Chapter 22

Examination

The cloaked figure shrieked like a vibroshived gornt and leapt off the roof. Ahsoka, worried about letting the Force fueled madman close to Ylenic and Mirian, decided not to wait for him on the ground. She sprung up to meet him in midair, blocking the shining silver blade with her green primary saber. He put all of his strength into the blow, and with his greater mass he caused Ahsoka to spin in midair. She desperately slashed out with her shoto as she spun, singing the back of his cloak. Even though she knew she hadn't actually hit flesh, the man grunted, and when he hit the ground he was clearly off balance. He landed badly, and she could see from here that he'd probably turned his ankle when he landed.

Still, he appeared to be fueled by his out of control emotions. Without wasting a moment, he spun and launched another attack at Ahsoka. This time she caught his blade with both of hers, putting as much strength into the block as possible. He was pushing with all his might, so she pivoted and let his own strength carry him past her. She swing her saber at his back, but this time he caught himself and spun around again in time to block. The two traded blows, but it was clear that no matter how fast and agile Ahsoka was, he was simply powerful enough that he could keep her at bay.

She lashed out with the Force and knocked him back a few feet. He snarled and lunged at her, slashing downwards with all of his weight and muscle behind the blow. Rather than trying to block the strike, Ahsoka used the Force to leap over his head, out of range. While in midair, she turned off her shoto and reconnected her sabers. This was her first time trying this particular fighting style, but the only way she could match his strength was to use the leverage of a two handed grip on the extra long hilt. She landed behind him, holding the blade in a two handed variant of the simple but powerful Makashi style of the dueling masters of old, rather than the quicker Shien and Djem So styles that Ahsoka usually favored.

When he charged again, as she expected he would, she met his blade head on. She held her blade in place and stepped forward, putting her right foot between his. Seeing surprise on her opponent's face, she pivoted on her right foot, whirling around to his side and switching from a straightforward Makashi style defense to her normal quicker Djem So style. Before he could react, she stepped past him and slashed at where his knees were. The moment the saber hilt was out of line with her own body, she activated her second blade. The dark Jedi was quick, quick enough to leap over her blades. But as she swung her blue shoto blade mere centimeters away from him, she saw him spasm as if in pain.

And then she realized what had happened when she singed his cloak earlier. The faint crackles of ionized lightning created by the bondar crystal in her lightsaber had struck him as the blade went by. Once again, she'd caused a muscle spasm at the wrong time when the dark Jedi was in midair, and he landed badly. She spun her sabers, now linked together into a saberstaff, at his partly prone body. The dark Jedi frantically rolled and tried to get up to block the double attack. This time the green blade singed his shoulder, and he screamed. The moment he was out of her range, he leapt up and rather than lunging and attacking her again, Ahsoka felt a sense of unfocused danger in the force, much like she'd felt during the war whenever a large cannon blast or explosive was bout to hit nearby. She spring six meters into the air, just as every bit of loose pavement, garbage can lids, and what looked like a chunk of ferrocrete from a nearby sidewalk all slammed into the wall behind where she'd been standing. The wall buckled from the impact.

Ahsoka didn't even want to imagine what it would have done to her body if she hadn't moved in time. The moment she landed, she lashed out with her double bladed saber. One attack after another. The silver blade in his hand met her green and blue blades repeatedly. And he didn't seem to be tiring. His face screwed up in anger, and for the first time Ahsoka was able to actually look at him and recognize his race. He was a Nikto, the subspecies that had greenish skin and, as her danger sense was warning her, clawed hands. She ducked his claw swipe and tried to return the strike with a double armed pommel strike from her saber. He blocked it on the shimmering silvery blade, and looked shocked that his blade didn't cut right through her hilt.

And then, without warning, the dark Jedi was knocked aside. He tumbled down the street a dozen meters, cursing and screaming. Shocked, Ahsoka looked up to realize that despite the fatigue she felt, it had been less than a minute since the fight started. And it had taken Ylenic that long to find a safe place to set Mirian's unconscious body down.

Now the dark Jedi faced two Jedi. One of whom had been powerful enough to be a candidate for the Jedi Council. Something flashed up on Ahsoka's helmet display, but when she blinked it went away.

The two Jedi faced the madman, neither sure if or when he would strike. He grimaced, and Ahsoka could tell that if he hadn't been breathing so heavily, he probably would have growled at them.

A blast of force energy gathered in his free hand, and he let loose with a fan of jagged blue lightning. Ahsoka caught most of it on her saber blade, but she still wasn't quite used to using the saber staff and she missed a splinter of it. Searing pain hit her in the shoulder, and she dropped that shoulder back, holding her lightsaber in front of her to catch the remainder of the blast. Next to her, without a weapon in hand, Ylenic It'kla had merely held up his hands to stop the Force lightning.

When the dark Jedi stopped his blast, Ylenic returned it. The lightning he had held back turned on its master, and the dark Jedi screamed incoherently. With a massive Force enhanced leap, the Nikto launched himself up to the rooftop above them where he'd come from, then turned and ran.

"He's getting away!" Ahsoka leapt after him. She landed on the roof near where he had, but he was already gone. "Grife, he's quick." She scanned the horizon, but the man was nowhere in sight.

She dropped back down to the street to see Ylenic picking up Mirian.

"Is she all right?"

He slung Mirian picked her up, draping her across his furry arms. "She is fine. Still sleeping. We need to get her to safety, though. I don't know if the Nikto will be able to trace her in the Force or not. I believe that was Kan'to Kree. Many years ago he was a pupil of Nikkos Tyris, which explains his presence here. The lightsaber, however, was not his own. The lightsaber belonged to Mirian."

Ahsoka deactivated her sabers, but kept the hilt in her hand just in case. "My ship is this way. Let's get out of here before anyone else shows up." She blinked, and an icon popped up on her masks' display. She realized that at some point in the fight, she'd received a text message from Nat. Not knowing how to pull it up via ocular controls, she tapped a few buttons on her bracer and it popped up.

Jysa and the drexl are here she took the elom rift to cut off a fw prsecs

She shook her head. "I think I have to teach that boy how to type full messages."

"What was that?"

"Good news. My captain just got here. So we've got somebody to guard her while we go hunt down this crazy dark sider. And when we meet up with them, I think you're going to explain what you know about everything that's going on here."

"I think that would be wise."

In the distance Ahsoka heard police sirens heading towards the street where they'd fought the dark Jedi. "If I keep this up, I think I'm going to get very good at nonchalantly vacating crime scenes. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not."