fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, October 22, 1st period]

"Welcome to your midterm," Anakin said, pacing across the flight deck of a ship (Force, but he loved the Danger Room). Behind him, thousands of pricks of lights showed that a space battle had been paused for him to talk. "Today, you will get to be Jedi. Or try, anyway. Your mission," he said, striding over to a three-dimensional schematic of the ship, "is to rescue the Chancellor of the Republic, who has been kidnapped by a General Grievous, the leader of a Separatist movement. There's also another fearsome warrior aboard, a Lord of the Sith named Count Dooku. He is not to be underestimated. He took my arm off when I was 20."

He shrugged it off.

"Regardless. You will be paired up and rescue the Chancellor. Alive, please. Your mission is to defeat the Sith Lord if he gets in the way of your mission, get to the docking bay, steal a different ship and get the hell off of this one as quickly as possible."

He smiled humorlessly. "Because this one is going to crash into the surface of Coruscant in roughly thirty minutes. So don't be too surprised at sudden gravitational shifts."

He waved his hand towards the control panel. The students would now find themselves in brown robes and holding unlit lightsaber hilts. They would work like the real things, but only in the Danger Room.

Their reflexes, regrettably, were what they had come in with.

"Try not to die," Anakin said, "and for the love of the Force, don't do stupid things with your lightsabers like try to skewer your classmates or write your name in the floor."

He then rattled off the partners:

Angela Martin/Karla
Bobby Drake/Emma Frost
Elena/Morgana
Elle Bishop/Parker
Ellie Bartowski.Yuffie Kisaragi
Francine Peters/Katin Choovanski
Hayley Fitzpatrick/Liir Thropp
Jonas/Rose Hathaway
Kyle Reese/Princess Azula
Leonard McCoy/Tara Maclay
Maron Kusakabe/Raven

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"Oh," Rose studied him curiously. "Why not?"

Not everyone grows up fighting, Rose.

Jonas fell quiet, searching his memories for some easy way to explain it that didn't make it sound like the Community was a group of completely subservient people.

Except that they were, really.

"The Community wasn't governed that way," he said quietly. "Violence was forbidden which made weapons unnecessary. And there was really no...motivation to hurt anyone either. Violence wasn't allowed but it also wasn't wanted."

Well, there were a few people that did that but they were subsequently released. Jonas repressed a shudder.

"I would so be out of a job," Rose said lightly. "Gotta be kinda different coming here where like everyone is a fighter.

"It's been an interesting learning experience," he said, keeping it as casual as he could. "Different yes but also educational. I didn't know so much existed outside of where I used to live. I thought it was all the same. Flat, uninteresting, rote."

Right, well, if they were playing the synonym game, Rose was so losing fast.

"Well, I think coming here's probably as not uninteresting as it gets," she said. See, there was that lack of synonyms. "So yay you for not having your brain explode?"

Jonas blanched and looked briefly alarmed. "Has that happened before?"

"Oh yeah," Rose said, nodding seriously. "They lose one or two every semester to it."

Jonas got paler, if that was possible. "Oh, that's...unfortunate. I'll have to try and avoid that. It sounds painful and I've found that I don't like pain. At all."

Oh jeez. Rose actually felt badly for him and and reached to touch his forearm if he didn't move.

"Dude, Jonas, I was totally just kidding. No one's brain really explodes."

He didn't move but he looked confused at that sort of joking. Confused and a touch angry. He'd seen his friends do that, joke about violence blithely and all he'd been able to see was that boy on the battlefield, begging for water and dying in front of his eyes.

"That doesn't seem like a very appropriate subject to joke about," he said, trying to keep calm even if he wanted to be frantic and questioning. "I apologize for not understanding but joking seems to be taking violence and pain for granted and I can't understand that."

She wasn't much feeling badly for him anymore, and Rose rolled her eyes. "Didn't mean to offend you. It was a joke. Maybe your world doesn't believe in violence or whatever, but mine does. Better to joke about something than be afraid of it."

"I'm not afraid of it," he lied, thinning his lips and dropping his arm and lightsaber to his side. "I just don't like making jokes about it. I don't see the point and I just...don't."

He shook his head and rubbed one eye, trying to rid himself of those particular memories.

"I apologize for angering you," he added after a moment, still looking down. "I come from a different place."

"Whatever," Rose said with a shrug. Because Rose not making stupid jokes would be like the sky turning all purple and polka dots. "No need to apologise. We going to do this thing?"

Jonas frowned, still having to adjust his mind to the sort of reactions that apologies received around here. Back home, they were accepted and that was the end of it. Here, it was harder to tell.

"I suppose," he said, refusing to apologize for his own view on violence. If she could joke, he could dislike it. "Yes."

She gave him a smirk. "Let me do the fighting thing, okay?" Since he disapproved of it and all. "You try to get the dude free."

She hadn't listened very well. He didn't disapprove of fighting, he disapproved of joking about it. He didn't know what he thought about fighting.

"Yes, I can try," he agreed with a slight nod. "I make no promises on how successful I'll be."

Ethics [Thursday, October 22, 1st period]

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