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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 4474165" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 596: To be a JediOn the other end of the street, Tobias saw Master Ral’s lightsaber ignite. There was no moment of solid colour, instead it was immediately a blur of motion in the darkness of Tatooine’s night. Seeing that, Tobias’ hand went straight for his own weapon, removing it from its place inside his jacket as he and Corinna ran as fast as they could to catch reach the Jedi Master.    “Can you see it?” Corinna asked, running beside him but not bothering to turn her head. She made the oddest movements and had such strange mannerisms, and Tobias figured all of them were due to not having eyes...but he just seemed to notice them so easily. Yes, he could feel her focus on him in the Force when she ‘looked’ at him, but without her head moving it didn’t seem as real.    Up ahead, Master Ral had grown into a roughly-humanoid shaped figure with a bright blue light dancing around a...a...something. Tobias couldn’t really make it out, even with the glowrods in the street. Whatever it was, it had to be at least a meter tall, but it wasn’t humanoid. Toias was fairly sure he could see at least six legs and a long tail, and it had to be over three meters in length, not counting the whip-like tail that Master Ral was ducking away from. The most noticeable thing about it, though, was not any physical features. Rather, it had completely disappeared in the Force. Where they had initially sensed it for a matter of short moments, the thing was now like the Vong...there but not. Likely why Corinna had asked the question in the first place.“I can see it,” Tobias finally answered Corinna’s question, “But I don’t know what I’m seeing. Its big and I think its some kind of animal.”    Corinna half nodded, her staff in hand as she ran, but she didn’t slow down, instead tilted her head towards Tobias and spoke quickly, “Keep as quiet as you can. If I can hear your lightsaber I will know where you are but I need to hear that thing, too.”    “Are you sure?” Tobias didn’t like what she was suggesting. The Vong not existing according to the Force was bad enough, but he had his eyes and ears and nose to make up for that. Yes, Corinna had two of those...but could her hearing be that good? It wasn’t as if she was normally blind. The Force provided her a unique kind of vision.    “Yes,” her response was filled with a surprising amount of anger direction at Tobias, likely for asking that question. But she quickly followed it in a calmer tone, “I can fell your Master, however. He needs our help. Whatever that is, it’s the same thing that killed the other Jedi.”    Tobias just nodded. They were nearly there anyway, and what he could see of the creature told him little of it. Beyond what he had already seen, it looked to have countless fangs in its massive jaws that were snapping at Master Ral, who was barely fending the creature’s huge claws off with his lightsaber. The claws were dripping with...something, too. Some kind of gooey liquid that didn’t look at all pleasant. Not that the creature itself looked pleasant, of course.    Merely meters away, Tobias finally ignited his lightsaber. Just a few more quick steps, and he swung the weapon at the creature’s exposed right flank. But the lightsaber did not cut through its hide, instead slicing across its body and leaving a long, glowing mark while getting a deafening roar of pain from the creature’s mouth. Its hide had to be at least as strong as durasteel to take a lightsaber like that!    Before the creature could spin around to retaliate, a good sized crate slammed into its head. Tobias glanced over his shoulder to see that Corinna had not charged in, and instead was using the Force to deal with it indirectly. Considering she couldn’t see the thing, that had been an amazingly accurate shot. Maybe she would be fine...    “Tobias!” Master Ral’s voice was strained and not at all like his normal, calm self. That alone was enough to snap Tobias back into the reality of the situation. His eyes caught sight of a huge claw swinging right for his face, and Tobias immediately jumped back, instinctively swinging his lightsaber to parry the attack. His defense did little good, but at least he managed to avoid the claw.    Yellow eyes glared up at Tobias for a moment before the creature’s jaws opened and snapped at him, catching a loose bit of Tobias’ jacket as he twisted out of the way. It was so fast! How the hell was something so big so fa—    Movement out of the corner of his eye caught Tobias attention, ending his previous thought. Immediately, he ducked under the tail, which went right over him with enough speed to have taken his head off. Another large object hit the creature, causing it to recoil enough for Tobias to catch his breath and Master Ral to cut the creature across its muzzle and get its attention again.    But as the monstrous thing turned back to the Jedi Master, Ral called out sharply, “Tobias, go! Get away from here right now!”    “What?! We just got here!” he stepped in again anyway, swinging his lightsaber across the creature’s greenish-black scales and still doing no real damage to its thick hide. He dared not get close enough to really put the force into the blade that would be necessary, and its tail was whipping around again...    Diving back, the tail sliced across Tobias’ leg, grazing him but cutting like a blade. And there was something else...and extra stinging sensation that was seeping into the wound that caused Tobias to panic when he realized what it was. Poison. The tail was poisoned. By the Force, if that was poison what was that goo on its claws?! As he tried to use the Force to combat the poison working into his legs, Tobias managed to continue his protests through gritted teeth, “I won’t leave you, Master!”    “You must!” Master Ral snapped back, his blue lightsaber sweeping around to bat away a clawed arm. A second later Master Ral was diving to the side and rolling up to his feet again, avoiding a half-pounce and the powerful jaws of the monster, “You are not ready for this! I will hold its attention! Both of you, get away and warn the Jedi! This is not like anything we expected!”    “No!” Tobias was struggling to fight now, his healing ability in the Force failing him and his natural ability to remorph doing little good. Tobias had never learned how to use that to stop a poison. So he stumbled back a few steps, out of the reach of the creature, and his vision was blurring a bit. Still, he held his lightsaber up and in front of him, trying to force his body to do what he told it and help his Master, “You need my help, Master! Otherwise you’ll—“    ”Either I die or all three of us die!” Master Ral cut Tobias off this time, stepped back from the beast and then used the Force to jump over it and place himself between the creature and Tobias. In the short moment in which the creature was forced to spin around and reorient itself, the Jedi Master did not attack. Instead, he looked over his shoulder to Tobias and his blue-skinned face presented the very image of calm, and suddenly, so did his voice, “The Jedi must know of this. Go. Go now!”The creature pounced again, this time its claws raking across Master Ral’s side as he stepped out of the way. Tobias dove back out of instinct, avoiding any secondary attack to himself, but the poison was doing its work. He couldn’t make sense of things anymore, and the world was going blurry. He landed back on one foot, then lost his balance and fell, expecting to hit the sand-covered street on his back and then be killed a moment later.    Instead, something caught him.    Tobias tilted his head to see Corinna there, twisting him around so that his arm was over her shoulder and she could help him walk, “Turn that damned thing off before you kill us both and lets move.”    “We can’t leave—“    But Corinna was starting to drag him away, forcing Tobias to half-walk to keep up and try to ignore the sharp pain in his leg as he did so, “He is your Master! And that...thing is not what I expected. Now help walk, dammit. I will not leave you here to die, too!”    Yet again, Tobias was dragged away from someone he looked up to as they were about to die. Yet again, he knew nothing about the situation. Yet again, he wished he could do something, anything, to stop it. But this time, Tobias knew that his Master was right. Retreat was the only option. That creature was unlike anything they had ever seen...and while Master Ral had been struggling to fight it from the beginning, he could hold it long enough.    He would hold it. Because he was a Jedi Master. He knew what he was doing, and the consequences of those actions.    And as Tobias and Corinna managed to get away, Tobias understood for the first time what a true Jedi was like. He finally began to realize the foresight, wisdom, and intelligence necessary to truly be a Jedi Master. There was so much more to it than just the Force. That was what Master Ral had been teaching him all along. How to be a Jedi...not how to use the Force. How to be strong, courageous, and noble when no one else could. To do it not for attention or glory or money, but because it was right. Because it had to be done.Tobias still didn’t understand all of Master Ral’s lessons. He still struggled with many important aspects of the Force and being a Jedi. But as he and Corinna got away from that monster and they both felt the shockwave in the Force of the Jedi Master’s death, Tobias understood immediately. Right then, he knew what it meant to be a Jedi, to serve the Force and to protect the galaxy. Right then, Tobias knew he could no longer turn around.    Because Master Ral had died for him.    And now Tobias had to get off of Tatooine and warn the Jedi of this new creature that the Vong had unleashed.    For the first time in his life, Tobias no longer thought of himself as a child or a student. He was a Jedi now.</blockquote>

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