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The Force Always Says Yes [Star Wars]

Reader mode
TroubleFait said:
Deny, deflect, deceive. We're not normal, but we're definitely not the Jedi younglings you're looking for.
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The golden rule of disguise! Don't look like a nobody, look like you're somebody who is less of a problem than your real identity. A false sense of security is as dangerous as a dark shadow...
Simonbob said:
He really is the weirdest Jedi.

But rolling with it just works way too well.
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"I legally have to inform you that I am not a Jedi!"
Psyentific said:
Next step of the plan: Claim the $1M prize for finding two jedi padawans.
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While holding up a thermal detonator, of course...
 
shargle said:
excellent fight choreography.
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TroubleFait said:
Right! It's entertaining and easy to follow.
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Aw, thank you!

I know Star Wars was in large part inspired by saturday morning matinees, samurai films, and westerns, because that's what influenced George Lucas a lot growing up and studying to become an artist. In the same way, I grew up watching a lot of 80's Hong Kong kung fu movies. Now that I've gotten rid of Nerim's lightsaber, I have an excuse to really bring that particular influence to the forefront!
 
It's a shame this is on the SFW board of QQ. It's really not getting the attention it deserves. Heck, I only found it because I clicked on the wrong board by accident. SFW stories can go on the NSFW boards, and that's not to mention the other two members of the forum trio. Spacebattles in particular has a lot of appetite for stuff like this.
 
EvilLlamaHypnotist said:
It's a shame this is on the SFW board of QQ. It's really not getting the attention it deserves. Heck, I only found it because I clicked on the wrong board by accident. SFW stories can go on the NSFW boards, and that's not to mention the other two members of the forum trio. Spacebattles in particular has a lot of appetite for stuff like this.
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It had not occurred to me that one could post SFW stories in the NSFW board. I really didn't think that much about how I posted it when I started, actually, I had only started posting it on a dare in the first place. It's a shame if that's really kneecapped the story's reach, since I actually do kinda want people to read it nowadays! I'm so unaware of fanfic culture that I don't even know what the third member of the trio is lol
 
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The upside of keeping it on the SFW side of things though is you get less of a demand or speculation of when NSFW scenes will show up. And if the goal is just more visibility, there is always the side option of plot irrelevant NSFW scenes put in an "Extras" thread on the NSFW side of things that would direct them back to this SFW core story as sort of underhanded advertising.
 
Necrovore said:
The upside of keeping it on the SFW side of things though is you get less of a demand or speculation of when NSFW scenes will show up. And if the goal is just more visibility, there is always the side option of plot irrelevant NSFW scenes put in an "Extras" thread on the NSFW side of things that would direct them back to this SFW core story as sort of underhanded advertising.
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I have been known to make side-smut in the past...Although I haven't considered it much for TFASY. What the characters involved would be is an interesting thought. Obviously the first choice would be...Fae Coven smut...yeah, THAT'S what the market wants, baby...!
 
Chapter 59: Very Grumpy New
Chapter 59: Very Grumpy​

Nerim sipped at his drink and cast a quick glance across the black-clad Syaniids. Vena Riila was nowhere to be seen, and he had a feeling that she was stuck on duty guarding Arwain, perhaps still unaware of his immediate presence. The Syaniids before him were a mix of individuals, one a Mirialan woman, another a Kaleesh with heavy scars across her face, a third Rodian who's fingers twitched in anticipation under the folds of her poncho. It was shocking to him to see so many Force Sensitives in one place outside of the Temple.

He slowly began to notice all of their eyes were settled on Tetha. He could almost see currents in the Force, like sonar pings directed towards her. They were most certainly becoming aware of her Force Sensitivity. Although according to his plan of deception, none seemed to study him for more than a few moments.

Yenchara scratched her side and stared down coldly at the two of them. "In whose employ are you?"

"Jobless, your omnipotence," Tetha said quickly with a light curtsy. "That's actually why we're here."

The Hutt scoffed. "So you're not in the employ of Skissa?"

Tetha silently nodded, maintaining a stony, blank expression.

"Then how did you get in?" Yenchara asked, making a sound somewhere between a gurgle and a growl.

"I'm...something of a cat burglar," Tetha replied.

Yenchara stared at her quietly for a tense, long moment, tilting her head side to side as transparent membranes flicked over her eyes. During the silence, one of the Syaniids, a woman climbed up the side of the palanquin and whispered in Yenchara's ear. She was of the Sephi race, a near-human species mostly noted for their pointed ears and strangely long fingers. Then Yenchara turned and raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. "You think this is the youngling?"

"No, Almighty One," the Sephi said deferentially with a slight bow, "She is not trained in the Jedi arts."

"Hhrrng..." Yenchara's eyes slid towards Nerim, and she gestured at him. "And that one? It's a Mirialan."

The Syaniids turned towards him almost with confusion, remembering that he was also present. He stood up from the bar and shuffled over beside Tetha, drink still in hand, shrugging in an expression of relaxed confusion.

"Just an associate of hers, Almighty One," the Syaniid said. "He is not strong with the Force."

"Strong with his legs," Yenchara laughed, casting another glance in the direction of the Human who was frustratedly smoothing out his red coat.

Nerim smirked and raised his glass. "Magic powers and silly superstitions tend to go out the window when you taste boot."

"Hah, like the spirit on that one," Yenchara chuckled deeply. The Sephi tightly frowned. He sensed some amount of tension between them—Opposite to the fears he heard expressed in the crowd earlier, it seemed Yenchara was not overly influenced by the Syaniids. Rather, the Syaniids seemed somewhat frustrated with her dismissal of their advice. Yenchara maintained a stare of suspicion on Nerim, but then spoke to Tetha. "Breaking into my party? I should have a collar put on you. Or feed you to the Killiks!"

A Killik in the crowd—a decidedly sentient if inhuman bug species—gulped nervously.

Tetha bowed deeply. "Slavery to a Hutt such as yourself is salvation compared to the alternative," she said flatteringly.

"Oooh!" Yenchara lit up. "What fine manners, yes..."

"Almighty One..." The Sephi spoke quietly, enough that Nerim had to focus to hear. "In regards to our deal on recruiting..."

The Hutt glanced sideways at the Syaniid for a moment, alien calculations happening behind her eyes. Instead of answering, she looked back at Nerim. "Where are you from, boy? Where's your tattoos?"

"I'm from Coruscant," he answered truthfully. "I don't have any tattoos because I haven't accomplished anything of note."

"Oh? And yet so confident," she countered. Nerim shrugged. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but those were Echani martial arts, weren't they?"

She was wrong, but only slightly. Technically they were Jedi martial arts, but much of the curriculum had been copied from Echani knowledge, and he was careful to use only the oldest moves, and nothing uniquely Jedi. He nodded anyways. "I've picked up some things. Can I ask why you're so interested in the martial arts?"

It was a bold thing, to ask a question to a Hutt like that, but at this point he felt weakness would only have their cover fold before her. And also he was a little overconfident from the alcohol. Regardless, Yenchara smiled. "What better way to confront an enemy immune to conventional weapons?"

He blinked. That was it. None of her guards were armed with blasters because blasters wouldn't do much to a Mandalorian in full beskar. Even in the Jedi Order, he had been taught that if by some incredible happenstance he find himself facing an armored Mandalorian, one good strategy would be to go for joint locks and throws to break limbs and cause concussions, rather than attempt to swing at small gaps in the armor with his lightsaber. The Syaniids were meant to pose a threat to the force Skissa had amassed that was otherwise without challenge.

He noticed the growing impatience in the black-clad Sephi, who was awaiting an answer from Yenchara. The Hutt looked over to her and then rolled her eyes in an exaggerated expression. "Hnnn. As I recall, our agreement was that you got the first pick of Force Sensitives we found. This one found us. I think that makes her mine," the Hutt said smugly. The Sephi visibly held herself back from disagreeing.

There was a definite murmur in the crowd. The teetering balance of their perceived power shifted slightly—although it seemed to Nerim that the Syaniids were more concerned with the loss of a potential recruit than the loss of face, while Yenchara's mind was on the opposite.

The Syaniid nodded towards Nerim. "Should we get rid of her street rat then, Almighty One?"

"No!" The Hutt grinned snakishly. "I have a good feeling about this one. He goes to the pit."

The Syaniid woman stared at the Hutt for a short moment, and then bowed stiffly. He sensed both a sort of resignation and anticipation in her, as if she had fully accepted the optimal solution was gone, but that she could still salvage the situation. That was perhaps the most worrying emotion that he could imagine sensing at that moment.

He glanced to Tetha, who gave him the same worried expression. But seeing as the only other option was to enter an open firefight in the middle of the atrium, they had no real choice. Two Syaniids approached him on either side and gestured for him to walk forward, with the clear implication that they would make him if they didn't. He avoided eye contact with either of them, continuing to hold Tetha's eyes.

"I'll see you soon," he said with a reassuring smile.

"I love you," she replied, returning a slightly wary smile.

Nerim wasn't able to reply before the Syaniid shoved him hard in the back, and he began staggering forward in a decidedly more drunken manner than he actually felt. The Hutt laughed and commented about how she loved a good tragic romance as the crowd cleared out before them, and soon they moved through a staff door and into a compact gray hallway which was dreadfully empty and where the footsteps echoed.

The two that were escorting him were both powerful in build, one being the Kaleesh, a warlike tusked and bat-faced species which normally lived primitive lives in the distant regions of Wild Space, beyond even the Outer Rim. She was powerful and focused, mentally and physically, and he could feel the Force radiating from her like it did with particularly talented students at the Temple, but as often was the case, she saw nothing of particular value in Nerim. She walked to the right and slightly in front of him, eyes forward.

The other was a lithe Mirialan woman with her face half-tattooed, and he could feel her curiously staring at the back of his head. She seemed much weaker in the Force, and newer among the Syaniids, or at least less practiced in their mannerisms. She spoke, although Nerim did not recognize the language. "Who is this one?"

The Kaleesh shrugged.

"Where are his tattoos?" The Mirialan woman insisted.

The Kaleesh shook her head. "Who cares?"

The Mirialan woman grabbed Nerim's shoulder and turned him around, as he looked at her with a puzzled, uncomprehending expression. "Where are your tattoos?" She asked in Huttese.

Nerim had been told by Arwain that if and when he met another Mirialan in the stars, they would be very confused and likely somewhat upset at his bare face. Apparently it was considered a sign of deep untrustworthiness among 'his' people. One was supposed to use them to brag about their accomplishments and list their skills and affiliations. To go without tattoos implied some sort of drifter or outcast who was secretive and without honor. He shrugged. "What do you want from me? I was an orphan raised by rats and all I know how to do is fight. Like I said, there's nothing of note."

She glared at him suspiciously, and then tilted her head and turned to the Kaleesh, who was impatiently tapping her foot. The Mirialan spoke again in that language he didn't know. "Didn't the Mistress warn us that the Padawan of that Jedi woman might be a Mirialan?"

The Kaleesh stared at her, unimpressed. "Should I be suspicious of you, too?"

"There's something about him," she insisted.

"He's not strong with the Force. He's drunk and starts fights. He's romantically entangled with that girl, and she is strong in the Dark. I think it's safe to say he's not a Jedi."

She pursed her lips and looked him up and down. "I don't know. I just feel like he's a Jedi."

Nerim's eyes narrowed in recognition, and he pointed between the two of them. "You keep using that word. Jedi. You doing some sorta Jedi stuff here?"

The Kaleesh grabbed his shoulder with an impressive grip and swung his body forwards, marching him down the hallway. "Move."

The Mirialan woman frowned and sped up to walk on his other side, looking towards the Kaleesh. "I just think—"

"You think too much, Kiali," the Kaleesh cut her off. "You're paranoid. If you want to advance in the Force, you must conquer your fear, not heed it."

Kiali's frown deepened, but she dropped the matter. Not long after, they came to a rusty door that screeched a little as it opened, and the Kaleesh shoved him inside.

The room was a large round chamber with a beam of dim twilight filtering through a skylight, with a set of exercise equipment and training mats littered around the center. Along the right wall were prison cells fashioned out of repurposed animal cages, some empty, some with single occupants of a myriad of species. On the opposite wall, a reptilian alien of some species Nerim did not recognize with a large jaw and jowls hanging from his face along with large magnifying goggles over his eyes, turned to look at him from a table covered in datapads and small gadgets.

Nerim frowned. "Wait, am I employed, or a slave?"

"These are more fluid categories than you realize," the Kaleesh smirked. He was brought forward and to an open cage, where he was pushed towards the entrance.

That feeling of cold slime traveling up his viscera occurred, and he concentrated hard on not reacting. He had a bad feeling about this, but without that electricity, without that immediacy, he knew the Force wasn't telling him to resist. Only to prepare.

He stumbled into the cage, and the door behind him shuddered into place.

The locking mechanism was fully inaccessible, the latch having no way to be operated from the cage itself. The Kaleesh nodded to the reptilian alien at the desk, and he moved to a computer tucked away on the side of the desk and tapped on it. Nerim closed his eyes and drunkenly lulled to the side a little, resting on the bars while focusing on the sound of the buttons as they were pressed. The cage door shuddered as a bolt locked into place, apparently operated from the machine.

Satisfied that the cage was locked, the Kaleesh turned and began walking towards the exit, not offering an explanation as to what was happening. However, the Mirialan lingered a moment, staring at Nerim. Kiali's light pink eyes stared into Nerim's amber ones, and after a few seconds she spoke. "What's your name?"

Nerim blinked slowly and rested his forehead on the bars, staring back at her, his face half-obscured by the durasteel. "Lady, walk away. I think it's best if our paths don't meet."

Her brow furrowed in thought, but the Kaleesh reached the exit and as the door screeched open, she turned to shout in that unknown language, "Let's go!"

Kiali turned and left. Nerim took a moment to take a deep breath, and then sat down on the floor of his cage, letting the feeling of his head slowly spinning fade as he focused his internal energies and began to sober up. Before he could get too far, a familiar voice cut through the air in Basic.

"Great, we're both prisoners now."

He turned. The cage to his immediate right held a large musclebound Trandoshan with a prominent black eye, whose gaze flicked nervously between Nerim and the cage to his right, which held a scowling Human woman in a tattered red undershirt and trousers with her wrists cuffed together and strung up to the top of her cage. It was only the second time Nerim had seen Jianno without a scrap of armor on.

"So we have to rely on Arwain, now?" Jianno asked sarcastically.

"Oh, no, she was taken prisoner like three hours ago," Nerim replied.

"Fantastic."

Nerim let a moment of silence linger.

"I hate you two," Jianno continued. Then she took a deep breath, and groaned it out in frustration. "Sorry."

Nerim smiled.

"This place is crawling with Dark Jedi," Jianno growled. "Before you go blaming me, I didn't go looking for trouble. I was doing my mission. I didn't even get within a mile of the palace, they found me."

"I don't blame you," Nerim said. He was unsure if he actually believed her story or not, but he internally acknowledged that it wouldn't make any difference whether she was or wasn't. "These Syaniids are the real deal. At least, as far as Dark Jedi go."

"Yeah. They're organized," Jianno said, struggling against her handcuffs. "They have some sort of code language they speak to each other. As far as I can tell, no one's ever heard it before. Makes you wonder just how long they've been around."

"That explains it," Nerim sighed. "Well, what are we doing in here?"

Jianno huffed and pulled hard, lifting herself up. She wrapped her legs around the bars atop the cage to hang upside down, letting her arms rest from carrying her weight. "The Hutts use slaves for gladiatorial matches. Only, usually the bet isn't who will win. It's how long they'll stay alive."

"So we have to get out of here before—"

"Hey!" The shrill voice of the reptilian alien carried across the room as he gestured angrily at Jianno. "Get down from there!"

"Ne shab'rud'ni," Jianno growled, glaring at him as her short black hair hung down.

The reptilian slammed his hand down on a button, and a metallic humming noise emanated from Jianno's cage. A few sparks jumped from her handcuffs to her body or to the bars she was hanging on. She didn't react. The alien looked down at its shock remote, bewildered.

"So how do we break out?" Nerim asked.

"You got a plan?" Jianno grunted through the pain as the alien kept pressing the shock button, unsure if it was working.

"I'm missing some details," Nerim admitted. "But I've got it mostly worked out." He turned to the Trandoshan. "Do you have a plan?"

The Trandoshan raised his hands up defensively and shook his head vigorously. "Noo, mee, noo, noo," he said with a heavy accent, scooting to the back of his cage.

Jianno snorted. "Almost forgot he was there." She looked to Nerim. "So, what's your plan, shrimp?"

"Well, it's a little slapdash, but..." Nerim reached into his coat, pulled out his blaster pistol, and fired it at the alien behind the desk. The green bolt shot right through the alien's chest, and the reptilian looked down at the wound and then back up at Nerim in shock, and then fell off his seat.

Jianno stared in furious disbelief at Nerim, a vein in her forehead becoming quite prominent. "They didn't check you for god-damned weapons?" She choked out through grit teeth, her face turning bright red, though whether it was from anger, pain, or just because she was upside down, Nerim couldn't tell.

He smiled and shrugged. "It seems the Light Side is just as good at clouding the vision of Dark Siders as vice versa. Now I—" Nerim suddenly stopped, looking back towards the dead alien and noticing that the shock remote had fallen to the ground upside down, the button pinned down. He looked back to Jianno, seeing sparks flying from her body. "Oh my—I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! " Nerim apologized quickly as he reached his arm out of the cage and attempted to focus on the remote.

Still, he wasn't sure if Jianno even noticed the shocking. Her eyes slowly became bloodshot as she glared at him. "They didn't check you for weapons?!" She repeated, louder. "These are the shabuir that the Force produces?! I hate you!" She shouted, her cage shuddering from side to side with her struggling.

"Hold on—let me just—I'm sorry!" Nerim babbled, attempting and failing to recenter himself as he reached out with the Force. The remote slightly jiggled as his slippery grasp on the Force struggled to lift it.

The musclebound Trandoshan whined and curled up, resting his chin on his knees.
 
Hyenanon said:
"Breaking into my party? I should have a collar put on you. Or feed you to the Killiks!"

A Killik in the crowd—a decidedly sentient if inhuman bug species—gulped nervously.
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Poor bug people 🥺


Your characters are charming, and I forget that some of them are evil and don't deserve as much care for their survival. Like, say, guards in a Hutt prison where the prisoners are sent to die. Or Dark Jedi. Or a Hutt.

I wonder about Kiali though. Should I bet she makes it out alive and allied with our cast? Probably. She's a cute girl that seems to be curious and will probably escape her circumstances, kind of a tradition with Nerim. Poor Tetha will probably worry about that…
 
TroubleFait said:
Poor bug people 🥺


Your characters are charming, and I forget that some of them are evil and don't deserve as much care for their survival. Like, say, guards in a Hutt prison where the prisoners are sent to die. Or Dark Jedi. Or a Hutt.

I wonder about Kiali though. Should I bet she makes it out alive and allied with our cast? Probably. She's a cute girl that seems to be curious and will probably escape her circumstances, kind of a tradition with Nerim. Poor Tetha will probably worry about that…
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Nerim does have a surprisingly low body count, for a Star Wars story! Many of his fights he's been able to end nonlethally, and whenever he has killed someone, he's had to sprint away full speed immediately after instead of lingering over it. I mean, he has been trained to kill his entire life, but he's been surprisingly fortunate in circumstances letting him avoid rumination over it. So far, at least.
 
TroubleFait said:
Your characters are charming, and I forget that some of them are evil and don't deserve as much care for their survival. Like, say, guards in a Hutt prison where the prisoners are sent to die. Or Dark Jedi. Or a Hutt.
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Seconded. This Hutt is great. And I want her to have a great time and keep doing what she's doing. The fact that she's hurting people doesn't really matter to me.

I care more about how factions treat their own people (and those they claim to protect), than how they treat outsiders (as long as they don't give people false impressions that they are insiders when they aren't, anyways).
 
Chapter 60: To A Dark Place New
Chapter 60: To A Dark Place​


Once Nerim managed to flip the shock remote, he focused on the computer, and used the Force to tap the sequence of keys that opened his cage. The door slid to the side, and he quickly exited and rushed to the alien to search its body for keys.

He momentarily stopped, his hand hovering over the corpse, still warm with life. He could sense the gut flora and skin cells still performing metabolism in the body, though the brain had already almost entirely decayed. He pursed his lips and breathed out, trying not to smell the burnt ozone. No time to get squeamish, he reminded himself.

He found a code cylinder and rotated the control ring until it extended the small conductor that served as a key, and then took aim and tossed it across the room into Jianno's cage. He then stood and began tapping at the computer, and by the time he had found how to unlock her cage, Jianno had already freed herself from her bindings.

The entire time, the other cages howled with chatter and pleas and demands to let them out. He considered the situation, and decided he had to ignore them. They would immediately blow whatever cover the two of them had, and they needed every millisecond to make this work.

Jianno approached, and Nerim nodded to her. "Where's your gear?"

"Don't know. Probably put in Yenchara's personal vault. No getting it now," she said coarsely.

He balked. "You can't be serious...You're giving up on your arm—"

"Verd ori'shya beskar'gam," She said stoically. A warrior is more than her armor. "If we free my people, it's a trivial cost. We have to focus first and foremost on that."

Nerim took another breath—trying to avoid the smell—and nodded. "Okay. First step, disable their slave bombs. What's the plan?"

She looked down and lightly kicked the corpse of the reptilian alien. "Find this wormfood's counterpart. The only way to stop the bomb signal is to set up a strong jammer signal to block it out, and the jammer I brought is still on the Lucky Worm. It'd take most the night to lug it here. Skissa's quartermaster should have one, though."

"Right," Nerim nodded. "We'll have to be careful. If we get caught..."

"Yeah," Jianno sighed. "And the bombs will go off after an hour without a check in to his detonation remote regardless, so we'll need to exfil fast."

Nerim looked up and pointed towards where the wall and ceiling met, where a ventilation shaft was located. "This building is split down the middle, so their pit should be on the opposite side, no? Maybe the quartermaster is there."

Jianno looked at the vent for a second, and then shook her head. "No. It's not symmetrical, and their pit is too small to store all of Skissa's hardware anyways. But that's a good place to get started. Come on," she said, shoving a box towards the wall. The various prisoners continued shouting in escalating desperation or anger, but the room was soundproofed, so Nerim figured they were safe until someone wandered in. When that would be, though, he didn't know.

They climbed the box and then Jianno held out her hands together for Nerim to step on, and then pulled and tossed him upwards just enough to get his fingers on a ledge. He climbed up and found himself face to face with the vent. Closing his eyes and focusing, he felt the screws inside loosen, and then the panel fell off. By that time, Jianno had grabbed a cable from one of the archaic exercise machines and tossed it up to him, and he hoisted it for her to climb up.

It occurred to him that they were working quite well together, despite being unable to communicate their intents through the Force. He smiled as she clambered up into the cramped vent behind him. "I'm glad to get to work together with you for a change. Usually you're lone wolf, or off with Arwain."

"I wouldn't call what me and Arwain do 'working together'," Jianno scoffed.

"Still," Nerim laughed, crawling forward through the vent.

"How is she doing, by the way?" Jianno asked with uncharacteristic sincerity.

"When I last saw her, she was doing backflips for the Hutt. Now..." Nerim stopped, closed his eyes, and focused on...nothing. The Force around him was cloudy, stirred into turbulence. He frowned. "Hm. I cannot sense her." He tried to change his focus, but it didn't help. "Or Tetha. Or much of anything, actually..."

He had sort of lost track of Arwain after he lost sight of her, come to think of it. The only scraps of information he had gotten were of the people immediately around him. Perhaps this place was clouded more than he realized, or maybe his grasp on the Force still wasn't solid. Regardless, Jianno prodded his calf impatiently. "Alright, all the more reason to move quickly. And quietly."

The vents were circuitous and cramped, and though Jianno remembered the palace layout from her childhood to some extent, navigation was still difficult. They spent nearly half an hour scuttling around, scoping out rooms and finding dead ends, until they had mapped out everything they could. In many rooms, exit was not viable. The vents were too high up, too public, in rooms guarded with Mandalorians or mercenaries or cameras. From this segment, none actually lead to the room they were looking for, but after exiting into a pantry, a relatively quick run down a hallway with a prayer that it would remain empty was all that stood between them.

While they stood in the pantry, Nerim offered his blaster pistol to Jianno. "You're a better shot," he said.

She looked down at it, and slowly nodded. There was something rather intimate in her clan's culture about sharing your sidearm; rifles and weapons of utility like grenades and vehicles were to be freely distributed among whomever was the most capable at that particular moment, but a Mando's holdout weapon was for them alone, and only trusted to their closest family members. It wasn't lost on Nerim; that was what he was offering. She took the blaster gratefully, and then they moved down the hall swiftly and silently.

A rather imposing and musclebound Gamorrean stood at the door to the vault; a well-placed blaster shot to the skull dropped him before he even registered that intruders were approaching. Nerim quickly reached down to the Gamorrean's belt, ripped out his code cylinder, and placed it into the panel next to the armory door. The panel blinked green and then asked for a code to finish the unlocking process.

"Spast," Jianno cursed. "A code, now? The cylinder used to be enough. Spast, spast, what now...?" she grit her teeth.

Nerim looked at the panel, his hand hovering over it. He knew what he had to do. He had never done it before, but the longer he spent in exile from the Order, the more he let his old nature slip away, the easier powers seemed to flow from him. He still wasn't particularly strong, but he knew he could bypass the mental blocks he experienced, if only he had the will to do it.

He reached out. The Force around him was faltering and treacherous, and the waters he was wading out into were unfamiliar and cold, and unsettling things touched him as he lowered his guard and dived in. He fully let down his Force Immunity and allowed the currents to take him and the unseen slimy things hidden in those currents to bump up against him. There were creatures in these depths that he had not yet even conceived of. Not bad, he reminded himself. Scary, but not bad. Dangerous, but not bad.

He propelled his aura into the device, and felt the currents of the Force beginning to mingle with the currents of electricity, wrapping around the circuits and grasping the transistors. Arwain had told him the theory before. Success was already built into the machine; like all computers, it had a win-state, and it merely wanted him to jump through hoops to get to it. Like a pair of scissors cutting against time, he simply willed himself to skip that process, and land at the place where victory was already assured.

A long minute passed, and then another, and then suddenly his eyes opened and he gasped for breath, having realized again that he was holding it. The panel beeped in the affirmative, and the door rapidly slid open. He didn't have an instant to celebrate or even recognize his victory. He and Jianno rushed inside.

In the room, which was lined with various arms, armor, and gadgets trapped behind glowing walls of energy, there were two individuals. One was a wrinkly and blue-skinned Twi'lek man in what seemed to be his 70's, with spectacles balanced on his nose and a rather dignified and flowing outfit and much jewelry, sat behind a desk with his feet kicked up on its surface in clean boots. The other was a Mandalorian, a Nautolan man half-again Nerim's height, half-finished putting on his armor, yet to have been distributed a weapon.

In the same instant, Jianno leveled the gun at the Twi'lek, who himself raised up a remote and pointed it towards the Nautolan. The Twi'lek quartermaster's face was one of mild fear, pursed lips and widened eyes half-obscured by the glasses low on his nose, but controlled enough to show some sort of intent beyond incoherent terror. Jianno didn't pull the trigger, and the Twi'lek didn't press the button.

The Nautolan's jaw dropped in disbelief. "Little Grenna?" He asked in Mandalorian.

Nerim whipped his head around. Grenna?!

Jianno's face twitched, the myriad of emotions playing out in her soul instantly quashed with iron discipline. "Put down the remote."

The Twi'lek's eyes stayed locked to Jianno's. "Mr. Ji'tanii," he addressed the other Mandalorian, "Remember, this remote is not just keyed to you, but your wife and child as well. Think deeply on this matter before acting rashly."

The Nautolan, Ji'tanii, looked between the three of them, conflict playing out across his features. Somehow, Nerim could tell right away that this man was willing to die for Jianno. But he wasn't willing to sacrifice his family.

Jianno kept the gun leveled at the Twi'lek's head, and slowly stepped sideways to the corner of the room. "Put down the remote," she repeated, harsher.

"Mr. Ji'tanii..." The Twi'lek beckoned. Ji'tanii began to step forward, but Nerim stepped inbetween him and Jianno.

"Don't try it," Nerim warned him, adopting a martial stance. He spoke to the Twi'lek, keeping his eyes on Ji'tanii. "The only reason we haven't shot you yet is that the bombs would make the alarm go off. You blow him up, we have no reason not to kill you," he said, the lie of omission coming easily to him. "You blow him up, you die."

The Twi'lek took his other hand and slowly pushed his glasses up. "If I don't make you leave, you'll kill me. So it seems we're at an impasse."

"The way I see it, you have about one and a half ways out of this," Nerim reasoned. "If this Mandalorian can beat me and disarm her, then you get to live for sure. If I beat him, then we might let you live. If you blow him up, you definitely die. So why don't you give him a chance to beat me, and then work it out later?"

There was a short silence, as the individuals in the room considered their options. Except for Nerim, who had already decided. He examined his opponent. Ji'tanii had already donned a breastplate and the upper thigh guards, but had yet to put on gauntlets, boots, or shin guards, among other things. Hits to his body wouldn't work, but Nerim at least wasn't at risk of being squished with a crushgaunt, or fried with a flamethrower.

The Twi'lek made his choice. "You're definitely not letting me live either way. Ji'tanii, kill them. If you fail, I'm pressing the button."

Without a moment's delay, the Nautolan charged towards Nerim.

Nerim moved forward into his charge, cutting his foot low and attempting to kick out the Mandalorian's ankle. The Mandalorian swiftly changed stances, and they began a series of swings, attempted grapples, and kicks. Nerim wrapped his leg around the back of the Mandalorian's, pushing both his arms against the Mando's upper chest to trip him backwards hard. Ji'tanii caught on and clung onto Nerim, pulling him down into a rolling fall and sticking his other foot in Nerim's stomach. When Nerim rolled down with him, Ji'tanii pushed hard and let go, sending Nerim flying with the momentum into one of the energy walls.

Nerim landed against the field feet first and pushed off, rolling back towards his opponent with no wasted motion. Ji'tanii had begun getting up and moving towards Jianno, but Nerim used all his momentum and kicked hard at the back of Ji'tanii's knees, knocking his legs out from under him and causing him to fall back. Nerim skipped to a stop on the burning soles of his boots in front of him, placing himself beside Jianno, and returned back to his natural fighting stance, open-palmed and his legs wide and low to the ground. The Nautolan looked up to him with shock on his face, and recognition. "Jedi?!" He asked in bewildered Mando'a.

Nerim didn't respond, and kicked again, aiming for the Nautolan's head. He didn't even manage to catch his tentacles as Ji'tanii spun on the floor, a series of limbs lashing out in a well-practiced motion and intercepting Nerim's own.

It wasn't even quite clear when Ji'tanii had returned to a standing position, but a swift punch to Nerim's face sent his head snapping backwards and blood rushing down from his nose. Ji'tanii went in for the next strike, but in a sudden unexpected motion, Nerim spun with the momentum. His left heel was suddenly striking from the upper right, and slammed into the side of the Mandalorian's face. Ji'tanii tried to raise his guard, only for Nerim to grab his arm, throw both of them to the side, and then wrench the Mandalorian over his shoulders and send him sprawling out on the floor towards the far side of the room.

They both rose, Ji'tanii returning to his stance with heavy breathing and a baffled expression. Nerim slowly stood up, patting his knees and causing a small cloud of sand and dust to fall from him. He smiled and pointed to the Mandalorian, and spoke in Huttese. "You use hawk-bat form," he grinned, blood running down his face. "Old Mandalorian style. Very scary. To Jedi." His grin fell and was replaced with an expression of determination, and he planted his feet in the ground standing on his toes, and arranged his arms in front of him, fingers splayed and curled slightly inwards, in the form Aesha had taught him. "Not Cathar."

The Twi'lek risked a glance away from Jianno towards the Nautolan, a bead of sweat beginning to trail down his brow. "Ji'tanii," he warned.

Ji'tanii rushed forward and met Nerim with a flurry of blows, Nerim's clawing narrowly missing Ji'tanii's eyes, and Ji'tanii's crushing blows narrowly missing Nerim's jaw. The Mandalorian went for an uppercut and Nerim intercepted it, Ji'tanii followed it up with an attempted headbutt and Nerim leaned back and maintained balance by hooking a foot around his opponent's calf, and then jumped off his remaining foot. With one behind the Nautolan's calf and the other kicking into his knee, Nerim pushed and pulled with opposite legs, and the Mandalorian's knee cracked with an awful noise and he cried in pain, and both fell to the ground.

Nerim rolled back to his feet and kept his guard up just long enough to be sure that Ji'tanii couldn't stand back up—and the Nautolan did try, scrambling to his feet and then falling a few times. They caught each other's eyes, and Nerim winked with the eye that the Twi'lek couldn't see. Then, Nerim hopped forward and spun his whole body, whipping his foot around as fast as he possibly could, and his boot brushed the Mandalorian's head. Nerim shouted a loud kiai with the blow, masking the lack of a meaty thud one would expect from a solid hit.

Ji'tanii apparently caught the message, and fell to the floor like a corpse, limp and faking agonal breathing, as if the blow had landed perfectly and scrambled his brain on the spot.

Then Nerim turned to the Twi'lek, who Jianno was still holding at gunpoint, and crossed his arms. "Nice prize fighter. Now that you're down to two options, would you like to reconsider their differences?"

The Twi'lek looked between them, more than one bead of sweat dripping down his brow. Then he heaved a sigh and lowered his arm down, and slid the remote along the floor towards them. "Alright. I'm too old for this. You win. Kill me or don't, whatever."

Jianno gestured with her pistol, still not lowering it. "Turn off the containment fields."

"Sure, whatever, I'll give you a backrub if that makes you feel better," the quartermaster grumbled, standing up and tapping a long, arduous code into the panel on the wall. All of the fields went down, and the weapons and armor were now easily accessible.

Nerim let out a sigh of relief. "Now we—"

Jianno pulled the trigger and the Twi'lek fell with a green shriek of energy and the bubbling of flesh.

Nerim suddenly froze. His arms fell to his side along with his heart into his stomach, and his face paled. Suddenly something was deeply wrong—or, was it that he just remembered something? There were some sort of words being repeated from his memory, but his self didn't hear it. His lips were hot with the blood running down them. He stared at the body on the floor, and after a moment of ringing in his ears, he realized Jianno was trying to talk to him.

"Nerim? Nerim!" She snapped her fingers near his ear. She was on the other side of him now, moving towards Ji'tanii.

"He surrendered," Nerim replied dumbly.

"What?" Jianno tilted her head in confusion, helping Ji'tanii into a sitting position against the wall.

"He wasn't...I mean, you could have stunned him," he said meekly.

Jianno stared at him blankly for a moment, and then shook her head and shrugged. "Who cares? He's a slaver."

"I—I just think you could have stunned him is all."

"And he could have woken up and pressed the alarm—or worse, he could have—you killed the other quatermaster!" She raised her hands palms-up in frustration.

"Well, it's just, that one was in the process of enslaving me, but this guy had already..." Nerim's voice sounded weak and faltering, even to him. The words coming out of his mouth felt almost alien—or was it that he felt alien to himself? They were words, but he didn't know where they went, what they were getting at. But some part of him desperately wished he did know where they were going, and how to follow them there.

Ji'tanii groaned in pain and propped himself up. "Who is this?" He asked in Mandalorian

"Ugh, sorry. He's just a Jedi, it's how they are," she rolled her eyes.

"I'm not...I'm not a Jedi," he said quietly. Quietly enough that they didn't hear.

"Little Grenna," the Nautolan laughed despite the severity of his wounds. "By Ha'ran, I didn't think I'd ever get to see you again. I had hoped not!"

She grinned at him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's so good to see you."

Nerim looked between them, and then to that awful corpse again, and had to look away. The words kept circling around in his head. He had surrendered. You can't kill someone after they surrender in good faith. You can't? Jedi can't. But he wasn't a Jedi; he wasn't bound to their use of force continuum. Or was it a religious law that applied to all? Was there even such a thing? Nobody was ever specific when teaching him this, because the only Force Users they ever considered during his studies were members of the Jedi Order. Everything was so muddled together in his head; were some rules just because that's what you had to do to be a good officer of the Republic, or to be a good person? Why didn't Fae or Arwain clarify any of this?!

"Nerim!" Jianno called out. Then she turned to Ji'tanii. "His name is Nerim, by the way."

"Thank you, Nerim," he said in Huttese.

"You're welcome," Nerim replied in Mando'a, his insides still crawling.

Ji'tanii blinked in surprise. "You know our tongue?"

"Uhh," Jianno averted her gaze, apparently embarrassed. "Look, we have to move quickly. I'm going to get a jammer set up. By nature, that'll block our call to the Saarkanians. You've gotta get them in on this plan, Nerim."

"Right," Nerim took a deep breath. "Right. Hold on," he said, fishing for the communicator in his pocket. He pulled it out, and opened the line. "Vseyav, are you there?"

Only a moment of static. "Yes," came the Saarkanian governor's voice. "Do you have the Dark Jedi?"

"Sort of. We're going to have to move the timeline up," Nerim said flatly. "The Dark Jedi are inside the Hutt palace. You're going to have to send in the strike team to extract the Mandalorians and the Dark Jedi at the same time."

"What?!" Vseyav shouted in outrage, his voice shrouded in static as the communicator normalized the volume. "Are you joking? This is not the plan! This is not the deal—"

"The deal's changed, Vseyav!" Nerim shouted back. He glanced to the corpse, and then glanced away again. "And we just—we just have to hope it doesn't change any more than this."

There was silence on Vseyav's end. No doubt he was considering if he could do anything about the situation. But Nerim knew it was out of the question. Backing down after all of these maneuvers would be political suicide for him. His voice came back across, icy and smooth. "Okay. What's the new plan?"

Nerim looked up and around at the room. It was encased in tenacidium, an alloy of durasteel that heavily resisted various energies, presumably to protect the equipment within—or the rest of the palace from an accident with the munitions. "We're going to get all of the Mandalorians into the safe room in the southwest quadrant of the palace, as planned. Then you're going to invade and extract us, as planned. Only difference is that there's gonna be a Dark Jedi with us."

"Okay. We can work with that. When is it happening?"

Nerim turned to Ji'tanii. "When's the best time to gather them up?"

Ji'tanii swallowed his pain. "Right when the feast begins, everyone's going to be shuffled around on guard duty, to follow the Hutts. Best time to make movements with some delays on the rest of security noticing. That's in..." He looked at the cracked chronometer on his wrist. "About fifteen minutes. Give or take."

Nerim took a deep breath, looked at his own timekeeper, and spoke into the communicator. "Forty minutes from now. 11:38 Standard Coruscant Time. On the dot. Not a moment earlier, you hear me?"

"Understood," Vseyav said coldly. "We will be precise."

"In a few minutes, we are going to set up a communications jammer. We'll be going dark when that happens. Good luck," Nerim said.

"You will need it more than me," Vseyav admitted with an audible shrug.

The room was then silent, and after a moment, Nerim turned to Jianno. "This is going to be tough. How are we gonna fight our way through this?"

Jianno met his eyes with resolve, and said two simple words.
 
Hyenanon said:
"He surrendered," Nerim replied dumbly.

"What?" Jianno tilted her head in confusion, helping Ji'tanii into a sitting position against the wall.

"He wasn't...I mean, you could have stunned him," he said meekly.
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Poor Nerim.

I get it, I really do. He held himself to the standards of the Jedi, thought in that way, and rescued his -friend? Acquaintance?- Only for her to violate those standards, rather brutally.

And, now, he has to understand what it means to him.
 
Nerim, with the power to alter the deal, but also in position to suffer most of the consequences if the deal falls through. I really like his brand of honesty.

Seriously, good job with his struggle with death. If he knew the quartermaster was going to die, would he have been able to negotiate as he did? Earnestly and charmingly? Being a good person is, imo, a big part of his identity and a big part of why he's so successful. If it gets ripped from him, what will he have left? It would do much more damage than his expulsion from the Order did.

And yet…
Hyenanon said:
There were creatures in these depths that he had not yet even conceived of. Not bad, he reminded himself. Scary, but not bad. Dangerous, but not bad.
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"Not good" is merely the other side of this coin. I wonder where this is all going…
 
Chapter 61: Like Animals New
Chapter 61: Like Animals​

For roughly half an hour Nerim and Jianno split ways and crept around the palace, subtly informing the various enslaved Mandalorians of the plan. Jianno went to the creche where they kept their young, and Nerim wandered the halls for any guards on duty.

It wasn't too hard for him to wander in Skissa's half of the palace, as there were no Syaniids to recognize him as an escaped prisoner—another sign of the distrust between the Hutts, seeing as Skissa wasn't informed in the first place. Those few gossiping partiers who knew that Nerim had been taken by the Syaniids simply assumed he was working on behalf of Yenchara.

When Nerim began the leg of the mission, he felt anxiety that he wouldn't have enough time. It didn't take long for that to turn into a desperate, pressing need for time to run out. Every time he checked the clock was pure agony, amplified by the clouding of his senses in the Force.

His communicator buzzed, and he opened the channel. Jianno's voice came through. "You wrapped up yet?"

"Yeah," Nerim said. "I've canvassed my entire section, going to look for the others now."

"Good. I've located Arwain in the south vista room, I'm going to try and get her now. No clue where Tetha is."

Nerim frowned, deeply troubled by that. "If she's not in your section or mine..."

"One of the no-go zones," Jianno agreed, referencing the areas high in Syaniid security and without Mandalorians, which they had thus far ignored. "But I don't know what secret chamber they're hidden in. Either way, things are getting risky, we need to turn on the jammer."

"Yeah. See you in the armory," Nerim replied curtly, and turned off his communicator. He looked out one of the omnipresent floor-to-ceiling windows. The world had gone dark as the sun fell and all twilight faded away. They had planned on doing a night raid anyways.

Time was slipping quickly, and the palace would soon begin buzzing when they realized they were being jammed—which wouldn't take long. He had no good plans for locating the Syaniids, or Tetha. But he did have a bad one, and a bad plan vigorously executed was better than hesitation.

He strode up to one of the large Hutt-sized elevators which would lead to the higher level observation decks, where the Hutts private sanctums were, along with the feasting room, and other sections less clear to outsiders. The guards, two Mandalorians he had already informed, nodded to him and let him pass, while quickly abandoning their post and jogging towards the armory. Then the elevator began slowly sliding upwards in a way not too dissimilar to reversed video footage of a Hutt drooling.

"Are you kidding me? I almost wish I was back in the High Council elevator..." Nerim muttered to himself, tapping his foot impatiently.

Finally, it reached its destination. The wide doors slid open, and he was greeted with a hallway that spanned almost the length of the entire palace, with one very obvious open set of doors casting light and echoing with Huttese, laughter, and the ever-unsettling sounds of consumption that Hutts insisted on making.

He trundled down the hallway, making no attempt to muffle his footsteps or creep in the shadows. When he reached the doorway, he swung around the doorframe and entered nonchalantly. The feasting room was comprised of a large, oddly shaped table somewhere between a trapezoid and an oval, with Skissa at one end, Yenchara at the other, and a smattering of guests inbetween. Two Mandalorians stood guard, as did two Syaniids, who both startled at his sudden appearance.

Nerim froze, staring blankly at the crowd, and then gave an embarrassed smile. "Um, sorry, I was told I could find my friend here."

"Hmm!" Yenchara hummed, eyes widened. She nodded, impressed. "Quick recovery time after your surgery!"

He resisted the urge to frown at that. So he was about to get a slaver bomb too.

"Aaaugh, this one of your new toys?" Skissa gurgled. He was much larger than Yenchara. His hide was a warty, dark brownish-green, as opposed to the lighter orangish-green of Yenchara's. He wore a necklace made of what Nerim soon realized were slave remotes, all electrum-plated. He looked much less impressed than Yenchara. "This one a Force User, too?"

"No," Yenchara grinned. "Much more useful. I figure he might actually understand orders!"

Nerim saw the two Syaniids, both Human women, look between each other in bewilderment. While Yenchara was apparently under the impression that it was okay for Nerim to be walking around, the Syaniids definitely thought he shouldn't have been. Apparently they had different ideas of what was supposed to happen to him in that pit.

Skissa rolled his giant, dimly purple eyes. "You take on new talent too fast, invest in them too quickly and give them too much freedom. End up stuck with losers. Look at them," he said, gesturing vaguely to the Syaniids. "Useless."

"Hah! They're a hell of a lot more perceptive than your apes," she rebuked. "Four catches in a row. Including one of your little escapees. That's what Force Users are good for."

"One of these days, one of your catches will come back to bite you," he said, eyes narrowed.

"I'm betting they'll bite you first," she grinned like a viper.

"Yeah so uh, where's my girlfriend?" Nerim asked bluntly, again committing the heinous faux-pas of interrupting a Hutt—except this time much worse, given it was two talking to each other.

Still, he had the sense that Yenchara was a different kind of Hutt. One who's desire to look like she was in control would lead her to go along with disruptions, act as if things were going to her will. She smiled and performed a gesture to shoo him away. "Syaniids, dears, take our little gladiator to his little friend, would you? It'll be good motivation for his fight tomorrow."

Without objection, the Syaniids moved forward in unison and grabbed him by the shoulders, pushing him out of the room. The Mandalorians gave him one last worried glance as he exited, and he heard Skissa begin lecturing his daughter on how to properly whip the help when they were insubordinate. He was shoved into the hallway and bid to walk forwards, towards a more central part of the palace.

One of the Syaniids looked to the other, and spoke in that strange language he couldn't identify. "How did a boy this stupid end up with a woman of her abilities?"

"I don't know, but he's obviously holding her back," the other said. Then they briefly stopped and she banged on the door of a smaller room, which almost instantly opened, revealing something that Nerim found uncomfortably similar to a Jedi meditation chamber. Sitting in the center was the Kaleesh woman who threw him in earlier, who opened her eyes and raised her head to them.

Nerim frowned. "That's not my girlfriend. Are you guys confused or something?"

"This thing got loose," One of the humans holding him by the collar said. "Do we just move up the timetable or...?"

The Kaleesh sighed heavily, and stood up. "Normally, but I think the Mistress has other plans for Meetra."

"Oh," he raised an eyebrow, noticing Tetha's codename. "I heard her name in there. Can't get that past me. Where is she?"

"Quiet," the Kaleesh growled in Huttese.

"He is remarkably dull," one of the others agreed, pushing him forward deeper into the chamber, towards the far corner of the room.

Then without warning, that Sephi who spoke in Yenchara's ear in the grand hall entered the room. Without delay, the two Humans stood to either side of her and tilted their heads down deferentially in respect, while the Kaleesh stood tall and at attention almost as if she were in the military, placing one guarding hand on Nerim's shoulder. The Sephi woman had dull, gray eyes, and gaunt cheeks. Her face was slightly wrinkled with age, which given the Sephi's 200 year lifespan meant she was likely quite a bit older.

Nerim was keeping himself distanced from the Force, to prevent his own detection, but he still easily felt her aura radiating. It was like that of one of the Jedi Masters in a way, focused and well-honed. But where the Masters acted almost like signposts for the Force, scattering it in many ways around them, she acted like a sinkhole, welling up and coalescing the Force around and within her. She stared at him for a moment, narrowed her eyes, and glanced to the Kaleesh. "What is he doing here?"

Nerim looked down at his time piece. 11:36. He looked back up, and as the Kaleesh was about to respond, he spoke over her. "Can we speed this up?"

"Quiet!" The Kaleesh shouted, placing a hand to the back of his neck and forcing his head down. Then she spoke in the Syaniid language. "He somehow convinced the quartermaster to let him loose. Do we kill him?"

The Sephi shook her head slowly. "Meetra is too attached to him. She has to be the one to do it. She'll have to go through the surgery first, however."

"You said her name again," Nerim spoke coldly, keeping his head down, his expression hardening. His heart began pumping quickly. Why did he split up with her? What was happening? "Tell me where she is."

"She's being inducted into our Order, and that means out of your life," the Sephi said callously. "You have little idea how lucky you are to be alive, and you should spend your last moments praying."

Nerim's heart was pounding in his ears now. What happened to her while he was gone? He just left her to the Syaniids? What was he thinking? Memories began flashing behind his eyes. He was trying to save Jianno. And Arwain. And Vena Riila. How in the hell was he supposed to save all of them at once? And why the hell were these people trying to hurt everyone he loved?

He looked back up and glared into her eyes. "I want to see her."

One of the Humans let loose a short laugh. "I told you, he's dumb as duracrete."

"This is exactly the reason why romantic contact is forbidden," the other Human shook her head in disgust. "You end up tied to idiots like this."

"Stop gossiping and tell me where she is," Nerim grit his teeth. 11:37.

The Kaleesh's grip on his neck tightened. She smacked him across the face with her other hand, causing fresh blood to begin running down from his nose, and then reached beneath her shoulder and grabbed for something. A vibroblade came out, a short tanto, and began ringing. "You use that tongue one more time and you're going to lose it," she hissed, pulling his head back to look up at her.

"I've never done a thing to you," Nerim said icily. Arwain was in chains. Jianno was unarmored. Tetha was...Nerim's heart beat faster even as his mind instinctively recoiled from the thought. All for what? What could these savages possibly do to justify this?

"You don't have to. In fact, that's the goal. We would prefer you didn't," the Mistress said, slowly smiling at him. She turned to one of the Humans and nodded. "Let's cripple him a little, make it easier for Meetra when her time comes."

The Human who was showing disgust nodded, and then reared back and punched Nerim in the gut, causing him to double over and grunt in pain. Blood dripped from his face to the floor. That animal in his head woke up again; that same one that stirred within him when he fought Chey-Linn.

The Kaleesh then pulled him back up and held up her vibroblade to his face. "Open your mouth, or I'll just cut through the lips and teeth," she warned.

Nerim stared up at her, veins bulging in his forehead, eyes bloodshot and intense. "I do not like being bullied," he said in the Syaniid language.

Everyone in the room froze. The Kaleesh's jaw dropped, and her pupils shrunk to pinpricks.

11:38. The entire building groaned as a wave of ion beams showered it from the Saarkanian warship above. The lights sparked and exploded, bathing the room in darkness, and the vibroblade went still as its battery died.

Nerim bit down on the now-stilled blade, holding it between his teeth tightly, and then kicked as hard as he could into the Kaleesh's knee and elbowed her in the ribs. It broke both bones, and she let go of both him and the blade, falling with a cry of pain. Both of the Humans charged him in the darkness, and Nerim let out two swift strikes, one kick between the legs that dropped one to her knees, and a straight punch to the throat of the other, collapsing her windpipe and causing her to fall to the ground choking. Nerim pulled the knife from his teeth and slashed the throat of the Human on her knees.

The Sephi brought up the great well of Force around her and cast it forward in a wave of telekinetic power; Nerim threw himself into Force Immunity, and it passed through him, leaving him unharmed and cracking the wall behind him. He lunged forward and brought the tanto down like an icepick, driving it through the Mistress' forehead. He withdrew the blade and she fell to the ground, and then he turned and tossed the tanto at the Kaleesh in the dark. He was a little off target, and it landed in her shoulder, and she screamed. He then exited the room, as the building began to shake.

He dropped his Force Immunity again and reached out, grabbing the Force and demanding Tetha's location. It obliged, and she wasn't far. He ran down the halls in the opposite direction from the Hutts, hearing distant explosions and fire being exchanged.

That small voice that had been objecting, that had been reminding him of his Jedi duties, he threw into a dark corner and locked it away. It had gotten him into trouble—the people he loved into trouble—and maybe more than that, more than anything else, he was sick and tired of constantly worrying about it in the face of unjustifiable evil.

The dark halls were surprisingly large and echoed with every step. He passed by gigantic windows, seeing the flashes of blasterfire and the flickering of lights as the city around the palace was struck by the ionic cannons as collateral. The ion cannons fired again, and the blasterfire stopped. The ship above them disgorged two smaller ships, elongated atmospheric vessels, which dropped like rocks and fired rockets at the last second to avoid crashing into the ground. Saarkanian soldiers began disembarking, and with all of the blasters rendered inoperable, they opened up with their slugthrowers, lighting the plaza up with gunfire.

Saarkanians, after all, were able to see in the dark quite easily without help, and lagged behind in technology quite notably. A battle in the dark without any electronics or flashlights, let alone blasters, favored them. It was a method to drag enemies down to their level, and beat them with experience.

Nerim saw a Zabrak Syaniid emerge, confused, from a doorway. He used all the momentum of his sprint to perform a flying kick into her stomach, knocking her back against the wall. He punched four more times, disorienting her and distracting her with pain, and then pulled back and performed a high kick, smashing her head into the wall. She fell, concussed, possibly hemorrhaging. It felt good to finally engage with them on a level playing field.

Rushing through the open door and towards a more central location, he felt Tetha's aura close in. She was awake—maybe even...?

He reached the sliding metal door and held his arm out, grabbing the object in the Force and throwing it open. Stepping in, saw what he was looking for; Tetha, unharmed. She still had her jacket on, and the place had obviously not been used yet. She must have managed to delay the procedure long enough for him to arrive. The slaver bomb was sitting on a desk nearby, unused.

She was sitting on the far end of the room on an operating table, which made it apparent this was an infirmary of some sort. By her side was Vena Riila, the Togruta he had come to save, and Kiali, that Mirialan who had brought him to the pit in the first place.

He breathed out, and the animal in his head lowered its hackles. "Thank the Force."

Tetha, though surprised, blinked and let out her own breath of relief. "Oh my stars, you're so good at timing," she said, reaching beneath her jacket. Kiali jumped back into a corner in fear, and Tetha retrieved her lightsaber. "Alright, Vena—"

Vena Riila drew a tanto and stabbed it into Tetha's stomach, tossing her back off the operating table. Tetha tried to activate her lightsaber, but it too had been disabled by the ion barrage. She fell to the floor with a pained gasp, and out of Nerim's sight. He screamed. "No!"

Vena turned to Nerim, hatred in her eyes. "It's time to settle this, Jedi."

The moment the shock wore off, the animal raised back to its feet, barely constrained by the last little ounce of that small voice in his head, telling him that he simply did not understand the situation, that he needed to receive more information before acting rashly. "Why?! Why did you do that?!" He shouted at her, fists clenched, knuckles cracking with the stress.

"You made me into a failure. You killed my best friend," she glared at him. "You're endangering my Order. I will have my revenge, my honor, and my—"

He heard enough, and the animal broke free. Nerim thrust his arm forward, with no intent but the instinctive hate he felt, the intent to let that animal loose. His arm shook, the room lit up a bright blue, and lightning flew from his fingertips. It crossed the distance in an instant, digging into her flesh and burning her. She screamed in pain and fell to one knee, blue arcs of electricity crossing her face and leaving scorch marks, her clothing sparking first blue then red, catching small fires.

"You bitch!" He snarled, moving forward as stray bolts of electricity flew from him and into medical equipment and furniture, causing scalpels to jump from the table and gauze to unravel and roll across the ground. The slave bomb on the desk cooked off, exploding and showering the room in heat and sizzling sparks, and the viridite beads on his arm clacked together and jumped with energy as he continued the flow. "I risked everything for you!"

Vena couldn't respond, dropping her knife and bringing her hands up around her head, trying to bring up whatever defensive walls she could, as her body spasmed and burnt in agony.

"I could have ended you!" He continued, raising his other arm, streams of electricity flowing from both. "I chose to let you live—I chose to be good! Why can't you?!" He screwed his eyes shut in pain, feeling hot tears well up, and an iron taste as blood ran down his lips. "Why do you god-damned animals never choose to be good?!"

Vena stopped making noise. She could no longer open her lungs to get in any air, and she was caught in a silent scream, falling to her side on the floor and seizing. He could see her flesh starting to pop and boil, and then the lightning found its way into her slave bomb. She exploded from the gut and spine, pouring orange-hot viscera and liquid metal onto the ground in either direction.

The lightning briefly stopped, and he heaved ragged breaths, and looked to see Kiali in the corner. The Mirialan girl raised her hands up in terror and surrender. "P-please, don't kill m—"

Nerim felt his arm thrust towards her and lightning spilled out, pushing her further into the corner and cutting her off with her own screams and the thundering of energy. "Why not?!" He screamed in rage. It felt like the animal was trying to tear its way out of him, like he was being torn and chewed from the inside. He was caught in an overwhelming current, but it was more than what he felt on Cathar.

That small voice, the one he had grown to hate, told him to stop. That she had surrendered. That even if she may betray him later, it was his job to be the one person who could be relied upon to do good, that it was his role to be the one light in the darkness. The animal howled over it, telling him that there was nothing wrong with eliminating people who were trying to enslave him less than an hour ago, and if there was, then right and wrong had no meaning.

Kiali focused all of her meager power in the Force on diverting the lightning away from the slave bomb implanted in her spine, letting it burn the rest of her. She grit her teeth, and tears began pouring down her cheeks, steaming off of her face from the bolts of lightning.

That small voice suddenly got louder, finding its courage in the face of the animal. She was a slave, too. She wronged him, but she was a slave. If she couldn't rely on a Jedi like him, who could she ever rely on? Did he want to live in the kind of universe where there were slaves that were correct to be utterly without hope?

The animal thrashed in his mind and gnashed its teeth. He wasn't a Jedi. He was exiled. It wasn't his responsibility to be the sole source of justice in the universe. It wasn't reasonable for this to all be on him. Why did he constantly have to fight alone against the current others had made?

Suddenly, he saw Tetha's face, as she crawled around the table, a hand pressed to the bleeding wound in her stomach. She looked up at him with wide eyes, uncharacteristic emotion plain on her face. "Nerim..." She gasped. She looked at him with terror, but not of him. For him. And for herself. For every hope she had that the Dark Side could be conquered in her life.

For just a moment, he instinctively recoiled from the act, and attempted to pull back, to stop the flow of lightning. But it coursed through him regardless. He was caught in the rapids.

He felt that grand flow of the Force through him. It wasn't entirely his own. It wasn't just the animal in his mind; the Force agreed with his animal. The Force wanted the Syaniids to suffer, for each to be boiled alive. They were evil. They were a cancer on the Force and they needed to be excised. Kiali's tears were nothing compared to the overwhelming weight of the Force. The Dark Side, for the first time, spoke to him with terrible clarity. It told him to listen and do its will, and if he didn't, it would continue to flow through him regardless.

Kiali sobbed and curled up, wanting to drop her guard and let herself die to stop the pain, but she feared death too strongly. Nerim made his choice. He threw himself into that small voice, and it grew loud and steely, and spoke back to the Force. No, he said. You listen.

Those splayed fingertips of his that spat lightning curled inwards, clawing into the flow of the Force that was rushing through him, digging into the stream of the Dark Side. He gripped it, holding the lightning in his hands, and then he pulled it back. The Force struggled in his grasp, attempting to lash out regardless. The lightning shifted and danced wildly, the blue light flickering in the air.

You may be the Force, he spoke to the Dark Side in his mind with iron resolve, but I am the Jedi here. I am the crystal of your blade, and you will not use me like this.

The lightning curled and shifted, and then when he solidified his grip on the Force, it suddenly changed. The blue turned to green, and the lightning straightened, rushing back into Kiali's body. She locked up, but suddenly her eyes fluttered back open, and she was no longer in pain. The electricity coursed into her, locking her muscles, but it was cool and soft, not searing and sharp.

He approached, keeping the Emerald Lightning up with one hand, and retrieving from his belt the magnacuffs he had taken from the armory. He stopped the flow just long enough to toss her onto her stomach, still stunned, and cuffed her.

That done, he looked up to Tetha, to see her crawling towards him. His face fell into a horrified grimace, and deep guilt sparkled within his eyes as tears fell down his cheeks. "Tetha, are you oka—"

She threw her arms around him and kissed him. "I love you."

"I—I know," he said awkwardly in a shaky voice pulling her back and placing pressure on her wound. "But you're hurt!"

Tetha smiled sadly at him, both pain and pride written on her face. "You're a hero," she said.
 
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