Chapter Text
For Laphis, it began with the bang. The ferocious wail of the explosion that enraptured everyone’s attention, sparking fear and panic in those around him. Then the wall folded outwards and angry amber flames billowed forth. He felt shrapnel cut his arm as he raised it to shield himself, and immediately felt heat wash over his skin afterwards. The scouring, rageful flames ran towards him like a wave, cutting through the fabric of his robes and singeing the flesh beneath. Laphis screamed. The pain was fierce, almost blinding. But the Jedi persevered. In the half-second that stood between Laphis and an agonising end, he told a story to the Force, about how Laphis Omi commanded the fire to part and and remain still, saving those around him.
The flames roared as they hovered in place, flickering and rolling as they tried to reach outward to consume. To destroy, as was its nature. The few seconds spent facing the maw of the inferno felt like an eternity for Laphis, as his burnt flesh screamed and his tired muscles ached. But a few seconds was all it was, and the fires dwindled into nothing, leaving only a burnt hole where there was once a hangar wall.
Laphis collapsed to his knees, cradling his burnt arm. The blackened fabric parted to reveal flesh that was raw and red, dotted with white splotches dancing around the gash that the shrapnel had left. The wound seemed almost alive as it sang with pain throughout his entire arm. Second-degree burns. He got lucky. He found Meza right next to him, medpack at the ready.
“Master!” He exclaimed, voice choked with worry. “Your arm…”
“I’m fine, Maze…” Laphis strained. His padawan didn’t look the least bit convinced. He mustered the strength to stand up, still pressing his arm to his breast. He stumbled forward, through the corroded, oxidised gap that choked the air with smoke, and into the street, newly decorated with a still-flaming crater.
The dark, cavernous expanse of the undercity was now lit with an ominous red glow as fires were birthed across the metal maze. Imperial bombers dotted the skies, too many to count with eyes alone. Bombs shrieked through the air, culminating in a terrible bang, and Laphis could feel the agony that resulted with each one.
The Temple wasn’t enough. The Senate wasn’t enough. Now the Empire had to come after those who couldn’t fight back. They would not stop until the entire planet was reduced to molten slag. The thought made Laphis sick. Angry. Afraid. Despondent. Emotions that pumped through his body with each heartbeat, making the fresh wound on his arm sting even more. But what he felt didn’t matter. Only one thought came to him.
“... We need to get out of here.”
Meza stammered a response as Laphis stormed towards the Fury . “B-But Kigi and I haven’t finished the jammers yet!”
“You won’t get a chance to if we stay here…” Laphis warned. “You’ll have to get the jammers active on the go. Get everyone on the ships. We takeoff as soon as everyone’s onboard.”
Meza faltered in his step, anxiety slowing his resolve. “W… We won’t have time!” He exclaimed. “I still gotta strip the processors, put together a manifold so that they can-”
“Maze.” Laphis spoke sternly, before he managed a meek smile, and placed his good hand on Meza’s shoulder. “Rule number six?”
Meza looked up at his master, his pale blue eyes wide with fright… But he stood firm. He smiled back. “Believe in myself.”
Laphis nodded, speaking sure and slow. “You can do this. We’ve beaten the odds all day, and we can keep that streak going. Take a deep breath…”
Meza did as he was told.
“... Let the Force be your guide…”
Laphis patted him on the shoulder.
“... And show those sons of cannoks what you got.”
Meza managed the effort to bring a smile to his yellow face. “Yes, Master.” And he ran off to work.
Before Laphis could even make it to the Fury , a blaze of red and the harsh shriek of a discharge stopped him in his tracks, and he found himself facing a trail of smoke. A blaster bolt had nearly blown his face off. He turned to the origin of the blast, and found Imperial troopers pouring into the hangar, giving more cause for panic to those inside. Laphis gritted his teeth, as blaster fire sprayed throughout the hangar and his good hand took up his lightsaber.
Jedi didn’t take pleasure in suffering, or in revenge.
But as his teal blade rose to its full length, Laphis couldn’t help but feel this was going to be damn satisfying.
—
Cora wasn’t fully sure what had happened. The last few minutes were too much of a system shock for her to process. One minute, she was drinking caf with Master Fitach. The next, she was hugging her after she had granted her the Trial of Courage (even thinking that didn’t feel real to her)... And then there was an ear-rending crash, a sweltering heat and a flash of red. Something heavy fell on her and she couldn’t get up. Everything felt too tight. She couldn’t move without something blocking her, or prodding a cut or a bruise, both old and new, on something sharp. Her forehead felt wet and sticky. Realisation flipped her stomach upside down as she recognised she was bleeding.
Master Fitach was on top of her. She had shielded her from whatever had happened. Her hands still clung to her back, like if she let go, she would just fall apart into a pile of former padawan. Cora could feel the rise and fall of the Master’s chest on top of her. She was still breathing, if coarsely. Thank the Force.
She could hear nothing but chaos. Shrieks and shouts, bangs and booms, fire and fear. The battle had come down to the undercity. She had to do something. Anything. She couldn’t let this continue. She tried to shift. She felt stones move beneath her, but not much else. The pressure on top of her and Master Fitach was too great.
Panic rose in her chest, compressed and fit to burst. She realised it all in a throat-rending shout.
“HELP!” She yelled desperately, coughing up dust and smoke and who knows what else. “PLEASE, HELP! WE’RE STUCK! Anyone, please…”
Shouting turned to sobbing and gasping. She couldn’t breathe, and her body was too squished to get the proper air. She couldn’t die here. Not after everything.
“Please help…” She whimpered.
The only answer was desolation. The chaos layered upon the Undercity, flattening everyone and everything. And Cora could only struggle and weep, unable to do anything. Helpless. Alone. Unworthy of the honour Master Fitach bestowed her.
Her coffin of stone and metal rumbled around her. For a single gut-wrenching moment, she thought the rest of the building was coming down to crush her and Fitach. Cora clamped her eyes, preparing for the inevitable…
But then a beam of light hit her closed eyelight.
“Cora! Cora, you alive?” A rough voice called out.
Cora opened her eyes to find Fisot standing above her, with Idichia at his side, the both of them lifting the chunks of debris with the Force. Cora would have smiled in relief if she had the energy.
“I… I’m fine…” She confirmed weakly. “Master Fi is unconscious, but she’s alive…”
“Okay, good… Hold on, We’ll get you both out…
Both Knights held their arms outward, and Cora could feel a particularly large block of concrete, the one trapping both herself and Fitach, shift as the Force prepared to propel it upwards. Cora could finally feel herself begin to breathe properly (save for the Jedi Master resting on top of her). She could move her arm again, freeing it from a smaller pile of rocks… Before the sundering shriek of blasterfire begat the descent of the concrete block back onto them at an irregular angle. Cora felt her lower half pang as it crashed back down. She had more freedom of movement, but she was nowhere near totally free.
Her line of sight afforded her to see Fisot and Idichia angle their sabers to intercept red strikes of blasterfire. Idichia yelled something in Aki-Aki which Cora could only assume meant ‘Imperials!’
“I see ‘em!” Fisot responded. Cora would make a joke about that if she could. “Hold them off, I’ll help the others!”
Idichia’s green blade whirled around the blaster storm with Soresu precision while Fisot attempted to lift the debris off the trapped Jedi once again. But the rock only rumbled, and the chaos surrounding them threatened to bring the rest of the building down around them. Fisot barely dodged a bolt, forcing him to break his concentration.
“It’s too heavy!” He growled. “Can’t-” He shouted in pain as another bolt clipped his left arm. “I can’t focus!” He recalled his saber, batting away more lightning fast flashes of red. “Okay, Cora… I need you to help me out here.”
Cora didn’t think she heard him right at first. “Wh… Me? Fisot, I can’t-”
“Look, any other day, I probably would’ve given you a big, cheesy, motivational speech, but…” He staggered as a bolt hit the weak of his blade, emphasising his following point. “We will die if you can’t get out, so… lend a hand?”
Cora felt the pressure on her increase exponentially, more than the slab of debris on top of her ever could. Fisot was right. The spattering of blaster fire painting the burning room red told her the Imperial assault wasn’t getting any less bombarding. If Cora did nothing, then they would die, and everything they had endured would be for naught.
For a moment, Cora could only think of everything that could go wrong. What if she couldn’t move the rock in time, and the Imperials slaughtered everyone? What if she moved the rock wrong, and it ended up crushing both her and Master Fitach, for good? What if she somehow caused the rest of the building to cave in, burying everyone? It was all on her, the worst possible person in the Galaxy.
But you managed to escape the Temple, right? You survived the stalker. You didn’t think that was possible at first, did you?
Begrudgingly, Cora had to agree with herself. If she was perfectly honest, she hadn’t really registered the amount of times she had almost died today… Yet here she was, almost dying again. She hadn’t come to terms with the fact that had beaten the odds, beaten the overwhelming voice in her head that everything was going to go wrong and didn’t entertain any other possibility.
So instead, Cora listened to the tiny, yet hopeful voice in her head, and acknowledged the chance that she may make it out of this as well. No, she will . She believed she could, so she would. That’s all she needed.
“... Rule number six.” She whispered to herself.
She took a deep breath, and shut her eyes. She paid no attention to everything going on around her. The sting of her ears everytime a blaster bolt erupted from its muzzle. The grunts of exertion from Fisot and Idichia. The shallow breaths leaving Fitach’s mouth. She let her hand relaxed from the clenched position it was in, feeling the heat and the wind on her palm, basking in the sensation. Reminding herself that she was alive, and will be alive for a long time to come. She believed she could, so she would.
The wind, the heat, her heart’s hammering pace slowing and slowing, until it fell into a steady rhythm. For a calm, serene moment, there was no desolation. There was no death. There was only the Force. She saw the rock lifting off of her before it happened, opening like a cellar door on its hinges. She believed she could, so she would.
The weight pressed on her body left, and Cora could feel the air through the tears in her robes, the heat on her skin. She felt the dust fall on her face as the concrete slab loomed above her, shuddering and splintering as blaster bolts hit its vast surface, facing the Imperials from their choke point. But still, Cora lifted it unopposed.
She believed she could, so she would.
Cora dared to open her eyes. The slab stood upright, a plinth shielding them from the unrelenting hatred and fury of the Imperial troopers. She looked to Fisot, a surprised, yet immensely proud expression on his countenance. With a thrust of his hand, Cora watched as Fisot commanded the Force to launch the slab from where it stood, hurtling towards the entrance to the building, crashing into the Imperials, and taking them with it over the balcony and into the depths below.
Cora finally allowed herself to breathe, scarcely believing what she had accomplished… But she had, so she did. Fisot and Idichia knelt beside her, checking both her and Fitach over.
“So, uh… where was that back at the Temple?” He quipped with that cocky smirk playing on his lips.
Cora felt far too tired to counter him, so just settled for a mirthful smile.
“... Karabast .”
Which disappeared as soon as Cora saw what had caused Fisot to curse, lost in the sheer amount of terror that curdled within her.
Idichia had shifted Fitach onto her back, which exposed a small piece of rebar lodged into the left of the Morellian’s midriff, her black top slick with her golden blood. She was breathing, but every inhale and exhale was getting fewer and farther between, and each one was shuddering.
“... We gotta get her on one of the ships.” Fisot spoke what Cora was too stunned to say.
Idichia confirmed in his own tongue, taking Fitach in his deceptively strong arms. Fisot, in turn, would help Cora to her feet, guiding her towards the exit.
“You did good, kid, but now’s the time to haul ass.”
Cora began to follow Idichia and Fisot, before she made the mistake of looking behind her. She saw a gunship lower itself towards the walkways outside the diner, its sides opening to release a squadron of Imperial soldiers into the fray. More and more were coming. And the people under the Jedi’s protection would die… Fitach might die if nobody stopped them.
But Cora will.
She believed she could, and so she would.
“Get everyone ready to go.” Cora told the others. “I’ll buy us some time.”
She didn’t even wait to hear Fisot’s protest before she was sprinting out into the flame-lit, smoke-choked walkway. Across the gap, on the other side of the street, Imperials were preparing to disembark. Cora didn’t even hesitate to pull out her sabers and wave them in the air, two magenta beacons to grab everyone’s attention.
“Hey, dipshits!” She yelled across the expanse, just now realising her voice felt raw and scratchy. “I’ve seen monkey-lizards in thongs with better fashion sense than your bucket-wearing asses!”
And just as planned, the air around her was filled with more blasterfire, the troopers perched atop the gunship to afford a better view of their target.
Okay. Now what?
Cora’s muscles felt like they were practically on fire, but she persevered through the burn to move her sabers to meet the deadly strikes of plasma. She concluded that there was a lot of blaster fire. No, scratch that. Too much blaster fire.
She really should have come up with a plan.
Damn you, adrenaline.
As she considered running back inside the diner and into safety, a blur of green whizzed by her and across the gap in the walkway. A spinning ring of green light sliced into one of the engines of the gunship, causing it to lose its stability. The troopers inside desperately fought for balance as the ship wobbled in the air, before finally veering into the walkway, grinding metal against stone and more metal. The offending engine burst in a blossom of flame, propelling the now-alight gunship off of the platform, and into the gap, taking itself and its passengers into the endless chasm below.
Cora began to run over to the railing to look over the edge, only to be stopped in her tracks by the spinning green ring, now recognising it as a lightsaber. Fisot’s lightsaber. The Miraluka’s weapon flew back into his hand as he looked at Cora with a somewhat irked expression.
“This is starting to become a pattern.”
Cora made a somewhat guilty smile. She prepared an apology, but the daunting roar of ship engines assured it never left her throat. Either side of the Jedi, another gunship descended, with even more troopers piling out. Fisot stood with his back to Cora, lightsaber brandished.
“I got the right, you take the left. We keep them from getting to the others. Pace yourself, and don’t die.”
Cora smiled, and held her lightsabers in preparation for the onslaught. “That’s the plan.” Cora hoped she could stick to it.
But... Well, she got the idea by now.