Chapter 6 - Let's get ready to rumble

Siri gripped the handle of her blaster nervously. When she had given up her light saber to her master back on Coruscant, she had not expected a situation like this would arise. Now that she was being called to fight and defend an innocent, she felt naked. Yes, the Jedi taught more defense then just with a light saber but Siri had a keen knack with the blade and had always enjoyed the advantage having a saber gave her.

"I said, let her go!" Siri demanded in a strong confident tone she didn't quite feel.

The Zabrak woman did not look impressed. As a force user, she could pick up on Siri's unease. "I'm not an unreasonable woman." She said in an easy tone, as though they were just chatting. "I don't see a need for unnecessary bloodshed. And you have no obligation to help her. Just turn around and walk away. Otherwise, I'll have to kill you." She ignited the blade of her light saber to emphasis her point.

"I have an obligation as a responsible citizen and friend." Siri stepped closer with the blaster pointed squarely at the zebra's head. "Let her go."

The darksider made a face and then let her grip on Andra go, allowing her limp unconscious form to tumble from her shoulder and land unceremoniously onto the hard ground with a thunk sound. "Jedi always have to make things difficult."

Without any further warnings or taunts, the darksider charged towards Siri, thrusting out her blade towards the younger woman. Siri squeezed the trigger of her blaster, unleashing a torrent of shots at the charging zabrak. With a smooth arch of the light saber blade, the bolts of energy were deflected and bounced back towards Siri in random directions. Siri dove to the side and tucked into a roll to dodge Zabrak's charge and the dangerous bolts that came back at her.

When Siri jumped up from her role, her attacker was waiting. She spun around and kicked Siri in the chest, sending her falling back. Siri hit the ground hard, the blaster fell from her ground.

Dazed for only a moment, Siri quickly flipped onto her stomach and reached for the blaster. Just as her fingers brushed against the butt of the blaster, the weapon fell several meters from her. An act that could only be achieved with the aid of the Force. Siri looked over her shoulder and saw the darksider approaching her. She got to her feet and faced the darksider, taking a defensive melee pose.

The Zabrak looked her over, a slightly amused expression on her face. A good sign perhaps? The Zabrak deactivated her blade and clipped it back onto her belt. "I suppose if you're going to be so resilient, I should give you a fair chance. It just wouldn't fun for me to go through all this trouble and not get to have some fun." She took a similar stance to Siri's across from her.

Siri's brow furrowed but she felt a little more ease. At least now they were evenly matched and if the darksider believed herself no match for Siri, it just gave her an even better advantage. Her natural talents may have been with a light saber but in a situation like this she would focus all her concentration on beating her opponent.

Damnit, Obi-Wan, where are you?

Xanatos charged at Obi-Wan, intent on killing him. His movements however were not as swift and smooth as Obi-Wan had remembered however. Obviously the dip into the acid pool had debilitated his physical strength and his ability to perform at the top of his game. However he was still dangerous. The glint in his cold eyes was enough to tell Obi-Wan that even if he wasn't in top physical condition, his determined and that could be enough.

Obi-Wan dodged Xanatos' initial attack, then taking advantage of his attackers clumsiness he used the Force to call upon trash containers that had been placed in the ally and tossed them in Xanatos' path. Dirty tactic but in a life or death situation like this, Obi-Wan wasn't too worried much about that.

Xanatos stumbled as the trash receptacles were hurtled in his path. His anger towards the younger man was only heightened and with a wave of his hand, the containers lifted to the air and flew against the right wall of the alley. The impact was hard enough to cause damage to the building material.

"Not your normal style but it does reveal how desperate you are to win. It's not as easy without a master around to protect you anymore is it?" Xanatos mocked as he swiped at Obi-Wan again. Obi-Wan ducked down and rolled back to put space between him and Xanatos.

"It's not exactly a fair battle." Obi-Wan retorted.

Xanatos shrugged with indifference. "There is no guarantee of fairness in life." He lunged at Obi-Wan clumsily. Waiting till the last possible moment, Obi-Wan reached out and grabbed, Xanatos' wrist. Using Xanatos' momentum against him, Obi-Wan pulled Xanatos forward, twisted his arm and flipped him over onto his back.

Xanatos landed on his back with a grunt of pain. He lost grip of his light saber which clattered to the ground and instantly shut off. Obi-Wan reached out his hand and called the light saber to him with the Force.

When the metal slapped into his hand, he pressed the activator button, bringing the blade to life. He held it down to Xanatos' neck.

Xanatos laughed. "Going to kill me, Obi-Wan? Do you have it in you?"

As Obi-Wan looked down at Xanatos, weakened and defenseless. A strange thought came to him then. He could kill Xanatos right now and that the action wouldn't garner any consequences for him. Xanatos was already considered dead and even if it were discovered that he had managed to live, he doubted the opinion of Xanatos had changed much since his last public appearance. Would anyone really care if he turned up dead?

His thoughts screeched to a halt right there as morality kicked in. What was he thinking?! He was actually contemplating murdering an unarmed man? Even someone like Xanatos didn't deserve that. And Obi-Wan didn't really want to bring himself down to Xanatos' level where taking a life was as easy an everyday task.

"I'm taking you to the authorities." Obi-Wan finally said. "You've run away from justice long enough."

Xanatos didn't appear as though Obi-Wan's threats worried him much. "Before you drag me off to face a long, long, long, long list of charges that await me; perhaps you think about something, Kenobi. All this time that you've been battling me, you've left your little friend to deal Sena alone."

"Sena?" Obi-Wan looked confused for a moment then suddenly remembered about Siri and the darksider who had taken Andra.

"In my current physical state, I needed a someone to do all the grunt work for me. She has an awful blood lust."

A panic began to rise in Obi-Wan. He had told Siri that he would meet up with her. That they would take down this enemy together. She would be expecting him! He looked down at Xanatos suddenly conflicted. He could finally bring Xanatos to justice, something that not even the Jedi order could accomplish. And he had a sneaking suspicion that Xanatos' presence and Andra's troubles were not unrelated.

However, if he choose to take Xanatos in, he would be leaving Siri to the devices of a darksider that Xanatos had teamed up with just so she would make up for the physical abilities he was lacking. He was very concerned that Siri might not survive the encounter with her without her light saber.

He made his choice. He wasn't going to abandon Siri. While he had offered to help Andra and Den, he wasn't willingly to risk Siri's life. He clicked off the light saber and turned, running off in the direction he had been heading to catch up with Siri and Sena.

Once he was alone, Xanatos sat up, gritting his teeth against the pain of the muscles in his back. It had been foolish to confront Obi-Wan in his current state. Qui-Gon always had said that his pride was his main downfall and he had been nearly certain that he could be a match for a Padawan learner, even in his current state. Luckily for him, he always had a an escape planned. No one could fault him for not being thorough in that area.

He moved slowly, careful not to aggravate his aching body anymore then he already had. Anger seethed through him. That little punk….Why did the Jedi always have to show up and ruin his plans?

The Order wasn't involved in the everyday affairs of nothing planets like Telos. They barely associated with anyone. If it wasn't the expectancy to be "Defenders of the republic" they would practically be cloistered. Yet they always managed to get involved in whatever scheme he was planning. He was getting sick of it.

He took out his comm from his cloak and called for Sena. He had a change of plans. If the Jedi insisted on being involved, even these pathetic ex-Jedi, he would accommodate them into his plans. "Sena, don't kill the ex-Jedi. I want her alive with Andra. And you had better move fast. The other one is one the way."

Siri ducked under two of her opponent's punches, she wasn't so lucky on the third however. The fist made contact right under her nose, she could feel her upper lip split open from the force of the blow. Coppery tasting blood slide over her lips and down her chin as her head snapped back. She staggered a little but recovered quickly and stood ready for another assault.

Sena had her own share of bruises and cuts forming on her features but if she was feeling any effects from the fist fight so far, she wasn't showing it and Siri could kick herself for not remembering--till after they had already began--that the Zabrak species had a higher tolerance for pain then a human would.

Sena turned and kicked her leg out, with her quick reflexes, Siri managed to grasp her boot and twist it, causing Sena to lose her balance. It was moments like these, when the darksider showed weaknesses in her combat that Siri wondered just where she had come from.

If the she had ever been at the Jedi temple, she would probably have been ahead of Siri and Obi-Wan but not by much. Siri surmised that she didn't have much combat training besides the basics and relied mainly on her strength, anger and high tolerance for pain to see her through to the winning end of a battle.

When Sena landed on the ground she let out an "oaf!" sound. Siri leaned down and grabbed the collar, pulling her up. She balled up her fist and unleashed several punches square at Sena's face. Sena's head snapped back with each punch and blood began to drip from her nose.

As Siri's fist went back to strike her again, Sena let out a cry, summoning the strength she needed to reach out and grab Siri's fist as it came towards her. She twisted Siri's arm around behind her back, locking it there. With her free hand, Sena reached for her light saber that was clipped to her belt. She was tired of this game now. Of course she didn't just want to kill her.

With the activated light saber in her grip, she smashed the hilt against the back of Siri's head. Siri saw stars shoot in front her eyes as it impacted with her skull. When Sera let her arm loose, Siri staggered forward, reaching up to feel the back of her head. Her fingers cam back wet with blood. She could feel a dizziness beginning to overtake her.

Sera causally walked around to face Siri's front, a smug smile on her scared face. "Getting tired? I have to admit I'm impressed you've lasted this long." She swim her arm out that held the light saber hilt and smack it against Siri's face. Siri barely could feel the hit at this point but the force of it caused her whole body to shift sideways and topple her over. She fells to her knees, spitting out the blood that had begun to pool in her mouth.

With slight nudge from Sera's boot to her shoulder, Siri keeled over from her knees, onto her back and laid there, breathing heavily and staring skyward.

Sera stood over her and activated her light saber. She raised it up, intending to give the final kill but was interrupted by the beeping of her comm that was attached to her belt. "Sera…" came the strained voice of her master, "don't kill the ex-Jedi. I want her alive with Andra. And you had better move fast. The other one is one the way"

Sera looked down at the human she had been fighting. She was still conscious, unfortunately for her.

With a flick of her thumb, Sera deactivated her saber then grabbed Siri's tunic front and lifted her up. She pulled back and then smacked the saber hit across the girl's head, relieving her of any senses she still had after that beating.

Siri's body went limp as she lost consciousness completely. Sera looked between the two women then leaned down and picked up Siri, slinging the bloody thing over her shoulder. She then did the same for Andra.

Summoning up the Force around her, she took off in a bust of speed.

Obi-Wan had followed the path of Siri's force signature to try and locate where she and the darksider would be. There was a battle going on, he could feel the dark energy that was building as he drew closer and closer. However when he arrived, he was greeted with nothing. No battle, no Siri, no Andra. Just blood droplets on the ground and a large concentration of residual force energy from the fight.

He wasn't sure how much of a head start they had on him but he couldn't pinpoint either Siri's signature or the darksider. He ran a hand through his sweat drenched hair and cursed under his breath. He had let Xanatos go, left Siri to fend for herself when he had told her they would take Sera down together. Now Siri was gone as well as Andra!

A/N: It really hurt having to have Siri beat up like that believe me. I did not enjoy it. Hope the battle scenes were okay. Battles are not my best work and having two seperate battles at once was a hurtle. Hopefully it made sense atleast. Also, i wonder do you guys get tired of the "Oh noes! Cliffhanger! Dun Dun dun!" set up I usually do?