started to contain the lightning into a large sphere of dark side energy and lightning, and blasted it back at Jaden.
Thankfully, Rick and Alison and the others were a little too distracted to see her display of power.
"We've got to get out of here!" Rick shouted over the gale and Rain rolled her eyes at him.
"You think?" Rain said in his mind with the Force.
Her throat was still recovering from Alison's attack, though Rain refused to believe that it was Alison who had done it. The eyes, the voice, her mannerisms, they all spelled one thing, Sith possession.
"Rick!" Alison's shout echoed in his ear. "Get Rain to the ship and cover your eyes!" Rick grasped Rain around her waist and hauled her upright.
"What about you?" Rick hollered back, over the increasing wind.
"Just do it!" Alison shouted back as she raised her lightsaber and twirled the double cyan blade above her head, grinning eerily as the dark Master stopped short a few meters away from her.
The Dark Master raised a single hand and spoke in an ominous voice as Rick and Rain covered their eyes.
"Your friends will die first... And then you will suffer."
Jaden was struck by the sphere composed of the lightning Padme had generated.
But Padme wasn't done with that. She was just beginning.
"Time to turn the tables." She raised her hands and the Sith Spectre energized her with Dark Force powers, and a blast of sharp violet lightning launched from her fingers.
"Go on, kill me!" Jaden shouted. Upon hearing these words, Padme suddenly ended the lightning attack. Just when he thought her Jedi instincts had gotten through, Jaden felt a claw like grip around his throat and, try as he might, he couldn't remove it.
Padme smirked as she watched Jaden struggle to escape the grip she had on his throat. She raised one of her hands and pulled it toward her, dragging Jaden along the ground by the grip on his throat.
"Death is far too easy a punishment for the crime you committed!" She snapped. Again, just as he was about to die from strangulation, she released him, and then, with speed to rival the Lady Revan, Padme's blue lightsaber had erupted from the end of its hilt and Jaden was suddenly a limbless body.
Her robes now splashed with the Sith apprentice's blood, and her face almost unrecognizable under the dark tattoos, Padme still refused to let Jaden die.
She now suspended Jaden in the air in front of her, blood pouring from the stumps that had once been his limps, and was pondering what painful way to kill him.
She decided she would electrocute him and then strangle him until the powerless Sith eyes faded into a death glaze.
His screams could hardly be heard over the thunder in the sky above, but what she could hear was music to her ears.
Then, when she sensed he was almost gone, she halted the lightning once more, and lifted her hand, curling the fingers just slightly and encircling Jaden's throat.
Moments later, Jaden was dead. Narrowing her eyes, Padme hurled the charred, torn and bruised corpse through the air and away from their present location.
Alison grinned.
"Not if I can help it. Take this, Sith scum!"
She ran straight at the Dark Master, raising her blade to seemingly stab the woman through her stomach as the dark master brought her own weapon to block and slashed through empty space as Alison leaped up in the air and sliced off the master's head with a single laugh and hiss.
Alison hit the ground and walked away, leaving the headless corpse smoking on the ground, various limbs still twitching. She stooped to pick up the lightsaber the dark master had only shortly ago used.
"And so the circle of life completes itself with death." Alison spat on the ground as her eyes blazed with power, the dark energies gathering around the dark master increasing.
"Alison! We've got to get to the ship, come on!" Rick appeared out of nowhere, and grabbed her arm pulling her towards the ship as the dark master's body exploded.
"Alison, what have you done?" Rick gasped hoarsely as they sat on the floor, exhausted yet alive.
"I don't know, Rick, I don't know." Alison whispered brokenly, staring at Rain's still form in a daze. "I don't know."
Padme fell to her knees beside Kail, her face tattoos back to the normal pale pink and blue. His face was pale, the stomach, groin and chest of his robes were soaked in blood, and his eyes were blank and staring.
And yet, as darkness fell around them, Padme felt a tiny flicker of life within him, and she felt a great power stir within her. Not of the Dark Side or of the Light, and yet of both at the same time.
Through the Force, Padme took hold of what small flicker of life was left in Kail, and breathed new life into it, her own life.
And as Kail's life strengthened and Padme's weakened. Padme wondered if Bastila had felt the same exhilaration and pain she was feeling, when she had saved Revan after Malak's betrayal.
"You nearly killed her, you idiot." Torne snarled and pushed Alison away from his sister. "Get away from her! Get off the ship! You don't belong here, bloody Sith!" Alison felt the tears well up in her eyes.
"No, I'm not a Sith. I don't know what happened to Rain. Pl- please Torne, I just want to help."
"HELP?" Torne shouted, his face turning red with anger. "You're the reason she's dying in the first place! You're a Sith, Alison, it's in your blood, never figured it take this long for your true colours to show!"
"NO! I am not a Sith! And it's not in my blood, my mother never turned to the dark side!" Alison starred at Torne in horror. "I, I, I'm-"
"A liar, Alison, you're a murder and a liar!"
"No."
Padme and Kail were found not far from where Alison had killed the dark master as Kevin and Kinraar searched for their friends.
"So why is it that every time we land somewhere, Alison, Rain, Rick, Padme, and Kail always seem to get the most fun out of our misadventures?" Kevin joked as he lifted Kail onto the med sled and Kinraar lifted Padme into her arms, carefully cradling the unconsciousness girl.
"Would you enjoy being bashed and beaten like this?" Kinraar asked Kevin who shook his head.
"No, but getting out of the ship every now and then would be good for us, instead of repairing it." He rolled his eyes as they entered the ship and headed to the med bay. "I mean, it's only so long before HK and JAINA will start to make death threats with us organic meatbags always onboard the ship, I even heard that Grandma made a point of having your uncle come out every once and a while."
Kinraar laughed, though it was more of a growl at Kevin's statement.
"She did that and more, I doubt we'll go to Kashyyyk though I'd dearly love to go back there sometime."
"Why?" Kevin asked as he hooked up extra IVs to Kail so he wouldn't die from the massive shock of blood loss.
"Because the Ebon Hawk is the only ship that would be allowed to land there, unless my Uncle has made changes to the law there and our parents would be able to trace us easily."
"Oh, right!" Kevin shook his head and looked over at Padme in the secondary bed besides Kail. "She's going to be alright?"
Kinraar finished hooking Padme up to the life support system and nodded in reply.
Before either one of the two could say anything else a shout echoed through the ship. Kinraar cocked her head as Kevin turned around.
"That's Torne!" He said sharply and then the two of them were off running towards the direction of the shouting, which was increasing in volume.
By this time everyone else on the ship had come to see what the shouting was about and what they saw surprised them.
Alison was trembling, as she backed up against the bulkhead behind her, Torne his face red with anger and Rain lying on the bunk, sleeping off the damage she had sustained in the fight earlier.
"What's going on here?" Kevin demanded as Rick stepped forward and placed his hand on Alison's shoulder.
"She tried to kill Rain, she's turning into one of the Sith, we should kill her so we don't have to worry about her later!" Torne ranted as the other youths looked wide-eyed at the young boy.
"There is no reason for this, Torne, you would be best to stop now." Even though Kinraar held no life debt to Alison, she was protective of her Uncle's life debt family and this was no different. Rick looked at Kevin who shook his head.
"He's not going to calm down."
"What are we going to do?" Rick asked in a low voice. "You know him better than I do."
Kevin nodded. "Get her out of here and we'll deal with Torne and keep him distracted."
Rick nodded and pulled his outer robe off and wrapped it around the still shaking Alison and gently coaxed her towards the door and out into the main hold, making their way to the communications room.
"Alison, Ali, listen to me." Rick sat in front of the shaking girl and grasped her hands lightly. "You're fine, don't listen to what Torne said, okay?"
"But, he, he said-" Alison stuttered as she looked at Rick, all her barriers stripped before him.
Rick cupped her face in one hand and smiled softly.
"My mother once told me about a dream that your mom had one night. She said the exact same thing to your mother and that was not to believe everything that other people said."
He was silent for a moment.
"It was like this, how you're acting now, similar and it worked."
Alison stared at Rick, lost for a moment before she realized that with the impish grin on his face and the lights glinting down on his brown hair, he looked, well, handsome really.
"Rick-" She started to say and then stopped when he frowned. She closed her eyes and pulled him closer to her, as she hugged him, seeking refuge in the only thing close to her right now.
Rick didn't know how he ended up holding Alison in a hug, almost kissing her, but he did. He sighed and leaned back, Alison cuddled in the crook of his arm, leaning on his chest as she slept, breathing softly.
He picked up the small datapad she had slipped into his robe's inner pocket and activated it, but saw nothing expect the single word, Manaan. Sighing, Rick placed it back in his pocket and keyed a message to HK and JAINA, telling them to plot a course to Manaan.
He leaned back into his chair, careful not to wake Alison up as he looked down at her, watching the light catch on her hair, tinting it blue black in some parts. She was beautiful...
He smiled softly and tilted his head back and closed his eyes, falling asleep in moments.
Finally quiet could be heard on the Hawk as it soared through hyperspace, everyone except for the droids sleeping.
JAINA's eyes glowed as she looked at HK, and they glowed with pleasure as HK cleaned his rifle.
They would make the perfect match, just the two of them…
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