James sat numbly at his desk in his Spanish II class, the feeling of rejection still flowing through him. His feelings were a scattered mess, an odd combination of sorrow, sadness and anger. The anger seemed to swell over his other emotions, enveloping over the others.
Grassino was standing in front of the class, apparently ready to get started with the day's lesson. One of James's friends turned to ask James what was wrong, but he didn't hear him at all, nor did he hear the bell ringing. James was thinking.
You know, James thought to himself, I never liked this teacher anyway. Why don't I just kill her?
Don't do it! another voice in his head exclaimed, but very light. Don't listen to it! It's the call of the Dark Side!
Oh, don't listen to that, the other voice said sinisterly, He doesn't know what he's saying. Just get on up and strike her down. Better yet, get rid of the entire class!
NO! the other voice exclaimed as James pulled his lightsaber from his belt, leaping from his desk at Grassino.
He switched it on in mid-air, the hot violet blade boiling forth, and cut down the teacher. The whole class froze as one when James did that and a few even started for the open door. James waved his hand at the door, slamming it shut. At the same time, he called Glen's lightsaber from his locker, turning it on while it sat there.
It cut through the thin metal of his locker, flying through the ceiling and down the hall like an arrow. It pierced through the concrete wall and slapped into James's hand, flinging himself at the closest person. The girl didn't even scream as he cut through her horizontally, but the rest of the class did.
James jumped on top of the closest desk and decapitated two people in a single glance. He held up his hand and used his Force Lightning on two students near the door. They were vaporized instantly as James jumped off the desk and split a guy in two. He took the red lightsaber and flung it at another girl, cleaving her head off her shoulders.
As the lightsaber returned James kicked another boy in stomach, sending him reeling. He reversed his grip on the violet saber and drove it behind him, hitting the boy in the stomach and twirling it sideways out. As the boy crumpled down James went into a spinning motion and hurled himself into the middle of the room, slicing through several people. He landed in the back of the room and saw that half the class was still alive.
"I'm tired of this," James muttered to himself as he held up his hand and this time Force Stormed the entire class. Most of the room, minus the other bodies, was reduced to smoldering ashes as James realized that an entire minute passed from start to finish and it didn't even raise his heart rate.
"I do need to leave, though," James muttered to himself as he turned off Glen's lightsaber and cut through the wall with his own. He stepped into the auditorium and ran to the other side, kicking on his Knight Speed and throwing open the emergency door. He flew out of the school and headed into the woods, knowing exactly where he was going.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the school, Nicole and Andrew felt powerful tremors in the Force.
Nicole felt terrible about what had happened as she walked out of the locker room, pulling her hair back behind her head. She was going to go tell Andrew what had happened as she stepped out into the gym floor, looking for him.
"I will admit, that was tough," she muttered to herself as she started to walk toward Andrew. He was standing by the retracted bleachers, not dressed out and looking up at the ceiling. When she got to him, he looked at her with a mild expression.
"Let me guess," Andrew said as Nicole opened her mouth, "you broke up with him."
"Yeah, that sums it all up, I guess," Nicole said as she looked down. The bell rang as big Coach Brown walked out from the back of the gym. He had just gotten to the class when she felt the violent tremors in the Force. She looked at Andrew, knowing he felt them, too, and the two bolted to the locker rooms. Even though he wasn't dressed out, he still had to put his lightsaber away so it wouldn't get in the way.
Nicole flung open the door and used the Force to open her locker and call the weapon to her. It slapped firmly in her hand as she took off running to the other end of the school, Andrew close behind. They went through the downstairs hallway, the vibration getting stronger with each passing second.
They both ran up the last flight of stairs, feeling the tremors fading out. The two ran down into the art wing, raising their lightsabers but not activating them. They both took sides of the door to the room were the tremors seemed to be coming from. Nicole raised her lightsaber, put her hand on the handle and nodded at Andrew.
She pushed open the door and stepped inside, activating her lightsaber, Andrew following suit. They both looked at the room and Andrew promptly vomited after seeing the charred, cleaved and decapitated corpses. Nicole froze as she realized that this was James's 4th hour and that one of these bodies was his.
"This is disgusting," Andrew said as he turned off his lightsaber and stepped over the bodies to the back of the room to examine the large whole in the wall.
"Well need to identify these bodies quickly," Nicole said she powered down her lightsaber. "We need to find James's body."
"I'll look for his lightsaber," Andrew said and stopped dead as a realization dawned over him. While Nicole looked for the lightsaber, he calculated everything in his head; the big hole, the burned bodies, the clean way the bodies were cut.
"A Dark Jedi must have done this," Nicole said as she knelt down on the ground, looking for the weapon. "He might be one of these burned ones."
"No," Andrew said numbly, looking at the ground.
"What?"
"He can't be one of them."
"Why? He has to be one of these."
"Think about it. All of them were killed by a lightsaber, I will agree with you on that, but something's not right about it. For one thing, why isn't James still fighting, 'cause I know for a fact that he would have held up longer than two minutes. And one last thing, James can't be killed by Force Lightning."
Nicole looked stunned, then said simply, "Why?"
"Because he is a master at the use of the Force Lightning and Storm, so it automatically repels off him," Andrew said, putting it all together.
"Are you saying…" Nicole began but Andrew interrupted her.
"A Dark Jedi didn't do this, no. I'm saying James did this."
Nicole was shocked that he said that. She stood quietly then yelled, "Why the hell would you say that?"
"Because of what you did to him," Andrew said, clipping his lightsaber to his belt. He looked at Nicole the entire time he said that, waiting for her response.
"What I did? What did I do?" Nicole said, suppressing her anger.
"You broke up with him and he snapped," Andrew said, folding his arms over his chest. "But he snapped too far. Because of you, he's turned to the Dark Side and there is nothing we can do about it."
"Are you saying it's my fault?" Nicole shouted, clenching her hands in a tight grip.
"Yes, I am."
Steven was not pleased to hear the news on James. In fact, he was furious about it.
"Why did you have to do that, Nicole?" Steven said, pacing around the Council chamber. The other Masters were out on other matters, but had been called back when they heard the news.
"I just, I just," Nicole said, her voice trembling somewhat. Andrew stood next to Nicole during the hearing, being the only other witness to it all.
"Because of you," Steven continued, stopping in the middle of the room, "we have lost our most powerful Jedi to the Dark Side. This is not good at all."
I could have told you that, Andrew thought bitterly.
"Do you think my mentor will attack us?" Andrew said, stepping forward slightly.
"I don't know," Steven replied, sighing. "He may, he may not. I just don't know. This hearing is over for today. You two may leave."
Nicole lay down on her bed at her house, flipping her lightsaber over her hand. She kept on thinking about what had happened and how close it all was.
I was so close, but I couldn't make it, she thought as she closed her eyes and sighed. Her mind flooded back to the first time James came over to her house. He was terrified out of his wits on meeting her parents. She even remembered the movie they watched, Return of the Jedi. He freaked out with excitement when he saw the movie box.
And now look at him. He joined the Dark Side, Nicole thought glumly. He was the best Jedi they had and now he was against them. Things were not looking very good for her or anyone else.
It had been three weeks since James's turn and no word from anyone or anything on him or his whereabouts. I suppose I should stop thinking about it for a few days and try to relax, Nicole thought as she stood up, getting ready for her training class. She slipped on her deep royal blue Jedi robes and headed for the Academy.
When she arrived at the Academy, her student's were waiting for her. She bowed at them and told them to start their warm-ups as she headed over to James's students. She looked over all the black and brown robed eight-year olds and beckoned them to come over to her. It had been a two weeks since anyone had trained them, so she took over James's kids.
After they had warmed up enough, she told them to take out their lightsabers and pair up to begin the practice duels.
After an hour of practicing, Nicole began to feel a slight tremor in the Dark Side, but she shrugged it off as nothing.
Andrew was in the meditation chamber, thinking about the events that had transpired. He was feeling many surges in the Force, particularly Nicole's entrance to the Academy. Andrew had felt her take James's students and began to train with her own.
He focused back onto his task, which was to find James and bring him back. He had just found out that is was his duty as a Jedi Paige to try to bring back fallen Jedi or Dark Side Acolytes to the light. And he had been at this for three weeks.
He sat in the center of the room, legs crossed and hands on his knees. He was trying to find any tremor from the Dark Side, but he had been very unsuccessful on it. Then he found something, a slight vibration coming from the high school. It was very small, probably just a fight, so he ignored it.
Then he felt an almost earth-shattering vibration. Andrew's ears began to ring as a vision of James in from of the blue hall came into his mind. He had both lightsabers out and was mindlessly killing the students.
Without even changing out of his pale copper-colored robes, he ran out of the meditation chamber and went to his car. He turned the engine and roared off to the high school.
Everyone at Northwest High was tense, extremely tense. No one had been the same since that whole classroom was murdered by one of their own. School had been canceled for a week after the attack, but was but back on schedule now. But the mood was nervous and conversation was at a minimum.
The students were afraid that James was going to come back and kill them, finish what he started. The whole art wing was closed off for repairs and cleaning, the area entirely shut down. No one wanted to go down that way, however, so even if it were open, no one would go.
The bell that let out third hour rang and the most of the student body moved out of the rooms. The upstairs hall filled with a thousand students quickly and became very crowded, so no one noticed when the empty art hall door opened.
No one saw the black robed man walk forward past the row of lockers; no one saw him pull two lightsabers from his belt. Everyone, however, saw him activate both of them, a violet and red blade emitting from the handles. The entire hallway froze as they realized who it was, the man lifting his head and revealing his red-green eyes. James was back.
He rushed forward with blinding speed, whirling the lightsabers around elaborately. He killed six people with that one stroke so he spun around and flicked both weapons out of his hands, killing a dozen more. He grabbed them again and thrust them behind him, killing another student. He did a downward strike forward then stabbed side to side, taking out three more.
James stuck out his hand and unleashed his Dark Side with an alarming amount of lighting. He charred dozens of students to ash and did a leap forward, landing in front of the blue hall entrance. He spun in a huge circle, cleaving through several people with one swipe. He stopped as he held out both of his arms, lightsabers in hand and ran through the main hall down to the red hall, killing over a hundred people.
James turned around and surveyed his carnage, not satisfied enough with it. He whirled the lightsabers fluidly and thrust forward with both, stabbing only one student. It dawned on James that all the students had run into the other halls.
"You people are no fun," James muttered as he stopped in front of the gray hall, seeing some of the students frozen in their steps. He lifted up his hand slowly and unleashed torrents of lightning through the hall, engulfing everyone inside of it. Finally satisfied with the death in the main section of the school, he swiftly walked down more of the hall and into the upper gym.
Inside he could see that they did not know that he was here. At the sight of this, James went into a hysterical laughter as he clipped both lightsabers to his belt, drawing in more of the Dark Side. He flipped over the railing as everyone stopped what they were doing to see him fly down to their level.
When he landed, he stood up sharply and raised his hands, one over his head and the other at his side, still laughing, and unleashed a storm of lightning that hit everyone in the room. Some people immolated, some exploded and some just died.
After five minutes of this James stopped, surveyed his damage and leapt back up to the top to await the arrival of his apprentice.