Seeking Legends...

[Shia Kryze]

Location: Mandalore, Oyu’baat Tapcaff

“They what?”

“They sold it.”

Shia gazed in open disbelief at Katara, her elder sister and one of Clan Kryze’s best retrieval specialists. Her mouth might have actually been open in disbelief, she couldn’t really recall.

“They sold…”

“… the Darksaber, yes. She ran into hard times, and a relic like that is worth a lot of money, y’know ner vod?”

Shia shook her head in disbelief, then took a sip from her recaff and leant over the small tapcafe table, the Oyu’baat was still the place to discuss business, even in the ruins of Mandalore. Particularly when that business related to restoring Mandalore’s pride.

“Okay, so who bought it, the Jedi Order?”

“We wish, we might be able to negotiate an honour duel with them. No, it’s in the hands of the Sith.”

Shia wanted to spit, her face matching the sour expression on Katara’s own features. Clan Kryze had no love for the Sith at all, they fully remembered every single treachery. They didn’t love the Jedi or the Galactic Alliance either – honestly, they wanted to live by their code in a galaxy filled with danger. But if the Darksaber was in the hands of the Sith, then…

“This is a matter of honour now, the dar'jetii will not be permitted such a prize. Mando'ad draar digu.”

“Oya.” Katara replied. “Lord Ferro, the legendary duellist has the blade, they say he’s an Ataru master, he wields it… how do they say? I don’t know, in the off hand, anyway.”

Shia hissed and sat back, arms folded. She’d never imagined going looking for a legendary half- Jetii / half-Mando’ade artefact would be easy, but Lord Ferro was undefeated and had a body count longer than some bounty lists.

Katara said nothing, simply looking at her younger sister. A lot rested on Shia’s shoulders, she knew that. Shia Kryze was the Clan Protector, the best and the brightest, the most highly trained. Now that… darker times were overtaking Mandalore, a lot of the clan looked to her to be their crusader, to uphold the honour of the clan. Katara wouldn’t want that responsibility, the hard choices between obeying the Undying and upholding your own personal honour, of proving yourself to the Mando’ade while remaining Kryze.
Shia looked down at her hands, then back up at Katara.

“I’ll reclaim it from him, or die trying. Haat, Ijaa, Haa'it.”

Katara half wanted to weep, half wanted to cheer. Shia was probably going to her death, but… if she wasn’t, then...

“Oya.” She whispered, almost to herself.

 

[Shia Kryze]

Location: Clan Kryze Starship ‘Winter Owl’
Date: 18 years before present date.

“Buir, who is she?” Shia asked, squirming on her mother’s knee to point at the ancient holo of a sharp featured, red-haired woman.

“Your ancestor, Bo-Katan Kryze.” Shia’s mother said gently, a soft smile on her face.

“Why’s she up there?” Shia knew what the wall of aay'han was, and how important people in the center of it were, like… her birth parents. She felt sad at that, but didn’t understand why. Family was more than blood.

“Bo? Well… that’s a long story.”

“Oh come on, tell me, tell me!”

A long suffering sigh, mostly false, although Shia had no way of knowing that at age eight.

“Bo-Katan Kryze was once the leader of the Night Owls and second to Pre Vizsla in the Death Watch.”

Shia blinked in surprise, but the Death Watch were not the Protectors, a lot of them hated clan Kryze. She opened her mouth to protest, but her mother silenced her with a touch.

“I said it was long. The Death Watch dislike our clan because Duchess Satine Kryze lead the New Mandalorians into an era of peace and pacifism, which… was probably a mistake. Only a few people followed the Supercommando Codex and took up arms as Protectors.”

Shia frowned, finding this logic hard to follow. She didn’t know a member of Clan Kryze who couldn’t fight, and she could recite the Supercommando Codex from memory.

“The Duchess… had good intentions, they all did. They just forgot how harsh the world is, and what makes us Mando’ade. The Death Watch allied with a Sith named Darth Maul, who promised them their planet back. Back then, the holder of an ancient Jetii'kad made by a Mandalorian lead the Hidden Death Watch – the Darksaber, it had been the properly of the Vizsla clan since it was reclaimed from the Jetii. Pre Vizsla held the Darksaber and used it in many terrorist acts against the New Mandalorians, until he toppled their government… well, no. Sorry. I said it was complicated. He also turned against other people who turned out to be Sith. He broke with Maul and Count Dooku, the leader of the Separatists and managed to capture the Royal Palace with Bo-Katan at his side. He arrested Darth Maul and Satine and declared himself leader of Mandalore, promising to return our warrior heritage.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Sort of, ad'ika. He killed a lot of people who didn’t need to die. Real life… isn’t like the stories. Anyway. Maul escaped from prison and challenged Pre Vizsla to a duel which the aruetii dar'jetii won, beheading Pre Vizsla before Bo-Katan’s eyes, then went on to kill Duchess Satine, it was all a ruse to gain control of Mandalore, you see.”

Shia stared up at the holo with wide eyes, trying to imagine the scene.

“What?”

“Happened then? Horrified and outraged, Bo-Katan and the Night Owls refused to follow Maul – he was not Mando’ade and could not lead the Death Watch. Which is why many of us paint our armour blue, or bear their symbol in remembrance. Eventually, Darth Maul was killed and the Darksaber fell into the hands of a member of House Wren, who went by the name Sabine… there’s… that’s a whole other story for a whole other time. But at the end of some of her adventures, Sabine gave the Darksaber to Bo-Katan, saying that she was the person she trusted most to become Mand’alor. Bo-Katan… was Duchess Satine’s sister, you see. It’s said that when asked about it, Bo-Katan replied ‘Mandalore will survive. We always survive.’”

Shia stared at the sharp-featured woman, a number of the genetic markings of the Kryze still visible on her eight year old features, even with all the new blood the clan had taken in.

“Oya.” She whispered.
I’m going to honour her name when I grow up, I swear it. She thought.

 

[Shia Kryze]

Location: Deep Space, Clan Kryze Frigate ‘Night Huntress’

“So last we heard, he was out towards the Tingel Arm.”

Shia frowned, leaning over the holomap of the galaxy and staring at the space.
“Why would he be out there? The war is south of there.”

Katara planted a finger on the words ‘Dromund Kaas’ a soft smile on her lips

“He was involved in the recapture of Dromund Kass for the Sith Empire, but after that he vanished. But, it turns out there’s an ancient Jedi ruin on Voss – well, both Jedi and Sith ruins actually. But more importantly, there was – and still is – a Gormak swordmaster who claimed to have defeated Lord Ferro’s apprentice.”

Shia snorted in amusement.

“Well, then we could bring him to us.”

Katara raised an eyebrow, then shook her head .

“Well yes, we could. But my informants say that after he killed the swordmaster, he went into retreat in one of the Sith temples to… meditate on his nails, or whatever it is dar’jetii swordmasters do when they’re resting from their injuries.”

“Injuries?”

“Ah, I knew that would get your attention, ner vod, yes. Apparently the Gormak was larger, more brutal and tougher than Lord Ferro counted on and he got himself bounced off a few wall…”

Shia was already up and moving, without a second though, which… was unwise, given the circumstances, but no one dared tell her that, or really even thought it. They were all too caught up in the hunt.

“Get us there, now.”

 

[Shia Kryze]

Location: Voss, Sith Ruins.

This battle, Shia reflected as the Darksaber’s cracking black edge inched closer to her throat, burning through her beskar’gam with slow deliberation, was not going quite as she had envisaged.

The first sign that the plan was going dramatically non-linear was when they had arrived to discover not just a lone Sith master, but a small army of Acolytes from the local populace. The second sign should have been when those Acolytes bowed low and let the small group of Mandalorians into the temple. But Shia had been riding too high on pre-combat nerves to notice.

Shia snarled in frustration and triggered her jetpack, throwing herself upwards and dragging the darksaber down into the heavier bulk of her torso armour, where it lodged for a moment before tearing free with a crackle. She lashed out with her kal, scoring a solid hit that drew blood on the Sith Lord, but the roundhouse kick he delivered into her stomach was powerful enough to send her flying across the chamber and through a pillar with bone bruising force.

The simple fact was she was outmatched, not in technique, not in skill, not strength but in that mysterious combination of all three that the force provided. Lord Ferro had almost been pleased to meet a Mandalorian challenger for the Darksaber, agreeing readily to armed combat and happily agreeing to divest himself of offensive and defensive uses of the Force. But the Force ran through him like a current - Shia had never dreamed of anything like it, that anyone could be so fast, so strong, so skilled and so chiting unpredictable. She could read an Echani battle-dance like it was an open book, but reading this man was like trying to read the vapours on the wind.

Lord Ferro leapt for her in a single bounding, catlike leap and she desperately brought up her vambrace beskad to parry, wincing as the Darksaber and the man’s glittering red normal saber left notches in the blade. She lashed out with a ground-level scissors kick and correctly judged the blow to knock him off his feet, but by the time her blade came down to score a telling advantage he was gone, back on his feet.

Shia wasn’t slow - she’d never been slow - her beskar’gam was heavy and could tire you after a battle, but she could run and leap as if almost unarmoured with it’s power assist. But the vambrace blades were old - it had been designed to fight Jedi and Sith over five thousand years ago, and then through overwhelming firepower, not melee combat.

She wanted to snarl as the Sith Lord paced around her like a dragon stalking its prey. She was bleeding from a dozen wounds, out of bacta and so high on combat stimulants the world was visibly shaking. She couldn’t win this - but that didn’t mean she had to lose, or fight fair either.

Fair, her Aunt Vidi had always said, was a good way of getting dead. And she’d brought a ‘melee weapon’ for just this moment.

Shia rolled to her feet, groaning as she hauled her armoured bulk back up - the fight had not been long enough to actually tire her, but theatrics played to men like Ferro, and sure enough the Echani Sith Lord surged across the space between them like flowing lightning, she parried high, then low and caught the Darksaber with her kad, thrusting it away long enough to arm the knuckle-bombs she’d had installed in the suits fingertips.

The impact could roughly be described as like slamming your hand into the thruster of a fighter as it took off, a burning backwash of pain as most of her finger bones and all of her knuckles broke, but the result was worth it. Lord Ferro howled in agony as most of his lower arm was shredded to the bone from the beskar-fragments that scythed out and he dropped his conventional lightsaber, recoiling and staggering into a guard position.

“Cheat!” He snarled, even though he had to know it wasn’t. Shia didn’t care, she was counting on what came next.

The blast of telekinetic force was like being hit by a runaway transport speeder and deposited her outside the temple, among the scattered Acolytes who immediately turned on her companions. She struggled slowly to her feet, gasping for air.

“Time to leave! We concede this round!” She announced, almost cheerfully despite the burning shame and pain that roiled in her soul. Shia hated to lose and the cheerful front was just that, a front.

As she turned to run, her foot caught on something that bounced and skittered. Ferro’s lightsaber. On an impulse she reached down and grabbed it, then triggered her jetpack and wisely made for the hills, chased by a horde of outraged Sith Acolytes.

But not, she later realised, by Lord Ferro.

 

[Shia Kryze]

Location: Deep Space, Clan Kryze Frigate ‘Night Huntress’

Click. Fzzzap. Snap. Click.

Click. Fzzzap. Snap. Click.

Click. Fzzzap. Snap. Click.

Click. Fzzzap. Snap. Click.

“Shia! Stop being di'kutla and put the sithspawned jetii'kad down.” Katara commented acidly from across the ship. There had been no speaking to Shia for days now. But she seemed obsessed with the damn blade she’d taken from Lord Ferro as they fled.

“I was just thinking.” Shia surged to her feet and struck a ready stance, then ignited the blade, which wobbled uncontrollably under the pseudo-gyroscopic motion of it’s plasma field.

“Gah! Shabuir! Haar'chak! Put the blade down before you…” Katara made no bones about throwing herself backwards as Shia executed what should be a perfect parry-riposte, only to end up cut two ceiling conduits and venting waste gas into the room. “And fix those pipes! Now!” She commented as she scrambled out.

***​

“I was thinking.”

“That’d you’d been hit on the head too often in that fight?”

“No, well, maybe, but no. That I could win if I could use a lightsaber. You don’t need to be a Jedi to use one - they have droids with them over in the CIS. It’s not the Force that lets you use one - it’s that that the Force makes it easier. I’d just have to work harder. Which… I’d have to do to wield the Darksaber anyway.”

“Right. So, you want to go and ask a Jedi Knight to teach you, a Mandalorian, part of the Empire that has - I might add - under Ra the Undying basically sworn to wipe the Force from the universe, to teach you how to use a lightsaber so you can go and kill a Sith, then take the Darksaber so that maybe, one day, you can undo some of the damage? You want to be like Bo?”

Shia flinched a little at the obvious reference, then rallied. “Yes. Except between now and then I intend to kill a lot more Sith with the Darksaber. You know that.”

“Where are we going to find a Jedi stupid enough to take on the job of training you, Shia Kryze?”

 

[Shia Kryze]

Location: Alderaan, Aldera City, Aldera Boxing Club

“Her?”

“Yes, vod mine, she’s the one.”

Katara regarded the hard looking, maybe-Echani maybe… who knows what, whom Shia had found in this… less than salubrious location. The bottle of not-terribly expensive vodka sat next to the training matt and the neatly kempt but still rough looking grey robes and hand-wraps didn’t inspire ‘Jedi Master’ to her. What kind of Jedi Master carried a staff, even if it was Songsteel?

“You’ve gone mad, ad'ika.”

Shia ignored the jibe with grace.

“I’m telling you, she’s the one. Jedi Master Alexandra Feanor, likes to be called Alex…”

Shia would have continued, but that was right about when the subject of the two Mando’ade’s whispered conversation decided she’d overheard about enough, threw one final punch into the punch bag and wheeled on the two of them.

“It’s really not polite to talk about someone behind their back, you know. Are you here for the bounty? Look. Trust me, it’s not worth your time.”

The woman had an abrupt but rather… well… sexy voice, Shia noticed. Katara tried to make herself look very, very small.

“Uh. Bounty?” Was Shia’s witty response. “No, uh… well… Master Jedi.”

“Spit. It. Out. And I’m… not technically a Master Jedi… okay I am, it’s complicated.” Alex picked up the bottle of vodka and took a healthy swig. “But either way, I haven’t got all day!”

Shia plucked up her courage, discarded her Mando’ade superiority complex for just a single moment and dropped to one knee.

“Master Jedi, I wish to reclaim the Darksaber from the Sith Lord who holds it. I am no user of the Force, nor will I ever be. But…” She held up the Sith Lords lightsaber in both palms. “... I cannot defeat him on his terms and to claim the Darksaber I must accept his terms. Please, teach me to use a jetii'kad.”

“A what?” Alex knew what it meant, but asking the question allowed her to buy herself some time, call upon the force to briefly sober up and admire the truly bizarre sight of a battle armoured Mandalorian kneeling before her as well as to judge her intent, which was… pure. Chit. And they said the Mandalorians had gone mad about Force Users? This one hadn’t, although she hated the Sith that was… understandable, really.

“A lightsaber.” Shia filled in needlessly.

Alex considered the matter at length, ignoring the looks the strange trio were getting in what was an otherwise ordinary boxing club. The Force never did anything without a reason, and this woman was here for that reason. The Darksaber was a symbol of authority, perhaps she meant to challenge the one they called the Undying? This kid? He’d eat her alive. Or perhaps she didn’t. Perhaps she just honestly wanted to bring what she saw as honour back to the Mando’ade. The galaxy could use the latter - and in the interim, the Darksaber would give some Sith a massive shock and that made both sides of her laugh. She grimaced and swallowed some more vodka.

“On one condition.” Alex said quietly.

“Name it.” Shia replied without hesitation.

“You will not raise the Darksaber against a Jedi who does not draw their lightsaber against you first.”

Shia paused, that… could get her into a great deal of trouble if it became public knowledge. But it was also, frankly, only fair.

“Agreed.”

Alex grinned, this might actually be an interesting few weeks.

“Alright kid, you’ve got a deal. What’s your name?”

(Alex Feanorhttp://starwarsrp.net/topic/88609-alexandra-feanor-rebooted-wip/ used with writer permission)

 

[Shia Kryze]

Location: 'Jedi' Temple, Deep Forests somewhere 'near' Aldera City, Alderaan

(musichttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBfLBhImW_M)​

“What do you call that?”

“En garde?”

“Force alive, you’ll maim someone with that thing. Shut it down. Look…” Alex activated her own saber, letting it drift as the gyroscopic motion of the plasma blade took effect. “... what most people, even most Jedi don’t know is that the motion of a lightsaber left to its own devices is predictable. The Force may be mystic, but physics isn’t. Every saber has its own unique pattern. A Force user takes a tiny part of their attention to predict that pattern, and the resulting gyroscopic precession for every single swing. But the best and the worst duellists have two things in common. They have to learn every facet of that blade, because the best don’t want to spare even that tiny part of their attention and the worst - well, you don’t have it to spare, do you? So learn it. Guard One, guard two. Switch it off when moving between guards if that makes it harder right now. Good, like that. Then in a day or six we’ll move onto moving the blade without you killing me…”

***​

“OW! What was that?”

“My staff.”

“What kind of Jedi teacher are you?”

“I told you kid, I’m not really a Jedi. Now focus. The Force flows through everything Shia, even if you can’t sense it, you can still use it. You have to trust it in a lightsaber duel - because Shia Kryze, if you pick up the darksaber, one day you’re going to be in a duel for the fate of worlds. That’s what they get used for, you know? When a Sith and a Jedi are equally matched in the force, we duel. When we’re willing to kill to protect.”

“Ow!”

“Posture! You can focus on my words and on keeping the damn blade still. You’ve got make your made sense a natural part of your muscle memory.”

***​

“What… what do they call this again?”

“The Way of Movement, kid.”

“And this is what Jedi do for fun?”

“Na, I just said that because I thought you might try it. It was that or bet I’d beat you.”

“I hate you, old woman.”

“No you don’t. Look, you can’t learn the Force parts of this. But the way I see it, most of them are linear projections of speed and momentum, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

“What are you wearing, and what do you have strapped to your back, Shia Kryze?”

“Oh.”

“Right. Come on, we’re about to invent a new Mandalorian Martial Art - there aren’t many people who can say they’ve done that.”

“If I don’t collapse first.”

“Not my fault you’re wearing antique armour, you should get something lighter. Or a repulsor belt.”

***​

​

“Parry. Parry. First, Third, Eighth. Parry. Good, good.”

Shia felt like she could take on the world as the stolen lightsaber flashed from guard to guard to strike to strike, meeting the songsteel staff with every single motion.

“Now we’ve done the easy part.”

“What?”

Alex tossed the staff into a corner, took a long sip of tea (it was tea today, not vodka - always on the good days, Shia noticed) and then ignited her sabers.
“You’ve learned the forms, now I’m going to teach you to fight. I’ve dialed all of our sabers down to just above training strength, they’ll probably only give second degree burns if you slip up?”

A line of fire scorched across Shia’s vision as Alex surged forward with the full weight of a Jedi Master’s potential behind her, Shia wasn’t at all sure how she managed to block the blow, so panicked was her parry.

“When you can score three unanswered touches in a row through my guard, you’re ready kid.”

***​

“This is a lot like just using a sword though.”

“Yeah, first form is like that. We made it up when we were using Jedi Katana. Ever think of maybe trying for one of those? Na, I bet it’d piss your people off even more. You gotta learn this though to learn the others.”

“Yeah, but it’s boring.”

“Yeah, isn’t it?”

***​

“Who invented that salute? It’s classy.”

“Some form two fencer, I guess. This one is what I want you to focus on - this form will win you duels.”

“When do I get to all that fancy leaping about the place?”

“Form four? You… well, Shia, you don’t do anything by halves, do you?”

“Not if I can avoid it, besides, Lord Ferro is an Ataru master - I can’t equal him in a months training, but I can get enough of the basics down that I can read him in battle.”

“You know even then, the only way you’re going to win is if you fight smart.”

“You mean fight dirty.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Oya.”

***​

Shia parried the high attack, spinning low and using her thrusters to boost her up into a Rising Star, deflecting the hidden attack from Alex’s second blade, then powered down into a Falling Star, slipping through the Jedi Master’s guard and landing a blow on her shoulder, Alex staggered back with a grunt.

“One.”

Shia kept up the momentum, spinning the blade around her body to pick up momentum, using the natural tendency of this blade to turn to the right to pick up even more speed, she used the extra strength to bat aside Alex’s counter attack, leaping over the counter-strike and just scraping a touch through against her masters upper arm.

“Two.”

She’d never beaten two. She’d been beaten into a burnt, bleeding pulp more times than she cared to count. But she’d risen to every challenge that was put before her. The legends of the Jedi were true, every single one of them, the - and the Sith - were the galaxies ultimate challenge, a match for a Mandalorian. You only had to train with one for a day or two to gain a deep respect for them, if perhaps not for Alex’s… eccentric traditions. But Shia knew the walking wounded when she saw them, and quietly hoped this would help the woman pull herself together. Her gift to her master.

The two exchanged a flurry of strikes and counter strikes, neither of them coming within any reasonable distance of breaching the guard of the other, Alex was fighting fully defensively now, having slipped by reflex into the fifth form, which she’d taught Shia was a move that could be exploited by the flexible.

Ironically, the lack of need to focus on the use of the Force made the process of learning to use a lightsaber the most difficult thing Shia had ever done - and she’d never simply be able to pick up and wield a blade with the skill of a Jedi, each one had to be learned. But without the need to focus on the Force elements of the styles she could focus purely on the swordplay, relying on the speed and power of her armour to compensate for the Jedi’s use of Force enhancements and her jetpack for leaps - she had some very promising ideas regarding Ataru and that in the future, when she had time to train.

But the sum total of the experience was Shia could focus more on the technique of the forms, sacrificing the assisted elements. This lead to massive gaps - some forms, like the legendary Form VII would always be beyond her - and the defensive forms were… not her speciality. She could just about parry a blaster bolt on a good day. But more than one was right out. But in the areas she could focus, she progressed more rapidly than someone trying to use the Force and the lightsaber… as long as she used this one blade, although she had a loose handle on both of Alex’s.

There.

Alex’s guard dipped a fraction too low, which against a Jedi would have invited attack, because a Jedi would see that drop before it happened. But Shia hadn’t, she couldn’t, not in the same way - even an Echani wouldn’t have done it the same way, and that meant Alex was expecting an attack from here, when Shia could easily shift stances, go low and come in…

… here.

Alex grunted at the hit, then beamed with pride.

“Three.”

(Alex Feanorhttp://starwarsrp.net/topic/88609-alexandra-feanor-rebooted-wip/ used with writer permission)

 

[Shia Kryze]

Location: Voss, Sith Ruins.

“You return, little Mandalorian.”

Lord Ferro had healed from the last encounter and stood among the falling blossoms of the early Voss autumn, his head tilted up to the sky, ignoring the Mandalorian as she walked up the flight of stone stairs, head bare of buy'ce and amber eyes glittering in the dawn sunlight.

“I do. Do you still have the courage to face one who escaped you?”

“Tricked me, you mean.” She could hear the sneer in his voice.

“Only a fool fights with anything less than her true capability.”

“What does that make you then?”

(musichttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-IzvO-F5QA)​

Shia drew the jetii'kad from her belt and ignited it, feeling the blade shift comfortably under her hand as she brought it through a flourish and into the overhead salute of the ancient Neo-Crusaders.

“Mir'shupur’ade.” She replied ironically, then ignited her jetpack thrusters and leapt through the swirling storm of falling blossoms in a technologically assisted recreation of a Force-powered leap.

Lord Ferro stood motionless for almost half the leap, actually caught dumbfounded by the sudden change in his opponent - the Mandalorian Empire hated Force Users, where had she found one who would trust her enough to teach her even the basics of the forms? She emerged from the swarm of roiling blossoms backlit by the thrust of her jetpack, blade held high, like a vision from some dream or nightmare. It didn’t matter, he was a master duellist and she but a novice, with an incoherent battlecry he ignited the Darksaber and spun to parry her leap.

A novice in very heavy, lightsaber resistant armour. A little voice in the back of his brain warned him.

He came at the woman high, using the same wild, almost reckless attacks which marked his use of the Ataru style, but much to his amazement she shifted into a Makashi parry with almost preternatural skill and awareness, then counterstruck low with a blow that could have come from either of the first two forms. She wasn’t a Force User, he’d know, but somehow she’d not only mastered the blade, but the awareness of the battlefield required to use a lightsaber effectively.

Still, he leapt the low riposte and bounced off two of the larger branches where she couldn’t follow, then powered back down with a Force-assisted leap, going for a disarming strike to the wrist.
He should have considered that even as a novice, she’d been using power armour since she could practically walk and so met him half way into the return leap with a jet-assisted counter. Alone and unarmoured she couldn’t match a Force User’s speed, their ability to move around the battlefield or their ability to predict the future. But she wasn’t unarmoured and it made her faster, it made her tougher and it gave her the ability to match leap for leap and Lord Ferro was having quite a difficult time adjusting to this new reality, letting out a scream of pain and rage as his own saber bit into his side.

“First blood.” The Mandalorian warrior snarled, her teeth bared. “You know, these toys aren’t so hard to use after all!”

She was trying to goad him, he knew that, he could sense it. One burst of Force Lightning would end this - even telekinesis would give him an edge. But the Mandalorian hadn’t drawn her plethora of other weapons, sticking to the unspoken code that judged the strongest duellist. A code that had decided the fate of planets across centuries. And… he was willing to be goaded.

The Echani’s perfect features broke into an animal snarl and his eyes blazed with yellow light as he rushed towards her, the black hole of the Darkblade a blur of blows, several of which she failed to parry and two of which made it through weak spots in her armour to wound and slow her. No normal human could match a Force Users endurance.

But Shia wasn’t normal, she was Mando’ade, she pushed the pain in to the back of her mind, triggering the bacta and combat drug injectors to keep her at peak performance. She had to win in the next two minutes, or this fight would turn. She was no master of the lightsaber and the advantage of surprise was wearing off.

But she could win, she knew it. The difference between the weightless energy blade and her slow, clumsy beskad was without measure. She could have beaten this fool without going blade to blade, she knew that now. But just this once, she had to fight this by the rules.

She came in low, then leapt up into the Falling Leaf and brought the blade down in a double handed overhead strike. Ferro’s response was instinctive, her timing had been off and he brought up his blade to sever her left forearm and end the fight - and her life - once and forearm.

Shia grunted as the Darkblade bit into her armour, halting the killing blow. She snarled, gritting her teeth against what was to come. Lord Ferro had a harried but satisfied look on his face, there was no way his opponent could overcome him now and when she relented he’d have the perfect advantage to take her head, and she must know it.

She did, but she was also willing to pay a lot more than he was, it seemed. She let out a roar of defiance worthy of the Gods of old and drove her blade down against the pressure of the Darksaber against her beskar’gam, driving the black blade clean through her own left arm and freeing the red-bladed saber still held in her right hand to sweep down with merciless force, decapitating the Sith Lord.

The world went silent for a single moment, then a blast of purple-black fire blew the blossoms and leaves off every tree on the hilltop, leaving it barren and bare.

The Darksaber, it’s blade somehow still active, stood point down in the center of the hill where Lord Ferro had died.

Shia crawled to her knees, then staggered to her feet, trying hard to ignore the fact that her left arm ended in a perfectly cauterised stump. Her breath came in gasps, the world swam, but all she had eyes for was the Darksaber. Many Mando’ade had seen the art, she could almost hear the war chant echoing in her ears - perhaps she could - perhaps she was just going into shock - as she staggered across the distance between her and the blade, drawing it effortlessly from the ground and holding it above her head in a neo-Crusader salute, before powering off the blade and hanging it at her side.

The bottom of the hill and her companions looked a long way away. They’d probably come to her if she passed out now.

 

[Shia Kryze]

Location: 'Jedi' Temple, Deep Forests somewhere 'near' Aldera City, Alderaan

Ready. Neutral guard.

Jung into Shun, trigger thrusters, then down into Falling Leaf.

The white edged blackness of the Darksaber sang with it’s high pitched whistle as Shia went through the kata, landing on one knee with the blade ‘sheathed’ at her side. She stood and bowed once to Alex, then grinned broadly and flexed the still-alien silver of her replacement forearm and hand as she spoke to her mentor.

“So, do I pass?”

Alex rose from her kneeling position and smiled warmly - for once, actually, for about a good half hour now - the darkness in her head was forgotten and something had gone right with the universe. The kid had done good, better than good. Give her enough time and she might well be superb with that thing. If she survived.

“You pass.” She said, her voice utterly still and cold, even as she was smiling. “Shall we go for a drink?”

“Vodka?” Shia replied, practically beaming from ear to ear, she’d gotten used to the strange womans drinking habits by now, and the fact that despite looking no older than Shia, she had to be twice her age.

“No, I thought maybe we’d have some tea.”

That got a pause, a long glance from Shia, then a quiet nod. Tomorrow the world would change back, but today the balance was on the right side, enjoy it while you have it.

Standing on the sidelines, Katara shook her head in something between amazement and despair. Shia had been impossible to live with before, she’d be doubly impossible to live with now. Truthfully, the older woman was worried what this meant for Kryze and for Shia, would anyone believe that she was truly loyal to Ra when she’d gone looking for the Darksaber and trained with a Jedi? Chit, was Shia truly loyal to Ra? Yes, she was. If Ra ordered her to kill Alex, she’d fall on her own blade before she followed through as the only exit available to her. But the Darksaber was a powerful symbol, and by claiming it for her own she was making a powerful statement of intent. What if Ra simply challenged her for it? Could she beat the Undying? Well, they’d find out...

… but for today, there were definitely good guys, and the good guys had definitely won this round.

(Alex Feanorhttp://starwarsrp.net/topic/88609-alexandra-feanor-rebooted-wip/ used with writer permission)