Padawan Neria Halai - Geonosis
"Still nothing, Master."
Neria suspected it wouldn't be the first time she said it. There hadn't even been a grain of sand or chunk of dirt out of place ever since that initial attack. She was starting to suspect that the Jedi Knight was wrong, that the droids had simply been testing their defensive.
Yet she still felt it, an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach unlike anything biological, a feeling that she knew to be a warning from the Force.
"Keep at it," he told her, his voice calm and steady as he meditated with her. "I feel something off, and you should, too."
"I do sense that, but I can't find anything specific."
And almost as soon as she finished saying it, she felt it. The same kind of sixth sense of someone looming over her shoulder unseen, the impression of not being alone in a room. It was right outside the entrance to their tent.
She snapped her weapon on, her master following right behind her.
"Stay here," Master Kullenan ordered her. "I'll go check on it."
He kept only one side of his blade ignited as he moved toward the entrance, while Neria continued to pan a scrutinizing gaze around the tent, looking for any possible tricks that could be waiting for the two of them.
Once outside, her master glanced at something on the ground, then there was the snap and hiss of another lightsaber.
She didn't get much of a look of the man wielding the other saber, only that he wore robes that were dark in comparison to her master's brown and white. His red lightsaber clashed with the Jedi Knight's. Neria rushed to assist, then there was a cry behind Master Kullenan, and a bolt of red cut through his back.
"Master!" she cried as he sank to the ground, motionless.
A tidal wave of emotions rushed through her. Sorrow, rage, fear. She knew that she shouldve banished them, she knew they were the kind of emotions that would feed the dark side. But faced with at least a pair of assassins who'd killed her master, one of which wielded a lightsaber, she wasn't sure she would live long enough for it to even begin to take hold.
She rushed forward to aid him, and she finally saw the pale, leering face of the enemy Force-wielder, a shock of messy dark hair decorated with braids and beads clashing against his skin. Orange eyes flecked with bemusement watched her.
He thought her easy prey now that he'd killed her master. But she wasn't that far removed from the Jedi Knight in pure combative skill, and now he'd be facing her without a surprise on his side.
But that didn't mean a chill didn't settle into her spine, that her arms didn't shake with fear. She'd heard the whispers in the halls of the temple, the rumors that had filtered their way down from the Jedi Council.
Sith. Every padawan and apprentice had heard of the ancient enemy, thought defeated, but the current of stomach-roiling power flowing through him all but cemented her suspicions. She didn't know if he was a true Sith or simply a trained assassin, but he would've had to learn to harness that power from somewhere.
Neria rolled under his blade, and she felt the blaster firing before she even heard it, angling her weapon up as momentum carried the Twi'lek to her feet. She effortlessly deflected the bolt before moving around the lightsaber-wielding enemy, putting him between her and the shadowy figure she could see standing between a pair of boulders.
By now, cries of alarm were sounding through the camp, the clones having doubtlessly heard the blaster fire. Their tents were isolated from the rest of the soldiers, but they weren't so far removed as to take a long time to reach.
Neria only had to hold them for a few moments, but the padawan didn't know if it she could. Dark side energy swirled through her opponents, its disquieting and slimy presence tugging at her even as she stood in defiance of it.
But one look at her master, and she was ready.
A mixture of Shien and Soresu was her preferred form, far less aggressive than that of her master, but easily capable of handling multiple enemies and allowing her to meet the assassin's far more bold attacks.
Neria leaned into her blows, straying away from the measured strikes her master so preferred in favor of driving the assassin back. She made no attempt at finding an opening, the balanced approach allowing her enough distraction that she could feel the second assailant trying to get a shot on her and move to keep the dark side user in between the man with the blaster.
The man she dueled was no pushover, however. He occasionally put the padawan on her heels, his strikes graceful but aggressive, smooth but with intent. There was no attempt to display flair, just simple and effective thrusts, parries, and ripostes.
The battle turned in her favor when the clones arrived, the jostling of their armor and gear informing her of their presence long before their blaster fire. To their credit, they quickly located the second assassin, directing a hail of fire at him so thick that they practically vaporized him, leaving her only with the Force-user.
She found anger in his eyes, rage at his inability to penetrate such a strong defense. But he continued his attempts regardless of the clones, utilizing the same method as her and keeping her between himself and the clones.
But isolating him had left Neria with an opening, one she seized immediately.
All through the fierce and brief duel, she'd felt the call of another crystal, the cry of the Force telling her to use it. She'd ignored it for the time, too focused on keeping herself alive to do anything more. Now that she had more room for error, she deemed it time to heed the weapon's call.
Whether it be the rage and fear filling her, the intent with which she met her foe, or sheer force of increased practice, it was all too easy for her to reach out to her master's weapon, pulling it from the ground as she spun around one of her foe's thrusts.
Neria activated the weapon the moment it touched her palm, the metal still warm from the grip of her master. She continued the spin, coming up with the second blade and thrusting it toward the dark side user.
Her foe tried to dance out of the way, but the attack had been too sudden and the blade was too long. It pierced his flank, driving through his body and erupting from the opposite side. For a moment, the battle went still, her opponent's blazing eyes going wide with surprise.
Then, all too slowly, he went to his knees, the blade carving into him even further as she pulled it back up. By the time he finally hit the ground, she'd sawed him nearly in half.
Silence fell across the small clearing outside their tent. Neria suspected that the clones were as surprised as she was that she had managed to overcome the assailants that her master had not.
Thoughts of her master drew her gaze to the fallen Jedi Knight. Neria rushed to his side to tend to him, but there was nothing to do. The blaster bolt had caught his heart, leaving him bereft of life by the time he'd hit the ground. The cauterized wound was practically bloodless, the look of shock on his face the only thing that truly spoke to the sudden horror of his abrupt passing.
Neria was once again without a master, but Kullenan was the only one who'd been stolen from her in such a fashion. The anger and sorrow that had rushed through her at his death were now a steadily flowing stream instead of a burst of emotions breaking a damn, allowing her to more easily wrest control of herself from them.
But it wasn't easy. Continued stolen glances to his face brought her teetering close to them, but as the clones spread out to look for any other possible assailants, she managed to center herself. It was only when a familiar captain joined her that she opened her eyes and moved her gaze away from him.
"Commander, are you alright?" the clone asked, shifting his weapon in his hands.
"I...I'm alive, Tank." Her voice was quiet, shocked, but still strong. "I don't know if I'm alright."
"Understood." He looked to the Jedi's body as the clones started to carry him away. "It looks like you're in charge, now. If I had to guess, the Seps are going to be here any minute expecting a leaderless army."
"Yes," she replied, still too busy processing her master's death to even think about the responsibility being thrust on her. "Yes, these assassins thought they'd get us both."
"Well, they clearly didn't send enough men to do the job. General Kullenan would've been proud that you managed to fend them off." His helmet turned toward the dark side user. "What was he, Commander? The way he kept up with you..."
"I suspect..." The padawan trailed off, then looked to the clone. "It's not important, Captain. For now, we need to keep his body so that the Jedi Temple can examine it. Also have someone preserve Master Kullenan's body for the burning when we get back home." She paused, hearing the roar of engines in the direction of the enemy outpost. "It seems as though the Separatists are on their way."
As she watched the ships on the horizon, the realization started to hit home. Neria was expected to command, now. An entire battalion of clones, and she had to lead every single one against the Separatists.
"You ready, Commander?"
"Tank, I've never led a battle in my life. All I know is the military strategies and battles I've been studying about for the last two years."
"Then if it would make you feel more comfortable, form our plan and let us execute on our own. Us clones are rather adept at running a battle plan by ourselves."
"My master never let you do this?"
"No, Commander."
"Then send out the call to man the defenses and buy me enough time to formulate a strategy. When I have orders to give, I'll join you on the perimeter."
"Yes ma'am."
"And Tank?"
"Commander?"
"Have someone send a message to the fleet. Let them know we have no commander here."
"But we do. You."
Despite herself, Neria smiled. "Thank you," she said. "But still, send that message regardless."
As he rushed away, she hefted the weight of the double-bladed lightsaber in her free hand. It already felt familiar, like a weapon she'd spent her years learning with rather than one she'd just picked up in the middle of a heated battle.
To some degree, it felt wrong holding onto it. The weapon had belonged to her master, and though he would be burned and his ashes would be left to float away on the winds of Coruscant, it felt like something that should always belong to him.
But then, the weapon itself was irrelevant. It was the crystal inside that called to her, its beckoning more important than the metal shell that encased it. Perhaps it would be better to simply fashion her own weapon out of it, then learn to properly utilize two lightsabers instead of the standard one.
Her time with Master Kullenan may have been short, but he would've appreciated the pragmatism of her putting his weapon to use more than any of her other teachers. She'd apprenticed under a scholar, an investigator, and a peacemaker, but Kullenan had been a soldier.
"I'll put this to good use, Master," she swore to him in a low mutter that reached none of the scrambling clones around her. "I promise."