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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3365893" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 439: Father and SonTobias stared at the Ket Halpak, a fear gripping him in a way that froze him in place. He knew about his real parents; that had never been hidden from him. But they had...used him. Turned him into a weapon when he was barely able to speak. To Halpak, he had been nothing more than a means to an end...not a child. Not his child.     And yet...here he was, standing in front of Tobias a good eleven standard years since he was supposed to have been killed. Standing in the way...despite getting turned around a couple of times, Tobias knew that beyond Ket Halpak was the chamber he was sent in to find. And now this damned Alraxian was taunting him, keeping him here in the middle distance and it was getting him no where.    “You used me!” Tobias growled, finally, “You are not my father!”    With that, he reached down and picked up the glowrod. Tobias steeled himself then charged forward, straight for Halpak. But he hit nothing...instead, he ran right through where the Alraxian had stood. Tobias didn’t stop, though, and continued at a sprint down the corridor, still able to feel that cold presence around him everywhere...following...watching...    Suddenly, the flickering light of the glowrod expanded as the walls of the corridor gave way to a large, open chamber. Despite the constant changes in the light from the damage glowrod, Tobias was able to see a series of seven, waist-high pillars in a circle in the center of the room. Carefully, now starting to feel like this was too easy and waiting for some kind of trap...or worse...Tobias stepped in to the center and looked to the pillars.    On each there was an object. He ignored the objects, themselves, simply trying to figure out a point of reference for the ‘fourth’ pillar. That was the one he was looking for. But they were in a circle, without any real break to mark a starting or ending point. And, as far as he could tell, there were no markings of any kind of the pillars, themselves. Just the objects on them and ancient scratches caused by time.    “Running simply delays the inevitable, Tobias,” Ket Halpak’s voice echoed through the chamber in such a way that Tobias couldn’t tell where it was coming from.    He spun around, but saw nothing at all in the limited light. This evoked a laugh from...somewhere, “So jittery...just like when you were a boy. You could never sit still. It seems that very little has changed.”    “Shut up!” Tobias cried out, listening to his own voice bounce around the chamber in the same way Halpak’s was. When it echoed back to him, he couldn’t help but feel a bit...disturbed at how angry he sounded.    “See?” Halpak laughed as he spoke, and somehow, Tobias felt like the voice was closer to him, “As quick to anger as always. You were perfect, Tobias. The first child of two Tam’Day’U...stronger than you can imagine.”    “I don’t care about that!” he yelled out in protest.    Another laugh echoed, this time even closer, “But you do...why do you lie to yourself? You want to be a Jedi...a pathetic ambition, considering what you are capable of...but you want to be a Jedi to be powerful. Strong.”    “No!” when Tobias turned around this time, he saw Halpak again. The Alraxian stood just a couple steps behind him, and the shock of how close he was caused Tobias to stumble backwards. He caught himself on one of the pillars and glared at Halpak, “I don’t care about power! I want to be like my father!”    Halpak took two long strides to come into view again, the same terrifying look on his face as before as he shook his head, “You are like your father, Tobias. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Look inside...feel it. I am dead...you know that. Yet, I live in you...my son.”    “You’re lying!”    A grin formed on Halpak’s features, and it only served to cause a more unnerving feeling in the way he showed his fangs in the process, “I would not be here, otherwise.”    By now, Tobias was gritting his teeth and trying to figure out what to do. Halpak was dead! Dead! But...he was here! And he wasn’t at all like a projection of the Force or...or his mind or...no, Halpak was standing right there! Solid as any living being and more terrifying than anything Tobias had encountered. No longer did he care about what he had been sent in to do. All that Tobias wanted was to leave, and yet despite the knowledge that Ket Halpak was long dead, the Alraxian was standing there in his way. Again. But now...    Now he was stepping closer.    Tobias shifted back another step, around the pillar before stopping himself. His hand brushed across something. Risking looking away from Halpak, Tobias looked down to what he’d felt. There, on the pillar, was a good sized, ancient looking, metal sword. Quickly, he shifted the glowrod to his right hand and picked up the sword in his left. Without really thinking, and in one quick motion, he turned around to face Ket Halpak, swinging the ancient weapon at the long-dead Alraxian.    Clang!    The sound of two metal blades hitting one another echoed through the chamber. Tobias’ eyes went wide with shock as his arm shook with the same shock from the impact of his sword against one that Ket Halpak was holding. Halpak held a rather boring looking metal blade in his right hand, easily parrying Tobias’ random strike, and laughed, “You would attack a dead man, then?”    “You aren’t real!” his voice was more pleading at this point, now lost completely. He had expected to slice through air, the image of Halpak...not meet resistance at all. Halpak was dead! But...not.    “I am very real,” Halpak grinned again, then pulled back his sword and took a single step forward as he thrust his blade towards Tobias’ stomach.    Uncomfortable with the metal weapon and having only picked it up out of reflect, Tobias wasn’t really sure how to parry. It felt so much different than a lightsaber. Because of this, he sidestepped the thrust, stepped between the pillars and forward as he hastily attempted another swing at Halpak’s midsection.    This was easy for Halpak to defend against, as he was able to quickly pull his blade in and parry Tobias’ strike for a second time. This time, however, Halpak did not simply hold the blade there. After pushing Tobias’ weapon back and forcing him against one of the other pillars, Halpak quickly swung down to cleave the currently-human Tobias in two.    Tobias simply dove for the hard, stone floor and rolled to the side and out of the way. He could see Halpak moving to come at him again, and Tobias only had time to get to his knees before reaching up to parry another downward strike.    His one-handed hold on the sword was not nearly enough to parry a strike from an adult Alraxian, though. When the blades met, Tobias felt his wrist give way and a sharp pain from it before he lost his grip on the sword and it clattered to the ground loudly. The force of the strike also sent him down onto his back again, but Tobias managed to keep his head up a second time. It seemed to be the only thing he was managing to get right.    Immediately, his hand reached out to grab the sword again, but when his fingers wrapped around the hilt to grip it, another sharp pain shot through his hand. He released the grip in time to dive to the side again, away from another strike from Halpak.    “Get on you feet!” the Alraxian growled, obviously enraged at this point, “My son is better than this!”    “I am not your son!” Tobias yelled back, this time throwing the glowrod up to where Halpak stood.    Ket Halpak brought his arms in and shielded himself, the half-broken object hitting his closed arms instead of his face before clattering off a good distance away...illuminating the exit corridor. That quick glance towards where the light had fallen triggered something in Tobias’ mind.    With his right hand, he reached over himself and grabbed the sword again, darting up to his feet as best he could when he had a grip on it. By this point, Halpak was coming at him again. Tobias ducked a swipe at his neck, then immediately used the time given to him not to strike back at his opponent, but to make a run for the corridor.    As fast as he could, Tobias bolted towards the tiny light at the end of the corridor. By the time it had grown to the size that told him he was nearly there, Tobias risked a glance behind him into the black...and saw nothing. Not even the dim flickering of the glowrod he’d left behind. When he turned back, though, he didn’t just see the light of the exit to the Temple...blocking it was the form of Ket Halpak.    “A Halpak does not run from a fight!” he snapped at the young Tobias before swinging his sword at Tobias once again.    Tobias managed to shift to the side, pressing against the wall in the small corridor, to avoid the strike, “My name is Tobias BlueIce!”    With the opening given to him, he thrust the sword towards Halpak. While the Alraxian size gave an advantage in most situations against a human, currently it meant that Halpak had no room to move...and his sword was off to the side as he was pulling it back from its previous strike. This time, the resistance that Tobias’ blade met with was not metal, but flesh.    A cough and a choking sound escaped Halpak, but that damned smile remained, “You can lie...to me...but not...to yourself...son...”    And then Halpak fell to the ground, hitting the stone floor hard and not moving again. Tobias was shaking now, but still somehow holding the sword in his hand. He looked down at the unmoving form for a long few moments, trying to push the thoughts out of his head that maybe, just maybe, Halpak was right...    Quickly, Tobias shook that away, then stepped out of the Temple and back into the light of the jungle.</blockquote>

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