ED : Chapter 26: Welcome to the Jungle IV
I was continually shining my light all about me and paying careful attention to any promptings from the Force with my left hand resting on my lightsaber.
Wondering briefly if the hssiss had fled when it sensed this many intruders.
...
Until the light in the far right corner of the room died with a sputtering, sparking hiss as something smashed the baseball-sized sphere with a slightly flattened top and bottom.
There was nothing to see by the time my head whipped that way, but I took my cue from my Master. Her lightsaber was now in her hand, yet wasn't ignited.
Prompting me to do the same, as I noticed both Jedi Knights following suit. Master Yoda hadn't touched his own weapon and continued simply tap-tap-tapping toward the great statue, but I knew just how fast he could draw and strike from watching his fight with Darth Sidious onscreen about a gazillion times.
The Force keened a warning at me. It was so sharp and intense a struck note in the savage song of this place, I didn't think.
Reacting as my instincts demanded by not igniting the lightsaber in my left hand, but raising my right and shoving with every bit of focus through the Force that I could.
For the first time since I'd reached a level of proficiency that what I focused on never failed to move as I willed, something felt like it was pushing back in a manner I'd never experienced before.
Challenging my power to move it with it's own insistence on not being moved. I couldn't see what I was pushing against, but I gritted my teeth, closed my hand, then flung my arm forward just as hard as I could once more.
Mirroring the physical motion with my every bit of focus and concentration on exerting the most powerful Force Push I could.
I felt the bizarre resistance break, heard a hissing squeal so loud and strident it hurt my ears, and saw for the briefest instant a shimmering, distorted and now writhing something fly like a line-drive at the right wall of the temple.
My heart went on racing as the memory of the furthest forward portion of that writhing shimmer coming within a foot of my face before my telekinetic push finally sent it flying.
A moment later there was a loud and echoing thud-whomp, as the creature I'd flung slammed into the stone wall with enough force to turn a human into a bloody mass of shattered bone and rent flesh, then dropped to the floor.
There was literally no pause before the scritch-scritching of claws on stone carried to us. The beast racing back into the gloom with it's first try a failure. In it's defiant screech I could literally feel it's hunger and fury at being denied.
Three snap-hisses came from ahead and to either side of me. Followed by Yoda's voice, a little louder than I'd ever heard it before, as he called out "More than one creature, there is. Their movements, hunger, and rage, sense them, you can."
I saw the great Jedi's head continue to swivel. His three-fingered right hand raised to chest level before him while he continued his advance.
What happened next, I heard more than saw, as the snap-hiss of the Grandmaster's emerald blade carried to where I was standing, and a blurred green orb with a brighter green strip shot ten or twelve feet to the left of the last place my mind had identified as Yoda's location.
The longer hiss-rmm of a lightsaber blade making rapid yet extensive contact with something solid followed a split-second later, then he reappeared, lightsaber in hand, beside what looked like a cross between a huge hunting cat and a saltwater crocodile as the thing fell over onto one side.
The hssiss's head seemed to have suffered numerous cuts of the plasma arc while the Jedi Master had been an untraceable blur, because the great maw and most of the skull simply slid apart into multiple scorched pieces an instant later.
A much closer hiss-vroom of a closely passing lightsaber flashed past me. Happening at exactly the same time as another dire warning from the Force's now rolling, urgent, rapid-fire beat came to mind, and my Master's hissed admonishment carried to my ears.
"Be mindful, Anakin! You can gawk at Master Yoda later, but you need to defend yourself now!"
The keening screech of the monster she'd just prevented from attacking and maybe killing me echoed out of the dimness as it withdrew once more. Finally prompting me to ignite my own blue-white blade.
My blood felt like little white fires had ignited and were flitting through my veins just as potently as the energy shroud of my light-saber. Making everything feel crisper and more clear as the knowledge I'd nearly died and might yet became foremost in my thoughts.
The Force's song was a nearly savage drumbeat in my head. One which I had to focus on remaining perfectly centered within, so the darkness of this place couldn't pull me off-balance.
It didn't really bear mentioning I was now having the time of my life rather than being sensibly terrified. I felt more awake and alive than I'd dreamed possible, and I liked the feeling!
Suddenly, I could no longer fault Other-Anakin nearly so much for all the mad, high-risk, action-hero antics he'd pulled. If dangerous adventures felt this absurdly good as a Force-sensitive, how in Ashla's name did all the Jedi remain so calm, collected, and composed?
"We remember you quickly end up a corpse if you lose control. Which isn't to say there's anything wrong with your feelings, so long as you control them, and they don't end up controlling you."
Dark Woman murmured so quietly that no one who wasn't as close as I was at her back could have heard her speak without the Force. The two of us were standing nearly back-to-back, as were Ameesa and Hallan.
Yoda, showing absolutely no sign of his usual hobbling, walking stick assisted gait was prowling about the perimeter of our little group.
He'd deactivated his lightsaber for the moment, but I was coming to realize that quick-activation-and-spin thing he did was some sort of incredibly advanced custom Ataru velocity he seemed to use quite often.
Whether he moved laterally or horizontally, the Grandmaster was capable of zero-to-nearly unobservable controlled accelerations that beggared belief. The big screen didn't even begin to give one a sense for how he moved when he had a will to.
"The Force is my ally, and a mighty ally it is. Indeed." I thought with more than a little amazement.
Until I had no more time for distractions, and the Force's keening warned me of danger once more. Granting me a flickering mental image of one of the great lizards having stalked to within pouncing distance of Knight Krintu's flank without his seeming to detect it, and at the same time showing me the third hssiss about to drop straight down onto me from above.
Above us, Master!" I called out loudly and firmly. Having chosen to place my faith in the Jedi Master who'd taught me nearly everything I knew, rather than in Knight Krintu's ability to effectively react to a similar warning.
My right hand came up and this time I grabbed rather than shoved. Instantly, the pressure of the immensely strong reptile fighting the grip I was exerting through my influence in the Force began to mentally tire me, but I didn't need to hold it long as my Force Leap carried me high and wide.
Passing the falling dragon yet outside it's reach, as I completed my front somersault and brought my blade downward in a slash backed by the entire weight of my falling body. There was so little shock of resistance, I continued right on through into a roll.
Coming to my feet and rounding just in time to see the lizard I'd nearly beheaded as it had leaped fall and skid to a stop two or three feet shy of the Twi'lek Knight.
My brow furrowed as I took in the sight of Yoda pulling his blade from the left eye of the hssiss he'd just run through a step or two shy of the tall, lithe, white-blond Ameesa.
I'd missed his crossing the more than sixty feet between Grandmaster and Knight in less than an eye-blink to accomplish the feat as I'd reacted.
Just as I'd missed my Master somehow getting above the fifteen foot long, three or four foot wide crocodilian-cat, and sending it's head rolling. She'd just now landed, and I was puzzled by the way her face had gone ashen.
There was a look of what I would have called great fear on her handsome, lined features, if I'd ever seen her afraid before. Everyone was suddenly headed my way, but it was Yoda who got to me first, with Dark Woman a second behind him.
It wasn't until Yoda reached out toward me and said "Fine, you will be. More than this Skywalker, to kill you, it will take" that I felt it. A burning heat running down my right side in a wash. Looking down, I saw the white shirt I was wearing beneath my cloak drenched in scarlet.
Missing an intervening frame of continuity, I found myself on my knees a second later. Dimly hearing Yoda snapping something at one of the others I couldn't make out.
Worming threads of acid were joining the heat penetrating my side. Not thinking clearly, I returned my lightsaber to my belt, then fell backward. Unable to feel whether anyone caught me before I hit the ground.
...
Hey guys can you throw some power stones to Elevate the ranking.
=========================
if you want to read ahead of the public release you can go to p@treon :
p@treon.com/Rage_moon