Naboo

[Aidan Darkfire]

The hair on Aidan's neck bristled. He'd felt the darkness before, but this was just a slap across the face. Naboo was supposed to be a peaceful world, what about it kept attracting the scum of the galaxy to it like hotchflies to bantha skut? Aidan had hoped they would be able to train in peace, but the whims of the galaxy were always crashing down around him wherever he went. Now, he had to deal with the emotions and mental pain of his mother dying, and somehow his only thoughts as the mental assault began were not this again.

 

His hand found his staff saber hilt instinctively, though for the moment its silver blades remained extinguished. Aidan wasn't sure exactly where the mental attack was coming from, but it did no good to induce a public panic before it was absolutely necessary. Instead, he looked around and located a security officer before responding to Anne.

"Yeah, well, you're going to learn that in this galaxy there are big fish and there are small fish, and sometimes you can't help but be the small fish. You need to have spines to survive, you have that right. And right now, I need you to have spines, okay?"

Through the Force, he barely managed to eke out one strong thought to her, but it was simple enough to break through the emotional static the dark sider was flooding the Force with: Sith nearby. She may have been able to feel it as well, though Aidan knew that Anne's connection to the Force was not as strong as he and his fellow Jedi. It might have instead manifested in her as a sense of extreme unease. The whole ordeal certainly had him queasy, and he kept a hand on his stomach as he tried to ignore the intrusive thoughts. Quickly, he walked to the security guard, flashing his lightsaber hilt as if it were a badge of authority. "Jedi business. I need this area cleared of all civilians, but I want you to claim it's because of a gas leak. No need to start a panic."

 

The security officer simply gave him a "really, buddy?" look before walking away and going about his job. 

Welp. So much for that. Aidan turned back around to the other two and made his way back.

 

 

[Aidan Darkfire]

As their assailant made themselves known, Aidan took up a defensive position in front of Anne. Either he or her were the likely targets here given the dark sider's opening gambit, and Aidan wasn't about to let his padawan-to-be get turned into mincemeat. Igniting one blade to use the full hilt for leverage, Aidan adopted a defensive Makashi stance, the blade pointed straight at his foe's head. This wasn't a fight he was going to back down from, not after he got to relive moments from one of his mother's most painful experiences.

 

"'Scuse me, sir, you seem to have lost your way. I recommend you go about your business, preferably back to whatever snake-hole you crawled out of. Otherwise you're going to invoke Sugma."

 

Aidan wore the most serious of looks as his strong gaze nearly pierced his foe. The tension in the air was palpable.

[Aidan Darkfire]

Aidan sidestepped the thrust directly at him, already positioned to do just that with the fencing stance he'd taken. Makashi wasn't nearly a strong enough style to be able to take on a greatsword like this head on, but it was lithe and nimble like Ataru while also being cunning and calculating. As it was, Aidan wasn't in much of a position to counterattack given the range, so instead he simply used the Force to kick up some dirt into the Sith's face.

 

((1))

[Aidan Darkfire]

Far from having to commit to death or battle, Aidan chose option C — backing the hell up away from the Sith's dangerous greatsword. To those ends, he summoned the Force to himself briefly, telekinetically blasting at his feet to assist with his quick leap backward to get away from the slash. Consequently, more dirt was lightly sprayed up toward the eyes of his foe. He was certainly a cunning one, Aidan hadn't found an opening at all to do nearly anything.

 

((2))

[Aidan Darkfire]

The dance was on. The Sith was very deft on his feet, but Aidan had thus far managed to avoid the conflict almost completely, miraculously. A few nicks on his armor, but mostly from blasted dirt. If anything, Aidan was starting to enjoy the tempo of the battle. Except the Force chose just then to give him a choice in a split second vision: either watch things fail miserably or do what needed doing.

 

So Aidan stepped into the swing, catching the blade through his arm and buried into part of his torso, but his left arm came up and gripped with all the strength he could muster amidst agonizing pain. He could feel himself slowly losing his strength as his right arm stump began gushing blood, but this was his only shot to fix the situation they'd found themselves in.

 

Just another death for the Jedi, right?

((Aidan stepped into Vorin's swing, aiming to capture the weapon and the person long enough for his allies to do something. Honestly, I'll accept a death here, I realized this cheekiness isn't funny because Vorin can't reply in kind without risking everything, meanwhile I can safely hide behind allies. Not cool. So time to pony up and take one for the team, win or lose. GG boiz.

 

3))

[Aidan Darkfire]

Everything was fuzzy. That was the first sensation Aidan felt as he woke from the abyss of nothingness. There was no cloning cylinder, he was laid out in a medical bed with a droid looking over him. The doctor came in and started talking, but it all blurred together. Something about...his telomeres? A cloning sickness or something. He tried to sit up but a sharp pain in his side paralyzed him back to the table. The droid administered some drugs, and he drifted back to sleep.

 

It would be hours before he woke again. This time, a Jedi healer was by his side. He was lucky, she said, that the cancer hadn't spread before she had a chance to excise it. Cancer.

 

Cancer.

 

Several more hours later, when he got his strength up, he dressed in the robes provided by the Jedi, collected his belongings that had been collected from the battlefield, and set out to find Anne and Pandora.