Chapter 16: Light Vs. Dark
This is Jayden Vel Dar.
A phenomenal lightsaber combatant who doesn't like to fight. A devastating warrior who would prefer to negotiate. A man who fell in love with a woman after the Jedi purge and has a beautiful son.
Jedi Master, General in the Grand Army of the Republic, Savior of Antar IV, Survivor of the Battle of Geonosis, and Survivor of Order 66. And yet, inside, he fells like he's none of these things.
Inside, he only feels like a father.
His son was born twelve years ago, and since the moment of his birth, Jayden and his love Maxa had been happy together. At the time, he tried hard to stick to the old notion of Jedi not growing attachments.
That is behind him now.
From the first touch of his son, to the last lingering kiss Maxa Jandovar had given him before she went into hiding on Corellia, he regretted none of it. He wondered why the Jedi had stuck to such archaic rules… love for a family should be a Jedi's strength, not a weakness.
For now, as he locks lightsabers with Darth Vader, he is not only fighting for the other Jedi survivors aboard the Millennium Falcon behind him, but he is also fighting for his wife and son.
For those reasons, he fights better than any Jedi before him.
At this moment, he is the ultimate Jedi.
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This is Echuu Shen-Jon.
A haunted warrior of the Old Republic, and proud keeper of the Jedi heritage. Once a padawan under Mace Windu himself, he came precariously near the dark side when his own padawan, Stam Reath, was killed during the battle of Geonosis by a dark side general named Sev'rance Tann.
The Jedi Council carefully gave him another padawan, Stam's sister Naat, to try to calm him down and bring him back to the light. It worked for a time. Until he faced Sev'rance Tann in combat, and used his anger and hatred to defeat her.
He placed himself into Jedi exile to repent for his crimes, sending Naat back to the Jedi council… and unfortunately to her death after Order 66 was given.
Now, keeper of the Jedi artifact that held the ancient Jedi histories from Tython, the Vor'Na'Tu. He had wisely left it in the hands of Obi-wan Kenobi aboard the Falcon. He knew that one of them would die this day, and he had been more than prepared to sacrifice his life to help his friends escape.
There is no death…
There is only The Force.
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This is how it feels to be Darth Vader.
All you ever feel is pain. The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.
You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.
You don't even have lungs anymore.
Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.
Your mechanical arms heave the lightsaber towards the Jedi facing you with incredible strength and speed. The jedi is nearly blasted off his feet by the sheer impact of plasma blade against plasma blade.
You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you.
Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous.
You feel the pain of the mechanical appendages attached to what remains of your legs. Sometimes you feel as if the droids that rebuilt you purposely made the attachments wrong so you would always have to feel agony every time you moved.
But that is alright.
Pain gives you strength.
Then you feel the hatred.
The hatred is not aimed at the two Jedi facing you. It is not aimed at the Jedi aboard the Falcon behind them, a hatch opened with a small anti-personal blaster opening up on your forces.
It is directed at you. All at you.
Only you.
You did it.
You killed her.
In the end, all you have is yourself and your hatred.
And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker.
Forever.
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Jayden flipped away from Darth Vader, his hands stinging from their first exchange. Vader was incredibly strong! He shifted into an Ataru stance, and prepared himself. Behind him, Echuu-Shen-Jon engaged the Stormtroopers. Jayden yelled towards the Falcon. "GO! Get out of here!"
But he knew that his friends, Qu-Rahn, Olee Starstone, A'sharaad Het, Ob-wan Kenobi, and even the little Jawa Het Krex would not leave them behind. Han Solo was a good man, and even though he acted like a Corellian pirate, he would refuse to lift off until the last moment.
Darth Vader pointed a finger at him. "Jayden Vel Dar. We meet again at last."
Jayden looked confused for a moment. "I'm sorry, have we met before?"
Darth Vader approached slowly, his lightsaber at his side. "We fought side by side on Geonosis. You stood besides me and Senator Amidala in the circle of Jedi survivors before the Grand Army arrived."
Jayden thought back, trying to think who had been there. "I remember Anakin Skywalker being besides me… and you killed him!"
Darth Vader started to laugh. "Fool." Then he lunged.
Jayden moved quickly, his lightsaber intercepting Vaders. He didn't have the strength to stand up to Vader's powerful thrusts, but he did have the ability to redirect their power.
Jayden neatly sidestepped, cutting at Vader's leg, yet Vader's lightsaber met the cut as he passed and he managed to sweep his blade behind his head to slap aside the casual thrust Jayden aimed at the back of his neck – but his charge had put him in Shen-Jon's path, so that the Jedi Master had to Force-roll over his partner's head.
Directly at Vader's blade.
Shen-Jon drove a slash at the scarlet blade while he pivoted in the air, and again Vader sidestepped so that now was Shen-Jon in Jayden's way.
Behind them, Obi-wan Kenobi opened the hatch of the Falcon, and was prepared to join them, but suddenly everything changed.
Echuu Shen-Jon used the Force to practically throw Jayden towards the Falcon. "You have a son!" He said as he intercepted Vader's cut. "GO NOW! IT'S MY TIME!"
Obi-wan fell back as Jayden hit him, both of them rolling into the Falcon. "NO!" Jayden said through clenched teeth as Echuu Shen-Jon once again used the Force to shut the Falcon's hatch. Behind him, he heard Olee Starstone yell "Take off Han!"
She did not know that one of them was still on the ground.
The Millennium Falcon took to the skies, leaving behind a single Jedi.
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Echuu Shen-Jon faced Lord Vader. "I am prepared to die."
Vader answered readily. "Excellent, I am prepared to kill you."
But once again, the old Jedi Master surprised the Dark Lord. With a flicker of the Force, one of the dead stormtroopers fingers tightened on a trigger, and a spray of blasterbolts hit Vader in the back. But Vader was not so easily dispatched. His Sith armor easily resisted the blaster bolts.
Once again, he lunged forward, feinting, and then slashing in a deadly downward arc with the saber. It struck home, cutting the old man cleanly in half. There was a brief flash as Echuu Shen-Jon's cloak fluttered to the deck in two neat sections.
But Echuu-Shen-Jon was not in it.
Wary of some trick, Vader poked at the empty cloak sections with the saber. There was no sign of the old man. He had vanished as though he had never existed.
What remained of his 501st joined Vader in examining the place where Echuu-Shen-Jon had stood seconds before. Several of them muttered, and even the awesome presence of the Sith Lord couldn't keep a few of them feeling a little afraid.