SWRC: Hidden Pasts (Book 2)

Chapter 9 The Ring.

"What's going to happen tomorrow?" asked Hiccup.

"The same thing that happens most days of my life," replied Neeran in a tired and almost exasperated voice. "I'm going to fight and people are probably gonna die."

"But can't you get us out of here tonight?" asked Hiccup. "You knew so much by just looking at this place, you could do almost anything with that knowledge."

Neeran was silent for a moment, as a brief, distant memory flashed over her eyes.

"Go to sleep Hiccup," sighed Neeran, rolling over so that Hiccup couldn't see the look on her face and in her eyes. "You'll need it for tomorrow."

Hiccup decided not to continue questioning Neeran and curled up and slept.

Neeran waited until she could tell and hear that Hiccup was in a deep sleep. Removing her own cloak, Neeran placed it over Hiccup to stop him from shivering against the cold. He seemed to stop almost immdiately and Neeran went back to her own thoughts.

"How the hell are we gonna fix this?"

<The next morning...>

'Something's wrong,' thought Neeran as her eyes flicked from side to side. 'I can't feel the Force the way I normally should be able. Even with my restrictors on, what's blocking it?'

'Ysalamiri,' said Zach through their mind-link as he stood next to her. 'I overheard some guys here talking about them. It has to be them.'

'Well, bugger,' groaned Neeran, hanging her head slightly. 'That makes things a little more interesting, doesn't it?'

'You could say that again,' sighed Zach.

Neeran stood in the approximate middle of the arena and watched each of her multitude of opponents enter from different points around the oval shape of the arena, her eyes scanning over all of them and judging that the match was going to be interesting for most.

"I see they're allowed weapons," muttered Neeran as Jenkes opened the games.

Neeran closed her eyes and waited for the beginning to come.

And when it came, she was more than ready.

Neeran snapped her eyes open and dropped to the ground, sweeping the man off his feet with her out stretched leg and somersaulting over her right shoulder to snatch up his fallen staff that Neeran then manoeuvred like a Bo Staff to knock out another three people.

Neeran then dropped to the ground again to avoid blaster fire before jumping up and knocking the blaster out of the shooters hand tripping them with the Bo Staff and slamming her right fist into the side of their temple, rendering them unconscious.

Neeran spun around and raised the staff above head with a two handed grip just in time as it connected with a vibro-blade and sliced the staff in two as Neeran jerked to the left to avoid the blade and slammed the left hand side of the stick into the mans skull and let his body fall to the ground behind her.

"Well," sighed Neeran, as she spun the two pieces of the fractured Bo Staff so that the broken were against her wrists and moved them in front of her, ready for the next attacks.

"That changes things a little."

'She's smiling,' thought Hiccup as he caught glimpses of the fight after the staff was broken in two from where he was standing as well on the monitors.

'How is she smiling in a fight like this?'

Several more of the combatants had been knocked out in relatively quick succession before Neeran had lost both of her short sticks and was then relying on dodging attacks and using empty handed martial arts to stay alive and still knocked out a few more combatants.

Finally, Neeran got close enough to one of the combatants with the last remaining blaster that hadn't been destroyed in the fight.

"Gotcha!" exclaimed Neeran under her breath as she blocked the gun out of her way with her left hand and then grabbed the gunners wrist as she thrust her right arm across the shooters chest and Neeran placed her right hip against the shooters and flipped her down onto the ground and knocked her out with a lightning fast punch to her face. The shooters hand had gone limp as she became unconscious and Neeran snatched the gun and somersaulted away from the unconscious body.

Neeran flipped the blaster around in her own hand and aimed it at the few combatants remaining.

"One for each of you," said Neeran, not breaking her focus from the figures in front of her as she carefully set the blaster to stun.

<Above the arena...>

"Why hasn't she killed anyone?" said Jenkes, as he watched the fight below rage on, noticing that the few she shot didn't die but were only stunned.

"No one has died."

"She's aiming not to kill them," whispered Hiccup, quietly to himself, as he to watched the battle.

"What was that, boy?" hissed Jenkes as he turned to face Hiccup.

Hiccup shrunk back slightly from Jenkes and replied shakily, "Her thoughts. She's telling me through her thoughts."

"Through her thoughts?" asked Jenkes in a low and dangerous sounding voice that made Hiccup back up a fraction of a pace and wish he was elsewhere.

"How could she speak to you in your mind-"

Jenkes cut himself off as he realised that Jedi possessed mind-links with certain people close to them, and a Padawan definitely count as someone close to a Jedi.

"Can you talk to her?"

"Sometimes," muttered Hiccup, realising that both he and Neeran were now potentially in a lot more danger than before the whole debacle. "Rarely."

"Oh, she'll hear you this time for sure," said Jenkes, pulling out his blaster pistol.

Below, Neeran hadn't heard what was happening above as she continued to fight her multitude of opponents. She didn't know what was about to happen to both her and Hiccup and that it would change everything about their relationship up until that point.

Everything was going to change with the fire of a single blaster bolt.

Hiccup's scream of pain echoed through Neeran's mind from the com-link in her ear.

And she snapped; her eyes becoming narrow cat-slits at Hiccup's voice and her new mind set flicked the blaster out of stun mode.

Her opponent was dead and riddled with several blaster bolt holes from the blaster in Neeran's hand before they could even blink. Neeran then whirled around and fired the remaining rounds left in the blaster at the place where she knew Jenkes and his closest associates, as well as Hiccup, were standing in the box.

"Don't you fucking dare hurt him," said Neeran calmly through the com-link on her ear, but it echoed all around the entire ring as Theta and all of her A.I had hacked into it and hooked it up to all the speakers.

Neeran didn't seem to notice though.

Her mind, was elsewhere.

"You said you wouldn't harm him if I gave you an entertaining fight. You'd better think twice about harming my son again if you want to live to tomorrow."

The invisible shield in front of the grandstand began to flicker on and off. Everyone started to panic thinking that Neeran would kill them like she had to the others in previous fights in the ring below.

Neeran however, just stood there and waited.

Waited to see what would happen next.

"Your move," whispered Neeran as her eyes reverted back to normal, though her voice didn't echo around the arena like before.