The Force Always Says Yes [Star Wars]

[aedrik_doubletree]

I wonder how long until she teaches him the Theoretical Youngling Massacre Moves (tm)?

 

[TFTwink]

Our boy is going to end up specializing in forbidden moves at this rate

Click to shrink...

That's basically Knighthood for a Sentinel

 

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 26: Both The Jedi And The Sith​

Nerim carefully piloted the airspeeder over the Vast Veldt, watching seemingly endless grasslands pass below him in hills that approximated the waves of a grand sea. The thought crossed his mind that he was not at all like Tetha; flying did not come naturally to him, and his whole focus was placed upon it.

Despite that, the passengers seemed relatively at ease. The three Jedi sat facing each other in the seats in the back, while Jianno sat in the passenger seat next to him. The warbling of the repulsorlift and the rush of wind were muted to near silence on the inside of the cab, which was blessedly climate controlled.

He somehow felt the sudden straightening of Haaka Mahn's back, and the crystallization of Arwain's focus. After a moment, Haaka turned to his Padawan. "Do you sense anything, my Apprentice?"

The Padawan (Nerim resisted the urge to bang his head into the steering wheel over not knowing her name) was silent, still deep in meditation. After a moment, she spoke. "I sense an...unclean feeling."

Nerim's grip on the wheel tightened. He didn't sense anything. But then again, he was mostly just trying to keep level with the horizon.

"We're closing in on something intense, that's for sure," Arwain noted, looking out the window. "Everything just looks like grass to me, though."

They continued flying for a few minutes, before reaching the edge of the Vast Veldt, where it broke off into a short stretch of cracked mesas and desert that would continue until eventually reaching the sea. Nerim began to ask if he should turn around, when Jianno pointed out of the front windshield.

"There," she said, pointing to a mesa that rose up from the sparse grass and arid soil. It was tall compared to the surrounding area, and dropped off on the other side towards the dunes. A deep crack ran down the middle of it, from some old earthquake. "If we're going to start anywhere, it ought to be on that hill. Favorable terrain, for an underground base. You'd want the highest natural ground, so you get the most passive surveillance while still being underneath others' view. The shape leaves a lot of room for hidden entrances and exits."

Arwain smiled. "I have a good feeling about this. Take us down, Nerim."

Nerim refrained from voicing any trepidation, lowering the airspeeder as directed to the top of the mesa. The group exited the speeder, and all unconsciously turned towards the great gouge in the middle of it. Nerim could feel something emanating from it, almost like the sound of a waterfall. It wasn't a comforting sensation, but it wasn't exactly dangerous, either.

Arwain and Jianno both set off walking towards it before anything could be said, and the rest of the Jedi found themselves moving to keep up. They reached the precipice of the fault in the mesa, and Jianno donned her helmet, the T-shaped visor glowing a light blue as she used its advanced optics.

"It's here, somewhere," Arwain said quietly, barely audible over the wind.

Jianno kept her hand to the side of her helmet, twisting a dial. "Aberrant airflow. Temperature differences...Spectral analysis implies there's either a vent or an entrance right...there," she pointed to somewhere Nerim couldn't make out. "Hand prints on the wall. Someone's been here already, recently."

Arwain closed her eyes and took a deep breath, a rare intense expression crossing her face. "Padawan, do you sense danger?"

The other Jedi closed their eyes and meditated, while Nerim and Jianno peered down the crack in the earth. That waterfall sensation was there, but there was no sludge in his viscera, no electricity trailing up his spine. There was trepidation, like he was standing on the edge of a cliff—which he was—but there was no malice. To fall off a cliff was a danger, but it's not as though the cliff is evil.

"I don't even sense the Dark Side," Nerim muttered. "Not like I ever have before, at least. But there's something...precipitous about it."

Arwain kept her eyes closed, but smiled and relaxed her shoulders with uncharacteristic relief, as if she had been anxiously awaiting that answer.

Haaka Mahn shook his head. "I certainly sense a tainted aura. It is mute, relatively undisturbed, but there is a stagnant darkness here. And you?" He turned to his Padawan.

She was frowning. "There's something very bad in there."

Jianno jumped off the plateau, bouncing and sliding down the walls until she had found her way near the bottom of the fault. She shimmied to the side and then began pressing at the rock wall, while Arwain followed suit and jumped behind her.

Haaka Mahn sighed. "There is no helping it. Master Arwain is impetuous as always," he said, beginning to lower himself down the cliff. "Be careful, the both of you. I am not sure if this place is entirely uninhabited."

He began sliding down, and Nerim shared a look with his Padawan counterpart, who frowned disapprovingly at him.

"Are we, uh, fighting?" Nerim asked.

"Your Master is going to get us into trouble."

"Does she really have such a bad reputation?" Nerim asked, deflated.

"They call her a gray Jedi, a maverick," the Padawan replied, with some restrained expression he couldn't quite make out. "She actively defies the Council and strains the Code."

"So I've heard," Nerim said dispassionately. He had heard many such terms to describe her, and he gathered that most Jedi were uncomfortable with the idea of associating her.

"That she took you on as an apprentice is only more worrying," the Human girl said gruffly, taking her turn to climb down the cliff.

"So we are fighting," Nerim sighed wearily, following the method of Arwain and Jianno, hopping from wall to wall of the fault instead. As he reached the bottom, his eyes slowly started to adjust to the shade.

Jianno scanned the wall, and then banged her fist on it, causing a small resonant sound. "Here," she said. "Can't figure out how to open it."

"I believe that's my job," Arwain said, pressing the palms of her hands against it. There was a rusty clicking noise and a screech as the wall rumbled and slid to the side, revealing a dark passage. Cold air escaped from within, buffeting Nerim and sending a chill through him.

Haaka Mahn peered into the darkness, and then nodded to Jianno. "You are quite adept at this."

Jianno didn't physically react, her expression obscured behind the helmet. "This is standard procedure for Mandalorian fortifications. They're almost undetectable if you're not looking specifically for them, but they're easy to find if you know they're there. That's how most of our temporary dwellings work. Keeps away tourists and petty criminals, but there's no point hiding from people like you."

"Interesting that it uses a Mandalorian design," Haaka mused.

"I think I know why," Arwain said, retrieving a flashlight from her utility belt and shining it down the hall. The stone was smooth and featureless at first, but as the hallway extended, it began taking on a completely different architectural style, with columns and carved walls. It almost seemed like the Jedi Temple, through a strange mirror. "Well, no time like the present!" She said, cheerfully stepping into it.

Nerim followed thereafter, and heard a rather unsure silence and then quiet clamber of footsteps behind him. "Should we be a bit more cautious?" He asked, glancing at the reliefs on the wall of robed figures and Cathar. "Are we sure this place is unoccupied?"

"Anyone who may be here most certainly doesn't belong any more than we do," Arwain said, tilting the flashlight at an odd circular symbol on the wall. "It would be a little hypocritical of them to be upset with us. This Temple is nearly four thousand years old, and has been unoccupied for almost that entire time."

Nerim tried to think back to his historical studies. Four thousand years ago? "...The Jedi Civil War?"

"A year earlier, would be my guess," Arwain said.

"The Mandalorian Wars," Jianno stated. "This is a Revanchist Temple. The wall carvings are of the Cathar Genocide, and the subsequent arrival of the Revanchist Jedi, who swore to avenge them."

"They were not Jedi," Haaka made a deep, resonating sound somewhere in his chest. "Darth Revan himself may have walked these halls. Cathar was a world of great spiritual significance to the Sith."

"They were far from Sith at that time, also," Arwain said, leading them into a large, circular antechamber. "Turn off your lights."

The other Jedi did so, and Nerim reluctantly turned his own off afterwards. The room was at first lit only by Jianno's visor, and then, after a moment, Nerim felt a familiar glow. He blinked rapidly, and before his eyes appeared crystalline shapes, greens, blues, yellows, and occasional rarer colors.

"This is a lightsaber crystal cave," he said breathlessly. "Like Ilum."

"How terrible," the other Padawan quietly spoke in reverence, "For a place like this to be corrupted."

Arwain took a deep breath of the cold air and placed her hands on her hips. "Well, it's been about forty-three years, but if I recall correctly, this is where we're all supposed to split up."

"Madness," Jianno scoffed.

Haaka shook his head. "I am inclined to agree with the Mandalorian."

"Oh, so it was good enough for you as a Padawan, but now you think you've outgrown it?" Arwain teased.

"This is not Ilum, and we are not here to perform a Gathering," Haaka Mahn said firmly. Nerim noticed the Knight had his hand on his lightsaber hilt, and his broad-set eyes swiveled from side to side, clear membranes flitting across them.

Arwain glanced at him for a moment, before returning to observing the crystals. "Calm. This place is more dangerous the more you fear it. It is like a snake. If you are placid, it won't even notice you. If you stir, it will strike."

The Knight took a deep breath and removed his hand from the pommel of his lightsaber, though it remained at his belt only an inch away.

Jianno retrieved a small orb-like remote droid from her belt and tossed it in the air. It caught itself and hovered in place, and then projected a half dozen slices of light, scanning the environment. It then wandered off down a hall.

Arwain watched it disappear through a doorway. "Such technology is fraught in places like this. I doubt it will give you any information, much less anything useful."

"No information is useful information," Jianno said firmly. "It at least lets me know what I can or can't rely on."

Haaka Mahn made an odd clicking noise. "I still can't rule out that this place is occupied by hostile beings. In a vergence, you can hide your presence quite effectively."

As they spoke to each other, Nerim wandered forward, crouching down at a particular outcropping of crystals. He listened closely to the soft tinks and rustling noises they made, almost imperceptible to the ear, like dust falling in a glass. It was somehow such an...innocent noise.

He turned back to see the other three Jedi watching him. Arwain nodded. "What do you think, Nerim?"

"Master, I'm certain there are no Sith here," Nerim said, not quite sure where his confidence came from, "And if there ever was, it was a very long time ago. As for anything else...Well, I can't say for sure."

Arwain smiled. "I think so, too. Still, the thought of confronting a Dark Jedi is not entirely unreasonable. And given the environment, if they exist, it's likely they would be well-armed. I think—"

She suddenly stopped and whipped her head around, towards the hallway they entered from. The others followed her gaze, only to see the entrance slide shut with a creaking, rusty clang. Nerim saw the Knight and his Padawan pull their lightsaber hilts from their belts and Jianno unholstered her blaster pistols.

They traced their steps back down the hall to the door, and when Arwain placed her hand against it, it did not slide open.

"I still sense no one," the Padawan said in a shaky voice.

"There probably isn't anyone," Arwain said, her voice as steely as the Padawan's was shaky, "It's more likely just how the Temple was built."

"Cut it open," Jianno said, keeping her pistols leveled down the hall towards the antechamber.

Nerim raised his lightsaber hilt and activated the blade, but Arwain's hand reached out and guided his wrist down gently, and so he deactivated it just as quickly. "I wouldn't recommend that," she said, placing her ear against the wall.

Nerim did the same, and closed his eyes, stilling his breathing until he could hear it. Tink. Tink. He blinked. "Lightsaber crystals?"

"Embedded in the walls, and in the door," Arwain nodded. "Microscopic crystal shavings. Contact with your lightsaber blade may scatter it randomly. It will definitely cut through the rock, but maybe yourself as well. A last resort at best."

"Sithspit," Jianno grumbled. "I have a detpack, but we're at the bottom of a ravine. Blowing open the wall is just as likely to cause an avalanche that will cave in the entrance anyways."

Arwain sighed. "So much effort being put into not exploring for the answer."

Haaka Mahn made some sort of strange snorkeling sound. "Exploring a place that, as we've just established, is in itself a trap?"

"You should have known that going in," Arwain chided, "Revan only ever built traps. Although a more accurate term would be crucibles. My guess is, well," she shrugged, "We're here until we see whatever the Revanchists wanted us to see."

Nerim swallowed. "Crucibles sound just as dangerous as traps."

"Yes, they are. And part of the expected process is to remove the unwanted elements. But there's an important difference in that something is supposed to make it out intact."

 

[Simonbob]

I do like that, even with her rep, Arwain's a proper Master, always reaching for the good and showing wisdom. Sometimes mildly weird wisdom, but still.


And Nerim is growing.


Heck, I think even Jianno is getting something from all this. It's a pretty rare Mando who travels with a Jedi Master, and see's such Mando history.