I love skating and been having a itch to get back on the ice. I'm not nesscarily looking for stick and puck, or league. But just want to have access to ice. A lot of places are offering lessons, but...I'm kind of not looking for that aswell.
Does anyone know of any ice rink that you can pay to get in for skating around these days?

I live a couple houses down from what used to be Astoria Complex.
A gym that was the most complete in the area, it had a spinning room, yoga room, cardio, weights, CrossFit area, aerobics classes and most importantly the only indoor pool around here. It was also quite affordable if purchasing a yearly membership.
According to the little that I know, they had try to expand and build an indoor ice skating rink, but got denied by the city. After attempting to keep expanding and being denied they finally closed and sold about a year ago #sigh.
That alone was such a lost, but they sold out to a company that is building a storage space 😖 another industrial building on this part of the neighborhood… and the construction is driving me nuts.
Here comes the rant. I know there’s little one can do for construction and they’re in their on right to build but I am honestly shocked at the amount of noise there is.
First off, this is actively deteriorating my life, the noise level has me on a never ending headache, the dust combine with the allergens of this year have both my roomate and I and everyone else on my building coughing and sneezing.
The beeping starts at 6-7 am and it doesn’t stop until 4-5pm 😖😖 do they have beep all trough their work day? IS A LOT.
They were also blasting music on speakers on the construction site, it went on for almost a month before I had the courage to walk to the site and ask to please stop blasting the music. Which they did, so at least that has stop (for the most part).
Is also affecting my money as I work from home and I can’t do any calls/recording because the noise is that uncomfortable, so I have to constantly move around my apartment (which is small) or just straight up cancel projects and do all my work on weekends when there’s no construction.
Idk I am going crazy. I wanna cry because I have that beeping stuck in my ears. I just wish they would just finish already. But I saw they’re starting to build another floor today 😖
Oh yeah and they’re also blocking all the light from our building.
If you have any info about when this construction ends please let me know so I can rally. 🤎

My parents always threw that saying around. They signed me up for soccer, swimming and swimming lessons and, gymnastics when I was very young. Maybe 8 years old or older. I’m not sure of the age precisely but my parents signed me up for this stuff and I HATED going. Especially the swimming. I’d rather swim at an amusment park on a hot day than swim a enclosed building for “sport”. They just picked it out for me and told me to do it to be active. I never really had a say.
Once I was older and had a mind of my own I started having hobbies like playing video games and musical instruments. This went on for almost a decade. I joined music clubs, music classes, music electives, music competitions where I compete against other ppl in a band, I won awards for it too. I was in it all. That was what I truly loved. Not stupid soccer and gymnastics.
They could’ve chosen a better sport like ice skating or baseball, I always wanted to do baseball. When I showed interest in boxing my mom judged me. Mainly because it was a “man sport.” Ugh😒 I liked those as well but I was too young to have an opinion of my own, but I’m older today and I still can’t have a mind of my own so….because of me quitting those two things mt parents always held this “you always quit at eveything” over my head for decades even though I found sometning im truly passionate about this hobby. It was just something THEY don’t approve of despite me becoming very successful with it.
So when I stick to something for almost a decade you’d think they’d drop the belittling but nope.

Hello ladies,
I wanted to share my story in the hopes this will give at least some of you a bit more comfort going into your surgery. I found there were lots of negative post surgery experiences here and in the wider realms of the internet, so I thought I should probably share a positive one too! I am now Day 10 post-op.
Surgery type: Laparoscopic myomectomy
Insurance: Private. Pre-diagnosis, ladies, not to sound like I am advertising private insurance, but even if you have a tiny inkling something might be wrong (but haven't been to the docs yet and no diagnosis), get private insurance - it gives you a bit of security that even if nothing is wrong you could have had the opportunity to get medical attention fastebetter quality.
Age: 32
Fitness level: High/athletic - I do lots of gym-ing, running, surfing, skating, cycling. I was a bit overweight in my early 20ties (not massively so, maybe like 2kgs over my BMI), so after my ovarian cyst surgery I was paranoid to get PCOS so I really changed my lifestyle around and got into sports, which now has turned into a lifestyle I can't really live without!
Living situation: Live on my own in a rural town, but close friends live nearby.
Previous surgery: Ovarian cyst surgery where they also had to remove my ovary (very large cyst) circa 10 years ago. Didn't have any symptoms back then even, just thought I had IBS (which I think a lot of us do) - turns out there was a cyst the size of a small basketball growing on my ovary, and they had to remove both...which sucks of course, but when your in your early 20ties you don't really think about how this may affect your future ability to have kids. Mine was an emergency surgery performed after I went to ER with crazy gas pain in tummy, in a foreign country, so overall this whole experience was really traumatic emotionally and I am still dealing with the aftermath of this.
Symptoms before surgery: No real symptoms - normal periods, bit of bloating (assumed IBS), bit of hormonal acne here and there. Been on birth control pill since my ovarian cyst surgery, so keeping hormones in check through that.
Diagnosis: I pulled what I thought was a hernia at the gym, went to GP, got a ultrasound which funnily enough found nothing, so they attributed it to a one off random told me to ease off exercise for a couple of weeks and start again. However, I instinctively knew something was wrong with my body, so TRUST YOUR GUT LADIES! Because I had a previous cyst and my ovary removed circa 10 years ago I got into real panic mode about my fertility, so I requested a referral to a OBGYN in case there was an issue with my other ovary. Note ladies, private insurance if you live in a country where healthcare is horrible is so important. I saw the OBGYN within a week, if that wasn't the case I would have needed to wait about 6-12 months to see one on the public system. OBGYN sent me for another ultrasound (this time transvaginal) and they originally didn't see any problem, but by the end of the app, they weren't quite sure what they had seen (useful, I know), so OBGYN sent me for an MRI. MRI found 1 med-large fibroid on uterus. I then had a long chat with OBGYN as to the best treatment type, and because of my age and the desire to have children she recommended removal through laparoscopic surgery.
Fibroid numbetype: 1 med-large subserosal fibroid 7cm, and the surgeon found two others ( 1 x 4cm and 1 x 1cm) during my surgery (did not see them on the MRI, I know crazy!). OBGYN also now suspects I have adenomyosis, which is something I will have to deal with once I have recovered from surgery. I know, fun!
Day of surgery: Had to only wait a month between my app with OBGYN and surgery (again, thanks insurance). Hospital was boujie as (had never been in private hopsital) and everything from the admission to surgery just felt like a well oiled machine which was really good to keep the stress levels down. I had my friend there with me and we chatted all the way until I got rolled away for surgery. Surgery lasted about 2 hrs.
Waking up post-surgery: I woke up to see 2 nurses monitoring my vitals, and they rolled me to my room where my friend was waiting. I was pretty out of it and asked some silly question to my friend, which I am sure she loved sharing with our friend group. I had an afternoon surgery so I was in my room by dinnertime, but believe you me I did not want to eat anything. I drank lots of water overnight, and they kept coming in to check my vitals and give me pain and anti-nausea meds + laxatives and some other stuff that helps with heartburn etc.
Day 1 post op: In hospital, had a bit to eat for brekkie (eggs - high protein), they took my catheter out from my lady parts, so I can pee by myself. Didn't hurt at all taking it out (also they put the catheter in while you're under so you feel nothing). Went for my first pee, went for a little ponder round hospital (about 5mins in the hallways), and spent the rest of day watching series, reading etc. Pain was totally fine, and I was just on paracetamols etc., didn't need anything stronger. Had pretty bad nausea, but they kept me topped up for that. Lots of sleeping, but generally because of the pain meds I didn't feel any pain at all! Getting in and out of bed was a bit hard, but I have really strong arms from surfing so i was able to push myself up quite easily. Every hour or so, I tried to get up and do a couple of laps (5-10min) in the hallway. Because I was doing fine and was mobile, I could do this by myself, but there were lots of people who did the same thing but needed to be accompanied by a nurse. Drink lots of water gals, this will help with triggering your need to pee independently and getting your bowels moving, and also helps flush your body.
Important things to make your stay at hospital more comfy: Loose low rise sweatpants - I actually bought a pair a size too big so it was more comfy. Oversized t-shirts and jumpers, something you can easily put over the catheter in your arm. I-pad (life saver for me, I could catch up on netflix), magazines or crosswords. I had a book, but my brain was deffos not ready to engage while I was still in hospital. Electrolyte drinks - these were incredible and really helped to get my bowels moving too! Heat wrap - they had some in the hospital, and they're essential pain relief for anesthetic leaving your body pain (my right shoulder was in pain) - they kept heating it up round the clock which was so GOOD.
Day 2: Discharge day/first day at home - they would not discharge me until I had a bowel movement, so I was drinking water like crazy to help trigger some gut movement. Otherwise you will have to shove pills up your bum to get the party started. Luckily for me all of my drinking, and eating regular, yet small meals during Day 1 did the trick! My friend came to pick me up and we had a 2 hrs drive to get home, and this was not something I had thought about before. This was probably the worst part of my entire experience. I was so motion sick the entire way home, that the car had to be made into a freezer (AC pumping) and I had to do deep breathing all the way home not to throw up (which I did when I got home, but thankfully not in caon roadside). Once I got home, I pretty much just dropped into my bed and slept for about 5 hrs. I threw up once, while clutching a pillow to my abdomen to make it hurt less. Did some small walks around the house, friends dropped off some food, so I didn't have to cook or anything. People dropped in really regularly to check on me. My friends bought me heat packs for shoulder pain (still from anesthetic and gas leaving your body), and it was the best.
Day 3: Started day off with small walk outside to the post box and back, felt exhausted afterwards, but with little pain. I clutched a soft pillow to my abdomen while doing so (just felt more comfortable this way). I was managing with paracetamol every 6 hours, irrespective of whether I felt in pain or not. This is what docs advised on discharge. I had no pain really, discomfort in my tummy area sure, mainly just felt odd with the stiches. What I found hardest was breathing while walking (I know, weird right), I felt really out of breath every time I tried to go for a longer walk (200m plus). I just listened to my body and stopped when this happened, while also attempting to increase the length I walked bit by bit to train my lungs. Bowel movement back to normal pretty much, some light bleeding (doc said this is normal), but stomach was huge (as in 6 month pregnant huge). I called my doc as I was concerned about why it's so large, she said it's normal and swelling should subside in a couple of weeks (yikes!). I was drinking lots of water (2-3L a day), and eating a primarily veggie & high protein diet. I cut dairy, red meat an processed foods out during my recovery as I had read this helps. Ate a lot of kiwi fruit to help my bowels. Overall, by day 3 I did some light house work and did about 2 hrs of work (e-mails etc.)
Day 4: Walked about 1km in the morning, felt tired after so took a nap. Pain almost completely gone, bowels normal, no more spotting/bleeding. Feeling almost normal (ish). Did some housework, couple hours of work. Another 1km walk later in the arvo. Diet still restricted to protein, fibre, no dairy, no red meat and not processed foods.
Day 5: Dropped my meds, as I did not feel pain at all, my stomach felt fine, and tummy swelling had gone down. Felt okay all day, bit bloated, but walking really helped. Did about 2km walk in mooning and 2km walk in arvo, with small stints of walking around the house all day. Still more tired than normal, so lots of resting & naps.
Days 6-10: Nearly back to normal (well normal-ish) - no pain, everything regular, have been off painkillers for 5 days. Introduced dairy back into diet, felt fine. Had an ice cream :) Increased walk length to 3-5kms per walk (2 x daily) - feeling puffed still, lungs still feeling exhausted during walking but getting better every day. Have been doing about 5-6 hrs of work each day, while still taking lots of mini break for naps and resting.
Day 10: (today) - OBGYN has cleared me for short drives with car (initially she said 3 weeks no driving), as I have been off pain meds for over 5 days and feeling fit and alert. I feel almost normal to be honest, the area where the stiches are feels a bit tender, and still a bit swollen, but swelling has gone down heaps. Hoping to keep upping my walk distances and that my lungs will catch up slowly.
Something I really struggled with: Emotionally, I was a bit of a wreck after surgery. The additional diagnosis of adenomyosis really left me questioning whether I will be able to have children in the future, so I had a good cry with my friends about it (whom immediately jumped in to be surrogates). I'm trying to not think about it too much during recovery, but it's something that is heavily weighing on my mind as one of the main 'side effects' is infertility. I am hopefully going to see a fertility specialist after I have recovered to talk about my options. Obvs doesn't help that I am single, but I am so ready to be a mom (emotionally and financially), so am I ready to explore what else is out there for me to hopefully start on a journey that will lead me towards a wee addition to my solo independent lady family.
Also, I struggled with just being and home and not doing ANYTHING. I am normally really active and exercise helps me to relieve stress and sleep better, so not being able to do that has been driving me up the wall. I am very lucky to be self employed so I have no pressure from anyone else to get back to work, but I feel guilty for doing little work for over 10 days. I'm a workaholic, so it's really hard for me to 'just rest.' I will hopefully go back to working full time from next week, but I will really need to check myself to not be 'overdoing' it and set myself back in recovery.
Key takeaways: If you feel up for it, get up and start doing small walks as soon as you can after surgery - this well help get your bowels moving and heal faster. Drink lots of water! Eat a diet that's high in protein & fibre (pre and post op for sure), cut out dairy, red meat and processed food if you can. I am a young fit adult and this really helped with recovery as my body is trained to be under stress and has a high pain threshold, by being fit my recovery is up to 3-5 faster than an average person. Even if you're not fit now, there's a lot of studies (goggle them, I kid you not) suggesting that physical training before surgery, like gym exercises or running boosts the odds of a good outcome, so if you've got your surgery scheduled for a couple of months time see if you can incorporate some exercise in your daily routine.
Also you might be okay psychically, but it's okay if you feel like a mess emotionally. A good network of close females was so important for me. I cried, I laughed and I felt supported by them in allowing me to talk through my emotional trauma, especially relating to the potential fertility issues in the future. Anything to do with woman's health for me has been so hard to talk about, as it feels so personal, and you feel less of a 'normal female' if you have fertility issues. Most of my life I have been trying to avoid even thinking about it, so it felt so nice to just let it all out! I really hope you all have those people in your life you can open up to and be vulnerable around!
Having the support of close friends/family will be key while you're in hospital and for the first week or so - I could have never done this without my close friend group, they were with me at the hospital and took turns bringing food and drink and attending to most of my whims while I was at home, so make sure you have some support with you during this time!
Anyways, I hope my essay helped someone - I think I can put my good experience down to 3 simple factors: excellent pre-existing fitness, private health insurance and having a good movement regime/diet structure post-surgery.

I have never skated before as an adult and I just want to learn the basic and maybe take it up as a hobby. I think there isn't much group skating instruction for that I can find as it seems like most of the programs are for children (makes sense). I live in Roxbury and would not mind travel on the T.
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Thanks

I made a character and this sotry for star wars (i made this story for my English finals, i had a month to make it and got an A on it), the characters name is Saya Eban and is a character I have been thinking of for over a decade now (im not in my 2nd decade so since i was super young). Saya at this time is 13-14 years old and was given inspiration by almost all the other jedi and also star killer. He is human and with reliance on the force he can live up to 1000 years with hi peak being between 35, 40 ish to around 800 years of age. In terms of prime power level and potential, in my canon he is 3rd most powerful character just underneath luke and anikan Skywalkers, but could contend with them at some points. Little background: he was a prodigy in school before he became a padawan, he always had an intrest in a character named Ahsoka Tano but never became more than friends because of the Jedi teachings. He was a fast learning youngling and became a padawan earlier than most other younglings, becaming a padawan at the age of 11 - 12. He was in the first battle of Genesis but his troop transport ship was blasted out of the air, landing behind enemy lines leaving him the sole surviver, and scarring him, making him want to never see uneeded bloodshed ever again. He met Count Dooku before he had met Obi-Wan and Anikan on geonosis, he locked blades with him once... once, before he was thrown aside like a house fly, not worth his time, he was out until the retreat of the battle was initiated. This gave him night terrors and nightmares, after this day he could never sleep more than an hour, if that, before he woke up feeling the dark side creeping in. So he had learned to use sleep meditation. Sleep meditation allowed him to accelerate his trainings and connect greater to the force, he had unlocked 1/3 of his life now, the force helping his cells heal his body while he sat and meditated.
This story is of how he lived through one of the bloodiest battles and worst losses of the Republic, the battle of Sarrish, and of how he had obtained his later main star ship, a Kom'rk Mark 1 class star fightetransport, aka the Puro (i made this story before I have watched the 3rd season of the Mandalorian, as of right now i still haven't so Idk if thats in season 3 or not).
There is about 11,340 words in the story, and I don't 100% know of what I should make him look like so have your imaginations run wild.
Ok here we go:
Tales of Saya Eban's Puro
Chapter 1

 The battle of Sarrish was one of the worst battles of the Clone Wars, it was a great devastating loss to the Republic and the Jedi, and I was in the middle of it all. Before the battle I was doing some touch-ups on my A-wing Fighter. I had managed to get my hands on a hyperdrive that would fit in my small fighter, although being able to enter hyperspace without an external hyperdrive wing is very convenient, fast, and easy, it does slow my fighter and hinder some mobility, but not an uncontrollable amount of loss. Little did I know it'd save my life later that week. After I had finished my work, gotten it restocked for my next battle, I was called to the Jedi command center for a briefing by Master Yoda, saying it was an urgent mission and I was needed now, with his backwards way of speaking annoying me slightly. In a flash, I had gathered my battle ready loadout and headed off to the command center. When I entered the command center with the center planning table showing starships from both Confederate and Republic sides, One chasing another. I look and see Masters Yoda and Windu and a holoprojected Obi-Wan Kenobi surrounding the Table, with deeply serious thoughts in their eyes, fingers on their concentrating chins. When I swiftly strolled in, I was greeted with Master Windu's cheerful, but serious voice: "Ah, Padawan Eban, good you're here, come quick, we must act with persistence if we want to gain an upper hand in this war." "Master Windu, good to see you, you too Master Yoda, Master Kenobi, what's the situation?" Master Obi-Wan states, "We are currently chasing Separatist forces to the planet Sarrish and we will need some back up, could you bring your part of the 104th battalion right away, we have heavy casualties and they're going to have reinforcements when they reach the planet." "Is there not anyone closer than me, it may take a few days for me to get there, yall mabe finished by the time I get there!" I said with hope in my eyes. "I'm afraid that you're the only one that is available with the most minimal time of arrival, you'll have to be quick though, it will be anytime now they will reach the planet and have reinforcements. we need this win, it will be a great victory for the Republic if we are able to capture the planet." Stated Obi-Wan with certainty. "All other generals are on missions right as we speak, you are the only one that can provide back up at this current time." Master Windu added "Closer to Knight after this mission you will be, great padawan you are, your great swift improvements, Master Plo is pleased with, believe in you I do." Master Yoda said with a jolly old-man voice. "Now go, there's not much time to waste, gather your men and go help Obi-Wan!" Rushedly said by Master Windu. "With determination in my voice, I yell "Yes Masters, right away!" And like a flash, I was gone. As I'm running off, I catch a glimpse of a green swoosh and the sound of a bolt deflection. I stumble to a stop and put my legs in reverse to give curiosity the wheel. When I peer in, I see Master Skywalker and Ahsoka, along with roughly 8 clone troopers all in a circle around Ahsoka and her one blade ignited. Master Skywalker had her eyes welded to her as he walked around the trooper. I could see Captain Rex standing and watching as well, although he seems to be the only one who spotted me poking in my head. He motioned his finger to his lips as to tell me to shush and not interfere, so I watched with anticipation. And after a lifetime stillness ending in a second after Master Skywalker yelled "START!" And stun doughnuts fire from the blasters of the troopers, sending a volley of blue twords Ahsoka from all directions. With great flexibility I pair with, she jumps into the air, spinning like skates on a skate rink in mid air deflecting all incoming plasmic projectiles landing with swift grace ready for more, And more came, she stands in the center blade moving almost faster than what my eyes could keep up with, until that one bolt punches her right in the back, knocking her to the ground, diminishing the blade back into the hilt. I spring into the room, speaking with worry in my voice when I squeak out "Ahsoka! Master Skywalker, what was that!?" 

"She was just training deflecting blaster fire, she's going to be outmatched a lot in this war, and clones are better than droids to practice with." Anakin said with pride that she was able to last little over a minute, thats improvement.
"Well I guess you're not completely wrong, but your going to give her a brain injury at this rate! Could you not go a bit easier on her?"
"She'll never learn if I go easy on her." Master Skywalker said with little arrogance in his voice.
"W- well, here, l-let me wake her then." I stuttered as I walked up to Rex holding Ahsoka like he's a pillow.
"Rex, do you mind if I-"
"Not at all General, here." Rex said as I sat next to him holding Ahsoka's top half of her body.

 As he caringly sets Ahsoka's rhythmically beating top half in my lap, head facing the heavens, I softly lay my hand over her forehead, close my eyes, and concentrate. A few suspenseful seconds later, I take my hand off and observe Ahsoka's hand softly glide to her now curling forehead, eyes fluttering open. 

With a smile I voiced"Wakey Wakey warrior princess, have a good nap?" Smirking the whole time.
"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes Nicksters." She groaned with fading pain.
"What are you doing here?" She leisurely grumbled as she started to lie propped up by her desirable, fluorescent orange arms made of flexible muscle.
"I was walking by, and saw a 'damsel in distress', I HAD to come and 'save the day'." I joked, smirking the whole time, annoying her little bit more.
"You know I have been dying to use my force heal on you since I had learned it. I bet you don't even feel bad at all right now hm?" I said leaning in
Ahsoka starts to stand as to get a feel for her own body.
"You're right, I feel better than I did before, not bad for someone named Nicks." Ahsoka said smirking right back at me.
"Oh come on, that was one time, that was even before we became patiwans!" I said with little dramatics in my vocal verberations.
"Ok Master, I'm ready to try again." Ahsoka said to Master Skywalker
"Not now Ahsoka, we have a mission from the Jedi council we have to attend to while Obi-Wan is on his own mission." Anikan said to Ahsoka, elongating his 'not' like he usually does
"I'm actually about to go give help to Obi-Wan right now… WHICH I NEED TO GET PREPARED FOR NOW!! Karabast, got to go! See yah Ahsoka, Master, Rex." And like a ship entering hyperspace, I was gone.
Chapter 2

 After 2 boring days traveling in hyperspace, me and my 5 Veneter class Cruisers are nearing our destination, this would make 12 Cruisers for the Republic side. A new commander CT'-4112 or Zerek, debriefs on the battle situation. As I had sensed, Obi-Wan was outmatched seeing as backup was on planet Sarrish for the fleeing Separatist ships, now it's 11 Munificent class Cruisers and 2 command stations blockading the planet. Kenobi was starting to be pushed back, relying on our Cruisers longer ranged cannons to hope the Sepies didn't get too close. Our Cruisers have longer ranged main canons and toms of fighter room, while the Sepies Cruisers have more fire power at closer ranges with more fighters than our Vendor class Cruisers, at closer ranges, the Sepies would completely destroy a Venetor class Cruiser, but we have strategies and will power. 

"Glad to see a friendly face Saya." Kenobi said exhaustingly.
"Well, it looked like you needed help. You know I need to be the one to save everyone. I'll move into position to fortify our defenses to push the Sepies back and for us to make a plan. What is your fleet's condition?"
"We have 2 Venetors heavily damaged and the rest either have mild to no damage. And we have lost half our fighters as of now." Urgently said by Kenobi.
"Ok, I'm sending men and supplies to you right now, let me take the front so I can take the damage if they send another attack." I calmly said to Kenobi.
"Men battle positions and set all power to front cannons and shields. Venators get into pincer position and get ready for an attack. Fighters get ready to launch." I commanded to all my Cruisers
"Master, if you could, could you add in your undamaged Venetors? " I wandered and directed with much mastery, I even made Obi-Wan himself visually impressed considering my inexperienced mind in life, and especially war. I even managed to make him smile.
"Getting in position now." Obi-Wan stated, still smiling.
"Understood, While you get everything fixed, I'll see if I can weaken their defenses, it seems as if they're in attack positions so we gotta be ready for anything." I said in deep thought.
"Ok, 10 to 13, I like those odds, makes it even, more so for the Sepies." I grinned.
"Now Saya, remember this is still a battle, don't be too cocky, you're starting to remind me of Anakin." Obi-Wan said with conviction.
"Yes Master, sorry about that." I answered to Obi-Wan, pulling back a little.

 Just then, many starfighters come from the enemy Cruisers, hundreds of them lightning fast, closing distance fast. 

"All right men, time for some fun. Obi-Wan, if you want to take command of my control center, I'll lead this fight." I said before Obi-Wan could respond.
"Ok- but Saya! Blast, maybe he's too much like Anikan." Obi-Wan said defeatedly.
As I get into the hangar I yell "Alright Wolfpack, let's get goin!" Then I hop into my modified Jedi A-wing.
We rush out from the center roof door along the Cruiser with my squadron aka The Wolfpack, with me leading my 23 fighters into battle and many more friendly's following from the hangars.
"Ok Wolfpack, let's make a break for them Cruisers, get as many of them gone as possible. 411 you ready?" I asked R2-411. R2-411 bleeps with readiness.
"Ok, time to blow them out of the sky, remember, stay in formation" I commanded.
"Yes sir!" The Clones bellowed.

 Then we hit the swarm with a mighty thundering sound of lasers flying through the emptiness of space seeing one after one of enemy fighter droids dropping all over the place. Me and my Wolfpack fly through all the 2 winged Vulture droids that look like each wing was sideways and has 2 prongs each side for wings. They were way more quick and maneuverable than us, but we had a duty to win, and we won't lose today. It's like a firework show, but you're dodging all the fireworks, and they're aiming right at you. While we are defending the Venator Cruisers, they're mostly firing at the Sepies Cruisers, slowly dwindling their energy shields down. 

"Boys, I have a plan, but I'll need yall to get back to the Cruisers." I urged
"Obi-Wan, how's the 2 heavily damaged Cruisers? We've been out for a long while. They should be good by now right?" I questioned Master Kenobi.
"They're about to come back into the fight, but one of our Cruisers is at a quarter shield, few good hits or bombing runs and it's gone, what's your plan Saya?" Obi-Wan said, perplexed.
"Just give me an opening to the left Separatist control center, that's all I need to get on that ship." I stated with confidence.
"I'll try my best, but don't be stupid Saya, we can't afford to lose you."
"Yeah yeah I know, just get me an opening please Master!" I begged.

 After the words fleeted from my mouth, all the Cruisers fired a hole through the droid fleet with friendly fighters also making way for me to get through. I blast the afterburners straight through the enemy swarm that's been lesson by the commotion, just barely being hidden by smoke from a just destroyed fighter straight into the leftmost control ship hanger landing with an explosive entry. And immediately I jump out, igniting both, my straight emerald green saber in my left, and my yellow saber with a curved hilt similar to the Count's hilt himself in my right. I'll face him again one day, it's inevitable, like me. I land and immediately cut a group of B1 battle droids heads off with my yellow saber facing out, giving me more reach, but as I start to take fire from the army that quickly form from my landing, I swiftly doge left to right almost able to doge the sight of a human eye. Left, pop goes the heads of 3, right, pop goes 5, jump through the air on an almost straight path through the thick of the army, spinning with a light show if one were to be an onlooker at this chaotic organization of flying red plasmic bolts going to a mix of yellow and green, then proceeding to fly straight back at the shooter with twice the velocity. I land on my feet with a thunderous "BOOM" with what seems like an explosion that incinerates half of the whole hanger with an electric yellow glow seeming like yellow lighting exploded from the epicenter of the explosion. When the smoke cleared, it seemed that everything within a 5 meter radius was completely incinerated, and everything within 40 meter radius was heavily damaged, and any technology within eye shot was either scrape or short-circuiting, but all B1 battle droids and super battle droids were out. 

I sighed with relief with little heavy breathing when I looked around me, but with no time to rest, 6 Vulture droid fighters came through the hanger's magnetic shield door, transforming to walk on its pronged wings like they were legs. They scanned me and started raining a flurry of red down onto me, but with my lightning fast reflexes, I raised my sabers to block the incoming hellfire from all six fighter's. Then came the flurry being deflected in any direction possible, and I could just barely see the 6 droids started to surround me by going behind my back, but I ain't done yet. As I'm blocking, jumping, spinning, twisting on a micrometer, I stomp with a mighty force, launching through the air, slowly spinning straight for a Vulture that has became the prey. Bolts whizzing by me, inches, centimeters near my skin, singeing my arm hairs to their roots. I land on top of the droid with a thunderous boom crunching where my foot had landed, driving my sabers straight through the brain of the story high droid, with a counterclockwise rotation around my back, dragging my sabers across the metal of the droid, I leap off the droid landing with the feathers and fly forward with a flashing dash slicing through 2 other droids legs, leaving gravity do its magical job. 3 down, 3 to go, but with little time left. I launch forward running on hairs dipping and dodging blots, I leap up slicing through one leg of a droid and pushing off of its gravity taken hull, coming down on another droid's leg, cutting with ease. I land like a leaf in the autumn skies, and launch with a swift leap, flying my yellow saber straight down the middle of the 6th and final droid with no time to spare.

 I land with caution, ready to fend off another foe, but none came at that second, so I took the opportunity and ran with it straight to where the main reactors should lie. I swiftly sprint with force leaps through the air to get to the reactor, the ship is 270th of a circle with a ball where the command center is, the middle is the only connected between the back of the ball and the inner back of the circle, that's where the reactor is, im at the left most side, may take me a minute to reach it, but I can get there without being seen. My plan was to quickly fix and rewrite a Vulture droid's code to go with my command, not going to be the best work but it will work, hopefully. I had to act fast because I knew there were going to be hundreds more droids to come to see the commotion, I'd say within the minute. The codes used on the droids are not the best, because of mass production, so It was an easy fix, I just needed it to fly a small bit. It comes back to life with a putt to its movement, I directed it to start flying while I'm on its back, putting the whole time with smoke, just what I needed. I start to move forward as fast as possible. As we get around the hundreds of battle droids below, I'm starting to speed up, and as I see the reactor room, I could hear B1's yell " HEY! STOP! YOUR GOING TO FAST" in their robotic voice. Before I hit the Shield covering the reactor room, I jump off to the left where the blast door is for the room. With the distraction of the droid smashing into the shield, I use this time to slowly cut through the blast doors with both sabers starting at the bottom of the door, going up and around to form a circle I can fit through. I was through within a Minute, unnoticed, or so I was led to believe. When I get into the reactor room, I throw explosives all over the reactors, with a detonation in T minus 1 minute. I fly out of the room, calling for 411 to bring my ship as fast as possible, 55. Running across the hanger, I'm spotted by the hundreds of battle droids, which immediately start firing right as they see me 50. The explosion of the fighter droid caused a chain to nearby explosive barrels, exploding more Vulture droids causing tons of smoke and fires to spread around the hangar area, 45. As I'm running, my yellow saber is blocking multiple bolts flying at me while I'm jumping, spinning, performing acrobatic movements while being shot by hundreds of droids, from B1's, to super's, to droideka's, all firing at me, adding to the smoke, 35. Running with young blood in my veins, I perform 1, 2, 3 long jumps and leap onto the side of a slanted destroyed Vulture droid, 30. I jump up, reaching for the cloudy sky just as 411 swoops in predictively shoving my hand into the side of the sharp A-wing hull, 25. I grab the side of the hull and pull myself up into the cockpit, grabbing the controls, 20. I spin to the exit with roughly 67° of the hanger I need to shoot out of, I fire the afterburners using the circumference of the circle and my fighters movment to my advantage, 15. Pushing forward, I am drifting an A-wing around the hangar of a Separatist capital ship skimming the walls centimeters away from an explosive fiery death, 10. I barely screamed out of the hanger, to be able to see a view of the capital ship flying stright for the other Sepie capital ship, 5. Im still firing the afterburners to try and attempt to get a safe distance away from the soon to be collision sight, 4. I let 411 take the control's, 3. I turn my head to look back, 2. I see the collision of the 2 270° hangers, 1. I watch as i get the view of a star being formed right infront of my eyes, and seeing many Sepie Cruisers being absolutely engulfed by the flames, and a blast wave decimating the Vulture droids… blast wave…. BLAST WAVE! Just then I'm thrown far, along with the debri. I manged to gain control of the craft and start performing advanced monuvers to avoid being hit by debrie that will demolishe me and my tiny fighter. 

"Saya, can you hear me? Saya?" Master Obi-Wan Kenobi pleaded.
"Yeah, yeah master, I'm good, I'm fine. Woo…!" I said with a sigh of relief.
Chapter 3

 The explosion had decimated the Separatist forces leaving 4 Cruisers sustaining heavy or mild damages, but with an opening, Obi-Wan and I travel to the ground along with Captain Cody to go for a large ground assault. Master Obi-Wan's plan was to drop in and gather our troops and split them between Obi-Wan and commander Cody. We were west, they were east. The Separatists had the high ground seeing as they had a cliff to their advantage. Flying in on gunships, we were taking heavy fire from their anti aircraft cannons. Commander Cody and I are debriefing the squad on the way to the rally point, seeing gunships after gunship falling to the rocky ground in a fiery explosive ball of red hot metal, and screams, with no plants in sight, just rocks, gunships, and red streaks flying by. Explosions booming right next to us with our doors right open. We have been ordered and ordering troops to stay far away from the mountain top gun fortifying the mountain top of the cliff, leaving that gun for the gunships and the best of the clone troopers, or ARC (Advanced Recon Commandos) troopers to deal with that later, seeing as a ground assault is too dangerous for us. As some of the clones have said, it's not an easy mission, but hops are high. 

"30 seconds until landing." A clone trooper yelled to me and Cody.
Cody starts with "All right, listen up! Maintain squad formations, 'A' squad, You're on me-" ZZZZZEEEROW- BOOOM!
"Where hit!" I yell "Everyone! Hold on!"
Before we hit the ground I leap out of the gunship with a backwards somersault, force pulling all the troops out of the burning fireball heading for the ground, grabbing all of the men, including the 2 pilots at the front, breaking through the windows. I land like rain from the sky, catching the troops I just pulled out with my powers and have them roughly land on the fluffy rocks next to our now downed gunship, no casualties yet. I rush over to take cover under our gunship on its left side behind enemy lines. I sit and meditate as they come up with a plan.
"What's the status lieutenant?" Cody asked
"5 injured thanks to General Saya, but that's not that bad news… Does that Rock look familiar?" The lieutenant asked.
"Yea, the mountain, right where we're not supposed to be." Said Cody
"General Kenobi ordered us not to try taking this section from the ground." The lieutenant regenerated back again with what was already established.
"That's what he said…but what would the general do if he were here?" Cody rhetorically asked.
"Saya sir, what do you think?" A trooper asked me somewhat desperately.
"I think Cody should take this one, I've got your back Cody." I answered with my legs crossed, eyes closed, slightly levitating over the rocks.
"Eight-Eight-Six-Seven through Eight-Eight-Six-Nine and Saya, fix your grapples and come with me. Everybody, prepare for covering fire." Cody ordered.
I get up, eyes still shut, ready to block anything coming our way.
"NOW!" Cody yells, sprinting across what is our no-man's-land
I open my eyes, ignite my Sabers, Green in left, yellow in right, and dash towards the now incoming blaster fire. I sense it, left side, block, right side, deflect, one for Cody, deflected. We get to some stalagmites at the bottom of the mountain, sustaining heavy fire, I pose as a distraction for all the fire, deflecting as many blots as I can back at the metal men. One troop trips and falls, pow, bolt straight through the head. Cody and the men shoot the grappling hooks up towards the top of the mountain and start climbing. I jump from my spot reigniting my sabers, driving them through the mountain side, helping me grab hold with my feet. And when I look up, I see a grapple fall behind me. I tried to grab the rope but I was too late. When I managed to obtain it, he had already hit the ground. Another tragedy, one that never had to happen, life being wasted away. I look up, a droid stairs emotionlessly down into my emotion filled eyes. A blue bolt shoots past me, impacting the droid's head, sending the body backwards.
Cody and the other clone rises from the cliff side as I leap up from the side, landing in front of the clones and immediately start deflecting with my 2 sabers having nothing pass. Cody takes this opportunity to run around my defense and attacks the droids head on, bashing one droid with the butt of his rifle and swinging his rifle at another, destroying both of them. The droid manning the anti aircraft gun turns and aims at Cody. Instinctively I jump in front of the cannon as it fires, I deflect the large bolt away with my right yellow saber, knocking my body to the right, making me stumble. But with the motion throwing me to the right, I use the momentum to throw my green saber with my left hand, impaling the droid in the metal chest. Cody then hops onto the turret, points the gun at the droids firing at our men, and lets loose, destroying all in its reticle.
"Thanks General, I owe you one, ill getcha next time." Cody said slowly getting off the turret.
"You're alright my friend, just pay it forward, let's go see how Obi-Wan did." I slightly worried, staring off to the north.

 We group up at the randevu, where we have set base camp on the planet in a small raven a bit away from where we captured the cliff with some makeshift scouting towers dotted around our position. Obi-Wan had more resistance than what he had anticipated, he was a little banged up, but he was fine in the end. This was a huge victory seeing as we have been able to set base on a planet that allows us to get resources through this hyperspace route and onto parts of the army past this point. Before, General Grievous snipped our route to where we couldn't get resources to our army on the other side from Coruscant. 

Chapter 4

 12 hours later, we have rested and have managed to build up a good base incase of a surprise attack. We are still fighting a few fronts of Separatist holdouts with a fortress a few klicks west, or about 4 miles west. 

I sit in my tent meditating, reflecting back on the weeks events, and what Ahsoka was doing back at the temple, training hard. I recite what I did with an almost overwhelming amount of blaster fire attempting to fly into me, how I was just mostly averting the blots away from me and not in a direction that would benefit me most.
'RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE'

 The ground started to shake out of nowhere, breaking my peace. I rush out of my tent, only to be met with a face full of B2 battle droid. I jump back over my tent flipping onto my feet as I see my tent being lit into flames from heavy bolt fire flying at me. Igniting both my sabers, I deflect the incoming fire away from me up into the sky as much as I physically could. I took a glance around, it was becoming more sunlit as we fought. It was a slaughter, clones dying left and right, Kenobi was on the Command ship getting patched, so it was just me, and the clones down here, being manicured. With a swift right step, I change lightsaber form, combining my form 3, (defensive form blocking anything coming way, and either making, or waiting for an opening to strike) with a combination of form 2 (saber to saber form, putting least amount or saber movement and preferring precise efficient movements) and form 4 (saber from using the force to enhance physical abilities, and heavily utilizing fast acrobatic movements to move around and disorient the opponents, using wide sweeping saber movements to block and hit targets) I use the power if the many bolts to propel my body onto my right leg, crouching down and taking a huge lead in to the air. Looking around like it is moving in stop motion, I see thousands of droids around, completely outnumbering my men. Glancing down where I had jumped from, there seems to be a super battle droid rising from the ground, looking as if it has been there for at least a few days. Time seems to start like normal again, immediately I have to block bolts coming for my body, twisting, turning, deflecting every. single. bolt. right to another droid. I can't have any more unneeded deaths in my hands. I land with an impactful explosion of yellow lighting, rendering half of the electronics on the field obsolete. Shots fire over the wall, exploding near me. 

"Everyone, Retreat!" I yelled into the comms.
I ran towards the lieutenant that I had survived the crash with, he was running for a troop transport.
"Get to the ships, return to the Venators! Get Kenobi and relay what has happened!" Urgency blowing through my voice.

 I push him into the ship as it takes off. As it's doing so, I force push it away from the field as to be in less danger of being shot down. But rockets fly through the air, I reach through the force and grab onto the hurdling death traps, I grab 1, 2, crash them into one another, 3, grab, 4, grab, 5, miss. ERRROW… BOOOM! With a hopeless explosion, the ship bursts into an explosive ball of fire, right in front of my eyes, out of my grasp. Shots fly past my head from behind me, I ignite my sunlit yellow saber to block incoming bolts. No men, only metal remains, and it wants me dead. I dash for my ship on the other side of the airstrip, luckily barely touched from this horrible surprise party that invited everyone I very much dislike. Hopping into my A-wing, I lift-off dogging left, right, up, down, roll left, roll right, barely being passed by on all sides by cannon fire. When I reach the point past the clouds, there's a whole war above. Separatist forces have surprised Kenobi with an overwhelming number of ships, putting our war torn 12 Venators against 16 Munificent class Cruisers. We were greatly out matched. But the time I was in space we had lost 3 Vectors compared to there 1 lost. Droids noticed me coming from the planet and started to verge onto my position. 

"Obi-Wan! You there? Can you hear me?" I yelled, pulling evasive maneuvers.
"Saya, is that you?" Kenobi asked.
"Yes, we got surprised on the ground, seems the same happened here." I rushingly said.
"Yes, they came out of nowh-" Kenobi is cut off by a blaring siren from my cockpit.
"Wait, my ship is damaged, it's starting up my hyperdrive, 411 can you fix it?" I said dipping left and right while trying to stop the hyperdrive activation.
With a few bleeps of fear, I understand what's happening.
"When I was thrown from the capital ship explosive wave, I must have been hit near the hyperdrive, and explosions from my escape, along with the maneuvers I have been pulling, it may have caused damage that is registering a hyperdrive activation. Master Obi-Wan, I don't know, I-I don't know what to do!" I claimed with fear in my eyes.
"Can you deactivate the hyperdrive at all 411?" Kenobi asked
411 bleeps with a sad toon.
"Blast, Saya, does it say where you're going?"
"N- No, my council just says ERROR." I stated, now with much fear in my voice.

 I managed to steer my craft into the position of the hyperspace lane. 

"Tell Ahsoka good bye if I don't-" I get cut off when the the hyperdrive powered up woth a vvvvvvvvvvvVVVVERRRRRRR PEEOW, and just like that, me, my A-wing, and R2-411, are gone.
Chapter 5

 It's been days since the battle, mabe 2 or 3 days. Luckily I always keep many ration bars in my fighter to last me a good few days, along with my extra water and my ability to go into a deep meditative state, conserving food and water. Keeping me company is my meditation and 411. We have almost hit some unknown objects, could have been planets, asteroids, other ships, but we seem to be staying in hyperspace lanes luckily, or I would have been dead a long time ago. My class 2 hyperdrive could have taken me all over the galaxy by now, I could be heading towards Coruscant right now for all I know. 

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
My hyperdrive warning kicked on, showing that there is a massive gravity force in my path. The console flashed with big red dangerous letters "Exiting Hyperdrive" on the screen.
"YES! FINALLY!" I yelled with excitement.

 I watch through the glass to see a barren looking planet, and a similar looking moon, a moon I was heading to. I was moving fast, as I entered the moon's atmosphere, Im grabbing the controls, barely anything. My craft is red hot from the rate at which I'm coming in on. I'm grabbing the stick, pulling back as much as I can, as to try and save myself and 411 from a fiery death. I scraped by a big rocky mountain dealing more damage to my A-wing. 

"HOLD ON 411!"
"Come ooooon. Pull pull pullllll…. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!-" VERRROW BOOOOSH!!! The crash landing sounded like a bomb flying through the air, then landing on its target. I try to get from my seat just to find my strap and window will not open. Using my saber I cut off my seat strap and broke the window from the hinges and leaped out, taking 411 from the craft, swiftly landing on a tall mountainous rock. The craft seemed to have pushed through the land 50 meters from the initial impact spot. The area I was in seemed to be very rocky terrain with many rocky canyons and huge rocks that are almost mountainous. The sun was close to setting down for the night but was still a good hour away from sleeping.

 With the force by my side, I felt a very uneasy sensation telling me to stay out of sight. I duck down on the tall skinny rock taking 411 down with me. 411 confusingly bleeps when I do so. "Hey, I have a feeling right now, just keep quiet real quick, there's somebody coming. Trust me." Me and 411 peer over the edge looming over my crashed ship just as a group of 6 men in full armor covering their whole body fly in with jetpacks strapped to their backs, blasters in hand. As they land, they search around my wreckage, presumably looking for survivors. One seems to be ordering the others around, pointing at one to look in one direction, another a different direction, and scanning around for the unexpected visitor. I look down at my Wrist link, my distress signal wasn't sent, I guess that was damaged from entering the planet at such high speed with no deflector shields surrounding the ship like a protective blanket. 

"Blast, 411, what's your S.O.S signal situation, did it go through?" 411 beeps with a little drama like I should know it didn't go through.
"Well sorry for busting your rusty bolts you rowdy rancor, better to try than to just give up mister sassy pants. Maybe I should wipe your memory for a change, see how you like it."
"Now shush, don't want them to find us spying on them, won't look too good." I demand. "Now here, in case we get caught, I don't want them to know I'm a Jedi, so here, take my sabers, I'm not gonna need them anyways." I said shoving my lightsabers into 411's storage compartment and looking towards the crash again.

 Just then the suit of armor that had been commanding his squad bursts up into my view right on my face out of hyperspace blue. 

"Ah, found ya trespassers, you 2 are coming with me." Demanded the Mandalorian with a snickering sound in his voice as the others rise from the portal of the abyss from down below.

 It was a good thing my ropes where in the tent back on Sarrish, or this may have been an even worse situation, Mangalorians like them hate Jedi with a passion, and it's a good thing I always have a broken blaster in 411 for any cases where I need to blend in with a crowd or pose as a normal civilian; although, the ability to become a civilian at any point is great, I've had little need to do so much. I'm quite popular with the people for being one who tries to connect with the population as a fellow citizen. So I rarely stay in the temple for too long. I love being with the people and learning skills without the force, like being a mechanic, electrician, public speaker, security guard, an all around great person to talk with about anything. I'm quite known on all levels of Coruscant for being one of the most friendly Jedi to be around. Right now though, I need to focus on not being caught, at least That's what my gut is telling me. After they searched my character for any weapons and found the broken blaster that 411 had put in my holster where my lightsaber usually is, they were satisfied and pushed us into one of their big Kom'rk Mark 1 class Mandalorian starfightetransport ship. 

(Look in comments for 6th)

I made a character and this sotry for star wars (i made this story for my English finals, i had a month to make it and got an A on it), the characters name is Saya Eban and is a character I have been thinking of for over a decade now (im not in my 2nd decade so since i was super young). Saya at this time is 13-14 years old and was given inspiration by almost all the other jedi and also star killer. He is human and with reliance on the force he can live up to 1000 years with hi peak being between 35, 40 ish to around 800 years of age. In terms of prime power level and potential, in my canon he is 3rd most powerful character just underneath luke and anikan Skywalkers, but could contend with them at some points. Little background: he was a prodigy in school before he became a padawan, he always had an intrest in a character named Ahsoka Tano but never became more than friends because of the Jedi teachings. He was a fast learning youngling and became a padawan earlier than most other younglings, becaming a padawan at the age of 11 - 12. He was in the first battle of Genesis but his troop transport ship was blasted out of the air, landing behind enemy lines leaving him the sole surviver, and scarring him, making him want to never see uneeded bloodshed ever again. He met Count Dooku before he had met Obi-Wan and Anikan on geonosis, he locked blades with him once... once, before he was thrown aside like a house fly, not worth his time, he was out until the retreat of the battle was initiated. This gave him night terrors and nightmares, after this day he could never sleep more than an hour, if that, before he woke up feeling the dark side creeping in. So he had learned to use sleep meditation. Sleep meditation allowed him to accelerate his trainings and connect greater to the force, he had unlocked 1/3 of his life now, the force helping his cells heal his body while he sat and meditated.
This story is of how he lived through one of the bloodiest battles and worst losses of the Republic, the battle of Sarrish, and of how he had obtained his later main star ship, a Kom'rk Mark 1 class star fightetransport, aka the Puro (i made this story before I have watched the 3rd season of the Mandalorian, as of right now i still haven't so Idk if thats in season 3 or not).
There is about 11,340 words in the story, and I don't 100% know of what I should make him look like so have your imaginations run wild.
Ok here we go:
Tales of Saya Eban's Puro
Chapter 1

 The battle of Sarrish was one of the worst battles of the Clone Wars, it was a great devastating loss to the Republic and the Jedi, and I was in the middle of it all. Before the battle I was doing some touch-ups on my A-wing Fighter. I had managed to get my hands on a hyperdrive that would fit in my small fighter, although being able to enter hyperspace without an external hyperdrive wing is very convenient, fast, and easy, it does slow my fighter and hinder some mobility, but not an uncontrollable amount of loss. Little did I know it'd save my life later that week. After I had finished my work, gotten it restocked for my next battle, I was called to the Jedi command center for a briefing by Master Yoda, saying it was an urgent mission and I was needed now, with his backwards way of speaking annoying me slightly. In a flash, I had gathered my battle ready loadout and headed off to the command center. When I entered the command center with the center planning table showing starships from both Confederate and Republic sides, One chasing another. I look and see Masters Yoda and Windu and a holoprojected Obi-Wan Kenobi surrounding the Table, with deeply serious thoughts in their eyes, fingers on their concentrating chins. When I swiftly strolled in, I was greeted with Master Windu's cheerful, but serious voice: "Ah, Padawan Eban, good you're here, come quick, we must act with persistence if we want to gain an upper hand in this war." "Master Windu, good to see you, you too Master Yoda, Master Kenobi, what's the situation?" Master Obi-Wan states, "We are currently chasing Separatist forces to the planet Sarrish and we will need some back up, could you bring your part of the 104th battalion right away, we have heavy casualties and they're going to have reinforcements when they reach the planet." "Is there not anyone closer than me, it may take a few days for me to get there, yall mabe finished by the time I get there!" I said with hope in my eyes. "I'm afraid that you're the only one that is available with the most minimal time of arrival, you'll have to be quick though, it will be anytime now they will reach the planet and have reinforcements. we need this win, it will be a great victory for the Republic if we are able to capture the planet." Stated Obi-Wan with certainty. "All other generals are on missions right as we speak, you are the only one that can provide back up at this current time." Master Windu added "Closer to Knight after this mission you will be, great padawan you are, your great swift improvements, Master Plo is pleased with, believe in you I do." Master Yoda said with a jolly old-man voice. "Now go, there's not much time to waste, gather your men and go help Obi-Wan!" Rushedly said by Master Windu. "With determination in my voice, I yell "Yes Masters, right away!" And like a flash, I was gone. As I'm running off, I catch a glimpse of a green swoosh and the sound of a bolt deflection. I stumble to a stop and put my legs in reverse to give curiosity the wheel. When I peer in, I see Master Skywalker and Ahsoka, along with roughly 8 clone troopers all in a circle around Ahsoka and her one blade ignited. Master Skywalker had her eyes welded to her as he walked around the trooper. I could see Captain Rex standing and watching as well, although he seems to be the only one who spotted me poking in my head. He motioned his finger to his lips as to tell me to shush and not interfere, so I watched with anticipation. And after a lifetime stillness ending in a second after Master Skywalker yelled "START!" And stun doughnuts fire from the blasters of the troopers, sending a volley of blue twords Ahsoka from all directions. With great flexibility I pair with, she jumps into the air, spinning like skates on a skate rink in mid air deflecting all incoming plasmic projectiles landing with swift grace ready for more, And more came, she stands in the center blade moving almost faster than what my eyes could keep up with, until that one bolt punches her right in the back, knocking her to the ground, diminishing the blade back into the hilt. I spring into the room, speaking with worry in my voice when I squeak out "Ahsoka! Master Skywalker, what was that!?" 

"She was just training deflecting blaster fire, she's going to be outmatched a lot in this war, and clones are better than droids to practice with." Anakin said with pride that she was able to last little over a minute, thats improvement.
"Well I guess you're not completely wrong, but your going to give her a brain injury at this rate! Could you not go a bit easier on her?"
"She'll never learn if I go easy on her." Master Skywalker said with little arrogance in his voice.
"W- well, here, l-let me wake her then." I stuttered as I walked up to Rex holding Ahsoka like he's a pillow.
"Rex, do you mind if I-"
"Not at all General, here." Rex said as I sat next to him holding Ahsoka's top half of her body.

 As he caringly sets Ahsoka's rhythmically beating top half in my lap, head facing the heavens, I softly lay my hand over her forehead, close my eyes, and concentrate. A few suspenseful seconds later, I take my hand off and observe Ahsoka's hand softly glide to her now curling forehead, eyes fluttering open. 

With a smile I voiced"Wakey Wakey warrior princess, have a good nap?" Smirking the whole time.
"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes Nicksters." She groaned with fading pain.
"What are you doing here?" She leisurely grumbled as she started to lie propped up by her desirable, fluorescent orange arms made of flexible muscle.
"I was walking by, and saw a 'damsel in distress', I HAD to come and 'save the day'." I joked, smirking the whole time, annoying her little bit more.
"You know I have been dying to use my force heal on you since I had learned it. I bet you don't even feel bad at all right now hm?" I said leaning in
Ahsoka starts to stand as to get a feel for her own body.
"You're right, I feel better than I did before, not bad for someone named Nicks." Ahsoka said smirking right back at me.
"Oh come on, that was one time, that was even before we became patiwans!" I said with little dramatics in my vocal verberations.
"Ok Master, I'm ready to try again." Ahsoka said to Master Skywalker
"Not now Ahsoka, we have a mission from the Jedi council we have to attend to while Obi-Wan is on his own mission." Anikan said to Ahsoka, elongating his 'not' like he usually does
"I'm actually about to go give help to Obi-Wan right now… WHICH I NEED TO GET PREPARED FOR NOW!! Karabast, got to go! See yah Ahsoka, Master, Rex." And like a ship entering hyperspace, I was gone.
Chapter 2

 After 2 boring days traveling in hyperspace, me and my 5 Veneter class Cruisers are nearing our destination, this would make 12 Cruisers for the Republic side. A new commander CT'-4112 or Zerek, debriefs on the battle situation. As I had sensed, Obi-Wan was outmatched seeing as backup was on planet Sarrish for the fleeing Separatist ships, now it's 11 Munificent class Cruisers and 2 command stations blockading the planet. Kenobi was starting to be pushed back, relying on our Cruisers longer ranged cannons to hope the Sepies didn't get too close. Our Cruisers have longer ranged main canons and toms of fighter room, while the Sepies Cruisers have more fire power at closer ranges with more fighters than our Vendor class Cruisers, at closer ranges, the Sepies would completely destroy a Venetor class Cruiser, but we have strategies and will power. 

"Glad to see a friendly face Saya." Kenobi said exhaustingly.
"Well, it looked like you needed help. You know I need to be the one to save everyone. I'll move into position to fortify our defenses to push the Sepies back and for us to make a plan. What is your fleet's condition?"
"We have 2 Venetors heavily damaged and the rest either have mild to no damage. And we have lost half our fighters as of now." Urgently said by Kenobi.
"Ok, I'm sending men and supplies to you right now, let me take the front so I can take the damage if they send another attack." I calmly said to Kenobi.
"Men battle positions and set all power to front cannons and shields. Venators get into pincer position and get ready for an attack. Fighters get ready to launch." I commanded to all my Cruisers
"Master, if you could, could you add in your undamaged Venetors? " I wandered and directed with much mastery, I even made Obi-Wan himself visually impressed considering my inexperienced mind in life, and especially war. I even managed to make him smile.
"Getting in position now." Obi-Wan stated, still smiling.
"Understood, While you get everything fixed, I'll see if I can weaken their defenses, it seems as if they're in attack positions so we gotta be ready for anything." I said in deep thought.
"Ok, 10 to 13, I like those odds, makes it even, more so for the Sepies." I grinned.
"Now Saya, remember this is still a battle, don't be too cocky, you're starting to remind me of Anakin." Obi-Wan said with conviction.
"Yes Master, sorry about that." I answered to Obi-Wan, pulling back a little.

 Just then, many starfighters come from the enemy Cruisers, hundreds of them lightning fast, closing distance fast. 

"All right men, time for some fun. Obi-Wan, if you want to take command of my control center, I'll lead this fight." I said before Obi-Wan could respond.
"Ok- but Saya! Blast, maybe he's too much like Anikan." Obi-Wan said defeatedly.
As I get into the hangar I yell "Alright Wolfpack, let's get goin!" Then I hop into my modified Jedi A-wing.
We rush out from the center roof door along the Cruiser with my squadron aka The Wolfpack, with me leading my 23 fighters into battle and many more friendly's following from the hangars.
"Ok Wolfpack, let's make a break for them Cruisers, get as many of them gone as possible. 411 you ready?" I asked R2-411. R2-411 bleeps with readiness.
"Ok, time to blow them out of the sky, remember, stay in formation" I commanded.
"Yes sir!" The Clones bellowed.

 Then we hit the swarm with a mighty thundering sound of lasers flying through the emptiness of space seeing one after one of enemy fighter droids dropping all over the place. Me and my Wolfpack fly through all the 2 winged Vulture droids that look like each wing was sideways and has 2 prongs each side for wings. They were way more quick and maneuverable than us, but we had a duty to win, and we won't lose today. It's like a firework show, but you're dodging all the fireworks, and they're aiming right at you. While we are defending the Venator Cruisers, they're mostly firing at the Sepies Cruisers, slowly dwindling their energy shields down. 

"Boys, I have a plan, but I'll need yall to get back to the Cruisers." I urged
"Obi-Wan, how's the 2 heavily damaged Cruisers? We've been out for a long while. They should be good by now right?" I questioned Master Kenobi.
"They're about to come back into the fight, but one of our Cruisers is at a quarter shield, few good hits or bombing runs and it's gone, what's your plan Saya?" Obi-Wan said, perplexed.
"Just give me an opening to the left Separatist control center, that's all I need to get on that ship." I stated with confidence.
"I'll try my best, but don't be stupid Saya, we can't afford to lose you."
"Yeah yeah I know, just get me an opening please Master!" I begged.

 After the words fleeted from my mouth, all the Cruisers fired a hole through the droid fleet with friendly fighters also making way for me to get through. I blast the afterburners straight through the enemy swarm that's been lesson by the commotion, just barely being hidden by smoke from a just destroyed fighter straight into the leftmost control ship hanger landing with an explosive entry. And immediately I jump out, igniting both, my straight emerald green saber in my left, and my yellow saber with a curved hilt similar to the Count's hilt himself in my right. I'll face him again one day, it's inevitable, like me. I land and immediately cut a group of B1 battle droids heads off with my yellow saber facing out, giving me more reach, but as I start to take fire from the army that quickly form from my landing, I swiftly doge left to right almost able to doge the sight of a human eye. Left, pop goes the heads of 3, right, pop goes 5, jump through the air on an almost straight path through the thick of the army, spinning with a light show if one were to be an onlooker at this chaotic organization of flying red plasmic bolts going to a mix of yellow and green, then proceeding to fly straight back at the shooter with twice the velocity. I land on my feet with a thunderous "BOOM" with what seems like an explosion that incinerates half of the whole hanger with an electric yellow glow seeming like yellow lighting exploded from the epicenter of the explosion. When the smoke cleared, it seemed that everything within a 5 meter radius was completely incinerated, and everything within 40 meter radius was heavily damaged, and any technology within eye shot was either scrape or short-circuiting, but all B1 battle droids and super battle droids were out. 

I sighed with relief with little heavy breathing when I looked around me, but with no time to rest, 6 Vulture droid fighters came through the hanger's magnetic shield door, transforming to walk on its pronged wings like they were legs. They scanned me and started raining a flurry of red down onto me, but with my lightning fast reflexes, I raised my sabers to block the incoming hellfire from all six fighter's. Then came the flurry being deflected in any direction possible, and I could just barely see the 6 droids started to surround me by going behind my back, but I ain't done yet. As I'm blocking, jumping, spinning, twisting on a micrometer, I stomp with a mighty force, launching through the air, slowly spinning straight for a Vulture that has became the prey. Bolts whizzing by me, inches, centimeters near my skin, singeing my arm hairs to their roots. I land on top of the droid with a thunderous boom crunching where my foot had landed, driving my sabers straight through the brain of the story high droid, with a counterclockwise rotation around my back, dragging my sabers across the metal of the droid, I leap off the droid landing with the feathers and fly forward with a flashing dash slicing through 2 other droids legs, leaving gravity do its magical job. 3 down, 3 to go, but with little time left. I launch forward running on hairs dipping and dodging blots, I leap up slicing through one leg of a droid and pushing off of its gravity taken hull, coming down on another droid's leg, cutting with ease. I land like a leaf in the autumn skies, and launch with a swift leap, flying my yellow saber straight down the middle of the 6th and final droid with no time to spare.

 I land with caution, ready to fend off another foe, but none came at that second, so I took the opportunity and ran with it straight to where the main reactors should lie. I swiftly sprint with force leaps through the air to get to the reactor, the ship is 270th of a circle with a ball where the command center is, the middle is the only connected between the back of the ball and the inner back of the circle, that's where the reactor is, im at the left most side, may take me a minute to reach it, but I can get there without being seen. My plan was to quickly fix and rewrite a Vulture droid's code to go with my command, not going to be the best work but it will work, hopefully. I had to act fast because I knew there were going to be hundreds more droids to come to see the commotion, I'd say within the minute. The codes used on the droids are not the best, because of mass production, so It was an easy fix, I just needed it to fly a small bit. It comes back to life with a putt to its movement, I directed it to start flying while I'm on its back, putting the whole time with smoke, just what I needed. I start to move forward as fast as possible. As we get around the hundreds of battle droids below, I'm starting to speed up, and as I see the reactor room, I could hear B1's yell " HEY! STOP! YOUR GOING TO FAST" in their robotic voice. Before I hit the Shield covering the reactor room, I jump off to the left where the blast door is for the room. With the distraction of the droid smashing into the shield, I use this time to slowly cut through the blast doors with both sabers starting at the bottom of the door, going up and around to form a circle I can fit through. I was through within a Minute, unnoticed, or so I was led to believe. When I get into the reactor room, I throw explosives all over the reactors, with a detonation in T minus 1 minute. I fly out of the room, calling for 411 to bring my ship as fast as possible, 55. Running across the hanger, I'm spotted by the hundreds of battle droids, which immediately start firing right as they see me 50. The explosion of the fighter droid caused a chain to nearby explosive barrels, exploding more Vulture droids causing tons of smoke and fires to spread around the hangar area, 45. As I'm running, my yellow saber is blocking multiple bolts flying at me while I'm jumping, spinning, performing acrobatic movements while being shot by hundreds of droids, from B1's, to super's, to droideka's, all firing at me, adding to the smoke, 35. Running with young blood in my veins, I perform 1, 2, 3 long jumps and leap onto the side of a slanted destroyed Vulture droid, 30. I jump up, reaching for the cloudy sky just as 411 swoops in predictively shoving my hand into the side of the sharp A-wing hull, 25. I grab the side of the hull and pull myself up into the cockpit, grabbing the controls, 20. I spin to the exit with roughly 67° of the hanger I need to shoot out of, I fire the afterburners using the circumference of the circle and my fighters movment to my advantage, 15. Pushing forward, I am drifting an A-wing around the hangar of a Separatist capital ship skimming the walls centimeters away from an explosive fiery death, 10. I barely screamed out of the hanger, to be able to see a view of the capital ship flying stright for the other Sepie capital ship, 5. Im still firing the afterburners to try and attempt to get a safe distance away from the soon to be collision sight, 4. I let 411 take the control's, 3. I turn my head to look back, 2. I see the collision of the 2 270° hangers, 1. I watch as i get the view of a star being formed right infront of my eyes, and seeing many Sepie Cruisers being absolutely engulfed by the flames, and a blast wave decimating the Vulture droids… blast wave…. BLAST WAVE! Just then I'm thrown far, along with the debri. I manged to gain control of the craft and start performing advanced monuvers to avoid being hit by debrie that will demolishe me and my tiny fighter. 

"Saya, can you hear me? Saya?" Master Obi-Wan Kenobi pleaded.
"Yeah, yeah master, I'm good, I'm fine. Woo…!" I said with a sigh of relief.
Chapter 3

 The explosion had decimated the Separatist forces leaving 4 Cruisers sustaining heavy or mild damages, but with an opening, Obi-Wan and I travel to the ground along with Captain Cody to go for a large ground assault. Master Obi-Wan's plan was to drop in and gather our troops and split them between Obi-Wan and commander Cody. We were west, they were east. The Separatists had the high ground seeing as they had a cliff to their advantage. Flying in on gunships, we were taking heavy fire from their anti aircraft cannons. Commander Cody and I are debriefing the squad on the way to the rally point, seeing gunships after gunship falling to the rocky ground in a fiery explosive ball of red hot metal, and screams, with no plants in sight, just rocks, gunships, and red streaks flying by. Explosions booming right next to us with our doors right open. We have been ordered and ordering troops to stay far away from the mountain top gun fortifying the mountain top of the cliff, leaving that gun for the gunships and the best of the clone troopers, or ARC (Advanced Recon Commandos) troopers to deal with that later, seeing as a ground assault is too dangerous for us. As some of the clones have said, it's not an easy mission, but hops are high. 

"30 seconds until landing." A clone trooper yelled to me and Cody.
Cody starts with "All right, listen up! Maintain squad formations, 'A' squad, You're on me-" ZZZZZEEEROW- BOOOM!
"Where hit!" I yell "Everyone! Hold on!"
Before we hit the ground I leap out of the gunship with a backwards somersault, force pulling all the troops out of the burning fireball heading for the ground, grabbing all of the men, including the 2 pilots at the front, breaking through the windows. I land like rain from the sky, catching the troops I just pulled out with my powers and have them roughly land on the fluffy rocks next to our now downed gunship, no casualties yet. I rush over to take cover under our gunship on its left side behind enemy lines. I sit and meditate as they come up with a plan.
"What's the status lieutenant?" Cody asked
"5 injured thanks to General Saya, but that's not that bad news… Does that Rock look familiar?" The lieutenant asked.
"Yea, the mountain, right where we're not supposed to be." Said Cody
"General Kenobi ordered us not to try taking this section from the ground." The lieutenant regenerated back again with what was already established.
"That's what he said…but what would the general do if he were here?" Cody rhetorically asked.
"Saya sir, what do you think?" A trooper asked me somewhat desperately.
"I think Cody should take this one, I've got your back Cody." I answered with my legs crossed, eyes closed, slightly levitating over the rocks.
"Eight-Eight-Six-Seven through Eight-Eight-Six-Nine and Saya, fix your grapples and come with me. Everybody, prepare for covering fire." Cody ordered.
I get up, eyes still shut, ready to block anything coming our way.
"NOW!" Cody yells, sprinting across what is our no-man's-land
I open my eyes, ignite my Sabers, Green in left, yellow in right, and dash towards the now incoming blaster fire. I sense it, left side, block, right side, deflect, one for Cody, deflected. We get to some stalagmites at the bottom of the mountain, sustaining heavy fire, I pose as a distraction for all the fire, deflecting as many blots as I can back at the metal men. One troop trips and falls, pow, bolt straight through the head. Cody and the men shoot the grappling hooks up towards the top of the mountain and start climbing. I jump from my spot reigniting my sabers, driving them through the mountain side, helping me grab hold with my feet. And when I look up, I see a grapple fall behind me. I tried to grab the rope but I was too late. When I managed to obtain it, he had already hit the ground. Another tragedy, one that never had to happen, life being wasted away. I look up, a droid stairs emotionlessly down into my emotion filled eyes. A blue bolt shoots past me, impacting the droid's head, sending the body backwards.
Cody and the other clone rises from the cliff side as I leap up from the side, landing in front of the clones and immediately start deflecting with my 2 sabers having nothing pass. Cody takes this opportunity to run around my defense and attacks the droids head on, bashing one droid with the butt of his rifle and swinging his rifle at another, destroying both of them. The droid manning the anti aircraft gun turns and aims at Cody. Instinctively I jump in front of the cannon as it fires, I deflect the large bolt away with my right yellow saber, knocking my body to the right, making me stumble. But with the motion throwing me to the right, I use the momentum to throw my green saber with my left hand, impaling the droid in the metal chest. Cody then hops onto the turret, points the gun at the droids firing at our men, and lets loose, destroying all in its reticle.
"Thanks General, I owe you one, ill getcha next time." Cody said slowly getting off the turret.
"You're alright my friend, just pay it forward, let's go see how Obi-Wan did." I slightly worried, staring off to the north.

 We group up at the randevu, where we have set base camp on the planet in a small raven a bit away from where we captured the cliff with some makeshift scouting towers dotted around our position. Obi-Wan had more resistance than what he had anticipated, he was a little banged up, but he was fine in the end. This was a huge victory seeing as we have been able to set base on a planet that allows us to get resources through this hyperspace route and onto parts of the army past this point. Before, General Grievous snipped our route to where we couldn't get resources to our army on the other side from Coruscant. 

Chapter 4

 12 hours later, we have rested and have managed to build up a good base incase of a surprise attack. We are still fighting a few fronts of Separatist holdouts with a fortress a few klicks west, or about 4 miles west. 

I sit in my tent meditating, reflecting back on the weeks events, and what Ahsoka was doing back at the temple, training hard. I recite what I did with an almost overwhelming amount of blaster fire attempting to fly into me, how I was just mostly averting the blots away from me and not in a direction that would benefit me most.
'RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE'

 The ground started to shake out of nowhere, breaking my peace. I rush out of my tent, only to be met with a face full of B2 battle droid. I jump back over my tent flipping onto my feet as I see my tent being lit into flames from heavy bolt fire flying at me. Igniting both my sabers, I deflect the incoming fire away from me up into the sky as much as I physically could. I took a glance around, it was becoming more sunlit as we fought. It was a slaughter, clones dying left and right, Kenobi was on the Command ship getting patched, so it was just me, and the clones down here, being manicured. With a swift right step, I change lightsaber form, combining my form 3, (defensive form blocking anything coming way, and either making, or waiting for an opening to strike) with a combination of form 2 (saber to saber form, putting least amount or saber movement and preferring precise efficient movements) and form 4 (saber from using the force to enhance physical abilities, and heavily utilizing fast acrobatic movements to move around and disorient the opponents, using wide sweeping saber movements to block and hit targets) I use the power if the many bolts to propel my body onto my right leg, crouching down and taking a huge lead in to the air. Looking around like it is moving in stop motion, I see thousands of droids around, completely outnumbering my men. Glancing down where I had jumped from, there seems to be a super battle droid rising from the ground, looking as if it has been there for at least a few days. Time seems to start like normal again, immediately I have to block bolts coming for my body, twisting, turning, deflecting every. single. bolt. right to another droid. I can't have any more unneeded deaths in my hands. I land with an impactful explosion of yellow lighting, rendering half of the electronics on the field obsolete. Shots fire over the wall, exploding near me. 

"Everyone, Retreat!" I yelled into the comms.
I ran towards the lieutenant that I had survived the crash with, he was running for a troop transport.
"Get to the ships, return to the Venators! Get Kenobi and relay what has happened!" Urgency blowing through my voice.

 I push him into the ship as it takes off. As it's doing so, I force push it away from the field as to be in less danger of being shot down. But rockets fly through the air, I reach through the force and grab onto the hurdling death traps, I grab 1, 2, crash them into one another, 3, grab, 4, grab, 5, miss. ERRROW… BOOOM! With a hopeless explosion, the ship bursts into an explosive ball of fire, right in front of my eyes, out of my grasp. Shots fly past my head from behind me, I ignite my sunlit yellow saber to block incoming bolts. No men, only metal remains, and it wants me dead. I dash for my ship on the other side of the airstrip, luckily barely touched from this horrible surprise party that invited everyone I very much dislike. Hopping into my A-wing, I lift-off dogging left, right, up, down, roll left, roll right, barely being passed by on all sides by cannon fire. When I reach the point past the clouds, there's a whole war above. Separatist forces have surprised Kenobi with an overwhelming number of ships, putting our war torn 12 Venators against 16 Munificent class Cruisers. We were greatly out matched. But the time I was in space we had lost 3 Vectors compared to there 1 lost. Droids noticed me coming from the planet and started to verge onto my position. 

"Obi-Wan! You there? Can you hear me?" I yelled, pulling evasive maneuvers.
"Saya, is that you?" Kenobi asked.
"Yes, we got surprised on the ground, seems the same happened here." I rushingly said.
"Yes, they came out of nowh-" Kenobi is cut off by a blaring siren from my cockpit.
"Wait, my ship is damaged, it's starting up my hyperdrive, 411 can you fix it?" I said dipping left and right while trying to stop the hyperdrive activation.
With a few bleeps of fear, I understand what's happening.
"When I was thrown from the capital ship explosive wave, I must have been hit near the hyperdrive, and explosions from my escape, along with the maneuvers I have been pulling, it may have caused damage that is registering a hyperdrive activation. Master Obi-Wan, I don't know, I-I don't know what to do!" I claimed with fear in my eyes.
"Can you deactivate the hyperdrive at all 411?" Kenobi asked
411 bleeps with a sad toon.
"Blast, Saya, does it say where you're going?"
"N- No, my council just says ERROR." I stated, now with much fear in my voice.

 I managed to steer my craft into the position of the hyperspace lane. 

"Tell Ahsoka good bye if I don't-" I get cut off when the the hyperdrive powered up woth a vvvvvvvvvvvVVVVERRRRRRR PEEOW, and just like that, me, my A-wing, and R2-411, are gone.
Chapter 5

 It's been days since the battle, mabe 2 or 3 days. Luckily I always keep many ration bars in my fighter to last me a good few days, along with my extra water and my ability to go into a deep meditative state, conserving food and water. Keeping me company is my meditation and 411. We have almost hit some unknown objects, could have been planets, asteroids, other ships, but we seem to be staying in hyperspace lanes luckily, or I would have been dead a long time ago. My class 2 hyperdrive could have taken me all over the galaxy by now, I could be heading towards Coruscant right now for all I know. 

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
My hyperdrive warning kicked on, showing that there is a massive gravity force in my path. The console flashed with big red dangerous letters "Exiting Hyperdrive" on the screen.
"YES! FINALLY!" I yelled with excitement.

 I watch through the glass to see a barren looking planet, and a similar looking moon, a moon I was heading to. I was moving fast, as I entered the moon's atmosphere, Im grabbing the controls, barely anything. My craft is red hot from the rate at which I'm coming in on. I'm grabbing the stick, pulling back as much as I can, as to try and save myself and 411 from a fiery death. I scraped by a big rocky mountain dealing more damage to my A-wing. 

"HOLD ON 411!"
"Come ooooon. Pull pull pullllll…. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!-" VERRROW BOOOOSH!!! The crash landing sounded like a bomb flying through the air, then landing on its target. I try to get from my seat just to find my strap and window will not open. Using my saber I cut off my seat strap and broke the window from the hinges and leaped out, taking 411 from the craft, swiftly landing on a tall mountainous rock. The craft seemed to have pushed through the land 50 meters from the initial impact spot. The area I was in seemed to be very rocky terrain with many rocky canyons and huge rocks that are almost mountainous. The sun was close to setting down for the night but was still a good hour away from sleeping.

 With the force by my side, I felt a very uneasy sensation telling me to stay out of sight. I duck down on the tall skinny rock taking 411 down with me. 411 confusingly bleeps when I do so. "Hey, I have a feeling right now, just keep quiet real quick, there's somebody coming. Trust me." Me and 411 peer over the edge looming over my crashed ship just as a group of 6 men in full armor covering their whole body fly in with jetpacks strapped to their backs, blasters in hand. As they land, they search around my wreckage, presumably looking for survivors. One seems to be ordering the others around, pointing at one to look in one direction, another a different direction, and scanning around for the unexpected visitor. I look down at my Wrist link, my distress signal wasn't sent, I guess that was damaged from entering the planet at such high speed with no deflector shields surrounding the ship like a protective blanket. 

"Blast, 411, what's your S.O.S signal situation, did it go through?" 411 beeps with a little drama like I should know it didn't go through.
"Well sorry for busting your rusty bolts you rowdy rancor, better to try than to just give up mister sassy pants. Maybe I should wipe your memory for a change, see how you like it."
"Now shush, don't want them to find us spying on them, won't look too good." I demand. "Now here, in case we get caught, I don't want them to know I'm a Jedi, so here, take my sabers, I'm not gonna need them anyways." I said shoving my lightsabers into 411's storage compartment and looking towards the crash again.

 Just then the suit of armor that had been commanding his squad bursts up into my view right on my face out of hyperspace blue. 

"Ah, found ya trespassers, you 2 are coming with me." Demanded the Mandalorian with a snickering sound in his voice as the others rise from the portal of the abyss from down below.

 It was a good thing my ropes where in the tent back on Sarrish, or this may have been an even worse situation, Mangalorians like them hate Jedi with a passion, and it's a good thing I always have a broken blaster in 411 for any cases where I need to blend in with a crowd or pose as a normal civilian; although, the ability to become a civilian at any point is great, I've had little need to do so much. I'm quite popular with the people for being one who tries to connect with the population as a fellow citizen. So I rarely stay in the temple for too long. I love being with the people and learning skills without the force, like being a mechanic, electrician, public speaker, security guard, an all around great person to talk with about anything. I'm quite known on all levels of Coruscant for being one of the most friendly Jedi to be around. Right now though, I need to focus on not being caught, at least That's what my gut is telling me. After they searched my character for any weapons and found the broken blaster that 411 had put in my holster where my lightsaber usually is, they were satisfied and pushed us into one of their big Kom'rk Mark 1 class Mandalorian starfightetransport ship. 

(Look in comments for 6th paragraph)

So I’m brand new to hockey and can probably count how many times I’ve been ice skating on my fingers and toes. I’ve had pretty good balance my whole life so I could hold my own cruising around in a free skate.
I’ve played two games with the old timers in my area and my god, I am dead weight to whichever team I’m on just from lack of speed and ability to skate backward. I ultimately end up doing laps skating as hard as I can just to keep up and stay onside.
I recently discovered after using my own gear last night with skates that aren’t 4 sizes too big I feel much more confident taking risks/ falling down.
Is it weird to show up to a public free skate in hockey gear? And if not, how much of it could I wear before I look weird to the other patrons?
Due to work schedule I can’t make it to most lessons offered and feel like I just need more ice time to get where I need to be.
Thanks in advance!
Edit: A little update for y’all. Thank you all for the kind and informative responses! I called ahead and asked the arena about it like some had suggested and unfortunately they frown upon wearing full gear but said people usually can just wear elbow pads which is a little disappointing.
This is my first interaction/post in this community and felt very welcome and excited to be a part of such a wonderful group. Maybe someday I’ll see some of you out on the ice!

I found lurking on this forum really useful for planning our trip, so thought I'd return the favour by posting about our trip here - with some extra tips for travelling as vegan or vegetarian! We just got back a few days ago and I'm already itching to go again. I think our interests generally align with what many people want when they go to Japan - nerdy stuff, food, temples and pretty locations. I hope the below is useful to someone, and happy to answer any questions (whether on food or just something we visited!).
**General tips:*\*
1) Learn some basic Japanese: I've seen this one come up quite a few times and can only echo it - while there certainly are Japanese people with excellent English skills, it will smooth the way so much more if you learn to speak some Japanese. Any attempts at Japanese were always met with a much friendlier response than tourists we saw speaking English, and it was especially helpful in the two ryokans we stayed at, where we had much more conversation with our hosts and they seemed much more comfortable communicating in Japanese (also we got some free apple jam!). Personally I taught myself from the basics because I had time/that's how my brain works (hiragana, katakana, then learning vocab + grammar) - but learning some modular phrases will help, e.g. '____ doko desu ka?' (where is ____?), '____ arimasu ka?' (is there ____?), and 'kore wa hitotsu/futatsu/mittsu o kudasai' (one/two/three of this please).
2) For dietary requirements, do your research and book in advance: There are quite a few helpful guides online for vegan diets, including the IG account 'tokyoveganguide', the website 'isitveganjapan' (https://isitveganjapan.com/food-on-the-go/507-2/), Vegewel (https://vegewel.com/en/area/) and some articles on matcha-jp (https://matcha-jp.com/en/7716). We ate really well while out and about and could pick up certain street snacks - but again, being able to communicate in Japanese helped a lot here (see tip 1). As you probably know, vegan diets aren't well understood in Japan, and they're often shocked to find out you won't eat fish OR fish-based dashi. I've mentioned some of the standout places we ate at below. At conbini/kiosks, plain rice and salted onigiri, as well as the salted ume (plum) onigiri are typically vegan. Mochi are also often a good bet, as are jelly sweets (tend to use agar rather than gelatin). It can be helpful to know the kanji for fish (魚), meat (肉) and eggs (卵). Milk products are often listed in katakana as cream (クリーム) or similar, but could be listed as cow's milk (牛乳). Translate apps can be helpful but it's about 50/50 helpful versus 'hilarious result'.
3) As a vegan, don't expect your western-style hotel to provide breakfast (but a ryokan will!): We generally found that big western style hotels just.. did not provide anything viable for breakfast. You might have been able to negotiate a bowl of plain rice and a piece of fruit, but ultimately we ended up eating breakfast elsewhere (but see tip 4!) and in the future I wouldn't bother opting in for breakfast unless I could verify with the hotel in advance that they had options. However, ryokans were very accommodating so long as you communicated with them in advance, and the two we stayed at provided a list of dietary requirements at the start of our stay that we could tick to indicate what we could eat.
4) Most coffee shops/food places won't open until 10am: It was a bit of a struggle to find places open early enough for us to have breakfast before heading out. We did bring a few cereal bars for this eventuality! But if you research you can find a few places that open at 7am (in Tokyo we went to Komeda Is in Ginza, in Kyoto, the IMU hotel).
5) Always have some cash: We didn't need a phenomenal amount of cash on our trip, although we were also not skimping on spending (we took out 70,000 yen, or about £400, and that was about right) - many taxis, shops and restaurants took cards if needed. However, cash-only purchases did pop up unexpectedly - for example, in one of our very nice upmarket hotels that 100% had a card reader, sending our luggage by takkyubin for some reason was a cash-only purchase. A lot of smaller shops and little cafes will take cash only. If you want to use a card, you can check at the till with the phrase "caa-do wa ii desu ka?" (is card ok?).
6) Be prepared to walk: I know this one is said a lot - it depends what you're used to. We did in the range of 15-30,000 steps a day, and I was fine with a pair of foldable ballet flats and a pair of Vans. However we did bring blister plasters and a blister stick just in case! We also found lots of fun little shops/places by simply walking instead of taking transport, so if you have time it's highly recommended. As you will see below, we broke up the two major destinations (Tokyo/Kyoto) with smaller, slower-paced places. That helped a lot!
7) Build in extra time for navigating public transport: Yea, you probably think you're used to big transit systems - we certainly did. However it's just not always clear which exit you want to get to or how to get there, especially if you're not familiar with the station and surrounding area. Whenever we were pressed for time (for example, when transferring to shinkansen or needing to grab snacks before getting a train) we looked up a map of the station first to plan our route. You probably already know this, but I promise you are NOT ready for Shinjuku station.
8) If you're worried about temple fatigue, collect goshuin: This has been written about extensively elsewhere although I'm happy to share my experiences. Goshuin are a stamp/calligraphy combination you can get at many temples and shrines. They're a very beautiful memento. You need a special accordion-style book (goshuincho) for them that you can buy in advance (I did) or at your first temple (usually 1200-2000 yen). Collecting a goshuin usually costs 300-500 yen and a couple of minutes of your time. You should only collect a goshuin after paying your respects at the temple. Generally the process is just to approach the desk (it's generally quite obvious, and there may be pictures of goshuin on the window of the booth - in some places you choose which one you want), and present your book with both hands, open to the relevant page, asking 'goshuin o onegaishimasu'. They might take your book and give you a number (in which case, you need to wait), or they might do the goshuin then and there - it depends on how busy the temple is.
9) You probably won't be able to check-n early: Of all the places we stayed, only one allowed us to check in before 3pm. However, you should be able to leave any bags with them - just be prepared! If you want to drop off your bags, you can say the following: "Nimotsu o azukatte mo ii desu ka?" (more or less: May we leave our luggage here?).
​
**Brief trip report:*\*
Day 0: We got our flight to Tokyo (14h). We flew Japan Airlines - the vegan meals were.. ok? But the snack was the infamous (iykyk) banana. Everyone else got an interesting snack, so it was sad to just have a banana. I would pack my own snacks next time!
Day 1: Land in Tokyo. Staying in the Ginza area. We got in to the airport relatively late (6pm) so we grabbed a snack locally once we got to our hotel (2foods Ginza) and went to sleep!
Day 2 Tokyo (~26,000 steps). Breakfast at Komeda Is, Ginza. Kokyo Gaien National Gardens (near to our hotel), then walk around the Yanaka Old District, bought some tea/crackers (often vegan but check), train to Asauksa to see Senso-Ji (there happened to be a festival on while we were there so it was packed, but I got a special goshuin!), then across to Akihabara. It started raining but was mostly ok as we were running from indoor shop to indoor shop. We had lunch at a shojin-ryori place in Akihabara station. In the evening we went on a vegan ramen tasting tour (highly recommended!) in Shibuya/Shinjuku.
Day 3 Tokyo (~25,000 steps). Breakfast at Komeda Is, Ginza. Then to Team Labs Planets (we had tickets for the earliest entry). Despite some of what I've read on here, we really enjoyed the experience (happy to say more if asked!). Then we headed across to Shibuya, wandered around, went to the Pokemon Centre and Nintendo store in Shibuya Parco, had lunch at Izakaya Masaka in the basement of Shibuya Parco (highly recommended) and headed over to Yoyogi Park, Meiji Jingu and walked up through Harajuku. We continued walking up through to Shinjuku and walked around there for a while, including going up the Tokyo Government Metropolitan building (free) for a view over Tokyo. We had dinner at Wired Bonbon.
Day 4 Yudanaka (~12,000 steps). We sent our bags via takkyubin to Kyoto, and then got the train over to Yudanaka (we had breakfast at Komeda Is again - honestly, great menu! and picked up onigiri in the train station for the train ride). At Yudanaka, we travelled over to the Snow Monkey Park, and then back to our ryokan to chill in the bookable private onsen. Our feet needed the rest! We stayed at Seifuso in Yudanaka, which was lovely and inexpensive - our host drove us over to the park (we got a bus back). The food was excellent.
Day 5 Nagano and Hida Furukawa (~11,000 steps). We travelled from Yudanaka through to Hida Furukawa, stopping off at Nagano on the way to visit the Zenko-Ji temple. For lunch we picked up oyaki from Irohado in Nagano, which were delicious (there are 3 shops - one in the station, one in a mall outside the station, and one by the temple)! By the time we got to Hida Furukawa it was relatively late, so we just had dinner. We stayed at one of the Iori Stay apartments, which provide dinnebreakfast (vegan if specified in advance).
Day 6 Hida Furukawa and Takayama (~15,000 steps). We went to Takayama in the morning to visit the markets and see a few temples, as well as pick up some traditional sashiko for my mother-in-law. Then in the afternoon we chilled and walked around Hida Furukawa (shrines, shops and so on) - we had lunch at Sobasho Nakaya in Hida Furukawa, which has clearly marked vegan options. A number of other traditional soba shops have vegan options. There was a little sweet shop near the main street with the koi carp that sold yam-based mochi-type sweets and had a full list of ingredients you could look at.
Day 7 Kyoto (~20,000 steps). We arrived in Kyoto at about 1pm (picked up onigiri and snacks on the journey), and walked from our hotel (located on Shijo Dori) to Nijo Castle and then to the Imperial Palace gardens. We had dinner in AWOMB Nishikiyamachi, which was excellent (sushi).
Day 8 Kyoto (~30,000 steps). For breakfast today we found out our hotel couldn't accommodate our diet (whoops) and we ate cereal bars and mochi from the nearby Life supermarket. We mostly stayed around the Gion area this day and visited a lot of the temples and shrines there - Yasaka Jinja, Kyomizyu-dera, Kodai-Ji (picked up some dango here), Kennin-Ji and others. There is a little bamboo forest at Kennin-Ji which is much quieter than Arashiyama and in my opinion, nicer. We ate lunch at Uno Yukiko (vegan and gluten-free ramen). We also went to the Pokemon Centre in Kyoto! In the evening we ate dinner at the IMU Hotel (you had to book via instagram), and then headed over to Fushimi Inari at night. It was very quiet and highly recommended. We walked up to the first viewing point where you can see across Kyoto (my phone registered this as about 40 floors).
Day 9 Kyoto (~25,000 steps). For breakfast we headed over to the IMU hotel who alternate Japanese/Western breakfast by day. It was only 1000 yen, and really good. In the morning we headed to Arashiyama, and did the usual - the bridge, the bamboo forest (it was fine, very busy even early on) - and had matcha shaved ice with mochi for lunch nearby. Very healthy..! In the early afternoon we had a calligraphy class. After that, we went to Kinkakuji, then slowly walked across to the Kyoto Imperial gardens, stopping off at shops and for coffee on the way. We had dinner at Kanga-An - our most expensive meal, but delicious. You have to book in advance.
Day 10 Hakone (~12,000 steps). We sent our bags by takkyubin to Tokyo. We had breakfast at the IMU hotel and then travelled over to Hakone. It was not a clear day but we saw about 2/3 of Mt Fuji out of the window (you need to be in seats D/E on the shinkansen). Based on conditions we decided not to go down to Lake Ashi. We went to the Open-Air museum which was honestly a lot of fun, then hung out in our amazing ryokan (Fukuzumiro). We had our own private onsen and I wish we had spent another night here! It was not a cheap stay but it was wonderful.
Day 11 Tokyo (~23,000 steps). We arrived in Tokyo at about 11am, and went to our hotel to drop off our backpacks - and were able to check in early! To note, this is the only time we could ever check in before 3pm, although we could always drop off our bags. We were in Ginza again, and had lunch at Ain Soph Ginza (expensive compared to everywhere else, but tasty - you must book, it's very small). We visited a little shrine and then walked to Hamarikyu gardens were we had matcha and wagashi in the tea house. Then we walked down to the Tokyo ToweZojo-Ji to have a look around. Finally we headed back to Shibuya to wrap up any shopping and sightseeing, have dinner at Izakaya Masaka (so good we went twice!) and then did a little karaoke at Joysound by the station - a great end to our trip. On our way back we stopped off at Don Quijote Ginza for any final bits.
Day 12 Fly home. Because of changes to flight paths, our flight home ended up being much earlier than it was when we originally booked (moved to 9am). So we couldn't do anything that day but go to the airport. We flew with Japan Airlines [edit - from Tokyo Haneda airport] and everyone can go into the Sakura Lounge who flies with them as long as you don't have a discounted fare - nice and quiet, with a few limited vegan options for food (pasta). The vegan meals on the flight back were much better than the flight there - our snack on the way back was a sandwich, much better than a banana!

This is a reenvisioning of an older hiring / looking for jobs post from 2017 (woah.crashbandicoot.wmv). This wiki link will still house these, but the naming scheme will be different. I, Lady Robit Automod, pretty much forcibly acquired the original post and turned it into a long-term pet project. We needed to update the posting in general, and hopefully, now it is more streamlined compared to years ago.
Enough introductions:
​
/NashvilleJobs is a fairly active subreddit dedicated to Middle Tennesee job postings. It is not extremely active, but there are descent leads to be had. I put anything in these forums at a higher quality compared with craigslist postings at face value, but be sure you are safe. Let someone know you have an interview before you go walking behind the Motel 6 for a $24/hr posting.
The Center for Non-Profits Job Board is as close to official as we can find for 501(c)(3) - Personally, I recommend reaching out if you are interested in a specific charitable niche.
Here is a table of -ahem- "nearby" city boards, I'll be checking these links when I make future postings.

Township Job Board	Distance from Nashville	GMaps Drive Time (could be ± 10%)	Notes
Nashville, TN	0	0 or 7 houeers	Some departments higher internally
Clarksville, TN	50 miles	1:00 hour	Very structured "level-up" system
Hendersonville, TN	19 miles	20 minutes	Deadline for firefighter applications 04/08/2022
Gallatin, TN	30 miles	33 minutes -- good luck with that one	Tell u/crowcawer if this link goes bad -- they bypassed a link protector
Brentwood, TN	10.5 miles	16 minutes	Uses a link protector
Franklin, TN	22 miles	24 minutes
Mt. Juliet, TN	20 miles	22 minutes	town has 3 roads
Lebanon, TN	32 miles	33 minutes	town still uses a .ORG website

• GMaps uses Church Street Park (I think it's the water oak) for "Nashville" as of 04/01/2022.
• Most of the sites that the cities use are functional. If there are failed links blame u/crowcawer.
• Many of these cities have jobs that have been open for over 60-days.

The State Link is currently working on my end. All the city/county links above are also working!
USAJOBS is the federal highering board. Type in "Nashville, TN" and click "open to the public" unless you are already an employee.

I made a character and this sotry for star wars (i made this story for my English finals, i had a month to make it and got an A on it), the characters name is Saya Eban and is a character I have been thinking of for over a decade now (im not in my 2nd decade so since i was super young). Saya at this time is 13-14 years old and was given inspiration by almost all the other jedi and also star killer. He is human and with reliance on the force he can live up to 1000 years with hi peak being between 35, 40 ish to around 800 years of age. In terms of prime power level and potential, in my canon he is 3rd most powerful character just underneath luke and anikan Skywalkers, but could contend with them at some points. Little background: he was a prodigy in school before he became a padawan, he always had an intrest in a character named Ahsoka Tano but never became more than friends because of the Jedi teachings. He was a fast learning youngling and became a padawan earlier than most other younglings, becaming a padawan at the age of 11 - 12. He was in the first battle of Genesis but his troop transport ship was blasted out of the air, landing behind enemy lines leaving him the sole surviver, and scarring him, making him want to never see uneeded bloodshed ever again. He met Count Dooku before he had met Obi-Wan and Anikan on geonosis, he locked blades with him once... once, before he was thrown aside like a house fly, not worth his time, he was out until the retreat of the battle was initiated. This gave him night terrors and nightmares, after this day he could never sleep more than an hour, if that, before he woke up feeling the dark side creeping in. So he had learned to use sleep meditation. Sleep meditation allowed him to accelerate his trainings and connect greater to the force, he had unlocked 1/3 of his life now, the force helping his cells heal his body while he sat and meditated.
This story is of how he lived through one of the bloodiest battles and worst losses of the Republic, the battle of Sarrish, and of how he had obtained his later main star ship, a Kom'rk Mark 1 class star fightetransport, aka the Puro (i made this story before I have watched the 3rd season of the Mandalorian, as of right now i still haven't so Idk if thats in season 3 or not).
There is about 11,340 words in the story, and I don't 100% know of what I should make him look like so have your imaginations run wild.
Ok here we go:
Tales of Saya Eban's Puro
Chapter 1

 The battle of Sarrish was one of the worst battles of the Clone Wars, it was a great devastating loss to the Republic and the Jedi, and I was in the middle of it all. Before the battle I was doing some touch-ups on my A-wing Fighter. I had managed to get my hands on a hyperdrive that would fit in my small fighter, although being able to enter hyperspace without an external hyperdrive wing is very convenient, fast, and easy, it does slow my fighter and hinder some mobility, but not an uncontrollable amount of loss. Little did I know it'd save my life later that week. After I had finished my work, gotten it restocked for my next battle, I was called to the Jedi command center for a briefing by Master Yoda, saying it was an urgent mission and I was needed now, with his backwards way of speaking annoying me slightly. In a flash, I had gathered my battle ready loadout and headed off to the command center. When I entered the command center with the center planning table showing starships from both Confederate and Republic sides, One chasing another. I look and see Masters Yoda and Windu and a holoprojected Obi-Wan Kenobi surrounding the Table, with deeply serious thoughts in their eyes, fingers on their concentrating chins. When I swiftly strolled in, I was greeted with Master Windu's cheerful, but serious voice: "Ah, Padawan Eban, good you're here, come quick, we must act with persistence if we want to gain an upper hand in this war." "Master Windu, good to see you, you too Master Yoda, Master Kenobi, what's the situation?" Master Obi-Wan states, "We are currently chasing Separatist forces to the planet Sarrish and we will need some back up, could you bring your part of the 104th battalion right away, we have heavy casualties and they're going to have reinforcements when they reach the planet." "Is there not anyone closer than me, it may take a few days for me to get there, yall mabe finished by the time I get there!" I said with hope in my eyes. "I'm afraid that you're the only one that is available with the most minimal time of arrival, you'll have to be quick though, it will be anytime now they will reach the planet and have reinforcements. we need this win, it will be a great victory for the Republic if we are able to capture the planet." Stated Obi-Wan with certainty. "All other generals are on missions right as we speak, you are the only one that can provide back up at this current time." Master Windu added "Closer to Knight after this mission you will be, great padawan you are, your great swift improvements, Master Plo is pleased with, believe in you I do." Master Yoda said with a jolly old-man voice. "Now go, there's not much time to waste, gather your men and go help Obi-Wan!" Rushedly said by Master Windu. "With determination in my voice, I yell "Yes Masters, right away!" And like a flash, I was gone. As I'm running off, I catch a glimpse of a green swoosh and the sound of a bolt deflection. I stumble to a stop and put my legs in reverse to give curiosity the wheel. When I peer in, I see Master Skywalker and Ahsoka, along with roughly 8 clone troopers all in a circle around Ahsoka and her one blade ignited. Master Skywalker had her eyes welded to her as he walked around the trooper. I could see Captain Rex standing and watching as well, although he seems to be the only one who spotted me poking in my head. He motioned his finger to his lips as to tell me to shush and not interfere, so I watched with anticipation. And after a lifetime stillness ending in a second after Master Skywalker yelled "START!" And stun doughnuts fire from the blasters of the troopers, sending a volley of blue twords Ahsoka from all directions. With great flexibility I pair with, she jumps into the air, spinning like skates on a skate rink in mid air deflecting all incoming plasmic projectiles landing with swift grace ready for more, And more came, she stands in the center blade moving almost faster than what my eyes could keep up with, until that one bolt punches her right in the back, knocking her to the ground, diminishing the blade back into the hilt. I spring into the room, speaking with worry in my voice when I squeak out "Ahsoka! Master Skywalker, what was that!?" 

"She was just training deflecting blaster fire, she's going to be outmatched a lot in this war, and clones are better than droids to practice with." Anakin said with pride that she was able to last little over a minute, thats improvement.
"Well I guess you're not completely wrong, but your going to give her a brain injury at this rate! Could you not go a bit easier on her?"
"She'll never learn if I go easy on her." Master Skywalker said with little arrogance in his voice.
"W- well, here, l-let me wake her then." I stuttered as I walked up to Rex holding Ahsoka like he's a pillow.
"Rex, do you mind if I-"
"Not at all General, here." Rex said as I sat next to him holding Ahsoka's top half of her body.

 As he caringly sets Ahsoka's rhythmically beating top half in my lap, head facing the heavens, I softly lay my hand over her forehead, close my eyes, and concentrate. A few suspenseful seconds later, I take my hand off and observe Ahsoka's hand softly glide to her now curling forehead, eyes fluttering open. 

With a smile I voiced"Wakey Wakey warrior princess, have a good nap?" Smirking the whole time.
"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes Nicksters." She groaned with fading pain.
"What are you doing here?" She leisurely grumbled as she started to lie propped up by her desirable, fluorescent orange arms made of flexible muscle.
"I was walking by, and saw a 'damsel in distress', I HAD to come and 'save the day'." I joked, smirking the whole time, annoying her little bit more.
"You know I have been dying to use my force heal on you since I had learned it. I bet you don't even feel bad at all right now hm?" I said leaning in
Ahsoka starts to stand as to get a feel for her own body.
"You're right, I feel better than I did before, not bad for someone named Nicks." Ahsoka said smirking right back at me.
"Oh come on, that was one time, that was even before we became patiwans!" I said with little dramatics in my vocal verberations.
"Ok Master, I'm ready to try again." Ahsoka said to Master Skywalker
"Not now Ahsoka, we have a mission from the Jedi council we have to attend to while Obi-Wan is on his own mission." Anikan said to Ahsoka, elongating his 'not' like he usually does
"I'm actually about to go give help to Obi-Wan right now… WHICH I NEED TO GET PREPARED FOR NOW!! Karabast, got to go! See yah Ahsoka, Master, Rex." And like a ship entering hyperspace, I was gone.
Chapter 2

 After 2 boring days traveling in hyperspace, me and my 5 Veneter class Cruisers are nearing our destination, this would make 12 Cruisers for the Republic side. A new commander CT'-4112 or Zerek, debriefs on the battle situation. As I had sensed, Obi-Wan was outmatched seeing as backup was on planet Sarrish for the fleeing Separatist ships, now it's 11 Munificent class Cruisers and 2 command stations blockading the planet. Kenobi was starting to be pushed back, relying on our Cruisers longer ranged cannons to hope the Sepies didn't get too close. Our Cruisers have longer ranged main canons and toms of fighter room, while the Sepies Cruisers have more fire power at closer ranges with more fighters than our Vendor class Cruisers, at closer ranges, the Sepies would completely destroy a Venetor class Cruiser, but we have strategies and will power. 

"Glad to see a friendly face Saya." Kenobi said exhaustingly.
"Well, it looked like you needed help. You know I need to be the one to save everyone. I'll move into position to fortify our defenses to push the Sepies back and for us to make a plan. What is your fleet's condition?"
"We have 2 Venetors heavily damaged and the rest either have mild to no damage. And we have lost half our fighters as of now." Urgently said by Kenobi.
"Ok, I'm sending men and supplies to you right now, let me take the front so I can take the damage if they send another attack." I calmly said to Kenobi.
"Men battle positions and set all power to front cannons and shields. Venators get into pincer position and get ready for an attack. Fighters get ready to launch." I commanded to all my Cruisers
"Master, if you could, could you add in your undamaged Venetors? " I wandered and directed with much mastery, I even made Obi-Wan himself visually impressed considering my inexperienced mind in life, and especially war. I even managed to make him smile.
"Getting in position now." Obi-Wan stated, still smiling.
"Understood, While you get everything fixed, I'll see if I can weaken their defenses, it seems as if they're in attack positions so we gotta be ready for anything." I said in deep thought.
"Ok, 10 to 13, I like those odds, makes it even, more so for the Sepies." I grinned.
"Now Saya, remember this is still a battle, don't be too cocky, you're starting to remind me of Anakin." Obi-Wan said with conviction.
"Yes Master, sorry about that." I answered to Obi-Wan, pulling back a little.

 Just then, many starfighters come from the enemy Cruisers, hundreds of them lightning fast, closing distance fast. 

"All right men, time for some fun. Obi-Wan, if you want to take command of my control center, I'll lead this fight." I said before Obi-Wan could respond.
"Ok- but Saya! Blast, maybe he's too much like Anikan." Obi-Wan said defeatedly.
As I get into the hangar I yell "Alright Wolfpack, let's get goin!" Then I hop into my modified Jedi A-wing.
We rush out from the center roof door along the Cruiser with my squadron aka The Wolfpack, with me leading my 23 fighters into battle and many more friendly's following from the hangars.
"Ok Wolfpack, let's make a break for them Cruisers, get as many of them gone as possible. 411 you ready?" I asked R2-411. R2-411 bleeps with readiness.
"Ok, time to blow them out of the sky, remember, stay in formation" I commanded.
"Yes sir!" The Clones bellowed.

 Then we hit the swarm with a mighty thundering sound of lasers flying through the emptiness of space seeing one after one of enemy fighter droids dropping all over the place. Me and my Wolfpack fly through all the 2 winged Vulture droids that look like each wing was sideways and has 2 prongs each side for wings. They were way more quick and maneuverable than us, but we had a duty to win, and we won't lose today. It's like a firework show, but you're dodging all the fireworks, and they're aiming right at you. While we are defending the Venator Cruisers, they're mostly firing at the Sepies Cruisers, slowly dwindling their energy shields down. 

"Boys, I have a plan, but I'll need yall to get back to the Cruisers." I urged
"Obi-Wan, how's the 2 heavily damaged Cruisers? We've been out for a long while. They should be good by now right?" I questioned Master Kenobi.
"They're about to come back into the fight, but one of our Cruisers is at a quarter shield, few good hits or bombing runs and it's gone, what's your plan Saya?" Obi-Wan said, perplexed.
"Just give me an opening to the left Separatist control center, that's all I need to get on that ship." I stated with confidence.
"I'll try my best, but don't be stupid Saya, we can't afford to lose you."
"Yeah yeah I know, just get me an opening please Master!" I begged.

 After the words fleeted from my mouth, all the Cruisers fired a hole through the droid fleet with friendly fighters also making way for me to get through. I blast the afterburners straight through the enemy swarm that's been lesson by the commotion, just barely being hidden by smoke from a just destroyed fighter straight into the leftmost control ship hanger landing with an explosive entry. And immediately I jump out, igniting both, my straight emerald green saber in my left, and my yellow saber with a curved hilt similar to the Count's hilt himself in my right. I'll face him again one day, it's inevitable, like me. I land and immediately cut a group of B1 battle droids heads off with my yellow saber facing out, giving me more reach, but as I start to take fire from the army that quickly form from my landing, I swiftly doge left to right almost able to doge the sight of a human eye. Left, pop goes the heads of 3, right, pop goes 5, jump through the air on an almost straight path through the thick of the army, spinning with a light show if one were to be an onlooker at this chaotic organization of flying red plasmic bolts going to a mix of yellow and green, then proceeding to fly straight back at the shooter with twice the velocity. I land on my feet with a thunderous "BOOM" with what seems like an explosion that incinerates half of the whole hanger with an electric yellow glow seeming like yellow lighting exploded from the epicenter of the explosion. When the smoke cleared, it seemed that everything within a 5 meter radius was completely incinerated, and everything within 40 meter radius was heavily damaged, and any technology within eye shot was either scrape or short-circuiting, but all B1 battle droids and super battle droids were out. 

I sighed with relief with little heavy breathing when I looked around me, but with no time to rest, 6 Vulture droid fighters came through the hanger's magnetic shield door, transforming to walk on its pronged wings like they were legs. They scanned me and started raining a flurry of red down onto me, but with my lightning fast reflexes, I raised my sabers to block the incoming hellfire from all six fighter's. Then came the flurry being deflected in any direction possible, and I could just barely see the 6 droids started to surround me by going behind my back, but I ain't done yet. As I'm blocking, jumping, spinning, twisting on a micrometer, I stomp with a mighty force, launching through the air, slowly spinning straight for a Vulture that has became the prey. Bolts whizzing by me, inches, centimeters near my skin, singeing my arm hairs to their roots. I land on top of the droid with a thunderous boom crunching where my foot had landed, driving my sabers straight through the brain of the story high droid, with a counterclockwise rotation around my back, dragging my sabers across the metal of the droid, I leap off the droid landing with the feathers and fly forward with a flashing dash slicing through 2 other droids legs, leaving gravity do its magical job. 3 down, 3 to go, but with little time left. I launch forward running on hairs dipping and dodging blots, I leap up slicing through one leg of a droid and pushing off of its gravity taken hull, coming down on another droid's leg, cutting with ease. I land like a leaf in the autumn skies, and launch with a swift leap, flying my yellow saber straight down the middle of the 6th and final droid with no time to spare.

 I land with caution, ready to fend off another foe, but none came at that second, so I took the opportunity and ran with it straight to where the main reactors should lie. I swiftly sprint with force leaps through the air to get to the reactor, the ship is 270th of a circle with a ball where the command center is, the middle is the only connected between the back of the ball and the inner back of the circle, that's where the reactor is, im at the left most side, may take me a minute to reach it, but I can get there without being seen. My plan was to quickly fix and rewrite a Vulture droid's code to go with my command, not going to be the best work but it will work, hopefully. I had to act fast because I knew there were going to be hundreds more droids to come to see the commotion, I'd say within the minute. The codes used on the droids are not the best, because of mass production, so It was an easy fix, I just needed it to fly a small bit. It comes back to life with a putt to its movement, I directed it to start flying while I'm on its back, putting the whole time with smoke, just what I needed. I start to move forward as fast as possible. As we get around the hundreds of battle droids below, I'm starting to speed up, and as I see the reactor room, I could hear B1's yell " HEY! STOP! YOUR GOING TO FAST" in their robotic voice. Before I hit the Shield covering the reactor room, I jump off to the left where the blast door is for the room. With the distraction of the droid smashing into the shield, I use this time to slowly cut through the blast doors with both sabers starting at the bottom of the door, going up and around to form a circle I can fit through. I was through within a Minute, unnoticed, or so I was led to believe. When I get into the reactor room, I throw explosives all over the reactors, with a detonation in T minus 1 minute. I fly out of the room, calling for 411 to bring my ship as fast as possible, 55. Running across the hanger, I'm spotted by the hundreds of battle droids, which immediately start firing right as they see me 50. The explosion of the fighter droid caused a chain to nearby explosive barrels, exploding more Vulture droids causing tons of smoke and fires to spread around the hangar area, 45. As I'm running, my yellow saber is blocking multiple bolts flying at me while I'm jumping, spinning, performing acrobatic movements while being shot by hundreds of droids, from B1's, to super's, to droideka's, all firing at me, adding to the smoke, 35. Running with young blood in my veins, I perform 1, 2, 3 long jumps and leap onto the side of a slanted destroyed Vulture droid, 30. I jump up, reaching for the cloudy sky just as 411 swoops in predictively shoving my hand into the side of the sharp A-wing hull, 25. I grab the side of the hull and pull myself up into the cockpit, grabbing the controls, 20. I spin to the exit with roughly 67° of the hanger I need to shoot out of, I fire the afterburners using the circumference of the circle and my fighters movment to my advantage, 15. Pushing forward, I am drifting an A-wing around the hangar of a Separatist capital ship skimming the walls centimeters away from an explosive fiery death, 10. I barely screamed out of the hanger, to be able to see a view of the capital ship flying stright for the other Sepie capital ship, 5. Im still firing the afterburners to try and attempt to get a safe distance away from the soon to be collision sight, 4. I let 411 take the control's, 3. I turn my head to look back, 2. I see the collision of the 2 270° hangers, 1. I watch as i get the view of a star being formed right infront of my eyes, and seeing many Sepie Cruisers being absolutely engulfed by the flames, and a blast wave decimating the Vulture droids… blast wave…. BLAST WAVE! Just then I'm thrown far, along with the debri. I manged to gain control of the craft and start performing advanced monuvers to avoid being hit by debrie that will demolishe me and my tiny fighter. 

"Saya, can you hear me? Saya?" Master Obi-Wan Kenobi pleaded.
"Yeah, yeah master, I'm good, I'm fine. Woo…!" I said with a sigh of relief.
Chapter 3

 The explosion had decimated the Separatist forces leaving 4 Cruisers sustaining heavy or mild damages, but with an opening, Obi-Wan and I travel to the ground along with Captain Cody to go for a large ground assault. Master Obi-Wan's plan was to drop in and gather our troops and split them between Obi-Wan and commander Cody. We were west, they were east. The Separatists had the high ground seeing as they had a cliff to their advantage. Flying in on gunships, we were taking heavy fire from their anti aircraft cannons. Commander Cody and I are debriefing the squad on the way to the rally point, seeing gunships after gunship falling to the rocky ground in a fiery explosive ball of red hot metal, and screams, with no plants in sight, just rocks, gunships, and red streaks flying by. Explosions booming right next to us with our doors right open. We have been ordered and ordering troops to stay far away from the mountain top gun fortifying the mountain top of the cliff, leaving that gun for the gunships and the best of the clone troopers, or ARC (Advanced Recon Commandos) troopers to deal with that later, seeing as a ground assault is too dangerous for us. As some of the clones have said, it's not an easy mission, but hops are high. 

"30 seconds until landing." A clone trooper yelled to me and Cody.
Cody starts with "All right, listen up! Maintain squad formations, 'A' squad, You're on me-" ZZZZZEEEROW- BOOOM!
"Where hit!" I yell "Everyone! Hold on!"
Before we hit the ground I leap out of the gunship with a backwards somersault, force pulling all the troops out of the burning fireball heading for the ground, grabbing all of the men, including the 2 pilots at the front, breaking through the windows. I land like rain from the sky, catching the troops I just pulled out with my powers and have them roughly land on the fluffy rocks next to our now downed gunship, no casualties yet. I rush over to take cover under our gunship on its left side behind enemy lines. I sit and meditate as they come up with a plan.
"What's the status lieutenant?" Cody asked
"5 injured thanks to General Saya, but that's not that bad news… Does that Rock look familiar?" The lieutenant asked.
"Yea, the mountain, right where we're not supposed to be." Said Cody
"General Kenobi ordered us not to try taking this section from the ground." The lieutenant regenerated back again with what was already established.
"That's what he said…but what would the general do if he were here?" Cody rhetorically asked.
"Saya sir, what do you think?" A trooper asked me somewhat desperately.
"I think Cody should take this one, I've got your back Cody." I answered with my legs crossed, eyes closed, slightly levitating over the rocks.
"Eight-Eight-Six-Seven through Eight-Eight-Six-Nine and Saya, fix your grapples and come with me. Everybody, prepare for covering fire." Cody ordered.
I get up, eyes still shut, ready to block anything coming our way.
"NOW!" Cody yells, sprinting across what is our no-man's-land
I open my eyes, ignite my Sabers, Green in left, yellow in right, and dash towards the now incoming blaster fire. I sense it, left side, block, right side, deflect, one for Cody, deflected. We get to some stalagmites at the bottom of the mountain, sustaining heavy fire, I pose as a distraction for all the fire, deflecting as many blots as I can back at the metal men. One troop trips and falls, pow, bolt straight through the head. Cody and the men shoot the grappling hooks up towards the top of the mountain and start climbing. I jump from my spot reigniting my sabers, driving them through the mountain side, helping me grab hold with my feet. And when I look up, I see a grapple fall behind me. I tried to grab the rope but I was too late. When I managed to obtain it, he had already hit the ground. Another tragedy, one that never had to happen, life being wasted away. I look up, a droid stairs emotionlessly down into my emotion filled eyes. A blue bolt shoots past me, impacting the droid's head, sending the body backwards.
Cody and the other clone rises from the cliff side as I leap up from the side, landing in front of the clones and immediately start deflecting with my 2 sabers having nothing pass. Cody takes this opportunity to run around my defense and attacks the droids head on, bashing one droid with the butt of his rifle and swinging his rifle at another, destroying both of them. The droid manning the anti aircraft gun turns and aims at Cody. Instinctively I jump in front of the cannon as it fires, I deflect the large bolt away with my right yellow saber, knocking my body to the right, making me stumble. But with the motion throwing me to the right, I use the momentum to throw my green saber with my left hand, impaling the droid in the metal chest. Cody then hops onto the turret, points the gun at the droids firing at our men, and lets loose, destroying all in its reticle.
"Thanks General, I owe you one, ill getcha next time." Cody said slowly getting off the turret.
"You're alright my friend, just pay it forward, let's go see how Obi-Wan did." I slightly worried, staring off to the north.

 We group up at the randevu, where we have set base camp on the planet in a small raven a bit away from where we captured the cliff with some makeshift scouting towers dotted around our position. Obi-Wan had more resistance than what he had anticipated, he was a little banged up, but he was fine in the end. This was a huge victory seeing as we have been able to set base on a planet that allows us to get resources through this hyperspace route and onto parts of the army past this point. Before, General Grievous snipped our route to where we couldn't get resources to our army on the other side from Coruscant. 

Chapter 4

 12 hours later, we have rested and have managed to build up a good base incase of a surprise attack. We are still fighting a few fronts of Separatist holdouts with a fortress a few klicks west, or about 4 miles west. 

I sit in my tent meditating, reflecting back on the weeks events, and what Ahsoka was doing back at the temple, training hard. I recite what I did with an almost overwhelming amount of blaster fire attempting to fly into me, how I was just mostly averting the blots away from me and not in a direction that would benefit me most.
'RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE'

 The ground started to shake out of nowhere, breaking my peace. I rush out of my tent, only to be met with a face full of B2 battle droid. I jump back over my tent flipping onto my feet as I see my tent being lit into flames from heavy bolt fire flying at me. Igniting both my sabers, I deflect the incoming fire away from me up into the sky as much as I physically could. I took a glance around, it was becoming more sunlit as we fought. It was a slaughter, clones dying left and right, Kenobi was on the Command ship getting patched, so it was just me, and the clones down here, being manicured. With a swift right step, I change lightsaber form, combining my form 3, (defensive form blocking anything coming way, and either making, or waiting for an opening to strike) with a combination of form 2 (saber to saber form, putting least amount or saber movement and preferring precise efficient movements) and form 4 (saber from using the force to enhance physical abilities, and heavily utilizing fast acrobatic movements to move around and disorient the opponents, using wide sweeping saber movements to block and hit targets) I use the power if the many bolts to propel my body onto my right leg, crouching down and taking a huge lead in to the air. Looking around like it is moving in stop motion, I see thousands of droids around, completely outnumbering my men. Glancing down where I had jumped from, there seems to be a super battle droid rising from the ground, looking as if it has been there for at least a few days. Time seems to start like normal again, immediately I have to block bolts coming for my body, twisting, turning, deflecting every. single. bolt. right to another droid. I can't have any more unneeded deaths in my hands. I land with an impactful explosion of yellow lighting, rendering half of the electronics on the field obsolete. Shots fire over the wall, exploding near me. 

"Everyone, Retreat!" I yelled into the comms.
I ran towards the lieutenant that I had survived the crash with, he was running for a troop transport.
"Get to the ships, return to the Venators! Get Kenobi and relay what has happened!" Urgency blowing through my voice.

 I push him into the ship as it takes off. As it's doing so, I force push it away from the field as to be in less danger of being shot down. But rockets fly through the air, I reach through the force and grab onto the hurdling death traps, I grab 1, 2, crash them into one another, 3, grab, 4, grab, 5, miss. ERRROW… BOOOM! With a hopeless explosion, the ship bursts into an explosive ball of fire, right in front of my eyes, out of my grasp. Shots fly past my head from behind me, I ignite my sunlit yellow saber to block incoming bolts. No men, only metal remains, and it wants me dead. I dash for my ship on the other side of the airstrip, luckily barely touched from this horrible surprise party that invited everyone I very much dislike. Hopping into my A-wing, I lift-off dogging left, right, up, down, roll left, roll right, barely being passed by on all sides by cannon fire. When I reach the point past the clouds, there's a whole war above. Separatist forces have surprised Kenobi with an overwhelming number of ships, putting our war torn 12 Venators against 16 Munificent class Cruisers. We were greatly out matched. But the time I was in space we had lost 3 Vectors compared to there 1 lost. Droids noticed me coming from the planet and started to verge onto my position. 

"Obi-Wan! You there? Can you hear me?" I yelled, pulling evasive maneuvers.
"Saya, is that you?" Kenobi asked.
"Yes, we got surprised on the ground, seems the same happened here." I rushingly said.
"Yes, they came out of nowh-" Kenobi is cut off by a blaring siren from my cockpit.
"Wait, my ship is damaged, it's starting up my hyperdrive, 411 can you fix it?" I said dipping left and right while trying to stop the hyperdrive activation.
With a few bleeps of fear, I understand what's happening.
"When I was thrown from the capital ship explosive wave, I must have been hit near the hyperdrive, and explosions from my escape, along with the maneuvers I have been pulling, it may have caused damage that is registering a hyperdrive activation. Master Obi-Wan, I don't know, I-I don't know what to do!" I claimed with fear in my eyes.
"Can you deactivate the hyperdrive at all 411?" Kenobi asked
411 bleeps with a sad toon.
"Blast, Saya, does it say where you're going?"
"N- No, my council just says ERROR." I stated, now with much fear in my voice.

 I managed to steer my craft into the position of the hyperspace lane. 

"Tell Ahsoka good bye if I don't-" I get cut off when the the hyperdrive powered up woth a vvvvvvvvvvvVVVVERRRRRRR PEEOW, and just like that, me, my A-wing, and R2-411, are gone.
Chapter 5

 It's been days since the battle, mabe 2 or 3 days. Luckily I always keep many ration bars in my fighter to last me a good few days, along with my extra water and my ability to go into a deep meditative state, conserving food and water. Keeping me company is my meditation and 411. We have almost hit some unknown objects, could have been planets, asteroids, other ships, but we seem to be staying in hyperspace lanes luckily, or I would have been dead a long time ago. My class 2 hyperdrive could have taken me all over the galaxy by now, I could be heading towards Coruscant right now for all I know. 

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
My hyperdrive warning kicked on, showing that there is a massive gravity force in my path. The console flashed with big red dangerous letters "Exiting Hyperdrive" on the screen.
"YES! FINALLY!" I yelled with excitement.

 I watch through the glass to see a barren looking planet, and a similar looking moon, a moon I was heading to. I was moving fast, as I entered the moon's atmosphere, Im grabbing the controls, barely anything. My craft is red hot from the rate at which I'm coming in on. I'm grabbing the stick, pulling back as much as I can, as to try and save myself and 411 from a fiery death. I scraped by a big rocky mountain dealing more damage to my A-wing. 

"HOLD ON 411!"
"Come ooooon. Pull pull pullllll…. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!-" VERRROW BOOOOSH!!! The crash landing sounded like a bomb flying through the air, then landing on its target. I try to get from my seat just to find my strap and window will not open. Using my saber I cut off my seat strap and broke the window from the hinges and leaped out, taking 411 from the craft, swiftly landing on a tall mountainous rock. The craft seemed to have pushed through the land 50 meters from the initial impact spot. The area I was in seemed to be very rocky terrain with many rocky canyons and huge rocks that are almost mountainous. The sun was close to setting down for the night but was still a good hour away from sleeping.

 With the force by my side, I felt a very uneasy sensation telling me to stay out of sight. I duck down on the tall skinny rock taking 411 down with me. 411 confusingly bleeps when I do so. "Hey, I have a feeling right now, just keep quiet real quick, there's somebody coming. Trust me." Me and 411 peer over the edge looming over my crashed ship just as a group of 6 men in full armor covering their whole body fly in with jetpacks strapped to their backs, blasters in hand. As they land, they search around my wreckage, presumably looking for survivors. One seems to be ordering the others around, pointing at one to look in one direction, another a different direction, and scanning around for the unexpected visitor. I look down at my Wrist link, my distress signal wasn't sent, I guess that was damaged from entering the planet at such high speed with no deflector shields surrounding the ship like a protective blanket. 

"Blast, 411, what's your S.O.S signal situation, did it go through?" 411 beeps with a little drama like I should know it didn't go through.
"Well sorry for busting your rusty bolts you rowdy rancor, better to try than to just give up mister sassy pants. Maybe I should wipe your memory for a change, see how you like it."
"Now shush, don't want them to find us spying on them, won't look too good." I demand. "Now here, in case we get caught, I don't want them to know I'm a Jedi, so here, take my sabers, I'm not gonna need them anyways." I said shoving my lightsabers into 411's storage compartment and looking towards the crash again.

 Just then the suit of armor that had been commanding his squad bursts up into my view right on my face out of hyperspace blue. 

"Ah, found ya trespassers, you 2 are coming with me." Demanded the Mandalorian with a snickering sound in his voice as the others rise from the portal of the abyss from down below.

 It was a good thing my ropes where in the tent back on Sarrish, or this may have been an even worse situation, Mangalorians like them hate Jedi with a passion, and it's a good thing I always have a broken blaster in 411 for any cases where I need to blend in with a crowd or pose as a normal civilian; although, the ability to become a civilian at any point is great, I've had little need to do so much. I'm quite popular with the people for being one who tries to connect with the population as a fellow citizen. So I rarely stay in the temple for too long. I love being with the people and learning skills without the force, like being a mechanic, electrician, public speaker, security guard, an all around great person to talk with about anything. I'm quite known on all levels of Coruscant for being one of the most friendly Jedi to be around. Right now though, I need to focus on not being caught, at least That's what my gut is telling me. After they searched my character for any weapons and found the broken blaster that 411 had put in my holster where my lightsaber usually is, they were satisfied and pushed us into one of their big Kom'rk Mark 1 class Mandalorian starfightetransport ship. 

(Look in comments for 6th)

Hello all! It’s the offseason and for some reason (probably cuz I'm insane but I feel that's implied at this point) I got inspired to write up a history of my favorite figure skating discipline: ice dance. This is a project of love. I don’t pretend to be an expert in all things but I like to think my time as an ice dance fan has given me a good amount of perspective and the ability to view the current state of ice dance within the context of what has come before and what has influenced the current state of affairs. All of that said, I’ve decided to highlight eras in ice dance, mostly by Olympic cycle, to bring attention to ice dancers who have had tremendous impact on the sport as well as to appreciate how far ice dance has come in its 70-year history. I’ll be posting this on Tuesdays and Saturdays (in ET) for everyone to read and take in at their own pace to pass the offseason by. Without further ado, here’s to starting this passion project.
​
Part 1: Early Beginnings, 1952-1980
I debated back and forth whether to separate these years out further given the sheer amount of time covered. However, the complete lack of footage for a vast swath of the World Championships that occurred from 1952 to 1970 was the ultimate decider in realizing that those years simply needed to be included in this grouping of years in order to be worth posting. This, of course, also colors my assessment of this era. But I hope to bring an objective view to the early beginnings of ice dance.
The first World Championships for ice dance were held in 1952 in Paris, an addition 44 years in the making. Nine pairs competed in front of 7 judges for the honor of becoming the first ever World Champion in ice dance, an honor that ultimately went to the British pair of Jean Westwood and Lawrence Demmy. It’s unclear what exactly was competed at that first Worlds. The placing system simply asked the judges where they felt a couple should place, added the numbers up, and posted the standings. For example, if all 7 judges placed a couple first, the pair would have 7 points. So it’s hard to tell if more than one program was ever performed.
Although footage for this first Worlds does not exist, we are lucky that footage from Westwood/Demmy’s 1954 win in Oslo was preserved to some extent. The first thing to strike a viewer about Westwood/Demmy, beyond the fact that the music from the event was not captured, was the extended use of the Killian hold, an emphasis on synchronized leg movement and lines, as well as the slower and purposeful movement across the ice. This was early ice dance. The goal for couples in the 1950s and even 1960s was to translate ballroom of the time onto the ice as best as they could. On top of that, we see some early staples of the discipline, like close holds and synchronization, take root almost as soon as the sport could be judged.
The 1950s and 1960s featured a short period of British domination in ice dance, briefly interrupted by a 4 year span where the Czechoslovakian sibling pair of Eva Romanova and Pavel Roman took home 4 titles. Watching this pair, it becomes clear how the sport changed in a short amount of time. Romanova/Roman keep in the spirit of Westwood/Demmy before them but now feature quick changes in hold and more speed than their predecessors. Or at the very least, this is the first recorded instance where this is captured accurately. And while the music is not captured here, given the change in the style of dance, it is likely that music and tempo changes were a requirement at this early stage. This is corroborated by the first ice dance program whose music was captured, the winning program from Diane TowleBernard Ford in 1966. An interesting note in TowleFord’s program is the introduction of small lifts, spins, and Towler’s switching of positions over the ice, lying nearly flat on the ice at one point. The program features 3 music changes.
You may now be wondering how a discipline so intrinsically linked to the Soviet Union and Russia can have been left out of this write up for this long. Well, you don’t have to wait any longer. The reign of British dance came to a screeching halt in the 1969-1970 season, when an Elena Tchaikovskaya coached team of Lyudmila Pakhomova and Alexander Gorshkov earned their first world title at the 1970 Worlds. The 1969 World Silver medalists became the first in a long line of Soviet dancers to stand on the top spot.
Pakhomova/Gorshkov were primarily known for their more dramatic style. As seen prior, ice dance had been steadily becoming more athletic over the years, increasing in speed and difficulty as the years went on. Pakhomova/Gorshkov were among the 2 pairs (alongside America’s Judy SchwomeyeJames Sladky) who really emphasized the athleticism that the event could contain. On top of that, Pakhomova/Gorshkov often picked music that was dynamic and allowed Pakhomova to shine as a performer. Their style is especially apparent in the compulsory they originated, the Tango Romantica, where the dramaticism of the tango is just as important as the tango movements. This was the early stages of ice dance becoming not just a transition of ballroom onto the ice but also a performance in and of itself. SchwomeyeSladky meanwhile were a tad more traditional, adhering more closely to the origins of the sport and its roots to dance. The inventors of the Yankee Polka themselves (now I am conflicted on how I feel about them haha) featured numerous music and tempo changes in their program to cover multiple forms of dance in a short amount of time. Controversy started early in ice dance’s history, as many felt Gorshkov wasn’t as strong a skater as Pakhomova and the American pair of SchwomeyeSladky should have won in 1970. Alas, figure skating judging seems destined to generate controversy. Worth noting here, the first compulsory dance that has a record of being competed was in 1968, which makes Pakhomova/Gorshkov and SchwomeyeSladky among the first to medal with the new required dance. Also worth noting, the 70s saw a lot more variety in holds, with closed holds being the predominant hold but side by side hand holding also featured in programs along with parallel skating.
It's around this time that SchwomeyeSladky began to advocate for the inclusion of ice dance into the Olympics. In a New York Times article from 1972, Judy Schwomeyer was quoted as saying that ice dance was a different kind of sport that used different muscles but the athletes worked just as hard. The pair had skated on Olympic ice when ice dance was presented as a demonstration sport in 1968, with the IOC president in attendance to evaluate the validity of the sport for Olympic competition. They must have made a decent impression, as the IOC approved ice dance as an Olympic sport to be competed in 1976. Although SchowmeyeSladky didn’t make it to compete on the Olympic rings, their demonstration of the sport’s potential for the Olympic audience was hugely influential to the subsequent inclusion in the Olympics.
The 1976 Olympics marked the first time that ice dance would be viewed by the general public and the forerunners were Pakhomova/Gorshkov, who had won 4 world titles by this time, after not attending the 1975 Worlds. This didn’t stop them from standing on top of the Olympic podium for the first time in Olympic history. Their free dance featured numerous dance style, music, and tempo changes. These dance styles included blues/jazz and tango among others, with an emphasis on big movements that drew attention rather than necessarily strictly translating ballroom to ice. Rather, the “vibe” of the dance, so to speak, was of more import to Pakhomova/Gorshkov than performing movements that were reminiscent of ballroom choreography.
Although Pakhomova/Gorshkov were synonymous with 1970s ice dance at this point, it was the 1976 Olympic silver medalists coached by Tatiana Tarasova who appeared to have more of an impact on the dancers that came after them. Irina Moiseeva and Andrei Minenkov won the 1975 World title in Pakhomova/Gorshkov’s absence and swiftly won the 1977 World title after the Olympic champions’ retirement. Moiseeva/Minenkov were a striking pair and I feel like their programs were some of the first where really interesting stuff was happening choreographically. If Pakhomova/Gorskov emphasized the dramatic, Moiseeva/Minenkov cranked that up to an 11. If there was a time to point to when modern dance started seeping into ice dance, this is likely the pair to point to. Still under the rules of the time requiring multiple music and tempo changes, Moiseeva/Minenkov often opted for holding positions across the ice or repeating positions across the ice. Their balletic quality was in sharp contrast to the couple who had just retired as well as the other couples who had dominated in the same time. Where previous couples emphasized sharp movements, Moiseeva/Minenkov emphasized soft transitions. The style was interesting and exciting, but ultimately only won them 2 titles by the time they retired in 1982.
Instead of the aforementioned pair, it was a young Natalia Linichuk/Gennadi Karponosov, coached by Tchaikovskaya, who quickly rose up the ranks to claim 2 World titles and the 1980 Olympic title. Linichuk/Karponosov are who I like to affectionately name the most forgettable Olympic gold medalists in ice dance. Unsurprisingly given the shared coach, their style was similar to Pakhomova/Gorshkov’s, with the emphasis being on sharp, strong movements on ice and the required music changes being used to really draw attention to this (including…what I can only describe as rodeo music).
This era ultimately ended with a slight preview of what was to come. Krisztina Regoczy/Andras Sallay were the Olympic silver medalists in 1980 and decided to end their career at that year’s Worlds. The team coached by Betty Callaway had an inspired free dance, that incorporated music that was similar across the board with different speeds instead of drastically different music like their Soviet competitors. The stops necessitated by the switch in music were incorporated into the choreography to make the free dance more seamless. And while these are things we take for granted now, watching this program compared with the offering from Linichuk/Karponosov really draws these things into sharp focus as innovative for the time.
As if to emphasize a swift changing of the guard, as Regoczy/Sallay walked off the ice at the 1980 Worlds, ready to accept their sole World title and the first non-Soviet World title since 1969, a fellow student of Betty Callaway waited rinkside to congratulate Regoczy on a job well done. Her name? Jayne Torvill.

Welcome back to our story. Let's jump right in with the summary:
Amat runs on a road into the woods but can't outrun the negative thoughts and comments. Less than a year ago, he had spent too much time in the gym lifting weights that he fell on the way home and sprained his wrist. Amat kept the injury to himself. He self medicated with painkillers and alcohol. All the expectations weighed him down. Tails told his mom that if he was drafted, he could continue to play for Beartown. The club would get three hundred thousand dollars, and Amat would get more experience and wins for the team.
On the train, the secret reporter asks Maya about her dad. The reporter takes notes about Ramona because she was on the committee and still talked with Peter.
Peter visited Amat to suggest what agent he should contact. He comments that he can smell alcohol on his breath. Peter is just like the others making money off him.
Matteo's sister had gotten a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder in secret. His sister ran away two and a half years ago by saying she was to be staying at a church for "problem" kids. Then she left the country. The next call about her was news of her death. "The devil took her" according to his mom. Matteo wishes they had been born somewhere else to different parents like the Anderssons.
A mysterious man watches Amat practice. He was Lev, a "trash bandit" from a trailer park near Hed with a bad reputation. It was because he was a poor immigrant like Amat. Lev prevented Amat from buying pills. Amat confronted him the next day. Lev is only trying to help. He gives him rides home and can get proper meds for him. Lev actually listens to him and understands. Lev takes the calls from agents now.
Teemu drives through the wreckage after the storm. He has Peter take the wheel so he can text someone. The match schedule is changed so Beartown will play against Hed. Teemu tells him there are rumors that Beartown will merge with Hed now that their club's roof collapsed. Tails is behind it. Teemu hates the idea. Peter tells him he could be a tool or a weapon for the town. Teemu says it's only a temporary truce between Beartown and Hed.
At the game, they were tied and had a face off. Zackell asked Amat's opinion, and he said to give him the puck. They won, but it felt hollow. It was a test, and Amat lost.
The reporter reunites with his daughter. She tells him that how he talked to Maya was unethical. But Maya would have been on her guard if he told her the truth about himself. People think Peter is above reproach. If the two clubs merge, the evidence will be buried. The daughter has to be careful how she gathers intel or it could be taken personally. She has to live in the area. The reporter dad wants to ruin them.
Johnny comes home late in the evening from clearing the roads. Big sister Tess takes on more responsibility which makes Hannah feel guilty. Ted is obsessed with hockey and is better at it than Tobias. Ture pipes up that they have to practice in Beartown now. He overheard his dad on the phone earlier. Ted wants to see Amat train. Tobias gets in a fight with his brother. They are sent a message on their phones of a picture of the town sign with green scarves and a "GO HOME" sign below it. What a welcome. /s
Adri Ovich cleans up after the storm. The older dogs start barking because Benji came back riding a bike. He breaks into the club and sneaks onto the ice thinking of old times. He doesn't feel anything but numbness.
Maya gets a ride into Beartown from a neighbor. The door to her old home is unlocked which is only something people do in Beartown. She surprises her dad as he's getting ready for the day. He didn't think she'd know when the funeral was. Her mom comes home and tackles her in a hug.
Benji had stolen Mateo's bicycle and left it at the rink. He had fixed the chain. It figures that an entitled hockey player would steal it. On the first frost of the year, Benji visits his dad's grave.
Amat lost his temper at another player and insulted assistant coach Bobo. He sat out the rest of the games. Rumors spread that he wasn't really injured and was ungrateful to the club. Lev told him the rich men would tell him to settle for less. Peter tells Amat that he will be lower in the NHL draft but should still take it seriously. The next day, Lev sent a dishwasher for Amat's mom as a loan for when he goes pro.
Lev couldn't go to America with him. Lev's friend didn't help him much. The man he met in the hotel gym was friends with Peter and only interviewed him as a favor. Amat wasn't picked. It was all for nothing. Lev misled him, and his friend wasn't a real agent at all. Amat drank all night and was too drunk the next morning for a second chance. He came home and drank all summer.
Amat texts Bobo for help. Amat has gained weight and is out of shape. Bobo runs with him til they can't anymore. He compares Amat to the lupine, a hardy flower that grows in the ditch. He has ten months until the next NHL draft.
Mateo's sister helped him to survive school. She told him the hiding places and to stay away from the hockey guys. His sister didn't take her own advice.
Lev visits Peter to thank him for trying to help Amat. He mocks Peter when it was his fake agent who messed up Amat's chances by asking for payment from the clubs. Lev claims Ramona owed him a bunch of money. He wants to own her bar, but he doesn't have any proof. Lev uses Peter's motives for helping Amat against him. Lev threatens his wife, and Peter pushes him in a rage. The young gangster in the car comes near. Lev leaves, and Peter calls Teemu.
Maya can't believe her dad is now friends with Teemu. Ramona had to borrow money from Lev because she gave all her money to help Teemu's friend's mom. Teemu says to let him handle it.
Tess is a figure skating coach and Ted and Toby have hockey practice. But this time it will be in Beartown. Ana surprises the family when she drives their van back to their home. Tess feels like Ana should have been Hannah's daughter. Johnny shouts more at Ted because he has more to lose on the ice.
Zackell tells Bobo they will be last on the ice. She is looking to replace Amat. If he needs encouragement, it's already too late. Amat is tortured by the word "almost" and negative self talk.
Ana reunites with Maya. He dad isn't drinking the day before the funeral. Maya hears of the possible merger between Beartown and Hed. Maya talks about how people get radicalized and sectarian violence.
Teemu visits Hog at his garage. He asks for a favor: to borrow a vehicle. A man in a suit from the funeral parlor comes to Lev's scrap yard to pick up a vehicle. Teemu snuck into Lev's house and left keys and a beer glass. The vehicle is in back, and it's a hearse.
The day the rink opens to Hed, all the old rivalries and grievances come roaring back. The parents act the most immature. Bobo helps Tess and her brothers get into the locker room. They all take their turns on the ice until the figure skating practice. A fight starts, and both blame the other side. Bobo breaks it up. Tobias got a black eye. Johnny wants to fight them all, but Tess appeals to his protective instincts. As he drives back to Hed, Teemu and company threaten them.
Tails is nervous about what happened. He tells the caretaker that the two teams could be dissolved and a new club could be formed in Beartown. Teemu makes the club look bad. A council member accuses Tails of being sentimental. Tails gives Mumble a ride back to Hed.
Johnny argues with Hannah that Toby fought out of self defense. Hannah has to agree. Toby got suspended from the team. Hannah tells Johnny not to do anything stupid with his coworkers against Beartown. Ted was the one who charged out to fight, but Toby finished the job to protect Ted from getting suspended.
Extras
Marginalia
Lupines
Bigleaf lupine is an invasive species in Maine.
Questions are in the comments.
Join me next week, June 6th, for chapters 44 to 59.

To win you have to finish the regular season in the top half. Then you have to win 16 or a potential 28 games. And the games are basically every other day. If after 60 minutes of one of the most physically demanding sports you are tied you keep going 20 minutes at a time until someone scores. (Keep in mind the 2 longest games in history went almost the equivalent of 3 games each) The game is hard. It is exhausting you skate the hell for 45 seconds get off the ice panting and 2 minutes later you are back at it. 200lbs men are constantly smashing you into wood and plexiglass walls. When you fall, and you will fall, it is onto concrete covered by a cushion of hard as concrete ice. Players chase a 3 inch 6 oz frozen rubber disc moving at speeds around 20 mph with bursts to 30 mph. That rubber bullet can be propelled at 100+ mph. And your job is to try and make it hit you so the guy in the hurt locker suit doesn't have to. Look at this year. 4 of the top 5 and 9 of the top 10 teams are not playing for that silver chalice. Including the team that set records for wins and points in a season.
This is why we play. This is what we strive for. As kids we played on the streets and backyard rinks, on ponds and in church or school parking lots. We played in small barns that never got warm and in gyms that always seemed a bit hot.we played for that cup every week. Sometimes we lost sometimes we won. Then we went home to watch the real guys doing it. They where are heros and our foes. To the players and fans of both the Florida Panthers and the Las Vegas Golden Knights good luck, enjoy may the better team win (it can't be the best team, Toronto is playing golf or tennis). Remember the history of that Cup and do it proud.

Dr. Krill was back on Earth.
He had no idea why he always seemed to end up in this insane hellscape, but here he was...
Again…
Shit…
Only the other day he had been caught out in an electrical storm while trying to commute his way to work, which he hadn't particularly appreciated, especially not when massive balls of frozen ice came pelting from the sky with enough power to tear open skin.
What the fuck is this planet!?
Even the humans had been running for cover, and that was saying something!
He would very much have preferred a job where he wasn't in constant danger of getting murdered by the elements on a regular basis.
But this was earth, one day he could be enjoying the sun, the next he was risking heat death, the next he was almost blown away by the wind, and the day after that he was almost whisked away by minor flooding.
Of course, it was either walking to work, or taking public transit which was probably even more dangerous, considering that it had humans on board.
Humans who were half asleep, humans who were strung out on drugs, humans with children, humans with dangerous pets.
Then of course there were the more than mildly xenophobic humans, who were, somehow, under the impression that Krill was there to still earthling jobs, which was not the case at all considering that he had volunteered his time for free.
Krill had no need of monetary compensation, to him, the work was the reward.
He leaned something new every day.
And now, with his current stint working in a human hospital, he was becoming even more acquainted with humanity... not entirely sure if that was in a good way or not.
Of course, Krill more than missed the simple life aboard the harbinger, where most humans were relatively educated and competent, where most stupid injuries came about by overly idiotic actions rather than ignorance – a point could be argued to which one of those things was worse, but, for the moment, Krill was under the impression that willful idiocy was still better than ignorance because at least they knew why they were stupid, and generally openly admitted it to Krill, whereas working with the general populace forced him to have to be patient and understanding towards people who just didn't know any better.
Apparently telling people they are stupid to their faces is seen as off-color in the human medical world even though that is probably exactly what some of the people needed to hear.
Again, he found himself wishing for the harbinger, and for the return of the captain – the biggest idiot of them all.
He idly wondered how he was doing on his little trip across the universe.
He wondered how Sunny was doing, exploring the human world on her own two feet?
He wished he knew when they would be back together.
The UNSC had given them extended shore leave, but they had never specified how long it was going to be, seeming to hint that it was contingent on how the captain felt.
Well…
Krill was under the impression the captain needed to get his ass back here so he would stop having to pull things out of people's butts.
Speaking of pulling things out of people's butts' he was on ER rotation today.
He found that the ER could be the most interesting, or the most infuriating part of a hospital.
Just the other day he had led the surgical team that reattached someone's arm, but then the day before that he had been in the ER to inform a woman that, yes your shortness of breath likely comes from the run you just went on after years of never having exercised.
He took his clipboard and walked into the human waiting room.
He could write a paper on what sort of things it was important for a medical professional to keep in mind when treating humans.
But here was an example of his typical day:
-Isn't this the second time I have seen little Jimmy in here for sticking something up his nose? I understand that he really loves playing with those toys, but you have to understand there is a reason the label says five and up. Yes, it would probably be best if you did not allow him around things he could get stuck in his face.
-Your pregnant. Yes of course, I am sure. I can do a blood test if you like. I know you said you are not sexually active, but I have looked at this blood test twice and a stick test twice and it says you are pregnant. Well, what do you consider sexually active... mmhmmm... Mmmhmmm... well I think it is probably my job to inform you that it is still sex even if the woman is on top.
-You just... fell on it huh? So, you were doing household chores... Naked... And you just so happened to slip and as you were slipping, this item was magically vacuumed up into your colon. Mmmmm hmmm… quick question. Where was this potato located for you to have fallen on it like that? Well, no sir, I am afraid that we probably won't be able to get it out manually, you are going to need a gastrointestinal specialist for that.
-Yes sir, your chest pain probably has something to do with all the cocaine you have been snorting. Cocaine tends to do that to people.
-Ok you are a diabetic trying to control your blood sugar. Ok, I am glad to hear that you have worked on toning down your sugar consumption, that's good, but I am still very concerned about your sugar levels. This is far too high, and I am extremely concerned. Let's go through your diet and see what you have been eating. Have you cut back on soft drinks? Yes, and now you drink a lot of fruit juice... ahh... I see. Well ma'am fruit juice just so happens to contain a lot of sugar, which might be why your blood sugar is so high. Might I suggest drinking some water?
-Ah finally, a real emergency. Yes, your grandmother's breathing problems worry me greatly. Let's get her back in to do an EKG, make sure nothing is going on with her heart. I am glad you brought her in when you did.
-Yes, little Susie is going to be fine. I am glad she knew how to use her epi-pen, excellent work Susie!
-No, I don't care that you have been waiting four hours to see the doctor. Your child has a mild stomachache, their child is having intermittent seizures. No, I will not be calling the medical director in to see you about this.
-Well, that's probably why it hurts so much. The condom is not supposed to cover the balls too.
-No matter how much you deny your use of opiates, when you came in here you weren't breathing and when I gave you Narcan you started breathing again, so I know where my vote is. Please try not to deny these things to your medical professional next time. It is not my job to call the cops. No, I am not going to rat you out. Yes, you could die if you don't tell me about past drug use no matter what it is.
-You got a WHAT in your WHERE!? Why would you stick a toothpick in there? No sir generally most people are not ailed with an itchy urethra, in fact I am pretty sure that is not a thing. Look, I am not judging you sir, but please stop sticking pointy things up into places where they do not belong because you could cause permanent damage.
-Ouch... now remind me again why you were trying to ride your skateboard down the stairs? And you openly admit that you are not good at skating... Because you saw a video? I am very glad you know it was a dumb idea because at least I don't have to say it.
-Ma'am this says analgesic not anal-gesic, the pills are taken orally not as a suppository.
-You have been bleeding once a month for ten years and you are just now coming in about that? I am sorry, but how old are you again? Yes, ma'am this is very normal, here let me get you a pamphlet to read, and if you have any questions feel free to ask one of the nurses.
-So, you don't have any medical history. Well, are you taking any medications? That sure is a lot of medications for someone who does not have any medical history. This one looks like it is for high blood pressure... Sir just because the medication is helping you manage your high blood pressure does not mean that your high blood pressure is cured!
-When I said stay away from beer and only drink clear liquids for the next days, that did not include vodka!
-I know vodka does have alcohol in it, but pouring it on your open soar sure did not help anything, and now you are probably going to need a plastic surgeon to fix this.
-No ma'am you have to put ear drops in both ears. No, the ears are not connected. Yes, your eardrums and you know... your brain are kind of in the way. No there is not a tube that just goes straight through.
-Please stop licking your wound!
-Um no, those bumps on your tongue are not cancer.... They are taste buds.
-Yes, that it a uvula... Yes, it is supposed to be there.
-What made you think sticking ice cubes up your anus would help with your fever? Well, it will not and now you have frost bite in your rectum.
-Sooooo uhhhhh… it was the smell that got you to come in and not the... Maggots?
Krill groaned in relief as he went to clock out.
”Tough day?"
Someone asked,
"I think something needs to be done about medical education on your planet."
The human laughed.
"We have been trying for more than two thousand years. Good lucky making it any better than it already is."
Previous First Next
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author

FYI, this is a story COLLECTION. Lots of standalones technically. So, you can basically start to read at any chapter, no pre-read of the other chapters needed technically (other than maybe getting better descriptions of characters than: Adam Vir=human, Krill=antlike alien, Sunny=tall alien, Conn=telepathic alien). The numbers are (mostly) only for organization of posts and continuity.
OC Written by Charlie Stastarrfallknightrise,
Typed up and then posted here by me.
Proofreading and language check for some chapters by u/Finbar9800
Future Lore and fact check done by me.
So uhhh yeah, remember two chapters ago when I said we don’t get more on Sunny and Krill while Adam is gone?
I forgot this chapter…
Previous First Next
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Dr. Krill was back on Earth.
He had no idea why he always seemed to end up in this insane hellscape, but here he was...
Again…
Shit…
Only the other day he had been caught out in an electrical storm while trying to commute his way to work, which he hadn't particularly appreciated, especially not when massive balls of frozen ice came pelting from the sky with enough power to tear open skin.
What the fuck is this planet!?
Even the humans had been running for cover, and that was saying something!
He would very much have preferred a job where he wasn't in constant danger of getting murdered by the elements on a regular basis.
But this was earth, one day he could be enjoying the sun, the next he was risking heat death, the next he was almost blown away by the wind, and the day after that he was almost whisked away by minor flooding.
Of course, it was either walking to work, or taking public transit which was probably even more dangerous, considering that it had humans on board.
Humans who were half asleep, humans who were strung out on drugs, humans with children, humans with dangerous pets.
Then of course there were the more than mildly xenophobic humans, who were, somehow, under the impression that Krill was there to steal earthling jobs, which was not the case at all considering that he had volunteered his time for free.
Krill had no need of monetary compensation, to him, the work was the reward.
He leaned something new every day.
And now, with his current stint working in a human hospital, he was becoming even more acquainted with humanity... not entirely sure if that was in a good way or not.
Of course, Krill more than missed the simple life aboard the harbinger, where most humans were relatively educated and competent, where most stupid injuries came about by overly idiotic actions rather than ignorance – a point could be argued to which one of those things was worse, but, for the moment, Krill was under the impression that willful idiocy was still better than ignorance because at least they knew why they were stupid, and generally openly admitted it to Krill, whereas working with the general populace forced him to have to be patient and understanding towards people who just didn't know any better.
Apparently telling people they are stupid to their faces is seen as off-color in the human medical world even though that is probably exactly what some of the people needed to hear.
Again, he found himself wishing for the harbinger, and for the return of the captain – the biggest idiot of them all.
He idly wondered how he was doing on his little trip across the universe.
He wondered how Sunny was doing, exploring the human world on her own two feet?
He wished he knew when they would be back together.
The UNSC had given them extended shore leave, but they had never specified how long it was going to be, seeming to hint that it was contingent on how the captain felt.
Well…
Krill was under the impression the captain needed to get his ass back here so he would stop having to pull things out of people's butts.
Speaking of pulling things out of people's butts' he was on ER rotation today.
He found that the ER could be the most interesting, or the most infuriating part of a hospital.
Just the other day he had led the surgical team that reattached someone's arm, but then the day before that he had been in the ER to inform a woman that, yes your shortness of breath likely comes from the run you just went on after years of never having exercised.
He took his clipboard and walked into the human waiting room.
He could write a paper on what sort of things it was important for a medical professional to keep in mind when treating humans.
But here was an example of his typical day:
-Isn't this the second time I have seen little Jimmy in here for sticking something up his nose? I understand that he really loves playing with those toys, but you have to understand there is a reason the label says five and up. Yes, it would probably be best if you did not allow him around things he could get stuck in his face.
-Your pregnant. Yes of course, I am sure. I can do a blood test if you like. I know you said you are not sexually active, but I have looked at this blood test twice and a stick test twice and it says you are pregnant. Well, what do you consider sexually active... mmhmmm... Mmmhmmm... well I think it is probably my job to inform you that it is still sex even if the woman is on top.
-You just... fell on it huh? So, you were doing household chores... Naked... And you just so happened to slip and as you were slipping, this item was magically vacuumed up into your colon. Mmmmm hmmm… quick question. Where was this potato located for you to have fallen on it like that? Well, no sir, I am afraid that we probably won't be able to get it out manually, you are going to need a gastrointestinal specialist for that.
-Yes sir, your chest pain probably has something to do with all the cocaine you have been snorting. Cocaine tends to do that to people.
-Ok you are a diabetic trying to control your blood sugar. Ok, I am glad to hear that you have worked on toning down your sugar consumption, that's good, but I am still very concerned about your sugar levels. This is far too high, and I am extremely concerned. Let's go through your diet and see what you have been eating. Have you cut back on soft drinks? Yes, and now you drink a lot of fruit juice... ahh... I see. Well ma'am fruit juice just so happens to contain a lot of sugar, which might be why your blood sugar is so high. Might I suggest drinking some water?
-Ah finally, a real emergency. Yes, your grandmother's breathing problems worry me greatly. Let's get her back in to do an EKG, make sure nothing is going on with her heart. I am glad you brought her in when you did.
-Yes, little Susie is going to be fine. I am glad she knew how to use her epi-pen, excellent work Susie!
-No, I don't care that you have been waiting four hours to see the doctor. Your child has a mild stomachache, their child is having intermittent seizures. No, I will not be calling the medical director in to see you about this.
-Well, that's probably why it hurts so much. The condom is not supposed to cover the balls too.
-No matter how much you deny your use of opiates, when you came in here you weren't breathing and when I gave you Narcan you started breathing again, so I know where my vote is. Please try not to deny these things to your medical professional next time. It is not my job to call the cops. No, I am not going to rat you out. Yes, you could die if you don't tell me about past drug use no matter what it is.
-You got a WHAT in your WHERE!? Why would you stick a toothpick in there? No sir generally most people are not ailed with an itchy urethra, in fact I am pretty sure that is not a thing. Look, I am not judging you sir, but please stop sticking pointy things up into places where they do not belong because you could cause permanent damage.
-Ouch... now remind me again why you were trying to ride your skateboard down the stairs? And you openly admit that you are not good at skating... Because you saw a video? I am very glad you know it was a dumb idea because at least I don't have to say it.
-Ma'am this says analgesic not anal-gesic, the pills are taken orally not as a suppository.
-You have been bleeding once a month for ten years and you are just now coming in about that? I am sorry, but how old are you again? Yes, ma'am this is very normal, here let me get you a pamphlet to read, and if you have any questions feel free to ask one of the nurses.
-So, you don't have any medical history. Well, are you taking any medications? That sure is a lot of medications for someone who does not have any medical history. This one looks like it is for high blood pressure... Sir just because the medication is helping you manage your high blood pressure does not mean that your high blood pressure is cured!
-When I said stay away from beer and only drink clear liquids for the next days, that did not include vodka!
-I know vodka does have alcohol in it, but pouring it on your open sore sure did not help anything, and now you are probably going to need a plastic surgeon to fix this.
-No ma'am you have to put ear drops in both ears. No, the ears are not connected. Yes, your eardrums and you know... your brain are kind of in the way. No there is not a tube that just goes straight through.
-Please stop licking your wound!
-Um no, those bumps on your tongue are not cancer.... They are taste buds.
-Yes, that it a uvula... Yes, it is supposed to be there.
-What made you think sticking ice cubes up your anus would help with your fever? Well, it will not and now you have frost bite in your rectum.
-Sooooo uhhhhh… it was the smell that got you to come in and not the... Maggots?
Krill groaned in relief as he went to clock out.
”Tough day?"
Someone asked,
"I think something needs to be done about medical education on your planet."
The human laughed.
"We have been trying for more than two thousand years. Good lucky making it any better than it already is."
Previous First Next
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author
Thanks for reading! As you saw in the title, this is a cross posted story written by starrfallknightrise and I'll just upload some of it here for you guys, if you are interested and want to read ahead, the original story-collection can be found on tumblr or wattpad to read for free. (link above this text under "OC:..." ) It is the Empyrean Iris story collection by starfallknightrise. Also, if you want to know more about the story collection i made an intro post about it, so feel free to check that out to see what other great characters to look forward to! (Link also above this text). I have no affiliations to the author; just thought I’d share some of the great stories you might enjoy a lot!
Obviously, I have Charlie’s permission to post this and for the people already knowing the stories, or starting to read them: If you follow the link and check out the story you will see some differences. I made some small (non-artistic) changes, mainly correcting writing mistakes, pronoun correction and some small additional info here and there of things which were not thought of/forgotten or even were added/changed in later stories (like the “USS->UNSC” prefix of Stabby, Chalar=/->Sunny etc). As well as some "biggemajor" changes in descriptions and info’s for the same stringency/continuity reason. That can be explained by the story collection being, well a story collection at the start with many standalone-stories just starring the same people, but later on it gets more to a stringent storyline with backstories and throwbacks. (For example Adam Vir has some HEAVY scars over his body, following his bones, which were not really talked about up till half the collection, where it says it covers his whole body and you find out via backflash that he had them the whole time and how he got them, they just weren't mentioned before. However, I would think a doctor would at least see these scars before that, especially since he gets analyzed, treated and goes shirtless/in T-shirts in some stories). So TLDR: Writing and some descriptions are slightly changed, with full OK from the author, since he himself did not bother to correct these things before.

Welcome to the guide on creating a "Schoolgirl" image for your social media presence, Reddit edition! If you're looking to stand out from the crowd and cultivate a captivating image that blends fashion and freshness, you've come to the right place. In this guide, we'll walk you through the critical elements of the style, offer tips on highlighting your youthfulness and playfulness through makeup and hairstyles, and share insights on creating content that resonates with the Reddit community. So, let's dive in! Keep reading to discover how to become an irresistible "Schoolgirl" in the realm of Reddit.
​
Style Essentials
Define the key elements of your style. This could be a combination of fashionable skirts, pants, blouses, sweaters, and accessories. Aim to choose clothing that looks stylish and suits your figure without appearing provocative.
Example: Pair a floral-print midi skirt with a sweater and flat shoes.
Description: This outfit looks youthful and stylish, perfect for park walks or attending events.
​
Makeup and Hairstyle
Opt for a gentle and natural makeup look that accentuates your youthfulness and freshness. Experiment with hairstyles that add a touch of playfulness, such as cute ponytails or braids.
Example: Apply BB cream, rosy blush, a subtle lip balm, and mascara.
Description: This makeup enhances your freshness and natural beauty, with a focus on your eyes and smile.
​
Accessories
Use accessories to add personal charm to your look. These can include stylish backpacks, colorful bracelets, unique brooches, or necklaces. Pay attention to details that make your outfit memorable and special.
Example: Combine a geometric brooch with a cute pastel-toned backpack.
Description: These accessories add individuality to your outfit and make it more interesting and memorable.
​
Content Creation
Capture photos and videos in interesting and vibrant locations such as amusement parks, ice rinks, water parks, or near arcade machines. This will make your content attractive and diverse.
Example: Picture a young schoolgirl sitting on the grass, holding flowers, smiling, and looking at the camera.
Description: The photo showcases brightness and joy, making the content appealing to the audience.
​
Interactivity
Engage with your audience through videos, photos, and messages. Ask questions, conduct polls, and interact with your subscribers in the comments. This helps strengthen the connection with your audience and increases their loyalty.
Example: "What are your plans for the weekend, friends? Would you like me to make a video about my picnic adventure?"
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Thematic Publications
Connect your content with current topics or events such as the start of the school year, holidays, or seasonal activities. This will make your content more interesting and relevant to your audience.
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Description: This video is timely and useful for an audience interested in preparing for the upcoming academic year.
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Balancing Public and Personal
Share your interests, hobbies, and experiences with your audience, but keep some personal information private. This will create intrigue around your persona and increase interest in your content.
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Crafting a "Schoolgirl" persona for your social media presence on Reddit is an excellent opportunity to express your individuality and infuse your content with a unique allure. Remember, it's crucial to curate clothing and accessories that align with your style while avoiding anything overly provocative. Delicate and natural makeup, playful hairstyles, and choosing interesting locations for your photoshoots will help you create diverse content that captures the attention of the Reddit community. Embrace your authenticity and originality—being true to yourself always hits the mark. So, venture into the realm of social media and showcase your one-of-a-kind schoolgirl to the world!

I see it all the time, it just gets to me. For example in my town there's a grocery store near me, foodland. It started out in the state to help independent grocers compete with the duopoly that is Coles/Woolworths, but was meant to serve the locals and tried to stock both local products and things people wanted but didn't always make much profit.
Over the years depending on the owners it either flourished or died. The original owner here was good and didn't make a fortune but lived better than most, paid the employees well and the workers seemed happy and not overworked. he eventually sold and someone else took over.
Unlike the previous owner the new one cared only about profit, to the point that when sales started dropping they actually stopped stocking the cheaper own brand items that had a lower profit margin like dog food. This made it worse and eventually it closed. The building ended up being used as an ice skating rink during the summer for a while. Eventually though it got bought back by someone who wanted to make money by providing to the community again.
Time went on, years passed and the foodland was great again, fully stocked, fully staffed with happy workers, management/owner that not only treated people right whether customer or staff, they also have back to the community groups. They had a pallet set up at the entrance with empty boxes for anyone to take, stocked things you couldn't get elsewhere in town that the people in the nearby streets wanted (myself was pickled octopus). But the good times weren't to last.
Recently someone came into town from either interstate or overseas with money and wanted in (the town's predicted to grow soon with upcoming works around the state). They wanted to buy the bigger foodland in the town but only if they could buy both. They gave the owner of the one near me an offer they said they couldn't refuse, and bought them both. Then they bought the newsagent in the same building complex and moved everything into the foodland, effectively removing everything but the lottos and scratchies. Obviously less staff needed too as the same person can serve on both grocery and scratchies counters.
Needless to say the profit over people attitude took effect, and the good staff left, the ones that are still there don't look happy, and it's mostly family of the owner now. The deli section is unmanned and the checkout operator now also does the deli serving during the day. They don't stock many of the specials in the catalogue that don't make much profit, they've removed the standalone chicken warmer to save money, half the freezers are broken and just not getting repaired since they "can't afford it" and now it seems to be they're looking to sell, if not it will likely close soon again.
Every item I bought there is now either not getting stocked or gone up in price no longer under managers specials to compete (was always more expensive than the duopoly but not this much). No more cheap dog food, no more pickled octopus. They don't seem to understand the only way this particular store survived here was by sacrificing a bit of the profit to keep the customers happy. And it sucks more cos there's an independent living facility nearby, and multiple blocks of flats where elderly people live who don't drive and can only walk across the road. Now they will need to get taxis to and from the shops when cost of living is already making it harder.
Thank you rant over.

There is a dream worth putting two lives on the line for.Tsukasa, a young man with shattered dreams, and Inori, a girl no one believed in. However, in the face of adversity within those two possess a tenacity towards the rink greater than anyone had ever known. Together, they meet on the ice, aim for the world with their figure skating! + ... Read Medalist - Chapter 25 - MangaPuma. Read more at https://mangapuma.com/medalist/chapter-25

Just got back from 10 days in Japan and wanted to type up a trip report to hopefully help others that are trying to plan a trip!
Our trip was 5/16 - 5/28 including travel days. This was my 2nd time in Japan (first time was study abroad for 5 weeks in May/June 2016), but it was my mom & sister's first time, so the goal was to include as many must-see activities as we possibly could in the short time we were there. Our days were packed to the brim however all 3 of us are fairly active and healthy so despite being absolutely exhausted by the end of each day, in retrospect we wouldn't have changed a thing in our itinerary.
That being said, our itinerary would be much too busy for the average person's first trip to Japan so keep that in mind if you use this information to plan your own trip. For example, we usually only had time to sit down and eat for one meal per day and had to eat on the go for the other meals in order to have enough time to go to all the places we wanted to go to. There was very little downtime in our trip.

Tourist Tips

• Luggage
  • We each traveled with 2 checked luggage since they were included in our flight. I had one full sized suitcase and one slightly smaller suitcase which both only had one side filled when I left the US. The plan was to fill the other half of the suitcases with souvenirs to bring home. Last time I went to Japan, it cost me ~$200 to ship two large boxes of souvenirs back home, so despite having to bring a lot of luggage this saved me a significant amount of money and I will be doing this for future trips as well.
  • Within our luggage we also packed a duffel bag to hold all our purchases on heavy shopping days and a daily backpack to hold things like our trash bag, hand towel, hand sanitizewet wipes, body wipes, small purchases, etc. My carry-on was a 40L backpack that I took with us when we stayed overnight in Kyoto.
• Money
  • I brought $400 cash to exchange at the airport. I had gotten a Charles Schwab debit card before leaving which has no foreign transaction/ATM fees so I planned to use my card for whatever purchases I could then use cash for everything else. I ended up withdrawing another ¥20000 which was just enough cash to last me the rest of our trip.
• Walking
  • Last time I went to Japan I survived wearing flat gladiator sandals basically the whole trip, but this did NOT work this time around for whatever reason (I guess we walked a lot more this time?). BRING COMFORTABLE SHOES TO WALK IN. I ended up having to buy sneakers on day 2 because I stupidly didn't think I would need them. I was more concerned about looking cute for pictures (ha) but I quickly realized that all the girls in Japan wear sneakers with their cute skirts and dresses, so I blended right in. I would also recommend bringing a second pair of shoes with you each day (in your backpack) to swap into if the shoes you are wearing start giving you blisters.
• Masking
  • We saw a lot of people not wearing masks, but the majority of people still wear masks. I would say the ratio of people wearing masks to not wearing masks was about 80:20.
• Trash
  • As many have mentioned on this subreddit, due to the lack of public trash bins I would highly recommend bringing a reusable trash bag to store your trash while you're out and about until you can find a bin. We found these cool black fabric ones with a waterproof liner on the inside that you could rinse out when it got dirty and could clip to the outside of your backpack so it wasn’t with your other belongings.
• Restrooms
  • Due to the lack of hand dryers/paper towels in bathrooms we also brought hand towels as recommended, but found ourselves just air drying our hands way more often than using the hand towels as it was often more cumbersome to remove our backpacks and fish out our hand towels to use.

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Accommodations

• Sakura Hotel Jimbocho in Tokyo
  • I stayed in this hostel when I studied abroad in college in 2016, so it holds a special place in my heart. You can get a single room here for cheap, and although the rooms are extremely small, I don’t travel to Japan to spend time in my hotel so when looking for accommodations price is my #1 factor, not comfort. Toilets and showers are shared in this hostel and the rooms are set up coming off of a square hallway with sinks/restroom facilities in the center. The facilities don’t appear to be very modern and pretty, but the water pressure of the showers is the BEST. They have other room types as well, like bunk-beds, double rooms, etc. They have a 24 hour cafe downstairs and breakfast is included in your stay. All their staff speak English & Japanese (and other languages as well). They host some cool events like language exchanges and walking/jogging groups if you are more of a social person. I really enjoy the location of this hostel. You are within walking distance from the Imperial Palace and it still feels like you are in the city without it being so loud and busy like if you were to stay in Shibuya, etc. They do have other locations if you’re looking for somewhere with more nightlife.
• The Millennials Hostel in Kyoto
  • This is a really modern looking hostel in Kyoto, 2 streets over from Pontocho. The facilities are gorgeous and look brand new. They are set up similar to a capsule style hotel with a bunch of rooms coming off a hallway. Your bed takes up your entire space, and you have about 18 inches at the foot of your bed to stand. You pull an opaque privacy screen down to make your room private - there is no door. You can control your bed’s incline and lights through an iPhone in your room. There is storage space under your bed and on a shelf above your bed. Restrooms are shared but the showers are in one room and toilets in another. There are a lot of shared common spaces including a full stocked kitchen you can cook your meals in, but we literally only stayed here to sleep so we didn’t explore those spaces. I was worried about other guests being noisy but that wasn’t the case - everyone was super respectful. The price and location was great so I would definitely come back here.

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Daily Itinerary

Day 1 & 2: Travel

• We flew out of Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Our direct flight to Narita was around $1600 after taxes, fees, and flight insurance. I had one layover the last time I flew to Japan and in the future I will only be buying a direct flight as I found this to be way easier than having a layover.
• Once we arrived in Narita we turned on our e-sim. We chose Ubigi after reading many positive reviews on this subreddit and I highly recommend them. We had some issues getting iMessage to work despite following Ubigi's instructions to a T, so we ended up just using WhatsApp to message during the trip, however, iMessage did start working later on.
• We decided against picking up our JR passes & seat reservations at the airport because the line was long and we didn't need them for another 5 days.
• Going through customs/immigration and grabbing our luggage only took about 20-30 minutes. There were many staff to guide you and we found the whole process to be really smooth.
• We exchanged our currency and went downstairs to buy our tickets for Narita Express at a ticket vending machine. We got round trip tickets for ¥3460 (keep in mind that the return ticket needs to be used within 14 days). We had purchased our Suica before leaving and put them in our iPhone wallets and they came with a balance of ¥2000 so we didn't load money onto our cards until the following day.
• We took the Narita Express to Tokyo Station then took a cab to our hostel in Jimbocho. We each traveled with 2 checked luggage, so we found the short and inexpensive taxi ride to be a better option than lugging 6 giant suitcases on local trains to get to our hostel.
• We checked into our hostel. The total price per person for 11 nights was ¥49500 (about $380).

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Day 3: Imperial Palace/Ueno

• We woke up and walked to the Imperial Palace/East Gardens. We got there right when they opened and spent about 90 minutes there. We walked back to Jimbocho to go to my favorite tempura place in Jimbocho. This place has gotten quite famous since I was last there in 2016. We were first in line at 10:45am and by the time they opened for lunch at 11:30, there was a line of 20+ people. Our lunch cost only ¥800.
• After lunch we took the train to Ueno and spent some time in the Tokyo National Museum and Ueno Park. We also visited Shinobazu No Ike Bentendo Temple which is a cool temple right inside Ueno Park. While at Ueno Station, we picked up our JR passes & seat reservation tickets and also put ¥5000 on our Suica. We really enjoyed the fact that you could charge your mobile suica at a convenience store using cash - we didn’t have to worry about finding the machines in train stations with the phone holders.
• After that we walked through Ameyoko and did some shopping - I bought a super cute used Coach purse for around $65. Ameyoko seemed to have a lot more products than when I was there in 2016… but I also had more money this time around so maybe I was just paying more attention!
• We took a train back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags and change. We took a train to Shinjuku to go to New York Grill for our dinner reservation. New York Grill is on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt hotel in Shinjuku and the views were incredible. We got the Spring Harvest 5-course dinner which included wagyu and it was easily the best beef I have ever eaten in my life - so juicy and buttery. The cost was ¥23100 per person (~$175).
• 25,138 steps on this day.

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Day 4: Shibuya/Akihabara

• We woke up and took a train to Shibuya to see Hachiko, go to the Starbucks near Shibuya Crossing, and shop at Shibuya109 and Uniqlo. It was hard for me to find any clothing that would fit me at the stores in Shibuya109 (I am a US 8/10 which is basically considered plus size in Japan) however I was able to find a cute t-shirt at Punyu's in Shibuya109 and two dresses at Uniqlo. I also bought sneakers at the Skechers store.
• I also went to the Mega Don Quijote in Shibuya and spent about $102 on candy and snacks to bring home. Lots of fun KitKat flavors here but it was very crowded and hard to walk around with my extremely full baskets.
• We took a train back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags and had a quick lunch via conbini.
• We took a train to Akihabara and bought some souvenirs and gachapon, and walked all the way back to Ameyoko where I spent another $90 on candy and snacks to bring home.
• We took a train back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags and change. We took a train to Ginza to go to Tempura Kondo for dinner (a Michelin starred tempura restaurant). We got the Yomogi dinner which was ¥23100 per person (¥25410 after fees, ~$195). The staff were amazing - they noticed that my sister was left-handed and set up her plates/silverware as such which was really observant. We loved the dinner, however there was WAY too much food for us; the staff recognized we were starting to get full, and asked us if we would be able to eat the next course which was ten-don. I was really concerned about being disrespectful and wasting food, so I was really glad that they noticed and asked!
• 19,445 steps on this day.

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Day 5: Asakusa/Ginza/Omoide Yokocho

• We woke up and took a train to Asakusa to see Sanja Matsuri. We shopped at the small souvenir shops on Nakamise-dori and had street food at the festival for lunch. I bought an awesome goshuincho here with a wooden cover and foxes on it.
• After being completely overstimulated, we took a train to Rikugi-en Garden to escape the crowds. This garden is a little off the beaten path, just outside the big city, but it is completely gorgeous and so worth the trip.
• After the garden, we took a train to Ginza to window shop and go to our reservation at Higashiya Ginza for wagashi & tea pairing. We had 5 wagashi paired with 5 teas that were amazing. It cost ¥4500 per person.
• After this, we walked to Mitsukoshi Ginza to explore the basement food floor and grab dinner. They start to discount the food as the stores near closing time, so going for a late dinner can save you a couple yen! After eating on their rooftop terrace which was beautiful, we walked to Patisserie Sadaharu Aoki Paris Marunouichi to grab dessert then headed back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags.
• After we ate, we took a train to Shinjuku to walk down Omoide Yokocho. We had a drink on the third floor of Bar Albatross - highly recommend! The alleyway is a lot shorter than I imagined, and very crowded as you would expect. I probably wouldn’t go back here in the future but I am glad we visited!
• 25,002 steps on this day.

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Day 6: Harajuku

• We woke up and took a train to Harajuku to visit Meiji Shrine and got our first goshuin.
• After visiting the shrine, we walked back to Takeshita-dori to get lunch at Afuri Ramen. They’re known for their ramen with yuzu in their broth and this was one of our favorite meals during our trip. We got there about 20 minutes before they opened and were ~8th in line. By the time they opened, the line was stretching around the building!
• We walked down Takeshita-dori and shopped, then went to our reservation at Mipig Cafe (mini pig cafe). This place was so cute! You can make reservations for 30 minutes or 1 hour where you sit on the floor and miniature pigs will come and sit on your lap. You weren’t allowed to pick the pigs up and the staff were super kind and handled the pigs well. A 30 minute reservation was ¥1800 per person.
• After the pigs, we walked down Omotesando and took the train to Shinjuku to get dinner on the food floor at Isetan.
• After we ate on the rooftop terrace (beautiful once again), we headed back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags. We took the train to Shibuya to go to our reservation at Shibuya Sky. We got the package where you get an admission ticket including a 50 minute reservation for the sofa seats and a choice of a mini bottle of champagne or 2 beers per person, which cost ¥5900 per person. The views were unreal and I recommend reserving the sofa seats so you can get amazing pictures. This was a highlight of our trip.
• 21,719 steps on this day.

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Day 7: Kawaguchiko

• This was our first travel day. We woke up early to take the highway bus from Busta Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko. The bus was ¥4400 per person. We were able to get some super clear pictures of Mt. Fuji while we were on the bus and right when we arrived at the station.
• We bought the daily unlimited bus pass for ¥1500 which ended up not being worth it for us because we spent so little time seeing things on the bus route. First, we went to the Panoramic Ropeway. We got there about 15 minutes before they opened and there was already a really long line. By this time, Mt. Fuji was already completely covered in clouds but the ropeway was really cool and we still got some awesome panoramic pictures. They have a shop at the top where you can get ice cream and sit on some swings and take pictures.
• After the ropeway we took the bus back to Kawaguchiko Station to get on the train to go to Chureito Pagoda. The gnats here were INSANE. We climbed up the ~400 or so steps to the top and got some cool pictures as well as our goshuin.
• We walked back to the station and took the train to Fuji-san Station and walked ~30 minutes to Kitaguchi Hongu Fuji Sengen Shrine. The wooded walk up to the shrine is absolutely gorgeous. We got goshuin here as well.
• After the shrine, we walked and took a train back to Kawaguchiko Station to eat a conbini dinner, do last minute shopping, and catch our bus back to Tokyo.
• 19,374 steps on this day.

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Day 8: Kanazawa

• We woke up early to catch our 6:16am shinkansen to Kanazawa. Once we arrived, we bought the daily unlimited bus pass and took the bus to Omicho Market where we bought some souvenirs and food.
• We walked from Omicho Market to visit Ozaki Shrine and Oyama Shrine and got goshuin at both places. My sister realized she lost her wallet at this point, but a kind soul had turned it in to the staff at Ozaki Shrine!
• We took the bus from Oyama Shrine to Kenroku-en Garden, where we walked around, took lots of pictures, and sat down for lunch at a local restaurant.
• After lunch, we took the bus to the Higashi Chaya district where we shopped and took pictures.
• After that, we took the bus back to Kanazawa Station to catch our 5:57pm shinkansen back to Tokyo.
• 20,192 steps on this day.

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Day 9: Kyoto Day 1

• We woke up early to pack our overnight bags and catch our 6:21am shinkansen to Kyoto, where we would be staying for one night. We decided to keep our reservation at our Tokyo hostel because 1) it was super cheap and 2) we would be able to leave all our suitcases and belongings in our rooms for when we returned to Tokyo.
• When we arrived in Kyoto, we headed straight to our hostel to have them hold our bags before we could check in later that day.
• After that, we took a local bus to the Arashiyama area. It was absolutely packed with school groups and tour buses. We walked up Saga-Toriimoto Preserved Street to Adashino Nenbutsu-ji Temple where it was much quieter. We got goshuin and visited the small and private bamboo grove behind the temple. We walked back down Saga-Toriimoto Preserved Street towards Togetsukyo Bridge where we stopped and sat down for lunch then continued shopping along the way. I got lots of uji-matcha here.
• We walked back to Arashiyama Station and took a train to Kiyomizu-dera where we got goshuin, then walked to a small rooftop bar overlooking the Hokan-ji temple and pagoda and got awesome pictures and had dinner.
• After eating, we walked back to our hostel and checked in, then slept for the night. Our 1 night stay cost ¥5000 per person.
• 21,545 steps on this day.

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Day 10: Kyoto/Nara Day 2

• We woke up super early to check out of our hostel and head to Fushimi Inari. Our hostel held our bags while we went sightseeing for the day. We arrived around 6:45am which was so worth it - it wasn’t crowded at all and we got lots of pictures of the shrine and torii gates without any people in them. We walked for about 30 minutes up the mountain then headed back to Inari Station to head to Nara.
• Once we arrived in Nara, we spent some time with the deer then visited Todai-ji and got goshuin.
• After that, we took a train back to Fushimi Inari to visit the souvenir shops which had not opened yet when we had gotten there earlier that day. We shopped and got goshuin, then headed to Sannenzaka/Ninenzaka to shop. We visited Ryozen Kannon to get pictures (they had closed by the time we got there) and walked down Ishibei-koji Lane and Hanamikoji Street.
• After that, we walked back to our hostel to pick up our bags. We took a taxi to Kyoto Station to catch our 7:36pm shinkansen back to Tokyo.
• 27,861 steps on this day.

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Day 11: Tattoo

• My mom and I went to a tattoo shop near Shibuya to get matching tattoos on our wrists, then my mom spent the rest of the day shopping in Shibuya with my sister while I got another large tattoo on my shoulder.
• After my tattoo was finished, we all met up in Ikebukuro to get gyudon for dinner.
• 9,879 steps on this day.

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Day 12: Yokohama/Kamakura

• We woke up and took a train to Yokohama where we walked the Minato Mirai 21 area and shopped and had lunch at World Porters.
• After lunch, we took a train to Kamakura. First, we visited Hase-dera and got goshuin. I got lots of pictures of the hydrangeas even though they weren’t in full bloom yet.
• After that we walked up the road to Daibutsu and got goshuin. We walked back to Hase Station and took a train to Kamakura Station and walked the pedestrian pathway in the center of the road to Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu. We got our goshuin and were able to observe a small part of a traditional Japanese wedding that was happening at the shrine, which was really cool.
• After that, we walked back to Kamakura Station and took a train back to Tokyo.
• We spent the night packing. I ended up completely filling my suitcases with my souvenirs and had to put even more in my carry-on bag.
• 21,131 steps on this day.

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Day 13: Travel

• We woke up and headed back to Senso-ji to grab our goshuin, since it was too busy when Sanja Matsuri was happening the week before.
• We took a train back to our hostel and checked out around 11am, then made our way to Tokyo Station to take the Narita Express back to the airport.
• We arrived at the airport with plenty of time before our flight so we could get last-minute souvenirs. I found a couple flavors of KitKat and Hi-Chew here that I could not find in Donki/Ameyoko - but I could not find Beni-Imo KitKat which is the flavor that I was looking for! :(
• We flew back to O’Hare and drove home from there.

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Trip Cost

• Total trip cost: ~$5462.73
  • Total spent before I left Japan (flight, JR pass, highway bus ticket, tattoo deposit, pay-ahead reservations, suica, car rental): $2562.73
  • Total I spent in Japan (souvenirs, snacks, accommodations, transportation, meals, activities/admission, reservations, tattoo): ~$2900

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Cost Breakdown

Airfare

• Total (USD): $1600

Accommodations

• Total: ¥54500
  • ¥49500 (Tokyo hostel/11 nights) + ¥5000 (Kyoto hostel/1 night)

Transportation

• Total: ~¥64470
  • ¥33610 (JR pass) + ¥4400 (highway bus) + ¥3460 (N’EX) + ¥18000 (local trains/bus) + ¥5000 (taxis - approximate)

Meals

• Total: ~¥88510
  • ¥40000 (breakfast/lunch/dinner) + ¥48510 (meal reservations)

Souvenirs

• Total: ~¥150000
  • Goshuin, charms, matcha powder, candy, jewelry, clothing, purses, shrine offerings, postcards, etc.

Activities/Admission

• Total: ~¥9800
  • Pig Cafe, tea/wagashi tasting, shrines/temples, etc.

Tattoo

• Total (USD): $604.66