Who: Leela and Anakin. What: A fight and some stabbity doom. When: today! Where:A park just on the edge of town. Warnings: aforementioned fighting. STATUS: in progress. LOG.
Emotion was running high at the complex. The petty bickering had mostly settled, but there was still that bad feeling hanging over them. Jedi and those with power were being singled out. Anakin would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried to where their fear would lead. Some of the things he could feel from that building were down right unsettling. He wanted to help and be able to ease said fear, but he was lost as to how. His mother said people were set in there ways, so making them see another was going to be difficult. Anakin wasn’t the type to give up on that, but it was frustrating to make progress in such an important subject so slowly. He was used to things at a more fast pace. His uncle’s academy for one had rare dull moments, but this place sometimes time moved like molasses. Painfully slow. That alone was enough to bring a sense of anxiety to the young Jedi.
He couldn’t hold onto those feelings of anxiousness or fear. They lead to the dark side, he knew that. So he occupied himself with assisting his brother’s friend in finding the girl called Leela. It was difficult since he did not know her well, but her presence was enough for the time being. If he felt it again he would know it was her. She had been so angry at the time, so hurt about her friends death it stuck out like a beacon in the Force. He would need a plan. Go find Vi? Bring Leela back to the complex? Bringing people where they did not want to be wasn’t something Anakin was looking forward to. It would mean more controversy and more fear. He hoped he would not have to resort to mind tricks. They were not looked upon kindly in this world as they were his own. Jedi were respected in his world. On Earth it was different.
He wasn’t so sure it was good different either. None the less he was trying to help. He was trying to shed a better light on the Solo family. He saw how they were viewed, and it was upsetting. So despite his current issues with them, he was trying.
He was out in the city, searching for the presence of Leela. It was late in the afternoon when his search brought him to a small park just at the edge of town. It had everything. Space, distance from the complex and the rage, a few facilities, and even a small lake that ran through it.
Anakin liked parks. This one was no different from the sort that reminded him of home years ago. It reminded him of the place he used to play with his siblings and it brought back warm memories of a better time. There were trees and lush plant life, and the more he walked the trail the better he felt. Those bad feelings from the complex started to fade little by little.
Leela was so filled with rage that it blinded her to everything else. She’d even abandoned K-9, her long trusted companion, when he’d objected to her behavior. It was lucky she’d managed to get away before he tried to stun her or something. But Alema had given her a target, and she needed to carry her intentions through. The Jedi needed to be taught a lesson. Revenge needed to be had, and that’s what was going to happen one way or the other.
Of course, had Leela been of rational mind and not under Alema’s influence, she would know the Jedis weren’t responsible for Romana’s death. But since she wasn’t, she would go right ahead with attacking any Jedi she came across. She understood they were powerful warriors, but she didn’t know the extent of their powers, so she was more or less running head first into a room that may or may not have a trap door in it, so to speak. Leela was a fighter, but when it came to supernatural powers or things of that sort, she didn’t have any herself. The only thing she really had was that she could tell when trouble was coming her way. It was a sixth sense, one that had saved her life more times than she could count.
She had taken to wandering the city, using her survival and hunting skills to slip from shadow to shadow and hiding place to hiding place without really being detected. The only people that could tell she was coming were the Force users. She was radiating incredible and intense waves of rage. Normally, she shouldn’t feel this way, but it wasn’t something she could really control. She walked into a park and glanced around. She had a good idea of who the Jedis here were, and as she walked through the park, she spotted one of them. Setting her jaw in determination, she moved around to flank him, her hand moving to the hilt of her sheathed knife at her hip. Much like a hungry lion, her gaze was fixed on Anakin as she made her slow yet determined approach towards him.
The space was helping Anakin begin to clear his mind finally. He was finding peace for the first time in days since the power dispute broke out. In that place, nothing bothered him, nothing hurt, he didn’t feel anger or rage, he just felt free. It was a thing he hadn’t been able to grasp since he arrived. His mother wasn’t fretting over where he went or whom he was with, she let him be and Anakin appreciated that. He didn’t like being in one place too long. Especially since they still lived in that cramped room at the complex. Two was uncomfortable, three was surpressing. On top of everything else going on, it felt like the walls had been closing in. But out in the little park in the fresh air, he was at ease and it was a feeling he missed.
That feeling unfortunately was short lived. He felt a sudden wave of emotion from behind. Instantly he knew who it was and he turned on heel to face the stiffly moving woman. “Leela?” He questioned, even though with her presence it wasn’t entirely necessary. He knew who it was. He knew before she said a single word.
“Are you all right?” He tried talking. He wasn’t certain if at this point she was going to be responsive, but Anakin was determined to try.
Leela was surprised when Anakin turned around and spoke directly to her. She stopped and looked at him in confusion. She’d been so careful not to make noise, how could he have known she was there? She dismissed the question after a moment, and in a very uncharacteristic move of her, she didn’t ask a question.
“I will be fine once I have revenge for what happened to Romana!” And with that, she drew her dagger. Leela didn’t make smalltalk, frankly it bored her and seemed mostly pointless. She was more a woman of action and, when not infected with wrathiness, curiosity. She liked learning about things she did not understand, though she didn’t always end up liking them. She had a true thirst for knowledge, one that would be on the same level as a baby first being able to walk and exploring the world around them. But that bright-eyed woman was so far removed from the one that stood before Anakin right then. Her blue eyes, while normally clear and full of curiosity, now held only anger and pain.
“This is for Romana!” She exclaimed as she charged at Anakin, knife at the ready to lash out at him.
Anakin went to speak, but Leela had already made up her mind that speaking really wasn’t going to be much a part of their little run in. She was already barreling forward. Anakin had to think fast, and unfortunately for him the fast part of his processing was interrupted by something shiny the woman had pulled and rushed at him with. A knife. She was fast, and Anakin reached downward for his lightsaber when the knife came in and he felt it pierce skin of his shoulder. It cut through the sleeve of his shirt, and red liquid spilled from the wound. It stung, but Anakin had experienced worse.
His hand gripped at his still sheathed lightsaber, his other tweaked slightly as he turned to the side to avoid being within arms length and he used the Force to rip the blade away from her hand, and sent it to the ground. Anakin still clutched his weapon, but he hoped not to need it. He needed work on his reaction timing. he was rusty since death. But dying did that to a person. ”Stop.” He stated coldly and with authority. Watching her carefully. Would she go for the weapon again? Her state of mind was wrong. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t pin point what it was.
When the blade was ripped from her hand, she blinked and stared at her right hand that was now empty. What had just happened? She looked at her knife that now lay on the ground. But she couldn’t spend too much time thinking about that. Anakin had his hand on a potential weapon, she needed to move and defend herself in case he attacked. She spent a brief moment debating between diving for her knife and attacking him. In the end, she decided to dive for the knife, to make sure she was at least armed in some manner.
Leela dove for her knife and rolled, ending in a squat, facing Anakin. She could just throw her knife at him, but there wasn’t any satisfaction in that for her. So she leapt up and rushed him again. At this point, she was no longer thinking, only acting and reacting to what was in front of her. When he told her to stop, the word barely registered in her mind, but she didn’t stop. She kept going because her rage was fueling her and guiding her actions.
He’d tried talking. He really did. He could practically hear his Uncle Luke in his head saying that the Force was for defense and peace. That’s what this was right? The woman had a weapon. Her presence was wrong. Damaged even, he couldn’t tell what was behind her change in behavior, but something had happened and it was strong. He didn’t have much time to meditate and think on it. She was coming at him again with the knife.
Anakin hadn’t been prepared for a fight. If that was what she wanted though, then he would defend himself. It would be unfair of him to attack her in her current state of mind. His shoulder was hurting, but he’d had worse. Still he needed to calm the situation before it got out of hand and he did end up with more then a flesh wound. He knew his family was going to be less then pleased if he didn’t end it quickly. He knew the longer this went on, the less chance he would have to bring her back willingly to the complex.
A gentle mental suggestion nudged at Leela’s mind. stop. this time the command was mental, and the Force at work.
Leela was far more than damaged. If one was honest, she’d been different ever since the trip to the future had ended. Dying tended to do things to people, and Leela dying in the future had been scarring to her. Not only that, but knowing that she’d lost Romana to Pandora, who in turn had blinded her, it had been too much to take. Pandora frightened her more than she could ever say, but at the same time Pandora was the only one that infuriated her. Leela had actually been fearful and wary of Romana for a while after they returned from the future. But she had gotten over the wariness. However, the damage remained. The fear that Pandora could return was still there, and she had meant to keep a closer eye on Romana to ensure Pandora never got a hold of her again. But she’d failed. Leela was supposed to be Romana’s bodyguard and her charge was dead. The blow had been devastating, and while she had been angry when things had first happened, it wasn’t until she’d met Alema that her anger had truly taken a hold of her. Instead of focusing on her pain, she was focused on her anger.
So a fight it would be. She attacked him, lashing out with her knife expertly. She felt the nudge at her mind just as she struck out, and it was enough to cause her hand to change trajectory. Instead of landing a stab to his torso, the blade sliced his bicep, though the blow was more a glancing one than a direct one due to the sudden shift in her attack. Leela was highly susceptible to her mind being controlled. She’d been hypnotized many times before, even attacked the Doctor who had been her friend while under it. She did have a simple mind, yes, but that was only because she came from what civilized people would say was a primitive, tribal people. She did not know how to defend her mind against such attacks.
After she struck the glancing blow, she did pause, wondering what the prod at her mind was. The pause was long enough to allow Anakin to get in a blow of his own, or to find another way around this physical confrontation.
Anakin probably should have done more damage then a gentle prodding, but he wasn’t trying to wound her. Quite the opposite actually. He wanted to bring her back unharmed, but she wasn’t having any of it. It was stuck in her mind that attacking him would avenge the death of a woman he had never even met. Whatever had happened to this woman was recent. On the boards she seemed more coherent. Now she was almost completely enveloped by anger. Anakin almost hadn’t recognized her at all. If not for the Force, he wouldn’t have.
In his defensive steps to avoid as much harm as possible, he’d recieved another slash with the weapon she held and hissed in pain. That was enough. He had no choice now but to react. The attack was too close to pull a light saber without leaving permanent damage and possibly risk severing the woman's arm, so he kept a hold of it but his free hand held out lightly and once again the weapon was torn from her. Blood spilled down his arm at a faster pace then the tiny flesh wound had before, this time he knew he needed to end it or risk losing too much blood. That again was not an experience he wanted to have twice. With his mind he was more forceful this time.
Stop now, turn around and leave. was the suggestion to her brain, he knew it would work. That was how the Force was. He had no doubt and no fear in that moment. Just focus and a dangerous level of power over her actions. He could have erased her memory of this fight if he wanted too, but he didn't. He hoped she would realize what he was doing one day was for her benefit and would not further blame the Jedi for use of a natural given power.
"People are worried about you." He managed despite the stinging wound. "You should go back to the complex." He tried to influence her mind to return to them, but if she managed to break the hold on his mind trick he wouldn't be surprised. People in this city had their own secrets. He'd yet to face anyone that had been able to beat a Jedi Mind Trick, but there was always a first time.