Assembling the Sniper's Saber (Open to Jedi/Republic)

[Kei Amadis]

Morning
Tythos, Tython System, Deep Core
A remote cabin, two days walk from the Main Temple.

Spoiler

Casual Social get to know you thread, training thread, or solo saber thread.

Kei hadn't learned the value of meditation or focusing his thoughts like this, till today. He'd been reviewing the holotapes, sitting at them for hours on end, almost in a meditative state while he studied the footage. Taking in all the tactical information, taking in all the engagements, watching, reading, all the Jedi that he could, how they succeeded and where they fell. The fifth day in he'd been at it for twenty hours straight, with only a glass of water, and the occasional nip on his silver flask for company. The sight of food hadn't entered the man's mind one inch, though the growling in his stomach was proving a distraction.

His mind was not only on himself, it was on the wildcards, the men he was assigned to. It was on the Jedi order and what would best serve them, it was on republic but more, it was on his crew. How that concept of crew seemed to be stretching to include those closest to him more each day. This weapon he built here, it was a symbol of all of that, in the beam, in the metal, and in him. It was taking him days, to finish, close to a week now. He picked out a beam gem lense to focus the beam finely, latching it in place, picking it because as a sniper he'd learned the value of focused precision and pressure when applied. A pressure which his chosen style Djem So would only intensify.

The crystal's color was a light blue, signifying a guardian of the order. It was him, that is what he wanted, only for the entire republic, a safe and secure home. There was a shot at that here, it was something he'd not seen before in his life. After watching the reports from the front lines, in honesty it looked on a knife edge, if anything the bit of good he'd found in the galaxy was being pushed back against the tide. He was a warrior and that was coming out in the weapon. Tweaking the object of his attention, his thoughts and feelings, all of it poured into his work, becoming his slowly but surely in design and intent.

Outside the wildlife shuffled, watching a baby Guid graze lazily on the grass outside brought him some pause to his work. He'd picked a secluded spot here, free of distraction. Spending a lot of his time away studying and at places like this, being increasingly dedicated to his work would be an understatement, the Masters may come to check up on him at any day, or send someone, but at the moment this was all that mattered in the world.

 

[Manu Xextos]

Rage and joy.

The last sensation which carried him in crystalline stasis was one of rage and joy. The rage of his nemesis Raien Keth, the all consuming disastrous pursuit of strength and domination, the cursed joy of his mother Ahani, Raien's wife for Force's sake, casting herself betwixt the only two men in the universe she'd loved. Son, husband. The battle raged beyond concepts of day, night, physical endurance. It was a slug match of equal measures, the cacophonous devestation and cessation of dark and light. Mirror images casting the marrow of their bones at their enemy in one last final attempt. One more slice, one more punch, one more boot strike, one more. One more. One more.

Force, let Erryn feel my love. Give my love to my daughters, be at peace Echani. Find peace.

There was none left for Manu Xextos, Consort of the Kae. The slicing heat of Raien's Edge of Truth struck Nuada and in mutual agony Keth and Xextos heard the final warning call, the scream to begin and end all things.

Ahani, mother, what have you done?

Locked in crystal, all consumed by Raien and Ahani and Manu's equal portions. Perhaps Ahani's voice called less forcefully, but she was the creation in the action of violence. The Starmother. And now her son awoke.

Manu splayed on the ground until the insectoid inhabitants of the planetoid carried him to another Queen, descendant of the descendant of the descendant of the Queen he'd saved once, whose soul resided in fracture in Nuada's brave coil. He rested in their hive, collected and tended to, eyes casting at the synthesis of Ahani and Raien still locked in crystalline matrices of their mutual design. Ahani and Raien, locked together in matrimony and spiritual intimacy for eternity. Or so Manu hoped.

How he made his way to the Jedi planet was a precipitate of his trust in the Force. Manu walked toward a cabin in the woods, Echani armour tucked in a knapsack, grey and white the colour of his trousers and clothing. He breathed in the air and followed the chiding of the Force. Yet newly awakened, and still someone calling to him.

It was time, oh Echani General, to rise.

The void of Kei's mind struck Manu with pause. Had he lost his telepathy? Did he have a voice? Manu rapped softly on the door, stretching to his full height and releasing a steady exhale. "Are you putting that saber together, or letting it come whole of its own accord?"

He put his lightsaber together in an act of prayer. Manu's fingers brushed against Nuada and his Echani Staff. He appeared in his wear, skin nearly white and parchment thin, silver hair cast behind his back and tied in a knot at his neck's base. He leaned, suddenly arthritic, on the door post.

 

[Kei Amadis]

@[member="Manu Xextos"]​

A sense of history puzzled him ahead, clothes that were well out of place, a lightsaber that looked like it belonged in the history videos he'd just been watching... "Just need a few more days," giving the stranger a nod, suspecting the temple had sent someone out to check up on him, Kei continued on assembling the hilt. He'd been at it for who knows how many hours, and his mind was completely in the zone. Unsure how to answer the question, "it's coming together, the details take forever." He admitted after a while, not the philosopher that Sera was, for Kei this was a careful, and precisely honed instrument, not unlike an Echani would put together. He had no idea how to answer Manu's question, he'd rarely ever felt any kind of connection to the force, even though he used it daily.

Built to target and hit pressure points, breaching defenses, he still didn't have the Jedi reserve yet. There was no wish to inflict harm in him either, but you could tell the weapon wasn't holding anything back in its construction, a warrior's heart at its core. The emitter matrix was fitted next, it was the third time this part had been put into place, just to get the length right for him, enough length to shield himself, but short enough to get around and behind saber locks like the videos. He was really trying, rubbing his eyes, and that was the problem, using instruments to get the measurements right.

Looking up from his work only briefly, realising the stranger was in some discomfort, "can I get you anything?" Kei said standing up, having no force healing abilities of any kind, but he went to give Manu something to lean on. The log cabin itself had several comfortable chairs, a roaring fire, he'd got a reasonable price on it, quaint and simple, just how he liked it. Kei would walk Manu over to one of the chairs if he accepted, and offer him some water, or blue bantha milk.

 

[Manu Xextos]

@[member="Kei Amadis"]

The air felt wrong. So long with nothing in his lungs but the confliction of the Force, Manu tested the air and ate bits of its thick atmospheric texture in gulps. Kei offered help and Manu took it, pressing his arm around Kei's shoulders and leaning into the smaller man until falling into the nearest chair, head rolling back.

"Milk. Milk would... thank you." His eyes closed, breathing shallow for a few minutes while he seeped the odd flickers of heat back into the memory of his seven foot frame. After a short nap, Manu reached for his double-length handled lightsaber Nuada and force-lifted it over to Kei's table. His knapsack fell open on the floor, a peek of white Echani armour spilling past the lip of the bag.

"You're trying to fix the lightsaber together like it's a chronograph or bolt gun. A lightsaber is neither weapon nor tinkerer's object. It is an extension of your hands, your warrior spirit distilled. When I fashioned Nuada, I sat in a cave in the company of a Xenopic Arthropod Hive Queen and meditated it into being. The saber, like your spirit, knows what it needs to be. If you cannot trust your intuition and the crystal's intention in its manufacture, how can you trust it in battle?"

The antique saber clattered gently on the table, lifting into the air and slowly began to spin. Its' pieces unwinding in mid air, the saber's components released their secrets in a three dimensional mandala swaying in a hidden ocean's gentle current. Nuada shone and sprayed soft silver light across the comfortable cabin. In this splayed form, as in the practical handle, Nuada was efficient and stable, its swelling motion the mirror of Manu's weakened but eternal heartbeat. The lightsaber's mystically enhanced dance lingered like faded flowers pressed in a cloistered book, forgotten. Sad. Faded. The crystal glimmered and sought Manu's auric entity, spreading its loving glow upon his exhausted face with the comfort of an old friend. His eyes clamped shut, muscles attempting a flexor denied for the chair's relaxation.

Manu reached out his hand, his outstretched palm gnarled with the imprint of Nuada's handle as the lightsaber recombined into its configuration and slid glove-like into his hand. How long had his grip held it, to bear the imprint on his muscle and sinew? "What is your Master teaching you that they leave you barren to building your most precious gift? How have your meditations gone with the crystal? Has it accepted you? Crystals aren't tools. They're . . . they're expressions."

Clumsy words filtered through his good sense, until Manu opened his red rimmed eyes and peered at this telepathically void man. He longed to ask the man what time it was, what year, who resided in Xextos as Kae. He couldn't have been encased for more than months. Years, surely not, yet the map lines drawn were drastically shifted, there were races and tremors he had no basis for.

Let the Epicanthix distract him, his mind called, let it blend the lines of his awakened state until dreaming flowed easily from the Force.

 

[Kei Amadis]

@[member="Manu Xextos"]​

"You don't look so good, I'll call in a medic, healer, whatever." Before Manu could object he'd already got the communicator in his hand, and was offering up the cabin's coordinates for a pick up, though it'd take a good while to get a ship out this far.

After making sure the Echani wasn't going to pass out on him, the sniper sat down back at the table, chair turned backwards, tattooed arms leaning over the edge to get a square look at Manu. "Yeah but it's a weapon." Kei said confused, giving a shrug. The Echani knew their weapons, so he was willing to take this advice on spec. "How do I trust a crystal?" He asked, scratching the back of his neck. Manu was dealing with if not a soldier, at least practical man here. The guns he fired, he had to trust it stand up to the weather, the mud, the wear and tear, out in the field you had to know it wasn't going to fail you. You had to know it'd make the shot when it counted, you cared for it, looked after it, because your life depended on it.

He looked back at the saber, then at his gun, the two one and the same "I get it." He grinned, confidently, yeah this was like a rifle to him, he had to trust it, and himself.

Going back at it, he was still showing he cared about it's maintenance, that was his way for weapons, and always would be. Kei wasn't letting that hold him back though now, he gave a bit to his gut instincts, like the stranger advised. It started to come easier, so he gave a bit more, and the weapon came easier, this went on until most of the hilt was made.

"Temple's a busy place, I'm new, a Master will come when they are free." Kei didn't get hung up on the details, he just got on with his job.

"Meditation? Never tried it." He said honestly. "Seen plenty of the guys at the base... temple going through the motions," he admitted never sure what the benefit was. Sure a Master or two had him close his eyes, but all he thought about when he did was girls, the crew or bar fights he'd won, or those damn wookies and their singing.

"I'm open to it, any tips? Have any tips at all in, doing what they do around the temple, the pushing, the pulling, all of it. It'd mean a lot." He asked, looking back at the hilt, the crystal there prominently, it had a powerful deep shade of blue to it, but was jagged at a couple of edges, precise at its peaks though. No question it had picked him, it was his, but it hadn't been able to connect with him yet.

 

[Manu Xextos]

@[member="Kei Amadis"]
"Appreciate that. The medic, I could use a healer." He drank down the glass of milk and craned his massive head forward until it slumped with his body forward, hands on his knees. He passed Nuada from hand to hand, feeling his crystalline friend and pinched his index finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. The room kept moving, swaying in a haze of white. A flash. He swore he could have seen for a brief second his mother's protruding arms shift from their splayed refusal to see death come to son or lover, to reach diligently toward the yet striking figure draped in black cloth displayed with red runes forever glowing. He shook his head.

"How do you trust yourself? It's not about you, man. It's about the Force. Peace despite pain, harmony despite chaos, serenity despite passion. Please, enlighten me, tell me this isn't new to you." Manu gulped and began massaging his tender hands, hissing at their stiffness and surrounding the cabin with an aura of peace and healing. It flickered like water on a caustic shore, yet flashes of true laden power cast across the stranger Echani as he worked on the index finger of his left hand. He saw an inner cognisance in Kei's face and the confident set of his shoulders and felt assured that in a way it was getting through. Kei wasn't a disaster of a man, but a man without a Master. In the Echani's gaze he saw a Padawan in need of a deeper knowledge base, a foundation he tried to build upon before it had set into the stonework of his subconscious mind. A warrior, much like many he had taught and come to call friend over the years. "Maybe a Master has. I am no Master, I am a Knight, but from the look of that guiding array you might need the help. The Force leads us all, and I follow where it guides."

Base. Not Temple, but base. Most definitely a military man.

"Why is a Padawan constructing a lightsaber without learning the finer ways of the Force? Have you learned none of the skills of Jedi play?" The weighty realization sank like viscous fluid again into the creeping holes of Manu's conscious mind. How long had he been gone, if the recruit built tools of trades and figured weaponry more readily than peace? He pushed the question further still, not yet. He could not ask yet. But he could listen and fill in where Kei's training seemed to have avoided taking off.

"Get comfortable. The first piece is being able to consciously feel the Force. Have you done that yet? Not that unexplainable 'took a shot and it hit centre mass from 1300 feet' kind of feel, but reached out and allowed yourself to touch that heady presence? To me it feels like an ocean's current. To you, I cannot tell. Once you feel the Force in yourself, you can feel it in another object, and then use what you find. Like your crystal. . . try this." Nuada deconstructed into its component parts, setting themselves into a geometric pattern on the floor. Another lightsaber, marred and blackened floated from the knapsack and shuddered into pieces. The second lightsaber's components seemed to flee from Nuada, sinking closer to the fire and collecting in a self-contained bundle. Manu held two crystals, Nuada's silver white gleam in his left, Borghan's crimson destructiveness in his right.

"Hold your crystal in your left hand. Inspect it, feel the weight of it, until you feel more than its weight and the lines of its sides. Close your eyes and picture it. I have two crystals, Nuada and Borghan. Each feels distinct. Different. Nuada is a lightsider's healing crystal, Borghan is a relic from a much more insidious experience. It is darker. Heavier. It demands, where Nuada heals. Tell me, what do you feel when you hold your crystal? And don't worry about looking the fool. There's no one here but an outdated Echani, a couple of crystals and you."

 

[Kei Amadis]

@[member="Manu Xextos"]​

"Not all new." He stated, "it's in the holobooks, the lessons." The code, he'd heard the code, never spoken from a Master directly but he had learned from the temple lessons. Training, training and more training in his blood, the theory didn't take as easily with Kei but it was setting in gradually. Truth was his personality and belief was solid, stubborn, not swayed all that easily either way, so changing to the Jedi way of life was gradual. Though Manu was right, there was need of instruction, and now was a critical time to make sure Kei learned where a Jedi reached for his strength and balance, not just a soldier, or a republic loyalist.

Taking a nip on his silver flask, Kei placed it back in a jacket pocket, his father's dogtags clinking together as they parted at its touch. Kei had heard about the Echani, even been keen to meet one in a friendly fight, warrior to warrior to see what they could do. This one looked like he'd been through hell, more than Manu's discomfort, there was something in the way he spoke telling he'd seen a lot, and you knew in the eyes when a man had seen his share of combat.

"All i've learned is how to use this." He held up the mostly complete hilt, Unity he'd name it, in the hope of a better tomorrow, being given an intensive instruction in the weapon of his order "I know the weapons and technology we face. It's a rough galaxy out there, you've seen in," he could tell warrior to warrior Manu had.

Manu had a much finer grasp on this than him, years of experience were in this stranger's every word. To Kei it sounded a pipe dream, but a good one. Frell it, why not, arms still over the chair he nodded, "Alright, let's try it."

Standing up from the chair, he took the deep blue crystal in his palm, closing his eyes and looking for it in the force, not knowing how he was going to do it, he just did it. To Kei it wasn't a sensation, an emotion, or a flux. It was points in the force, connecting points, the crystal to his hand, and to his weapon. That's what he saw when he closed his eyes. He followed the point, its meaning and purpose. "It shows me... connections, important ones." He answered, a feeling perhaps, but visible connections."The weapon to the arm and... the crystal in my chest." The Dark chocolate eyes of the Epicanthx popped open in surprise.

 

[Manu Xextos]

@[member="Kei Amadis"]​

"I have seen much of war, for my people and my Queen, although the Jedi were profound in their lack of battle lines, drawing only to protect the innocent according to them. Being a Jedi Knight and Echani General split my time, ultimately I chose my Echani over the Order. I see a fighter in you, too." Weapons before logic, lessons on holobooks, warriors joining the Order in adulthood out of proactive threat alteration and a rough galaxy. Manu peered deep into the language of Kei's body and came to one conclusion out of many, he had been gone a long, long time. Manu shivered. "What year is this?" How he dreaded the question! How his heart lept in his chest to ponder the amount of separation which gnawed at his attempts to return into his wife's waiting arms. His children's arms. "What technology can defeat a member of the Jedi Order?"

Kei's attempt at a meditative connection had the shroud of a grin creeping up on Manu's face. Kei's body seemed for all its silence to say 'eff this, might tingle' or the like. It was like looking into the mirrored eyes of his sister. He waited for the moment Kei felt it, a chiming streak across the face, a tense or release of muscle in the body, any sign at all other than the blank and cavernous mind. Hands on his knees, both crystals in his palms, Manu nodded approvingly. "Inspect the connections for more than appearance. What do those connections mean? Where does your mind go? When I first started, the biggest connections I felt were to my girlfriend. Married her, in the end. I learned more about the Force and my place within it by inspecting where it led, than I did in most of my Masters' classes. . . when my Master wasn't chained to a Sith's experimenting table... that's a . . . a story for the ages. . . The Force tends to teach through experience I guess is the general... just feel the crystal. When you inspect where those connections are taking you, hone in on the crystal itself. Hone in on it, and intend it to hover in the air above your palm."

A crystal in his chest? Manu's head quirked to the side. "How did that happen? Is it a fad all the Padawans are doing?" Some time ago there had been laughter in this man's past, although too exhausted to express it, the warm cabin and healing conversation continued to work toward thawing Manu from his crystalline coma. The look in Kei's face had Manu creaking to his feet. That wasn't the look of glee, Manu held Nuada up and let the crystal levitate near Kei's chest. "What kind of crystal? Do you know?"

 

[Kei Amadis]

@[member="Manu Xextos"]​

Point to point, within the crystal, a matrix of images. Placing the crystal down in surprise, what a mind'frell, he headed to the kitchen for some relief. "It keeps you sharp." Kei admitted, calling back to his guest. He wasn't going to deny enjoying testing himself man to man, "we do what we have to." That was more his life, necessity rather than looking for trouble, but without it a big part of the man, the solider, and the warrior would be neglected.

Finally grabbing a bite to eat, some two day old pastry filled with more than the bread could contain, Kei brought a large plateful of them back, they were that stuffed full they were almost spilling out of their wrappers. Offering one over to Manu there was a puzzled look on his face, "Year?" and in the middle of munching on large gulp he stared, it didn't exactly smell gourmet, he was no cook, but it was edible. "The date you mean," to be honest he'd lost track of the days he'd been here. "Last I checked it was..." pulling down a calendar and offering to the Echani. "Lost track of time myself."

Finishing up the first pastry he looked back at the crystal, holding it in his hand again, listening to the stranger speak about connections, Manu was spot on, that's what it felt like. Giving a hefty shrug, one that sort of said, I'll try anything once, he tried to levitate it and got nowhere, trying again and getting nowhere. With a grunt of dissatisfaction, Kei stopped trying and closed his eyes. It was like a great big grid, one obvious connection to the other, a green grid, windows. The Crystal... in him. Faces, two faces locked in a struggle, a woman by their side.

Their history, their training. One connection he saw led him to a levitating crystal, and sure enough when he opened his eyes, that's exactly what he was doing. Was he really seeing through the crystal inside of his own chest? Sitting back in the chair, Kei pulled out a plain silver flask from his jacket pocket, seeing Manu's reflection in the flask he stared again, back at the colors, the blurred image. The same man!

"I need a drink. You look like you could use one to."

Taking a long nip of the flask he offered it over.

"How long were you there."

 

[Manu Xextos]

"Sharp or dead. I'd rather be sharp. More fun, less corpsification. More of a close-range man myself, Echani and all. Sure, infantry can be integral, but when you move mountains and command the Force, a gun's not as fun." Manu snickered out of the side of his mouth, a vanguard of his lighter days, where he made comrades of fellow Echani and the pipedream of a brighter future led by his wife. "Isn't that the key? Doing what we have to and somewhere along the war drums start tolling for our wants. At least, if we're not dead."

Manu caught the calendar and took a pastry, teeth excising their portion he began to chew when his eyes settled on the year. Manu swallowed, setting the pastry down. He checked the reading, flicked across the calendar and checked again.

"Four..." Manu's head leaned back, rolled to the side eyes shut. He tossed the calendar back to the table, his nostrils flaring, twinging with a slow burn that slunk to his silver eyes. Hiccuping breaths inhaled in rapid succession as Manu's mind wrapped around the staunch fact that it had been no series of months, or even a slim decade. He saw recognition in Kei's eyes, a force-seeded feeling of intuition and guiding resonance. Nuada and Broghan shone in his hands, taking for their parts a decipherable role in the quartet of crystalline song. A mutual nature? Had the Force once more led him into the perilous position too far ahead from the troops behind, near enough to stare the enemy in the eye? Manu's chest heaved,

"I was born under the rule of Palpatine, where as a child would have been taken by his Guardsmen as all Force-Sensitive Echani boys were to be tainted on Byss. Had it not been for my mother, I would have died in that life. A life her father knew well. My path wove to Thyrsus where an imposter of the Kae took me in and indoctrinated me to the way of our Echani people. He found me there, the Betrayer. I learned battle that day. It became in my hubris none other's responsibility but mine to shatter Keth's defences. He tortured my parents, I raised his son. He killed my father, and in that battle I tasted vengeance. I married, and the next week my bride was discovered to be the last successor to the Throne of the Kae. My wife. My gorgeous Erryn."

His eyes cast at the crystal in Kei's hand, Manu felt outward to the resonance of the Force, answering to all it demanded of him to say to this travelling warrior soul with the void mind and bursting heart. "She needed a General. I had no ambition toward warfare, but Keth. We hunted and hounded each other, killing ourselves in inches. He took my mother as his wife, and they attempted to take Thyrsus by force. That war was my baptism, and in its wake another war. My Jedi ways were found wanting. I had drunk too much of the Darkness in Keth and excizing his wound had wounded myself. I became a battle-monger, and I was fantastic."

He held his hands open in front of his body, the imprint of Nuada forever burned to his flesh and tenderly took the flask. Drinking a portion down, he held the reflective instrument to his eyes and peered at his face. Silver hair no longer than it had been, skin bleached white as snow. Manu shook his head, eyes shutting he passed the flask back and rubbed at the back of his weary neck. "I'd like to know how Ahani did it, but instead of watching her son and her husband kill each other, she cast all three of us in crystal sleep." The crystals shone and glimmered as the tale was told, first Nuada's healing blessing sweeping across them like waves on the shore, punctured by the bombastic flickers and shocking flares of Broghan's deliberate heartbeat. Broghan's crimson light consumed the space, claiming shadows and dissenting against the symphony of guardianship and release. Yet Nuada's wavelength was not lost in the war-mongering flashes of the crimson crystal. It tempered and healed the smallest places, swathing all who listened and felt with the calm confidence of a mind seeking the best outcomes and the sacred love of communion with ones' bond-mates. Thus Manu's crystals resonated with his own body, and thus did they reach out to their kin in @[member="Kei Amadis"] ' flesh and in his hand the deciphering key.

"I need a bottle the size of a Star Destroyer, dude. This can't be happening, and yet here I am 400 years later talking to a telepathically mute Padawan constructing a Lightsaber made with bits I resonate with... Where's the next line here? Why was this the first place I came? Wake up, end up on . . . on. . . I don't even know. Led right here, to this spot. To you."

 

[Kei Amadis]

"Point to point, moment to moment, images were fragmented in the crystal, and impossible to put into order." Kei still couldn't get his head around the fact, that he was seeing the force, it's events and stories, through the crystal in his chest. "Did you put this here, in me?" He had to ask, and to know why this was done to him, voice raised in volume, body language leaning in closer, both betraying how much it meant to him in finding his father.

Whatever the answer, Manu had been through more than Kei thought possible in a man, but he knew, it was the truth. At least the warrior wanted to believe that this story and tale of survival, success and hope against the odds was a real thing, maybe it clouded his discernment. Kei felt the same calling, he was driving himself hard in his work, and training the wildcards for the same reasons, he knew that struggle was coming and growing.

"When life makes no sense. I get on with what I know." Kei said to Manu bluntly. "Worry about the why when it does make sense." He took a deep breath, it was a hell of a lot to take in, for both of them. It had him rubbing the bridge of his nose with a mild headache.

"Crystal Sleep? 400 years?" He asked, again levitating the crystal in his palm, pushing it up and down lightly, puzzled as to what Manu meant by all of this, but the crystal connected him to this somehow, the one in his chest, and the one in his hand. There was however a mild scepticism creeping into his voice too, despite feeling Manu was telling the truth, and his instincts wanting to believe it.

It was about this time Kei was tugged by the connection to Manu's saber crystals, the crystal caverns, and the crystal in his chest. He was carrying the cavern inside of him, point to point, image to image, and his headache increased somewhat. Leaving Manu to his thoughts, Kei came back with the best Corellian Whiskey he had, laying a large bottle ahead of Manu, with two glasses. In truth his silver flask only ever had herbal tea in it, not that he'd let anyone know that, and with Corellia outside of Republic hands, this wasn't easy to get a hold of now

"What are you going to do now?" It was an obvious question, but it needed asking. Being telepathically mute, at least he didn't distract Manu, an empath, with his thoughts or emotions near as much.

 

[Manu Xextos]

Had Manu implanted the crystal in Kei's chest? His eyebrows raised, he sniffed and shook his head. "No. I didn't do that. I can feel it, though. More now since you resonated with the crystals, I've been sealed away. Longest nap in the universe." The smile reached to the tip of his cheekbones, and fell. He took the pastry again and started to eat, maybe with something on his stomach he'd better understand the circumstances. "How did it happen?"

For all its worth, the food wasn't bad! It was much better than the slop he'd been served in space all those years. Manu sat back and shrugged, before another wave of vertigo hit and he put a hand over his eyes and rubbed. "Just make sure there's someone trustworthy controlling that why. Seen many a soldier fall over the wrong redundancy, fighting for a flag, or a paycheque that didn't mean squat. If what you know includes who you'd die for, then fine. Otherwise? Cut your losses and run. Love a good woman, train in the Force and let the universe suck a lemon."

At the chinking sound of the bottle and glasses, Manu opened one eye and peeked through his fingers. The tea had quenched a good deal of thirst, but this man was meant for drinking. It flashed through his mind that he might want to ease up on what he did, preserve some sense of decorum or bodily function. . . HAH! Manu poured two glasses and handed one to Kei, one hand on his knee.

"Is there still a Kae on Thyrsus? Do the Echani have a presence? Guess I ought to see if any of my ..." his voice choked from his throat, he reached into his knapsack and brought out a beat up holoprojector, which for all Kei would see looked ancient. "You know that sinking feeling in your chest? The one that tells you instinct prevails? Instinct tells me my family's plain dead and any descendants wouldn't remember my name. My wife and I had kids. My daughter was six. It was her birthday in a few weeks. I bought her a ... hope she got it." Manu flipped on the projector and on the third try it hummed to life, a flash of blue bathed the man's face as he flicked through tactical grid maps bathed in blue, dots and swirls an organic movement of troops like sand on a sea bed. There was a holo of a teenaged girl with silver hair, another with a young woman whose eyes flashed in a familiar gleam, a holo of a woman dressed in the robes of her state, Manu in his armour and they sparred for a crowd. Manu's smile reached his entire body then, he watched it play staffs whirling and connecting, leaping in the air.

His chin quivered, eyes growing distant. He flicked it off and once again surrendered to the ocean currents of the Force. Thy will be done. Peace despite pain, harmony despite chaos, despite death, the Force. His whiskey tumbler he refilled, holding this one up for a small toast. "The Force will guide me to where I'm needed most. What else do I have to trust? To the Force and the connections it weaves. Know anybody who could use a former military General Jedi Knight who fights like a whirling dervish? Please tell me there's a Sith you can point me at and say 'destroy'."

 

[Kei Amadis]

@[member="Manu Xextos"]​

​

Accepting the glass with a grin. "Long story. The universe has sucked enough lemons." Kei closed his eyes taking a breath, and drinking the whiskey with this man outside of time, gripping the glass of Corellia, in his hands, a taste of times gone by. His father's favourite drink. "Blacked out, cut open, four of us were left alive, and with this fever when close, we can't be around each other." The imprints of the personality, and the shattered pieces they'd taken from the crystals, the caverns and those three inside, developing too uniquely inside their chests to be brought back together - without dangerous repercussions.

Rubbing the stubble across his jaw he looked pensive, "I've seen enough of it going to hell, not to do something about it. I don't know about you, but who is giving the orders is not important, never will be to me." Kei moved the glass side to side in his hands, neck feeling stiff, he didn't care who called themselves general, or any other title for that matter.

All he cared about, really cared about, was making a home, not seeing it spat on, the men by his side killed, poisoned or in flames. There was a small flare of anger in his dark chocolate eyes from an otherwise very stoic expression, but to be honest it was well handled, not getting the better of him. The faintest trace of a certain old Echani general's spirit, tempered by Manu's ability to transmute it, carried by the strong personality of a soldier and captain doing his duty. The crystal in his chest, was relaying this through the force into his actions.

"Thyrsus, I have no idea. When they've finished rebuilding the archives, you could check." Kei offered, not much for history, although the Echani interested him it was more for their martial prowess than royal line.

Nodding at Manu's question about gut instinct, and those you cared about, "Yeah I know that feeling." It seemed fitting, so finishing off the glass he poured another for the both of them, the man had that gut wrenching sensation for his father and mother, but it was not final, not cut off, yet.

"She got it." He clinked the glass with Manu, he didn't know anything about Manu's family of course but "better to think that then the other." Then Manu asked where Kei would send a knight, and the Jedi leaned his head back looking up at the ceiling, offering a chuckle. "That's a long list. Probably a good thing I don't call the shots."

 

[Manu Xextos]

Incapable of putting much of a finger on it, Manu saw a familiar glint in Kei's eye. He sipped his whiskey, letting the burn - warmest things Corellians ever came up with - seal his long parched throat. A smattering of legacy built around the crystalline matrices of a planetoid surviving fallen stars. "Four of you? Why would someone implant a force crystal in... oh. What kind of fever? Be specific."
@[member="Kei Amadis"]
Another flash of cognizance, of presence and recognition held to Manu's intentions to see this man through. "Rebuild? Can you give me the abridged version of what's going on in the Galaxy, 'cause I'm confused as heck. What rules do you follow, then, if you don't care who calls the shots? How do you justify which battles you enter and which you don't? Moral code?" It did imbue the Jedi with a sense of calm to think deep in the past his daughter got her present. Death wasn't something Erryn and Manu ignored, they'd made wills, they'd recorded last messages if one of them didn't make it, planned. Echani life was battle and intrigue, their people were on the back end of an upward scale only starting to tip toward the positive, and now what? Had it worked? Did any of the legacy folk left actually stick through centuries later, or did it all fade to black after a few decades, some lonely collection of years?

It hadn't faded for Kei. He was on the cusp of what, Manu didn't know, but he could feel the sensations of familiarity, a growing desire to stay near this man and correct the wrongs he'd created in his own past. Warrior to warrior, it was in battle a man learned of another's soul. Kei needed to be weaponized and prepared. Blasters and lightsabers were but some of the skills of a well trained soldier, yet a Jedi relied on the push and pull, too. "You need training. I need something to do. To catch my feet. . . you levitated your crystal. Good. Now pick up the hilt with your mind. Let the crystal and your intuition guide your knowledge of lightsaber construction to set it to rights."

 

[Kei Amadis]

@[member="Manu Xextos"]​

"Hell if I know." Kei said with a usual stoic look on his face. "Might as well be four furnaces burning under me when we are in a room." They'd asked the healers, they'd asked the doctors, only Fyor seemed to know anything and anytime Kei pushed Fyor would just say, soon, I'll know soon. Somehow the healers had stabilised them, keeping them apart, but beyond that nothing yet.

The Epicanthx handed over another datapad from off his shelf, with the medical records, showing more detailed bloodwork, scans, tissue samples. The Archives, "yeah it was torn up pretty bad by Sith, lost some people." Kei shrugged, first day on the job for him too, it had brought him a few interesting days since that was for sure.

How to decide when to commit everything to a fight and when not to, no great mystery to the man here, "keeping those safe around me. Protecting my home, family, friends. What I have to do. As long as that's done I don't care who calls the shots." The Warrior in him gave a hefty shrug, getting back to working on the saber.

Hand outstretched, Kei held the hilt in the force, the soldier in him not knowing how he was going to do this, but pulling the weapon all the same. The Jedi in him wanting to know. Closing his eyes, the force showed him point to point, connection to connection. A view through the crystal in his chest, each point linked to the next connection, or shard. When his lightsaber, Unity's other crystal was levitated in the force, he had two sets of crystal connections in his mind. Their meeting point obvious, the shards connection to the metal, he saw where the crystal needed to touch, and what memory imprint was in the crystal at that location. He connected the crystal's imprint at that point to the weapon.

He'd bonded the crystal's shard to the metal and wiring, but more importantly, what the crystal was at that location, to the metal. The imprint of its history, action and life, latched onto the metal, piercing into it in the force. Unity's was a new blue crystal, it was yet to see much outside of its caverns, or outside of the Jedi that had kept it safe, but the essence of what it was, was now cut into the metal of the hilt.

Pulled carefully and steadily through the force, point to point, connection to connection.

 

[Manu Xextos]

@[member="Kei Amadis"]

Once upon a time four hundred years prior, Manu had spent his childhood and adolescence studying the medical arts. He'd originally thought to become a doctor, a Jedi healer, and had in the course of battles, childish scrapes of knees and training on Thyrsus ended up with a medical degree. Not that it mattered, when droids could be pre-programmed to assist in any possible way. Still, with the datapad in hand, Manu poured over the results. "It doesn't look like an auto-immune response, which would have been my best guess, crystals being foreign objects the bodies could reject. . . Cross Species, hmm." He paced as he read, glancing back to readings and flipping through screens. "It. . . hmm."

What flashed across his mind hadn't been a happy thought, which honest as Manu was would play across his face and shoulders. Old spacers sometimes caught radiation sickness from their ships, so attuned to living in the specific radiant fields of space, or playing across the solar systems many forgot that radiation types and levels shifted in the void of space, which if he was a purist wasn't void at all. "Sith'll do that. . . lose you people, I mean. They been a particularly bad problem lately? Invasive or was this their newest hurrah? Anything they took you couldn't get back or is it all accounted for? . . . have. . . have you ever been treated for. . . eat more alkaline food with iron. Veg, some protein, tha. . . hum. Did the doctors not check you lot for radiation poisoning, or am I missing a. . . oh here it. . . okay, so your immune system isn't happy, neither is your aura for all I can tell. . . nothing the doctors can do about . . . "

He bit the inside of his lip, peering up to give Kei a solid look. "Lemme try something." Manu rolled his shoulders back and summoned Nuada and Borghan to circle around him. "I could be very wrong, haven't practiced much of a band-aid in a few sleepy centuries, but this is reminding me of resonance. Have you ever fought a Sith in battle? Lightsaber to lights-- ok dumb question, you're just making one now. . . Jedi crystals and Sith crystals act sort of like polarized ionic fields. Magnets. Magnetism, being a form of electricity we can measure, the Force's handle on it's a bit more cognizant and mystical but the same principles of scientific study apply. Nuada doesn't handle Darksider energy well. In fact, she won't allow it. Goes supernova hot." Manu held up one hand, the other still holding the datapad and clenched his fingers together. A flash of crimson burst from Borghan, insidious and consuming the space entwined in Nuada's light. The silver crystal burst with a soaring luminescence, pushing the darker energy back and increasing the latent temperature in the area around it. Both crystals vibrated in their mid-air positions, until Manu, grimacing with strain, let them float back to their saber pieces still arrayed on the floor and table. He gasped for the energies, pushing the balance back into himself.

"Why I chose to pursue a crystal like Nuada in the first place. Didn't want my saber to be used in the wrong circumstance, or hands. Even if they were my own. . . When Borghan came to me, it was . . . a darker time. . . The point. . . crystal resonances. Put a bunch of crystals in the room and should they be true Force Crystals, powered and active, they will react to the energies around them of their own accord. A Jedi Knight can resonate with such forces. As Padawans, your task is to enter the beginning phases and learn and experience these connections before being active participants in them. You probably know all this." Manu stopped speaking, instead taking a deeper interest in Kei's attempts at putting the lightsaber together. The more he spent in Kei's presence, the greater he felt a kinship, or better put, familiarity with the man. Still unable to place it, Manu watched Kei's burgeoning success.

"Good, allow yourself to feel the completion of the saber, for all its function and elegance. Once you have the saber together, I can teach you something else. . . if you want. I don't want to step on toes." Unspoken words dictated another series of hesitations. Was Kei strong enough in the Light to handle protecting his family? Was the familiarity growing part of Manu's awakening delusions or was it real? Why did the warrior in front of him remind him of someone he very much didn't want to put another thought toward? "Noble causes, protecting family. You got much family?"

 

[Kei Amadis]

@[member="Manu Xextos"]​

Mostly just shaking his head and listening to the sheer depth of intellect Manu had. Kei didn't have a clue about it all. Manu's eloquence was a few jumps above his, if Fyor had been here the two of them would have been like two peas in a pod, probably running into the night talking technical and medical details. "My old Engineer," sorry for him to say old, still thought of the man as his crew, "Fyor had a handle on it, said something about incompatible biology, the force imprints being copied causing a feedback loop." He really didn't understand it, only that when the four of them were together they had problems. Unknown to him, because of what was in that cavern, the copies, the shards of which couldn't exist in the same place.

"I know some, but we haven't been taught to work with the crystals, till today that is." To most of the questions, Kei still just shook his head, he'd trained with a saber under the grandmaster, and fought in the arena, but not much more with the weapon yet. "Some," Kei replied to Manu, the crystal almost wanted to bite down in his chest, but the word some applied to Kei's life just as well, "somewhere."

As the strength of the personalities grew, taking their cues from the crystals in their chest, as they developed they became more and more incompatible, more and more of a feedback against one another. Shattering the once crew, and family, into shards, like the crystals were. The only place to reassemble them would be the caverns, the really worrying thing is, would these shards shatter further if not brought back to the caverns? Only time would tell. This was the reason for Fyor's secrecy because he suspected such, hidden somewhere inside the details Manu may see this, or he may suspect it, because of what Fyor didn't list in them.

"You know what i'd really like to do." He said straight to Manu, "Get out there and learn how to jump like they do in the archive vids,". Putting down the glass, he could take his drink and he'd only had two but still, two. The desire to burn off some steam was in him, in the crystal in his chest, which meant in him, some of the few redeeming parts of a much older personality trait which loved the outdoors. "To feel the rush of the air, and get the blood going, some speed."

 

[Manu Xextos]

"Guy sounds like he tinkers with machines, words like feedback loop. Yeah, stay away from each other, kay? Thanks." Manu clucked his tongue and put the readings down. All of this, the whole gammut stunk of Reecee, but how was that possible? His blessed Master had been dead for centuries, longer than Manu had been encased and yet still the reverberant deviancy of his fellow prisoner came to his mind.

'Am I obsessed? Okay yeah, but too much? Am I seeing Keth in every inch of shadow? Man, maybe I need a vacation. And more booze. . . breathe Manu. Deep breath.' He continued in his way of watching for Kei's body language. It was the only telling feature he possessed against the telepathic mute.

"Might want to find that somewhere family and make them your 'by my side' family. Trust me, there's no greater shield against things like that" he said, pointing at Kei's chest, "Than having your loved ones hold you. It's something. . . it's funny. Reminding me of someone is all." If Raien had found Ahani sooner, if he'd been found by Jedi before the Gladiatorial pits, before Sphere, would he have been much different than the man before him now? Still Kei's crystal whispered, still it reverberated. Still Manu pushed the thought until some mean motion of the creeping current pushed it toward his conscious shores. Manu paced the cabin slowly, stretching his arms with a groan. His hypothesis would wait for evidence, and for that Manu would have to see Kei in active participation with the Force.

"Force Jumping?" A wild grin spread across Manu's milk-white face. "Now that is something I can teach you." The acrobat swung his hands out and both lightsabers snapped back from their pieces into their collective wholes in his hands. He spun them, slid them back in their holsters and walked outside into the brisk air. "Aaaahh yeaah. Fresh air." His eyes shut and he basked in the freedom of a clear sky and wind.

Wind! It swung past him in an uncanny thrill, how was it people could walk in a wind and not notice, button up their jackets, slip by without feeling the delicious freedom of wind? Perpetual motion, hallowed by thy vector. Manu flung himself into a sprint before shoving his foot down on the ground and springing for all the winding currents of the Force into the air. He shot up like a bullet, hanging suspended for brief moments before gravity grew wise and tugged him back to the corral of earth. Landing in a crouch, Manu laughed and cracked his neck both ways. "Speed first. Otherwise your effectiveness in the Jump will make it a parlour trick like that one was. How fast can you run before getting tired?"