Chapter 13

Freedom!

Robin and Jaina woke early to eke out a couple more hours of training before the Final Match, working on the small, possibly lethal, if exploited imperfections in Robin's Juyo fighting style. His Inner World helped a great deal, but even it has its limits. He wasn't a master of Juyo by any means, but he knew enough to be fatal if underestimated.

Robin felt like maybe killing Kay would allow him easier access to the state of existence all Paladin leaders achieve: Balance. He had plenty of light, but not as much ease accessing his darkness. He was trying to conclude how to harmonize the opposing natures of dark and light. He'd technically already achieved such a state twice, but that had been instinctive, not intentional, and so it didn't count in the eyes of the Force.

"Are you ready?" Jaina asked from beside him, interrupting his reverie; it was almost time. Robin looked at her, then to the arena grounds and back from behind Revan's Mask. "I'm ready. Then again.. I thought that I was ready back home too. I was a pilot in the auxiliary division running patrols, but never actually entered aerial battle, so I never actually did the deed simply because I never had to. So admittedly, saying "I'm ready", and actually being ready to kill are two different beasts, but with Kay… I think I might let myself not feel horrible. People like him need to be rubbed out of existence!" Robin had grown angry as he'd talked, subconsciously drawing on the Force. He knew that he had to relax, or he'd exhaust himself before his fight even began.

If Robin had a big flaw, it was that he got too personally invested in things. He knew that he had a temper and tended to overcompensate to the other extreme, (can someone say "character flaw"?), making him seem dispassionate when he was anything but. His passions didn't rule him, but it was never easy for him to reign in control either.

When Jaina took his hand, her touch soothed him. The Force flowed at its normal passive levels, and he felt less and less like he had fire for blood, a side effect from his drawing heavily on the Force. The energy that had been flowing through him had been so immense that it was a painful hindrance. All it took was her touch to remind him that he wasn't alone, and the storm calmed and abated. "Thank you, Jaina. Now, I am calm and therefore truly ready," he declared with calmness and resoluteness. She sensed his power settle like a cloak over him, no longer a tempest; she could see it in his posture and bearing. He really was ready now, tranquil and in full control. With that, they continued to the arena. Robin had a death match to win.

"Thank you all for attending my final tournament! I've made quite a bit of money off all of your bets." The crowd applauded, even if they didn't think that it was a good joke, (which it wasn't, in my opinion). After a moment or two of basking in the glory of his respect and fear, Wabba continued. "There are many reasons to fight, and this one here has shown them all. The full spectrum of emotions and motives. It's my honour to introduce the man who claims to wield righteous fury on this day! Will he prove his words true… or fall short? Will he keep his vow and guarantee us all a death match? I present… representing both Luke Skywalker and the Jedi Order, as well as himself. The Shadow's Bane, the Pure Knight. Jedi Knight Robin Stace!" Wabba indicated to Robin, and a white spotlight activated, illuminating the Jedi Knight to Wabba's right.

This time the audience broke out in genuine applause for the one they'd dubbed the "Pure Knight.'' Everyone had kept their eyes on the Dark Horse of the tournament, now posed to potentially win the whole thing. Wabba even liked the young Jedi; he was making him a fortune in bets, after all, enough for him to retire somewhere comfortably. But Wabba was a pro and so wouldn't take sides, even as he admitted to himself, if nobody else, that he wanted Robin to win. Without much fanfare, Wabba introduced Kay. "Oh yeah, here's our resident Sith representative, fighting for Grand Lord Vol, Lord Kay!" Kay was lit up by a purple and black light and met with a very light amount of polite, lame clapping and a single person coughing. "The guy has no interesting character or mysterious backstory, so it wasn't my fault he got a lacklustre introduction," Wabba silently reasoned, secretly favouring the Jedi in the only way he could. Wabba pressed a button, and the arena morphed, with hard light technology projecting interactive holograms: trees, rocks, and mountainsides. As the two moved, the landscape would alter randomly, assuming that the holographic projections worked right.

"Warriors, enter this arena for the final time." The Jedi Knight and Sith Lord each took their assigned positions, stripping their heavy cloaks off, brown and black, respectively. "I'm taking your mask after I beat you, Jedi scum." Kay taunted, sneering. Robin didn't take the bait; he was harder to provoke than that.

"Idle threats and name-calling? That's all that you've got, and you're a Lord of the Sith? Tsk tsk… your old Master expects better than that, I'm sure. Now me, well… let's just say that I'm more of a man of action. For example, when you try to provoke me, I choose to make you suffer more before ultimately killing you. It's your choice: quick? Or brutally slow?" Robin was lying; his foe would not be tortured before being permitted to expire, but it had the desired effect of both rattling and pissing Kay off; the Mask of Revan was helping as well since Kay seemed to covet it as a gift for Vol or his father, and Robin was more than willing to exploit this.

"Be careful. Rage can make a warrior forget to use good sense, but it also bestows immense strength to those who harness it correctly, so don't push him too hard or too fast." Einstein warned telepathically, though from this far away it was more emotion than words that he received, such as caution or wariness, but he understood the message all the same. "I love you too, buddy," he projected back, severing the tenuous link. He focused on the screen that counted down the last ten seconds until the beginning of the battle before turning his attention back to Kay. The last few seconds counted down: three, two, one...FIGHT!

The two fighters were off like greased lightning; their blades ignited. Robin would stretch things out as much as possible before he started to fight at 100%. As most were hoping, Robin opened with his perfected Ataru; his speed, strength, and agility were augmented. Kay's style was his own, however, not classic form. It would have tripped Robin up more had he been only skilled in Forms I through III but the speed granted by Ataru was allowing him to dodge his opponent's attacks, though barely. "Something isn't right here.. I should be more capable than this. I know that I can move faster!" Robin thought, though he was too busy to properly analyze the situation, at the moment.

Suddenly Robin felt it through the Force, the cause of his slowed movements; his unease and the instinctive fear of death, which were normally under control, were being augmented, magnified, compounded, and fed back to him by Kay's fighting style, (which Robin had dubbed the "Dance of Fear".) Robin made a mental note to review it with Shadow later so that he could learn it as well, with some of his own tweaks. "He's toying with you. My bet is that his Master, Vol, wants a chance to see your dark side, so Kay is trying to make you draw upon the Dark Side by manipulating your fear. Show him which of you should really be afraid," Shadow said just before Robin and Kay locked blades again, the weapons crackling and hissing angrily as each repelled the other. The two warriors turned, ducked, or jumped out of the path of flying knives and high-power blasters, lightsabers flicking out to strike at each other or defend against the high-velocity projectiles, which stopped firing after a minute or so. "Surprises from Wabba… or his staff". Robin reasoned, once again locked in mortal combat with Kay.

They were both sporting an impressive collection of very minor injuries and soon they had re-engaged, each seeking to win while also prolonging the fight for their respective ulterior agendas. "So you think that you can hide your darkness? Pretend that it doesn't exist? Coward! Weakling! So much power, but no strength to use it." Kay taunted as he grazed Robin's arm with his blade, burning him and causing a semi-shallow wound that would hurt with every micromovement until Robin got patched up. "Agh!" Robin cried, not only in pain but also in anger. Powerful anger, pregnant with potential untapped power. He realized that he could use his fury, and had to use it if he wanted to break the effects of Kay's Dance of Fear. He just had to remain in control of his higher faculties.

Robin believed that he could walk the line well enough to avoid corrupting himself, so he drew on the Force, both Dark and Light. It wasn't harmonized yet, but it was more powerful than either energy source could be on its own. Suddenly Kay looked just a little scared, sensing his foe growing in strength with the Force, his presence expanding proportionally to the power increase.

Robin darted through the interactive holographic trees and whatnot for cover. Robin was using Ataru for hit-and-run attacks designed to be fast, strong, and overwhelm enemy defences enough for Kay's fatigue to cause him to slip up, which would help Robin find an opening. Robin was stronger without a doubt, but it taxed him to draw so heavily on both sides of the Force, probably because the sides weren't equal. Kay, meanwhile, tried to win with swordplay alone, but it seemed like defence wasn't his forte as much as psychological manipulation was. Robin felt that it was time to break out his incomplete but still lethal Form VII Juyo, as they broke the lock and re-engaged once more, Robin hoping for the final time. Juyo is one of the most difficult and dangerous of the seven classic combat styles; it is incredibly offensive-oriented. It is a fighting style designed for killing enemies, never sparing them.

The two Force-using warriors began to project massive quantities of energy at one another, creating a dust storm in the process. Only the flash of the green and red blades indicated where each warrior was located within the storm. Someone in the crowd had suddenly and unfortunately caught a hand; the onlookers' screams of terror mingled with the screams of pain from whoever the unlucky victim was.

The storm died down. Kay was revealed to be missing his whole right arm. It was carved into pieces, most of which were scattered on the ground; his dominant arm was still perfectly fine. Lightsabers cauterize wounds instantly, so no blood is lost, (unlike wounds caused by normal bladed weapons,) but it still gave Robin the edge in their fight. Robin didn't need Kay suffering from severe blood loss to win. "Now that's what I wanted to see!" Kay called out loudly, his voice pained yet ecstatic and his yellow eyes gleaming hungrily. "Show me more of your darkness and strange hidden power!" Kay cried manically even as he struggled to stand.

Kay knew that he was going to die today and wanted to prove that it wasn't blind luck and that he was, in fact, beaten by a real warrior of greater power and skill. "You swore to give me the Greatest Mercy! Where's that, huh? Show me that!" Kay sent purple Sith lightning at his foe through his stump, amazingly, the energy of such an attack kicking up debris and dust, obscuring Robin from view for only a second. When Kay blinked and the dust settled, the Jedi had disappeared. "Where did you go, coward?!" he bellowed into the seemingly empty arena, hoping to provoke the young Knight.

"Where's the man who swore to kill you? I'm right here, Kay." Robin said this from inside Kay's guard; his body literally flickered with electricity, though it was white rather than the sickly purple of Sith lightning. In the next moment, before he could do anything, Kay found himself with a bolt of white lightning, shot, no, redirected, through his remaining shoulder, obliterating a hole, (about the size of a toonie,) and inducing incredibly horrible nerve pain and potentially nerve death. In any other situation, Kay would be worried, but he wasn't because, firstly, he didn't have the luxury of time for worrying, as his foe managed an impressive feint and lopped off his remaining arm, which was rendered useless from his shoulder wound. He wasn't worried at all despite his grievous condition because, secondly, (and most importantly to Kay,) he gave his best and lost. He would die as he lived, a proud Sith warrior without regrets.

The last thing that Kay heard was a very quiet whisper, just for him. "This is what you get for threatening those close to me or even just thinking about it. I told you that it could be quick, or slow. You chose slow. So I played with you, my new toy, but it seems like I… broke you. I guess now you can understand a little bit of just how helpless your last coach felt, huh? Good. Now I'm done playing with you. It's time to get serious… and bring down the curtain on this whole thing. What say you, hmm, Kay? Playtime is over, and I did promise you would meet death this day…" Robin spoke up so that the microphones caught his final public words to Kay. "You said that you wanted to see the man who'd grant you the Greatest Mercy. Here it is. The coup de grâce, (this means the final blow/ killing stroke, etc.), may you be reborn as a better person." Then Kay lost his head, quite literally.

As Robin left the arena, heading to the winner's podium, he deactivated his weapon, clipping it to his belt. He also took the spare red lightsaber from Kay's dismembered, still very tightly clenched hand. Robin dropped the offending appendage on the ground while setting it and the rest of Kay's corpse ablaze with the Force. He left only Kay's head whole, a silent but definite middle finger to his new enemies, both among the Sith and anyone else who was either brave or stupid enough to fuck with him in the future. He knew that killing Kay would make him as many enemies as friends, if not more. The hilt could be useful in developing his own personal lightsaber in the future. He'd see if Luke could heal or purify the poor crystal; maybe it could serve the Jedi again, free of pain. Lightsaber crystals, (aka Kyber crystals,) were not only alive but partially sentient, enough to feel pain via the Force. "though synthetic ones might be different in that regard." Robin wondered to himself. He'd have to ask Jaina since her lightsaber used an unorthodox crystal growth created with special Alchemy, formerly used by the Sith sorcerers of old. She had also looked at synthetic, machine-made options, or so Ben had claimed. Red crystals were any lightsaber crystal after having been forced to bleed by the pain from the Dark Side; like anything living, they could be healed.

Jaina had watched slightly slack jawed while Robin played with his foe, like a Nexu, (a large cat-like animal with claws, fangs, and huge porcupine-like fur,) with its food. Taking Kay apart, and making it look easy. Robin felt like the same person, even if his Force presence was a touch heavier. It was going to happen one day: Robin would end up in a life-or-death situation. It would be better for it to happen in an environment that was controlled by someone who deserved it rather than randomly on the streets with innocent bystanders.

When the fight had finally ended, Jaina rushed to Robin's side to ensure that he wasn't too badly hurt. "One small but horribly painful cut? That's it? How strange. The ferocity should have resulted in more wounds of greater severity," she thought, incredibly glad and amazed that he wasn't further injured. Given Kay's skill level, she couldn't help but wonder why Robin had so few injuries. It took a few moments before she figured out that Kay had been hurting Robin, toying with him to draw out his dark side, even while Robin had been toying with the late Sith Lord in turn, a thought that briefly chilled her. If the Sith would go that far to test the waters of Robin's Dark Side… what wouldn't they do to turn him? Jaina wondered. She could never truly see Robin as the type to fall, but she understood the appeal such an idea would hold for the Sith or any champions of the Dark Side. Her brother had fallen, so this brought back some nasty fears that Jaina thought she'd put to bed long ago. She tried not to stare in bafflement, instead triple-checking that no major injuries had been missed. She put her arm around his chest to support some of his weight; he had to be exhausted both physically and emotionally.

"I present the champion!" Wabba cried. Thunderous applause, (might I suggest you play 'We are the Champions' now for ambience, either mentally or with your smartphone). "Now it's true that winning this tournament is a reward in itself, as victory comes with no small amount of influence, but I feel you deserve a little personal reward. I present to you not one but two Jade Pearls, Force-imbued Krayt Dragon Pearls, from an ancient Krayt Dragon. (These pearls are made from the minerals that collect and form deposits inside the belly of Krayt Dragons, creatures that are native to the deserts of Tatooine. Krayt pearls can be collected from a dragon's corpse; the older the dragon, the bigger the pearl. A small one harvested from a young adult dragon, after being cut and polished by both the literal belly of the beast and sentient hands, could set the average person up for retirement if sold. They were also used in the forging of lightsabers, enhancing the cutting power beyond standard levels, and no, I'm sorry to report that I don't know the specifics of why or how. Krayt dragons have been on the galactic endangered species list, but nowadays they're thriving due, in part, to the heavy legal consequences of poaching them). Spot, the dragon donor, was my friend. He died of natural causes and left behind these incredibly rare, once-in-a-lifetime gems. They've only found two others throughout galactic history. Initially, the winner was to receive something far less rare, exotic, and powerful. But I like you, kid, and so would Spot. Congratulations!"

Wabba gestured, and two very large jade pearls with what looked like marble in one and gold in the other were brought out, and Robin realized that Spot had to have been truly ancient given the size of the raw, uncut stones, which was all the more impressive given how many Krayts were poached before being declared a protected species. "You could sell them, break them down into smaller pieces for lightsabers, whatever. They're my gift to you. Because of you, kid, I can retire and leave this whole underworld behind. Frankly, I hated most of what I did. Still do. But now I can stop and enjoy peace. Call me if you ever need... help from a questionable source. I can hook you up with the right kind of shady individuals. I'll have that receptionist, the pro-Jedi one that woke you two up the other day, send these beauties to the address of your choosing as well as my emergency contact frequency. Any words for the cheering crowd?" Wabba asked Robin, having spoken quietly enough that nobody heard his offer of help except Jaina.

Robin took a mic and looked out at the audience. "Thanks for the support. I'm too tired for grand speeches, but I'll say this much: My foe, while complete scum on a personal level, died a warrior's death. I'm glad that he didn't beg for his life, instead embracing the inevitable." Robin bowed and began to leave the arena. He looked at Jaina and said, "Let's get the first, no, second shuttle home tomorrow. We'll give Wabba time to retire and get outta the sector before burning the entire Hutt operations out here down. No more fight pits, no more slavers, no more spice, (spice is an illegal drug, not the kind used for cooking,) trade; nothing destructive or corrupt shall remain," he proclaimed as they left to retrieve their things at the inn and to rest for one last night. Jaina stopped briefly on the way to the inn to provide the Jedi Temple on Coruscant as the address for the delivery of the prizes.

The two were quiet that night, enjoying the tournament's end and the option to sleep in if they chose to. Jaina broke the silence rather randomly, but Robin rolled with it. Both parties felt that predictability and normalcy were boring traits. Jaina was neither in all of the best ways, and she knew it. "Pure Knight isn't a bad moniker, considering it's your first." Jaina quipped, and Robin rolled his eyes while grinning. "I'm also the Shadow's Bane, remember?" he muttered in a mock-offended manner, as though he disliked the new title, (which he did not, if you were wondering.) "Doesn't count in the same way. This one is your first on-mission title," she countered in a sing-song voice. Lack of sleep combined with the small celebratory alcoholic shots they drank from the mini-fridge likely aided in her lowering her inhibitions to the degree where she was looser and more relaxed. That was how Robin felt anyway. That night, they talked about everything and nothing at the same time. Bantering like this helped Robin distract himself from his fear. He'd had a close moment, (or three,) where the Force-infused Beskaar mask belonging to his forefather Revan was all that saved his life. He counted himself fortunate to only have a minor cut, which he'd numbed with the Force, seeing as he wanted the use of both arms. Letting the less grievous wounds heal naturally with time.

Robin was reminded of a quote by Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn: "There's always a bigger fish." A thought that he'd keep in mind to prepare as much as possible for the future; he knew that his foes would get stronger. Then he had a truly inspired idea, one that would take a fair amount of time to implement but, if successful, would be worth it. He would make himself armour. Reasonably light, flexible, but also incredibly effective. "Tomorrow. I'll start working on the concepts for this tomorrow," he thought as fatigue caught up with him. Jaina had already fallen asleep; drained, Robin joined her in slumber.

Robin was inspired with ideas galore as they returned by shuttle the next day. (Yes, three shuttle transfers again for security purposes). He'd sleep when he got home; right now, he had armour to design. The seats on the shuttles were too damn tiny for sleep anyway.

Ben had seen the battle and everything both overt and subtle that had led up to it, and so had Artoo, though he was elsewhere, to avoid the appearance of colluding. While it was true that his report had to be unbiased, and it would be, the report would still reflect his interpretations of events. As far as the camera footage, Artoo would have a copy, but the droid had always seemed to understand abstract concepts like emotions and loyalty better than some people did. No doubt Artoo had ways to ensure that Robin didn't start off his career as a Jedi on the wrong foot. Killing was allowed, but some in the Order would have frowned on a few of Robin's darker attributes, understandable as they were. Jedi aren't supposed to enjoy the kill, no matter how evil or vile the individual might be.

In Ben's opinion, the Sith Lord had more than earned his death, threatening both Robin and Jaina, and his report would reflect upon the dead Sith Lord's conduct and behaviour. It would show the extremely great merits Robin had going for him. Ben honestly felt that Robin was owed a commendation for his conduct, skill in combat, and good decision-making in regards to sparing the former Nightsister. She'd really been a one-trick wonder who was completely out of her depth while acting like she wasn't.

Ben looked at his communicator; the other team had finished a while ago and gotten away with the information clean. He and Artoo met at their rendezvous and headed to the spaceport and then home. It had been a weird feeling, only watching the battle. Given how terrible it is for anyone to be struck by the corrupt energy, he had been shocked when Robin purified and then redirected the Sith Lightning turning it into the ability Electric Judgment, the light side equivalent. "How strong would his friend grow?" Ben wondered as he and Artoo boarded their shuttle home, all the while staying hidden from view.