-The Beast-

Luna

"Rhen!" I shouted, whipping around. "You-" "I scared you?" said my sister, Rhen, with a mischievous smile on her face. "No! You just-" I exclaimed, scrambling down Lethamal,"-you just took me by surprise, that's all..."

As soon as I got close to the ground, I leapt off Lethamal and ran to Rhen. When I reached her, I gave her a tight hug, but I pulled back. "RHEN! WHERE WERE YOU?! WE WERE ALL SUPPOSED TO MEET HERE NEARLY AN HOUR AGO! YOU HAD ME WORRIED SICK!" I shouted, trying not to strangle her.

"Whoa, whoa, Luna! Calm down!" she said, putting her hands on my shoulders. "Selene, Kallisto, and I got a little side-tracked. You see, there was this..." she stopped and sighed, putting her hands to her head. "It's a long story... I'll tell you later."

"It better be an entertaining story..." I warned, trying not to sound angry, "because we just lost a good hour of trying to find the-" A loud roar interrupted me, and Rhen and I both turned towards The Forest. "Looks like it won't be too hard to find it..." she muttered over more roars.

"Where are Selene and Kallisto? I don't see them..." I said, looking around. "They're at the edge of The Forest..." said Rhen. "C'mon!"

When we reached the edge of The Forest, I spotted Selene. She honestly isn't very hard to spot, and I'll try to tell you why...

Selene is definitely the, uh... "special" sister, if you could call her that. She definitely has a rebellious streak, and I'm not talking about just her personality. Selene has fair skin and fierce, purple eyes. Her hair is probably the strangest part about her. She has a messy boy-ish style hair, with the bottom right portion of her head shaved, and the rest flopped over to the left side of her head. On top of that, she decided to put purple streaks in her hair... She says it looks "cool", but we always just roll our eyes. I hate to say it, but I guess it does look pretty "cool".

When it comes to patience, Selene doesn't have much... She also tends to have a temper, but we all have our flaws.

But as strange and out-of-place Selene is, she is my sister, and she has a pure heart. She's also an amazing mechanic, seeing that she modified some old speeders to be faster, more accurate, and to pretty much make all of the other mechanics insanely jealous when we pass by the village on them. Selene's our trapper. You need her to catch all those wild whatever-they-ares that are rampaging around the town with custom-made net traps? Already done.

As I was saying...

I ran up to Selene. I looked around and couldn't see Kallisto. "Where is Kallisto?" I asked Selene sternly. "Gee, sis! Glad to see you too!" said Selene irritatedly, with her arms crossed. I just rolled my eyes. "I'm serious." "She's up there." said Selene, pointing upwards to the canopy of the wroshyr trees. "Of course..." I sighed. I began to climb the tree.

A word about Kallisto quickly, before you meet her. She's always been The Little Sister, The Quiet One. Well, we're all exactly the same age, but you get the idea... Like I said, Kallisto is pretty quiet. But don't get me wrong, she can be fierce when she wants to. Kallisto is more defense than offense, however, she's pretty good when it comes to using a dagger or other short-range weapon. Kallisto has a gift. Kallisto is probably the most amazing healer I have ever seen in my entire life. Give her some plants, a bowl, and a stone or knife, and she'll whip up a pain killer that'll heal you faster than a Daimon can run (translation: hella fast). She's always experimenting with the local plants, and she's invented hundreds of medicines, all of which she keeps on shelf in her laboratory and some on her utility belt.

Just like Selene's, her appearances can be slightly surprising. Her skin is fair, like mine. Her hair is blood-red, and she always keeps it tied into a long braid that is either on her shoulder or casually hanging behind her back. She often has small flowers in her braid, which, for some strange reason, never die until she pulls them out and replaces them with new ones. But Kallisto's eyes are just straight-up startling. Her eyes are as bright and as priceless as emeralds. I

make the comparison because I've worked my butt off looking for them in the mines. It's always worth it in the end though, because at the market, those beauties pay the bills. Literally.

Back to climbing the tree.

As I was climbing the tree, I thought about it. It was hard not to, seeing as the roars went off every few seconds, and were only getting louder.

I guess I should call it by its real name. The Nexu.

Nexus are only found on Cholganna and sometimes on Zhanox, but the icky little bugs from Geonosis have a couple for "entertainment". Anyway, Poggle the Lesser ordered some of his soldiers to bring a Nexu to Kashyyyk and let it loose. It adapted to the climate and changed slightly, and began to hunt people and livestock down. The Council of Elders had it brought to their attention and ordered us track it down and kill it. Yay.

A Nexu is about 14.5 feet long (including its tail), has a really long tail that looks and serves as a whip, 4 red eyes, quills the size of spears, and a massive jaw with razor-sharp teeth.

We've been studying it's moving patterns, what it eats, how it hunts. We've learned a surprising amount about it. It's carnivorous, so it only eats meat, which is an advantage to us because there's more vegetation than living organisms, so the Nexu can only eat so much. The Nexu has been hunting mostly the fish that live in the Midnight River and local livestock, which is upsetting the farmers. I've never admitted it to my sisters, but I felt like the Nexu has been studying us too. I'm the only one who's noticed how intelligent the Nexu is.

I got to the top of the tree and tried hard not to look down. I searched the canopy for Kallisto, and finally found her. I wouldn't have seen her if it wasn't for her rose-red hair and bright, green eyes. Our special clothing was made for camouflage. I leapt don to the branch that she was crouching on. Kallisto didn't move.

"It's been acting weird today."

"How?"

"It's been going in a circle around this 3-mile radius. It hasn't even stopped moving."

It took me a moment to realize what was about to happen.

"We need to get down there to Rhen and Selene before it's too late." I said, alarmed.

"We don't have good weapons. We need to gear up if it's going to attack us."

"Right." I said "We can go to the falls and grab some stuff from our stash."

"Then what are we waiting for?" said Kallisto, smiling. "Let's do this."

Minutes later Selene, Kallisto, Rhen, and I were sprinting away from Spring Flat, towards Midnight Falls.

"So let me get this straight." huffed Selene "You're saying that the Nexu is now hunting us and we have to go get better gear so it won't tear us to shreds?"

"Yeah, something along those lines." I laughed

We got to the Midnight Falls and stopped to catch our breath.

"Ok, Luna" said Rhen. "Do your thing."

I stepped towards the sparkly, blue waters. I spread out my hand towards the pool of water that gathered the water from the falls and sent it into the river. I focused on the movement of the water and on the drops of mist that fell on my face as I closed my eyes. I felt a rush and my heart raced as I heard the slow, heavy grinding of stone. I opened my eyes and saw large stepping stones that led all the way to the front of the falls. I went first and my sisters went behind me. We balanced carefully on the stones and, luckily, made our way across without falling in. When we reached the face of the waterfall, I stuck my hands in and spread them out, as if opening a curtain. The water responded to my movement and a doorway opened, leading behind the waterfall to where a cave was. I heard the grinding of stone behind me as my sisters and I stepped into the cave as the steps disappeared beneath the blue waters.

Many years ago, my sisters and I found shelter here and resided here for nearly a year. The falls offered fresh water, and the surrounding area was lush with flowers, wroshyr trees, and fruit plants. The only downside was the air in the cave was very humid, so we had to keep some items outside. Also, the cave was quite dark (I mean, it was a cave, so...), we had some candles and lanterns that hung from the ceiling that we lit whenever we came.

Now, we kept a stash of armor and weapons and stuff in the cave, for emergencies.

Once we were inside the cave, I felt along the wall for a rope. I found it and pulled, and the lantern on the roof of the cave lowered to chest-height. I walked up to one and pinched the wick. Immediately a blue fire ignited, shedding some light in the cave. I saw a blue glow and felt a tingle in my hand. I brought my right hand up to my face to look at it.

My Symbol was glowing.

You see, my sisters and I were born with these tattoo-like symbols on our hands, but we never found out why. Mine looks like two stars and a crescent moon and glows blue, Rhen's looks like a sun and glows yellow, Selene's looks like a couple swirly lines with a star in the middle (a representation of the wind and sky) and glows purple, and Kallisto's looks like a leaf and glows green. Nobody but Ms. Udala and some of our most trusted Wookie friends know about the Symbols. They're one of our greatest secrets...

I lit the rest of the lanterns and hooked the rope back on the wall. I walked towards the back of the cave and into a small storage room. There were racks full of armor and weapons, from iron spears to wooden bows and gleaming swords. We each carefully chose our armor and put it on. We all had leather hunting clothes, and we only wore the armor during a hunt or something of the sort. I chose an iron chest plate and reinforced leather with chain mail leggings and a traditional battle helmet. I then grabbed some more arrows for my bow, sharpened my spear, and chose two daggers from the rack and strapped them to my belt.

I looked around at my sisters. We all had similar amor, but different weapons. Rhen had a spear and a bow, Selene had a crossbow that was custom-made to shoot both arrows and nets, and Kallisto had a sword and some electric grenades. Kallisto gave us 2 each, and we turned around to leave. I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a table with 3 bowls full of glowing sand. I walked towards it and realized it was Stardust.

"Luna, you comin'?" shouted Selene. "Yeah, I'm coming! Just give me a minute..."

I took my arrows and dipped them into the green Stardust. Now my arrows injected painless poison to whatever they hit.

I ran out of the room and into the main part of the cave. I walked up to the water and put my hands in the way I had before, and the water parted. The stone steps came up too, even without me having to focus that much. We sprinted back to the flat, and I hoped we were prepared for what was to come.

We reached the flat. There was no Nexu in sight. No roars. Nothing.

We ran to the middle of the flat, and I climbed Lethamal to see if I could get a better look from above. Still nothing.

Everything was eerily silent. The Nexu was no doubt watching us.

"EVERYBODY WATCH OUT!" I heard someone scream. Then I saw it.

The monstrous beast came bounding through the rocks and lush green, trampling everything under it. And it was going straight for Rhen. She was on the Oasis Islands, completely frozen. Selene ran towards the Nexu, her crossbow in hand. She aimed and pulled the trigger.

An explosive arrow hit it square in the side and it let out a deafening roar. It was now focused on Selene, barreling towards her.

Then suddenly, Kallisto threw a Nightshade dust grenade that exploded into purple dust in its face, temporarily blinding the Nexu.

We went on like this for minutes, weakening it and tiring it and reverting its attention from sister to sister. But I knew all too well that the Nexu would learn our tricks and turn on us.

And, of course, I was right. Kallisto had just thrown another Nightshade dust grenade at it, and suddenly, it turned and ran at me with all the strength it had left in it.

I saw my chance. As it ran towards me, it's chest was open, uncovered. I took three poison arrows and notched them on my bow. I pulled back as far as I could on the bowstring, and let the arrows fly. They hit their target with precise accuracy.

The sheer force of the arrows hitting the Nexu sent it skidding and tumbling at least 50 feet. It roared in pain and anger as it got back on its legs, unable to feel the poison that was coursing through its body.

It ran at me again, slower this time, and I knew I didn't need my arrows for the final blow. I raised my hand, and time seemed to slow. First, Kallisto sent more Nightshade dust grenades at it. Then Selene took her chance and fired a huge net at it using her crossbow, entangling it. It roared in frustration as Rhen sent some arrows at it, none of them missing their target.

The Nexu was getting weaker and weaker, but I had to make sure I had the time to say the Divine Words before it died. I raised my other hand, and another rush was sent through my body as the Nexu was sent flying backwards into a large boulder. I heard a crack and the Nexu fell limp at the base of the boulder.

We ran towards it and we stopped a few feet near it. The Nexu was breathing very lightly and slowly, and when we got close to it, it did not growl or move or roar. We stared into its eyes, and it stared back into ours.

All together, we whispered:

Feth Valethik Jaloluhn Igraetheth,

We set you free,

Igenalh Ahnxohnalh Japollaheth,

Fly away home!

The Nexu closed its eyes, and went still.

We stood in silence for a while, looking at the Nexu.

"Well, we did it. We actually did it." Rhen said finally.

"And this..." Selene patted the Nexu's pelt. "... Is going to make a nice cloak."