Hiya all. Chappie 2 is here now: Guess who's coming for dinner. I've been trying to make it as long as I can, and this is the result.
: Looks at lawyers waving with their court orders : Oh yeah, I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS! ONLY IF I CREATED THEM!
Chapter 2: Guess who's coming over?
Absolute silence...
Except for the wind rushing through her hair and the grass. The plains of Dantooine were a magnificent sight at dawn, or at the end of the day, because of the way the red-orange sunlight seemed to give everything a sort of soft glow which strengthened the feeling of extacy one could get from feeling the soft grass between the feet, seeing the iriaz graze and the kath hounds play, and of course how the strange fish like creatures flew overhead. It was all so.. so... harmonic.
She felt an iriaz pushing against her back, and knowing she was standing on it's grazing spot, she gently moved aside.
Those creatures packed quite a punch if you provoked them, so it's best to get out of their way. Riana learned that the hard way.
A few years before she went to fight in the Mandalorian wars, she encountered an iriaz while looking for a young padawan named Juhani. When she tried to get past it, it wouldn't let her. But she of course, being as rebellious as she ever was, tried to get past them in every way possible without hurting it. She tried to run past it, push it aside, jump over it, roll under him to get there, NOTHING did the trick.
So she came up with a bold plan. And probably the most idiotic plan ever.
She made some distance between them, took a sprint as the iriaz prepared to kick her away with its feet, and just as it tried to kick she slowed her pace until it got back on its feet, jumped and landed on its back. Bad, BAD IDEA.
The creature violently shook and jumped to get its driver off of him. Riana had the time of her life trying to calm it. And she succeded.
But that was then.
Riana left the plains and went back to the enclave, which wasn't that far away.
When she looked at the building, she saw lots of ships leaving, people running away, and then she heard a humming sound.
There it was, a huge ship appearing out of nowhere, so collossal it covered the entire enclave. But the humming was increasing, steadily but noticeable. She saw Jedi leaving the enclave, entering the enclave, this wasn't good. She saw something light up on the underside of the ship. It looked like a turbolaser was loading.
Wait, a...TURBOLASER?
She had mere seconds to get out of there. She ran from the courtyards to the river near the enclave and took a dive. She heard the laser fire, people screaming to hurry, and then the explosion followed.
She stood up and looked around. She didn't believe what she saw.
Bodies littering the ground, most of them burned heavily. The cry of a dying woman in the distance as Sith fighters paved the way for the invasion transports.
She ran as far away as she could, she ran into the fields where she hid in the grass.
She turned around to look if there were any other people out there fleeing for the predators. Instead, she ended up looking in the bloodied face of Master Vrook.
"Do you now see what you have done? Do you now see what happened when you decided to help Revan in her quest for power?" She couldn't look at him while he talked. She felt so lonely, so afraid. She turned around, only to find the other masters to have surrounded her.
Vandar spoke very softly, but then, he suddenly said it out loud;"You have betrayed us. You showed us to the Sith. You are a traitor." The word echoed in her mind, traitor, traitor, traitor.
She couldn't take it anymore. And just as she was about to scream, she heard a soft and soothing voice.
"There is no emotion, there is peace." She decided to join in.
"There is no ignorance, there is kowledge."
"There is no passion, there is serenity."
"There is no chaos, there is harmony." She felt it beginning to work. The ghosts from the past were blurring away. The voice said the last sentence.
"There is no death, there is only the Force."
She couldn't help resist the thought of adding something.
"There is only love to defeat the Dark Side."
Everything was gone, she faded into darkness...
Riana soon realized she had woken up. She tried to get up, banging her head against the bunk in the process. She just couldn't get used to these bunks.
"I did not know that last sentence was also part of it." She turned her head to see Visas sitting on the floor.
"You've had a fever for the last two weeks. You did not improve until yesterday."
Two weeks? I must've been out cold. She thought.
"I take it we're still at Correllia?" Riana asked.
"Yes. We managed to get supplies from an outpost nearby. The repairs are almost complete. We should be allowed to leave next week."
"Where's everyone else?"
"They are at the local cantina, wasting hard-earned credits on games of pazaak."
Riana cracked a smile at Visas, who smiled back. That suprised Riana a bit.
"That's your first laugh ever since you came onboard, you know?" She said.
Visas stood up, and walked toward her.
"I owe it to you. You gave my life meaning again. For that, I thank you."
Riana was feeling much better already, or it could just be that the force is kicking in again, but who cared? "Lets go find the rest." She said. "I'm dying for a drink anyways."
Mira loved this place, it was everything Nar Shaddaa had and better, because it didn't have all the nasty thugs and that sort of thing.
Her stomach felt like the huge waterworld Manaan, if she had on more drink it would pop open and all her guts would spill out.
But she didn't mind. For her it was a small price to pay for winning from that overexcessively greedy shutta called Sajana. She had been challenged to a game of Peragus dancing, which of course had nothing to do with Peragus. At all. She didn't even know what it was until it was too late. They both had to drink Tarisian Ale, which she knows can make you quite loose. The second thing was to make their way over a rope to the other side of the bar, drink another Tarisian Ale, and go back to the other side of the bar again.
She had won several times, But she raised the stakes so high this time that if she losed, the Ebon Hawk would go to Sajana.
A loud bang sounded the begin of the game. She balanced herself as well as she could and wnet across the rope just as fast as that damned woman did. She gulped the Tarisian Ale right down her throat and made her way over the rope again. She was almost there, but Sajana was taking the lead. Mira tried even harder to get there, and she made some very dangerous steps. As she moved closer, Sajana seemed to have some trouble standing on her feet. Mira took advantage of that, fastened her pace and slowly came closer to Sajana. Mira felt her foot suddenly slipping from the rope and there she was, hanging upside down.
Sajana laughed, but lost her balance in the process and hanged upside down too.
The race had become massively exciting. Mira tried to get going by crossing her legs over eachother and pulling herself forward with her arms. Sajana did the same thing.
Mira was getting closer and closer, but Sajana was stil faster.
Mira lost.
Well, there goes the Ebon Hawk. She thought.
"It is over!" The host said, "The game is over! Sajana the Unbelievable has won!".
"Well done, kiddo. But you are no match for a girl like me. The ship please."
Mira was desperate to not lose the ship. She thought she would win.
"How about a second match? But this time we'll do it my way."
Sajana looked at her with a determined look.
"Very well. So, what sort of game are we talking about?"
Mira grinned. Now its MY turn to get to you!
"Oh, just wait and see..."
Atton and the Disciple had gone to a small pazaak den not far from the cantina. Atton thought it might be good for the Disciple to do something else than to hover around a sick woman. Atton thought he could teach him to play pazaak. Atton was seeing only now that that was an impossible mission.
"I throw in the seven, that gives me twenty, so I win again."
Since the Disciple had alot of skill at this game.
Atton stopped playing about an hour ago because he had already lost a hundred credits to the Disciple. What happened after that was more enjoyable.
The Diciple had asked to Atton how he was able to beat everyone in three or four moves.
In exchange Atton would get half of the winnings, so he told him.
Right now he was going to get at least... five plus five... seven plus... keep the zero in mind...
About 367,810 credits.
He enjoyed seeing all the players crumble under the stress, as they enjoyed seeing him be humiliated by the Disciple. Definitely karma of the Force.
The last player had already left the den, so they went to find Bao-Dur after hiding their credits in the Ebon Hawk.
Apparently, Mr.Disciple wasn't all that blue eyed innocence. He had some... very tasteful pictures on a datapad they found behind the panel in the... No point in telling that.
But anyways, they found Bao at a mechanics 'r us store a few blocks down. Apparently, he had brought T3 and HK with him to get a good scrub and find parts to do some retrofitting on them.
"Hey Bao, how's the search for more parts going? Found a new arm yet?" Atton just couldn't resist rubbing it in his face. Bao-Dur had damged his arm during repairs to the ship. A spark hit him in the arm, sending the hand hold in place by the repulsor beam flying across the ship. "If you think I mind the insults, I don't. And yes, I did find all the parts I need to make a new arm. Now I you could hold this, please."
When Atton took hold of the sack, he almost fell over.
"Bao-Dur, what the hell is in this bag?"
"Parts for the droids and my arm."
"Look Bao -I'll help you get this stuff to the ship. But after that you'll have to make that arm on the double, 'cause i'm not going to carry this all forever. Disciple, you can help a bit too, you know."
The Disciple looked up immediately. "Ah, yes, of course."
Mandalore, or rather Canderous, enjoyed himself rather well in the Hyperspace sims hall fighting other competitors in the flight sims. He managed to download the specs of a Mandalorian fighter into the program. It wasn't the same as the real thing of course, but close enough.
He and eleven others had begun a frenzy about who could kill the most in ten minutes. At first, he had beaten them with not working up a sweat at all. But that was changing.
More and more experienced players joined in and after a while the only thing he could do was dodge all the missles and blaster fire that was swooshing around his ears.
Right now though, he was no longer the only target at which people seemed to aim.
He was following two Sith fighters and a Republic Cruiser into an asteroid field. Apparently these guys had done their homework, because they seemed to know that by going through dense pockets of frozen gas and igniting it, he could no longer follow them until the explosion that ensued was over.
But he knew better than that. As they went to another one of the pockets, he fired some shots right in front of their fighters, igniting the gas and taking them out.
"Wooohooo! And now for the big finale!"
Canderous could barely hold in his excitement as he came closer to the cruiser. He locked weapons, switched to missles, and then noting.
The weapons systems were disrupted by a jamming signal from the cruiser. They were sending junk through his telemetry.
He switched off his targeting mechanism, and went in to fly overhead of the cruiser. He tried to get as close as he could without scratching the hull, and dumped the missles. He immediately engaged his emergency booster, and watched how the cruiser went out in a huge ball of fire.
After having done that, he no longer felt he needed to stay here, so he got out and went to the announcer to pay for the time he spent there.
He then went into the streets and followed the way back to the ship.
He was still wondering what he was doing here, after reuniting the Mandalorians again. He had no business at all here, and besides, the rest of the clan was waiting for him at Dxun. He wanted to go back to them, but he was more compelled to find out what happened to Revan, his old friend.
Revan... how much I wish I had gone with you... Things are boring here...
All he cared about was finding his own friend, but before that he had forgotten about it all, mostly.
If only he could forget. If only he had never continued the journey with Revan to defeat the Sith.
If only.
Visas had always felt like she didn't belong here, and she also felt she only belonged there where Riana was. There was never a real choice for her, all the decisions were made for her. She couldn't control ANYTHING. Not even the force.
All the things she learned either were introduced to her by accident, or someone forced her to learn it. She always had to combat the overwhelming peruasion of that exiled Jedi.
While she was searhing for Riana, whom she had lost earlier in the chaos on the streets, she found a datapad near the landing bay of the Ebon Hawk.
It seemed to be for Riana, as only her voice could unlock it. She wondered what was on the pad, probably nothing that was important, because else it would had been given to her personally by the messenger.
She searched the entire area with her mind, reaching out for any flicker of force sensitivity she could find.
And at last she did.
She entered a bar called The Kinrath Cave.
She didn't believe her eyes.
The bountyhunter that had accompanied them from Nar Shaddaa was flipping over Tarisian ales and walking over a rope from one side to another. After getting there, she had another one, and then went back again. She looked at Riana.
Pure anger and humiliation. She had better not interfere this time.
What she saw after that, was better to be forgotten...
"Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we present you with more entertainment; a fight in the dueling ring!"
Mira knew that there was no way back now. If she did something wrong, she would die a horrible death after Riana would hear that she gambled away the ship.
"In this corner, whe have a woman that will not give up. Even though the odds are mostly against her; The Black Widow!" That was her name in the dueling ring. She got it at Nar Shaddaa from that squidhead that hired her. She wasn't happy with the name.
"And in this corner, we have a champion in the making, the girl with kolto in her vains; The Healing Angel!" Immediately after the announcer finshed the sentence, people began to give a big applause to her. Mira really had made a bad move.
The signal was given to arm the weapons, and Mira made sure that everything was in order.
Then, about five seconds later, the signal was given.
"Let the match begin!"
Mira barely had the time to duck away from a blaster bolt fired at her from Sajana. She retaliated by shooting a rocket from her wrist launcher, which instead of hit Sajana, hit the floor. She was glad it was a sticky.
Sajana was glued to the floor, and apparently some of the stuff got into her blaster. Mira finally had the chance to finish it off.
She aimed her blaster at her opponent, pulled the trigger,
Nothing.
She had forgotten. She had taken out the energy cell earlier that day. It must still have been at the workbench.
Before she was able to get a grenade out of her pocket, she felt a sharp pain in her stomach.
She was hit by blaster fire.
She fell unconsious.
"...is over! The Healing Angel has won!"
She felt even worse as she had just lost the Ebon Hawk.
"Hey kiddo. You lost. Again. Now show me the ship."
Mira quickly thought of a plan to get herself out of this situation.
"Well, you see, I kinda..."
"MIRA!"
Oops. Seemed she was up and yelling again.
Riana barged into the cantina like she was a Rancor that smelled a Gizka's nest.
She knew she was in trouble now.
"I'll finish that sentence for you, little brat! I oughtta..." seems she was wrong. She looked at the young woman standing behind Mira. She couldn't believe it! She's here? After all these years she's still here?
"Now who do we have here? Look who's coming over?"
Riana quickly changed the look on her face. Now it was filled with frightness.
"You can't be here. You're dead." She knew that she was dead. She was killed by the Sith in the Jedi Civil War.
"Is that what the Council told you? That I'm dead? Or are you just afraid of me? Of what I have become?" Sajana seemed to gesture that they should go outside.
"Mira, we'll handle this later. Get everyone to the ship."
Riana stepped out of the bar. Sajana quickly followed.
As soon as they were out, Riana puched her in the face, causing her to fall onto the street.
"Nice way to treat and old friend." Sajana said.
"You're not an old friend. She died long ago. What is standing here before me is her body, contaminated with Sith docrines." Riana pulled out her lightsaber. It was a double-bladed one, with a cyan colored blade. The crystal that gave it that color came from Manaan, although she had never been there. She found it on the body of a Jedi in the tombs on Korriban.
The dark woman standing before her opened a small pocket on her left leg, and pulled a lightsaber from it. When she ignited it, the blade was unlike anything she had ever seen before.
It was several different colors at the same time, and then it changed into other colors, and again, and again.
Sajana went into a defending stance and said: "You are a Jedi. An abomination to all. I've waited years for you to get what you deserve."
She went in for an attack. Riana blocked her.
"After you left us there to die."
Riana remembered what had happened that day. She left the Jedi Order on Dantooine and joined in the battle against the Mandalorians. After she returned, She heard Dantooine was reduced to a pile of rubble.
She felt Sajana's power in the dark side. She had to do something.
Riana threw her lightsaber at Sajana, making her jump up to avoid getting sliced up in half. Riana then pulled back her lightsaber into her hand and tried to crash the blade into Sajana's skull.
A quick reaction from Sajana spoiled the attack, making Riana lose her balance. Sajana pushed Riana over with the Force.
Riana suddenly couldn't breathe, she couldn't move eighter.
"I see youve practiced, Exile." Sajana said mockingly, "I could kill you right now, but that would spoil all the fun of letting you see the galaxy fall apart. Goodbye." Another figure appeared from behind a corner. She recognised the clothing as that of a Sith apprentice.
As soon as Riana could move, she followed them. But the apprentice held her back using the Force, creating a barrier she couldn't penetrate.
After a while, the barrier dissolved, and she saw a ship leaving the surface. She quickly called Atton on the com.
"Atton, there's a ship heading from the planet's surface. Can you track where it's going?"
"Yeah of course. Tracking it now. It seems to be heading for Korriban. Riana, what the hell is going on?"
"No time to explain that now, I'll see you aboard the Hawk."
She quickly turned her direction, And went back to the Ebon Hawk.
The Fear Of The Force was floating calmly in the vast blueness of hyperspace. Sajana, was filled with rage. Filled with a lust to kill that damned woman. The one who left her there to die, to die a horrible death, all alone.
"Mistress, whe managed to escape undetected. The rest of the fleet is awaiting your command at the ice planet Hoth." The lone apprentice entered the room that she was meditating in.
"I see. Have you found the other?" Sajana knew the answer. She felt the young girl trembling as she walked away from Sajana.
"No. But we will find her soon, Mistress. Everything is still going according to plan. The Jedi means nothing."
Sajana turned around, and made a fist with her left hand. The apprentice began to float and cry out in pain.
"You are wrong! The Jedi means EVERYTHING! She may not stay alive, I WANT HER ELIMINATED!" She opened her hand again and the apprentice fell on the ground. She could barely get up again, but she managed.
"Yes, Mistress. I apologise."
The small figure went out of the room, then walked through the corridor to another room.
She removed her hood, revealing her blue Twi'Lek skin.
"And when the time is right, YOU will be the one apologising, for everything your kind has done. For what you have done to Taris."
Whew... finally finished this chappie... Next time: Rising from the ashes.
It took quite a while to write this all. But, then again, I AM A BEGINNER!