ED : Chapter 33: Contact With the Enemy I

I watched as the perfect depictions of six poorly-armed mercenaries vanished. Only to be replaced by an entirely different and far more dangerous group of adversaries. First, and at the front of the group stood three IG-100 MagnaGuard/Legends .

Each one emblazoned with red and black markings similar to Dathomiri Nightbrother tattoos around their eye-like photoreceptors, on their respective chest plates, and upon their metallic forearm sheaths.

All three droids carried what I knew to be lightsaber resistant, meter long electro-staves now powering up at each end with crackling coronas of red electricity, but I'd watched more than my fair share of both Clone Wars cartoons in another life.

Meaning I recognized the bulging droid forearms for the concealed blaster housings they were.

Fortunately, the IG-100s were incapable of switching seamlessly between their staves and forearm blasters, because the pop-up mountings momentarily changed the configuration of their hands as well. Causing them to drop anything they were carrying as their blaster-mountings revealed themselves and became active.

The menacing automatons stood more than two meters high and carried themselves with a fluid grace which was ever so visually jarring to perceive in a machine.

Watching the droids, I recognized them for the Jedi-killers they were designed to be.

Feeling in that moment all my extraneous fears and worries flow from me like water off a Melody's back. It was always like this for me on missions. I'd be preoccupied with all the potential ramifications and possible hazards.

Right up until the moment preceding the clash, when everything became clearer than clear, and all the extraneous nonsense took a backseat to instinct, training, and the thrill of keeping myself balanced within the current of the Force as I acted and reacted.

It's song had become the primal rise-or-die drumbeat I recalled with such vividness from Mimban, Mawan, Mestare, and a dozen other places.

If the three droids had been alone, I would have already plunged into the fray.

Chillingly, however, the threesome of droids were no more than muscle for the trio of true threats. Standing behind the wall of synthetic protectors were two men who looked to be in their early thirties only a hair shorter than the droids.

Each with meticulously groomed black hair as short as it was straight, and mustaches grown to link up with carefully trimmed goatees.

Tall and possessing a well-developed yet lean musculature much like my own physique, both pale men were identical in every respect except for the tattoos on their respective faces.

It was the red lightning bolt above the left eye, plus the three scarlet curves meant to look like claw marks down the man's left cheek which allowed me to identify the man on the right as Vinoc. Making the other man with identical yet reversed tattoos his twin brother Karoc.

They'd both been Dark Acolytes of Darth Tyrannus in the original timeline, but now they obviously served Bulq.

Neither man was the deadliest Dark Side adept the Separatists could muster, but backed up by three Magna-Guards and with their leader watchfully waiting for Yaddle and I to round the corner? The twin Dark Siders would be more than a handful. Especially in the confines of the tunnels.

Paler even than the twins, that leader was a dangerously beautiful woman who was herself nearly six feet tall.

Surprisingly, rather than going bald to show off the tattooed names of the Rattatakan warlords she'd slain to avenge the death of her first Master, Asajj Ventress/Legends was wearing her straight silver hair in a pageboy-cut that swept low on the right.

A pair of narrow scarlet lines ran back from the outer edge of her left eye to disappear into her hair, but it was the impression of the woman rather than any visual depiction of her dark utilitarian garb or the body beneath the clothing which stayed with me even more than the cast of those deep-set gray-blue eyes.

Despite the shrill keening of the Force's discordance in her presence, I could sense a considerably more focused and intense power than I might have been given reason to expect in Asajj at this point in time.

Studying the image Spider-R2 continued to send me, I thought she looked a little older and a bit more weathered than Anakin's foil in the cartoons had seemed.

What I saw made me wonder how long Ky Narec had been gone in this timeline, and how long it had taken Sidious to maneuver Bulq into position to prey on this heartbroken young woman despoiled by the rage I could sense pulsing in her from here.

Taking another look at those shadowed silver eyes, as much as I wanted to help her, there was a part of me I didn't like that truly wanted nothing more than to match myself against her.

The steady song of the savage jungle continued to drum in my head and heart, but I forced myself to focus on my breathing, feel, then let go of emotions, desires, and expectations.

I wasn't a child anymore, and neither Master Yaddle or any of the people presently being endangered by these three had any use for some callow youth ruled by his passions.

My perception of the Force's song shifted as I calmed and centered myself. It still drummed with the urgent intensity of continual danger.

Still went on keening due to the presence of the two lesser and one greater shadow in it's locality, but there was a powerfully sustained series of softer and more even chords that were more peaceful and reflective nature.

It didn't change the situation, but then again it changed everything, for me. This wasn't a contest whose results existed for my personal validation.

There were innumerable innocent lives in danger, and these people were the cause of all that. Hell, the Force had literally brought me here to make things turn out differently!

Yaddle took one glance at the hologram of the opposition I caused my wrist-unit to display, but didn't seem in the least surprised by anything she saw there. Closing her large eyes for the length of a couple heartbeats, she spoke to me in a low voice while waving one short arm in a slow circular motion.

"Floors, ceiling, and walls, their stone the mites have chewed. Forced them into hibernation here, I have. The infestation's source, prevent us from reaching it, they mean to. A larger chamber, behind them, there is. Force them back, we must. Engage them there, we will."

I took in the Jedi Master's impressions, then grinned a grin even my unflappable Master had once called dangerous. Opening the pouch at my belt to reveal a pair of Ion grenade/Legends , plus a pair of sonic grenades.

For the last two years, I'd begun carrying eight to ten ion grenades around in my pack whenever I could manage it, and a pair actually on me so long as circumstances permitted.

I knew the Sith and Separatists both made constant use of all manner of droids, and the sonic grenades made for a non-lethal means of incapacitating groups of adversaries.

I didn't expect them to defeat trios of Magna-Guards and Dark Siders, but force them to back up several paces due to Yaddle protecting the grenades prior to detonation with her telekinesis? Well, Obi-Wan Kenobi had managed that much against Maul and his brother with one sonic grenade, so I liked our odds.

It was the best I could do until success in the Trials gave me access to Master Arca Jeth's holocron, anyways.

Intuiting my meaning instantly, Yaddle smiled rather toothily herself, then nodded in satisfaction and caused the four grenades to float up and out of my pouch.

Sending them slowly down the hallway until they were almost visible around the corner. Only then did I see the red warning lights appear as their activator studs were all simultaneously depressed.

The four metallic orbs hung there blinking for long seconds meant to deny our enemies a meaningful opportunity to react, then they shot around the corner so fast the grenades seemed to blur. I was by this time already focusing on my Tutaminis while we dashed after the grenades preceding us.

It wasn't remotely my strongest Force-technique, but much of my practice with it had been against debilitating sonic frequencies for battlefield conditions I'd long anticipated experiencing.

The grenades went off more than twenty meters ahead of us, but I felt the detonations in the confined space like thousands of dentist drills biting into the surface of my bones.

With Tutaminis it was only a dizzying and distracting pain that caused me to stumble and momentarily slow my advance.

Meaning I sensed more than saw the four figures in dark grays and black as they lurched and stumbled away in the face of the explosions.

With the pain nearly gone by the time I reached the spot where our adversaries had previously stood, I did see the two droids lying crumpled in our path.

Sensing not the slightest bit of power flowing within the inert masses, I vaulted them without pausing. The sound of Yaddle landing beside me the prod which spurred me onward after the still retreating figures.

The Force's warning was a shriller, higher, and more piercing note than any I'd yet heard. It had my lightsaber in my hand as I threw myself into a roll forward and to the right the moment I left the tunnel behind.

I could feel the heat which singed hairs from the crown of my head much more tangibly than the scarlet flash from above me that I'd caught out of the corner of one eye before tucking and rolling. My lightsaber hissed to life as I rolled to my feet. Reflexes guided by the Force maneuvering the weapon into a reversed high guard position.

Catching the blades descending with enough power behind them to push my own 'saber close enough to my head I could feel the heat of all three, before I pushed off and redirected the blade-lock with a corkscrewing rotation of my body.

A movement which brought me round to face the slender silver haired assassin who'd just descended on me from her perch above the tunnel mouth. I stepped into the next parry and forced her back a step.

Feigning a Force Push with my open right hand to force her evasion, before my blade licked out far to the right and vertical to the ground. Stopping Karoc's single scarlet blade cold as I channeled the Force through my body.

Enhancing my strength, speed, and stamina with my Matukai training even as I back-flipped to evade his follow-up low-J cut at my legs. Ventress was on me as I landed, with Karoc only a tick late in joining her to press me two on one.

...

Hey guys can you throw some power stones to Elevate the ranking.

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