The remainder of their trip to Lucia went without issue. Kaden, to his horror, had acquiesced – not that he had a choice – and delivered a satisfactory apology to everyone the following morning. Shortly after that, he had been sent off with Raven for their Ataru lesson where again, the boy made a humble apology. He didn't actually need to try hard on that one as he honestly felt bad about what he had done, about what he could have done to her.

"Landing in twenty minutes," came Flynt's creepily robotic voice over the ship's intercom; apparently they had a glitch in their communication system, much to all the padawans' delight.

Raven had been busy working with the goyts in their cargo bay but left them at this announcement to join the others. "The goyts are good to go," she informed Eeth and moved to stand by his side while he spoke with Drex. As they entered the atmosphere, Raven noticed that this planet was a lot more colourful than the typical jungle-type worlds. From a distance, the terrain was mostly pinks, purples and blues, with some patches of green and brown which Raven assumed were the woodland areas of Lucia. Their information had said that this was quite an unusual planet. Well, they were about to find out just how unusual soon enough.

Kaden was still without his lightsaber but was no longer sulking over it. Neither Raven (or more surprisingly) Flynt had so much as hinted at teasing him for having lost his weapon. That lack of attention was both a blessing and a curse, as Kade had been forced to bring it up himself with Raven and Flynt when the masters stepped through the open hatch to look around and the obvious became just too obvious. Thankfully this didn't result in teasing as he'd expected, but instead a contest over the worst punishments they'd ever gotten. Raven won hands down, her retelling of the last encounters with Eeth's cane sounding far too painful for Kaden.

Flynt thought he had her beat. He had brought up the time he'd disobeyed at Tree World and thought himself justified – that was until Lakhri borrowed Eeth's cane and he began thinking otherwise.

Raven inclined her head at Flynt's recollection. She knew from personal experience that Lakhri was unyielding when it came to punishment, and perhaps Flynt had gotten it worse. The difference was that Eeth was faster to resort to such punishment, she pointed out.

Kaden had never been given the cane before in his life. Force, it was horrendous enough just hearing about it, and the boy grimaced at both padawan's accounts.

The grimace had not gone unnoticed by Raven, and it set her to wondering; would the presence of something he feared make her job easier? Yes, yes, this wasn't about making her life easy, but if that happened to be the side effect of ensuring Kaden's compliance, who was she not to at least try it? It certainly had worked for Flynt and herself. Still, Raven had just turned nineteen years old and lacked teaching experience with padawan peers. Would packing such an implement be out of her pay grade? Probably.

"They're on their way back," Kaden told Raven and Flynt, looking towards the empty hatch where he could see all three of the masters returning.

Raven was first from the hatch. She sprang down and took up a spot by Eeth's side. So far Lucia's surface was as she had expected; hot, humid and, as she looked around and noted where they had touched down, diverse. They were standing by the fringes of what passed as a woodland area, yet to the right of them were flat, colourful swamps that extended as far as the eye could see. They were colourful and dotted with the giant rubber-like pitcher plants she had read about.

Eeth, Drex and Lakhri were satisfied with what they had found. This area of the planet was a nature reserve, as they had known. It seemed quite safe; there did not seem to be any dangers around that they had not been informed of. They had selected a largish island in a huge lake as the goyts' new habitat. Despite their disk-shaped webbed feet, the goyts were not good swimmers and would not be able to cross over to the mainland. Thus, their impact on their new environment – which was going to be significant due to the huge amount of plants they ate – would be limited to that island which did not seem to be home to any endemic species. In what way they would interact with the local flora, which included a high proportion of plants that were susceptible to Force impulses, remained to be seen.

"Let's start with a small group of goyts", said Eeth. "If we are confident that they get along, will not be poisoned by any of the local plants and so forth, we can set free the rest."

"According to our files, the plants and fungi here are fast to regenerate, and the island will be able to comfortably maintain a symbiotic relationship between the goyts and their new environment," Raven assured them. But yeah, it was still all in theory and only time would tell. She hoped she was right.

As usual, Kaden was last to join the group, and he neither rushed as Raven had, nor did he saunter like Flynt. The boy strode to Drex's side, no-nonsense.

Drex leaned down towards Kaden's ear and murmured: "No need for you to have a lightsaber on you, as far as I can tell."

Kade looked up at Drex as he spoke and clenched his jaw tightly; he wasn't getting his saber back, and he hated that. "No, master, no need other than that of continuing my humiliation. Forgive me if I don't thank you for that," he said quietly.

Despite Kaden's efforts at keeping his response quiet, Raven overheard him. Initially, she thought nothing of it; Kaden wasn't typically a smartass, and Drex had more patience for such things than her own master. However, upon seeing Drex's expression turn stern, the padawan gave Flynt a nudge and beckoned that they busy themselves with the goyts. They needed to wrangle a control group in any case.

Raven had interpreted Drex's expression correctly; he was less than pleased with Kaden's response. "I believe I told you I have run out of tolerance for your attitude," he said calmly and firmly. Just as calmly and firmly, he took hold of Kaden's ear and bent him over. Then he proceeded to deliver half a dozen solid swats to his backside. "In case you want to complain further," he said, releasing his hold on Kaden, "please bear in mind that it can get a lot more humiliating than this."

Despite having been warned, Kaden had not expected this. "OW!" he gasped in spite of himself and present company. His ear burned to the point where he no longer had control over his body and he stumbled to Drex's side, bent over and stayed there as the man proceeded to land six powerful swats to the seat of his trousers. It fucking hurt, it really did, and it was all he could do not to jump around. He didn't, though. Instead, he gritted his teeth and stood when bade, his breaths a little ragged and his fists balled at his sides. He wasn't sure what could be more humiliating than being smacked like a child in front of Eeth and Lakhri, but nor was he willing to risk finding out. He sucked in a few short and sharp breaths, all the while trying to make it look like he had not felt it. Neither Eeth nor Lakhri looked as if they'd noticed, or if they had, they didn't give it a second thought.

"You done?" Kade asked stupidly in an effort to salvage what was left of his pride. He regretted it the moment it left his mouth, though, something that was evident by his wide eyes and involuntary step backwards. "I didn't mean that. The smacking was my own fault. I've got a bad attitude and I'll fix it right now," he rushed to correct himself. Kaden didn't know what the hell was wrong with him.

As soon as Kaden asked "You done?", Drex opened his mouth to say "not at all", but fortunately for the boy, he quickly backtracked. Drex could sense that his quasi-apology was sincere, or at least as sincere as could be expected under the circumstances, and he decided to accept it. "Yes, you go ahead and fix it," Drex replied pointedly, "because if you don't, there are a lot of bushes around that offer convenient opportunities to cut a switch. And I won't care who's watching. Now let's get inside and start our job."

The boy's face burned with embarrassment at Drex's words. His master had only ever used a switch on him once before, and the experience was now permanently etched into his mind. He had snuck off to go swimming after being told to meditate in his cabin during their last mission to Tnangan-at-Val. Why? Because he had had a bad attitude and needed to work on controlling his temper. He glanced at his feet briefly as the memory faded. That had been among the most painful implements he'd ever endured, although according to Raven and Flynt he hadn't experienced real hurt until he'd felt a cane. Kaden wasn't sure about that, but at the time had said nothing.

"Now go and help Raven and Flynt," Drex told Kaden as, fortunately for the boy, no more backtalk was forthcoming. "We'll be with you in a moment." Eeth and Lakhri were currently discussing the best way to proceed from here, and Eeth was calling for Drex to hear his input.

Raven was just about to call out that she wanted Lakhri to replace Flynt – his size was less intimidating to the goyts – when Kaden joined them. He was understandably dishevelled and looked uncomfortable, but she said nothing.

Flynt, on the other hand, had no such qualms. "Dude, either your balls are so big that you require help walking, or you're just stupid," he commented, making to smack him up the side of his head playfully.

Kaden caught his hand, the reaction lightning fast and his grip painful. "Don't. I'm struggling, don't piss me off." It had been a request but sounded more like a threat.

Unlike Kaden, Flynt had never had aggression or male pride issues. He was, however, a smartass to the core and he found Kaden's reactions as entertaining as they were baffling. He pulled his hand free. "Stupid it is, then."

Raven had had enough of this, and she stepped between the two of them before it could escalate. "Stop it. There are three masters outside this ship waiting for us to do our job. What the Force is wrong with you two?" The teen was exasperated and, to be honest, sick to death of putting up with unruly padawans. Flynt was not usually on her shit list, but he had just made it there. She cuffed him sharply, then repeated the process on Kaden. "I don't care if you're struggling, pull yourself together. You want me to start struggling, too? I can, you know."

Flynt winced; that had actually tingled a bit. He rubbed his ear. Thankfully, his height meant that she had only clipped his lobe. Kaden, on the other hand, had borne a full smack.

"Neither of you have any idea what it is to truly struggle," Kaden seethed. He absolutely refused to rub his ear, no matter how much it was ringing.

"What is wrong with you, Kaden? You're blowing this. Your master is pissed, my master is pissed, you're even pissing off Flynt, which is a feat in and of itself! The only person on this ship that isn't pissed at you is Lakhri, and I'm sure that's only a matter of time. Now, either pull yourself together, or I'm going to call Drex and I sure as hell wouldn't want to be you if that happens," Raven scolded.

"Whoa, whoa, hold your fathiers there. Let's not be hasty," Flynt interjected, knowing that if Kaden went down, he was probably going to join him for antagonising the kid. Lakhri had already called him on that once; a second time would be painful, very painful. "We've got a job to do, let's get it done."

As it turned out, the masters helped bring the goyts to the shuttle; it really was necessary to have six people work on this because it seemed as if every single goyt in the cargo bay wanted to join them. They were extremely curious, and it took all of Raven's mental stamina, plus Lakhri and Kaden darting after stray goyts and restraining them, to keep them from running all over the ship while Eeth, Drex and Raven carried the cluster of goyts they had selected to the shuttle.

"Let us give them an hour or so to explore," said Eeth when they had opened the hatch on a small clearing where the woods bordered on a fungal forest. The goyts had leapt out excitedly, the first of them already vanishing into the bushes. "Then, Raven can start tracking them down and we can observe how they are doing. We probably will not need six people to do so, though. Raven and myself, of course. And Drex." Eeth's choice of team was logical, and everyone knew it. Raven was their only expert on working with animals; Eeth was the leader of the mission; and Drex, while not being specialised on working with animals, easily had the best sense of the living Force of them all, with the possible exception of Eeth.

"So we get an afternoon off?" Lakhri asked with a grin. "How nice. Sure you don't have anything for us to do, Eeth?"

Eeth just gave him a raised-eyebrows kind of look, but did not rise to the challenge.

Drex, however, said: "If Kaden is to stay on the ship, and since Raven is unlikely to be free for Ataru lessons, might I ask you to work out with him and continue teaching him Ataru skills, Lakhri?"

"Sure," Lakhri said readily. Flynt would need a workout, too, but Lakhri would rather separate that from Kaden's until he had the boy's measure. Since they apparently had the whole afternoon, this was not going to be a problem, he assumed.

Kaden let out a sigh of relief at hearing that. If he was honest, the idea of getting out from under his master's watchful eye was appealing. Drex had him on zero tolerance which meant he no longer got warnings, just a good smacking. They were usually short, very painful and, much as he was loath to admit it, effective when it came to controlling his less than Jedi-like behaviours. He had hated it when the man did this during their training sessions, and he hated it even more now. He was fifteen years old, for pity's sake, and far too old for such treatment, or so he thought.

Lakhri's chipper agreement to Drex's suggestion drew the boy from his thoughts. This was a relief as Kaden had no problem with Lakhri. Sure, the guy was tiny, and he had expressed his doubts over the man's ability to strike terror into the heart of an apprentice as both Raven and Flynt had suggested he could. Still, he had no issue with his authority. Lakhri was a Jedi master, they weren't peers and he sure as shit didn't have a crush on the man; the dynamic was straightforward. So relieved was he to be out from under Drex's scrutiny, and free from Raven's classes, that he almost whooped in delight.

Flynt noticed Kaden's expression morph from his typical stoic glower to something he had rarely seen on the boy's face. Was that joy? Wow, he thought, it just might be, and that made him smile. "That could be fun. Perhaps I'll join in, and we can spar? We haven't done that since landing," Flynt encouraged, thinking the arrangement, if nothing else, would prove interesting to watch play out.

"I'd rather have a lesson with Kaden alone first," Lakhri told Flynt. "Depending on how it goes, we can have a joint sparring session after that, or tomorrow. If Drex consents to it."

"I do," said Drex after a moment's thought, "but, Kaden, if you notice your aggressions taking over, you switch to Soresu immediately, or you quit and meditate. Or you call me if you need me to help." He unclipped Kaden's lightsaber from his belt and handed it to Lakhri, who accepted it without comment and attached it to his own belt.

It didn't bother Flynt either way. He wasn't exactly glued to his lightsaber or obsessed with weapons training. He was far more interested in pod racing, spaceship engineering or the latest and greatest in speeder aerodynamics. He did quirk a brow at seeing Drex hand over the boy's saber, though; that would have smarted. And just as he expected, Kaden's face had regained its usual glower, only this time, his honey-coloured eyes were black as coal.

Kaden glared at Drex, fists balled and jaw squared as if ready to explode at any second. "Don't you think that's a bit too much? I am not a child. I can be trusted to carry my own weapon, you know." The words were surprisingly calm, considering the resentment he felt.

Raven stepped a little closer to Eeth. She had planned to give Lakhri a rundown on where they were at with Kaden's Ataru lessons but thought it in everyone's best interest to save that for the moment. She had seen Kaden look like that once before and it had resulted in an encounter she was not nearly skilled enough to handle. He was angry, that much was clear, and like Flynt, she could understand why. Raven had been forced to endure months without her weapon. It had been horrible, and she wasn't nearly as attached to it as Kaden seemed to be. Perhaps that was the problem, she mused, wondering how this was going to pan out.

"Excuse us for a moment," Drex said to the others. Once again, he took hold of Kaden's ear, dragged his padawan off the clearing and into the wooded area.

Both Raven and Flynt winced at seeing the boy stumble away, Raven probably more so than Flynt if only because Lakhri had not been able to reach his ear for many years now. Not that he didn't have other ways to make his point; he did.

"Ahhh," Kade hissed through gritted teeth, rising up on his toes in an effort at walking with some dignity. It was impossible, of course. There was just no way he could walk normally while being guided along by the ear, not to mention the pain: it really burned! Unsurprisingly, Kaden was oblivious to the sympathetic looks his ungraceful exit had garnered from his fellow padawans. He was intensely focused on his ear because nothing else existed right now.

Drex stopped at a cluster of rocks next to a creek. Releasing his hold on Kaden's ear, he opened his utility pouch and took out a jackknife. Normally, he would have ordered Kaden to cut a switch, but he was not sure the boy would obey him, given the current state of his temper. Thus, he said: "You were warned what was going to happen, padawan. You chose to disregard my warning. Drop your pants and bend over the rocks."

When Drex finally released him, Kaden's hands immediately flew up to soothe the burning lobe. It had brought tears to his eyes, but unfortunately, it had not blurred his vision enough to miss the knife Drex held nor was there any doubt in his mind what was about to go down. "It was just a statement! You can't mean to punish me for that." But as he spoke, his hands had begun to obey, fumbling with the clasp on his belt and discarding it. "Anyone would be humiliated if their weapon was handed over to another master for 'safekeeping'. Come on, this just isn't fair!" By now, his temper had been effectively replaced by fear, and he no longer cared where his weapon was. All he cared about was getting himself out of punishment.

Drex had turned away and was now examining a small tree with his fingers. Settling on a whippy branch, he cut it with his knife and started removing the buds. "Padawan, I am neither going to tolerate your attitude nor am I interested in discussing this with you," Drex said calmly. "Your pride keeps getting in the way of your common sense. That's a serious problem in a Jedi, and if this punishment helps resolve it, I think you'll thank me in the long run. Not today, I know. I don't expect you to be overjoyed at this. I do expect you to keep your mouth shut and your so-called statements to yourself, though. I call them complaints, and you know exactly what such complaints are going to earn you. If you still feel a need to voice them, that's your problem, not mine." He turned back, expecting Kaden to be in position.

When Drex turned on him, Kaden was standing there like a cattail frozen in headlights. His trousers were bunched around his knees, and a thumb was hooked in the waistband of his undershorts. Drex's words had been on the harsh side, but then again, Kaden was not a person who responded well to a subtle or permissive approach. He swallowed. There was no sign of Drex's typical fatherly expression now; he was a Jedi master rounding on his errant padawan who was backing the hell up. And by now, said padawan had backed right into the rocks, almost falling over his trousers as he pulled his undershorts to his knees.

Okay, so shit was trumps. Kaden was standing there in the middle of some strange planet, his junk flapping around in the breeze and bare-assed. There was no way he wanted to turn his back to Drex while he was holding a switch. For one thing, he wasn't a coward. For another thing, he had once asked Drex if any of his padawans had tried that; apparently, Taishin had, and Drex had come down on her like a tonne of bricks for it. Running was not an option. That left him with two choices: begging or compliance. He decided on an even mix of the two. "I'm sorry. Can you reconsider? Please?" He said quietly, turning to place his hands on the rock. He didn't want to bend over the thing as that would mean he'd be left dangling, his feet off the ground, and that was just too juvenile for him.

"Yes, I will reconsider," said Drex grimly. "In light of the fact that you still haven't fully complied with my instructions, I will give you a dozen strokes instead of six. Now either bend over or be ready to have the count raised again." Zero tolerance meant zero tolerance, as Kaden was currently discovering. Under different circumstances, Drex himself might have found it a bit over the top, but he was raising a Jedi padawan here, and one who seemed to have serious issues with his self-control.

This was not what Kaden had wanted or expected to hear. His eye twitched, and he looked back over his shoulder. Was Drex serious? Yeah, he was. The boy straightened. He had been bracing himself against the rock with his hands, but apparently, this was not going to cut it. He opened his mouth to protest, and then thought better of it. Before Drex could add more licks, he put himself over the rock. It was not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination. The surface was cold and rough and he had to wriggle around so that his tunic was preventing his junk from being mashed off, although he figured it was going to be the least of his worries in a moment.

"I'm tired of having to repeat each and every one of my instructions and being forced to discuss them before you deign to obey," Drex said, stepping up to the rock. "This will stop. When you've earned a punishment, you will accept it and you will do as I tell you. When I tell you to bend over the rock, you do so, instead of trying to talk your way out of it. I get that you don't like being punished. If you don't want it to happen, lose the attitude and learn to keep your mouth shut."

This was an unusually harsh lecture for Drex who was typically a placid person. It showed how thin his patience was running with Kaden's behaviour during this mission. That fact was reflected in the vigour with which he applied the switch, dealing out a dozen strokes in rapid succession. He did not want to draw this out unduly and make the others wait. It was not a very thick or long switch; this was by far not going to be as memorable and painful a punishment as the switching that Kaden had received during their previous mission. After all, his infraction had not been all that significant. Still, Drex had no doubt that the switch stung quite a bit.

If the thought of being whipped with a switch wasn't enough to horrify the boy, Drex's lecture surely did the trick. It hurt, and what hurt more was that he knew the man was right. He had been warned ad nauseam and should have kept his comments to himself and his attitude in check. Hindsight was a marvellous thing… He buried his head in the crook of his elbow and scrunched his face. Fully expected a showdown to rival the last time he'd gotten a switch from Drex, Kaden tried to brace himself with little success, it was almost impossible for him to do anything but lay there given the position he'd been asked to assume. He couldn't exactly say that he was relieved, because although the smacks were not as painful as the first encounter they still stung mightily and the speed at which they were given made it impossible for him to recover in between. The sting was horrible, just horrible, and it kept building. Now, Kaden was no expert on switches, but his Kushiban crèche master had preferred to use a short length of doweling which stung like a swarm of bees leaving thin welts that disappeared in a few hours. He likened this experience to that; it was enough to have him hissing at each without reducing him to a bawling mess. Unfortunately, unlike his crèche master, Drex didn't stop after two, four or even six, he kept going.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team was waiting for the two. Lakhri had produced a stack of energy bars and a bag of fruit and handed them out. "Seems as if young Kaden is just as obnoxious as we all were at that age," he remarked, vividly remembering some scenes that had him question his own sanity in hindsight. Or Raven's, or Flynt's. "With the possible exception of Eeth," he added with a grin.

"Oh, at age fifteen I, too, was... obnoxious," Eeth replied after a pause. "It might have shown in different ways, but I was entirely too full of myself. I am afraid I gave my master quite a hard time."

"Surely not," Flynt replied, a crooked smile on his face.

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "Are you suggesting I made this up?"

Flynt raised his hands in a gesture of surrender but maintained his crooked smile.

Eeth shot him a pointed look but did not comment further. "In any case," he said, "my master was able to rein me in. Fortunately for Kaden, he, too, has a master who is fully capable of handling him."

By this stage in her padawanhood, Raven had heard quite a few stories from Eeth's apprenticeship. It had taken a great many years, but she had eventually gotten them out of him, or Lakhri.

"I'll give you a rundown of where we're at," she told Lakhri, effectively drawing the focus off Flynt. "We've concentrated on basic stances. He needs to improve his offensive stance. He continues resorting to powering through opponents by using both sheer muscle mass and his strong Force presence, that just won't work with someone skilled." She went on to describe what they had been doing, all the while feeling a bit sorry for Kaden who seemed hellbent on making life hard for himself lately.

After the twelfth stroke, Drex dropped the switch. "Alright," he said, giving Kaden next to no time to recover. "Down you get. Rearrange your clothing and let's go join the others. We've kept them waiting long enough." He was not mad at Kaden, per se, but nor was the boy back in his good books yet, and it showed.

Kaden obeyed immediately, jumping from the rock so as not to mash his junk off trying to slide down the thing. He stood, rubbed frantically at his backside and did his best to stand tall, fully expecting some sort of forgiveness or comfort from Drex. He received none. Unwilling to disobey or question even the smallest of instructions, Kaden yanked up his shorts and trousers and rushed to follow. Suffice it to say that when they arrived he was struggling to hide his discomfort.

Raven recognised it but paid him no mind.

So did Flynt. However, the teen did offer Kade a sympathetic look in an effort at solidarity; he'd thought Drex had been harsh, considering.

Lakhri also thought that Drex had been harsh, but he knew that there were occasions that required harshness. Kaden had been quite obnoxious in every aspect related to his lightsaber and his lessons with Raven throughout this mission, and he had been called to task for it by Drex several times. Under the circumstances, Lakhri thought being harsh was the best thing that Drex could have done because constant defiance and complaints could ruin every mission team. Besides, Lakhri had never been particularly tolerant with any type of failure to accept a well-deserved punishment, as Flynt had experienced previously.

Eeth, on the other hand, did not think Drex harsh; he thought that whatever punishment Drex had dealt out, Kaden had deserved it for his insolence. "I will take the three of you back to the ship," he said. "Raven, you stay here with Drex. Focus on the goyts and see whether anything requires our intervention."

"I will make sure she need not focus on anything else," Drex promised calmly. He rested his hand on Kaden's shoulder briefly. "I will see you tonight, padawan," he said. "When your lesson is over, please continue your school work until dinner. You will need to stay on top of it because you will soon be back to classes."

Kaden was still looking decidedly uncomfortable, despite his efforts to appear stoic. The idea of doing school work for the rest of the day didn't exactly thrill him, not that he dared say as much. Instead, he resigned himself to an afternoon of boredom. There were worse things; at least he wasn't lugging goyts around or shovelling shit. His acquiescence was quiet as usual but more subdued than was typical for him. He sat gingerly on the back seat next to Flynt, unable to hide the slight wince.

"That bad, huh?" the boy asked. Eeth and Lakhri were still speaking to Drex and Raven outside, so their exchange shouldn't be overheard.

Kaden just looked at him.

"For what it's worth, I thought that was a bit harsh. I wouldn't have been impressed if Lakhri handed my saber off to Eeth or Drex either. But that's the way things are. Sometimes it's hard to see what's in your best interest and you gotta trust the olds to know best." Flynt was trying to pull the kid from his blue funk without pandering to the sulking.

The fact that Flynt hadn't teased him over being hauled off and smacked was enough to keep Kaden from brushing the older padawan off. "Yeah, well, tell that to my ass."

Flynt shrugged and leant down, his head close to Kaden's butt: "Sometimes you just gotta trust the olds to know what's best," he repeated, but sat up quickly when Lakhri threw open the front door and Eeth joined him, getting into the pilot's seat.

Despite wanting badly to sulk Kaden couldn't help the small smile that crossed his lips at Flynt's antics. The teen was crazy!