The Force Always Says Yes [Star Wars]

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 75: You're A Jedi Knight, Aren't You?​

Nerim could feel the pipes rumbling and rattling in the walls as the building ever-so-slightly swayed in the strong wind. He approached the restrooms, and Haaka gave him a cautious look. When Nerim went to reach for the door, Haaka held up a hand. "Hold on, Chey-Linn is—"

Nerim ignored him and pushed open the door, slightly, so his voice could carry inside. "Chey-Linn? Can we please talk?"

There was silence for a few moments. Eventually, when he didn't leave, a choked voice, muffled from inside one of the stalls. "What do you want from me?"

"I'm sorry, but we need your help."

Silence, again. The wind howled outside, and the pipes rattled. Haaka seemed unsure what to say, either to Nerim or his Padawan.

"Is this some sort of joke?" He heard her voice, just barely, unsure if he was meant to.

"I know you've been through a lot. And we don't have a good history. And we both have good reasons to hate one another," Nerim said somberly. "But I trust you—"

A pipe suddenly burst in the ceiling. A high pressure jet of some sort of gaseous mixture, probably meant to make a habitable atmosphere condition in a room for some species or another, began spewing down and burst a panel out of the ceiling above the entrance to the bathrooms. "Whoa!" Nerim dodged aside somewhat unnecessarily, half-stepping into the doorway, shoving the restrooms door mostly open and placing himself at the corner next to the hinges.

The gas rapidly began to fill the room. It was cold and opaque, a silvery dark cyan, forming a pillar from the ceiling that began billowing into a cloud that immediately obscured everything in his vicinity. He couldn't see an inch in front of his face. The conversation among the crowd stopped, but nobody jumped to extremes, as none of the Force Users sensed danger. More bursts occurred in the pipe, lowering the pressure around Nerim, but spreading the gas further around the room. It didn't seem particularly toxic, in that it didn't burn his eyes much, although he began holding his breath reflexively, and felt fairly certain it was displacing the air he needed to breathe. And it was very cold.

A blazing blue lightsaber blade stabbed through the door Nerim had huddled against, between his arm and his torso, burning his coat and spewing bits of liquid metal from the door against his skin. He yelped in pain and threw himself away and to the side, and as he did so, the blade slashed down and through the door. Nerim landed wrong on his heel, twisting his ankle and falling to his back on the floor. Suddenly, there was an overwhelming aura of rage bellowing through the room, that Dark feeling manifest.

He scrambled backwards in the opaque nothingness unable to stand up, nothing visible in the dull cyan cloud but the white godrays of the ceiling lights and the cold blue blade in front of him. It swung down and he dodged to the side, unable to see the floor, but seeing the blade's light transition into orange liquid metal glow and disappear beneath a plane invisible to him. It was almost too disorientating to even know what direction was up or down, where physical objects started or ended. The blade was all there was.

He felt his Master's presence, and the pressure increase around him. In a sphere centered just above and to his right, the gasses were pushed away, creating a brief moment of visibility. The figure holding the blade remained cloaked in the gas, humanoid in stature with what may have been a flowing robe or just cloudy wisps. The sphere of clarity continued to expand, but struggled around the figure. That overwhelming sensation of the Dark, of intent to kill, saturated the room and lashed out randomly in every direction. Ceiling panels bent and floor tiles cracked. A connection began to appear before him, the Dark Side attempting to act through him, telling him to kill Chey-Linn.

This time, his inner animal was not impressed, and it stood with his inner voice. He thrust his hand forward and then clawed into the Dark Side and pulled it back, and a cloud of Emerald Lightning exploded from his arm, transforming the cloudy room to a viridian nimbus. There was a definite change in tone, a portion of the rage turning to shock, as figured raised its blade and blocked the bulk of the tamed Dark Side energy. Unlike Sith Lightning, it was relatively easy to maintain a defense against it, so long as one raised their defenses before it hit.

The figure seemed to figure out what he was doing, and all of the rage disappeared, as if a faucet was simply shut off. The Emerald Lightning sputtered to nothing along with it, and Nerim had very little in the realm of internal reserves to maintain any defense through the Force. The figure rushed towards him, dragging the wall of fog with it in a hazy indistinct mass, and began to swing down.

A gauntlet intercepted the blade before it could hit Nerim, and Jianno emerged from the fog behind him. She held the blade in her hand, and clenched her fist. "I don't think so," her metallic voice came through her helmet coldly. The blade's containment field began to crack as the beskar crushgaunt exerted an immense force against it. The figure deactivated their blade before it could break, and then shot back into the fog wall, towards where he thought the restrooms were. The entire exchange lasted only a few seconds. Jianno grabbed Nerim and hauled him up, supporting him as he stood on one foot.

Arwain almost finished buffeting the atmospheric contamination back up towards the ceiling, holding it up like an angry storm cloud above them, covering the ceiling lights and leaving them in a dim haze. Still, Nerim could only see a few feet around himself in the frigid cold. The doors to the courtroom had opened at some point and the Commandos emerged blasters raised. Now able to take stock of his surroundings, he saw Haaka's form begin to emerge, pressed against the wall, searching for the door. "Chey-Linn!" He screamed. "Chey-Linn, no!"

Nerim tried to shout, but as he took in breath, he sputtered on the taste of ice and a scent somewhere between crab and sulfur. "It's not Chey-Linn!" He managed to croak out.

If anyone heard him, they didn't have time to question it before the second restrooms door burst open, and another wall of fog began to escape from it. Aesha emerged, dragging Pappino by the shoulders out. She collapsed to the floor and took a gasp of breath, and then shouted "Kiseti is still in there!" and ran back in.

Nerim caught sight of Tetha, who gave him one last nervous glance and ran in after Aesha. Haaka Mahn had rushed into the other restrooms while he wasn't looking. One of the Commandos approached Nerim. "Injured!" He called out. The camera droids began floating in the doorway of the court room.

"It's not Chey-Linn!" He repeated through coughs. The Commandos grabbed him and began ushering the group out of the room and back into the court. He resisted, trying to limp forward, but the soldier was strong and pulled him hard. Aesha and Tetha emerged with Kiseti, who was covered in frost. The other restroom had its atmosphere cleared in a similar way to how Arwain had done, and through the flapping door he could barely make out Vocta and Haaka Mahn standing over Chey-Linn, who was on her hands and knees on the floor, hyperventilating and eyes unfocused.

Then, he was pulled around the corner and separated from the group, while a bailiff held him down and insisted on asking about his injuries.

___________________________________________________________________________________



The security forces had separated everyone, unsure at first who the offending party was. There were no major injuries beyond some early signs of hypothermia and Nerim's twisted ankle and burns. Nerim was kept in a small windowless room with a round featureless white couch and a holoprojector table, while one of the Commandos stood next to the door, and an officer sat across from him.

The officer questioned him on what he saw, and he replied as best as he could recall. He hadn't been tracking the positions of everyone prior to the event happening, trying instead to keep his focus on that Dark presence. Through the questioning, he realized that he didn't have a solid idea of where anyone was prior to the gas leak, beyond Haaka Mahn and Chey-Linn. Once it occurred, he had no accounting for anyone's exact whereabouts until Jianno saved him.

"And you're sure the one who attacked you wasn't Chey-Linn?" The officer asked. "How, if you couldn't see or identify them otherwise?"

"I could sense through the Force that it wasn't her," he answered reluctantly. "I know it's not something I can explain to a non-User, but—"

The door slid open. With the tapping of his cane, Yoda shuffled in. "Believe him, I do."

The officer stood up and saluted as Yoda entered. Yoda nodded to him and walked over to the couch, climbing up onto it and taking his place. Once he settled in on crossed legs, he looked across the table to Nerim, silent for a few moments.

"Lightning," the old Master said as if commenting on the weather.

"Emerald lightning!" Nerim responded defensively.

"Yes..." Yoda nodded slowly. "But to use it, a connection is required. A firm grasp of the Dark."

Nerim raised his hands. "I know it looks—"

"The wrong impression, I have given," Yoda interrupted, gesturing for him to stop. "Questioning your usage, I am not. To underline your knowledge, I am trying."

Nerim lowered his arms and furrowed his brow. "What do you mean?"

"To utilize the Dark in such a manner, one must sense it clearly," Yoda pointed with his walking stick. "Bothered, I am, that no one saw this coming. That none could navigate the room without their eyes. Better than that, a Jedi's senses are. Clouded, their senses in the Force must have been."

He didn't respond immediately, sensing something else was on Yoda's mind. His silence prompted Yoda to speak.

"Or lying, someone is."

Nerim looked down at the table. "I've been persistently sensing a Dark presence since we arrived on Coruscant. Since I first entered the room with Chey-Linn and the others, specifically. No one else from our group can sense it clearly. Tetha has described a sense of deja vu, which I share. Arwain has gotten whiffs of something bad, which I share. But I feel a presence and emotions, specifically."

Yoda closed his eyes and focused. Then he shook his head. "Vocta, Mahn, Ya-Ban, Lohwan, Chey-Linn. Reported a vague sense of Darkness, they all have. From your table, or so they assume. Suspicions I share."

"It wasn't one of us," Nerim replied confidently.

"Mm. When 'us' you say, to whom do you refer?" Yoda challenged.

"Well, to all of us. None of our Force Users could have done that," he replied awkwardly. He didn't want to admit Aesha was training in the Force, even though Yoda could likely tell.

And as if he were trying to read Nerim's thoughts, Yoda stared at him. Then Yoda ran a hand through his sparse hair and sighed. "Difficult to read, I always thought you were. Closed, your thoughts seem. Diversionary, your expressions. Deeply unsettled was I by your lack of comment when we exiled you. To that moment my mind kept returning. 'How could he have nothing to say', I asked myself. 'Make clear your thoughts to me', I wanted. Hmm."

"Big talk coming from the guy who speaks backwards."

"Hm. Hmhm." Yoda laughed through his nose. "I kept my broken manner of speech on purpose, to force people to actively listen to me. In decoding the order of my words they would have to actually think about each one and how they fit together. I refused to perfect my Basic because I was tired of working harder to communicate in a new language and seeing my words receive less attention for the effort. Fae was right about you. You're actually an open book. We just did not actively engage with how you communicated. Impatient, we were, to get to the matter that interested us. Like a Padawan just nodding along through a lecture until he can get to the lightsaber lessons. Missing why the blade mattered in the first place, we arrived to a place where we held it, and knew not what to do but swing."

Nerim's eyes narrowed as he took in the words. "Are you admitting my exile was...wrong?"

"Rethink the concept of exile, I feel we must. Yours? Not sure," he chuckled. "A great pain, it would have been, had you performed that stunt on Boonta while under our colors. Worried, I was, that you would defy the Code, that you would lead other Jedi astray, that you would take actions which endanger yourself and others and tarnish the reputation of the Order and undermine the trust the Republic puts in us. And these things all, you have done. Although I am not so old and dotty to not see that we have contributed greatly to your efforts in all of these areas in our own way. Overestimate, you, the amount Fae would approve of your actions. And roping Saarkane into it, of all systems. Hm. A 'Do as I say, not as I do' type person, was she."

Yoda looked him in the eye. "My point being, see through you now, I can. Transparent your intentions are. And the stain of the Dark I do not sense. So I trust you. But flawless your judgment is not. So I ask, who can you rule out, and why?"

Well, when you can't think of a good lie...

Nerim crossed his arms and leaned back. "It can't be me, because I'm me. It can't be Arwain, Tetha, or Aesha, because I have an intimate understanding of their presence in the Force after training together for so long, and I feel them distinct from the Darkness. It can't be our lawyers or Jarroa, because they're not Force Users. It can't be Chey-Linn, because I have felt separation between the Dark and her. That leaves Ya-Ban, Lohwan, Haaka, and Vocta that I'm unsure of, but all seem unlikely to me. I also wasn't keeping track of the media or Commandos, who could have snuck by without my notice. Or the Justices, as far-fetched as that sounds. Theoretically, it could have even been someone I don't know about at all, who was hiding in the ceiling and following me around the city during the entire trial. Honestly, that's where I'm leaning."

Yoda nodded along and hummed in thought. "Impossible to tell which lightsaber was used against you. Vocta, Chey-Linn, and Haaka all used blue blades. Chey-Linn suffered from hypoxia and hypothermia. Little memory of the event, she has. When she awoke, a nightmare, she thought it was."

The two were silent for a time, and then Yoda spoke. "Agree with you that it was not Chey-Linn, I do."

"Glad to see the Order's inability to see her doing any wrong is working out in favor of the truth for once," Nerim grumbled.

Yoda paused at that, and then readjusted in his seat. "Changes, the trial will undergo. Our Servicemen and Vocta, we will cycle out. Haaka Mahn will be kept in the Temple. Tell this not, to your friends. If the Dark presence persists, information, we will gain."

"What? No." Nerim frowned. "Changing out Chey-Linn's lawyers this late in the trial would be unfair. It would disadvantage her. And you can't rob her of her Master's support!"

"Heh!" Yoda laughed, standing up. "Like a coin you flip in the name of justice. Widdimur, you remind me of. Still, it must be done."

"You can't just throw her under the streetcar!" He protested.

"Keeping a potential Dark Jedi on her legal team is no better for her," Yoda reasoned, hopping off the couch. "If so sure you are that your friends are not to blame, then great is the chance it is one of her team. Mm?"

"I don't like what you're implying about my friends..." Nerim warned as Yoda stretched his legs out and began to walk away. "Has it escaped you that the Order just lost a case trying to persecute us under these same circumstances?"

Yoda stopped, without turning back to face him. "No. But think a layer deeper of what that means. Trouble you, it should. True Darkness did lurk, then. Darkness lurking again is the last thing we need. Your duty it is to remain vigilant against such threats, as a 'Jedi Knight'."

Yoda walked out the door, and Nerim blinked. "Wait, did I just get a promotion?"

He paused again in the doorway. "Backwards, I was speaking. Knight Jedi, I meant."

 

[numlore]

... holy fucking shit this went almost exactly as i was thinking i swear to fuck if nerim somefuckinghow someway makes chan who hated him this entire time like him im going to laugh so fucking hard

 

[hampire]

It is a judge I am calling it. The presence seemed too invested in the legal blow by blow to be a bystander and the prosecution has too much attention on them to sneak by.

 

[Simonbob]

Good old Yoda.

Not a perfect guy, but trying to make tings better. Almost as backward methods as his speech, but still.

 

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 76: The Identity Of This Dark Warrior​

The next morning, Nerim awoke with a sharp discomfort as a beam of sunlight glared into his eyes. Then he realized and shot up, opening his bleary eyes.

"Hhrmmgh..." Tetha grumbled unhappily, curling up tighter beneath the blankets and screwing her eyes tightly shut. "Why do you always wake up like that..."

"The sun's out."

She shot up also.

They each helped each other get dressed, which generally took longer than getting dressed themselves, and then rushed out and into an elevator. The window showed a spectacular view of the Coruscant skyline with the sky by painted by the morning light in a blue sky and golden clouds above sparkling wet skyscrapers. They reached their target floor and went back to those large glass doors, where both froze.

Dripping with rainwater on the landing pad was a familiar light freighter with the words "Bu Gusha Wermo" printed on the side. Tetha squealed in joy, and rushed out the door, Nerim quickly in tow. The air was still cold and a little windy, in a way he found quite refreshing.

"How?!" Tetha asked. "It must have been Yenchara! Oh! When she told me to have a good evening..."

"What an effective bribe!" He agreed. Then he skid to a stop. "Wait. Do you think this is a trap?"

"If it is, I don't care! It's my ship!" Tetha said, excitedly tapping at her fob and waiting for the boarding ramp to lower.

Nerim placed a hand to his chin and reached out. He didn't sense that Dark presence. It wasn't near. All this time he had only been passively observing, like an antenna receiving radio waves. But it had occurred to him that, at any time, he could take a more active role. Try to reply, or even tug it towards him. He had refrained, and thought better than to mess with things. But if this were a trap, they were deeply in danger. And if it weren't a trap...It was a golden opportunity.

Nerim closed his eyes, tuned a string of the Force to that particular imprint of that Dark presence, and rather rudely tugged upon it. As if yanking a cat by the tail, it suddenly appeared before his soul, disorientated and distant—quite distant, and bleary-eyed. Whatever it was, it was asleep. He flashed it with the thought of a light freighter set upon a landing pad, and felt only non-recognition and confused scrambling in response. It didn't know. But it recognized him. Then he felt iron, anger, and acid. More strings emerged from the Unifying Force, whipping towards Nerim in a frenzy. Then he fell from the Unifying Force and into Force Immunity, and it all disappeared, without, he hoped, leaking any more information back to the presence.

He opened his eyes and gasped for breath. It may or may not have been a trap set by Yenchara, but it wasn't understood by the presence, and that meant two things: They weren't working together, and he could transform it into a tool against the Dark Sider.

The boarding ramp hit the durasteel landing pad, and Tetha rushed up, with Nerim swiftly behind. They checked through the ship, which seemed more or less intact, although the furniture had all been removed or rearranged, and several components had been replaced—including, they realized, the hyperdrive, which was now a significantly better model. Sitting on the dashboard of the cockpit was a datapad, which Tetha picked up.

It contained nothing but a simple message from Yenchara, in Huttese of course. It explained that she was informed that the owner of the spaceport they had landed at 'repossessed' their ship after a few days without them showing up, and sold it to a chop shop, who found it was in good enough condition to sell as is, who sold it to a smuggler that worked for Yenchara. The smuggler then went about upgrading the ship to do a Kessel run, only for Yenchara to realize who it belonged to.

The message then frankly stated that right now, Yenchara was in the business of making friends, and that she considered them quite valuable as potential friends, and that if they ever needed anything, her communication data was in the ship's computers.

Nerim sat in the seat next to Tetha and swiveled it towards her. "Tetha, we have an opportunity here."

"Y-you want to get into the spice trade?" She raised an eyebrow.

"What? Oh. No," he shook his head. "No, I mean, I'm certain that whatever the Dark Jedi that's been following us is, it doesn't know about this ship. We don't know how it's been tracking us, but with this, it will only be able to rely on the Force. And the Force takes patience, which means it takes time. Which means we have maybe a couple hours with this thing before it finds us. More importantly, we only have a couple hours until the Galactic Cup finals are on holo."

"Okay..." Tetha began the startup procedure. "What do you want to do with those hours?"

He thought for a moment. "The Dark presence seems to become excited by conflict. Not just when we're winning our case, but when we're losing, and even outside the case. I twice felt it strongly when Chey-Linn and I were arguing during court recess. It knows we know about it, so I don't know if we can trick it into revealing itself just by ourselves. But it doesn't know that Chey-Linn is working with us."

Tetha paused with her finger hovering over the sublight ignition switch. She looked at him. "We're working with Chey-Linn?"

"Not yet."

She flipped the switch, and the engines purred to life. "Alright. Are we going to the Temple?"

"No," he said, looking out at the skyline. "It seems to have a connection to me, and may sense if I'm approaching a vergence in the Force, like the Temple. Then the jig is up. That said, we should go somewhere with a lot of energy, to mask our presences..."

"Is Chey-Linn going to just show up somewhere for you? She hates you. She hates all of us."

He took a deep breath. "I don't know. She's at an inflection point, right now. Ever since the events on Cathar, I get the feeling she's built a large part of her identity on the belief that she was the hero in that situation. Now that that's been broken, she has two options. She can refuse to acknowledge the fall and double down, or she can change. She's at rock bottom now, so she might be willing to gamble. We just need to pick a location and hope."

Tetha placed her hands on the yoke and thought for a moment, tapping her fingers on the controls. Then she turned to him. "Wanna go see the game in person? Parking starts hours early. It's always packed."

___________________________________________________________________________________



The parking garage for the Galactic City All-Stars Stadium was a grand structure of open air arches and platforms that circled the entire stadium, almost like an aqueduct in appearance as it funneled in spectators. The vast, vast majority of viewers took public transport, but those who wanted to arrive in style or from space directly could pay a hefty sum to land directly on the garage, guided by an air traffic control team the size of a small town.

The Lucky Worm landed on a high level at the skyline, flanked on one side by a clunky beast covered in painted-on skulls that Nerim recognized as Mandalorian, and a small and sleek yellow airspeeder with more than a few dents and scratches. Tetha and Nerim emerged, and a pack of Mandalorians in common clothing passed by, laughing and drinking already. Behind them was about two dozen Saarkanians, most rippling yellow and red, singing out war chants in Saarkanian. A handful of Geonosians flit past through the air, and a lone Wookiee loped past wearing nothing but a white T-shirt with poorly translated Basic saying "BIRN TO DIE" and carrying a cardboard sign that said "They Might Never Lose Again."

There were precious few Near-Humans outside of the Mandalorian crowd, or Coruscanti individuals at all, really. For some reason, bolo-ball was quite unpopular in the Core. It was sometimes called the "sport of poverty", given the lack of advanced technical gadgets, like nunaball or gravball. The Coruscanti also uniquely called it "limmie" for some reason, which explains why Nerim had never heard of the Mandalorian-originated sport until Jianno introduced him to it.

Nerim and Tetha circled the Lucky Worm to the yellow convertible airspeeder, which retracted its scratched and dented roof to reveal Chey-Linn's mistrusting face, one of her hands still on the controls, the other down by her hip. She glared at them, and didn't speak.

Nerim placed his hands atop the door opposite her, where she could see them. "Chey-Linn, I know you didn't attack me."

The corners of her mouth twitched downwards. "Good. Because I didn't."

"What happened?" Tetha asked.

Chey-Linn looked at her dashboard. "I don't know. A pipe burst and I couldn't breathe or see anything. Normally I could hold my breath, but I—" She stopped before admitting she was crying in there. "I couldn't. And then I lost all control of my body and fell over. I don't remember anything else. And now both of my lawyers quit and Master Haaka is grounded at the Temple. It's like I'm being punished."

Nerim nodded. "It sort of seems that way. But what they're doing is trying to flush out who did this. Don't tell him this, but I spoke with Yoda after it happened."

"Grand Master Yoda spoke with you?" She repeated in disbelief.

"He's doing his due diligence to investigate every possible person as the potential Dark Sider. All he knows for certain is that it wasn't me, and it wasn't you."

Her grip tightened on the yoke of her airspeeder. "You mean he suspects the Jedi? My Master?"

"Not really," Nerim sighed. "I think he's only doing it to be thorough. He seems pretty convinced it's someone from the Cathar group."

"It probably is! I half-think the reason you asked me here is to murder me while I'm alone!"

"Well if it is one of us, I have a way to find out."

"...I'm listening."

"I'm going to need you to instruct your new legal team to come to the same restaurant as my team while we're planning tomorrow during lunch, and inquire about a settlement. I want you to be there, and look unhappy about it, like you're being forced to by the Order to save face. And then Tetha is going to start antagonizing you, and you have to draw on her."

Chey-Linn's brow furrowed. "What?! Why?"

An Ithorian blowing vuvuzelas out of both of his mouths walked past. Nerim leaned in. "Because I'm pretty sure whatever the Dark Sider is, it wants us to fight. Surely you've felt it rise whenever you and I are around each other. I'm guessing that's why you suspect it's me. That's why I suspected it was you. But I think it's actually just invested in our fight. I've been sensing it during the trial, especially during the verdict reading. It's not happy that we're winning, it has some sort of particular problem with you. I think whatever it is, it wants you to be guilty on all counts. If you try to settle, it will become enraged, and if you then do something to jeopardize yourself, it will be surprised and elated. That swing in emotion, I think, will out it. If it's one of us, then we'll know."

Chey-Linn's eyes narrowed. "Is this a trick to get me to incriminate myself?"

"No," Tetha said, holding up a recorder that had been running the whole time, and then tossing it to Chey-Linn. "You can have proof we set this up. It's all theatrics."

Chey-Linn looked down at the device, and then back up at them. "This is...highly unorthodox."

"There is no orthodox way to catch a hiding Dark Sider," Nerim shrugged. "Frankly, I still don't believe it's one of us. I think it's a third party. But disproving it is the only way to get Yoda to trust us and actually work together."

The young Jedi mulled over the thought in her head for a few moments, staring out at the skyline. "...Why are you sure it's not me?" She asked in a small voice.

"Because, you're a Jedi."

Chey-Linn looked back up at him.

"Also, because you're not kriffin' subtle."

The corners of her mouth twitched up. She took a deep breath, and then nodded. "Okay. Alright. We'll try it."

"Great," Nerim smiled. "Wanna watch the game with us?"

Chey-Linn adopted that confused expression again, and shook her head. "Uh, no. I'm not into limmie. Also, we're not friends."

"Your loss!" Nerim grinned and shrugged, stepping back from the airspeeder. Chey-Linn pressed a button and the roof went back in place, and then she took off with the warbling of her speeder's repulsorlift.

Nerim and Tetha watched it rise into the late morning sky. Suddenly, one of the Saarkanians passing by stopped in his tracks, head twisted towards the two. His fur flashed white in surprise, and pointed directly at them. "Smoda gretchka! It's Nerim!"

Nerim looked down at the Saarkanian and frowned. "Am I really that recognizable...?"

Tetha blinked. "Is this going to be a thing everywhere now?"

"Nerim? Mar'e! Su'cuy'gar, cabur!" A Twi'lek Mandalorian shouted out, cup held high. "Tell me you're not here for the Alderaanians!"

"Sharks all the way!" Nerim raised a fist, his shout echoing through the garage. The crowds erupted with a mixture of cheers and boos.

___________________________________________________________________________________



A large color television on the wall of the diner played the highlights of last night's game, particularly the bicycle kick that the Saarkanian's star striker performed at the last minute, and the innumerable golden lights from the stands as each of the Saarkanians in the audience turned bright yellow in totality. Nerim smiled. Somehow, knowing he was somewhere in the distance there made him feel more...real.

"Nerim? You listening?" Jethro asked, obviously knowing the answer, and obviously unhappy about it.

"Um, sorta," Nerim said sheepishly, and then took another bite of his bantha burger. The storms had returned, not quite as bad as they were, but still with very heavy rain against the diner's windows.

Arwain sighed and pushed her chair back. "Listen, I think it's a great strategy and all, but if my part of the planning phase is done...?"

"Uh," Nerim frowned. "You're leaving? Where are you going?"

"It's not every day you get to take a spa day with a Mandalorian!" She grinned.

Jianno glared at her. "You said you wouldn't—" She sighed and dropped her fork, standing up alongside Arwain.

Nerim had a bad feeling about this, and a quick look with Tetha confirmed it. But neither of them could show it, not at this point. Besides, he could be certain it wasn't Arwain or Jianno, anyways. He wished them luck with the discretion to not make it sound like he was wishing them a good date, and they left, exiting out the side to avoid the rain.

Pappino grinned pointed towards the door after they left. "Okay, I have to ask."

"You don't have to get an answer," Kiseti cut him off. She had barely touched her soup.

"Oh? Touchy about client privacy? I get it," Pappino laughed.

"I just don't find it that interesting," she grumbled, readjusting her glasses.

"Come on! It's like a fairy tale—"

The doors rang as they opened, and two figures in robes entered, Chey-Linn and an older Human gentleman Nerim had not seen before, but could instantly tell was a Jedi. Chey-Linn entered with a rather authentic aura of repressed rage. Everyone at Nerim's table, especially Aesha, tensed. Jarroa placed a hand on her wrist, while the three lawyers craned their heads in surprise.

Pappino stood up and offered his hand, and the older Jedi shook it. "Hello. Apologize to bother you during lunch. My name is Jirr Kalata, Jedi Serviceman. I'm Miss Sunrider's new attorney."

The surprise at the table increased. "New attorney?" Jethro asked. "You've picked a hell of a time to drop in."

"Yes. Well, in part that is what I am here to talk to you about," he said, reaching into his robes and producing a datapad. Chey-Linn's mouth twitched with anger and shame. Kiseti's eyes narrowed, and Jethro rubbed his hands together, but Pappino did not react visibly, politely waiting for the other shoe to drop. "We are here to inquire as to a settlement, in regards to the counterclaim."

Nerim searched for that Darkness. Where ever it might be, it hadn't reacted strongly.

Aesha snorted. "Really? You think you get the easy way out, after what you did?"

Chey-Linn's hands clenched into fists. "This wasn't my idea..." She mumbled between clenched teeth, technically truthful.

Tetha placed her hands on the table. "Settle? You coward. You don't even have the dignity to accept consequences."

Jethro shot daggers at Tetha and Aesha, gesturing subtly for them to tone it down.

Chey-Linn crossed her arms. "I'm not like you, or your husband here, running away from all your responsibilities. Don't you have a family you left behind, somewhere?"

Tetha's pupils shrank at that, and she stood up. Nerim sensed her to be genuinely upset, if still in control. "Better to have run away from home than to have home throw you away. Your parents took one look at your face and handed you over to some robed lunatic."

"Wh—" Chey-Linn's eyes widened, and then she stamped her foot. That was an actual sore spot for her. "You little harlot! What do you know about families? My mother sacrificed everything for me! Yours probably just forgot to take birth control! We're all lucky both your insipid bloodlines ends with you!"

Nerim's blood ran cold. There it was. He started to feel that Dark presence again, biting against the edges of his consciousness—biting at its own edges, actually, as they touched against his. It was trying very hard to hide itself. He looked out the windows, almost expecting to see it right there, staring in and grinning. Where was it?

"Chey-Linn!" Her attorney admonished, shocked. At the same time, Jarroa reached up and grabbed Tetha's arm to hold her back. Nerim started to get nervous now. This was not play fighting. The sadistic glee intensified.

Tetha shook off Jarroa's grip and walked up to her, raising her voice. "And you're also lucky you took a vow of chastity to spare you the embarrassment of knowing that nobody would ever want to love you!"

"You bitch!" Chey-Linn screamed, drawing her blade and activating it with a flash of light and electric hum. The patrons and staff, which had been watching with great interest, now screamed. It was now or never.

Nerim reached out and grabbed onto that presence, wherever it was, and tugged it as hard as he possibly could. The Dark presence was projected into his head—into the minds of everyone at the table, pulled from the ether of the Unifying Force and searing into the Living, into the Physical.

Yes! It shouted in vicious joy, echoing from the middle of the table, and suddenly everyone stopped. The sadistic glee turned into ice cold shock, and sudden realization. Everyone turned towards Kiseti.

She took off her glasses, folded them, and then slammed her fist against the table. The diner exploded in a storm of lightning.


_________________________________

Spoiler: A/N

I'm pleased as punch that at least one person caught on to the hints very early on!

On the note of my A/Ns that talk about the process of writing, of the things that is surprisingly tricky is determining the length of chapters. I decided I wanted to be an author when I was around 8 or 9 years old, I believe. One of the first things I tried to look into was how long chapters should be, and to my surprise, there was basically no advice available at the time, either online or in help books. Even authors I spoke to just sort of shrugged and said they had no conscious idea of how long chapters should be, they just did what felt right. Now, decades later, I am in the same boat. I have no conscious advice for how long chapters should be, other than, long enough but not too long. But one thing that does occur to me as a writer, which never was communicated to me when I sought advice long ago, was that there is a certain special difficulty in revelatory or action-packed chapters.

That difficulty comes from the fact that if you have a big reveal or a big action sequence, it tends to grab attention. Obviously! That's the point. But it grabs it from everywhere without discrimination; from your laundry that needs doing, the loud noises outside, your sprained ankle, and it grabs your attention from the rest of the story. I've tried to be very deliberate in writing everything in this fic, without any extraneous writing that doesn't help with the main themes. I hesitate to use the word "filler", but it is common to write things that aren't that important as connective tissue between things that are important, and to give contrast to these things that are important. In this fic, I've tried to keep up a sort of pacing and mindfulness that avoids that entirely. I've written with a philosophy of "just cut away from a scene as soon as the themes are done, and skip anything that isn't highly relevant", which has lead to several outcomes, such as me skipping over things people think are important, but don't fit with the narrower mission statement I had at the beginning of the novel. But secondarily, because of that deliberation, I'm always struck with a unique difficulty, which is whenever a chapter will have a big revelation or action scene, I feel sort of morose that the rest of the chapter will get overshadowed, since I do view it as important.

However, I think I've mostly conquered this moroseness with the realization that some of my favorite media (in fact, a great deal of it) follows this same philosophy of deliberateness and ends up with the same problem, and I don't really view it as a problem in that media, because a second reading/watching/playing will result in a fuller appreciation of those parts that got overshadowed. I think it's kinda vanishingly unlikely that people will give this fic a second read some day in the future, aside from me I suppose, but in this light I actually feel quite pleased about the moments that get overshadowed.

I say all this in order to say that, yes, there is still no concrete advice I'm aware of for chapter length and arrangement, it really is just vibes.

 

[Simonbob]

Nerim closed his eyes, tuned a string of the Force to that particular imprint of that Dark presence, and rather rudely tugged upon it. As if yanking a cat by the tail, it suddenly appeared before his soul, disorientated and distant—quite distant, and bleary-eyed. Whatever it was, it was asleep. He flashed it with the thought of a light freighter set upon a landing pad, and felt only non-recognition and confused scrambling in response. It didn't know. But it recognized him. Then he felt iron, anger, and acid. More strings emerged from the Unifying Force, whipping towards Nerim in a frenzy. Then he fell from the Unifying Force and into Force Immunity, and it all disappeared, without, he hoped, leaking any more information back to the presence.

Click to shrink...

I'm still amused that Nerim's idea to find out what a Dark Sider knows is "Smash into their head, pretty much at random, and see what they think in response to showing them my new ship! Wait, they might get too much, I'd best vanish from the Force alltoghether!"

Nerim reached out and grabbed onto that presence, wherever it was, and tugged it as hard as he possibly could. The Dark presence was projected into his head—into the minds of everyone at the table, pulled from the ether of the Unifying Force and searing into the Living, into the Physical.

Yes! It shouted in vicious joy, echoing from the middle of the table, and suddenly everyone stopped. The sadistic glee turned into ice cold shock, and sudden realization. Everyone turned towards Kiseti.

She took off her glasses, folded them, and then slammed her fist against the table. The diner exploded in a storm of lightning.

Click to shrink...

 

[wschottkey]

Yes! It shouted in vicious joy, echoing from the middle of the table, and suddenly everyone stopped. The sadistic glee turned into ice cold shock, and sudden realization. Everyone turned towards Kiseti.

Click to shrink...

I feeling super smort now.

 

[Hyenanon]

I feeling super smort now.

Click to shrink...

I was quite happy both that someone picked up on the clues, and that it wasn't so obvious everyone was thinking the same thing lol

Very hard to thread the needle on that!

 

[TroubleFait]

Yes! It shouted in vicious joy, echoing from the middle of the table, and suddenly everyone stopped. The sadistic glee turned into ice cold shock, and sudden realization. Everyone turned towards Kiseti.

Click to shrink...

I KNEW IT!

She was way too suspicious when she interrogated Chey-Linn!

(To be perfectly honest, when there was no follow-up and Nerim didn't seem to even consider her suspicious, I started to think she was just a pawn, and afterwards I eventually forgot about her.)

---

In this fic, I've tried to keep up a sort of pacing and mindfulness that avoids [filler] entirely.

Click to shrink...

And I'm very grateful for that. I don't know if you have any idea how refreshing your story is to read compared to the vast majority of fanfiction. So many authors seem to think that they should write about everything that happens, in chronological order, with roughly the same word count for everything.

But secondarily, because of that deliberation, I'm always struck with a unique difficulty, which is whenever a chapter will have a big revelation or action scene, I feel sort of morose that the rest of the chapter will get overshadowed, since I do view it as important.

Click to shrink...

I don't know if that's true. I can't speak for the other chapters like this since I didn't think to pay attention to that at the time, but for this one I liked it from start to finish. I just think every scene was charming. Am I biased, from reading you talk about this in the A/N?

I think it's kinda vanishingly unlikely that people will give this fic a second read some day in the future,

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't be so sure! This story overall has a sense of direction to it, that makes a re-read more enticing.

---

I'm still amused that Nerim's idea to find out what a Dark Sider knows is "Smash into their head, pretty much at random, and see what they think in response to showing them my new ship! Wait, they might get too much, I'd best vanish from the Force alltoghether!"

Click to shrink...

This scene was so funny!

"Hey, you!"

"Ugh, what? Why is the sun up, this is way too early…"

"Do you know about this cool freighter my wife just received?!"

"God damn it, I'm trying to sleep. No, I don't know anything about your stupid freighter."

"Cool!" Hangs up and removes the battery from his phone.

"The hell was that…?"

 

[Hyenanon]

And I'm very grateful for that. I don't know if you have any idea how refreshing your story is to read compared to the vast majority of fanfiction. So many authors seem to think that they should write about everything that happens, in chronological order, with roughly the same word count for everything.

Click to shrink...

Thank you! I'm not very well versed in the fanfiction realm, I've only read a handful over the last decade. There's different pressures at play when writing a fanfiction as opposed to a novel, especially when you're releasing chapter by chapter. Much less of a pressing need to get to a "finished" point, for one. Writing a novel for traditional publishing is full of a load of not very fun pressures confining how you can write, and writing a novel for self-publication still has the pressure to create a story with a beginning, middle, and end as soon as possible. Writing and publishing serially within a single story is interesting to me in that I'm not under a lot of pressure to finish the story ASAP. I can totally see how that leads to so many incredibly long (occasionally meandering) stories, and especially how it can lead to so many forever-unfinished WIPs. Even having written the 'ending' for TFASY already, I am still writing extraneous vignettes on occasion just because it's fun and I know I'm allowed to publish single chapters just as they are. If I hadn't started with such a narrow mission scope, I could see myself getting lost in writing every possible thing that can happen between point A and B--and if I didn't know where B was, well, that would just lead to a leviathan.

I wouldn't be so sure! This story overall has a sense of direction to it, that makes a re-read more enticing.

Click to shrink...

In my experience re-readers are drastically rare even for physical books that hang around in people's houses, much less for an online fic hosted either on a forum or, if I'm lucky, downloaded as a file onto someone's PC. But I've been pleasantly surprised before! Even in this thread people have spoken about re-reading certain scenes, which made me quite happy.

 

[Transreal Clouden]

I did feel confused about Nerim dismissing his legal team as definitely not force sensitive. I admit I don't know what was hinting specifically at Kiseti though. I would be super curious to see someone else's analysis of the clues.

 

[Hyenanon]

I did feel confused about Nerim dismissing his legal team as definitely not force sensitive. I admit I don't know what was hinting specifically at Kiseti though. I would be super curious to see someone else's analysis of the clues.

Click to shrink...

There's plenty and I won't spoil them all for those who do want to re-read, but my favorite clue, the most obtuse and least likely to be found by a reader on first blush, is that immediately after the title drop of Chapter 70: I'd Be More Concerned About Her, the first word is "Kiseti."

Like I always say, the chapter titles are very important!

 

[Selias]

I had a feeling it was Kiseti, after what she told him in the courtroom.