Jedi Order -=Year 243=-
Jedi Order Temple => Other Star Wars stuff => Lore and Legend - Star Wars => : *<JO>*Tabaet July 07, 2013, 02:58 AM
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This is a story that I wrote a few months ago, when I was still playing primarily Imp-side, as a background for Tabaet and her sister, Khelana. As I was Imp-side, it was meant to be mainly about Khelana and so is from her perspective, but I couldn't be bothered to rewrite it from Tabaet's perspective :P
The lightsabers flashed, green against blue, crackling loudly as the condensed plasma connected time and again. The combatants parted, lowering their blades into a defensive stance as they circled each other.
“Come on, Khel,” Tabaet said, a proud smile on her lips. “You’re doing well, but try to focus on my movements, rather than just my blades.”
Khelana’s eyes narrowed in concentration as she prepared to renew the assault on her twin sister.
The two cathar had arrived at the Jedi temple on Tython five years earlier, at the age of ten, and had displayed remarkable potential. Their natural agility, enhanced by the Force, meant that both sisters could wield lightsabers on par with all but the most skilled Jedi Battlemasters, although Tab was clearly superior.
Khelana raised her green saber to shoulder-level, tip aimed directly at Tab’s chest. The low-powered blades would not cause serious injuries when they struck their targets, so the sisters were fighting to the limit of their abilities. The weapon lashed in like lightning, but Tabaet easily knocked it aside. Fine: the attack had merely been designed to help Khel close the gap and put her sister on the defensive. She had to be cunning to defeat the more skilled swordswoman. She swung three times – at her sister’s neck and waist, then directly at her weapon, knocking it wide. Drawing on the momentum of the last strike, she spun, using the Force to summon a second lightsaber from her left hip into the same hand while it was hidden from Tabaet’s view. As Khelana finished the spin, she swung with both weapons simultaneously, one high, the other low. Recognising the ruse, Tabaet activated the second blade of her staff, cleanly intercepting both weapons.
Tabaet grinned, partly in triumph, partly from pride in her sister’s growing skills. “Not bad.”
Khelana growled deep in her throat before leaping high into the air to land several metres away from her opponent, weapons raised. If cunning would not work, she had to try something else. Charging forward as if she intended to engage her sister directly, she stopped just out of weapon reach and released a burst of Force energy straight ahead.
Caught off-guard, Tabaet grunted from the impact and tumbled backwards. She recovered quickly, and rolled to her feet before her momentum ran out, golden eyes glaring at Khelana. “We said no Force attacks!”
“I think we’ve pretty well established that I can’t win with weapons alone,” Khel replied, quashing the desire to press the assault while her sister was distracted.
“This isn’t about winning,” Tab said with some confusion. “We’re trying to improve your saber technique.”
Khelana’s hands tightened around her weapons. “It’s always about winning. My technique has never been the problem: against almost anyone else I can win easily. But you’ve always been better with lightsabers.”
“And you have a stronger connection to the Force, I know. But don’t you want to beat me fairly?”
Khelana felt her control slipping. From the moment she had arrived at the temple, the Jedi had tried to suppress her intensely emotional nature, but she had resisted their teachings: she would never accept the dangers that came with fuelling her powers with emotion. Not when it made her feel so strong. Why could the Jedi not understand the power they could wield if they drew on their emotions rather than locking them away? Now anger was beginning to ignite the Force within her, turning it to liquid fire that strengthened her muscles and improved her reflexes. She slowly raised her right-hand weapon to point the green blade at the centre of Tab’s chest. “I want to beat you, but I don’t care how.”
Tabaet sighed in disappointment as she straightened, the twin blue blades of her staff held level in front of her. “Fine then. We go full-out and finish this.” With that, she shimmered out of sight.
Khelana raised her weapons into a defensive stance, desperately scanning for some sign of her invisible sister’s passage. An instant later, Khel’s left-hand saber was knocked from her grasp. Before she could call it back, Tab was in front of her, striking at the other weapon. Khel managed to hold onto that one, but her defence had been shattered. Tab stepped past, swung low at the back of Khel’s left leg, throwing her off-balance. Without pausing, Tabaet straightened, spun and struck Khel’s midriff, causing her to double over. The final strike was a solid blow to the middle of her back, knocking her flat on her stomach.
Khel deactivated her weapon to indicate submission. She growled in frustration and smacked her fist into the floor. Tabaet’s outstretched hand came into view to the side, offering to help her up, but Khel ignored it and pushed herself to her feet. Summoning her second weapon with the Force, she hooked both hilts to her belt and strode from the practice hall without looking back. One day she would defeat her sister. She would win. By whatever means necessary.
As she entered the corridor, she saw movement to the right. Oren, a young human padawan a couple of years her senior. She liked him – he had always been good to her and his wisdom often helped her when the Jedi Code could not – but now she was in no mood to talk.
She turned away from him, but he had already spotted her. “Khel!” he called.
“Go away, Oren.”
She continued walking, but he would not heed her request and soon caught up to her. He placed a hand on her shoulder, forcing her to stop and face him. Upon seeing the look of pain and frustration in her eyes, he hesitated, suddenly seeming unsure of himself.
“Whoa, are you alright? Do you need to talk?”
“No,” Khelana said, a powerful feline growl undercutting the word. “I don’t need to talk. I need to get better!”
Oren frowned in confusion. “Better? What-” He glanced back at the door to the training hall and realisation dawned. “You’ve been fighting your sister again, haven’t you? Why do you keep doing this to yourself? You’re already a brilliant fighter. You’re better than me, certainly. Better than some of the masters, even.” And then, he spoke that crucial sentence. The sentence that would change Khelana’s destiny for ever. “But you’re never going to be better than Tabaet.”
Something within her shattered. Her heart? Her soul? To hear those words spoken aloud... She watched, detached, as Oren flew sideways into the wall. The hard stone cracked under the impact. He hung there, pinned to the wall as the Force continued to push in, slowly crushing him.
She was vaguely aware of someone shouting, “Khelana! No!” before a powerful burst of Force energy sent her tumbling down the corridor. When she stopped rolling and raised her head from her prone position, Tabaet was kneeling beside Oren’s fallen body. Tears fell from Tab’s eyes as she stared at her sister. “Why?” she whispered, barely loud enough for Khel to hear. “Why would you do this?” And then, even more softly, “Why couldn’t I see it?”
Khelana slowly pushed herself to her feet, gaze fixed on Tabaet. So many emotions were tearing through her: anger; hatred; sorrow; but also elation at the power they brought with them. She knew that at that moment she could easily best Tabaet. Her lips peeled back in an animalistic snarl.
Tabaet wiped the tears from her eyes as she watched her sister’s movements. With a sigh, she slowly pulled a com unit from her belt and thumbed the activation switch. After a moment, she spoke into the device. “Master Satele, you... were right. I’m sorry.” Khelana could not hear the reply, but Tabaet nodded. “Yes. She... killed Oren.” She was clearly fighting to maintain control of her voice.
Blind to anything but her desire to fight and defeat her sister, Khelana reached for the lightsaber hilt at her left hip. Her hand froze just millimetres from the weapon, but not by choice: her right arm felt as if it had been encased in duracrete. Her weapons floated away from her belt and drifted out of sight behind her. Suddenly, her brain seemed to turn to mist. It was impossible to think straight. She could hardly even remain awake. The world fell away as she allowed herself to sink into unconsciousness.
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“Padawan Khelana, you have been charged with using the Force to slay one of your fellow students. Do you deny the accusation?”
Khelana raised her head towards the speaker – Satele Shan, Grand Master of the Jedi Order – and released a feral snarl. Khel was bound by the Force, her arms stretched out to the sides as she knelt before three members of the Jedi Council.
Satele nodded and turned her head to the left. “Padawan Tabaet, for years, you have been your sister’s most ardent supporter. Several times you have made a compelling case for why she should continue her training. You have a powerful connection to her, not just by blood, but also through the Force. Will you speak for her in this instance?”
Khelana turned her head – the only part of her body that was not paralysed – to follow the master’s gaze. Tab met Khel’s eyes for a moment before looking away. “I... can’t,” she whispered. “Not this time.”
Satele hesitated briefly before continuing. “Very well. Then I am left with only one course of action.” Khel returned her attention to her judge. Had she been in her right mind, she would have understood the implications of her current situation. But the flood of emotions tearing through her body had suppressed all sense of reason. She was little more than an animal at that time, and the words barely registered other than as fuel for her rage. “You are to be stripped of the Force and banished from the Order.”
Tabaet gasped. “Stripped of the Force?”
“She made the decision to use the Force as a weapon, to kill her own friend, and she shows no remorse. If allowed to keep the Force, there’s no telling what sort of destruction she could cause.”
Khelana struggled against her bonds as some measure of reason began to return to her. “Release me!” she roared. “I’ll show you destruction!” Satele approached and reached a hand towards Khelana’s forehead. The cathar tried to yank back, but was prevented by her invisible bonds. “Don’t touch me!” Golden light appeared around Satele’s hand as it connected with Khelana’s brow. An instant later, the glow faded and Satele withdrew. Khelana continued to struggle for a few moments, completely unaware of the change. Then realisation dawned and her eyes widened. “What... have you done to me?” The bindings around her body disappeared and she slumped forward, catching herself on her elbows. “What have you done?” she sobbed.
“Send her home, please,” Satele said gently. “She will need the support of her family.”
Khelana felt strong hands under her arms and did not resist when they helped her stand and led her away from the Council Chamber. She did not look at the guards that flanked her, nor did she notice the path they took to the shuttle platform. Her mind was focused inwards, trying to locate some remnant of the power that had become such an essential part of her being. There was... nothing. Though she could still sense the flow of the Force around her, she could not touch or influence it in any way.
The guards stopped walking and Khel suddenly realised she was standing at the base of a shuttle’s boarding ramp.
“Khelana.”
Khel turned towards the voice. Until then she had been unaware that her sister had followed her. Sister? No! A true sister would not have turned away from her like that. Would not have let this happen. Tabaet was not Khelana’s sister: she was a Jedi. And how Khel hated her for it. Tab reached a hand towards Khel’s cheek, but Khel was no longer bound and pulled away from the touch. Tabaet’s eyes widened in pain and sorrow.
“Don’t touch me,” Khel hissed. “This is your fault. You betrayed me.”
Tabaet shook her head. “No. You betrayed yourself. Khel... turn away from this path. It will destroy you. Go home. Vary was going to join the army when he comes of age,” she said, referring to their brother Varykel, who was not Force sensitive and so had not come to the Jedi. “Join him. Please. I... don’t want to lose you.”
Khelana sneered. “You already have.” With that, she turned away from the Jedi who had been her sister and strode up the ramp into the shuttle. Her time as a Jedi was over, but her life was just beginning. She would find a way to recover what had been taken. She would grow more powerful than any Jedi. And then, she would have her revenge.
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That was a great read, a really nice story ;)