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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2914930" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 329The massive form of the Darkwing slammed into Jyren like a perfectly aimed turbolaser bolt...except that turbolaser bolts were generally green and usually didn’t have the kind of accuracy to hit a single humanoid. Darkwings, of course, did have that kind of accuracy...with the additional feature of claws, teeth, and a great strength in the Force.    But, then again, maybe it was a good thing that it hit him so hard. Thanks to the impossible speed at which the Darkwing caught him, Jyren didn’t actually feel a single thing. His body went from normal to numb faster than he’d have thought possible, and the next thing he knew he was on the other side of the bridge, jammed against the viewscreens that lined where the normal openings would have been on a main bridge. Through blue-tinged vision(which was odd enough on its own), he could see multiple splatterings of...well, more blue, but a deeper blue that he could immediately identify as his blood.    The Darkwing had moved back a few steps, allowing Jyren to slide down the wall to a dazed, sitting position. He managed to look down slightly and see...well, probably everything. At least, there couldn’t be much more inside of him than what was opened up and easy to spot already. And it was all...all...spinning...Jyren blinked a few times but things kept spinning around him. Maybe that was because of his head hurting so much. He had hit that wall pretty hard...    Lucky for Jyren, there were at least some natural survival instincts that his Alraxian body(well, and mind) had built in and could not be easily shut off. Because of this, despite the fact that his conscious thoughts were just as gone as the rest of him looked to be, his body naturally took the few seconds given to it as the Darkwing backed up to remorph the majority of the wounds. Mainly the large, gaping cuts through his torso. One of the two hearts was undamaged, with the other having been completely torn through...but Alraxians had two for a reason, and his body didn’t worry about fixing the first one for the moment.    Of course, wounds being healed quickly didn’t actually help Jyren’s foggy mind...and the Darkwing wasn’t exactly the kind of creature to wait for him to feel better and let him stand up before it pounced again. In fact, by the time the major wounds had been closed up, the Darkwing was diving straight down at Jyren again.    Jyren was definitely not Shadow, and didn’t have the kind of natural reflexes that she did even through serious injuries...but when his eyes caught sight of a large, black thing with sharp teeth and claws as big as his arm, his first reaction was to get the hell out of its way. And that reaction never, ever failed him.    Still dizzy and seeing things through blueish vision, Jyren immediately dove to his left, hearing the loud crack of the durasteel taking a violent hit just behind his feet. He wasn’t stupid enough to just stay where he’d moved to, either. His brain firmly set on flight rather than fight, Jyren didn’t even turn around when he rolled away from the wall and crawled as fast as he could manage straight for the nearest of the two crew pits.    There was a series of very loud, and very close smashes before Jyren was able to roll into crew pit. He fell the two meters without actually thinking about the consequences until he landed on his back and the crack of his spine echoed in the crew pit around him. As his head went back to spinning, Jyren heard other sounds around him....like quick moving of feet. He didn’t have to look around to know it was some of the droid pilots that were still somehow managing their stations. Were, of course, being the operative word, as they were now running to get out of the way of the imminent landing of the Darkwing that would take out a good portion of the consoles(and anything in the way) in the process).    Through a groan of pain, Jyren rolled over and looked up to see the Darkwing tilting its head to the side and peering down at him almost curiously. Then, it barred its teeth, flared its wings, and started to jump.    Then a familiar sound echoed through the bridge...three times. A half second later three red blaster bolts caught the Darkwing across the side of its large skull, sending it off balance and into the nearest viewscreen. Another second later, he saw a black thing fly over and hit the side of the Darkwing’s head before dropping to the ground and clanking on the deck loudly.    “Hey!” Shadow’s voice drowned out the other noises and then, when she spoke through the link, drowned out everything else. [Get up and remorph completely now, Jyren.]    [...you’re late...] Jyren ‘mumbled’ through the link, though he followed her strict...instructions right away, knowing that she was only being so pointed because it was that important.    [You always say you like the dramatic entrances best.] Shadow might have shrugged with that, but Jyren couldn’t actually see her to confirm that.    Through the link, she was also doing her best to help him think more clearly...and how that was happening was indescribable to the both of them, but it was working. Shaking his head slightly, Jyren looked up to see the Darkwing moving to the side to the pathway between the two crew pits that led directly to where Shadow probably was standing. [You kind of ruined the dramatic part when you threw the blaster at it.]    [It got the thing’s attention, didn’t it?] Shadow’s ‘voice’ was now much more distracted, and Jyren had a good idea that this had something to do with the fact that he could no longer see the Darkwing up on the walkway anymore. [And if you plan to stay down there, let me know now so I can do end this my way instead of trying to cooperate and do this our way.]    If there was one thing that could get Jyren moving, it was that...voice. Despite the fact that she wasn’t actually speaking to him, Shadow still had a way of conveying that tone through the link. It wasn’t an order, it wasn’t really a suggestion, it was simply a point. And he knew exactly she meant, thanks to their link. He had felt that...change in her earlier and did not want to have to deal with that again. Maybe it was a form of blackmail...but it sure as hell worked.    Though his body was still drained from the serious effort it had taken to remorph all of the damage that the Darkwing had caused, Jyren shook it off, pushed it away, and ran up the ramp and out of the crew pit. He ran around and straight for the path between the two crew pits to find the Darkwing’s back to him in between the sensor stations...or what was left of them. On the other side of the huge, leathery-black creature Jyren could see a white coloured movement that was Shadow’s morphsuit...he couldn’t actually pinpoint any other part of Shadow because she was moving too much.    And then he saw Jen. She stood off to the far side of the room, arms folded across her chest as she calmly watched the action in front of her. Jyren looked at her and still couldn’t believe she could just...just stand there!    “Dammit, Jyren!” Shadow’s voice yelled from the other side of the Darkwing, “I’m over here!”    It wasn’t the same tone she’d used before, but it sure had the echoes of it and forced Jyren’s eyes back over to the Darkwing. As his hand reached down and detached the lightsaber from his belt again, Jyren went straight for the Darkwing’s back. The sound of the blade coming to life was drowned out by an angry roar from the Darkwing as it glanced over its shoulder to Jyren for a half second before swinging its massive tail at him. Jyren dropped to the deck and rolled under the black tail that was almost as big as he was, swinging across with his lightsaber to cleave off a good piece of it in the process.    He got to his feet right when the piece of the tail hit the ground, though in another second it had remorphed the wound and the tail was swinging right back at him. [This isn’t exactly working!]    [There is another option, Jyren!] Shadow grinded out through the link...at the same time, Jyren could see her duck under a swing and spin out of sight right into the center of the Darkwing’s vision. He heard a thud and a crunch from that direction, but since there was no slight pain through the link, Jyren concluded it had been from the Darkwing and not Shadow.    After cleaving off another piece of tail and trying to find a way to move around to the front of the creature, Jyren looked over to where Jen stood and yelled, “You can still stop this, Jen!”    “Jyren, focus!” Shadow screamed at him before leaping over and landing on the other side of the stump of the tail that was remorphing. Before the Darkwing could spin around and swing at them with its thick wings, Shadow put a sharp claw through one and growled at him, “She’s gone! This is not the time to be distracted!”    “She is not g—“ his angry words were cut off by first a tail, and then Shadow, and then the back of the Darkwing’s wing slamming into him one after another. The two Alraxians were flung across the bridge, with Jyren hitting the bulkhead hard and Shadow hitting him a half second later...knocking the wind out of him for a moment. The Darkwing used the momentum from its spin to start another charge for the two, but Jyren grabbed Shadow’s back and literally threw her up to her feet again.    Ignoring the spinning in his head as best he could, Jyren got to his feet a second later just as the Darkwing reached them. Shadow actually caught the claw that was swinging in at her with her arm, even pushing it away like she would from any other attacker, which amazed Jyren due to the strength of the Darkwing...but it took so much effort that it left her back open to attack from the other claw...which had been on purpose, because she knew that was exactly where Jyren was supposed to be.    And he was. Stepping in, lightsaber ablaze, he swung up and took off the entire left hand of the monster before the other came around and hit him across the side, once again throwing him across the bridge...but with much more force. Jyren lost his grip on his lightsaber somewhere along the way before hitting the bulkhead head first.    Through once again blurred and blueish vision(likely from once again getting a strong head wound), Jyren could see the Darkwing turning back to bear down on Shadow...who was a white blur again, staying out of the way and just moving rather than trying to counter the attacks. The Force was growing heavier and heavier again...stronger...and Jyren found himself calling out, “Jen! Please stop this!!”    His vision returned to a more normal state in time for him to see the human woman turn to stare straight at him with the same intensity as before. She then glanced back over to the Darkwing and growled, “I said kill him!”    From behind, the Darkwing’s head could be seen popping up to look between its shoulder and wing straight at Jyren. It then directed its attention to Shadow again just long enough to cut her off mid-dodge with a sudden strike of the claws. Jyren could feel the phantom pain rip through his torso before seeing Shadow flung against one of the nearby sensor panels.    And then the Darkwing turned around again, growled angrily, and took off straight for him.    The pain in Jyren’s side went away quickly as he got to his feet, immediately telling him that Shadow had fixed the problem on her end and was already up and coming. But the Darkwing was much, much faster...and she knew it. They all knew it.    [Yell at me about this later.] the words echoed through Jyren’s mind the moment before he heard a sharp crackling sound. The air itself lit up with a bright blue light that burned everything in its path...and arcs of lightning could be seen from behind the Darkwing before they hit the creature in the back and sent it flying down into the crew pit that was between the creature and Jyren. The streams of Force lightning continued for another few seconds before Shadow let it go and charged straight for the crew pit. When she caught Jyren’s look of absolute shock, she said quickly. [Later!]    Jyren tried to push that aside, seeing that the Darkwing was already getting back up and preparing to pounce up and straight into him...it was still going to reach him before Shadow would, and he couldn’t even see where his lightsaber had gone. But it was already too late to worry about that anymore. The Darkwing was moving. It was jumping straight up and at the perfect angle to simply skewer Jyren again the viewscreen behind him.    He dove to the side in time to only take a sharp claw to the leg instead of through his face. The Darkwing held onto the leg it caught and flung him straight down into the deck with it. As it pulled around to bear over him, Shadow was still a good six meters away. Jyren’s eyes looked up and saw the Darkwing, and looked back to see Jen standing there just a two meters away, “Jen, please!!”    Out of the corner of his eye, Jyren saw the movement. His head snapped back to look straight up at the Darkwing holding him down to see its jaws open as they shot down at him. As Jyren stared up at the thing, unable to move thanks to both shock and the claws pinning him to the deck, one thing jumped into his mind...and it surprised him. It had never, ever been something that had shot to the forefront so suddenly...and yet it made perfect sense. The fear of it gripped him more violently than anything the Darkwing could ever have managed, and he cried out, “Jen, I have a son!”    Even more to his surprise, he felt the words shoot through Shadow just as strongly from the link. He knew, from that, that she was right behind the Darkwing but nothing she could do would stop it. It was too close...too fast...she knew she should have done it her way! It would have worked! It would have worked and he would have been okay! But his damned idealism had rubbed off on her too much and forced her not to and now it had gotten them right where she’d always told him it would...the end.    The end of everything.    And it came in a brilliant flash of white and...    ...a roar of pain?!    Death meant one didn’t have any eyes to open...and for the second time in his life, Jyren opened his eyes after he was dead. Or...after he should have been. This time, though, he wasn’t alone. Shadow did the same thing...and from two different angles, they saw the same thing. Jen stood over Jyren, bright orange lightsaber bathing everything around her in light, and the Darkwing was headless. Its body still moved, though, as it violently thrashed around in its last moments, a clawed arm catching the blonde woman across the side and sending her hard into the crew pit.    And then it fell.    The massive, leathery-black creature dropped to the deck, sliding off of the small walkway and crashing into the consoles in the crew pit below. And then it was silent.    “Jyren!” Shadow’s voice cut through the silence like a lightsaber and in a moment his blurred view that had been a black maw of teeth for what had seemed like an eternity was replaced by her familiar face. She grabbed him and helped him to sit up, all the while cheating by using the link to force him to remorph the gaping holes in his leg that were leaking too much blood.    He just sat there again her, still not completely sure what all had happened, the adrenaline rush fading and the heaviness of the Dark Side doing the same. Slowly, his eyes found hers and he managed to reach up to rest a hand on her face, “Jen...”    Shadow understood thanks to the link, and also knowing he was going to be alright(well, physically at least, he was never alright mentally), she nodded and propped him up against the bulkhead before running around and down into the now-ruined crew pit. Droid bodies and consoles sparked here and there from the Darkwing’s fall, and in the back corner, bloodied and broken, she saw Jen.    When Shadow reached the woman and knelt down next to her, the first thing Jen said in a hoarse voice was, “...a son...?”    Suddenly completely lost as to what to do, Shadow found herself simply reacting...so she nodded. It was all she could think of. Her eyes looked over Jen and knew immediately that she was dying. Her entire stomach had been ripped open and most of her internal organs had probably suffered the same fate. But, just as Jyren had done, Jen reached up and rested a red-bloodied hand on Shadow’s cheek. The Alraxian reached up and found herself holding the other woman’s hand, right away feeling through the Force as the life faded from it. But quietly, through the sparks and the coughs, Jen whispered, “I’m sorry...”    It shouldn’t have been enough. Apologizing never was. But it was all there ever would be. Jen’s eyes did not close like in all those stories or holodramas. She didn’t even slump back and go limp. Instead, Jen Zaarin Voort died with her hand still in Shadow’s, sitting back against the corner of the bulkhead and looking up with horribly sad eyes at her old friend.    Slowly, Shadow rested the woman’s hand back over her before reaching down to close her eyes. As she got to her feet, Shadow picked up Jen’s ruined body and then carefully walked up and out of the crew pit. With Jen still in her arms, she looked over to where Jyren sat, still looking stunned and unable to move. In a soft voice that was still something new to even her, she asked, “Can you walk, Jyren?”    Eventually, he managed to nod...slowly pushing up to his feet. When he was up, Jyren’s eyes locked on the body in Shadow’s arms. She could see tears in his eyes...truthfully, she could feel the same on her own face. Letting out a low sigh, Shadow asked, “Can you set the self destruct before we leave?”    “Y-Yeah...” Jyren was shaking again, but forced himself to walk over to the still-together crew pit and find the correct station.    As he worked on auto-pilot to set the self destruct, Shadow looked at the ruined viewports and called out. [Loki...we need you in the hangar.]</blockquote>

Verification