Private Stolen Light

[Isla Reingard]

Rain lashed against the stone balcony of her Naboo home. Tonight, it felt like a countdown. Isla sat upright, her sheets tangled around her legs like the memories of Ukatis. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the same blonde hair and heard the same annoying voice.

Abishai was a stain on her vision that refused to wash out. Months had passed since the Life Day Festival, yet the weight of the missing Kyber crystal felt like a physical hole in her chest. She often wondered if the Force would have stayed quiet if she had simply let him run. Instead, she had pursued him with a stubbornness that surprised even her.

Months Ago.

The cold air of Ukatis bit at her skin as she tracked the familiar scent of street rat and desperation through the crowd. He was a beacon of chaotic energy, smelling of old grease. Finding him near the outskirts of the city felt like destiny rather than luck. He was heading for the hangars, likely intending to vanish into the stars with her property tucked in his pocket.

"Abishai!"

The name tore from her throat, fueled by frustration. Seeing the back of his head sparked a fire in her mind. Without hesitation, Isla reached into the Force and shoved. She didn't use a gentle nudge, she struck with the blunt force of someone tired of being a victim.

"Give it back!"

Abishai Jade​

 

[Abishai Jade]

Freedom was within his grasp, a miracle for sure. But one that was short lived and ripped away in a moment. He had felt her presence, looming on the edges of his escape, but had become arrogant...cocky...self-assured. The concussive blast of Force energy that alerted him to her immediacy ripped his pride from him as he flew through the air.

The collision with the wall broke something. More than just his pride. He felt something in his arm crack. The pain did not hit immediately, but when he landed on the ground he favoured the arm that had not been mercilessly thrust into the duracrete wall.

"Cark it!" He spat, before turning towards Isla in a moment of pure instinct. His sore arm reached forward, towards her, the spike in pain fueling his anger. And one word echoed in his mind.

Choke.

He gripped her neck through the Force, without even a moments hesitation. His face contorted in agony and rage. Then he stood, lifting her with him.

It didn't last long. His arm dropped to his side, and with it, Isla dropped to the ground.

Guilt.

"You took it from me," he snarled, before turning and limping as quickly as he could towards the shuttle ticket booth. His arm throbbed, and he pulled it close with his other hand becoming its sling.

Isla Reingard
​

 

[Isla Reingard]

The satisfaction of seeing him hit the wall was short-lived. He deserved the impact for the theft and the chase, yet a phantom ache pulsed through Isla's own arm the moment he crumpled. She stared at her limb in confusion, wondering if the Force was rebounding or if her empathy had finally backfired into physical manifestation. That brief moment of self-reflection vanished when Abishai scrambled up, his face twisted into something feral.

Pressure clamped around her throat with the weight of an iron vice. The air in her lungs became a luxury she no longer possessed. Her fingers clawed uselessly at the collar of her tunic, feet dangling inches above the frozen ground as she swung in his invisible grip. "Abi...shai," she wheezed, a single tear cutting through the grime on her cheek. Seeing the raw agony in his expression hurt more than the lack of oxygen.

Gravity returned abruptly as he slumped, his own pain breaking his concentration. Isla hit the dirt hard, chest heaving as she dragged in the cold air. The silence that followed was heavy with a sudden, suffocating wave of guilt. It radiated off him, hitting her senses harder than the physical assault. He truly believed she was the thief.

Fury replaced the shame in an instant. Watching him limp toward the shuttle tickets with her crystal still in his possession snapped the last of her patience. She wouldn't let him play the victim while he walked away with her soul.

"Stoooooop!"

Isla let the force erupt, channeling every bit of her frustration into a concussive wave from her voice. The Force rippled through the air, aimed directly at his retreating back. She didn't care about the ethics of the Jedi or the balance of the galaxy anymore. She just wanted him to pay.

Abishai Jade​

 

[Abishai Jade]

The force of her scream did not just reach him. It swallowed him whole. Air bent around him. Sound seemed to fractured. Abishai felt his feet leave the ground before his mind could catch up, his body thrown like scrap into the unforgiving duracrete. The impact drove what little breath he had left from his lungs in a ragged gasp, his already injured arm screaming in protest as he crumpled against the wall and slid down it.

But that wasn’t what held him there. His hand went to his throat. Fingers pressed against skin that wasn’t bruised, yet burned all the same. A phantom pressure lingered, as if invisible hands still lingered there. His breath hitched in the confusion. For a fleeting second, the world narrowed to that sensation...her emotion.

The realization flickered and died as chaos filled the space around him.

A woman cried out somewhere to his left. A mother, he saw her only in periphery, had been thrown off her feet, her back striking the wall with a sickening thud as she twisted to shield the small child in her arms. The kid wailed, cutting through the settling dust and ringing silence like a blade. Others stumbled, scattered, caught in the wake of Isla’s outburst like leaves in a storm that had no right to touch them.

His jaw tightened. “Look what you...” The words choked off, swallowed by something hotter than pain. Anger surged up, wild and unrefined, burning through the confusion, through the ache in his arm, through the echo still coiled around his throat. His vision fixed on her, narrowing until the rest of the world blurred into insignificance.

“You don’t get to...” he started, voice rough, before it snapped into something harder. “You don’t get to do that!”

His good hand clenched into a fist. And then he moved towards her.

There was no grace in it, no practiced form. Just momentum and fury. He pushed off the wall with a stagger that turned into a charge, boots scraping against the ground as he closed the distance between them. Pain lanced up his arm with every step, but he ignored it, letting it feed the fire instead of slow him.

His fist swung for her. An ugly, unpracticed attempt.

Somewhere in the distance, rising over the chaos, a new sound began to cut through the air. Sirens. Just a faint echo at first, then growing louder as they closed in.

Isla Reingard
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[Isla Reingard]

Heavy breathing rattled through Isla's chest as she watched Abishai hit the wall again. A flicker of dark satisfaction crossed her face, a silent cheer for the power she had finally exerted. That triumph died the moment a child's wail pierced the area. Her gaze snapped to the side, landing on a mother shielding her toddler against the wall. Dust settled over the innocent bystanders she had leveled in her blind fury. The realization of her own destruction turned her stomach, leaving her paralyzed by a sudden, crushing weight of shame.

Abishai didn't give her time to apologize. He lunged forward, a blur of blonde hair and unrefined rage. His fist connected squarely with her nose before she could even raise a hand to defend herself. The world tilted as Isla crumpled into the slush, a sharp cry escaping her lips. Warm blood splattered onto the white snow. She scrambled backward, her vision swimming as the metallic tang of copper filled her mouth.

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder and more frequent as the local authorities closed in on the disturbance. The sound acted like a bucket of ice water, snapping Isla out of her shock. She wiped a sleeve across her face, smearing the crimson trail as she forced herself to stand. Her legs felt like lead, but the sight of the thief still standing there, unrepentant, kept her upright.

Defiance flared in her amber eyes as she reached for the silver hilt at her hip. Her fingers curled around the staff. This wasn't about the crowd or the chaos anymore; it was about the light he was trying to extinguish. She pulled the weapon free but did not ignite it, her stance widening to block his path away.

"Quit while you're ahead," she warned, her voice now nasally. "The crystal is not for you."

Abishai Jade​

 

[Abishai Jade]

He stumbled back, out of the immediate range of the saber's blade, though it would not protect him for long. But then he felt it, that sickening darkness washing over him, but he knew it was not him. He could feel her anger. And she acted upon it.

His lips curled into a mocking snare. "Princess makes such a good Jedi. Sure your Master would be really proud of you if they saw you like this," he said, spitting blood from the pool that was forming his mouth. Why his nose was bleeding, he did not know, but he could feel the blood running down the back of his throat.

This blood-spittle concoction landed at her feet. Abishai did not dare look down.

"We got two crystals that day you...thieving fungus," he said, looking her up and down while backing away towards the control gate.

He knew he could not actually get away on a ship here now. He had to disappear into the crowd, make his way to a cantina, or some place he could buy passage off world. If anything, he could sneak onto an automated cargo vessel on the outskirts. It would be an unpleasant trip, but it would get him off this hellish rock, and away from Princess Isla...the Malignance.

His hand reached into the satchel where the crystal lay, and her played with it for just a heartbeat, before moving his hand to a cool, metal orb.

The thermal detonator that came forth did not work, but all the lights did. His thumb pushed forward on the controls as he held it out for her to see. And then he threw it, behind her...and into the crowd of spectators watching the performance.

Isla Reingard
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[Isla Reingard]

"The crystals are not for people like you!" Isla shouted, her voice shaking. "They are for Jedi."

Silence stretched between them as they stood locked in a tense stare-down. Blood continued to drip from her nose, freezing before it could even hit the ground. She waited for him to lunge or run, but the street rat reached into his satchel instead. Her heart nearly hammered out of her chest when he produced a thermal detonator, the arming lights blinking.

He wouldn't. The thought barely formed before he tossed the sphere over her head, straight toward the huddle of terrified spectators. A dark, jagged impulse flickered in her mind, tempting her to ignore the bomb and strike him down for the move. She hated the person she was becoming in his presence. Tracking him had turned into an obsession that was rotting her better judgment.

Isla snapped out of the trance and spun around, thrusting her hand out to catch the device in a telekinetic grip. She flung it skyward, bracing for the concussive heat of an explosion. Instead of a fireball, the orb merely sailed through the air and fell back into the slush with a pathetic thud. The lights continued to pulse, but nothing happened.

Confusion replaced her panic as she stared at the dud resting in the snow. "What the..."

The realization that she had been played hit her like another punch to the face. She turned back toward the gate, her teeth gritted so hard her jaw ached. He had used her empathy against her, banking on the fact that a Jedi would always choose a crowd of strangers over a personal vendetta.

Abishai Jade​

 

[Abishai Jade]

Not for people like you.

Her words stung. He wasn't sure why he cared for her opinion on him. But it mattered, almost as if it were immediately a self-judgment. She meant it, he felt it, and it wormed his way into very being.

Like you.

When he was distracted, Abishai turned and ran into the crowd. A few onlookers, noble in their intentions, grabbed him by the shoulders and attempted to hold him in place. The sirens were approaching. Almost here.

"You aren't going anywhere, kid," snarled a burly man that smelt of yeast. Abishai gave him a once over, picking him as a baker from a local store that had come out to see what all the ruckus was.

Abishai looked at him, eyes conveying the fear, and personal insult engendered by Isla's pursuit and insults. Combining that with the pain lancing up his favoured arm, he looked a miserable sight. "Please...sir...she was trying to hurt me...I am afraid she is going to kill me...you saw what she did...please...the authorities cannot protect me from a Dark Jedi...I have to run away from here..."

The baker looked up at Isla in the moment she understood Abishai's earlier deception. It was enough to convince him. His grip on the young man's arm lessened. "Run...don't look back."

"Thank you, sir..." But his words would likely have not been heard, he was already gone. The crowd behind him rallied against Isla, pointing, jeering, and some hiding as the authorities swooped in to calm the scene.

Isla Reingard
​

 

[Isla Reingard]

A wall of muscle and cheap flour blocked her path the second she tried to give chase. The burly man sneered down at her, his posture immovable as he bought the thief time to escape. "Move!" Isla demanded, her patience entirely depleted. Before she could sidestep him, his heavy hand clamped down on her forearm with a vice-like grip. "Oh, you are just like him, lowlifes!" she snarled, the insult slipping out before she could check her temper.

The crowd shifted instantly, their protective instincts flaring for one of their own against an aggressive outsider. Angry murmurs rippled through the gathering onlookers as they closed ranks around her. Trapped and desperate, Isla pulled against the baker's hold, but his raw strength anchored her to the spot. Desperation overrode her training. She drove her knee upward into his groin, forcing a breathless groan from the man as his grip shattered.

Uproar exploded through the crowd as the baker collapsed into the slush. Using the sudden chaos to her advantage, Isla slipped through the shifting bodies, her eyes scanning the horizon for a flash of blonde hair. The local authorities finally appeared, blaster rifles raised and tracking the disturbance. "Freeze! Drop the weapon!" a voice boomed over a loudspeaker.

Instinct commanded her to fight. Turning on her heel, she unleashed a sweeping wave of Force energy that sent the front line of officers sprawling into the snow. She turned to bolt toward the hangars, but a trailing guard recovered too quickly. A bright blue ring of plasma caught her squarely in the back. The stun bolt locked her muscles instantly, sending her crashing face-first into the freezing mud as current surged through her spine. Through a haze of involuntary tears and muscle spasms, her eyes tracked the street rat fleeing.

Abishai Jade​