A Calm Confrontation
SMACK! Another blow from Angela's plastic lightsaber had hit Tony, only this time, it had made contact with the left side of his neck.
Involuntary reacting to the hit, Tony quickly puts his left hand to his neck just after Angela moves her blade away from him. While rubbing the side of his neck, he calls out, "I surrender. I'm done." Dropping his plastic lightsaber to the ground, Tony walks over to the couch that Steve and Pepper were getting up from. Angela couldn't help but smile as she followed her defeated friend to the couch.
Pepper walks up to her boyfriend, comes in close and places her lips on Tony's right cheek, giving him a gentle kiss. "Nice try, honey."
Tony looks into Pepper's eyes. "Why thank you, my dear." Tony replies in a cheery, yet sarcastic tone. He looks up at Steve just as Angela walks to stand on the soldier's left side.
"Hey, Steve. How about you and Angela go a few rounds. It would interesting to see you two go at it."
Steve holds up both of his hands in front of him. "I'll gladly pass."
"What's the matter, Rogers? You chicken?"
With a smile, Steve shakes his head and replies, "No. I'm just smart enough to know that she will win because she has had sword training and I haven't."
Tony slightly tilts his head to the left and sarcastically replies, "Wow, Steve. You're such a ball of fun!"
As if it was an instinct, Pepper looks at her wristwatch on her left hand and sees that it was nearly mid-afternoon. Looking up into Tony's face, she says, "While you guys continue to fight with the plastic swords..."
"FX lightsabers." Tony couldn't help but correct Pepper's incorrect terminology.
Pepper fixes her sentence. "Okay. While you guys continue to fight with the FX lightsabers, I will go back to my office and work on forwarding the company." Continuing towards the elevator, Pepper gives Angela a little "tip".
"By the way, if you so much as injure my boyfriend, there will be no safe place from me, Angela. Understood?"
"Understood, Pepper." Angela knew that Pepper was just messing with her so she just decided to play along.
Pepper smiles back at the Jedi. "Good." She turns and walks up to the elevator, which causes the sensors on the doors to open automatically. "I'll see you three later." She steps into the elevator, turns back around and presses the elevator button to go to the ground floor. Pepper looks out a final time at Tony, Steve and Angela.
"Bye, honey." Tony tells her. Steve also says bye while Angela waves her right hand goodbye. As if on cue, the doors of the elevator slide shut and the elevator begins its descent to the ground level.
Pulling to the right side of the street and parking the truck right next to the sidewalk, both Siths look at the building they had stopped in front of. It was the same building where Trent had found the Halva in.
From within his metallic mask, Trent informs Malkus. "We're here, Master. This is the building that the Halva is in. There are also two men there as well. One of them was well skilled in hand to hand combat. I'm not sure about the other one, though."
Even though his words were serious and normal, Trent was uneasy about giving the location of the Halva to Malkus. Not only that, his awakened consciousness was telling him that he was doing wrong in telling Malkus about the Halva's location. He had to come up with a plan to get to the Halva and tell her of the situation he was in without Malkus coming with him; and he had to come up with it quick.
Malkus talks out the situation they are in. "The Halva is in the building with two guys. You said one was excellent in hand to hand combat. With the other one, we are unsure about his capabilities. How do you think we should do this, apprentice?"
Apprentice...that word that made me proud of myself, now makes my stomach turn. After this quick thought, Trent works on a plan that would allow him a few minutes with the Halva to explain his situation while making Malkus believe he was still loyal to him.
After running a situation through his head, Trent believes he has thought of the only plan that would work. Trent takes in a deep breath, then lays out his plan to Malkus.
"I believe this plan will work, Master." Trent mentally cringes at saying "Master". He had to play along though so that his plan would work for him. "I don't believe we will need the clothes that are with us in the vehicle so we can leave them here. I'll walk up to the doors as if I belong there and unlock them with the Force a certain way so that their security systems won't go off. Then, I will make my way towards the mainframe of the artificial intelligence they have installed and shut it down again. Once that is done, I will locate the Halva and the two men and then contact you and tell you where to go so that we can have all three of them between us."
Stroking his short, white facial hair, the Sith Lord nods his head in approval. "Excellent plan, apprentice, excellent. Contact me through the Force when you have located them."
Nodding his head towards Malkus, Trent pulls on the door handle of the truck and exits the driver's side of the vehicle. Once he closes the door, Trent moves around front of the truck and walks up onto the sidewalk. Several New Yorkers were traveling along on the sidewalk in opposite directions. Some didn't even notice the strangely dressed man walking across the sidewalk, towards Stark's building. A couple of people noticed Trent, but only took it as somebody cosplaying a Sith from the Star Wars Universe and continued going about their business.
The walk to the doors was short. Trent was about half way to Stark's building when a lady with light orange hair walked out through the doors of the building. Not wanting to draw attention to himself, Trent walks slightly away from the building so that it looked like he was walking to a different building a block over.
As the female walks past him, she takes a second glance at him and notices that he was wearing black clothes, black boots, and even a black cape with a hood that covered his head and face from view. She just shrugs off what she sees as someone who dresses up for conventions that have people dressing up as their favorite superhero and such.
Trent switches back to walking straight to the building just as soon as the woman that looked at him gets into a car parked a couple of yards down the sidewalk. Even though he was being noticed, everybody that saw him just took it as a common occurrence.
At last, Trent had made it to the door of the building. However, he knew as soon as he opened the doors, some sort of security system was bound to go off.
Once I open the door, I'll have to be quick to get to the Halva and explain my situation. I just hope that if any alarm goes off, it won't be loud enough for anyone to hear outside, especially by Malkus.
Holding his breath, he slowly and carefully opens the door. No alarm sounds. Opening the door as far as he needed, Trent quickly walks into the building and shuts the door quickly and quietly behind him. Still, not one alarm sounded.
Making his way to the elevator, Trent knows that he doesn't have much time to get to the Halva.
Even though I didn't hear one, an alarm probably went off, but it was silent. Got to be quick about this.
Since he was walking hastily, he reached the elevator as soon as he made it a conclusion that an alarm had went off. Pressing the button off to the side of the elevator, the doors open, allowing Trent to rush into the elevator. Quickly reaching out with the Force, he senses three beings, one being the Halva, on the top floor. Knowing this, he instinctively presses the right button, causing the doors to shut and allowing the elevator to make its trip to the floor.
"May I ask why you wanted to see my suits again?" Tony asks as he and Steve walk with Angela over towards Mark 42, which was standing on the platform and powered down. Once Angela was in front of it, she stares at it for a moment, then suddenly gives it a soft hug. This made Steve worry a little bit about her.
Walking up the platform and standing next to her, Steve asks, "Are you alright?"
Cheerfully, Angela replies back. "Yeah. I'm fine. No...I'm great!" She stops hugging Mark 42 and turns to face Steve. "This suit is very advanced in tech. It's the only thing I have seen that comes close to what I have in my Starfighter. If you are able to, you could help Tony and me repair my fighter back to its original status."
"Uh..." Steve had no immediate response. However, Tony was quick to give a reply for Steve.
"Heh..yeah. If Steve were to help, he would probably degrade it than upgrade it."
With a slight look of disgust on his face, Steve faces Tony. "Oh, would I?"
Tony joins Steve and Angela on the platform and continues the chat. "Yes. In fact, you probably wouldn't know how to even strap on the safety belt in the cockpit."
"Are you challenging me to put on a simple safety belt...Stark?" The look on Steve's face told Tony that Steve was ready to accept such a simple task. He only meant what he said as a joke; but, since the opportunity presented itself, Tony thought he should take advantage of it.
Tony, with a smart aleck smirk on his face, talks back to the soldier. "Well, if you want to, you can take the challenge right now, if Angela allows.."
"Sir, it appears the Sith that tried to get to Angela a few days ago has entered the building from the ground floor. He is making his way up to your floor in the elevator right now."
Angela , who had been standing quietly next Steve, was now focused on the Sith that was in the elevator. Blocking the words of Jarvis, Tony, and Steve, the Jedi senses the Sith through the Force, trying to figure out what his tactics would be for a second battle. However, when Angela finally managed to sense the Sith's motives, they weren't ones of destruction and death. In fact, his plans were quite different. They were humble and pleading motives.
Bringing her mind back into reality, Angela looks over at Tony, who was just putting on Mark 42 by walking backwards into its open front. Quickly glancing to her left, she sees that Steve was gone. Hearing a door slam shut on the opposite side of the room, she looks up and back at Tony, who was already giving orders to Jarvis.
"Jarvis, lock down the mansion. I want to keep the Sith in the building so that he doesn't have a chance to hurt anyone on the streets. I also wan.."
"No! Wait, Tony. Stop!" The Jedi holds up her hands in front of Tony, stopping him from walking off the platform. Confused as to why Angela wanted him to stop, Tony makes the face plate of Mark 42 open so that he could talk face to face with Angela.
"Stop?! Angela, do you realize that the Sith that tried to kill you just a little over a week ago is back and is, more than likely, stronger and able enough to actually kill you, me and Steve?"
"He's not here to kill me, and he won't kill you two either." Angela made her words sound serious, which only confused Stark even more.
"Just trust me." Angela gives Tony a look of sincerity, making Tony nod his head.
"Okay, but if he makes a move towards us..."
"He won't."
A door slamming behind them made Angela and Tony glance behind them. Both of them saw Steve running back to their position with his shield on his left arm.
"Okay, how do we want to handle this, Angela?" Steve was already in a defensive position with his shield.
Angela reaches out to her right, places her right hand on Steve's shield and pushes it lightly towards the floor.
"We remain calm and let the Sith explain his situation."
Steve does a double-take at Angela. He wasn't sure he heard that right. "What?"
Tony walks off the platform and stands directly to the left of Angela, who had left the platform when Steve had arrived back in the room. "It's okay, Steve. Let's stand down. Angela deals with this stuff all the time back in her galaxy. But, if he makes a move, we're taking him down."
Steve nods his head and looks back at the elevator. "Alright, then. Angela, you call the shots."
"Okay."
As if on cue, Jarvis tell Tony that the Sith was on the same floor. "Sir, the elevator has arrived. Shall I open the doors?"
Tony looks to his right to see Angela nod in approval. Tony then gives Jarvis the command. "Yes, Jarvis. Open the doors."
Obeying the command, Jarvis signals the doors of the elevator to open. The doors slide away to reveal the Sith Guard in the elevator. The Sith steps out. Steve tightens his grip on his shield. Tony readies himself for a quick fire from his repulsor on his right hand. Angela just stands there, waiting for the Sith to explain his situation.
Are you guys excited?! I AM! This story is about over. One or two more chapters with an epilogue to set up for the sequel!:D Hopefully, you guys read this part. Also, this is very important! CHECK YOUR SPAM FOR YOUR EMAIL! Apparently, FanFiction is having trouble with sending new email alerts for certain people. So, if you want to know when the next is or if someone PMs you, check your spam one a day. :)
Also, please let me know what you think of the story because I have had feedback from one guy...(You know who you are ;). ) It only takes a moment and trust me, I read all comments and reply to all PMs. Everyone of you who reads this is important to me and I appreciate you even taking time to wait on each chapter I write and post. Seriously, it means a lot.
Well, off to more homework...BUT ALSO WRITE! :)
~TheJediAvenger~