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The Old Republic

Written based on my experiences in Star Wars: The Old Republic. I know this is written differently from my other stuff, but I'm trying to see how this style works with this kind of thing. Also, it's only the first chapter, so my style will probably change XD.

Also, I suck at delivering backstory. Just saying.

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Chapter 1

Times were pretty bad. The Republic and the Sith Empire are at war with each other, and I just got pulled into this mess. Only a few months ago, I was living what you could call a peaceful life. The war hadn’t really reached us, so we weren’t planning on panicking until it did. Then all of a sudden, I’m taken away from my family and everything I know because apparently I’m Force Sensitive and that makes me a valuable asset to the Republic’s warfront. I’m taken to some distant world and am very briefly trained on how to use these powers I didn’t even know I had.

Now I am a Jedi. Jedi are able to communicate with the Force: an omnipresent...well, force. It lives inside everything and binds us and the whole universe together. Jedi can use the Force to help people; we are the peacekeepers of the Republic: a very large democracy that thousands of planets across the galaxy are a part of. Unfortunately, there is such a thing as a Jedi gone bad, and they're called Sith. The Jedi and Sith are sworn to wipe each other out: the Sith want to rule, but the Jedi only wish to serve.

No, I'm not some all-powerful Jedi; I'm just a Padawan. I don't even have a real lightsaber, just an advanced practice blade. The practice blade is crafted to mimic the lightsaber's length and weight perfectly, but it's also made out of very hard durosteel, so it's going to hurt if it makes contact. I honestly don't know where this ship is going, but the sudden stop must mean we've landed.

Two of the crew members escorted me out, and I was honestly astonished at the landscape. All around the landing pad were serene-looking mountains, with beautiful trees at a much closer proximity. A small, peaceful river ran next to the mountains directly behind the landing pad. The pathway from the pad led up to a staircase that led to a small building. At the top of the staircase was a man dressed in what could only be described as plain brown robes. His light brown hair was neatly combed back, and his gray eyes were gentle. He had a few wrinkles, but otherwise seemed warm and welcoming. The lightsaber at his belt gave him away as a Jedi. I stood at one and a half meters, an appropriate size for my age of seventeen standard years. Even from I distance I could tell that the Jedi was taller than me, easily coming out at close to two meters.

"Welcome to Tython, Padawan Kiora Vess. Everyone at the temple is looking forward to meeting you. I am Knight Derrin Weller." They walked inside the building, entering a room with a small comms relay, a plain table, and a large machine that I was unfamiliar with. "Your former Masters praise your combat skills. They say you're becoming an expert duelist."

"It's easy to excel when you're trained by the best." I answered. The Jedi Order had some of the best instructors in the galaxy. The blademasters were particularly her favorite. Using the Force was cool, but nothing could really compare to the sensation of using a lightsaber.

"The Jedi Council will assign you a new Master to oversee your final trials. You'll be tested in ways you can't imagine. But when you leave Tython, you'll know what it means to be a Jedi Knight. More importantly, you'll know yourself."

The Trials? I was already that far along in my training? That's exciting. The Jedi Trials were essentially a test of varying sorts that determined if you were ready to go from being a typical Padawan to entering an apprenticeship under a Jedi Master. "I'm eager to face these trials!" I said, not even trying to hide my excitement.

"There's a speeder here that will take you-hang on. Getting an emergency signal from my comm." He pulled a small device out of his pocket. Activating it, the image of a -Bith, I think- Jedi came on.

"This is Unaw Aharo. We are under attack, repeat, under attack! Flesh Raiders are invading the Padawan training grounds! They have blasters! Send help!" he said in heavily accented Basic before the signal was lost.

"Flesh Raiders? Armed with blasters? He must be mistaken." Weller said.

"What are these things? Animals?" I asked. It would be better to know what we're dealing with, after all.

"Flesh Raiders are a species of hostile natives. They're smart enough to use tools and violent beyond reason. I'm sending every able-bodied Jedi on Tython down to the Padawan training grounds right away-especially you."

He...I...what? “‘Especially me,'?" What makes me any better than the others?"

"You've been trained for dangers like this. I know I can count on you." Well, that was reassuring. That I know what I'm doing. Wait a second.... "Take the speeder outside to the training grounds. Push back the Flesh Raiders and find out if they're really using advanced weapons."

'But I don't even have a lightsaber!' I thought.

Derrin Weller must have seen the question in my eyes. He smiled and replied reassuringly "Go. I'll catch up after I alert the Jedi Council. May the Force be with you."

I nodded and exited through a side door, coming out to a...plaza, I guess you could say. At one end was an area for speeders, at the other was a sort of living area. In between there were small vendors selling food or clothes. On my way to the speeder end, I ran past a mirror, turned back and looked at myself. I was surprised that I didn't even recognize my voice as being female. All of the stuff going on must be getting to me.

My slender frame was wrapped in beige Padawan robes, and my short brown hair frayed outward at the sides. It took a few glances to remember that I wasn't Human- I was a Zabrak, a species known for combat prowess and was physically identifiable by vestigial horns and face tattoos. The tattoos weren't much darker than my natural skin color, and only covered various parts of my face. My horns were few: one on each temple, and a total of three on the top of my head, one on the top of my forehead, one in the center-top, and one on the top of the back of my head - almost in a vertebrae-like fashion. My eyes were a smoldering green, and pretty attractive if I do say so myself. It took me a minute to realize that if I am to fight in this war, I’ll need to be trained the proper way, so being ready to take the Jedi Trials was starting to make sense now.

I hopped in an open yellow speeder and searched through the navcomputer for the training grounds. My search fruitful, I punched in the coordinates and zoomed off over the trees, landing on a small strip off of a rather large clearing. I easily identified the forms of Jedi out there, deflecting blaster bolts with their lightsabers. There was a fairly large amount of Padawans out there, also wielding training blades. They were forced to simply having to dodge the bolts, being unable to repel them. A good number of them were successful, but several had to rush back closer to where I was to tend to their wounds.

As I jumped out of the speeder, a Jedi flagged me down. “Padawan, come here quickly!” I approached. He had short brown hair and pale green eyes. A small scar played across his left cheek. “I am Master Relnex. The Padawan training grounds are not safe.”

“Knight Weller sent me to help repel the Flesh Raiders. I’m combat-trained and ready to help.” Came my response.

“The Force is with us, then. Not many Padawans can make that claim. The Flesh Raiders attacked us, organized and ready. They tried isolating various groups of Padawans. There’s a group of students in the hills we lost track of. They’re not combat-trained.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll make sure those Padawans are safe!”

“Here, take this beacon. When you’ve found the students, light the beacon, and we’ll send an evac shuttle their way. A group of Jedi are coming from the Temple, but I fear they may come too late. May the Force be with you.”

Master Relnex didn’t have to tell me twice. It was a Jedi’s duty to help those in need, and right now, those fellow Padawans needed me. I saw a small group of maybe three or four Flesh Raiders not too far away, trying to reload their blasters. They may know how to shoot, but reloading was a different story. I gathered up the energy of the Force, and with a mighty leap landed right behind them, using the Force to soften and quiet my landing as well as slightly mask my presence from them. As the Flesh Raiders weren’t too smart, this was an easy task.

I slowly took my training blade out of the holster on my back, and proceeded to quickly slash at their necks as hard and as fast as I could. A Jedi did not aim to kill unless absolutely necessary, so…I chose to break their necks and paralyze them.

The Flesh Raiders weren’t exactly pretty things. They stood at over two meters, and were a hideous…well, flesh color. They only work simple loincloths, and had several fat folds over their body, but there was definitely muscle underneath. As I walked away from this gross image, I got a call on my holocommunicator. Answering, the image of Knight Weller appeared!

“Ah, Padawan; you’re safe. A Flesh Raider shot me in the leg while I was rescuing some Padawans. I’ve been evacuated to a med center, but the fighting isn’t over.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to stop the enemy and secure the training grounds.” I said, a very noticeable hint of typical Jedi courage.

“A Padawan found an entrance to a cave the Flesh Raiders are using to enter this valley. I need you at the tunnel, making sure Flesh Raiders can’t send any more reinforcements through.”

“I’ll find the entrance and seal it, Master.”

“Find the tunnel along the mountain range and close it up for good. May the Force be with you.” Knight Weller closed the communication.

Having to close the tunnel would be easy. I could trigger an explosion or use the Force to bring some rock down. But that would require no Flesh Raiders to be around to distract me, and if they were coming out that way, then consider it easier said than done. Unfortunately, I already promised Master Relnex that I’d also rescue those lost Padawans. One way or another, these Trials weren’t going to be easy.

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Thanks to Carmen, Shiny, and Tailon for creating this character for me to use :D

Also, so you understand Kiora's horns and tattoo pattern:
kiora.png
 

baratron

Moderator of Elder Scrolls
Staff member
Moderator
Hi, I'm on my phone so this is going to be short. Basically: I like the story, but I think it has some tense and pronoun-fail. It seems confused about whether it's in present or past tense, and whether it's first- or third-person.

Also, the part about not being human would be better off higher up where she's talking about her height, since species must have more of an impact on your height than age does (adult ewok versus child wookiee? :) ).

Anyway, it's interesting and works even though it's the story of your playthrough of a game. So keep at it!
 
Thanks for mentioning that, Bara ^^; Originally, since the player character is given zero backstory, I had it as they had just waken out of a coma and was trying to figure things out, and I found that easy from a first-person perspective. Later on I remembered that it's a period of war, so it would be very common to just be taken from your family, given a bit of training, and thrust into battle. So I tried somewhat to edit accordingly.

Yeah, it's a bit rough, but the next chapter should be pretty free of tense-errors, 'cos I think I've worked out how I want to write it now.

Thanks again ^^
 
Oh, a Star Wars fic! At the very least, it should be entertaining. I may be a huge Dune fan, but the two main Star fandoms have held a bit of interest for me.
 
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