Other Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ The Jedi of Chaos ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: DarkSoar 
And here we are.. Ranma Korr VS Crimson (formerly Akane Tendo). Let's get ready to rumble!
Anime/Manga: Other Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Sci-fi / Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 07.04.2006 | Pages: 16 | Words: 9.7K | Visits: 852 | Status: Work In Progress
And here we are.. Ranma Korr VS Crimson (formerly Akane Tendo). Let's get ready to rumble!
Anime/Manga: Other Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Sci-fi / Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 07.04.2006 | Pages: 16 | Words: 9.7K | Visits: 852 | Status: Work In Progress
Usual disclaimer: See earlier chapters.
A Star Wars-Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy/Ranma 1/2
Crossover
The Jedi of Chaos
Chapter 3
(1st draft)
This was turning out to be one of the most easiest
assignments Allura ever had. In the beginning, she'd
thought it'd be much more difficult to infiltrate the
Jedi Academy.
Now she could barely keep from derisively laughing out
loud as she casually walked down the hall. Currently
she was on the second floor of the Academy, and
according to Brakiss's information, it was at the
other side of the building.
In fact, the only difficulty so far was to avoid the
oblivious Jedi students. With most of them off
training, studying, eating or doing whatever they
usually did, that was accomplished without much
trouble. Ironically, it was her belief that the
infiltration would've been nearly impossible had she
attempted it during the night, when everyone
congregated in the Academy. In the daytime, it was
almost deserted. But on the side of the caution,
Allura had managed to steal a Jedi robe from one of
the instructor's rooms and had worn it over her very
distinctive black cloak.
Also, it had helped that the students were from
different planets and races, so her Twi-lek features
and red skin only rated a passing look. The relaxed
expression she'd fixed on her face also helped in that
regard.
Next time, she swore to be assigned to a mission that
would provide a bit more ..... action. Though she
wasn't the combat addicted freak that Crimson was, she
did enjoy the thrill of a good fight as it helped
break the everyday boredom of life.
She snorted in contempt of her rival. Crimson, now
that was truely one of the stupidest names Allura had
ever heard. Her hair wasn't the color and neither
were her eyes. Allura had learned her real name after
eavesdropping on a meeting Tavion and the human girl
had.
In the Disciples of Ragnos, it was a well known fact
that many of them, for their own personal reasons, had
changed their names. Allura had joined before her
rival had, but by the time Tendou had officially taken
her place as one of Tavion's two disciples, a running
joke had sprung up about there being two Crimsons for
one job. She hated that pathetic excuse of witticism
and had no qualms about letting her displeasure be
known, via a Force lightning attack.
Ah, there, she'd finally reached Skywalker's room.
Glancing around to make sure there were no one around,
she walked in and pulled out a data pad from beneath
her cloak.
She was just about to begin her search for Skywalker's
diary when she saw that it wasn't even necessary.
Apparently, Skywalker trusted his students enough to
leave his diary on top of his desk.
Shaking her head in disbelief, Allura reached out and
connected the pad to the diary with a data cable.
This would only take a few minutes at the most.
/**************/
"We'll see."
When Rosh had so foolishly run off, Ranma hadn't even
bothered to start looking for him. Although he had a
low opinion of the other boy's intelligence, the young
Korr knew that Penin would decide to head towards the
Massassi temple because it was the only thing he could
do. Penin had gotten such a headstart that even
tree-hopping hadn't enabled Ranma to catch up to him.
And when he finally did, he'd almost been too late.
Witnessing the appearance of the three mysterious
women, Ranma had been immediately suspicious of them.
This had only been confirmed when their apparent
leader had activated her lightsaber. Ranma had
quickly hypothesized that she and her crew had
something to do with the shuttlecraft's ambush. At
that instant, he'd made a tactical decision.
Penin was unarmed, a mistake of his that Ranma had
readily admitted, and still had the beacon. Their job
was still not yet done, and so with crystal clarity,
Ranma knew that he had to distract and hold the trio's
attention until Rosh could do his part. He hadn't
expected to get one of them with his blaster shots,
which had been a pleasant surprise. It had raised his
estimates of his survival by twenty percent.
Judging by the speed of which the remaining two had
reacted and deflected his blaster's shots, he'd been
certain that he couldn't stop the taller woman from
pursuing Penin. If he'd done so, he would have earned
a lightsaber in the back from the leader for his
effort. Penin had a headstart, true, but from Sensei
Galdern's lessons about the Force, Ranma assumed that
the subordinate would use the Force to increase her
running speed.
If that were true, then Penin was in a lot of trouble.
However, Ranma couldn't help him at the moment
because, quite coincidentally, he found himself in
some trouble of his own. It had seemed that his
flippant response had struck a VERY responsive chord
as he was extremely hard pressed to defend himself.
For her part, Crimson's eyes flared up in anger at her
opponent's casual attitude and suddenly broke into a
dash. The river proved to be an insignificant
obstacle; a single Force-enhanced flip was all it took
to get over it. The instant she hit the other side,
she charged at him, determined to make him regret he'd
ever underestimated her.
The brilliance of her lightsaber's blade, deliberately
chosen for her namesake, became a blur of red as she
slashed, stealing the offensive right away. Enraged
by the man's ambush on her and the death of Talna, she
attacked relentlessly but not recklessly. She held
back at first, wanting to see how much skill he had.
It came as a bit of surprise when all her of strikes
were blocked or parried. Obviously he was no mere new
recruit, he had to have some kind of training before.
But then, she had somewhat expected it; after all,
he'd chosen to walk out from his ambush spot and
challenge her to a lightsaber fight. That had
suggested to her that he had to know some moves; just
how much was the question.
However, against an opponent of her caliber, 'some'
didn't cut it. Not even close.
She was mildly interested in seeing how long he could
stay alive when she upped the ante.
Anger, that familiar friend, flooded anew through her
veins anew and fueling the Dark Side within her. Her
initial tempo, in concert with her building battle
lust, began to gradually speed up.
Her blood began pounding in her ears; her entire being
screamed at her to kill the man in front of her. Her
eyes thinned, her mouth curled hatefully, and her
battle rage kept on pumping. An image of her
worthless, deadbeat father superimposed over her
opponent, only to be faded out eventually, just to be
replaced with the most hated figure from her past, the
bastardized rich snob who had---
A dark red haze appeared in her vision, absorbing
everything else except for her target. He was a demon
from the pits of hell that just wouldn't stay dead,
despite her vengeance years ago. Solely focusing on
him, she let years of hate, rage, and anger explode
from within.
She slashed left to right, descending, and then right
to left in a reversal, nearly catching him by
surprise. It was obvious from his slightly hesitant
movements that the pathetic wretch lacked actual
combat experience with a lightsaber. Either that, or
he hadn't faced an opponent like her before. Snorting
in open contempt, Crimson slashed down, to be
predictably blocked. Disengaging, she struck down
again and again, willingingly, challengingly slamming
her blade against his.
He took a step back, then two, retreating under her
onslaught. Well, well, he did have half a brain after
all.
Pushing her advantage, the Disciple of Ragnos came at
him in a rush, all the while directing the Force to
empower her upper body's physical strength. When it
had reached a certain level, Crimson changed her
attack stance to the one that fit her like a glove;
the one that Tavion had said that takes great
advantage of strong emotions.
She began attacking, making use of tight, forceful
sweeps, angled high, low, and in the middle. Her
tempo was now increased; three attacks where there had
been two and her recovery time was lessened by half a
second. Her energy blade, a perfect match for her
motivation, blurred in front of her as she easily
knocked aside a pathetic attempt at a counterattack
and quickly followed up with a low cut.
The increased physical force behind her strikes began
to have an effect as the Jedi was clearly finding it
more difficult to solidly block her attacks as they
were beginning to force him back. He began to give
ground quicker.
The fact that her opponent was still alive concerned
Crimson very little. All she had to do was to knock
his weapon out of line in order to clear some space
for a finishing technique. She was confiden that it
would happen, sooner or later.
She idly speculated how long would it take before his
arms would tire and become numb so she could finally
cut him down like the dog that he was.
/**************/
In Ranma's opinion, the only reason why he wasn't dead
yet was because her skill in lightsaber combat wasn't
that extensive, though she possessed more experience
than him. He'd seen evidence of that in the way she
held her lightsaber and her somewhat rough stances.
She wasn't one with her weapon, at least not yet. In
his personal opinion, she had a long way to go before
she reached the status of a Master of someone like
Sensei Galdern.
If this was a duel of skill vs skill alone, he
would've eventually won, after a dangerously prolonged
fight. Although the training under Sensei Galdern had
included instructions in extensive lightsaber dueling,
the fact was that it was flat out impossibe to
practice with lightsabers against a spectral presence
in the Force, so the best that Ranma had been able to
do was memorize the stances and techniques.
In all consideration, this duel was Ranma's first
practical use of his lightsaber training. As it was,
if it weren't for his immensely high learning curve
and pre-Galdern training with vibroblades and other
such weapons, he would've been dead five seconds into
the fight. Currently, he was holding his own, yet he
knew he couldn't maintain a successful defense
forever.
The beginning of the duel was spent testing each
other, getting a feel for the other's skill. Now as
the situation stood, Ranma found himself at a severe
disadvantage. Thanks to the 'Soul of Ice', his mental
shield was up and dutifully keeping him from
attempting to use his abnormal Force energy. Added to
that was the fact of the real, potential harm to
himself if he dissolved said mental shield; in all
likelihood ending in his body exploding from the
sheer, chaotic, uncontrollable power being released.
This girl, on the other hand, seemed to be getting
faster and the power behind her blows were increasing
steadily. Although he couldn't feel it the way Sensei
Galdern would've been able to, it didn't take long for
him to figure out that she was drawing on the Force to
augment her base physical ability.
Genma be damned! If it weren't for him...
Ranma shook his head while barely deflecting aside a
high slash, than parried a low thrust. No time to
think about the past now. He refocused his attention
on her; analyzing every shift in her stance, every
attack she threw at him and commiting them to memory
and adding to his own style as he saw fit. He
calculated unless he changed the course of the duel,
in the next two minutes her speed would be such that
it would become extremely difficult for his reactions
to keep up, thereby enlarging his margin for error
considerably.
As it was, he was entirely on the defensive, his arms
and shoulders were beginning to hurt from the sheer
physical shock of clashing against her increased
strength. However, despite his handicap and his
disadvantages, his sharp, tactical mind had already
found out a weakness in her style. She, whatever her
name was, was falling into a pattern that was becoming
more predictable as the fight went on. Apparently,
she was becoming too overconfident from keeping him on
the defensive, and was becoming sloppy, leaving small,
yet growing exploitable holes in her stance.
The reason why he hadn't taken advantage of those
holes yet because simply, she was just too damn fast,
and getting faster as they fought. He wasn't able to
effectively counterattack without weakening his guard,
which was definitely not an option. At this rate,
Ranma wasn't able to see a path to victory because her
speed was a major roadblock in his way.
However, there was something he could do, yet at such
a great risk that he'd purposely held it back,
counting it as a last resort.
But now it seemed that he had no choice now, despite
that using it would possibly weaken his mental shields
enough to....
Ranma shook that though off, not wanting to dwell upon
that. It was his best shot at winning this fight,
though he might die from using it. How ironic; his
best hope was also his harbinger of doom.
No time to think about that now. He had to do it
while he was still alive.
Ranma's eyes narrowed, and backpedaled faster,
widening the distance between the two of them.
Decision made, he began to concentrate on calling up
his ki, as taught to him by one of his former
instructors six years ago......
/**************/
Rosh Penin had always wanted to be chased around by
attractive women, but this was getting ridiculous.
It seemed that he was running for his life the entire
day, and it was becoming rather annoying. Once more,
he cursed Ranma Korr for not lending him a weapon.
He was positively certain that those lightsaber
wielding evil-Jedi types were on his tail. After
seeing up close and personal how fast they could move,
he was pushing himself beyond his limits. Thanks to
whoever had fired upon them, he had been given a
couple of seconds headstart and he took full advantage
of that.
At least the Massassi Temple was visible through the
cracks in the trees; he refused to think of what would
happen should he had been forced to climb trees to
recheck his course.
It took some doing, but he restrained himself from
running all out. It would be stupid of him to do
that, then run out of breath, just to be cut down from
behind as he tried to get his wind back.
In Rosh's person opinion, that was definitely a very
BAD THING.
So he found himself now running at a pace more than a
jog, but a little less than an all-out dash. He was
making good progress as the Massassi Temple was slowly
growing larger, and was not sparing any attempt at
stealth. That would have only slowed him down; speed
was the key here, which he was practicing with an
almost religious zeal.
Several times, he risked quick glances behind him but
failed to catch a glimpse of his pursuers.
The young Penin didn't know how lucky he was. In
another reality, he and another potential Jedi trainee
by the unlikely name of Jaden, in order to reach the
Massassi Temple, would have to go through a couple of
stormtroopers and one Disciple of Ragnos. In this
life, however, Rosh approached the Temple from another
direction and thus avoided them by sheer luck.
Then again, he had no weapons and was being chased by
lightsaber wielding women. Maybe lucky wasn't the
term....
Rosh broke through the bush and circled around a wide
tree, panting and sweating. However, what he saw made
his discomfort all the worthwhile. He was standing at
the top of a small vale, and right across from him
stood the Massassi Temple!
Sighing with relief, he looked down, noting that it
was downhill all the way to the base of the Temple,
about a hundred feet in distance. When he reached the
bottom, he would have to climbing up the Temple steps
until he reached a spot right above the treeline.
He was about to begin descending when he heard
something from behind that nearly made him soil his
pants.
*Snap-hiss*
/**************/
Crimson sensed that victory was just within reach.
She was being saturated with the Dark Side and her
speed was still growing. Right now, she was half
again faster than she was normally, without being
Force enchanced while her strength had also been
increased, though not as much as her speed. That was
all right with her; at the beginning of her training,
she'd wanted to focus almost purely on combat. When
informed of her decision, Mistress Tavion had
accepted, with a condition that Crimson would
concentrate mostly on speed, along with a smaller
focus on strength.
And she still had more to go until finally hitting her
limit. If she chose to go beyond that, she risked
causing her body irreparable harm.
Not that she would need to go that far of course.
She had no idea how this so-called Jedi was able to
defend himself so well without using the Force, but
she was certain that it couldn't last. With the Dark
Side giving her strength, she wouldn't tire for a long
time and her speed and strength would just continue to
grow. It was only a matter of minutes.
This Jedi had provided her with a little amusement,
but time was growing short and she really had other
things to do. And it really was pathetic; he could
have used more training. Ever since the start of the
fight, it had been made completely obvious to her that
the fool wasn't even using the Force to aid him in the
fight. Like when she'd first sensed him with his
companion, it looked like his Force potential really
was that small.
Truely, it was one of the most pathetic things Crimson
had ever seen.
On the otherhand, the whole affair was getting
tiresome. She had her fill already, and now, this
little comedy needed to come to an end. However, it
seemed that he'd somehow sensed it and was rapidly
backing away from her. As if that would save him; she
would easily match his speed by directing the Force to
her legs and did so.
Grinning ferally, Crimson charged after him, attacking
the moment she got within range. Aiming at his right
shoulder, she slashed down hard.
Out of nowhere, with a speed faster than what he'd
shown before, his lightsaber came dancing in at her
left, smashing into her blade with unexpected strength
and forcing it further to her right than she wanted.
So unprepared was she for that attack, so surprised
was she that her mental processes stalled for a
moment. Tavion's student blinked once and had but one
thought.
'What?'
Than her eyes widened in surprise and panic as she
suddenly realized the full ramifications of what had
just happened. With her lightsaber out of line, she
was completely open!
With that, it finally occured to her that maybe she
should bring her lightsaber back where she could
appropriately block or parry the next attack that was
coming. On that count, she was just a tad bit too
late.
Feeling his ki burn through him and clenching his
teeth, Ranma kicked out at her open front, striking
her full in the stomach. He could've easily thrust
his lightsaber into her heart, but there were
questions he wanted to ask of her. Disabling her
would just have to do.
With the wind suddenly knocked out of her, she hunched
over a little, one hand reflexively going to her
stomach and the other maintaining a loose hold on her
weapon. However, she was still able to see her
opponent's cold face as he lifted up his light-green
energy blade and cleanly slashed off her hand just
after the elbow.
"Cho-mai," whispered Ranma as he brought himself to a
basic neutral stance. [1]
A howl of sheer agony erupted from her lips as the
pain overwhelmed her. Dropping to her knees and
clutching her wrist tightly, as if to squeeze out the
hot fire playing on her nerves. Her eyes dropped on
the person responsible, the damned Jedi, hating him
even more. Amidst the pain, it was suddenly clear to
her that he had purposely held back his Force
abilities in order for her to underestimate him. And
when she got overconfident, he took advantage of that
and tricked her! Blast him!
"Ya-ya-ya babab! Ollkalya! Ollkalya! Ollkalya![2]"
she mumbled through her broken jaw, trying to fight
past the pain. In her current state, she missed the
fact that the despisable man was glowing faintly with
a white-bluish aura.
For his part, Ranma was thankful that he managed to
end the fight without having to rely on the prolonged
use of his ki. Already he could feel the strain on
his mental shield; it was still holding but it was
also growing more difficult to do so. If he had to
keep using his ki for several more seconds, the toll
it would have on his ability to maintain the shield
would have been more than he could handle. Taking a
deep breath, the ponytailed man went through the
necessary steps to end the use of his ki and the aura
around him slowly faded away.
Then he noticed that she was still yelling and making
dire threats. In his opinion, a silent, unconscious
enemy was more preferable to a conscious, boisterous
one. With that in mind, he calmly walked over to her,
made a tight fist, drew it back and solidly punched
the side of her jaw that wasn't broken.
"Quiet!" he demanded as she slumped to the ground
unconscious. A second later, Ranma himself fell to
the ground on his knees.
Breathing heavily, his muscles were on fire from the
extremely strenuous fight and his mind wasn't doing
too good either. Use of his ki had forced him to
stretch to the very limits of his mental shield and
when that happened, it felt as if a razor sharp blade
was constantly stabbing in and out of his brain. He
only hoped that there wasn't any permanent harm done;
brain damage was no laughing matter after all.
As he rested, Ranma looked at his opponent
impassively, thinking of what to do. He suddenly
realized that he didn't even know her name, not that
it was that important. In his opinion, perserving his
life had a much higher priority than that.
Originally he had wanted to interrogate her but being
unconscious and having a broken jaw (not his greatest
idea, he admitted silently) clearly put a damper on
that plan. Then, should he bring her along as a
prisoner?
After a moment's consideration, he decided against
that; she would just slow him down and cost him
precious time. All right, he would just have to leave
her here in order to check on Penin and see what his
condition was; if the other boy was dead, then that
would be unfortunate. In any case, Ranma was hoping
that the beacon was still in one piece.
Their job was not yet finished, after all.
But before he left, there was one thing he had to do.
After he felt he had enough rest, Ranma quickly
retrieved his blaster from where he'd left it, as well
as his opponent's weapon (his eyes betraying the
slightest grimace as he slid it out of the detached
hand), and then jumped over the river, throwing the
black and red lightsaber high over his shoulder while
doing so.
Landing on the other side in perfect balance, he
turned, quickly drew his gun and blew apart the dead
girl's lightsaber (which had fallen near her), and
then, in a display of superior hand-eye coordination
and accuracy, tracked and blasted the other one out of
the air.
Nodding in satisfaction, Ranma started walking into
the forest. It was possible that those two had allies
elsewhere on Yavin. No sense leaving behind weapons
for them to salvage.
It was right then a group of people emerged from the
forest treeline, way down the river. Thanks to his
near perfect vision, although he saw that some of them
did have lightsabers, not for a moment did he think
that they were from the Jedi Academy. The four
stormtroopers were a pretty big hint in that regard.
With all that in mind, he did the only thing he could
do.
Ranma turned back towards the treeline and quickly ran
for it.
/**************/
"Well, well, little rabbit. I've finally caught up to
you," Narissa remarked in a sultry tone that sounded
suitable for a holonet model. "You led me on quite
the chase, not bad, but everything has to come to an
end."
Despite his fear, Rosh suddenly found himself checking
her out. Very attractive, mid-twenties, great figure,
beautiful eyes, the blonde hair would've looked better
if it were longer, and he was dead certain that if she
smiled, his heart would probably stop. Her chest size
was also quite impressive, especially for someone with
such a slender figure.
Then he slapped himself on the forehead. 'Idiot!
What the hell am I doing? She's going to kill you
unless you do something!'
Unfortunately for him, he couldn't think of anything
that could be done. He couldn't go forward or to
either side, and behind him was all downhill, not
exactly the most steady of places to be running, now
was it?
What the hell was he going to do?
Narissa lifted her saber up in an aggressive forward
stance, holding it above her head with the blade
facing behind her. "Too bad, you are kinda cute.
Pity we're on different sides and I've got my orders,
anyway, so I'll make this quick." That said, she
charged at him.
Rosh had always heard about that when people thought
they were going to die, their lives would flash in
front of their eyes. Well, strangely, he kind of felt
cheated because it sure wasn't happening to him. What
was happening to him that he was certain of was that
he was very afraid for his life, angry that he was
going to die, and incredibly, hating a certain someone
for once again getting him involved in such a
situation.
When he saw Narissa coming straight at him, his eyes
widened in panic. Stumbling back against the wide
tree, he reflexively threw his hands up protectively
before his face, much like what he'd done with the
wildcat. Two things were rampaging through his mind;
how much he wanted he wanted to live and how much he
wished that she would just...JUST go away and leave
him ALONE!!
She was just three feet away from him when IT
happened.
Rosh felt an invisible wave of .... something suddenly
burst out of his hands and picked her up as if she
were nothing and literally threw her away. She yelped
in surprise before vanishing in the forest's shadows.
Jaw slack with amazement, Rosh heard the passage of
her body as she swept pass bushes, snapped branches
and whatnot before eventually fading from sight.
"Holy rancor droppings, Penin! W-Was that the Force I
just used?" Rosh asked out loud, completely stunned by
what he'd just done and looking at his hands as if
he'd never seen them before. Then he blinked his
eyes, suddenly feeling drained and utterly exhausted.
His legs wouldn't support him and he slowly slid off
the tree which had supported him earlier.
Rosh had forgotten one small, little detail. The tree
was right at the edge of the slope; thus, when he
finished sliding off the tree, there was absolutely
nothing to keep him from accidentally somersaulting
backwards ass over teakettle and happily rolling down
said slope.
"Oooof, oohhhh, accckkk!"
There was yet another thing he'd forgotten. Said
slope wasn't exactly only packed dirt and grass; it
also contained average-sized rocks and stones.
Many average-sized rocks and stones.
"OWWW!! OUCHHH!! AAAAARRRGGHHH!!!"
And of course, all the while Rosh was thinking of just
how much all of this was Ranma Korr's fault.
It was a long, hard, PAINFUL trip downhill.
Unknown to the hapless Rosh, he wasn't the only one
who was was letting their agony be known to the world.
Moaning at the pain she was feeling, Narissa Kaltic
groaned as she slowly regained consciousness. Although
she wasn't aware of it, she was now thirteen meters
away from where she'd been before being Force-pushed.
How that idiot managed to pull it off was something
she had trouble understanding.
Was it was an accident?
"Damn, he didn't have to hit me so hard," she cursed,
blinking her eyes. From what she could tell, she was
still in one piece. Miraculously, she didn't collide
with a tree and get impaled by a broken branch, two of
her worst fears during her unintended flight.
"I must find him," she stated in grim determination
and tried to sit up. However, her body decided that
it had other ideas and made her black out again.
/**************/
For the most part, Tavion Axmis[3], human leader of
the Disciples of Ragnos, was having a good day. So
far, the mission was turning out to be a success. Ten
minutes ago, she'd just finished draining the Dark
Side Force energy from the Massassi Temple using the
Sceptre of Ragnos. She smirked; stealing it from that
old, dead trader who dealt in ancient items was the
best idea she had in years.
Also, Allura had sent her a heavily coded signal
consisting of two beeps on a certain frequency that
had informed Tavion she had successfully completed her
part in the mission.
The Massassi Temple had possessed a great deal of Dark
Side energy. Tavion nearly shivered in delight at how
many cultists (a.k.a cannon fodder) she would be able
to empower with the stolen energy. Hopefully,
Skywalker's diary would be able to provide more places
similarly saturated so their numbers would continue to
grow and she would be able to execute her ultimate
plan.
Suppressing an urge to start laughing out loud
maniacally, Tavion settled for a grin of sheer greed.
To imagine, all that power would be hers in the near
future, she could barely wait!
Her entourage broke free of the forest and
unfortunately that was when her good mood took a
severe nosedive.
She caught sight of a black-haired, ponytailed man who
was downstream from her group. However, before she
could say anything, he dashed into the forest they'd
just exited like a coward. Then again, her group did
outnumber and outgun him, so she couldn't blame him
for retreating.
It was right then that her gaze fell upon the two
motionless bodies of Crimson and Talna, and her anger
spiked, along with a huge amount of disappointment and
irritation. Now she knew why he'd suddenly made
himself scarce; he was the one responsible!
There was no sign of Narissa, and frankly at the
moment, she couldn't bring herself to care about that.
She was too busy dealing with the surprising and
unsettling fact that one, untrained Jedi initiate
managed to defeat two of hers, and one being a prime
student!
Tavion had expected Crimson and her subordinates to be
more than capable of wiping out a bunch of Jedi
initiates. However, it seemed that reality proved her
wrong. It was evident that Allura's rival wasn't as
ready as she thought she'd been. Allura herself would
probably be ecstatic with the news that Crimson had
utterly failed. Though the infiltration of the
Academy was the main priority, Tavion had thought that
in the process of doing so, why not kill two birds
with one stone and weaken Skywalker's little group?
It had been a good idea, in theory. In execution,
well, it had turned out to be otherwise.
Damn that Crimson. It was enough to make Tavion
wonder why she even bothered putting all those five
years of effort into training the younger woman. All
that, just so she could lose to an untrained little
snit? Pathetic, extremely pathetic.
Shaking her head, Tavion was tempted to leave her
fallen student behind, but changed her mind. She
needed a convenient target to take out her anger on
and Crimson had just appointed herself as such.
Quickly directing her men to pick up the unconscious
Crimson and her detached hand, Tavion proceeded to
lead the way to the rendezvous point. She had already
felt for Narissa's Force signature, and it looked like
she was unconscious in the forest behind them. Well,
they had no time to waste and retrieve her; Tavion
could feel that Skywalker and his Academy brats were
nearing the area. It was time for them to retreat
without anymore interruptions.
/**************/
Eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one.....
there, made it!!
Summong what little strength he had left in his
battered and bloody body, Rosh smirked victoriously as
he held the beacon aloft. Finally, after all the pain
and agony, he'd finished the mission!
Punching the necessary keys to activate the beacon,
the young Penin sat down and looked around. He was
sitting on the sixty-second step on the Massassi
Temple, at a height which was a good twenty feet above
the tallest tree. Surprisingly, after finally
reaching level ground, except for his nose nothing was
broken, though he was a walking bruise and pain tore
at him with every single movement he made.
Rosh wearily looked at the amount of steps he would
have to walk back on the way down and was promptly
discouraged. He decided that he would lay down and
rest for several minutes first. Good thing that these
steps were fairly wide, just enough to accomodate his
admittedly thin frame.
In a few seconds, he was snoozing blissfully, the
beacon on the step above him and singing out its
electronic S.O.S.
It was this way that Kyle Katarn found him.[4]
"Poor kid," he muttered sympathetically as he noted
the vast number of bruises on him. "What sort of
brute would do this to someone unarmed?"
With no answers forthcoming, Kyle gently picked him up
in his arms and began walking down the steps.
/**************/
"Luke Skywalker, I presume?"
"That's me. And you are....Ranma Korr?"
The tow-headed Jedi Master gave the younger man in
front of him a once over. Two inches shorter than
him, cleanly cut raven black hair tied back in a small
ponytail, steel gray-blue eyes, slightly worn travel
garments.... Yes, although the oldish looking
lightsaber was new, his description fit that of his
file. This was Ranma Korr, the one Mara Jade had said
possessed a 'peculiar problem' with his Force energy.
[5]
Using the Force, Luke had managed to pinpoint the
exact location of the shuttlecraft and had immediately
dispatched himself, Kyle, two of the three doctors
currently assigned to the Academy, and instructors and
senior students, four each. Using one of the
Academy's short-range transport craft, they had
arrived at the scene quickly, where they had been
greeted by a chatty Aserna and an extremely relieved
group of injured new arrivals. The Rodian, with
Aserna's help, told them everything; the belief that
someone had fired on the shuttlecraft, the
crashlanding, Ranma and Rosh deciding to go out to the
Massassi Temple.
It was then that Luke and Kyle had both felt several
Dark Side presences leaving the planet. Greatly
concerned about the well being of Korr and Penin, they
decided to leave immediately. After quickly bidding
the doctors to go with the rest of the new students,
Luke and company used the Force to enhance their
running speed and made for the Temple.
Along the way, they had come upon the dead body of a
suspiciously dressed woman and the blasted remains of
a lightsaber. Quickly deciding that they would go
back there later, the Academy group leapt over the
river and finally arrived at their destination.
To their surprise, they had met Ranma Korr, along with
an unfamiliar, unconscious woman lying at his feet.
He was about to go check on Rosh when they'd caught up
with him. Luke kept him from going, however, and
asked Kyle to go instead. Ranma had merely shrugged
and remained where he was.
Then the Q&A session began.
"Ranma, if you don't mind, can you please tell what
happened with you and Rosh Penin ever since
you left the shuttlecraft."
While Ranma was giving a summary of what he and Rosh
had just been through, one of the Academy's
instructors walked up to them.
"Kam," Luke greeted the older man. Ranma cut short
his tale and looked at the new arrival with a neutral
gaze.
Kam Solusar[5], a hardened, bitter man who was the
Academy's most experienced teacher, glanced curiously
at Ranma and then turned his attention to Luke.
"Master Skywalker, you were correct. Those
Dark-Siders who left the planet earlier did indeed
pass through this area earlier. There are traces of
several individuals, possibly five or six." He
grimaced, then continued, "I can almost smell the
remnants their Dark Side stench."
"Same here," Luke said. "I've managed to track their
movements; three of them went up there." He gestured
near the top of the Massassi Temple.
Kam blinked in confusion. "But isn't that where we
began picked up the distress beacon shortly before we
picked up the group in the wreck back there?"
The younger man nodded. "Yes, that's correct. I've
already sent Kyle up there to see what he could
discover. He should be back soon. I just wish that
we could have caught those Dark Side users, whoever
they were, before they left the planet. Well, it's
all right; we had to take care of our wounded new
students first."
"Yes, though I have a suspicion that whatever mischief
they were up to, it was nothing good."
Luke agreed with him. "I've got a bad feeling about
what happened here." Sensing a presence, he looked up
at the familiar figure carefully walking down the
steps with a someone in his arms. Narrowing his eyes,
Luke reached out with the Force to ascertain that
Kyle's burden was alive and only unconscious.
Motioning for Kam to follow him, the Jedi Master went
to meet Kyle and to hear what he had to tell them.
Not caring whether he was allowed to or not, Ranma
followed behind them.
He got there just in time to hear Luke say, "My god,
what kind of monster would torture someone like this?"
"My thoughts exactly," Kyle said grimly.
Ranma looked over Luke's shoulder. "Impressive, he's
still alive. I half expected him to be dead."
The other three men shot startled glances at the young
Korr, not amused at all by his matter of fact tone.
Luke turned to confront him. "Mr. Korr, what do you
mean by that?"
Ranma shrugged and jabbed a thumb over his own
shoulder at the unconscious woman. "She'd been
ordered by her leader to get him. Penin was unarmed
and she had a lightsaber; him dying was the most
likely scenario I could think of."
His eyes narrowing, Luke had already noticed that
Ranma had both a blaster and his lightsaber. "And why
was Rosh unarmed? You got two weapons there; you
could have given him the blaster so he could protect
himself." Already, the Jedi Master was beginning to
form a bad impression of him.
If Ranma was bothered by Luke's sharpening tone, he
failed to acknowledge it. His reply was interrupted
by Katarn.
"I'm sure this discussion can wait. We still need to
call the transport and get Rosh some medical
attention. Luke?"
Luke met Kyle's eyes and nodded, though by the way his
mouth thinned, it was obvious that he wanted to
continue said discussion. However, he saw the wisdom
in Kyle's suggestion and decided to follow it.
"Ranma, we'll continue this later back at the
Academy," he told the ponytailed man firmly. Kyle,
his burden, and Kam had already started walking
towards the unconscious woman.
Ranma casually nodded and silently followed him.
With a low grunt, Kyle carefully laid down Rosh
several feet away from the blonde. "I'm getting too
old to play packhorse," he commented wryly.
Luke's sense of humor asserted itself, replacing the
negative thoughts he'd had of Ranma. "No one's fault
but your own, Kyle. You did volunteer to go all the
way up there."
Kam snorted in amusement and gestured towards the
blonde. "Anyone have an idea who she is?"
Ranma replied, "I don't know what her name is, or
where she came from, or why she's doing here. All I
know is that from what I've seen from her group, she's
been trained with a lightsaber and probably in the
Force, as well."
"Group?" asked all three older men at once with their
eyebrows raised.
"Yeah, group. The first of them I saw was back at the
river. There were three of them, all women armed with
lightsabers and wearing the same kind of clothing.
The angry girl, whom I telling you about earlier, was
about to make Penin history when I shot at them with
my blaster. I managed to catch them by surprise and
eliminate one of the underlings. Their leader ordered
this blonde here to chase after Penin and engaged me
in a lightsaber fight."
"Shortly after I disarmed her, another group appeared
upstream consisting of storm troopers and some people
who I believe were Dark Jedi of sorts, according to
their lightsabers. There was also a human woman with
them and I also believe that she was in charge of
everyone. I knew I couldn't fight them all so I chose
to retreat into the forest. After a few minutes, I
came upon her lying unconscious and decided to bring
her along for questioning. After destroying her
lightsaber of course."
"Sensible of you," Kam commented finally.
Ranma shrugged. "I know what my current limits are,
and winning against a group of Dark Jedi with storm
troopers for support are definitely beyond those."
"So you've had some lightsaber training prior to
coming here? Are you sure they were storm troopers?"
Luke asked in rapid succession.
Solusar decided to add his own contribution. "Their
ultimate leader, what did she look like?"
Had not the Soul of Ice been active, Ranma would've
rolled his eyes in disgust at the Jedi Master's
question. As it was, he decided to ignore the first
part, at least for now, and merely gave further
clarification on the second.
"They were four of them, all dressed up in white,
shiny field armor and carrying standard Empire-issue
blaster rifles. You will understand that since I was
rather reluctant to get within
accurate range, I did not have the opportunity to ask
them in order to affirm my observations."
Though the answer was delivered in a clear, concise
and flat manner, Luke couldn't help but be suspicious
that the younger man was being subtlely sarcastic. He
also noticed that Ranma didn't answer the first part
of his question, but he put it aside for later.
Feeling that he'd satisfied Luke's questions, Ranma
answered Kyle's. "She was above average height, I'd
say. Very well conditioned, short, brown hair, and
she had some wierd, colored tattoos on her face. She
was armed with a lightsaber, though it was at her
belt, and in her hands she held some sort of long,
odd-looking scepter."
Kyle's eyes widened, but before he could say anything,
a question was asked by a hoarse, slightly pained
voice.
"W-what's going on?"
/**************/
Rosh Penin found himself surrounded by three strange
men, and an aura of reassurance around each helped
dispel any thoughts of panicking.
He took a closer look at each of them. Two of them
were completely unknown to him, but the third looked
very familiar to him somehow. All three had
lightsabers attached to their belts.
One of the three, a brown-haired, bearded man with
graying hair on the side, knelt down and introduced
himself.
"Kyle Katarn, at your service."
The name was unfamiliar, but Rosh guessed that he was
an instructor or something at the Academy. "Nice to
meet you, give me hand, will you?"
Katarn shook his head and admonished him. "Rest easy
for a bit, kid; you've had a pretty rough day. You're
lucky to still be one piece." [7]
"You have no idea," grumbled Rosh. "Don't worry, I'm
not going anywhere; I'm just going to sit here for a
while."
With that, Kyle was satisfied and pulled him to a
sitting position.
Shaking his head to clear the last remaining cobwebs,
Rosh looked around him to get his bearings. He noticed
some other people besides the three standing by him.
Past them, he saw.....HIM.
Sudden rage flooded through Rosh, giving him strength
as he forgot that he was supposed to be still
exhausted. He surged upwards, a snarl on his face
that promised a whole lot of retribution
for the ponytailed man. Rosh was so mad that he
couldn't talk straight.
"KORR...Bastard...YOU!! You .. I.. kill.. must..
promise... forget.. never.. damn... torture ... types
.. of ... ARRGGHH!" He flexed his fingers and prepared
to leap upon his bane to throttle the life out of him.
Kyle and Kam were both going to restrain him when
someone beat them to it.
"OHhhhhh HOOooonneeeey!"
Too absorbed in his anger, Rosh didn't even hear the
sudden exclamation. What did get his attention was
the impact of another body throwing itself upon him.
"Who the --- Gaacckkk!" The young Penin discovered
that somehow he'd suddenly lost all capability to
speak coherently as he recognized his blonde
lightsaber wielding pursuer, Narissa.
Rosh proceeded to do the only logical thing he could.
He began panicking.
"Someone help me! She's gonna kill me, oh god oh god,
please get her off, get her off before she kills me,
will someone help me already!!?"
Responding to his cries for assistance, Kyle and Kam
quickly rushed to comply. After some difficulty, they
managed to extract the young blonde from Penin; a task
much harder than they'd initially thought as she had
an incredibly tight grip.
With her arms securely handled by the two men, Luke
thought it was an opportune time to get some
information. But before he could open his mouth,
Narissa frowned at each of them, and shot a dark look
at Rosh.
"Hey, what was up with that reaction of yours?" she
threw at him.
"My reaction? MY REACTION? You're a fine one to
talk!" he spat right back. "First, you try to
lightsaber me into tiny little pieces and then, the
next thing I know, you're trying to squeeze the life
out of me!" He paused, then added for good measure,
"You're a complete psychopathic nut!"
A hurt expression found its way on Narissa's face.
"W-wh-what kind of monster are you, to say such, such
BAD things about me like that. In public, no less!"
For his part, Rosh was too dumbfounded to compose a
proper answer to that. Luke, Kam and Kyle had a
similar reaction while Ranma was just curiously
observing to see what would happen next.
The blonde continued speaking. "I mean, is that anyway
to treat a person? Especially someone like me?"
Rosh replied in rising annoyance, exasparation, and
not a little anger. "AND WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK
YOU ARE!?"
Despite her arms being held, Narissa still managed to
stand proudly somehow as she gave him her answer in a
proud tone of voice.
"I am Narissa, formerly Xi-an Phu of the Joketsukou
Clan, from the planet of Dathomir. According to the
laws set by the founders of Joketsukou, since you,"
she nodded in Rosh's direction, "have defeated me in
combat, I am now your legally attached consort in
matrimony."
She suddenly winked at him and smiled gently. "In
other words, I'm your wife."
/**************/
Within a certain distance of the Massassi Temple, the
wildlife were suddenly disturbed by one of the most
agonizingly loud wails they'd ever heard in their
short lives.
"WWWWWHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT!??"
End Chapter 3
Began June 18, 2006
Finished June 28, 2006
Author's Notes:
Heh, poor Rosh (yeah right). Well, there you have it,
one of the NWC besides Ranma making an appearance.
Why blonde hair instead of purple, you ask? You'll
have to wait for the next chapter for the answer!
Hope you've enjoyed it; I had a blast writing this!
C&C is appreciated and welcome, as usual.
[1] = 'Cho Mai' is the name for an ancient Jedi term
used to describe the action of cutting off an
opponent's weapon hand, just one of the many things
Sensei Galdern had taught Ranma. See here for more
details:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber_combat
[2] = Translation: "You, you, you bastard! I'll kill
you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"
[3] = See here for more information on her:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavion
[4] = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_Katarn
[5] = http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mara_Jade
[6] = http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kam_Solusar
[7] = A bit of a play on Obi-wan's words to Luke in A
New Hope
Dave Wong
a.k.a. DarkWing
"Let's get dangerous"
Website: www.geocities.com/darksoar/start.html
A Star Wars-Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy/Ranma 1/2
Crossover
The Jedi of Chaos
Chapter 3
(1st draft)
This was turning out to be one of the most easiest
assignments Allura ever had. In the beginning, she'd
thought it'd be much more difficult to infiltrate the
Jedi Academy.
Now she could barely keep from derisively laughing out
loud as she casually walked down the hall. Currently
she was on the second floor of the Academy, and
according to Brakiss's information, it was at the
other side of the building.
In fact, the only difficulty so far was to avoid the
oblivious Jedi students. With most of them off
training, studying, eating or doing whatever they
usually did, that was accomplished without much
trouble. Ironically, it was her belief that the
infiltration would've been nearly impossible had she
attempted it during the night, when everyone
congregated in the Academy. In the daytime, it was
almost deserted. But on the side of the caution,
Allura had managed to steal a Jedi robe from one of
the instructor's rooms and had worn it over her very
distinctive black cloak.
Also, it had helped that the students were from
different planets and races, so her Twi-lek features
and red skin only rated a passing look. The relaxed
expression she'd fixed on her face also helped in that
regard.
Next time, she swore to be assigned to a mission that
would provide a bit more ..... action. Though she
wasn't the combat addicted freak that Crimson was, she
did enjoy the thrill of a good fight as it helped
break the everyday boredom of life.
She snorted in contempt of her rival. Crimson, now
that was truely one of the stupidest names Allura had
ever heard. Her hair wasn't the color and neither
were her eyes. Allura had learned her real name after
eavesdropping on a meeting Tavion and the human girl
had.
In the Disciples of Ragnos, it was a well known fact
that many of them, for their own personal reasons, had
changed their names. Allura had joined before her
rival had, but by the time Tendou had officially taken
her place as one of Tavion's two disciples, a running
joke had sprung up about there being two Crimsons for
one job. She hated that pathetic excuse of witticism
and had no qualms about letting her displeasure be
known, via a Force lightning attack.
Ah, there, she'd finally reached Skywalker's room.
Glancing around to make sure there were no one around,
she walked in and pulled out a data pad from beneath
her cloak.
She was just about to begin her search for Skywalker's
diary when she saw that it wasn't even necessary.
Apparently, Skywalker trusted his students enough to
leave his diary on top of his desk.
Shaking her head in disbelief, Allura reached out and
connected the pad to the diary with a data cable.
This would only take a few minutes at the most.
/**************/
"We'll see."
When Rosh had so foolishly run off, Ranma hadn't even
bothered to start looking for him. Although he had a
low opinion of the other boy's intelligence, the young
Korr knew that Penin would decide to head towards the
Massassi temple because it was the only thing he could
do. Penin had gotten such a headstart that even
tree-hopping hadn't enabled Ranma to catch up to him.
And when he finally did, he'd almost been too late.
Witnessing the appearance of the three mysterious
women, Ranma had been immediately suspicious of them.
This had only been confirmed when their apparent
leader had activated her lightsaber. Ranma had
quickly hypothesized that she and her crew had
something to do with the shuttlecraft's ambush. At
that instant, he'd made a tactical decision.
Penin was unarmed, a mistake of his that Ranma had
readily admitted, and still had the beacon. Their job
was still not yet done, and so with crystal clarity,
Ranma knew that he had to distract and hold the trio's
attention until Rosh could do his part. He hadn't
expected to get one of them with his blaster shots,
which had been a pleasant surprise. It had raised his
estimates of his survival by twenty percent.
Judging by the speed of which the remaining two had
reacted and deflected his blaster's shots, he'd been
certain that he couldn't stop the taller woman from
pursuing Penin. If he'd done so, he would have earned
a lightsaber in the back from the leader for his
effort. Penin had a headstart, true, but from Sensei
Galdern's lessons about the Force, Ranma assumed that
the subordinate would use the Force to increase her
running speed.
If that were true, then Penin was in a lot of trouble.
However, Ranma couldn't help him at the moment
because, quite coincidentally, he found himself in
some trouble of his own. It had seemed that his
flippant response had struck a VERY responsive chord
as he was extremely hard pressed to defend himself.
For her part, Crimson's eyes flared up in anger at her
opponent's casual attitude and suddenly broke into a
dash. The river proved to be an insignificant
obstacle; a single Force-enhanced flip was all it took
to get over it. The instant she hit the other side,
she charged at him, determined to make him regret he'd
ever underestimated her.
The brilliance of her lightsaber's blade, deliberately
chosen for her namesake, became a blur of red as she
slashed, stealing the offensive right away. Enraged
by the man's ambush on her and the death of Talna, she
attacked relentlessly but not recklessly. She held
back at first, wanting to see how much skill he had.
It came as a bit of surprise when all her of strikes
were blocked or parried. Obviously he was no mere new
recruit, he had to have some kind of training before.
But then, she had somewhat expected it; after all,
he'd chosen to walk out from his ambush spot and
challenge her to a lightsaber fight. That had
suggested to her that he had to know some moves; just
how much was the question.
However, against an opponent of her caliber, 'some'
didn't cut it. Not even close.
She was mildly interested in seeing how long he could
stay alive when she upped the ante.
Anger, that familiar friend, flooded anew through her
veins anew and fueling the Dark Side within her. Her
initial tempo, in concert with her building battle
lust, began to gradually speed up.
Her blood began pounding in her ears; her entire being
screamed at her to kill the man in front of her. Her
eyes thinned, her mouth curled hatefully, and her
battle rage kept on pumping. An image of her
worthless, deadbeat father superimposed over her
opponent, only to be faded out eventually, just to be
replaced with the most hated figure from her past, the
bastardized rich snob who had---
A dark red haze appeared in her vision, absorbing
everything else except for her target. He was a demon
from the pits of hell that just wouldn't stay dead,
despite her vengeance years ago. Solely focusing on
him, she let years of hate, rage, and anger explode
from within.
She slashed left to right, descending, and then right
to left in a reversal, nearly catching him by
surprise. It was obvious from his slightly hesitant
movements that the pathetic wretch lacked actual
combat experience with a lightsaber. Either that, or
he hadn't faced an opponent like her before. Snorting
in open contempt, Crimson slashed down, to be
predictably blocked. Disengaging, she struck down
again and again, willingingly, challengingly slamming
her blade against his.
He took a step back, then two, retreating under her
onslaught. Well, well, he did have half a brain after
all.
Pushing her advantage, the Disciple of Ragnos came at
him in a rush, all the while directing the Force to
empower her upper body's physical strength. When it
had reached a certain level, Crimson changed her
attack stance to the one that fit her like a glove;
the one that Tavion had said that takes great
advantage of strong emotions.
She began attacking, making use of tight, forceful
sweeps, angled high, low, and in the middle. Her
tempo was now increased; three attacks where there had
been two and her recovery time was lessened by half a
second. Her energy blade, a perfect match for her
motivation, blurred in front of her as she easily
knocked aside a pathetic attempt at a counterattack
and quickly followed up with a low cut.
The increased physical force behind her strikes began
to have an effect as the Jedi was clearly finding it
more difficult to solidly block her attacks as they
were beginning to force him back. He began to give
ground quicker.
The fact that her opponent was still alive concerned
Crimson very little. All she had to do was to knock
his weapon out of line in order to clear some space
for a finishing technique. She was confiden that it
would happen, sooner or later.
She idly speculated how long would it take before his
arms would tire and become numb so she could finally
cut him down like the dog that he was.
/**************/
In Ranma's opinion, the only reason why he wasn't dead
yet was because her skill in lightsaber combat wasn't
that extensive, though she possessed more experience
than him. He'd seen evidence of that in the way she
held her lightsaber and her somewhat rough stances.
She wasn't one with her weapon, at least not yet. In
his personal opinion, she had a long way to go before
she reached the status of a Master of someone like
Sensei Galdern.
If this was a duel of skill vs skill alone, he
would've eventually won, after a dangerously prolonged
fight. Although the training under Sensei Galdern had
included instructions in extensive lightsaber dueling,
the fact was that it was flat out impossibe to
practice with lightsabers against a spectral presence
in the Force, so the best that Ranma had been able to
do was memorize the stances and techniques.
In all consideration, this duel was Ranma's first
practical use of his lightsaber training. As it was,
if it weren't for his immensely high learning curve
and pre-Galdern training with vibroblades and other
such weapons, he would've been dead five seconds into
the fight. Currently, he was holding his own, yet he
knew he couldn't maintain a successful defense
forever.
The beginning of the duel was spent testing each
other, getting a feel for the other's skill. Now as
the situation stood, Ranma found himself at a severe
disadvantage. Thanks to the 'Soul of Ice', his mental
shield was up and dutifully keeping him from
attempting to use his abnormal Force energy. Added to
that was the fact of the real, potential harm to
himself if he dissolved said mental shield; in all
likelihood ending in his body exploding from the
sheer, chaotic, uncontrollable power being released.
This girl, on the other hand, seemed to be getting
faster and the power behind her blows were increasing
steadily. Although he couldn't feel it the way Sensei
Galdern would've been able to, it didn't take long for
him to figure out that she was drawing on the Force to
augment her base physical ability.
Genma be damned! If it weren't for him...
Ranma shook his head while barely deflecting aside a
high slash, than parried a low thrust. No time to
think about the past now. He refocused his attention
on her; analyzing every shift in her stance, every
attack she threw at him and commiting them to memory
and adding to his own style as he saw fit. He
calculated unless he changed the course of the duel,
in the next two minutes her speed would be such that
it would become extremely difficult for his reactions
to keep up, thereby enlarging his margin for error
considerably.
As it was, he was entirely on the defensive, his arms
and shoulders were beginning to hurt from the sheer
physical shock of clashing against her increased
strength. However, despite his handicap and his
disadvantages, his sharp, tactical mind had already
found out a weakness in her style. She, whatever her
name was, was falling into a pattern that was becoming
more predictable as the fight went on. Apparently,
she was becoming too overconfident from keeping him on
the defensive, and was becoming sloppy, leaving small,
yet growing exploitable holes in her stance.
The reason why he hadn't taken advantage of those
holes yet because simply, she was just too damn fast,
and getting faster as they fought. He wasn't able to
effectively counterattack without weakening his guard,
which was definitely not an option. At this rate,
Ranma wasn't able to see a path to victory because her
speed was a major roadblock in his way.
However, there was something he could do, yet at such
a great risk that he'd purposely held it back,
counting it as a last resort.
But now it seemed that he had no choice now, despite
that using it would possibly weaken his mental shields
enough to....
Ranma shook that though off, not wanting to dwell upon
that. It was his best shot at winning this fight,
though he might die from using it. How ironic; his
best hope was also his harbinger of doom.
No time to think about that now. He had to do it
while he was still alive.
Ranma's eyes narrowed, and backpedaled faster,
widening the distance between the two of them.
Decision made, he began to concentrate on calling up
his ki, as taught to him by one of his former
instructors six years ago......
/**************/
Rosh Penin had always wanted to be chased around by
attractive women, but this was getting ridiculous.
It seemed that he was running for his life the entire
day, and it was becoming rather annoying. Once more,
he cursed Ranma Korr for not lending him a weapon.
He was positively certain that those lightsaber
wielding evil-Jedi types were on his tail. After
seeing up close and personal how fast they could move,
he was pushing himself beyond his limits. Thanks to
whoever had fired upon them, he had been given a
couple of seconds headstart and he took full advantage
of that.
At least the Massassi Temple was visible through the
cracks in the trees; he refused to think of what would
happen should he had been forced to climb trees to
recheck his course.
It took some doing, but he restrained himself from
running all out. It would be stupid of him to do
that, then run out of breath, just to be cut down from
behind as he tried to get his wind back.
In Rosh's person opinion, that was definitely a very
BAD THING.
So he found himself now running at a pace more than a
jog, but a little less than an all-out dash. He was
making good progress as the Massassi Temple was slowly
growing larger, and was not sparing any attempt at
stealth. That would have only slowed him down; speed
was the key here, which he was practicing with an
almost religious zeal.
Several times, he risked quick glances behind him but
failed to catch a glimpse of his pursuers.
The young Penin didn't know how lucky he was. In
another reality, he and another potential Jedi trainee
by the unlikely name of Jaden, in order to reach the
Massassi Temple, would have to go through a couple of
stormtroopers and one Disciple of Ragnos. In this
life, however, Rosh approached the Temple from another
direction and thus avoided them by sheer luck.
Then again, he had no weapons and was being chased by
lightsaber wielding women. Maybe lucky wasn't the
term....
Rosh broke through the bush and circled around a wide
tree, panting and sweating. However, what he saw made
his discomfort all the worthwhile. He was standing at
the top of a small vale, and right across from him
stood the Massassi Temple!
Sighing with relief, he looked down, noting that it
was downhill all the way to the base of the Temple,
about a hundred feet in distance. When he reached the
bottom, he would have to climbing up the Temple steps
until he reached a spot right above the treeline.
He was about to begin descending when he heard
something from behind that nearly made him soil his
pants.
*Snap-hiss*
/**************/
Crimson sensed that victory was just within reach.
She was being saturated with the Dark Side and her
speed was still growing. Right now, she was half
again faster than she was normally, without being
Force enchanced while her strength had also been
increased, though not as much as her speed. That was
all right with her; at the beginning of her training,
she'd wanted to focus almost purely on combat. When
informed of her decision, Mistress Tavion had
accepted, with a condition that Crimson would
concentrate mostly on speed, along with a smaller
focus on strength.
And she still had more to go until finally hitting her
limit. If she chose to go beyond that, she risked
causing her body irreparable harm.
Not that she would need to go that far of course.
She had no idea how this so-called Jedi was able to
defend himself so well without using the Force, but
she was certain that it couldn't last. With the Dark
Side giving her strength, she wouldn't tire for a long
time and her speed and strength would just continue to
grow. It was only a matter of minutes.
This Jedi had provided her with a little amusement,
but time was growing short and she really had other
things to do. And it really was pathetic; he could
have used more training. Ever since the start of the
fight, it had been made completely obvious to her that
the fool wasn't even using the Force to aid him in the
fight. Like when she'd first sensed him with his
companion, it looked like his Force potential really
was that small.
Truely, it was one of the most pathetic things Crimson
had ever seen.
On the otherhand, the whole affair was getting
tiresome. She had her fill already, and now, this
little comedy needed to come to an end. However, it
seemed that he'd somehow sensed it and was rapidly
backing away from her. As if that would save him; she
would easily match his speed by directing the Force to
her legs and did so.
Grinning ferally, Crimson charged after him, attacking
the moment she got within range. Aiming at his right
shoulder, she slashed down hard.
Out of nowhere, with a speed faster than what he'd
shown before, his lightsaber came dancing in at her
left, smashing into her blade with unexpected strength
and forcing it further to her right than she wanted.
So unprepared was she for that attack, so surprised
was she that her mental processes stalled for a
moment. Tavion's student blinked once and had but one
thought.
'What?'
Than her eyes widened in surprise and panic as she
suddenly realized the full ramifications of what had
just happened. With her lightsaber out of line, she
was completely open!
With that, it finally occured to her that maybe she
should bring her lightsaber back where she could
appropriately block or parry the next attack that was
coming. On that count, she was just a tad bit too
late.
Feeling his ki burn through him and clenching his
teeth, Ranma kicked out at her open front, striking
her full in the stomach. He could've easily thrust
his lightsaber into her heart, but there were
questions he wanted to ask of her. Disabling her
would just have to do.
With the wind suddenly knocked out of her, she hunched
over a little, one hand reflexively going to her
stomach and the other maintaining a loose hold on her
weapon. However, she was still able to see her
opponent's cold face as he lifted up his light-green
energy blade and cleanly slashed off her hand just
after the elbow.
"Cho-mai," whispered Ranma as he brought himself to a
basic neutral stance. [1]
A howl of sheer agony erupted from her lips as the
pain overwhelmed her. Dropping to her knees and
clutching her wrist tightly, as if to squeeze out the
hot fire playing on her nerves. Her eyes dropped on
the person responsible, the damned Jedi, hating him
even more. Amidst the pain, it was suddenly clear to
her that he had purposely held back his Force
abilities in order for her to underestimate him. And
when she got overconfident, he took advantage of that
and tricked her! Blast him!
"Ya-ya-ya babab! Ollkalya! Ollkalya! Ollkalya![2]"
she mumbled through her broken jaw, trying to fight
past the pain. In her current state, she missed the
fact that the despisable man was glowing faintly with
a white-bluish aura.
For his part, Ranma was thankful that he managed to
end the fight without having to rely on the prolonged
use of his ki. Already he could feel the strain on
his mental shield; it was still holding but it was
also growing more difficult to do so. If he had to
keep using his ki for several more seconds, the toll
it would have on his ability to maintain the shield
would have been more than he could handle. Taking a
deep breath, the ponytailed man went through the
necessary steps to end the use of his ki and the aura
around him slowly faded away.
Then he noticed that she was still yelling and making
dire threats. In his opinion, a silent, unconscious
enemy was more preferable to a conscious, boisterous
one. With that in mind, he calmly walked over to her,
made a tight fist, drew it back and solidly punched
the side of her jaw that wasn't broken.
"Quiet!" he demanded as she slumped to the ground
unconscious. A second later, Ranma himself fell to
the ground on his knees.
Breathing heavily, his muscles were on fire from the
extremely strenuous fight and his mind wasn't doing
too good either. Use of his ki had forced him to
stretch to the very limits of his mental shield and
when that happened, it felt as if a razor sharp blade
was constantly stabbing in and out of his brain. He
only hoped that there wasn't any permanent harm done;
brain damage was no laughing matter after all.
As he rested, Ranma looked at his opponent
impassively, thinking of what to do. He suddenly
realized that he didn't even know her name, not that
it was that important. In his opinion, perserving his
life had a much higher priority than that.
Originally he had wanted to interrogate her but being
unconscious and having a broken jaw (not his greatest
idea, he admitted silently) clearly put a damper on
that plan. Then, should he bring her along as a
prisoner?
After a moment's consideration, he decided against
that; she would just slow him down and cost him
precious time. All right, he would just have to leave
her here in order to check on Penin and see what his
condition was; if the other boy was dead, then that
would be unfortunate. In any case, Ranma was hoping
that the beacon was still in one piece.
Their job was not yet finished, after all.
But before he left, there was one thing he had to do.
After he felt he had enough rest, Ranma quickly
retrieved his blaster from where he'd left it, as well
as his opponent's weapon (his eyes betraying the
slightest grimace as he slid it out of the detached
hand), and then jumped over the river, throwing the
black and red lightsaber high over his shoulder while
doing so.
Landing on the other side in perfect balance, he
turned, quickly drew his gun and blew apart the dead
girl's lightsaber (which had fallen near her), and
then, in a display of superior hand-eye coordination
and accuracy, tracked and blasted the other one out of
the air.
Nodding in satisfaction, Ranma started walking into
the forest. It was possible that those two had allies
elsewhere on Yavin. No sense leaving behind weapons
for them to salvage.
It was right then a group of people emerged from the
forest treeline, way down the river. Thanks to his
near perfect vision, although he saw that some of them
did have lightsabers, not for a moment did he think
that they were from the Jedi Academy. The four
stormtroopers were a pretty big hint in that regard.
With all that in mind, he did the only thing he could
do.
Ranma turned back towards the treeline and quickly ran
for it.
/**************/
"Well, well, little rabbit. I've finally caught up to
you," Narissa remarked in a sultry tone that sounded
suitable for a holonet model. "You led me on quite
the chase, not bad, but everything has to come to an
end."
Despite his fear, Rosh suddenly found himself checking
her out. Very attractive, mid-twenties, great figure,
beautiful eyes, the blonde hair would've looked better
if it were longer, and he was dead certain that if she
smiled, his heart would probably stop. Her chest size
was also quite impressive, especially for someone with
such a slender figure.
Then he slapped himself on the forehead. 'Idiot!
What the hell am I doing? She's going to kill you
unless you do something!'
Unfortunately for him, he couldn't think of anything
that could be done. He couldn't go forward or to
either side, and behind him was all downhill, not
exactly the most steady of places to be running, now
was it?
What the hell was he going to do?
Narissa lifted her saber up in an aggressive forward
stance, holding it above her head with the blade
facing behind her. "Too bad, you are kinda cute.
Pity we're on different sides and I've got my orders,
anyway, so I'll make this quick." That said, she
charged at him.
Rosh had always heard about that when people thought
they were going to die, their lives would flash in
front of their eyes. Well, strangely, he kind of felt
cheated because it sure wasn't happening to him. What
was happening to him that he was certain of was that
he was very afraid for his life, angry that he was
going to die, and incredibly, hating a certain someone
for once again getting him involved in such a
situation.
When he saw Narissa coming straight at him, his eyes
widened in panic. Stumbling back against the wide
tree, he reflexively threw his hands up protectively
before his face, much like what he'd done with the
wildcat. Two things were rampaging through his mind;
how much he wanted he wanted to live and how much he
wished that she would just...JUST go away and leave
him ALONE!!
She was just three feet away from him when IT
happened.
Rosh felt an invisible wave of .... something suddenly
burst out of his hands and picked her up as if she
were nothing and literally threw her away. She yelped
in surprise before vanishing in the forest's shadows.
Jaw slack with amazement, Rosh heard the passage of
her body as she swept pass bushes, snapped branches
and whatnot before eventually fading from sight.
"Holy rancor droppings, Penin! W-Was that the Force I
just used?" Rosh asked out loud, completely stunned by
what he'd just done and looking at his hands as if
he'd never seen them before. Then he blinked his
eyes, suddenly feeling drained and utterly exhausted.
His legs wouldn't support him and he slowly slid off
the tree which had supported him earlier.
Rosh had forgotten one small, little detail. The tree
was right at the edge of the slope; thus, when he
finished sliding off the tree, there was absolutely
nothing to keep him from accidentally somersaulting
backwards ass over teakettle and happily rolling down
said slope.
"Oooof, oohhhh, accckkk!"
There was yet another thing he'd forgotten. Said
slope wasn't exactly only packed dirt and grass; it
also contained average-sized rocks and stones.
Many average-sized rocks and stones.
"OWWW!! OUCHHH!! AAAAARRRGGHHH!!!"
And of course, all the while Rosh was thinking of just
how much all of this was Ranma Korr's fault.
It was a long, hard, PAINFUL trip downhill.
Unknown to the hapless Rosh, he wasn't the only one
who was was letting their agony be known to the world.
Moaning at the pain she was feeling, Narissa Kaltic
groaned as she slowly regained consciousness. Although
she wasn't aware of it, she was now thirteen meters
away from where she'd been before being Force-pushed.
How that idiot managed to pull it off was something
she had trouble understanding.
Was it was an accident?
"Damn, he didn't have to hit me so hard," she cursed,
blinking her eyes. From what she could tell, she was
still in one piece. Miraculously, she didn't collide
with a tree and get impaled by a broken branch, two of
her worst fears during her unintended flight.
"I must find him," she stated in grim determination
and tried to sit up. However, her body decided that
it had other ideas and made her black out again.
/**************/
For the most part, Tavion Axmis[3], human leader of
the Disciples of Ragnos, was having a good day. So
far, the mission was turning out to be a success. Ten
minutes ago, she'd just finished draining the Dark
Side Force energy from the Massassi Temple using the
Sceptre of Ragnos. She smirked; stealing it from that
old, dead trader who dealt in ancient items was the
best idea she had in years.
Also, Allura had sent her a heavily coded signal
consisting of two beeps on a certain frequency that
had informed Tavion she had successfully completed her
part in the mission.
The Massassi Temple had possessed a great deal of Dark
Side energy. Tavion nearly shivered in delight at how
many cultists (a.k.a cannon fodder) she would be able
to empower with the stolen energy. Hopefully,
Skywalker's diary would be able to provide more places
similarly saturated so their numbers would continue to
grow and she would be able to execute her ultimate
plan.
Suppressing an urge to start laughing out loud
maniacally, Tavion settled for a grin of sheer greed.
To imagine, all that power would be hers in the near
future, she could barely wait!
Her entourage broke free of the forest and
unfortunately that was when her good mood took a
severe nosedive.
She caught sight of a black-haired, ponytailed man who
was downstream from her group. However, before she
could say anything, he dashed into the forest they'd
just exited like a coward. Then again, her group did
outnumber and outgun him, so she couldn't blame him
for retreating.
It was right then that her gaze fell upon the two
motionless bodies of Crimson and Talna, and her anger
spiked, along with a huge amount of disappointment and
irritation. Now she knew why he'd suddenly made
himself scarce; he was the one responsible!
There was no sign of Narissa, and frankly at the
moment, she couldn't bring herself to care about that.
She was too busy dealing with the surprising and
unsettling fact that one, untrained Jedi initiate
managed to defeat two of hers, and one being a prime
student!
Tavion had expected Crimson and her subordinates to be
more than capable of wiping out a bunch of Jedi
initiates. However, it seemed that reality proved her
wrong. It was evident that Allura's rival wasn't as
ready as she thought she'd been. Allura herself would
probably be ecstatic with the news that Crimson had
utterly failed. Though the infiltration of the
Academy was the main priority, Tavion had thought that
in the process of doing so, why not kill two birds
with one stone and weaken Skywalker's little group?
It had been a good idea, in theory. In execution,
well, it had turned out to be otherwise.
Damn that Crimson. It was enough to make Tavion
wonder why she even bothered putting all those five
years of effort into training the younger woman. All
that, just so she could lose to an untrained little
snit? Pathetic, extremely pathetic.
Shaking her head, Tavion was tempted to leave her
fallen student behind, but changed her mind. She
needed a convenient target to take out her anger on
and Crimson had just appointed herself as such.
Quickly directing her men to pick up the unconscious
Crimson and her detached hand, Tavion proceeded to
lead the way to the rendezvous point. She had already
felt for Narissa's Force signature, and it looked like
she was unconscious in the forest behind them. Well,
they had no time to waste and retrieve her; Tavion
could feel that Skywalker and his Academy brats were
nearing the area. It was time for them to retreat
without anymore interruptions.
/**************/
Eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one.....
there, made it!!
Summong what little strength he had left in his
battered and bloody body, Rosh smirked victoriously as
he held the beacon aloft. Finally, after all the pain
and agony, he'd finished the mission!
Punching the necessary keys to activate the beacon,
the young Penin sat down and looked around. He was
sitting on the sixty-second step on the Massassi
Temple, at a height which was a good twenty feet above
the tallest tree. Surprisingly, after finally
reaching level ground, except for his nose nothing was
broken, though he was a walking bruise and pain tore
at him with every single movement he made.
Rosh wearily looked at the amount of steps he would
have to walk back on the way down and was promptly
discouraged. He decided that he would lay down and
rest for several minutes first. Good thing that these
steps were fairly wide, just enough to accomodate his
admittedly thin frame.
In a few seconds, he was snoozing blissfully, the
beacon on the step above him and singing out its
electronic S.O.S.
It was this way that Kyle Katarn found him.[4]
"Poor kid," he muttered sympathetically as he noted
the vast number of bruises on him. "What sort of
brute would do this to someone unarmed?"
With no answers forthcoming, Kyle gently picked him up
in his arms and began walking down the steps.
/**************/
"Luke Skywalker, I presume?"
"That's me. And you are....Ranma Korr?"
The tow-headed Jedi Master gave the younger man in
front of him a once over. Two inches shorter than
him, cleanly cut raven black hair tied back in a small
ponytail, steel gray-blue eyes, slightly worn travel
garments.... Yes, although the oldish looking
lightsaber was new, his description fit that of his
file. This was Ranma Korr, the one Mara Jade had said
possessed a 'peculiar problem' with his Force energy.
[5]
Using the Force, Luke had managed to pinpoint the
exact location of the shuttlecraft and had immediately
dispatched himself, Kyle, two of the three doctors
currently assigned to the Academy, and instructors and
senior students, four each. Using one of the
Academy's short-range transport craft, they had
arrived at the scene quickly, where they had been
greeted by a chatty Aserna and an extremely relieved
group of injured new arrivals. The Rodian, with
Aserna's help, told them everything; the belief that
someone had fired on the shuttlecraft, the
crashlanding, Ranma and Rosh deciding to go out to the
Massassi Temple.
It was then that Luke and Kyle had both felt several
Dark Side presences leaving the planet. Greatly
concerned about the well being of Korr and Penin, they
decided to leave immediately. After quickly bidding
the doctors to go with the rest of the new students,
Luke and company used the Force to enhance their
running speed and made for the Temple.
Along the way, they had come upon the dead body of a
suspiciously dressed woman and the blasted remains of
a lightsaber. Quickly deciding that they would go
back there later, the Academy group leapt over the
river and finally arrived at their destination.
To their surprise, they had met Ranma Korr, along with
an unfamiliar, unconscious woman lying at his feet.
He was about to go check on Rosh when they'd caught up
with him. Luke kept him from going, however, and
asked Kyle to go instead. Ranma had merely shrugged
and remained where he was.
Then the Q&A session began.
"Ranma, if you don't mind, can you please tell what
happened with you and Rosh Penin ever since
you left the shuttlecraft."
While Ranma was giving a summary of what he and Rosh
had just been through, one of the Academy's
instructors walked up to them.
"Kam," Luke greeted the older man. Ranma cut short
his tale and looked at the new arrival with a neutral
gaze.
Kam Solusar[5], a hardened, bitter man who was the
Academy's most experienced teacher, glanced curiously
at Ranma and then turned his attention to Luke.
"Master Skywalker, you were correct. Those
Dark-Siders who left the planet earlier did indeed
pass through this area earlier. There are traces of
several individuals, possibly five or six." He
grimaced, then continued, "I can almost smell the
remnants their Dark Side stench."
"Same here," Luke said. "I've managed to track their
movements; three of them went up there." He gestured
near the top of the Massassi Temple.
Kam blinked in confusion. "But isn't that where we
began picked up the distress beacon shortly before we
picked up the group in the wreck back there?"
The younger man nodded. "Yes, that's correct. I've
already sent Kyle up there to see what he could
discover. He should be back soon. I just wish that
we could have caught those Dark Side users, whoever
they were, before they left the planet. Well, it's
all right; we had to take care of our wounded new
students first."
"Yes, though I have a suspicion that whatever mischief
they were up to, it was nothing good."
Luke agreed with him. "I've got a bad feeling about
what happened here." Sensing a presence, he looked up
at the familiar figure carefully walking down the
steps with a someone in his arms. Narrowing his eyes,
Luke reached out with the Force to ascertain that
Kyle's burden was alive and only unconscious.
Motioning for Kam to follow him, the Jedi Master went
to meet Kyle and to hear what he had to tell them.
Not caring whether he was allowed to or not, Ranma
followed behind them.
He got there just in time to hear Luke say, "My god,
what kind of monster would torture someone like this?"
"My thoughts exactly," Kyle said grimly.
Ranma looked over Luke's shoulder. "Impressive, he's
still alive. I half expected him to be dead."
The other three men shot startled glances at the young
Korr, not amused at all by his matter of fact tone.
Luke turned to confront him. "Mr. Korr, what do you
mean by that?"
Ranma shrugged and jabbed a thumb over his own
shoulder at the unconscious woman. "She'd been
ordered by her leader to get him. Penin was unarmed
and she had a lightsaber; him dying was the most
likely scenario I could think of."
His eyes narrowing, Luke had already noticed that
Ranma had both a blaster and his lightsaber. "And why
was Rosh unarmed? You got two weapons there; you
could have given him the blaster so he could protect
himself." Already, the Jedi Master was beginning to
form a bad impression of him.
If Ranma was bothered by Luke's sharpening tone, he
failed to acknowledge it. His reply was interrupted
by Katarn.
"I'm sure this discussion can wait. We still need to
call the transport and get Rosh some medical
attention. Luke?"
Luke met Kyle's eyes and nodded, though by the way his
mouth thinned, it was obvious that he wanted to
continue said discussion. However, he saw the wisdom
in Kyle's suggestion and decided to follow it.
"Ranma, we'll continue this later back at the
Academy," he told the ponytailed man firmly. Kyle,
his burden, and Kam had already started walking
towards the unconscious woman.
Ranma casually nodded and silently followed him.
With a low grunt, Kyle carefully laid down Rosh
several feet away from the blonde. "I'm getting too
old to play packhorse," he commented wryly.
Luke's sense of humor asserted itself, replacing the
negative thoughts he'd had of Ranma. "No one's fault
but your own, Kyle. You did volunteer to go all the
way up there."
Kam snorted in amusement and gestured towards the
blonde. "Anyone have an idea who she is?"
Ranma replied, "I don't know what her name is, or
where she came from, or why she's doing here. All I
know is that from what I've seen from her group, she's
been trained with a lightsaber and probably in the
Force, as well."
"Group?" asked all three older men at once with their
eyebrows raised.
"Yeah, group. The first of them I saw was back at the
river. There were three of them, all women armed with
lightsabers and wearing the same kind of clothing.
The angry girl, whom I telling you about earlier, was
about to make Penin history when I shot at them with
my blaster. I managed to catch them by surprise and
eliminate one of the underlings. Their leader ordered
this blonde here to chase after Penin and engaged me
in a lightsaber fight."
"Shortly after I disarmed her, another group appeared
upstream consisting of storm troopers and some people
who I believe were Dark Jedi of sorts, according to
their lightsabers. There was also a human woman with
them and I also believe that she was in charge of
everyone. I knew I couldn't fight them all so I chose
to retreat into the forest. After a few minutes, I
came upon her lying unconscious and decided to bring
her along for questioning. After destroying her
lightsaber of course."
"Sensible of you," Kam commented finally.
Ranma shrugged. "I know what my current limits are,
and winning against a group of Dark Jedi with storm
troopers for support are definitely beyond those."
"So you've had some lightsaber training prior to
coming here? Are you sure they were storm troopers?"
Luke asked in rapid succession.
Solusar decided to add his own contribution. "Their
ultimate leader, what did she look like?"
Had not the Soul of Ice been active, Ranma would've
rolled his eyes in disgust at the Jedi Master's
question. As it was, he decided to ignore the first
part, at least for now, and merely gave further
clarification on the second.
"They were four of them, all dressed up in white,
shiny field armor and carrying standard Empire-issue
blaster rifles. You will understand that since I was
rather reluctant to get within
accurate range, I did not have the opportunity to ask
them in order to affirm my observations."
Though the answer was delivered in a clear, concise
and flat manner, Luke couldn't help but be suspicious
that the younger man was being subtlely sarcastic. He
also noticed that Ranma didn't answer the first part
of his question, but he put it aside for later.
Feeling that he'd satisfied Luke's questions, Ranma
answered Kyle's. "She was above average height, I'd
say. Very well conditioned, short, brown hair, and
she had some wierd, colored tattoos on her face. She
was armed with a lightsaber, though it was at her
belt, and in her hands she held some sort of long,
odd-looking scepter."
Kyle's eyes widened, but before he could say anything,
a question was asked by a hoarse, slightly pained
voice.
"W-what's going on?"
/**************/
Rosh Penin found himself surrounded by three strange
men, and an aura of reassurance around each helped
dispel any thoughts of panicking.
He took a closer look at each of them. Two of them
were completely unknown to him, but the third looked
very familiar to him somehow. All three had
lightsabers attached to their belts.
One of the three, a brown-haired, bearded man with
graying hair on the side, knelt down and introduced
himself.
"Kyle Katarn, at your service."
The name was unfamiliar, but Rosh guessed that he was
an instructor or something at the Academy. "Nice to
meet you, give me hand, will you?"
Katarn shook his head and admonished him. "Rest easy
for a bit, kid; you've had a pretty rough day. You're
lucky to still be one piece." [7]
"You have no idea," grumbled Rosh. "Don't worry, I'm
not going anywhere; I'm just going to sit here for a
while."
With that, Kyle was satisfied and pulled him to a
sitting position.
Shaking his head to clear the last remaining cobwebs,
Rosh looked around him to get his bearings. He noticed
some other people besides the three standing by him.
Past them, he saw.....HIM.
Sudden rage flooded through Rosh, giving him strength
as he forgot that he was supposed to be still
exhausted. He surged upwards, a snarl on his face
that promised a whole lot of retribution
for the ponytailed man. Rosh was so mad that he
couldn't talk straight.
"KORR...Bastard...YOU!! You .. I.. kill.. must..
promise... forget.. never.. damn... torture ... types
.. of ... ARRGGHH!" He flexed his fingers and prepared
to leap upon his bane to throttle the life out of him.
Kyle and Kam were both going to restrain him when
someone beat them to it.
"OHhhhhh HOOooonneeeey!"
Too absorbed in his anger, Rosh didn't even hear the
sudden exclamation. What did get his attention was
the impact of another body throwing itself upon him.
"Who the --- Gaacckkk!" The young Penin discovered
that somehow he'd suddenly lost all capability to
speak coherently as he recognized his blonde
lightsaber wielding pursuer, Narissa.
Rosh proceeded to do the only logical thing he could.
He began panicking.
"Someone help me! She's gonna kill me, oh god oh god,
please get her off, get her off before she kills me,
will someone help me already!!?"
Responding to his cries for assistance, Kyle and Kam
quickly rushed to comply. After some difficulty, they
managed to extract the young blonde from Penin; a task
much harder than they'd initially thought as she had
an incredibly tight grip.
With her arms securely handled by the two men, Luke
thought it was an opportune time to get some
information. But before he could open his mouth,
Narissa frowned at each of them, and shot a dark look
at Rosh.
"Hey, what was up with that reaction of yours?" she
threw at him.
"My reaction? MY REACTION? You're a fine one to
talk!" he spat right back. "First, you try to
lightsaber me into tiny little pieces and then, the
next thing I know, you're trying to squeeze the life
out of me!" He paused, then added for good measure,
"You're a complete psychopathic nut!"
A hurt expression found its way on Narissa's face.
"W-wh-what kind of monster are you, to say such, such
BAD things about me like that. In public, no less!"
For his part, Rosh was too dumbfounded to compose a
proper answer to that. Luke, Kam and Kyle had a
similar reaction while Ranma was just curiously
observing to see what would happen next.
The blonde continued speaking. "I mean, is that anyway
to treat a person? Especially someone like me?"
Rosh replied in rising annoyance, exasparation, and
not a little anger. "AND WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK
YOU ARE!?"
Despite her arms being held, Narissa still managed to
stand proudly somehow as she gave him her answer in a
proud tone of voice.
"I am Narissa, formerly Xi-an Phu of the Joketsukou
Clan, from the planet of Dathomir. According to the
laws set by the founders of Joketsukou, since you,"
she nodded in Rosh's direction, "have defeated me in
combat, I am now your legally attached consort in
matrimony."
She suddenly winked at him and smiled gently. "In
other words, I'm your wife."
/**************/
Within a certain distance of the Massassi Temple, the
wildlife were suddenly disturbed by one of the most
agonizingly loud wails they'd ever heard in their
short lives.
"WWWWWHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT!??"
End Chapter 3
Began June 18, 2006
Finished June 28, 2006
Author's Notes:
Heh, poor Rosh (yeah right). Well, there you have it,
one of the NWC besides Ranma making an appearance.
Why blonde hair instead of purple, you ask? You'll
have to wait for the next chapter for the answer!
Hope you've enjoyed it; I had a blast writing this!
C&C is appreciated and welcome, as usual.
[1] = 'Cho Mai' is the name for an ancient Jedi term
used to describe the action of cutting off an
opponent's weapon hand, just one of the many things
Sensei Galdern had taught Ranma. See here for more
details:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber_combat
[2] = Translation: "You, you, you bastard! I'll kill
you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"
[3] = See here for more information on her:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavion
[4] = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_Katarn
[5] = http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mara_Jade
[6] = http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kam_Solusar
[7] = A bit of a play on Obi-wan's words to Luke in A
New Hope
Dave Wong
a.k.a. DarkWing
"Let's get dangerous"
Website: www.geocities.com/darksoar/start.html