Chapter 10: The Battle Begins on Icylian

After the session with the three Jedi Masters, Anakin left quietly, preferring to go to the Jedi Archives to find something to do to ease his mind off of Padme and the Mother Confessor.

He couldn't get his mind off of Padme and couldn't help to see her mangled body lying all alone on Icylian with no one to rescue her or to her whimpering pleas in her final moments.

He suddenly felt that nagging feeling again that he had felt this morning at the docking area when he was talking to Padme about the dangers on Icylian.

It felt as if it was getting stronger and was heading right towards Padme. Anakin started to panic wondering what should he do? Master Yoda had given orders that should wait and to see what was going to happen, but he wasn't one to sit around while Padme was in danger. His bond with Padme was extremely strong since they were younglings when it had first been forged. He could still remember when he first saw Padme that fateful day sixteen years ago and he and Obi-Wan were doing routine checkups in Coruscant's District 42-A. He remembered staring at awe in the sky as a small ship was crash landing into the district and he alerted Obi-Wan…

"Master! Master! Look it's a ship that's crashing right into the 42-A District," ten-year-old Padawan Anakin reported to Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan looked up at the sky momentarily glancing away from the huge crates he and Anakin had been hauling towards the freighter transport and saw what the boy was looking at, "By the Force it looks as if its not going to make it. Alright Anakin lets go down to help out those people and take a look to see if there are any survivors."

Anakin nodded to his Master and wiped his hands clean off with a rag lying on the crate and quickly caught up with his Master. He was anxious to see who that was as it wasn't everyday that you got to see a burning ship coming into Coruscant like that. It was a time of peace and everything in the galaxy was just right.

They kept walking towards the crash site for about twenty minutes and Anakin had to run to keep up with his Master's long strides, at the same time pushing his spiky blond Padawan braid out of the way since it was an unusually hot day. Finally, they came upon the crash site and noticed that the ship wasn't that damaged with only the wing being shot off from some blaster fire.

Obi-Wan gave Anakin the signal to stand back as he inspected the ship to find the opening button to see if there were any passengers aboard the ship and if they were still alive. Suddenly the ramp opened up and ever so slowly it lowered down and he saw two figures standing at the top. Both were covered in dark cloaks and it appeared that one of the figures was a child judging from the stature. He saw both figures descend towards the ground and when they came into view in front of him he was about to introduce himself when suddenly blaster fire rung out.

Anakin saw the blaster fire and immediately activated his brillant blue lightsaber as Obi-Wan did too and started to deflect the rapid firing as best they could. It seemed as if the blaster was directly aimed at the two figures and both Jedi realized that they had to protect them.

Obi-Wan yelled to the tall figure, "Quick run towards the landing pad across the launching towers!"

The figure nodded and grabbed the hand of the child and then it was a mad dash to the landing pad where a ship was waiting. The droiids that had started to attack the two figures followed them to the landing pad with both Jedi hot behind their tails.

Obi-Wan and Anakin both ran faster then before with help from a Force induced speed to catch up with the hovering droids to stop them from killing the two figures. As they were blocking the blaster fire they saw the tall figure take out a small blaster and started to shoot down the droids with deadly accuracy. Anakin was at amazement to see this mysterious cloaked figure shooting these droids down like there was no tomorrow and like it did this everyday.

Obi-Wan slashed left and right hitting each droid with a deathblow, chopping it to pieces and more came in its place after one was killed. He couldn't fathom where these droids came from let alone why they were attacking the two figures. His vibrant blue bladed went through one droid severing its arm and could smell the stench of melting durasteel coming into contact with the searing, hot blade.

In what seemed like hours the droids were cut down and both Obi-Wan and Anakin deactivated their lightsabers to see the tall figure breathing heavily and the smaller figure crouching behind a crate trembling in fear. Obi-Wan decided it was a good time as any to see whom these people were and figure why they were being chased by the droids.

"Hello there, my name is Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and this is my apprentice Padawan Anakin Skywalker. We mean you no harm and hope you're not injured," Obi-Wan told the figure gently hoping it wouldn't start to attack them.

Obi-Wan searched through the Force to see if the figure had any dark energy surrounding and only found that its Force aura was bathing in only the Light Side. He wondered if this person was Force sensitive.

Finally the tall figure spoke up pulling her hood down exposing her youthful face with vibrant curly, red hair and deep emerald green eyes and spoke, "Hello to you too, my name is Melindra Vos and I can't thank you enough Knight Kenobi and Padawan Skywalker for saving our lives."

As Obi-Wan and the mysterious woman Melindra were talking Anakin noticed the other figure crouched behind the crate attempting to hide itself from the rest of the galaxy. He sensed it wasn't projecting any dark feelings, but he sensed heart-wrenching sadness from the figure and wondered why this figure was so sad.

He cautiously went over the figure hoping not to scare it and peered at the figure not being able to see its face, only darkness. When the figure noticed him it lowered its hood down revealing a site he'd never seen before. The girl hiding beneath the hood couldn't be any older then five, having curly, brown hair that was in disarray and it was her eyes that sparked his interest. They were the deepest of brown the color of chocolate, and in them it expressed fear, pain loss and most of all sadness. Anakin couldn't believe how could such a girl so young be so sad. He wondered what had happened to her that was so terrible. Her emotions hit him full on and he could feel the feelings the girl felt for some weird reason. Anakin didn't know how as he never even met this girl before, but he heard her voice in his head, "Please help me, I'm scared."

Anakin couldn't tear his eyes away from the girl and was reluctant to ask, but had to anyways to strike up conversation to soothe her worry.

"Are you an angel?"

"What?" The girl looked at him funny with her head tilted at the side wondering what this boy was thinking.

"You know, angels. I heard about them from deep space pilots. I think their from the Moons of Iego. They say their the most beautiful creatures in the universe," Anakin had replied as-matter-of-factly.

The girl looked at him all funny again and then started to laugh. It made Anakin angry, but he couldn't help but feel happy that the girl was laughing. He didn't want her to worry, and he wondered again what had happened to her that could make her so sad.

"You're a funny little boy," she laughed aloud, "My name's Padme Jinn, what's yours?"

Anakin replied back, "My name's Padawan Anakin Skywalker," holding his hand out as a gesture of friendship and Padme looked at him like she didn't know what to do. But Anakin saw the flash of fear in her eyes and realized that perhaps she didn't trust him, yet.

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you Anakin," Padme said cautiously shaking his hand, and it was at that moment they both felt that spark which made them immediately pull their hands away.

Anakin looked away not sure what that was all about, but he it felt like a electric shock from whenever he was fixing something on his Master's Starfighter and encountered a spark from one of the wires. Anakin didn't think that was normal when you shook someone's hand, so he thought it meant something special.

Obi-Wan and Melindra came to see Anakin and Padme, and Obi-Wan told Anakin, "Anakin it seems our friends here are quite strong with the Force and we need to go to the Council to debrief them on the situation."

Obi-Wan looked at Padme and thought he saw something familiar about girl. He couldn't quite place it, but he could've swore he saw her somewhere before or at least her eyes he thought. Her eyes looked so familiar, reminding him of his beloved Master Qui-Gon, but this girl's eyes reflected much fear and pain unlike his dead Master. He shaked his head out of his daydreaming and lead everyone towards the ship to go to the Council to tell all about the new discovery he made.

It seems as if the Confessor Order had returned and they were in the presence of the Mother Confessor herself and her would-be apprentice.

Anakin watched as Padme and the other two walked towards the ship and he saw Padme turn around looking at him again with her big brown eyes. As he looked into her eyes he realized that there was something special about this girl and that they weren't going to be separated. Ever. This was the start of a great friendship that would lead to so much more when they got older…

The Mother Confessor and I walked towards the grassy meadow to take a breather after they had walked around for about an hour and ended back at their ship.

"This is useless. We're walking around a bunch of circles," I angrily thought to myself brushing my Caharin braid off of my shoulder and wishing for the millionth time why we had to wear such heavy, thick robes making it impossible to breathe. My own robes consisted of dark navy blue tunics, pants and outer vest and cloak with black boots and my lightsaber hanging at my hip. Normally, Confessors didn't use lightsabers as it wasn't necessary for them and their ability to use the Force was different then the Jedi, making it impossible to keep up with the fast movements required. But some of the other Confessors and I had been specially trained to use them during the war, as a blaster couldn't always do the job.

I looked at the Mother Confessor who seemed to be sweating and panting after our lovely jog through the forest and asked her, "So what's next? We've managed to figure out we're walking around in circles and that the cannibals don't live in the forest."

"Well, then we'll have to head towards the meadows then Padme. I'm starting to…"

I worriedly look at the Mother Confessor wondering why she stopped in mid sentence when I felt it too.

Someone was watching us.

"Padme hurry, get up. We need to move. Whoever is watching us doesn't seem to be the likes of the cannibals."

With that said we both shot up and as soon as we got up a blaster fire came straight us and nearly missed the Mother Confessor's head by an inch.

The impact of the blast sent her flying and I scrambled towards her hoping she wasn't gravely injured.

"Mother Confessor are you alright?" I asked desperately.

"Yes, Padme I'm alright. We need to move quickly, I think we've been found and it doesn't look this person is up for negotiation."

I dragged the Mother Confessor as soon as I felt another blaster fire heading our way hitting the nearby tree trunk. We started to run towards the forest in hopes of losing the assassin in the thick trees. But the assassin wasn't going to let that get in the way of killing us. I looked behind me and realized the assassin was dressed in a blue and silver armor with a helmet, covering its head. It looked like someone familiar…

In my thinking another shot came towards us and it barely missed my head this time. The Mother Confessor grabbed my arm and we started to run through the thick bushes jumping any branches that came out or ducked to avoid crashing into them. I was worried that we might get lost in the forest and hoped the assassin would get lost and leave us along. Fat chance…

I kept on running behind the Mother Confessor and saw that the assassin was gaining on us and realized that we were going to have to defend ourselves. With that I stopped the Mother Confessor over to the nearest tree trunk and ducked behind a branch, igniting my lightsaber with its vibrant emerald green spilling out and started to block all the shots that came our way.

The assassin wasn't content on stopping when it saw my lightsaber, and started to shoot more blaster fire in hopes that one of them would eventually hit me. I was trying desperately to concentrate letting the Force flow through me, but that didn't work so I just used my eyes and hands as I pleased.

Boy, was that a mistake.

In losing my concentration with the Force, I let down my guard and finally the assassin shot me in my arm earning me a loud scream. I quickly ran back behind the tree trunk where the Mother Confessor was and hoped that she didn't run off to do anything heroic like last time. I saw that she wasn't there and panicked, but was put at ease when I saw her advancing towards the assassin with her own bright blue lightsaber blocking the blaster fire. I looked at my arm and realized it was a first-degree burn and wasn't anything major.

I yelled towards the Mother Confessor, "Mother Confessor! Lets run towards the end of the forest, I think we'll be able to lose him out towards the end."

The Mother Confessor ran back towards me and we both proceeded to run towards the end of the forest and I was glad that perhaps it was over. I quickly came up with a plan to jump atop one of the trees and grab a branch and fling it at the assassin and take him down with a couple of stun shots from my blaster.

As if this day couldn't get any worse I didn't hear the Mother Confessor calling my name to stop running and finally realized that I was heading off the edge of the cliff.

I wasn't fast enough to put on the brakes and felt myself slipping off the edge falling hundreds of feet towards the river below thinking how incredibly stupid I was for not paying attention, again.

Oh man, I was going to feel that one in the morning.