Great Hall, Isle of Berk - Ahch-To
3rd person POV...
All of the teens were gathered in the Great Hall, either picking or eating their food. However, the one thing they all had in common was the depressed look on their faces. Earlier that day, Mildew had managed to convince Stoick and the rest of the village to send the dragons off the island next morning.
"I can't believe we have to send them away!" Snotlout said angrily, hiding his sadness.
"It's gonna be weird. I got used to seeing Stormfly's face being the first thing I see every morning." Astrid said sadly as she stirred her soup. When she pulled the spoon away, the soup had formed the shape of a Deadly Nadder.
A sad, mournful chirp from beside her gets Astrid's attention, and she glances down to see Zenna looking up at her, as if understanding the situation. Since the holiday season, Zenna had grown a decent bit, going from knee height, to now waist height. Astrid scratches her neck, which the young Force sensitive Nadder accepts happily.
"Every night before I went to sleep, Meatlug would lick my feet." Fishlegs says, and the twins both glance at each other weirdly. "Who's gonna do that now?!" Fishlegs wails.
Ruffnut nudges her brothers shoulder. "I volunteer Tuffnut!" she says in an attempt to lighten the mood.
However, even he is too depressed to care. "Whatever. What time should I be there?" he mumbles.
Astrid sighs, getting up from her chair. "Come on, guys. Let's get this over with."
"This is the worst day of my life! We're never gonna see our dragons again!" Fishlegs wails helplessly, and the rest of the teens exit the Great Hall. However, Hiccup stays behind, and so does Zenna, who moves over to Toothless.
"We can't let that happen!" he exclaims, leaning down to pet Toothless on the head. "Toothless is the one of the best friends I've ever had."
"Oh, Toothless, I'm gonna miss you so much..." a groveling, mocking voice says. Hiccup looks up with a glare, and Toothless and Zenna both growl, narrowing their eyes at the sight of Mildew. Both dragons could only sense distrust, contempt, and disgust towards them from the old man.
"You know what your mistake was? Thinking dragons could be trained. But a dragon's gonna do what a dragon's gonna do. It's their nature. And nature always wins," Mildew says with a smirk on his face, oozing with smugness.
Hiccup merely narrows his eyes at him in irritation.
"And if I can't get those three freaks of nature off of our island, with their witchcraft," Mildew states in disgust. "Then I'll settle for your dragons."
Zenna squawks angrily, her eyes flashing violet for a moment while Toothless growls in warning, and Hiccup exhales angrily, crossing his arms at the mention of Mara, Ahsoka and Jarik.
Mildew then shrugs and starts walking away. "At least they're gone most of the time anyways."
As Mildew walks away, the doors to the Great Hall suddenly blow open, and a rush of cold air streams into the room, blowing out the large firepit. toothless turns around and charges up a small plasma blast, quickly relighting the firepit.
"Oh! Thank you, Toothless," the woman sitting nearby says gratefully.
Seeing this, Hiccup's eyes widen slightly and a smile comes to his face as he comes up with a plan, witnessing Toothless' reaction to the lack of fire. "You know what? Mildew is absolutely right! Come on, bud! You two Zenna!" he says happily, rushing out the doors of the Great Hall. Toothless and Zenna both bound after him, a excited expressions on their faces.
Jarik POV...
I walked into the common room of the Knight Hawk, noticing Ahsoka sitting on the couch, datapad in hand. Mara was also in the room, sitting at the table and eating a quick meal. Ahsoka and I glanced at each other before quickly looking away in silence, which Mara unfortunately took note of. I grabbed a bottle and sat down in a chair in the corner, taking a few sips. The silence was only broken by the sound of Mara eating, Ahsoka typing, and me taking sips of my drink. Mara continued to glance between us, before finally becoming vocal.
"Alright, what is going on?" she demands.
We both look at her, and give each other short glances before shrugging.
"What do you mean Mara?" Ahsoka asks.
"Are you guys just going to sit there in awkward silence or are you going to talk about it?" she says.
I give her a blank stare.
"Talk about what?" I ask.
"About the gundark in the room," she replies.
"Nothing is wrong Mara, you're just being paranoid," I said, taking another sip, and Ahsoka looks down at her datapad.
"You wish," she retorts. "Don't even bother trying to hide it."
"Mara, everything's fine, you can figure it out later," Ahsoka calls out without looking away from her datapad, although I can see by the way her brow creases that she was annoyed.
"How about now?" she challenges. "Is it related to Darth Vader? I bet that's it!"
We both stiffen slightly before immediately relaxing within a split-second, however Mara managed to notice that brief reaction.
"Ha! It is about Darth Vader!" she says triumphantly.
"Mara, just drop it," I say seriously, in a deadly calm voice which I rarely use. It certainly gets her attention. "We don't want to talk about it... not yet anyways."
She sits there in silence for a moment, surprised at how we were acting before slowly nodding, albeit uneasily. "Ok..."
Ahsoka shoots me a brief glare, and I just roll my eyes briefly, propping my head on my fist and staring impassively at the wall. We continue to sit again in uneasy and uncomfortable silence before sighs irritably.
"What?" Mara asks.
"Still no message from Rex or the others," is all she says in reply.
"Huh?" I perk up, frowning in confusion. "What do you mean no message?"
"I mean there's no message, none," she says irritably.
"But you've been sending them messages for months now, maybe even a year," I recall. "Rex at least would have answered by now."
"Well they still haven't, even though I know they're getting them. They're still in the Seelos system, and they aren't going anywhere," she says in reply.
"You talking about your old war buddies?" Mara asks.
We both give her a look. "War buddies?" I ask cautiously.
"Well, yeah," she says. "You guys fought with them in the Clone Wars right? Is that not what they are?"
"No, no, they did Mara." Ahsoka sighs, rubbing her forehead. "Why wouldn't he be answering..." she whispers.
"Maybe their transponder is broken?" I suggest. "I mean, they're house is an old AT-TE tank, so it's not like it could be in any good condition."
"I suppose," Ahsoka replies, relaxing slightly at the possibility.
Mara looks thoughtful. "Living in a tank... seems legit," she shrugs.
"Of course you'd think so," I tell her.
"Why yes, I would Dad!" she retorts.
I wave her off, and then glance down at my chronometer. I take one last sip of my drink before placing it back on the shelves, standing up from my chair.
"I'll be in my room," I said simply, leaving before anyone else could say something. I headed down the hall and back into me and Ahsoka's bedroom, heading towards the desk. I sit down and open up the computer, the glow of the blue screen popping online. I passed some of the time searching for any important Imperial intel that would be useful, mostly as a way for me to keep my mind occupied from the whole 'Vader' situation.
As I was searching, I managed to intercept another Imperial message, this one being heavily encrypted. Frowning to myself, I examined the file. Imperial information usually had the average encryptions to keep intel secret, but this was on the rarer, more high level of data. Whatever it was must be of some importance, which I began to suspect when seeing that it was headed for Coruscant... to the Imperial Palace. This must be good.
Decrypting the message took a bit of time, and while I wasn't able to see all of it, I still managed to uncover bits and pieces. i realized with a start that this message, which was headed for the Emperor, came from the Seventh Fleet.
From Thrawn's fleet in the Unknown Regions.
Opening up the file, I skimmed through it and picked up several words. Like what's been going on for the past couple of months, the Empire has been exploring the Unknown Regions, but the only clue I had gotten from the previous message was the word 'Vong.' Looking at this newer message, I could see it also had the word Vong in it, but with a new difference. Before that was another word, which said 'Yuuzhan.'
I grimaced slightly and glanced down, the Force reacting when I read that word. I looked up again, glancing at the datapad with Thrawn's message. A small glow from the side then got my attention, and I saw it was my holocron, a dim blue glow coming from within.
I turned off the computer and turned towards the holocron, picking it up carefully. The Force swirled around it, with a message. I closed my eyes and concentrated on it, breathing in deeply.
"Yuuzhan..." I whispered, letting myself free to whatever the Force within the holocron wanted to show me.
The pale, white and green flames surged around one central figure, who stood, towering above me. Three, shining pale starlight eyes glared down from the alien figure, darkness leaking off of him in waves.
"I have taken entire worlds!" his growling voice said.
I reopened my eyes, frowning at the familiar figure coming up once again. Whatever that creature was, I don't think I want to find out, however it continued to come back, mostly in warnings. And it was getting even more worrisome.
So much for avoiding 'Vader' stress, now I have 'unknown creatures' stress.
Yeah, short chapter, more like an interlude really, but some quick and also at the same time big things. Firstly, I'm sure we all know the real reason why the clones didn't respond to Ahsoka's messages. :P
Second, there is definitely some tension between Ahsoka and Jarik. They don't hate each other, but after the whole Vader identity reveal, things have been uncomfortable and awkward between them, something Mara is obviously suspicious about. Then there's the whole threat hiding out in the Unknown Regions, which Palpatine and Thrawn are searching for. Is there something else that they might also be searching for? Hmmm...
Then there's that joke with Earth. You can't really have Transformers without that planet huh? :P Well considering it is basically Unicron...
For the HTTYD shows, I really enjoyed Race to the Edge, and I thought that Defenders of Berk was good, however Riders of Berk in my opinion was "meh." I did like the episodes with Alvin and the Outcasts. Those were enjoyable. :D So for including Mara, Jarik and Ahsoka into the TV shows, the first season will have the least amount of content.
One last announcement, is that I just created an art page related to the Shaniverse on Deviantart! If you want to, you can check it out. I'm mainly just posting drawings relating to events that happen in the Shaniverse, especially including Jarik and Ahsoka.
DeviantArt Name: xxTheTruMan196
Thanks for all of your continued support! You guys are great! :D
