Chapter 45 - The Dark Side...taking over...

Then, Echo heard loud footsteps in the hall and yelling. Her sister was yelling in her head.
WAKE UP! GET OUT OF THE BED YOU LAZY HUTT! she was screaming.
What's wrong? Echo replied.
OPEN THE DOOR! Ash yelled back.
Echo walked over and opened the door and looked outside. Ash was on the other side of the hallway running for her life. She was heading straight for them. She ran past their door and Echo heard the sound of a dart gun being fired. Two darts came down the hall towards Ash. She ducked and use the Force to send them back to where they came from.
"Get Broze up!! We're being hunted again! Follow my Force-presence sis!" Ash kept running and turned down into another hallway. Echo quickly closed the door and walked over to the wall that they shared with Broze.
"What's going on?!" Kali said following her. "It's interrupting my beauty sleep!"
Don't go outside, she tried to tell Broze through the Force. They didn't have a strong enough connection like her and Ash so she doubted he heard that, so she added the sense of danger and that he should stay where he is.
Echo ignited her lightsaber and made a circle whole in the wall they shared with Broze. When she got down with the cut, Juno kicked the walled into his room. He was already awake but he was standing around like he had no idea what was going on. Kali, Juno, and Echo walked into his room.
"What's going on?!" he asked.
"We're being hunted again. We have to get out of here now!" Echo said.
"Where's Ash?" he asked, not sensing her presence.
"She's being chased by a bounty hunter right now and is not available to talk," Echo said, trying not to laugh. Everyone else chuckled.
Echo walked up to the wall that she knew was the outside wall. She used the Force to blow a hole in the wall. She didn't have time to use her lightsaber to cut a hole, so she just blew the wall apart. She heard someone pounding on their door in the other room saying to let them in.
"Come on guys, we don't have much time," Echo said. She stepped over to the edge of the use-to-be-wall and looked over the edge. They were about 5 stories above the ground.
"Let's go!" she yelled and jumped out of the building. She used the Force to slow her decent, but it still hurt when she landed. She was tired and running out of energy from always being on the run. Her friends landed beside her. Kali stumbled a little from being dehydrated, but she recovered.
"Come on guys! Into this ally!" Echo said and ran into a dark ally. They needed to get out of sight. Their attackers must have realized by now that they were gone and went back to chasing Ash. They got in the ally and everybody stopped to catch their breath.
"What are we suppose to do know?" Juno asked.
"Me and Ash have a very strong connection. I can sense where she is right now. She told me to follow her. She must have some big master plan," Echo explained.
"If I know Ash, she doesn't have a plan she's just making it up as she goes!" Broze said.
Echo laughed. She tried to search for her sister in the Force. She could feel her presence in the next building over. She must have gotten to the top of the apartment and jumped across.
"Okay, she's in the building right next to us. Follow me," Echo said.
She lead the way in the next building, ignoring the guards yelling for her to stop. She sensed that Ash was about 3 stories up and coming down fast. Echo lead her friends to the turbo lift and went up. The door opened and they walked out. All of a sudden, they saw Ash run around the corner.
"Get back in the turbo lift!" she yelled and she got closer. Echo turned around to get back inside, but the door closed right in front of her face. She banged her hands on the door trying to get it back open. They were stuck.
Ash finally got caught up with them. She had cuts and bruises all over. She ran into Broze because she couldn't stop face enough. She was really out of breath.
"Who's chasing you?!" Echo demanded, grabbing her sister by the shoulders.
"Aero and his deranged apprentice!" Ash said.
Echo looked around Ash shoulders and saw a hooded figure and a bright red haired woman step into the hallway. Kya and Aero.
"What are you doin Kya?" Kali said. "How can you be bad? You had such a good taste in clothes!"
"What? A villain can't have style?" Kya replied.
Echo's anger boiled up inside her. She was going to take Aero down if it was the last thing she did. She ignited her lightsaber and so did her friends. Kya took her dart gun and aimed it. She fired 5 times. Ash and Echo blocked the darts, but the others didn't miss their other targets. Broze, Kali, and Juno all took a dart in the chest. They immediately collapsed.
Ash charged, lightsaber held high. Kya throw her dart gun on the ground and ignited a red lightsaber. She charged Ash. They met blades and then Ash turned and kicked Kya through the hallway wall and followed her into the room. Echo looked over to Aero who was watching the fight.
"My apprentice is much stronger than you will ever be," Aero said.
Echo laughed. "Did you not just see what my sister did to her?"
Aero smiled. "That won't last for long."
He sent a bolt of electricity at her, but this time Echo was prepared. She had done some thinking since the last time her had used that one her, and this time she used her lightsaber to absorb the lightning.
"You'll have to do better than that," Echo said.
"Oh don't you worry about that. I can do much more," Aero said. He took off his cloak. He was covered in bad cuts and bruises and looked like he just went through a rock slide, which he kinda did.
He charged at Echo. She ran to meet his attack. Aero kept attacking from the sides and tried to catch her off guard, but his style was sloppy and immature. He hadn't changed much since the Temple except her was using the dark side now, and it made him harder than usual to fight.
Aero grabbed onto Echo's lightsaber arm and twisted it behind her. Aero temporarily had the advantage, but it wouldn't last long. She used the Force to get enough speed up, then she flipped into a spin turned around to kick Aero in the face. He was completely caught off guard and went staggering back. Echo used her speed and spun around again to land a kick on his chest and pushing him right through the wall.

She had dropped her lightsaber when he grabbed her arm, so she summoned it to her hand then jumped through the wall. She heard her sister struggling with her opponent on the other side of the hallway. She must have been a bigger problem than Echo thought.
Aero got up and attacked her again, this time low. Echo struggled to dodge the attacks. The dark side was making him stronger by the minute. She might not be able to defeat him. But she had too. Her friend's lives depended on it.
He swung at her legs and she blocked it, but then he brought his lightsaber up into a swing towards her head so quick that she didn't have time to block it, she just had to duck. She bent backwards and reflexively blocked his next attack that she knew was coming. She kept going backwards and used her speed to go into a back handspring. When she landed, she used the momentum from the handspring to jump forward and at the last second slip under his attack and sliced off his feet. He wasn't guarding his feet, and they slipped off like butter. He screamed and fell backwards against the wall. Echo walked forward with her lightsaber aimed at his neck.
"It always ends up this way, doesn't it?" Echo said with a hint of anger in her voice. "When I promised that you would pay for killing Nya, I meant it."
Aero visibly began to look surprised and worried. Echo could also feel it in the Force. He was scared for his life. Good, she thought. He needs to feel like this.
"ECHO! How dare you think those thoughts?!" Ash said walking into the room. She had lightsaber scars all over her. Echo was surprised she was even standing. She must have already taken care of Aero's assassin.
"You need to stop! You're heading on a dark path right now. Look deep inside yourself. This is not the normal you! Use your brain you bantha breath!"
Ash's words hit Echo hard, but they all hit ground. She understood Ash, but she didn't want to listen.
"Ash, look at him! He needs to pay for what's he's done!" Echo said. This time she listened to what she said, and Ash was right. This didn't sound like her at all. She looked at her sister and all the anger went away, but then she looked back at Aero and it all came back. She hated him so much for all the pain and misery he had caused her. He wanted him to pay, but she knew it wasn't the Jedi way. If she killed him, she would only be stumping to his level, and she wouldn't do that.
She looked Aero in the eyes. He was just a poor misguided boy. He was scared and went to the Dark Side hoping he would be more powerful than all his enemies.
She disengaged her lightsaber and clipped it to her belt.
"Your right, I can't do this," Echo said, then she paused. "But can I…" Echo started to say, but knew Ash would hear her thoughts.
"Of course!" Ash agreed.
Echo walked up and punched Aero out. At least she didn't kill him.
Ash left the room and came back with Kya's dart gun and shot Aero with it.
"ASH! That could kill him!"
"Oh, keep your nerf's in a herd. It's just a tranquilizer gun," Ash said.
Echo laughed.
"Hey, what happened to Kya?" Echo asked.
"You don't need to know," Ash said, waving her hand, pretending to use a Jedi mind trick on her.
"Dude, I'm not weak-minded like Kali. That won't work on me," Echo said laughing.
Ash giggled too. "Okay, come on we need to get the others and get out of here. There going to be quite cranky when they get up so I would suggest we get them onto a ship soon."
"What ship? Either your memory is worse than I thought, or you're talking about a new ship." Echo said.
"Oh, it's a new ship. A BRAND new ship! I bought it myself, just for you," Ash said, trying to sound cute.
"You're not good at acting cute, you know that right?" Echo said.
"Yes I know," Ash said laughing.

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