Chapter 65 - The Only Way

Juro dropped her back off in her room and slammed the door in her face. Aero was holding her against her will, and she really wanted to get out. She may just have to escape to save her friends. If he didn’t have her he might not torture them, so she had to find a way out somehow as quickly as possible.
The door was seamless, no cracks at all, so they had to be getting air into her room somehow. If she could find that, then she could get out.
The room was pure white except for the screens that still shown her friends. She still wondered where Aero was holding Neon. She was getting worried about him. As far as she knew, he could be dead already.
Then, Ash had a brain blast. She could use her shatterpoint technique to search for cracks in the room.
I’m a genius, she thought to herself.
She opened her mind up to the Force and let it fill her. Then she stretched out her senses and let the Force fill the cracks in the room. She couldn’t sense many, only about 3, and 2 where deep inside the interior of the wall. But there was one that stood out like a sore thumb in the Force.
Bingo, she thought. She walked over to the screen that shown Xiang and tore it off the wall. Sure enough there was a small vent in the middle of the wall, just small enough to where Ash might be able to squeeze through. She wasn’t the biggest person ever, in fact she was about a foot shorter than Kiro, but that didn’t matter right now. She just needed to get out alive.
She opened up to the Force more and used it to make the hole a little bigger. She used her shatterpoint technique to expand the wall before her, and then the bars in front of the vent just fell off.
Piece of cake, Ash thought. But still, Aero was watching her. If she wanted to get out, she needed to leave as fast as she could. She jumped into the vent and crawled as fast as she could through it, sensing for a place where the vent dead-ended into a wall.. Then she just let the Force guide her.
The vent smiled as though a Hutt had died in it and had been there for multiple years. Ash tried not to breath through her nose, but the stench leaked into her nose anyway. It just made her crawl faster.
After many twist and turns, she finally saw a dull light at the end of the vent. She crawled as fast as she could and they punched the vent door open. She jumped out into the dark hallway. Surprisingly, nobody was in sight, but there was a dull red light blinking on and off. Ash believed it was the security alarm. They knew that she had escaped by now.
She kept running looking for the nearest set of stairs. It was an older building and Ash didn’t think that it would have a turbolift. Besides, stairs were not as obvious. She still thought it was weird though that no one was in the hallway.
She finally saw a door to the stairs and burst into it and kept running up and up, hoping that no one would burst through a door and shoot her down. Without a lightsaber, she couldn’t deflect blaster bolts.
Behind her she finally heard a few people running. It actually relaxed her. Now maybe there wasn’t an ambush waiting for her at the top.
She finally reached the top of the stairs and burst out. It was storming outside, dark and pouring down rain. She splashed through the water, looking for a place to go but it was all dead ends. She went around to the sides of the building. She was about 30 stories up. Ash didn’t even know that there were buildings like this on this planet. But of course, it was the only one probably because there were no other buildings around them.
Lightning flashed somewhere behind her and she heard the door she had come through open. She was startled and jumped back. She turned around and saw the silhouette of Aero standing in front of her. She was soaked wet and didn’t have anywhere to go. She had to think of something, and quick.
“Give it up Ash,” Aero yelled. “There’s no where else to go.”
“You always seem to underestimate me!” Ash yelled back.
“No…it’s the other way around,” Aero said. He raised his hand and pointed at her. She barely had time to turn around before a bolt of electricity struck her in the shoulder. She screamed and stumbled backwards. She lost control of her footing on the slippery ground and slipped over the edge of the building.
She began to fall, and her life flashed before her eyes. She never had time to say goodbye to Kiro or Echo, or even her newly found padawan. She couldn’t see anything in the downpour of rain, but she felt someone grab her hand. She looked up to see Aero’s silhouetted face.
Apparently she didn’t need to say goodbye.
“You…you saved me?” she asked.
“I’m not done with you yet,” he said and started to pull her up onto the building again, but the once she was up he threw her across the rooftop. Ash landed painfully on the ground and skidded to a hard stop against a wall.
“If only you would listen,” Aero said walking over to her. Ash cringed at the pain going through her shoulder.
“Then maybe you wouldn’t be in such big trouble,” he finished.
“You…always underestimate me,” she said, out of breath. She reached out into the Force and grabbed him, slamming him down the wet floor. With that, Ash jumped up and ran towards the end of the building. If she died, maybe her friends would be free.
“ASH! DON’T!” Aero yelled.
Ash ignored him. She kept running and leapt off the building. Thunder cracked and the wind slapped her face as she fell. She felt free for a split second, until she felt a tug on her and she slowed to a stop.
Aero had her in a Force grip. Slowly she started to pull her back up.
AGH!! Why must he always be one step ahead of me?
When she finally reached the top, Aero set her next to him. He seemed out of breath. That must have worn him out.
“I’ve gained a few more pounds since we last saw each other you crazy lunatic,” Ash said.
“You’re calling me the crazy lunatic?” Aero yelled back. “You’re the one that just jumped off a building!!”
Ash looked at him and gave him a cocky, lop-sided smile.
“Oops,” she said.
Aero scowled, grabbed Ash’s arm and drug her back to her cell.

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