Guardians

[Jaxon Del]

The recesses of the temple, a place for things that maybe just maybe some of the Knights and the Masters didn't need to necessarily know about. This is the place that young Guardians frequented to try techniques or moves that might otherwise get them in trouble, or to just have more intense duels with their friends. This was all done in the name of getting better and certainly had nothing to do with the fact that they absolutely enjoyed this.

At fourteen Jaxon was Padawan and had been for a few years, Chio' as well, but Dia was 12 and had not been chosen by a Master yet and that was absolutely fine she was still their friend and was welcome to train with them. As a Mirialan, she didn't know that she exactly was a typical Guardian, she was much more spiritually focused than her two friends. It was rare for a member of her species to be a Guardian, in fact most that joined the Jedi Order became Sentinels or more commonly Consulars, but not Dia. Dia was strong willed and a little hard headed for her species and as much as she didn't feel quite like she fit fully in with Jaxon and Chio' they looked at her like a younger sister and sometimes, just sometimes the voice of reason...

Chio' pulled the small tube from his pocket in it contained a few small thorns with thousands of tiny little fibers that when viewed up close looked like tiny hypodermic needles.

"So check this out, this is why I brought you here."

The Green Mirialan raised both of her brows, her facial tattoos elongated in fascination as she leaned it and viewed them closer.

"Looks nasty Chio' what is it?"

Jaxon stared at the thorns and shook his head.

"You didn't..."

Chio' nodded proudly and smiled widely at the two.

"It is very nasty. This is the thorn from the Myaubi on Felucia. In it is a toxin that is basically harmless except for one weird....cool side effect."

"Which is?"

"Pain Dia."

"Ding ding! Jax wins. Lots and lots of pain. You don't feel much going in as those little fibers on the thorns pierce your skin and numb it first so when the thorn goes in it feels like a bug bite or slight sting. Nothing major..."

Her face scrunched and she shook her head.

"Okay? That doesn't sound like lots and lots of pain..."

Jaxon shook his head.

"He's not telling you everything. Once the thorn goes in and the toxin gets in your blood it amplifies any and all pain that you feel from anything. There was a clone trooper who fell into one of these plants during the Clone Wars after a bath, so he didn't have armor or clothes. Just his towel. He got like a hundred of these little things in him. He got up made his way back to the medic and he started itching. As he started scratching himself, the nails on his fingers felt like they were red hot and with each scratch he felt like he was ripping his own flesh off. He screamed in agony a few feet from the medic, he fell to his knees but that impact felt like he broke his legs. Sweat poured out of him and as the medic saw the thorns he tried to remove them with tweezers, this caused the trooper to go insane with pain. He grabbed a blaster from another trooper who was trying to hold him down and put it to his own head and pulled the trigger all to make the pain stop..."

Chio' nodded.

"Mhmm, and there are nine of them. Here, three for each of us..."

Chio' pulled out two more tubes each with three thorns in them.

"I figured we could do one at a time stick them in and see if we can block out the pain while dueling. From my research three is about the max any normal person can take, but we're not normal, we're Jedi and this is training."

Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. Slowly she shook her head, both at Jaxon's story and Chio's idea. She stared at her older friend, maybe this is why she didn't feel quite right with the Guardian's sometimes...they were nuts....but so was she, just to a lesser extent.

"You are absolutely insane. This is a terrible idea if I have ever heard one. No way am I doing this."

Jaxon looked between his two friends for a moment. This really seemed like an absolutely awful idea. ON one hand though it would be interesting to know what is maximum pain tolerance was and what the upper limits of him blocking it out were. This could in fact be a good idea for science...yeah for science and training. That made sense, complete and total sense. He then looked around the room and took a tube from Chio' and stared at it. Reason and logic were starting to creep back in, this had literally caused a clone trooper to commit suicide over the pain, Clone troopers weren't normal people either, they had higher pain tolerances than normal people and this basically killed one of them...but there were hundreds in him, this was only three.

"I mean...Dia, I sort of agree but wouldn't it be good to know what we can take pain wise? How about, I'll do one at first and yeah...we all do one and if that's too much we just stop?"

"See Dia, Jax gets it...come on. It's for training purposes."

She shook her head, was this a Guardian thing or was this a guy thing at this point? Those two with their testosterone infused Guardian brains were not always the brightest when it came to this sort of thing.

"Have at it boys, I'll watch and laugh...then I might take to to the infirmary when you hurt yourselves.[/color]

"Yeah yeah whatever, I knew you weren't a real Guardian..."

"Not cool Chio'! If she doesn't want to do it she doesn't have to, we can see what happens. I mean you were already on Felucia so this would be good to know for you and for me if we ever wind up there again."

Jaxon unscrewed the lid on his tube and watched Chio' do the same. He levitated the tube in the air and let it hang there as he threw his cloak off and then took his tunic off leaving just his black tank undershirt. He then grabbed the tube and looked at his left bicep. He carefully levitated a thorn out and held it in the air and moved it over his bicep as Chio' did the same thing. Jaxon then slapped the thorn into his bicep and winced slightly as he heard Chio' do basically the same. The two looked at each other and Dia looked at them.

Jaxon shrugged as he felt a weird sensation travel through his body. He blinked a couple of times, it wasn't bad it was just really weird. In a moment he began to be aware of everything his skin was interacting with. He felt the airflow of the room against his skin and it made the hairs on his arms stand up.

"This is is weird."

Chio' nodded at Jaxon. Jaxon then retrieved his lightsaber and turned the safety nob to a low training setting.

"Extra low Chio'?"

Chio' nodded and turned his to the same setting, the coolness of the hilt in his hand felt as if he was grabbing and squeezing a piece of dry ice it was odd. He put his other hand on the hilt.

"Yeah I don't know what this is going to do. Ready?"

"This is a bad idea. I think you both need to not right now, you're wincing at touching the hilts."

"It'll be fine Dia. I'm ready..."

Jaxon flicked the ignition on his saber, the blue guardian blade sprung to life and the heat radiated from the emitter down to his palm and it felt as if someone had pressed a hot coal on his hands.

"AHH!"

He flinched and almost turned the blade off but he focused and worked on blocking it out but it kept coming in waves, seeming to increase all the time.

"When you flick it on it burns like...like hell dude, just be ready."

Chio' nodded and ignited his lightsaber, feeling the same sensation as Jaxon he almost dropped the hilt entirely. He stumbled a bit but focused his mind he narrowed his eyes and took an Ataru stance.

"Guys. Seriously..."

Jaxon grit his teeth and moved first, he struck at Chio' with all of his might but the impact of blade on blade sent a jarring pain up his arms. Chio' pushed pack both blades humming as they clashed and sparked. The heat from both weapons was so much that sweat began to drip from Jaxon's face as the burning sensation started to begin to feel overwhelming. He grit his teeth harder and the grip on his saber tightened as he brought his elbow down into Chio's arm and then quickly slashed his leg...Jaxon backed off and extinguished his blade, totally out of breath...meanwhile....

Chio' let out a blood curdling scream as Jax's saber sliced his leg, the wound was superficial, the pain however was so much that he felt as if Jaxon had cut his entire leg off. Chio' fell over backwards grabbing his leg, his ligthsaber fell to the ground and was extinguished. He started hyperventilating and tried as hard as he could to block out the pain but it kept amplifying.

"DIA!"

Midway between a laugh and a sympathetic feeling. Dia jumped at her name being called. She moved quickly to Chio' and looked down at him, sweat pouring out of every pore on his face and arms. This was dangerous and she knew it. The plant might not kill him, but he might go into shock if this continued.

"What do you need you Chio'?! I told you this was stupid, you big dumb idiot."

Chio' held retrieved a tube from his left pocket out of Dia's sight, he was still in agonizing pain but he could muster just enough focus to do this one thing.

"HAND!"

Chio' held out his left hand keeping the palm down and hiding a single thorn against it. Immediately Dia' grabbed her friend's hand and squeezed hard.

Dia instantly felt the itch and ripped her hand away from Chio' She stared down at the thorn imbedded in her palm her eyes widened in shock and then narrowed in anger as she looked down at Chio' who was finally managing to block some of the pain out. A satisfied look on his face.

"You...you....CHIO'!"

"Welcome...to the club Dia!"

Chio' had falled on his back and was in nearly in a position to do sit-ups when Dia grit her teeth.

"I TOLD YOU THIS WAS DUMB!"

She then lined up and kicked Chio' squarely between the legs as he lay on the floor. A cheap shot? Sure, but so was what she did to him. She then turned to glare at Jaxon who was still catching his breath but finding his norm.

As her foot hit him in an incredibly sensitive place to begin with Chio's eyes widened as he felt as if he had been hit by a ton of bricks. Pain shot through his body and he grabbed himself, rolling over on his side he vomited, on the floor. The acid from the stomach contents burning his throat as he writhed in pain, his face turning red. He rocked back in forth on the floor in pure agony.

She approached Jaxon and punched him in the stomach, for what she wasn't sure, but he was just as complicit in this nightmare as Chio' but he didn't deserve the hit where Chio' did, he at least stood up for her not wanting to do this. The impact of the punch sent pain up her arm....but as Jaxon started to fall....

He swung hard and hit her in the side of the face. The pain in his stomach was so overwhelming he gagged as he fell to the floor trying desperately to focus on something else. He saw Dia grab her face and fall down as well, the three of them all in tremendous pain on the floor from hits that all of them...except for maybe Chio' could easily shrug off under normal circumstances. This was a terrible idea. The worst idea in the history of ideas as a matter of fact.

"How long does...this last....?"

Chio' didn't answer he was still trying to catch his breath and praying for the pain to stop.

"About...an hour....Never again Chio'. This.....was stupid."

The two Padawan's and one yonugling lay there trying desperately to control their pain and just deal with it for the next hour. Neither of them said another word to each other as they focused entirely on managing their own issues.