Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Private Ancient Pursuits

Wearing: Ceremonial Stealth Robes, Shadowsilk Mask

Armed With: Clandestine Blades

Arrived in: Stock Lambda Shuttle

Current Objective: Rescue

Planet: Naboo


One of his apprentices had not been fast enough.

He had sent the Bladed Mystery to Theed to investigate the rumors of an underground Dark Jedi-ran group that had been setting up shop, trying to sell a Sith form of glitterstim called Red Rage on the streets. There had already been several deaths over it. Padawans and Knights poisoned with it in gas traps. Nathan wasn't going to permit it to continue.

The Mystery had managed to get a transmission out before he had been overwhelmed and captured. He had the exact coordinates. No telling when the legitimate authorities might actually invade but from what few contacts he had set up it would be quite the response.

He had acquired a shuttle used by one of the gangs distributors, and it was that shuttle that now sped to a high rise on Theed, sending the proper I.D. codes. It was a scheduled date he would be paying a visit on. His interrogators had made certain of it.

The gang enforcers, already on edge from the captured light side user of unknown origin that they had in their custody, were not prepared for what was heading their way.

He was a resurrected relic from the Gulag Era. Now secretly one of the richest men in the Galaxy despite in the daytime being only a low ranking Jedi that didn't really draw much attention to himself, acting as a courier--

(Cutaway to Death Claws being turned to ash by laser rifle fire)

-- to various Jedi enclaves. He was close to getting to a higher rank but had only just recently made in roads to the High Republic. In roads he didn't wish to compromise.

Two of the heavily armed gang members went out to meet the gold and black shuttle as it landed on their docking platform in the middle of the night.

The ramp opened but no one came out.

The guards started to get closer...only to be frozen in place, a blurry, heat wave like effect appearing over their bodies as the figure in dark, silken robes that seemed to absorb the ambient light around it finally stepped down the ramp, hands clasped in front of him, aura farming Sidious Style, hood thrown over his head.

He went past them, hardly paying any mind.

"Sleep for three hours...and remember nothing when you awake..." he commanded very casually, a makeshift vocal synthesizer disguising his voice as a harsh, electronic hiss making them fall unconscious.

Nathan could feel his apprentice still alive as he wandered through the halls, the imbued robes he wore a gift from his wife, reducing his presence in the Force to that of a gnat. Cameras in the luxurious high rise's passageways crushed themselves long before he passed by them.

He froze a group with Force Stasis as they rushed out to investigate, telekinesis ripping out metal rebar from the floors and wrapping it around them to restrain them further without harming them.

Most times, Nathan never dared to display this level of power before others. Certainly not his fellow Jedi. It would have raised questions about how a courier could know so much.

But it had always been with him, buried.

As time had dragged on, as he fought in secret and in the open, his skill not just with the force, but with the lightsaber had returned, and in some instances, had increased.

He was more dangerous than ever.

He sensed the life of two of the gang, preparing an ambush with flamethrowers.

He reached out, putting them in Stasis before repeating the process with the floor rebar that he had repeated for the others outside, before waving the doors they were behind open with a flick of his black gloved hands approaching what appeared to be a vast, spacious dining hall, with a single man at the large, round table, a Nautolan in fine robes.

He frowned under his hood, staring at his apprentice, an Atrisian man named Zu Sharplight strung up on a wall, coughing, beaten. Clearly tortured...

"He said nothing, y'know. I think it was because he was confident you would show and bail him out..." The Nautolan said in a baritone, chewing on a fish steak.

"If that was the case, it seems his trust in you has been rewarded..." The Nautolan spoke. "Tell me, what is your purpose in High Republic space? Your apprentice actually put up a half decent fight. Not a Jedi, but trained by a professional all the same. It's why I didn't kill him and flee Naboo. I had to see for myself who was going around training rogue light side users who don't seem to answer to this pathetic excuse for a Jedi Order."

Nathan didn't answer at first. He only stepped forward a bit.

"I am normally a patient individual..." Nathan said finally, his voice still disguised. "I will offer you a small opportunity to surrender and release my apprentice. If you don't, than that's your problem."

"Hmmm...banal...delivers ultimatums first...no small talk...more interested in his objective than his opponent...definitely a Jedi Guardian...at some point at least." The Nautolan said. "I get the feeling you would not want the Jedi Order to know you are here any more than I would want them to know I am here..."

"Whatever you think you are, I see the truth. You're a drug pusher..." Nathan replied dismissively. "Let's get this over with. I ain't got all night."

"I suppose I don't either..." The Nautolan said, rising from the table, an Inquisitor-Style saberstaff remove from the folds of his robes.

Red Blades sprouted from both ends of the Nautolan's staff.

"I'll make it quick. Painful...but quick..." The Nautolan said force leaping for Nathan...who effortlessly dodged the attack, conserving his energy, studying the enemy's style.

Fierce jabs and swift swings betrayed a Makashi background, tailored around his ringed staff. He was swift, almost ghost-like in his attacks. Nathan evaded them all, somersaulting and back flipping away from his strikes, watching the Nautolan's face go from confident to concerned.

He began using the ringed track his emitters were connected to, spinning his blades, hilt remaining still at the center of the ringed track as he sped towards Nathan, twisting his own body to take advantage of the great speed of the constantly spinning emitters.

Nathan didn't move his feet as his enemy came towards him. He only held out his hand, forcing his enemy and his emitters to stop moving.

The Nautolan's face grew terrified as he started to realize he had bit off more than he could chew. WAY more than he could chew.

As Nathan held the master in place, he heard a warning in the Force that made him release his hold on his now terrified and desperately trying to hide it opponent, somersaulting out of the way of the downward stab of the Nautolan's Cerean apprentice, who wore black robes and was apparently a teenager. He had leapt from the rafters above to try and take Nathan by surprise.

The Nautolan pulled himself into a defensive stance, hiding how he shook.

Nathan only stared, two gold and silver, twin curved Lightsaber hilts sliding out from his sleeve.

"I was wondering when you'd get desperate..." Nathan muttered.

"Steel yourself, apprentice..." The Nautolan rumbled. "Only together, can we triumph.

Viridian blades that looked somewhat thick slid out of Nathan's hilts.

"Just remember. You could have surrendered, the both of you. Now you'll have a bad night." Nathan spoke.

He rushed them down in a blitz in pure Jar'Kai Makashi, blades flashing against theirs, swiping away their slashes and thrusts, ducking their Force Lightning attacks or deflecting them with his blades.

The Cerean attempted to get close and gut him with a few well placed center slashes. Nathan almost lazily parried them, spin kicking the dark apprentice away and into a chair, grabbing his master with telekinesis and hurling him into his own apprentice as he tried to rise.

Nathan guarded as they both came at him again, but this time, Nathan had no further intention of toying with either of them. He has places to be, and they had done nothing to impress him.

He carefully fell back, parrying their stabs and thrust, a shift in footwork and a twisting of his blades allowing him to destroy both of their weapons at once to their shock, grabbing them both with telekinesis and pinning them to the wall, where the rebar tore itself from the walls and wrapped around them. He hadn't even injured them.

As they desperately struggled to free themselves, Nathan casually reached into their mind and willed them to fall asleep. The game was over. Nathan shut off his blades and they flew back up his sleeves.

His telekinesis delicately undid the bonds of his strung up and injured apprentice, still in his golden armor.

"I am of course relieved to see you alive." Nathan said formally as he held his apprentice gently with telekinesis. "Can you walk?"

"Yes...yes, Master, and thank you for rescuing me. I thought you would send one of your underlings..." Zu said as he was set on the ground.

"We must depart at once. I sense the High Republic's forces are about to breach the compound...and I sense a presence...a presence I have not felt since..." Nathan trailed, sensing the presence of one Henbane Bosk Henbane Bosk .

"No matter. We must leave while we still can..." Nathan trailed.

As they walked, Zu grew morose.

"Please forgive my failure, Master..." Zu said as they walked to the exit.

"You have nothing to be sorry for. These things tend to occur in our profession. I only ask that you learn from this unfortunate incident. I may not be able to get to you myself should this happen again..." Nathan cautioned.

"I will, Master." his illegal apprentice replied.

As they headed to the docking pad his apprentice went ahead a bit...and a Force Field went up separating them.

"Master!" Zu exclaimed.

"It would seem their security forces have arrived earlier than expected..." Nathan spoke. "I was hoping to use that lambda to escape but I doubt it's a good idea at this point...the air space will likely be locked down. Do you remember how you infiltrated this facility?"

"A route through the old Theed Sewers..." Zu answered.

"Don't use it. They are probably down there..." Nathan advised. "It seems tonight's test is not yet over. We shall have to find an alternate means of escape...keep your wits about you. Do not engage High Republic forces or any Jedi. Flee and hide. If put in a position where your choice is to fight or surrender, surrender. It's not like you know who I am or what I look like anyway, so you cannot identify me if captured. There will be other opportunities to rescue you or for you to escape on your own at that point."

"What about you, Master?" Zu asked.

"I have no desire to fight them. And I can conceal myself far better as they search the building..." Nathan replied. "Go. Now. Find another way out of this building before they completely lock it down. And good luck."

Zu bowed and fled. Nathan sighed. He would have to distract them to ensure his apprentice (one of many) would be able to escape.

He began taking an alternate route, triggering a special thermite based self destruct device he had placed in the lambda just in case that started melting it's interior to slag to destroy any physical evidence. As he had taken the craft directly from the drug distributor's compound, they wouldn't be able to trace it to him.

He searched the force for an answer. His face tightened under the hood and the mask he wore as an extra security measure...

It was Henbane alright...

He vividly remembered the time he had encountered him.

He had been hunting Dark Side gangs that time as well...



Planet: Milagro, Gulag Era...

Wearing: Armored biker gear

Armed with: Morris Crownwraithe's First Lightsaber


Morris Crownwraithe, someday to be Nathan Bloodscrawl once more, still served the light in his own way, even after his emergency transformation into a Deputy to save his life from devastating injuries.

He was something more...and less...at the same time. The one who had transformed him, someday to be known as Magdalena Bloodscrawl Magdalena Bloodscrawl , was in this era simply known as The Sorceress of Ossus. And she was even less human in her thought processes in this era than she would be in the future.

Because he was the only one who had ever been conscious when she transformed him (All the other 'converts' had been too injured to remain conscious, though in the Sorceress' defense, she normally made sure to try every conventional method of healing and reviving the injured Padawans she came across before resorting to the nuclear option of Deputy conversion.)

Because he had still been conscious, he had been able to agree to the process. That had made him special. The strange creature had adopted him as her son. Her alien thought process made her attempts to connect on an emotional level quite strange and awkward. This was not helped by the fact that the conversion process had left the teenage Morris with a bizarre thought process arguably even more alien than hers.

But there was a wrinkle in his conversion. Due to having been conscious, he seemed to demonstrate greater creativity and independence than others of his kind. For this, he wasn't just the Future Bloodscrawl's adopted Son...he was her favorite Deputy.

The teenager walked the streets of the ruined, run down metropolis on the planet Milagro, his arms held out strangely, almost in a gesture of supplication, his strange chain weapon with a shoto lightsaber attached to the end of it wrapped around his outheld arm. His blind eyes which could still see staring blankly ahead as he walked the road, lower half of his face covered by a red bandana, messy dark hair slightly covering his face. He wore black biker leathers.

Deputies had a reputation in in this era. Every civilian in the street who saw him knew what he was, and scrambled out of his way. He ignored them. He would not have harmed them in any case. Most of the planet had been devastated by the plague on an economic level. The government had collapsed. The gangs ruled the streets. Paranoia was rampant.

Morris seemed to have an empty, soulless walk to him. He had come here to investigate reports of a Sith aligned gang hoarding special plants for medicine. His adoptive mother had sent him here to not just eliminate the gangs run by the Sith, but clear out as many of the gangs as possible in the area he was in. The whole place was basically Detroit from RoboCop.

It wasn't long before he closed in on his first objective, an old casino taken over by the Rotting Claws, the gang suspected of Sith ties.

(THIS plays)

Morris seemingly paid no attention to the gang members starting to get agitated as he approached in his creepy, yet prompt Michael Myers-type walk. The gang members were in torn clothing, faded, used armor with ramshackle weapons. And just like the gangs in RoboCop, they were dumber than a bag of hammers.

"Ohhhhh look boys! We got us some kinda Jedi!" the doorman for the gang snarled, high on whatever the local drug of choice was. He was a lanky fellow in a sleeveless shirt and used trousers and boots with his gang symbol, a claw surrounded by worms, painted on the shirt in red.

The mutated teenager said nothing, only staring as he came to a complete stop, thinking alien thoughts that only he understood that had nothing to do with the situation.

The doorman pointed his Obsolete Blaster SMG at the former Padawan as four of his gang armed with sawed off shotguns filed out to back him up.

"Clear out, Jedi! I don't care if you look like a zombie...no one sees the boss without an--"

The boy's eye twitched and their weapons were teleported out of their hands, this being followed up by his chained shoto moving of its own accord at lightning fast speed and swiping through all their ankles at the same time, cutting off their feet.

As they screamed in agony, falling to the floor, Morris teleported the SMG to his hands and opened fire on the next several gang members who rushed to the entrance from within, his chain weapon wrapping around the legs of one as he fell dead from the SMG fire and flinging his dead body into another group as the boy rushed forward. There were no calls for surrender. Deputies didn't work that way. They either spared you or they didn't. Besides, there was no functional justice system anywhere on the planet, currently. His saber would be judge, jury, and executioner if necessary.

He moved with blinding speed, chain deftly manipulated around his person as he cut through the opposition at a vicious pace, beheading some, impaling others. There was no malice in his thoughts as he did all this to the point they started to flee rather than fight. His mind was simply too alien for that concept. To him, they were all heretics, and he was simply ridding the galaxy of them to protect others.

It wasn't long before any gangmember left alive on the ground floor had already fled. He walked soullessly up the steps to the office...

Morris stopped, seeing the boss, a middle aged man brandishing a phrik alloy sword

"So, a Jedi finally showed, eh?" The gang boss stated. "You ain't getting nuthin' outta--"

The chain shoto raced out and impaled him through the chest before the gang's local boss could get another word out. The Gang Boss fell dead and Morris stripped him of his weapon as he headed into the office to look for possible leads...
 

892079f57581d375c714841c24d9f89ae25edc0a.pnj

Master Henbane Bosk

Tag: Nathan Bloodscrawl Nathan Bloodscrawl
"The Force does not ask for mastery. It asks for patience."

8e6ff632373968dbd7c600348c626c95439c30a3.jpg
Planet: Naboo
Era: Present Day
Wearing: Moss-stitched Jedi field robes, gloves stained green
Armed with: A lightsaber hilt wound in living wood
Objective: Containment, assessment


The air in the corridor felt dense with memory, flickering with heat distortions that hadn't come from fire. Blaster scoring laced the walls, but not chaotically. Doors hung on hinges not from explosions, but from pressure, displaced, folded, crushed. Everything in the space spoke of precision. Of restraint, but not mercy.

Henbane Bosk stepped over the threshold, boot soles soundless on the scorched duracrete. The hem of his robe, stitched with green thread harvested from mossroot fibers, trailed across the floor like it belonged to the space more than he did. His left hand, stained by old sap and poultice paste, brushed gently against the blackened wall. The other held the gnarled shaft of his cane- carved from driftwood, healed and reshaped by the Force.

He paused.

There, beneath the surface of sensation, beneath the breath of smoke and disturbed air, was a signature. One he had not felt in many years. Faint and tempered, but unchanged.

He drew a breath through his nose and closed his eyes.
_______________

Planet: Milagro
Era: The Gulag Plague
Wearing: Field robes, sleeves rolled, claws stained green
Objective: Reclamation

Milagro had no sky left. Not one worth naming. The sun was there, somewhere behind the veil of chemical ash and plasma haze, but the light never fully arrived. It only lingered like a memory stretched too thin.

Henbane moved through the remains of a plaza once meant for festivals. Music had lived here, lanterns, laughter. Now only a patchwork of scorched transparisteel and blackened ferrocrete remained, some of it still warm underfoot. He had helped set up the clinic under the skeleton of an old casino archway, using the overhang to shield the worst of the patients from toxins. Most were too far gone to benefit from medicine, but he stayed all the same.

Words mattered, o he spoke to them. Intention mattered, so he listened.

He crushed leaves in a stone bowl, releasing their cool green oil, and bound it into cloth wraps for blistered lungs and skin cracked like old bark. When the pain was too much, he let them hold his hand and whispered stories of gardens that still bloomed on Ithor and Parcelus Minor.

And then, amid the damp scent of antiseptic and death, something shifted.

Not in the sky, but in the Force. It wasn't a tear nor a wound.

It was a cut. Surgical, and Sstill warm.

Henbane stopped mid-motion, his hands slick with the green sheen of healing salve, and listened. Then he rose and followed it.

The stench of carbon scoring and fear hit him first. Not fear in the sense of panic, but the kind that lingered after pain. The kind that had time to settle.

The inside of the casino was a broken carcass. Gang members, armed, armored, but now silent- lay in crumpled shapes. Some were still breathing, others not. No blood spray. But the silence was surgical, clearly executed with intent. He stepped carefully between limbs. A man with a cracked collarbone moaned softly, Henbane laid a hand on his chest and whispered, drawing the pain away, enough for the man to sleep. Not forgiveness, or pardon. Just reprieve.

He followed the trail upward.

The office was still open. One body slumped forward on the desk, older, marked by rings and weapons, a gang boss from the look of him. A phrik blade lay split in his hands. Blaster pocks along the walls. Holoscreens frozen in static.

And at the far end, someone else.

Tall. A boy, maybe. Or a weapon made to look like one. He wore black biker leathers. A red bandana across the lower half of his face. around one arm, a chain wound loosely like it had thoughts of its own.

Henbane stepped just far enough into the room to be seen. He did not speak right away. The presence, this presence, was unlike anything he had known. Not raw. Not corrupted. Simply hollow.

When he finally spoke, his voice was calm.

"You've left a wound here. Even if no one sees it yet."

_________________

Back to Present – Naboo

Henbane opened his eyes.

The sensation hadn't changed. It had only aged. Hardened into something cold and still. Whatever had passed through this place had done so with the same silence as before, without hate, without joy. A clean incision.

He turned to the Jedi waiting behind him. They stood poised, watching, their minds sharpened by instinct.

"Stand down," Henbane said softly. "Whatever was here is already gone."

He leaned slightly on his cane and took another step forward. The moss-fiber weave of his robe brushed gently against the wall, the same way wind brushes branches in still woods.

"If you find anyone alive," he added, "don't ask questions. Just help them breathe."

He said nothing more as he started into some of the lesser known paths. Henbane knew if he brought a large group of Jedi with him, whoever that boy had become, would be far more likely to fight. He knew he needed to face him alone. So that's what he did, using the Force to help his movement, Henbane made his way toward the area that had alerted him to the sensors being tripped. He would face the boy alone.
 
Gulag Era:


Morris had been searching the office busily, looking for leads, trails. He had come across more clips for his SMG and pocketed them. He had come across a datapad ledger.

He looked over the contents, feeling neither satisfaction, nor contempt at what he read. Distribution of drugs, slaves, weapons and far, far worse.

Morris searched the computer, emptily pressing old slicing commands to access it's network. Morris saw the communication records between the gang and an unknown client commanding them to harvest something called the Dragonash Herb...

Morris delved further into the system, finally spotting a smoking gun about a scheduled arrival from Korriban in several hours. Nothing good ever came from Korriban.

But it didn't say where it was being taken, or where they were getting it from...they had another gang they were trading with though, their hideout in the sewers. He knew where he was headed next. He downloaded the info onto the datapad.

He suddenly heard someone speaking, attached to a serene presence that was full in all the ways his own was not.

(Morris Crownwraithe's Theme Plays)

Morris turned his head in an odd, almost mechanical way to face the Draethos. Blind white eyes stared emptily at Henbane Bosk Henbane Bosk .

He put the datapad into his jacket.

"THEY...LEFT...BIGGER..." he said of the gangs, struggling to get the words out due to his altered nervous system. Even when he succeeded, it barely came out as a whisper.

"CLEANING...OUT...WICKEDNESS...."

Morris was not here to engage Jedi. He was here to engage Sith and their minions. Engaging co-workers was bad for business. It lowered morale.

"THEY...SERVE...SITH..."

Morris made no move to attack, only pointing to the computer as he stood aside.

"SEE...FOR... YOURSELF..."

Present Day...

The Jedi that had pulled back and followed Bosk's orders searched the building busily. They found the guards still imprisoned, but alive. They weren't even injured, just imprisoned in the rebar ripped from the floor.

"Who could've done this?" asked Knight Jang, a female Chiss with black hair tied in a bun in her mid twenties wearing cream colored robes, armed with a saberstaff.

"That's not the question you should be asking..." trailed Master Red-Hand, a Corellian Jedi in Tan robes, middle aged with a fair complexion, armed with a curved hilt Lightsaber.

"What question, then?" Jang replied staring at the struggling prisoners.

"Why are they alive? Why are they uninjured?" Red-Hand questioned. "Whoever did this went out of their way to avoid killing them...or even wounding them..."

He walked up to one of the guards restrained by Rebar.

"Who did this to you?"

"Tall man...dark robes. Whoever he was...we didn't even register to him. Headed into our bosses dining room behind us...but that's all you're getting outta me, Jedi. You want more? Ask our boss...if they're still alive..." the guard answered.

"The dining room... immediately..." Red-Hand said to Jang.

They both rushed to the dining room area.

They found the Nautolan and his Cerean Apprentice unconscious, restrained by by Rebar and imprisoned against the wall, their destroyed lightsabers meters away. They had some injuries but only bruises.

"What in The Force is going on here...we normally never find any survivors in situations like this?"

Red-Hand got out his comlink.

"Master Bosk... something...very odd is going on here. We found people but they're all alive, just restrained. And we found what appears to be a Dark Jedi and their apprentice, disarmed and restrained like the guards. Only the master and their apprentice are injured...barely...Master Bosk, what's going on? Who did this?"

"Look!" Jang said, seeing the fragments of rope on the wall where Nathan's apprentice had been strung up.

"I think someone was imprisoned here..." Jang mused.

Meanwhile...

High Republic Troopers were slowly but surely locking the building down when they saw Nathan, already masked face fully concealed by his hood, walking patiently towards them.

"Freeze!" The squad leader yelled, as they all leveled carbines and shotguns at him.

A flick of his hand yanked the weapons out of their hand with telekinesis, breaking the weapons apart, then putting them in Force Stasis. Unlike the guards, he didn't restrain them with rebar.

Nathan didn't even touch them as he walked past them. He could feel Bosk following him...

So the better. As long as he wasn't following his apprentice...
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom