This chapter contains, spoilers: Bone breaking, torture, cutting, stabbing, bleeding

Chapter 4: Fear>Anger>Hate>Suffering

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“Eight… nine… uh, eleven…. twelve. Yes, twelve- oh, wait, thirteen. Fourteen. Fourteen droids to the west.” Jed whispered, lifting her goggles momentarily to confirm.

“Fifteen east.” Cabe grimly replied. “Could you please remind me why you thought this was a good idea, and how you managed to talk me into this?”

Jed huffed as she and Cabe ducked back into the relative safety of their cover, the upturned thruster of some mid-sized cruiser that had been repurposed as a support column for the scrap temple’s foyer. “Relax, it’s going to be alright. We’ve made it this far, we just have to wait for one of these patrols to pass and we’ll-“

“We’ll what?!” Cabe said, his synthesized voice only a notch above mute but his face clearly shouting. “Get to the main door and wait another hour until that patrol clears up, then go inside and wait another hour until THAT patrol clears up, rinse and repeat until we finally meet this stupid Jedi and he kills us both on the spot? Need I remind you we that time is a bit of a factor here?”

“Do you have a better plan?!” Jed asked, doing her best to search for an opening in the patrols while having no more than 1 square inch of herself poking out of cover.

“Yes. Sneak back out, go back to town, give Pach the lightsaber you already have, and live happily ever after on our little trash heap paradise.” He said.

Jed didn’t dignify that with a response. They’d already managed to sneak past the Rodian salvagers around the temple, through a gap in the temple’s outer walls, through the droid infested main courtyard and the plaza; they’d covered half the distance through the temple. It would be just as hard sneaking out as it would be to sneak the rest of the way in, and they’d already spent 5 days getting here so if they didn’t reach the Jedi’s quarters then it had all been a waste. That’s how Jed, someone who had literally never heard the term “sunk cost fallacy”, saw the situation. They were finishing this quest, one way or another.

Jed pressed her back against the engine turned load bearing column, and leaned out to double check the composition of the western patrol. Seconds later, ‘or another’ became the much more probable way her self proclaimed quest would go. The weathered metal panel she put her weight on sheered through the screw shaped lumps of rust that had been holding it in place, the sudden give sending Jed stumbling out of cover as the metal clattered noisily beside her. Jed closed her eyes for one second and hoped that maybe, just maybe, the constant rumble of Raxus Prime and the generally shoddy construction of the temple would cause her fumble to go unnoticed. Blinking twice, Jed saw that it was not to be.

A collection of scrap metal and wires roughly approximating a droid twisted its upper body backwards to face the noise and unleashed a distorted shriek that echoed throughout the foyer. By the time Jed recognized that the jig was up and screamed “Run!”, she was already both surrounded and alone. Cabe had vanished into thin air, and over twenty very angry junk droids were very quickly closing in while waving around a wide variety of salvaged and slapped together instruments of murder, from dented but factory made vibro-axes to spears fashioned from rusted pipes and everything pointy, heavy, or both pointy and heavy in between. When the clanking and clattering of metal feet was all but deafening and all gaps between the droids had closed, Jed drew her own weapon, held it above her head like an emergency flare, and screamed “WAIT!” before activating it.

She wasn’t immediately trampled over and ripped to pieces by a screeching mob of robots, which was a good sign. Looking around, Jed saw herself surrounded by a sea of red eyed and rust encrusted faces, basked in a soft emerald light that held the undivided attention of every mechanical eye in the room. Every droid froze in place, like they’d all shut down simultaneously, and Jed nervously gulped at how close she’d come fulfilling Cabe’s predictions. The nearest spear tip was no more than a foot from her quivering throat, and the butt of a rifle turned cudgel had paused halfway through a certainly deadly overhead swing at the back of Jed’s skull.

Realizing that her display had more than likely bought herself a finite amount of time rather than an infinite supply, Jed cleared her throat and spoke in a loud, clear, and relatively confident voice that the droids were hopefully transmitting to the master. “Jedi master of the Raxus Prime temple, I am Jedha Kraz. You may have heard of my parents, Lania Hanna and Oiran Kraz, volunteer custodians of the Jedi temple on Jedha. During the Clone Wars, my parents and other volunteers looked after and maintained the temple while the Jedi went off to fight. During the war, my parents discovered a tome, detailing a mating ritual that guaranteed the offspring of two non-Force sensitives would be born Force attuned. After the rise of the Empire and the fall of the Jedi Order, my parents fled to Raxus Prime to rebuild the Jedi in secret, using the ritual and their own children, but due to the scarcity of the ritual’s required materials and their untimely demise, only I and my sister Illum were produced. But, the fire of rebellion still burns within me! I have come to you, master Jedi, to learn the ways of the Force, to assist you in rebuilding the Order, and to restore justice to a galaxy ruled by tyranny.” Jed said, then added “Oh, and also if you have a spare lightsaber could I-”

She would have asked to borrow a lightsaber, which would have technically been a lie since she had no intention of returning it, but she had no opportunity to tell that lie. The rifle swinging pile of spare parts had unfrozen, its club finishing its arc and smashing Jed over the head. She collapsed immediately, her lightsaber coincidentally carving the droid in front of her in half before rolling from Jed’s limp hand and deactivating itself.

The rifle swinging droid leaned down, unconcerned with its comrade’s bisection. The parts were already being salvaged and repurposed by the other droids, who showed as much respect for their ally’s remains as any organic would, namely none. Examining the unconscious young woman, the rifle wielding droid found that she was still weakly breathing, and was not bleeding externally. The reduced momentum of its resumed swing had rendered the attack non-lethal. Well, non-instantly-lethal. Any blow to the head powerful enough to render a human unconscious had almost certainly concussed them, and based on the irregularity of her breaths this hit had likely caused brain hemorrhaging. She would die or suffer debilitating brain damage if she didn’t get medical attention. The droid tilted its half smashed head, like it was weighing its options.



“An excellent point, master Kolar. And what say you, master Windu?”

Jed shook her head, nausea filling her throat with bile as the world swirled and tumbled around her. She breathed deeply and slowly, acrid unfiltered air filling her lungs as she struggled to force the contents of her stomach back down. Every beat of her heart sent a metaphorical knife through her brain, though she supposed she should just be grateful that a literal knife hadn’t already found its home there.

Opening her eyes, Jed discovered that she had been transported to a world of shapeless blobs and muted colors, slowly swirling and dissolving into one another. She tried to speak, and though she didn’t know what she was actually trying to say yet, she was pretty sure it wasn’t “hu Mhummmuugh.”

“Hmm? Ah, the spy awakens! Don’t worry masters, there’s no need for you to sully your hands. I will take care of her myself.” A distant, wobbly voice said. One of the many formless blobs began enlarging, four tendrils escaping the edges of the blob and swirling around as the central blob began dominating Jed’s field of view. The sound of skittering metal limbs accompanied the blob’s approach, and as her throbbing skull reminded her of the last time metal footsteps had closed in on her, Jed’s adrenal gland decided that now would be a good time for an energy boost.

Jed blinked thrice, the details closest to her coming into focus. She was naked, deprived of even her oxygen mask and goggles, which would explain the burn in her chest and the blear in her eyes. The young woman reflexively attempted to cover herself, but could only squirm her body uncomfortably against the moldy remains of a pilot’s seat that her wrists and ankles had been bound to. Her bindings were composed of thick bundles of firmly twisted cables, rubber and metal ropes that not only failed to budge in spite of Jed’s efforts, but chaffed like crazy against her recently smoothed skin and forced an end to her escape attempt. Looking up, Jed saw that the shapeless blob from before was, in fact, a creature.

She’d seen one of these before, a pod racing star in some partially corrupted holo-film she’d watched as a child, but never learned what they were called. Jed would call it ‘ugly’. It was about three tall from the tip of its three uniform toes to the top of its pointed, conical head. Most of its height was that pointed head and a rag clothed cylindrical torso, its legs little more than stubs dangling uselessly off its body. It had dull blue and gray skin of rough texture, possibly reptilian though if it did have scales they were invisible to Jed’s naked and watering eyes. It had a thin but long mouth, the edges of which were curled into an unnerving smile. Lastly, while Jed was no expert on identifying the secondary sexual characteristics of non-human life forms, the creature gave off a masculine aura.

“Who are you?” The creature asked, its deep voice further confirming the theory that it was a male.

“Who are you?” Jed responded, her face screwing up as she observed the squat little ugly creature. While she had already noted the stubby legs that dangled off its torso, the strangeness of the fact that they were literally dangling only registered now. Looking around, Jed saw that the small creature wore some sort of harness over its rags, and said harness connected the diminutive alien to four spindly metal limbs. While they weren’t as spidery as Cabe’s cybernetics, sporting fingers and significantly fewer knee joints, they were still an unsettling sight. Especially when one of them was pointing “My lightsaber!” directly at Jed’s forehead.

“LIES!” The creature screamed, spittle striking Jed’s cheek with the force of a punch. “This is not ‘your’ lightsaber. I’ve analyzed its components, it was made before… b-before…” anger drained from the creature’s eyes, replaced by a deep sadness. A moment passed, and muted anger returned. “Before you were born. It’s not yours, you didn’t make it, you’re some sort of spy! Who do you work for? The Empire? The Rodians? The Sith?”

“I’m not a spy! I’m Jedha Kraz, daughter of Lania Hanna and Oiran Kraz, volunteer custodians of the Jedi temple on Jedha during the Clone Wars. I am a Jedi apprentice, seeking a teacher who can train me in the ways of the Force. May I please speak to this temple’s master?” Jed answered, confidently puffing up her chest. Her chest deflated somewhat when she remembered its bareness, though enough confidence remained for her to maintain eye contact with the rude alien.

“You’re no Jedi.” The creature bluntly retorted.

“Well, not officially, technically, yet, but once I’m trained I will be!” Jed said, her eyes briefly flicking away.

“Trained? In what? You have no connection to the Force.” The creature said, folding its biological arms while the two metal arms above its brought the end of Jed’s lightsaber and the suspiciously lightsaber-like end of a staff closer to Jed’s temples.

“And how would you know? Fetch the master, they’ll be able to sense it!” Jed said.

“I-” The creature started, then very abruptly stopped itself. He spun on his metal heels, and stared at a small pile of scrap metal shoved into a decrepit lounge chair. Scanning the cavernous circular room she was in the middle of, Jed saw a dozen chairs of all shapes and sizes stretching from her 7 o’clock all the way around to her 5. A pile of scrap metal had been dumped into the seat of each chair, each pile a different size, height, and material composition. “Yes, yes, of course.” The creature said, speaking as though he’d been spoken to. He turned to Jed. “Girl, who sits there? Do you recognize him?” It asked, pointing to the small heap of scraps in the chair directly to Jed’s right.

“Him?” Jed asked, squinting. What the hell was the alien talking about? Him? It was just a pile of junk, not even a mobile pile of junk like the droids that attacked her. It was… “Wait…” Jed studied the room, taking in its shape, the very deliberate positioning of its chairs, the peculiar way that the scraps had been piled into them, the distinct silhouettes the piles cast as the sun hit them from the gaping, window-like holes in the walls. “This is the council room!” She blurted, her shoulders perking up. Looking at the ground directly in front of the squat little pile of scraps the creature had pointed to, Jed recognized the shape of a small round head with long triangular ears protruding horizontally from either side. “That’s Master Yoda!” She cheerfully declared. “This is a test! The temple’s master wishes to test my knowledge of the Jedi! Did they communicate with you telepathically?”

The creature huffed, and asked “And to his left? Who sits to his left?”

“Qiadi Mundi.” Jed confidently replied, the shadow of a long conical head and narrow shoulders matching her parent’s description exactly.

The left corner of the creature’s lip twitched, its eyes narrowing. “And to the left of, ‘Qiadi’, as you called him?”

Jed studied the shadow, then frowned. “Oh, it’s one of the humans I think.” She said, the generic shape of a human head giving her no clues.

“Master One-Of-The-Humans-I-Think? Not a name I’m familiar with.” The creature said, its tone humorless.

“Uh…” Jed studied the shadow, looking for any sort of distinguishing features. She remembered there being two humans on the council, or maybe there were three… yes, there seemed to be three human shadows surrounding her, though Jed only remembered being taught of two. One was a younger pale man with a beard, Kenobi, the other a tall and dark man with a distinct purple saber, named… “Ace Windu?”

The background rumble of Raxus Prime fell silent, the creature staring at Jed with an intense yet unreadable look. The silence held until the creature let out a heavy sigh, the two metal limbs dangling above Jed’s head slumping as the creature raised its organic hands and waved them at Jed.

Jed gasped, the noxious sting of Raxus air filling her lungs not even registering. Her restraints were unbinding themselves! Jed felt a tingling sensation around her newly freed ankle, like an ethereal hand taking a firm hold on her flesh. Jed’s stunned shock transformed into childlike wonder as her leg rose, without her command, until the plump and bare limb was stretched out in front of her. She tried to bring her leg down, fighting the Force with all her strength, but found the empty air as unyielding as steel. She laughed, her entire body shaking with excitement as the weight of her discovery struck her. “By the Force, you’re the Jed-AAAAIIIIYYY!!!!”

The muscles, ligaments, and bones in Jed’s left leg were competing against each other for the brain’s limited capacity to process pain. As Jed’s knee had been Forcibly twisted 90 degrees the wrong way, the sole of her foot just below eye level and her squirming little toes close enough to lick, each part had a solid case. The ligaments were destroyed, all of them either entirely severed or stretched into useless mush as their usual bend was inverted. The kneecap had been shattered like glass, crushed between Jed’s other leg bones and its pieces driven into the surrounding muscle. Muscles which, perhaps not coincidentally, were complaining about being impaled by a bunch of bone shards, as well as getting stretched and snapped like rubber bands pulled too far. Jed’s vision blurred, her brain attempting to shut out the cacophony by shutting down.

A spike in the mind numbing pain brought Jed back into the moment, the Force releasing her leg and allowing it to limply swing down back down. The back of her foot collided with the chair’s footrest in a way that would surely bruise it, though Jed hardly felt the impact. It was the shockwaves that traveled up her shattered knee, jostling its fragments, that she felt acutely. Tears started running down her cheeks, her chest convulsing as she sobbed.

“Who do you work for?” The Jedi demanded, stepping forward on its mechanical legs and resting its organic legs on Jed’s knees. She twisted as violently as she could, trying to fling the horrible little creature off of her wounded knee as it began rest more of its weight on her purpling flesh, but her efforts only served to shake the useless limb, intensifying her agony as it flopped around beneath the grimacing blue man. “I don’t like repeating myself, trash.” He said, jabbing a sharp and discolored fingernail into Jed’s breast. “Who do you work for?” He dug the smooth underside of his foot into Jed’s shattered knee.

“Jedi! I work for the Jedi! I’m your student! I want to learn the Force! I want to help you!” Jed wailed, writhing in place as the Jedi began stamping her knee impatiently.

“You lie! I can sense it. No, no I can’t. That’s the problem. I can’t sense anything. You have no connection to the Force. You’re no Jedi, you’re a filthy spy, and if you don’t tell me who your master is…” Jed felt the bindings around her right ankle loosen as the Jedi paused, though her ankle wasn’t freed. The Force gripped it now, its intangible hold significantly worse than the chaffing rubber cables. “…I will ensure your death is more painful than any that came before it.”

“You’re supposed to be my master.” Jed said, her big brown eyes locking with the alien’s dull grays. Did he have cataracts? Was he not only metaphorically blind, but literally too?

His scowl developed a few new wrinkles. “Well, I suppose you deserve a lesson, then.” He flicked his wrist, and Jed howled her ankle was twisted sideways, the bones snapping with a sharp crack. She tried to kick the deranged Jedi off of her with her newly freed leg, and was met with immediate regret. The limp muscles in her dangling foot slashed themselves against the jagged ends of her leg bones, her body convulsing in shock and further lacerating her muscles. Jed screamed, gripping the armrests tightly enough to feel the strain in her fingernails even as her shattered legs continued to assault her sense, and pushed her back and butt into her seat as hard as possible to arrest her movements. While her efforts couldn’t be called a success, with her flabby stomach heaving, her bust quaking, her shoulders shivering, and her now berry red head lolling from side to side and refusing to stand up straight, she managed to stop her legs from moving. Now the throbs of pain that surged up her body with each heartbeat were only unbearable, rather than incomprehensible.

“Lesson One, never lie to a Jedi.” He said, stretching his metal legs and stepping away from Jed.

“No Jedi.” Jed wheezed. She tilted her pale, sweat soaked face up and glared at the smug little creature. “You’re no Jedi.”

The creature growled and flicked his wrist. A dagger-like shard of metal skittered across the floor toward Jed, leaping from the ground and hovering in front of her shaking navel. “I will NOT be insulted before the council. Not by a Sith lord, not by a bounty hunter, and certainly not by some pathetic little spy.”

“Jedi don’t torture people.” Jed said, daring not to look down even as the metal shard grazed her heaving gut. “Their principles are compassion, justice, and balance. They would never harm a defenseless innocent. They would never revel in the power they held over others. You’re no Jedi. The dark side has corrupted y-”

Jed tasted copper and bile as the metal shard pierced her navel, the jagged metal parting her flesh effortlessly as it was driven in by the Force. Jed tried to resist it, willing the blade out of her body, but she was too weak. Wounded, possibly concussed, and struggling against an experienced Force user, Jed could only shudder helplessly as the shard buried itself inside her, only a single glittering corner remaining visible when the Jedi stopped. She wheezed, a warm a sticky stream running down her belly and pooling in her lap. The frayed ends of her small intestines somehow managed to be hot, cold, searing and shivering all at once, and the paradoxical pain creeped up and down inside of her as each breath brought lifted and dropped her organs against the blade. She felt the blood trickle between her clenched thighs, rolling across her stubble covered slit, and tears reduced her vision back to a patchwork of blobs. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. She was supposed to meet a Jedi, not this sadistic lunatic.

“These are dark times.” The grey and brown blob said, a shift in its colors suggesting that it had raised an arm. Jed coughed in alarm as her ears were filled with the sharp sounds of metal scraping across the floor from all sides of her, a fat glob of blood stained spit rolling down her chin. “If the Jedi hope to survive, we must be willing to go to any extreme. The Force will absolve me- US! It will absolve us. Won’t it, masters?” The blob asked, turning to face the junk effigies that served as his audience. “Yes, it will. Of course it will! We must remain strong to survive. No more cowardice, Kazdan! No more cowardice. And NO MORE LIES!” The blob swung back around, the metal screeching along with it as it was yanked across the floor and into the air, a dozen glittering specks swirling clockwise around Jed’s bloodied and broken body. “WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?!”

“Jedi… Jedi Order. Work for. You’d know that. If Jedi.” Jed slurred, her head lolling weakly on a neck made of rubber. Blood loss drained the already dull world of its colors, the sound of her voice in her ears hollow and distant. Her thighs relaxed, Jed concentrating all of her strength in keeping her head upright and her spine erect. She didn’t know if she’d ever wake up if she let herself pass out. The warm and unsettingly thick blood ran down her thighs and rolled off her seat, dripping between her ruined legs and striking the floor with a splat. Hearing the stream, Jed realized that her muscle relaxation made it look like she was pissing on the fake temple’s fake floor, and she slurred out a giggle. If only she hadn’t emptied her bladder before entering the temple, she could’ve made a much less symbolic gesture.

Kazdan growled, and with a wave of his stubby hand he silenced Jed’s giggles. Color and shape flashed back into focus for Jed as shards of metal slashed their way across her biceps, impaled themselves in her breasts, and sliced into her sides, everything below her neck engulfed in agony. The attack lasted only a second, yet in that second over a dozen shards of metal found a home in Jed’s flesh, and over twenty wounds were opened. A long and narrow spike had been driven between the two bones of her left forearm, halfway between the wrist and elbow. A fat and square wedge was biting into the bone of the same arm, near the shoulder, the severing of nerves thankfully easing some of the pain lower in the limb. Three pieces oddly shaped pieces had found a home his her breasts, two piercing piercing high into the right boob nearly down to the ribs, and on hanging limply beside her left nipple, barely secured by a flimsy hook shaped protrusion that looked set to snap off if she breathed too hard. Piece five… or, was that six? Eight…

Jed lost the strength to count. Her chin hit her chest with a fat and wet slap, her eyes only half looking at the fire red and paper white patchwork of her flesh. Blood crept down her skin from the multitude of wounds like a slimy blanket being pulled over her, yet she hardly felt it. She felt cold, colder than she’d ever had before, and it was a cold that worked in reverse. Heat wasn’t being pulled to her core at the expense of her skin, it fled from it, leaving an icy pit in her stomach that expanded in time with the blood blanket burning her flesh. Jed felt a particularly heavy heartbeat, then an alarmingly long pause, her body warning her of imminent shutdown.

Concentrating, Jed forced a breath down her throat, her blood soaked chest eclipsing her narrow cone of vision as her lungs sputtered. She released the breath, blinked a little focus back into her vision, and again forced life into her body. Her stomach shook, the metal shard disappearing inside of Jed’s body as her skin flaps threatened to release a deluge of unspooled intestine. She let the air out, paused only long enough to will her heart to keep pumping, and dragged another breath kicking and screaming between her shaking lips. Her thighs flexed, flakes of dried blood cracking off and fluttering down between them as her legs attempted to kick like a toddler being made to eat its vegetables. With one powderized knee and one dangling mound of mashed ankle, her legs could do little more than limply flop against Jed’s chair. Jed’s body demanded an end to her suffering, but Jed continued to choke down breath after breath. She couldn’t die, not yet. She hadn’t fulfilled her destiny.

As if on cue, destiny took notice.

Two voices filled the small room with panicked screams, and surprisingly neither voice belonged to the mortally wounded mound of broken woman. One scream belonged to Kazdan, who’d been startled by a thunderous racket of debris clattering to the ground behind him as a section of the council room’s ceiling collapsed. The second scream belonged to Cabe Zarro, who had just fallen through a weak section of ceiling and landed right next to the insane Jedi who’d spent a good portion of the evening torturing Cabe’s marginally less insane friend. There was a brief moment of silence after both cyborg reptiles had stopped screaming, neither knowing what to make of the other, then Cabe gave a dismayed yelp and Kazdan growled as the diminutive Jedi hoisted the even more diminutive intruder up into the air with the force. Cabe’s mechanical legs flailed uselessly as his head slowly spun in place, his eyes wide and fearful as Kazdan’s narrowed with fury.

“So, the spy has an accomplice?” Kazdan mused, observing the helpless head suspended before him. “I thought the fat girl was an odd choice for a spy, but this?” He poked Cabe’s forehead with a pointed yellow nail. “Well, I suppose someone less astute would not suspect the two of you. You’re too noticeable to go unnoticed.”

“We’re not spies you paranoid old lunatic!” Cabe answered. “Jed wanted you to teach her about the Jedi and I’m here because I need a lightsaber.”

“Oh, yes, how could I forget? You’re my new apprentices! Yes, an overfed child and a spider-lizard-head, truly the greatest pupils a master could hope for. Isn’t that right, masters?” Kazdan replied, extending his hands like a gladiator riling the crowd and looking around the room at his personified trash mounds.

Cabe wanted to lecture the judgmental Jedi on glass houses, but decided against it. He didn’t have many more body parts he could afford to lose. “I didn’t say I’m here to be a Jedi, I said need a lightsaber! Becoming a Jedi is Jed’s thing.” Cabe frowned. While he couldn’t see past the psychotic Force user, he’d seen enough of his torture session from the rafters to know that if Jed wasn’t already dead, she would be soon. Jed was certainly a stubborn, stupid, reckless, destructive, insane, dangerous… she was a lot of things, and she deserved a lot of things, but not that. “Well, it was her thing. Before you had your way with her.”

“My way with?!” Kazdan demanded, uncomfortable with Cabe’s insinuation that he got off on torturing her. It was a necessity; he needed to know who was after him. Well, everyone was out to get him, but he needed to know who was watching him so closely. She wouldn’t talk, so he had to make her. He hadn’t enjoyed it. The masters knew, they understood. They believed him.

Kazdan shook his head, and continued “What possible use could you have for a lightsaber?”

“In case you didn’t know, I didn’t hatch as a head attached to a robot spider. In fact, this condition of mine is quite recent, and temporary, provided I can pay a gangster 20,000 credits to return my body. The lightsaber is worth… around that… and… yeah…” Cabe said, realizing only after the fact that telling the Jedi that he intended to pawn off a sacred relic of his fallen order was probably not the best way he could have chosen to win him over.

To Cabe’s surprise, the crazy Jedi didn’t immediately rip off his life support and leave him to bleed out alongside his almost certainly dead friend. “So, if I am to understand it, your story is that your body was stolen by outlaws, and your plan to get it back was to infiltrate the Jedi temple and steal a lightsaber for bribe money?” Kazdan asked, rubbing the ridge between his tightly shut grey eyes.

“I wasn’t going to steal one.” Cabe clarified. He considered clarifying that he had used ‘gangster’ metaphorically when describing Pach, and that her only real crime (apart from the unlicensed practice of medicine) was being a greedy hag, but he decided that it was currently more important to clarify that “And it was Jed’s idea to come here! I begged her to just give them her lightsaber, but she wouldn’t listen! She wanted to be a Jedi, and she wouldn’t give up her lightsaber for anything.”

“IT’S NOT HER LIGHTSABER!” Kazdan exploded, his dangling legs kicking out in a silent stamp as the trash effigies shuddered. “It belonged to a Jedi, she is not a Jedi, and you are a liar!”

“He’s telling the truth.” Jed said, her voice clear, confident, and closer than before.

Kazdan spun on his metal heels, and wheezed in surprise at the sight of his prisoner. Standing straight on two shattered legs and with more blood on her skin than within it was Jed, a full step away from the chair he had secured her to and with a look of profound clairvoyance carved into her ghostly white face. “And I am telling you the truth. I am Jedha Kraz, daughter of the temple custodians Lania Hanna and Oiran Kraz, and I am a Jedi.”

Jed punctuated her statement dramatically, if unintentionally, by pitching forward and smashing face first into the cold hard ground, exhaustion and blood loss finally overpowering her. She was out before she even hit the ground, and as such she didn’t feel her nose shatter with a sharp crack as her face bounced off floor. A small mercy, all things considered.

“I-impuhz. Th-that’s impossible.” Kazdan sputtered, his own face draining of color. “She was tied down. Her legs… how could she stand? That’s impossible!” He dropped his sabers, and used his upper metal legs to flip Jed’s motionless form over. He examined the bone deep gashes running up and down her arms, the amount of blood caking her open stomach, the holes punched into her now motionless chest, and the horrible bend of her broken legs. No one could remain conscious like this, let alone stand up and deliver a coherent declaration. Not without…

“The Force!” Kazdan said, a smile crossing his lips “Masters, she spoke the truth! She can use the Force! Oh-“ His smile vanished, his gaze meeting Jed’s empty, unfocused stare. “OH! What have I done?!”

Kazdan dropped to his legs, his real legs, and scrambled over to Jed’s unmoving form. He pressed his hands between her lacerated breasts, feeling for a heartbeat, and was answered with a slow, faint, fading thrum. Kazdan cursed, and screwed his eyes shut. He pressed his hands firmly into her chest, muttering to himself as he struggled to remember his teachings. Cabe yelped as gravity suddenly resumed its hold on him, his chassis landing on the same dent it had already made in the floor with its last fall. Kazdan didn’t notice or care, his attention entirely devoted to his dying initiate. Imperceptibly, Kazdan’s mutterings transformed into chanting, his hands digging into Jed’s cold, motionless chest as he struggled to clear his mind of guilt and allow the Force to flow through him and into Jed. He'd healed her concussion before, and while her current injuries were certainly more severe, it was the same principle. He could do this. He had to.

Kazdan let out a deep breath, and felt the Force flow through his palms into Jed’s flesh. He focused on his palms, the sensation of Jed’s heart beating beneath them, the sensation of that beat growing stronger. Warmth spread from Jed’s core, spilling into the chasms of Jed’s wounds and filling them. Jed’s frayed muscles pulled themselves back into position, their severed ends meeting and clinging tightly to one another as the waves of heat fused them back together. Her skin crawled towards itself, any blood that had yet to dry draining into the seams of skin as they sealed themselves. Jed’s fragmented bones dragged themselves through her muscles, muscles which parted to allow the bones passage and reformed in their wake, and slotted into one another like a puzzle.

If Kazdan hadn’t been so focused on the act of healing, he might have noticed the pieces of metal that were pushed out of Jed’s broken knee and thigh and plinked to the ground beside her. He might have recalled that he hadn’t stabbed her in the legs at any point, or that very few of her other wounds had scraps still in them when he had turned her over. He might have looked more closely at the chair, and noticed that the cables that bound Jed’s wrist weren’t untied, but cut. With all of those clues, Kazdan might have deduced that Jed hadn’t used the Force to escape her restraints or to stand, but instead had used one of the metal shards he’d left inside her to cut herself free, then impaled her knee and ankle with the longer metal shards to pin them in position and had just enough adrenaline left for one last sentence before it all went black. He didn’t notice any of that during the healing, however, and by the time the healing was complete he was too tired to notice any of it.

Jed gasped and lurched into a seated position, coughing as she caught a bad lungful of Raxus Prime air. She clutched her chest, her heart slamming into her ribs like it was trying to escape. Had it always beat this hard?

Wait, she wasn’t dead!

Jed looked down, and was greeted by the slightly scarred and quite dirty but very alive body. Jed raised her arms, feeling some tenderness where the muscles had been slashed, but moving with a full range of motion. She looked down at her maroon caked stomach, a faint line running up from her navel but no gaping hole in her abdomen. She followed the contours of her flesh down to her legs, and saw a pair of sturdy looking limbs that flexed and bent at her command. Jed giggled, and without a second thought sprung to her heels. She felt some dizziness, stumbling back a pace as her blood pressure strained to keep up with her energy levels, but no pain or stiffness greeted her. She observed her body, noting that half the wounds had healed without a mark and the others had only faint and thin pink lines, leaving Jed’s skin looking somewhere between her pre-Jedi patchwork of scars and her post-bacta smoothness. She smiled, enjoying the return of some character to her skin.

“Jedha Kraz, I… I’m sorry.” Kazdan said, still standing on his own short legs and refusing to look her in the eye. “You were right. I allowed the dark side of the Force to cloud my mind, and I cannot sense your connection through the haze.”

“I forgive you.” Jedha said, without hesitation. “You said it yourself, these are dark times, times when the dark side has a particularly strong sway. But, you saw the light! You’re back on the right path, and together we can- CABE!” Jed pointed accusingly at her friend, who was clutching her lightsaber’s belt ring in his teeth and slowly dragging the weapon towards the door.

Kazdan raised his hand, but not his gaze, and reached out for Cabe. The Londarr grunted and spat complaints without moving his lips or parting his teeth as he was dragged across the floor towards the Jedi master. Kazdan plucked the weapon from Cabe’s short triangular teeth and held it out to Jed. “No, we can’t. Not yet. I cannot teach you, not while the dark side still holds sway of my mind. My teachings would be corrupted, and they would corrupt you.”

“I… but… you… teach…” Jed mumbled, the precisely oiled gears of her insanity grinding against each other as her own words were used against her.

“No, no I must meditate. Yes, yes I must cleanse my mind before I can shape yours. Go, leave me, I must convene with the masters.” He said, waving her away as he turned to face his imaginary audience.

“But… master…” Jed mumbled, her shoulder sagging. “Isn’t there anything you could teach me now? I came all this way and-”

“Patience is a virtue of the Jedi!” Kazdan snapped. “Go!”

“I… alright…” Just sighed, turning her back on her new master and trudging towards the door, the sheer scale of her disappointment causing her to completely forget her lack of clothes, shoes, boots, and the entire reason she and Cabe had come here in the first place.

The sound of three heavy steps slammed into Kazdan’s ears, and the exhausted Jedi let out a low groan. “Jedha, perhaps there is something you can do while I meditate.”

Jed spun around and stood at attention fast enough for her thick thighs to clap against one another. “Yesmymaster?” She asked, excitement smashing her words together.

“An order of two is not much of an order at all, wouldn’t you agree? An order requires structure, hierarchy, a chain of command. Having only a master and an apprentice, that’s Sith mentality. Rule of two. Now, I would have the masters contribute to our ranks, but…” He turned to his effigies, his madness struggling momentarily to come up with a valid excuse to maintain the illusion of his world. “I would not have them put in danger ever again, they are too valuable to risk. So, that leaves only you and me as potentially active members, and that is not acceptable.”

“So… what do you want me to do?” Jed asked.

“Go out and find one younger and one older Force sensitive to act as a youngling and a knight. With you as the padawan and I the master, that will give us a full and proper order! When you return with these new inductees, we will officially have our new Jedi order!” Kazdan said.

“Yes, master Kazdan!” Jed replied, saluting him as though he were an officer. Jed shook with excitement, not only had she received her first Jedi mission but now she was off to find even more Jedi! She didn’t know how or where she should start looking, but who cares? The Force brought her this far, right? Surely it would continue to guide her. She turned to leave, only to nearly stumble over Cabe’s scowling head.

“Ahem.” Cabe said.

“Oh, right!” Jed said, smiling sheepishly. “Master Kazdan? Hey, do you remember how Cabe said he needed a lightsaber to get his body back? You wouldn’t happen to have a spare one you could loan us, would you? I kind of owe him for… stuff. Jedi stuff, I assure you.” Kazdan turned, an icy stare causing the young woman to shiver. “Also, could I have my clothes back?”