Jax got a strange sense that something was off the closer they got to their destination. He didn’t quite know why, but his senses were on edge as they arrived. He glanced over as Jek when he suggested that they be cautious. “Yeah,” he nodded in agreement as he looked up at the large house, taking it in.<br/><br/>He took a deep breath of his own before he followed Jek up to the front of the house. He was only a couple of steps behind him, his hand on his lightsaber when the door swung open before they could even knock. He narrowed his eyes just a little, his gaze darting around the area for any signs of life but finding none within his field of vision. He did note a speeder bike off to the side, but there was little else of note.<br/><br/>He kept his guard up as he entered the house, several steps behind Jek as he scanned everything within his field of vision while unclipping his saber from his belt. The moment he heard Jek’s blade sprung to life, he ignited his own, hearing voices and rushing forward as Jek called out for him. He found Jek face to face with someone a few inches shorter than he was, wearing all black and wielding a vibroblade with the skill of someone who had obviously had formal training. From their stature and build, he gathered that it was a woman, and her red eyes practically glowed beneath the mask that otherwise concealed her features.<br/><br/>He took his stance and jumped into the battle when Jek flipped over the woman and out of his way. He attacked with the full strength of Form V, landing heavy-handed blows against the blade, only to have them parried, as their mysterious attacker skillfully switched between forms. She seemed to favor Juyo, mixing in some Ataru as she deftly leapt over them, bouncing around to try to keep them moving while attacking them aggressively in turn, and using the Force to push and pull them as needed. She was managing to hold them off with apparent ease despite being outnumbered.<br/><br/>It was incredibly frustrating. “Who are you?!” he repeated Jek’s early question, but the only answer he got was a rather unsettling laugh as the woman pushed Jek against the wall before she leapt towards Jax and attacked him with a flurry of strikes so fast that he struggled to keep up with them, giving him no room for a counter strike. When the barrage of strikes came to an end, it was with the woman dipping low to avoid any attacks from his partner.<br/><br/>He changed his form to the Shien variant of Form V as the woman sliced at his leg. He attacked with a sweeping strike that narrowly missed tearing into the woman’s flesh, but sliced the mask she wore, causing it to fall from her face as she flipped backwards and away from him after slicing at his leg. He winced in pain as the pain from her strike hit him. He could feel warm blood trickling down his leg and the pain made it hard to put any weight on his leg, causing him to fall down into a kneeling position as he gritted his teeth.<br/><br/>The woman’s face could be seen now that the mask had fallen away, revealing a human woman with dark hair and pale skin so clearly tainted by extensive use of the Dark Side of the Force that it was visible even in the dim light of the room. He narrowed his eyes, still gritting his teeth as she faced Jek. He tried to stand, but to no avail. He cursed, holding his blade at the ready when she pushed Jek back once again to attack him. Her blade pounded on his with both her own strength and the strength of the Force behind her blows before she suddenly changed positions, slamming the hilt of her blade hard into his abdomen. She then pushed him back with the Force, knocking him onto his back and sending him sliding across the floor.<br/><br/>He struggled to try to get himself back up as he felt the presence of An-Lok and Aeris approaching fast. The woman stretched a hand behind her, using the Force to lift Jek up off the ground, tightening the invisible grip around his neck as her face twisted with barely concealed rage as the two women arrived and rushed towards them, bursting through the door before she could reach him. He heard An-Lok cry out and soon she was by his side, deflecting the strike that came down hard on him.<br/><br/>Next thing he knew, the woman flipped backwards, yanking Jek towards her with the Force, angling her blade so that, if it made contact, it would pierce through his chest, only about a centimeter below his heart. Jax reached up and grabbed onto An’s arm, wanting to yell at her for coming her, and thank her for saving him, but he could do neither as he winced and fell back to the floor, holding tightly to his abdomen.<br/><br/>--<br/><br/>Aeris thought of nothing else as she sped towards them, praying to every deity she knew that they would be okay, that they would last until she and An-Lok got there. As they approached, she could feel the danger they were in, the pain they felt from the injuries inflicted on them. “You! Take control,” she told the man in the seat next to her, ignoring the surprised look he gave her as she released the controls and stood in her seat. He frantically took hold of the controls, climbing over into her seat as she hopped onto the front of the speeder when they neared the house.<br/><br/>Before the speeder had ever stopped, she leaped towards the house and rushed forward towards the door, feeling that An-Lok was not far behind her. She could feel the pain that Jek felt, the hunger for oxygen, even though she could breathe just fine. This feeling caused her to slow as she entered the house, allowing An-Lok to catch up. She felt like someone was squeezing her heart inside of her chest when she burst through the door and the scene unfolded before her.<br/><br/>For the first time in a long time, she felt real rage and anger boiling up inside of her, practically cloaking her in darkness as she watched the woman suddenly jerk the man she loved towards her, angling her blade to stab through him. She knew she couldn’t reach him in time to stop it, so she used the Force on the blade, hoping to free it from the grip of the woman, but only managing to alter the course of the strike so that instead of piercing his chest, she sliced through the flesh of his side. Before the woman could do anything else, she leaped forward, the white blades of her two sabers igniting in her hands as she slid between Jek and the woman, using the Force to push the woman hard enough to throw her back.<br/><br/>She immediately leaped towards her, crashing both of her blades down on the woman’s blades with the full force of her physical strength and her strength in the Force, drawing on the Dark Side to further strengthen her blows. Her teeth were clenched together, her brows knit together in a scowl as she rained blow after blow on the woman, yet the woman managed to block each of the strikes. She grunted, a sound that almost came out as a growl as she pushed the woman back with all of her strength, switching to Juyo, as she continued to press the assault, doing nothing to hide her anger, instead using it to fuel her attacks.<br/><br/>The woman seemed pleased by this, even as she was forced to step back as one of Aeris’s blades sliced across her arm. “Good. Harness your rage,” she whispered in an eerily familiar voice. Aeris’s eyes widened as something clicked in her mind, as if the thinnest strands of thread from a bond long forgotten were suddenly visible, and some fog had cleared, allowing her to better see the woman for who she was. “You…” she sounded shocked, although she still could not quite place why.<br/><br/>“That’s my cue to leave,” the woman said, flipping backwards, “Don’t worry, I’ll see you again real soon, sweety,” she winked at Aeris before slipping out of the house, knowing she would not be followed. Aeris initially rushed forward, but she soon saw the woman heading away from them on a speeder bike. She clicked her tongue, wanting to chase after her, but unable to leave Jek behind. She grunted loudly, obviously frustrated as she tried to reel in her anger, turning off her blade and clipping them to her belt as she turned to rush back to Jek’s side.<br/><br/>She knelt next to him, moving him so that she was partially holding him as she looked at his wound. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered the apology as her anger quickly faded into pain and guilt. Her eyes stung from barely contained tears as she took a slow, unsteady breath, holding her hand over the wound at his side. She closed her eyes as she called on the Force to aid her as she felt every cell in the area, pouring her own lifeforce into him to knit the tissues back together, to stop the bleeding and ease his pain, if only a little.<br/><br/>She wanted to fully heal his wound, but she knew that Jax would likely need healing, too. Because she was not a true healer, it took a good amount of her strength to heal even these minor injuries under these conditions. For now, she focused on healing the worst of it, to stave off the worst of the consequences and stabilize him so that they could get him back to the medical bay on the cruiser. Once she finished with him, she would do what she could for Jax.