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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3999879" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 555: Natural ReactionsThere were times when Tobias wished he would listen to what he was told to do more. When he had turned around and ignited his lightsaber to face the three Yuuzhan Vong warriors rather than continue running from them, Tobias had not even considered how much quieter it would have been if he’d stayed in the hole in the ground. But as the Vong got closer, amphistaves up and preparing to strike at him, Tobias attempted to plant his feet and hold his ground...    And he slipped.    In his decision to fight, Tobias had somehow forgotten the fact that it was still raining and that the ground beneath him was not at all solid, but rather a thick layer of mud and gunk. It was not exactly the best situation to attempt to plant one’s feet in, as what really happened was Tobias’ boot slid much farther than he’d meant and then when he tried to catch himself, he overcompensated and instead of hitting on his back, Tobias went into the mud face first.    Immediately twisting so he was facing up, Tobias could see, through a mask of mud on his face, one of the amphistaves coming right down to take his head off. His lightsaber still active, Tobias managed to swing it around and bat the incoming attack away, using the Vong warrior’s momentum against him. It was hard to not try to rely on the Force to tell him what was about to happen next, but thankfully Marix had taught him at least enough to pay attention when people were trying to kill him.    It was why Tobias noticed the sound of a heavy footstep right next to him, a sign of shifting weight for another attack. And instead of defending himself this time, Tobias rolled away, ignoring the fact that he was now completely covered in mud. When he was a good meter away, he pushed himself up to his feet and faced the three Vong, raising his lightsaber just in time to parry a strike meant to slice open his stomach.    Pushing the Vong’s weapon away just in time to duck from a strike from another of the warriors. Out of the corner of his eye, Tobias could see more movement and was able to identify it as the third warrior attempting to block him in. Which meant there would be a tree behind him...    Another strike from an amphistaff came at his chest and again, it was easy for Tobias to invert his blade and parry. But unlike before, the warrior did not yank his weapon back, but instead slid it down, the length of the energy blade. Tobias realized what was about to happen, then managed to jump back before the tip of the amphistaff cut into his exposed leg.    And then his back hit the tree.    But for some reason, Tobias didn’t panic. In fact, some part of him seemed to know exactly what it was doing, as he found himself reaching up at nothing and trying his best to reach even farther with the Force. When he felt something in the hand of the Force above him, Tobias knew what to do...he yanked hard.    Suddenly, two large branches came crashing down in front of him. Two of the Vong that had been about to cut him to pieces were dropped under the weight of the heavy branches, while the third glanced up for just long enough to give Tobias an opening.    With as much strength as he could managed, Tobias thrust his blue-green blade straight for the standing Vong’s torso. The blade hit, but instead of cutting straight through and skewering the warrior, Tobias found out that the armour the warriors wore was very effective...as his blade cut deep into it, but simply followed the contour of its shape until the Vong twisted his weapon to hit Tobias’ lightsaber out of the way.    Finding his own opening, the warrior followed up his defense by taking a large step right inside Tobias’ defenses. An elbow suddenly dug into his stomach, along with the spiked armour covering it. Tobias couldn’t help a gasp of pain and surprise, but the second the Vong pulled back for another strike, he was remorphing the wound. But dealing with the injury meant he didn’t have any time to back away or defend from the backhanded punch that caught him hard across the face.    Tobias felt his jaw crack from the force of the blow, but that feeling faded into numbness when his head hit the nearby tree and then everything went completely blurry. But he didn’t black out, and his vision refocused in time for Tobias to duck and roll out of the way from the sharp end of an amphistaff meant to skewer his face. He may have been up and still alive, but things were still spinning from the blow to the head and it wasn’t really a surprise when Tobias tripped over one of the fallen tree branches and hit the ground again.    But Tobias hit the ground on his hands and knees, not on his face. Immediately, he pushed himself back up and regained his footing, glad for the fallen tree branches to slow the Vong for just long enough so that Tobias was up and mostly ready for him. But just to keep the warrior back, Tobias swung his lightsaber downwards in a long, diagonal arc that wouldn’t have hit anyone, and wasn’t even meant to.    The Vong stopped in his tracks to reach up and catch the blade with the center of his amphistaff, then attempted to do what he’d done before. But when the warrior pushed Tobias’ weapon away and tried to step in close again, Tobias spun around and used that momentum to easily take a good step back just before his blade came in towards the Vong’s torso.    Shifting to a one-handed grip of his deadly amphistaff, the Vong warrior had no trouble catching Tobias’ strike. But as Tobias pulled back to attempt another attack simply to keep the Vong back while he looked for an opening, he saw something happening.    With his free hand, the Vong warrior was reaching for something. Tobias didn’t see what it was until the warrior swung his staff around with enough strength to not only bat Tobias’ lightsaber to the side, but nearly twist him around in the process. On the slick ground, it threw off his footing easily and that was when Tobias saw the Vong’s other hand moving so fast it was just a blur...a blur with something on the end of it...    A sudden sharp pain shot up through Tobias’ body from his lower torso, and he looked down to see a small, dagger-sized amphistaff being removed from his gut. His body naturally reacted to the wound by causing Tobias to cry out in pain and double over, bringing him right down into a raised knee...face first.    Tobias’ nose broke on impact, and he stumbled back trying everything he could to fight back unconsciousness. But the pain was overwhelming him and it had all come so suddenly that he couldn’t do anything at all...it hurt too much to remorph! But if he lost consciousness...if he continued to stumble backwards for another step, he was going to hit the ground, black out, and then end up dead.    No!    No, he couldn’t end up like that!    He had to—    The line of thought was cut off by the ground, which Tobias hit hard before he realized what had happened. His eyes shot open, and through a haze of mud and a bit of red, he saw a blur come straight down for him. A half second later, another sharp pain erupted from his chest as the Vong warrior drove his amphistaff straight through one of Tobias’ two hearts.    But there was a reason Alraxians had two. If one was damaged, the second could operate alone for long enough that the Alraxian could remorph the other and be fine. This, of course, applied to a small subset of Alraxians, but it was a proven fact. And though the pain nearly overwhelmed him, Tobias fought it all to stay conscious...so much so that he didn’t even feel the amphistaff being removed, only seeing the blur of movement to indicate it.    An instinct beat into him from a young age took hold, and Tobias lashed out with his leg, sweeping the surprised Vong’s feet out from under him and dropped the warrior onto his back. Now, the wounds were healing. The injuries were gone in moments, and though the pain lingered and the shock of them still wracked his brain, Tobias dragged himself up to his feet at the same time as his Vong foe.    Rather than let his enemy get the upper hand again, though, Tobias kicked the Vong hard in the skull, dropping him back down to the ground before he could even get up. And then Tobias took one simple step forward, inverted his lightsaber, and drove it down through the only vital part of the Vong that wasn’t covered by armour...his head.    It was when he removed the energy blade from the now-dead Vong warrior that the previous few seconds caught up with Tobias. For a short moment, he stared down at what he’d just done...knowing it hadn’t been out of anger at all. Terrified of the fact that he hadn’t tapped into the Dark Side...he hadn’t been controlled...he’d just reacted with instincts beat into him by his birth parents and then by Marix and Jyren.    Tobias heard something move, and quickly looked over to see, through the still-heavy rain, one of the Vong that had been taken down by the tree branch pushing it off and slowly getting to his feet.    Deactivating his lightsaber, Tobias turned and ran again. He could get away now. He could escape the other two Vong...    But what about that emotionless killing? Could he escape that? Those were natural reactions to the...no, no the fact that he’d killed the Vong was not the problem. It had been a life or death situation. There had been no choice. The problem was something else.    Never in his life, had Tobias done what he’d done just then. He hadn’t even thought about it at the time, just reacted. He had sustained the kinds of wounds that could have killed most other humanoids in the galaxy twice over. Yet, somehow, not only had he remained conscious, he’d fought through it, survived through it, remorphed it...and kept going as if it was nothing.    It was exactly what Marix had always told him he needed to be able to do...so why did it feel so wrong? Why was it so terrifying?    ...and where the hell was Master Ral?!</blockquote>

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