[center][h2]~| The Jedi Temple on Coruscant |~
~| Day 1, 11[sup]th[/sup] hour |~
[sub][sup][sup][i]Xid & Shiri vs 3 Droids ~ Heart of the Temple room[/i][/sup][/sup][/sub][/h2][/center][hr]
Shiri grinned as she managed to hit the droid as it retreated, making a gash in it a couple inches deep but not doing much else. She stepped away from it as it continued its retreat, bringing her lightsaber up to block the falling debris from the ceiling as the droid crashed into a pillar. Jumping out of the way of a large chunk of stone, she turned her attention to the other two droids in the room to check what they were doing, just as she heard Xid cry out. She started to head towards him to help, but another hunk of rock stopped her as it fell right in front of her. 

That gave her an idea. She didn’t need to be right next to Xid to help him. She reached out with the force and grabbed a few of the smaller bits of stone falling around her, sending them into the last bolt heading towards Xid. As they blocked the bolt she let them fall, clattering at Xid’s feet as she called to him. “You doing okay?”

The bolt hit and embedded into the thick stone, leaving a scorched mark over the surface. It crumbled into the ground causing Xid to breath in relief then looked over his shoulder. The back part was blackened where the blast had scraped and damaged him, through it was only skin deep. Deep down the Padawan knew it should’ve been much worse than it had been, the worry festering in him over any captives and what they would face. 

His knuckles tightened while he gave Shiri a smirk that didn’t even come close to what he was originally feeling, “I’m alright but don’t let your guard down. This fight isn’t over.”

With that in mind, his right foot lead him back into the fight. The Mark-ii once more fired on Xid causing him to kick off the floor and flip into the air. His arm swung and batted away the red blaster bolt, rocketing it into the nearest wall. He cursed under his breath at his lacking deflector ability to turn his opponent's attack on themselves. However he didn’t bother to dwell on it. 

“Shiri cover me!” Xid shouted as he extended his hand, his feet landed on the floor and attempted to disable the Mark-ii in front of him. 

The droids all narrowed their red glowing lenses upon the padawan. The two Mark-i began to adjust their arm guns then fired one shot each, both coming from opposite sides, right at Xid. Meanwhile, the first one was buzzing and twitching while he used Droid disable. 

”Like you gotta tell me that…” Shiri stepped in front of the bolt from the droid closest to her and deflected it into a wall before jumping over Xid in a flip to stop the other one before it could get to Xid. The bolt deflected into the Droid’s ‘eye’ and the light that was there sputtered out. The droid made a confused noise as it randomly fired more bolts towards her, guessing at where she was. She ran forward and slashed at the Droid’s arms, aiming for the joints to try and sever the guns from it before falling back towards Xid to block anything from getting to him again. 

Shiri’s blade managed to find a joint on the Mark-i’s arm gun. It came away easily as the other jerked to swiped at her rather than fire another bolt causing her to retreat quickly back or get hit. A deep, furious whirl emitted from its ‘throat’ while it tried to locate the two padawans. Meanwhile, the untouched Mark-i had rattled then with surprising agility charged at Shiri. The moment she moved or raised her lightsaber, it fired three blaster shots at her exposed body. It lowered its head to protect from any attempts to deflect the blasts back into its sight like the other one experienced. 

All the conflict had gained the Mark-ii’s attention. Its head turned and spied Xid focusing on it, his hand still extended. A small cascade of sparks erupted from its head back. A long spray flashed out and over the spine, dancing over the back and onto the floor before it started to bare down on the smaller padawan. Xid increased his focus by tightening his hand into a claw causing the Mark-ii to then twitch and spasm in place. Then it tumbled, crumbling into a heap on the ground and completely disabled.  

Shiri dodged out of the way of the blinded droid before turning to deflect or dodge the bolts fired from the other one. She hit one back at it, but it barely missed the droid, off by an inch to the left. Her hit on the other one was more of a fluke than it had seemed. She ducked and moved to the side to dodge the other two bolts, before the mark-ii clattered as it fell to the ground. 

“Nice one Xid! One down.” She ran towards the one that was charging at her, the one she’d tried to cut in half before, and tried to do the same again, this time aiming for its left side as it would pass her. 

Xid was relieved when Shiri came to his rescue. Disable droid took extreme focus and not a power meant for the battle field, often leaving the user vulnerable and easy prey for those more suitable for combat. Gradually his hand lowered from its extended position as he inhaled deeply, worn from the running and weaving through the combat field. His arms braced against his knees for a moment until Shiri’s words caught his attention. 

His head snapped up and watched her dart forward. Not willing to leave her to deal with the Mark-ii along, Xid’s right foot started to lead him into the fray and began to follow. He didn’t get very far when suddenly sorrow and pain swept through his mind, filling him with a sense of loss. Any higher thought immediately ceased. His lightsaber fell from his grasp, deactivated and bounced to a stop. The world felt like it was on a tilt making him feel sick and off balance when he fell to one knee. His left arm propped up his hunched over figure as his mind tried to understand what he was feeling. 

Deep down, Xid knew his master, Sela, had just died.  

Meanwhile, Shiri’s strike grazed the droid’s armor while it tilted to the side. Another deep gasp heated across the droid causing its middle to crumble and spark from the damage. Its torso fell down as it toppled into the wall then laid upon the floor unable to walk anymore. Its left arm raised feebly then began to fire upon the Twi'lek. 

With Xid crippled by the loss and Shiri distracted by the other droid, the blind one had rerouted its sensory into thermal. It then zoned in on Xid hunched down and unarmed as it adjusted its gun arm, aiming at the teenager and fired. The four shots streaked through the air at him but the padawan didn’t react to the threat. His mind was too numb to his sixth sense and locked in the realization he had just lost his master.   

Shiri grinned as she successfully cut the Droid in two, oblivious to her teammate falling to his knees behind her. She easily dodged its last-ditch attempts to shoot her, and brought a large chunk of the already-crumbling ceiling down on top of it before finally turning back to face Xid and the last droid. Though, when she saw him crouched on the ground, not paying any attention to the droid that was still active, a pang of worry and confusion went through her. She went to kneel down next to him, her eyes meeting his as she waved a hand in front of him.

In the background, more of the ceiling dropped and promptly crushed the droid. It made a whirring sound then gradually died before it became still. 

“Xid.. did you get hit? Are you alright?” She had barely gotten the words out when the droid fired at them. Acting as quickly as she could, she grabbed Xid’s arm and pulled him out of the way of the bolts, putting herself between him and the droid. She deflected two of them, but one hit her directly in her right shoulder and the other glanced off of her blade and grazed her forearms, nearly causing her to drop her lightsaber at the sudden pain. She took a step forward and gritted her teeth,examining the droid while trying to think of how to disable it. 

She glanced back at Xid, a joking tone in her voice. “Are you ok? This droid’s a pretty good shot, considering I'm pretty sure I blinded it earlier.” Her shoulder was starting to feel a little numb as the full effect of the stunning bolt started working on her. She doubted she would go down from it, it was only one hit after all, but the fact that it wasn't lethal like she would have thought it'd be was disconcerting at the least.

Xid was lost in his own living hell within his mind. Shiri’s attempts to jar him from it failed as he ignored her waving hand, his eyes widen and stared into the floor with disbelief. Sela was dead. The words, as surreal they were to him, felt accurate to his instincts causing more pain to fill him inside. They caused him to tremble slightly before the droid took a shot. His mind snapped from his grief when Shiri jerked him to the side, the present slapped him in the face as he watched her get hit.

“Sela’s...she’s…,” He couldn’t bring himself to say the actual word as he tailed off. His eyes turned to the droid still slumped to one side and readying another blaster shot, “Are you alright?” 

“I'll live...” Shiri trailed off as she spoke the words, not taking her eyes off of the remaining droid no matter how much she wanted to turn around and console her friend. “Xid, I'm sorry.” Master Sela was a good Jedi, and if Xid felt her loss then that could only mean she went down fighting. 

When Shiri answered, Xid nodded then returned to their immediate threat, “It’s using thermal sighting. I think if I can get close, then I can disable it and reprogram it. Then we can use it for an ally, but the hatch at the bottom needs to be severed off.”

Xid pointed at the underside of the droid to indicate where the hatch was, “Any ideas of how to get to it?” 

Shiri smiled as she looked to where Xid indicated the hatch was. “Yeah, I've got one. If we come at it from opposite sides, it can only really focus on one of us. and, with thermal it can only see the heat around it. Which means it should be blind to this.” As she finished speaking she picked up a few rocks from the ground and tossed them at the droid. They bounced off of its hull, but the droid didn't seem to react to them at all. 

“Ummm...Good point, shall we?” Xid said as he moved to the right side of the droid, his left hand held out to seize a few rocks along the way. 

The droid immediately turned its head to Xid’s direction and let off three shots at his torso. Instinct caused him to jerk the large chunks of rock up and let the blasts hit it, before sending it into the droid’s head. They clunked off and smacked into the wall beyond it. 

Shiri ran up to the droid as it was distracted with Xid, slashing at its arms to try and sever its guns from it once she was close enough. She missed one of its arms as it moved to avoid her, but got the other one before it could back away completely. The robotic limb fell to the ground and the droid used its remaining arm to fire a few shots at her. She dodged them, getting behind the droid and slashing at it’s remaining arm. She didn’t sever it, the droid had started moving away from her again, but as it tried to fire at her again, nothing happened. 

Xid had gotten close enough by now. His legs kicked out underneath him and his figure slid, ducking under the droid’s legs. His lightsaber flashed as he cut into the hatch, his figure jerked to the side to stop the metal from crushing him on the way down. His hand reached up for a handful of wiring then yanked down. Many of them were critical wiring powering the the droid and when disconnected, shut it down.  

Shiri flicked off her lightsaber as she went over to Xid, holding out a hand to help him off the ground. “Good job, now let’s see if we can help the others at all.”