Dave Wong wrote:

Luke Skywalker, son of Darth Vader, lone Jedi Master,

Wait...you're saying that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's dad?

and head of the Jedi Academy was interrupted in the
middle of his meditation.

'Luke, we have an urgent situation.' It was a 
telepathic summons from Kyle Katarn, a self-taught
Jedi who was now temporarily serving as an instructor
for the Academy.  

Returning to the real world, Luke uncrossed his legs
and stood up.  He took a couple of steps towards the
entrance of the meditation chamber but suddenly
halted.  His eyes narrowed and he sent out his Force
senses to search the entire floor he was on.  

'That's odd, I could have sworn I felt the barest
flicker of the Dark Side,' he thought, probing harder
and thoroughly around the general area where he'd
sensed it.    

However, after nearly five minutes of concentrated
searching, Luke had found nothing.  It still troubled
him but he soon reasoned it to be the remaining
presence of Gantoris, one of his students who had
fallen to the Dark Side. 

Well, he'd look into it later; right now, the Force
impressions he was getting from Kyle took first
priority.  

The door swished closed behind him as Luke walked out
into the hallway.  

Y'know, I can't remember whether Star Wars has those Star Trek doors.

/**************/ 

Barely twenty feet from the meditation chamber, Allura
Takthan, senior disciple to Tavion, slowly let out a
sigh of relief as Skywalker's probing finally stopped.
 It had been close; she had barely escaped Skywalker's
scrutiny by the tiniest of margins.  Thanks to
Mistress Tavion's teaching, Allura had learned how to
dampen her Force aura, which had come in handy during
her infiltration of this Jedi Academy.

Thanks to Brakiss, an Imperial plant that had posed as
a potential student for Skywalker, the disciples of
Ragnos had valuable intel on the structure and layout
of the Academy.  It was this information Allura had
used in the course of her mission, which was to
download a copy of Skywalker's diary.

If someone had taken the luxury of asking her, Allura
would have said this mission was a waste of her time. 
She would've preferred to take out those new Jedi
students but Mistress Tavion had said that she was
more proficient at stealth techniques than her human
rival was.  Though she was still irritated, Allura was
forced to admit that Tavion had raised a valid point. 


Crimson, in the course of her training, had solely
focused on the combative aspect of the Dark Side. 
Aside from mastering the basic instruction, her rival
had limited control over manipulating her Force aura. 
Had she been chosen for this mission instead,
Crimson's blazing presence in the Force would've given
her presence away almost immediately.  

Therefore, it had fallen to Allura to do the job.  It
was of no consequence to Tavion that Allura had loudly
protested her given task; all that mattered was that
it had to be done.  Allura had nearly taken off
Crimson's head when the human had openly ridiculed
her; a lightsaber duel had broken out right there in
the Disciple of Ragnos's main base.  It would have
gone on for hours, the two females being about evenly
matched, except for their leader's interference. 
Although she usually enjoyed (and even encouraged at
some points) such hostile displays of murderous
rivalry, at the time she had decided that there was no
more time to be wasted.  With one powerful lightning

Delete "With"

assault later, both of her disciples had been
instantly subdued.  

She had no choice in the matter and finally accepted
that, barring her Mistress, she was the only one
suitable for the job.  

Which was why she was here right now.  

Suppression of her Force aura inevitably condemned her
mission to proceed at a very slow pace.  Disliking
every second of it, Allura had to sneak into the Jedi
Academy the old-fashioned way; no mind-tricks, no
Force enhanced speed or jumps, nothing that would
require use of the Force.  She had to rely on hiding,
crawling, and generally trying her best not to be seen
or heard.

One thing that made it a whole lot easier for her was
the fact that Skywalker was foolish enough not to post
sentries, or even not having more than the basic

or even have more

security system, one that hadn't been upgraded ever
since Brakiss's stay a few years ago.

She shook her head in scornful disbelief.  As far as
the Twi'lek was concerned, this was part of the reason
why the Jedi were so easily deceived by Emperor
Palpatine during the death of the Old Republic.  Their
teachings against guile, anger, hatred, everything of
the Dark Side was a very significant weak spot in
their training.

Well mostly guile.

Clearing her head and once again focusing on her job,
Allura slowly made her way to Skywalker's personal
chamber.  She had some data that needed to be copied. 
   

/**************/

She, whose name was once Akane Tendo and was now
simply known as Crimson, reached out with the Force
and, with some minor difficulty, managed to locate the
nearest of her prey.  There were two of them and were
relatively close; about a mile away to the south.  

The Force aura of one of them was leaking
uncontrollably, which usually meant little to no
training; the other seemed to have infinitesimal
potential.  

Presumably Ranma is the second guy.


It was so small that Crimson found herself

wondering why the fool even chose to train to be a
Jedi.  Was Skywalker that desperate to rebuild the
Jedi Order?      

And best of all, both of them were MEN.  Now Crimson
could take some enjoyment in this task.    

The young woman, still in her black cloak, was leading
two of her subordinates in a path that would lead them
onto an intercept point with the two men she'd just
found.  While she'd informed Mistress Tavion that she
was more than capable of eliminating a bare handful of
untrained Jedi-wannabes, Tavion had only told her that
it was more for her subordinates Narissa and Talna's
benefit than for hers.  Both of them were human also,
skilled and motivated, but their training was only
half complete and they needed more field experience.  
 

They were both taller than her, and Talna was older by
almost a decade.  But when they were first assigned to
her, Crimson had quickly established herself as the
Alpha Female through her superior mastery of the
Force.  

Ever since she'd first joined Tavion's group, Crimson
had made it well known that she completely loathed and
distrusted men, not tolerating them in the slightest. 
With an attitude like that, it wasn't long before she
was picking fights on a daily basis  with any male

Extra space there isn't there?

member who glanced at her, more often than not giving
them a savage beating.  She soon established a
reputation for herself as a geniune man-hater, who

genuine.

would go to any lengths to right the wrongs done to
her in the past by the opposite gender.  

By teaching them such lessons, she would make them
think twice before attempting to abuse any women they
might encounter in the future.  She would not let any
of her kind be subjected to the torture that she had
been.  That was why she'd accepted Tavion's offer to
join the Disciples of Ragnos; so she could grow much
more stronger and not have to fear about being abused

delete "about".

by any man ever again.  

Due to her stance, none of the male Disciples were
eager to sign up as her apprentice, having long
learned to give her a very wide berth.  She became a
figure to be feared, someone you would not want to
cross paths with, even accidentally.  Tavion allowed
her behavior because it helped instill order and
tighter control over the underlings.  Although Crimson
was of the opinion that the Disciples of Ragnos should
be a sisterhood, she managed, however barely, to
restrain herself from constantly trying to convince
Tavion to accept her idea.

As powerful as Crimson become, she still respected
Tavion as her Mistress and superior as she was a woman
after all.  

Thus the reason why Narissa and Talna had been
assigned to her.  There were others who'd been with
the Disciples of Ragnos longer and were more
experienced, but they were unfortunately men.  The
other women either were already assigned to their
masters/mistresses or had other duties to fulfill. 
Since Crimson had threatened to kill any man who dared
come close to her, the only way to rectify this was to
give her underlings of similar gender.   

Tavion, and only Tavion, was allowed to call her by
her forgotten name -- Akane.  Crimson snorted
inwardly; she couldn't dream of how she could have
ever been pathetic, weak willed, and easily dominated
when she was still Akane Tendo.  The only things she
and Akane had in common was the hatred of males,
though different in intensity and perspective.  

Akane had hated teenaged boys but tolerated men. 
Crimson hated any man, teenage to adult, of any
species with equal fervor.  To her, it was as if she
lived two separate, different lives; Akane then,
Crimson now, with no period of transition in between. 


All in all, having subordinates wasn't such a bad
arrangement.  In fact, it could be downright
pleasurable.  It took some time and effort, but
Narissa was beginning to see certain things the same
way Crimson did, which made for more than a few nights
of indulgence.    

Crimson allowed a faint lecherous grin to cross her
face at what happened some nights ago, but managed to
keep her mind on the mission.  

Hmm.  I find myself skeptical.  Being that consumed by
hatred doesn't leave much energy for other forms of
self-indulgence.

             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'