Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Back in Nam

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Solan's eyes shut tighter as someone ran out of the street, deshelved and someone behind them. His eyes focused on the man as he grabbed onto the other and forced him to the wall out of sight of most everyone else. Solan's body twitched once more as he curled his hands up and started to walk over to where the two of them were. The man holding the other to the wall talking to him, the hostility though was more than enough to make solan act as his hand reached up and he tore the man's body off the other who just stared. "Leave. Now!" He said to the other before turning his head on the one he was holding against the wall. "Now, how about you apologize for attempting to beat him, and i might let you keep a limb... or maybe i will remove them anyways. Take your Gamble." He didn't realize what he was doing, his mind had perceived that simple bit of hostility as the intent to kill.
 
[member="Solan Charr"]

"What exactly is wrong with him?" the man named Toralla asked, and Taeli realized this man must be a Theran Listener that was based here in the city.

"He's an empath and something in the recent past twisted and broke his mind," she explained. "I'm not entirely sure what event started it, but he's been getting worse and worse until just the other day he tried to kill me for trying to suggest he needed help."

Toralla was quiet for a moment, and in that moment, Taeli sensed Solan moving. Uh oh, that's probably not a good thing if he was moving when she told him to stay put and not get into trouble.

"As he is your friend, you shall be the one to heal his mind if you are so interested in learning our techniques," Toralla decided, before he tilted his head curiously. "You succeed and we will show you others, if not, you only learn enough to help your friend. You said your friend is outside?"

"Yeah, and he's not alone anymore," she said, before rushing out of the cantina with the Old-Timers behind her. Turning the corner, she could see Solan looking murderous at a guy that looked a touch drunk and probably had gotten into a fight with another patron of the cantina.

"Solan! Put him down!" she said, hearing the whine of charging stun rifles behind her. The Old-Timers, and the Theran Listener with them, could clearly see something was wrong with the young man in front of them. "Put him down now!"
 
[member="Taeli Raaf"]

His hand tightened as he was holding the man's throat as he stood there, taking in the pain and fear of the man and smiling. The first words didn't touch his consciousness, his hand only tightening but the hostility of those behind him caught his attention as he drank that in too and looked behind him. For a moment the faces were jsut blank and he stared at them as if he were looking at them next but his eyes focused on Taeli as she said it a second time. Hesitating and letting go of the drunk who started to run immediately. Solan stood there wordless for a few moments as his mind returned and he reached up to his head as pain etched into his face now. He said nothing or did anything else, simply falling back against the wall and cracking his head against it.
 
[member="Solan Charr"]

"I see what you meant," Toralla muttered, looking at the pain on Solan's face. Gesturing with his hand, the other men with them lowered their stun rifles from a hostile position. "He is . . . broken. We will help you, Master Jedi."

"Thank you," she said.

"However, in exchange you must help us," the Theran Listener said. "There is a geothermal station to the north that has gone dark, we fear the worse might have happened with the drochs there. When your friend is healed and you have learned what you wish, you must go investigate that station. Are we agreed?"

"Agreed," she said. "We should get started as soon as possible."

"Yes, follow me," Toralla said, turning and moving off with his men close behind him. Taeli looked pointedly at Solan and followed the Theran Listener until they reached a small house on the edge of the town. Moving inside, it was quaint, but there were two more Theran Listeners inside and several crystal geodes around.
 
[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Solan sat there while they talked, his body shutting off for a second as he had to jumpstart his own mind. He had to calm down, get the thoughts out of his head, the feelings crushing on his skull. The minds all pressed on him like they were trying to crush in and tear apart the bone and skin to pick his brain. His eyes closed tighter and he sat there when he started to feel the one person in all that chaos that he knew walking away. He had to focus on her right now, close off all other emotions and focus on the mind of the person he knew.

It took him a few more moments, leaving him standing there against the wall with his legs barely holding him up at this point. He had nothing much to say in the least past what he had. Nothing more to think and his body almost collapsed to the ground before he got a hold of himself again. 'Get to the listeners solan.' He thought this, he think he did. The words flared up in his mind and he stared as they were walking still and his body shakingly started to follow them, closing out everything and focusing on them as they made for the house. Following every step until he was inside to.
 
[member="Solan Charr"]

"He needs to be put into a mesmeric state so his mental connection to the Force is enhanced," Toralla stated, letting Taeli sit Solan down in a nearby chair. "Once that occurs, you will be able to access the memories and emotions that are tormenting him. As a novice to the technique, you'll need to meld with me so we may deal with the poison in his mind."

"Right," she said, letting the Theran-Listeners place Solan into the state described. She made sure to be on alert if he tried and stopped them from doing their work, he was on edge he might take it as an attack. She didn't want to knock him out again if they could avoid it.
 
[member="Taeli Raaf"]

He breathed in, keeping his mind together best he could as another wave of emotions slammed into his mind and almost knocked him off his feet. He struggled and as Taeli helped him sit he breathed in and tried to listen to the Theran and Taeli over the thoughts but in the end it was drowned out too. His hands curled up as he sat there and he tried to open up his mind further but that only served to hit him like train with pain.
 
[member="Solan Charr"]

Melding with the Theran Listener next to her, they both reached out towards Solan and began lulling him into a mesmeric state where his mind would be on a slumber and his body unable to really move. It would be a relaxed state though, and hopefully when he was pulled out of it, he would be feeling much better.

"Now we need to isolate the memories and emotions that are specifically breaking his mind, heal him of their weight so to speak," The Theran Listener said, instructing her and guiding Taeli to gently probe through Solan's mind until they reached a tangled knot of emotions and memories. She wasn't keen on seeing everything in his head, but what she saw, it made her understand why he was the way he was right now.

"His mental walls are broken," Toralla said quietly. "They were impressive, but events on these worlds wore him down. We must rebuild these as well or else he will break again in due course."

"Show me how then," Taeli said.
 
[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Solan's mind twisted in a million and one ways, some memories slamming down on the very thin barriers keeping his sanity someone still intact enough that he not strike out at them once more. His other memories just cascaded and cut through eachother like hot blades to butter and on towards a new part of the mind. The emotions in his head like cannons, thousands, maybe millions shouting out their fears, their hate, their pains, and strongest of all their utter despair. It pulled and pushed on his own emotions which at this point were pretty much gone and replaced with those others that he had taken on while healing someone, or borrowing their pain, even Aedan's intense pain hammered through the others back during the battle with the Prime when Solan had asked the man to forcibly cause pain to himself to allow Solan to use it.​
And what was worse was his mind rationalized these things, it knew that without this near constant and hellish torment it went through that the pain was necessary to protect and serve. Memories of his parent's death lie shattered, their faces gone, even the face of the sith gone. Blood seeped over the area, like a mist that came from one memory to the next. The smell of burning flesh, plastic, ships, droids, fuel. All of it assaulted the senses of the Theran Listener and Taeli due to their current connection to the memories. Along with the smells of a refuge camp on Melida when solan had first arrived there. The feeling was empty in that moment, but that was no more unnerving than pain. It was empty of life and he remembered how icy cold that felt to be in a place utterly decimated, that had wiped out millions on millions in seconds. The sight of the girl who had been nothing but ash falling apart infront of him as he stared.​
Next the assault of Makeb would slam into Taeli, this one was different. It was filled with pain and fear, but chiefly death. The Memories of him opening himself to the emotions of the others playing infront of her and showing her that he had been taking in their emotions willingly at first then bright lights, the sky turned red. Things slammed into him as the others around him were holding their heads too. His Empathy reached out, grabbing onto the minds of those around them as their twisted screams were also filling the air with the feeling of complete death in an instant happening around him. The physical world would vanish but his own tortured scream sounded over and over, those around him dropping to the ground and twitching. Those emotions cutting away as the death, the spirits themselves found their way into Solan's mind and his Force sight caused him to watch as the population was wiped out before him even with his eyes closed. Every death and all the emotions and feelings of each member had found the open mind of Solan. Who at this point remained completely still and twitching. The Emotion only playing until the sound of a voice echoed, that being of Genevieve Lasedri whom his open eyes now found but the constant bombardment continued until the memory went black and he found himself on Coruscant during the Omega Protectorate battle for it.​
There Solan stood watching as a massive flagship slammed into the sith's main temple, the pain of thousands, even more as wreckage hit the city below slammed into him and he fell to his knees. Words coming from him, barely audible to anyone then but clear as day in the memory. "Please make it stop, too many of them, too strong the emotions. Stop them..." Was all that came from him as the voices and emotions rend through his mental barriers and almost pierced into the deepest part of his mind, the part that if broken would cease who Solan was. That memory kept in there was not one like the others. Inside that mental barrier there remained a single memory. The memory of a fourteen year old, huddled in a back alley of nar shadaa, holding his head at the sounds around him that he could not control until a girl with red hair appeared infront of him. She held out her hand and spoke. She said it would be ok and the young, mentally tormented Solan reached out with one hand and took the girl's who smiled at him. The voices around him faded instantly in that memory, the memory behind the last barrier.​
 
[member="Solan Charr"]

"Oh ... by the Force," Taeli whispered as she and the Theran Listeners were assaulted by the maelstrom of pain and emotion. He had been dealing with all of this? No wonder he had snapped and started sliding down his current path.

"Your friend is in terrible pain, far more than I have ever seen," Toralla said, grunting as he produced a geode. "We must move the pain and suffering out of these memories, siphon the most painful parts away. It will be unpleasant for us."

"I understand," Taeli said, bracing herself. Toralla began the process of pulling the negatively charged memories out of Solan's mind. Taeli, melded with him, added her own strength to it and began tugging at the incident surrounding Makeb. She could feel every single thing that had assaulted Solan on that day. A lesser mind would have snapped immediately, but Taeli was no stranger to pain. Gently pulling the memory out, she followed Toralla's path and moved the memory into the geode for temporary storage.

All while they pulled on the memories, Taeli and Toralla also began reinforcing the wall that he had naturally built, strengthening it and relieving the pressure on key remaining parts.
 
[member="Taeli Raaf"]

As Taeli pulled at the memories a single, powerful memory overwhelmed everything else. Something of a defense mechanism it seemed without it being one due to the obvious reasons of that likely not being possible. Though in his mind the maelstrom of dark, ebony like feelings was slammed out of the way by a single experience worse than anything else. Taeli would remember the place she saw quite well as it was a field filled with blood, a green sun high above them as his entire body in the real world stiffened and his mouth went gaping open. He wanted to scream then and there as while they were helping to strengthen the barriers the single memory was worse than anything else as his memories became extremely erratic.

What that memory was was simple. They had been near the fields of blades and inside the blood fields, the deaths all kept there, the millions, if not billions and maybe even trillions screaming out in pain around him as the memory played him on the ground and for a moment he looked nothing like himself. He seemed... terrified, nothing of his power. Even on Makeb or on Coruscant he had been in pain but he had been able to think enough to split that piercing pain to others around him. On the Netherworld... There was no one nearby. Only the dead and they no longer had minds for which him to use to relieve the pain on himself so he was sent into a curled up position, unable to think at all, unable to open his eyes, unable to hear anything else. All until someone had found him and dragged him away. It began to calm and blacked out but for some reason while the memory stopped, the next part Taeli herself would know, the effect of the netherworld didn't stop as the empathy reached out and tried to strike at Taeli and Toralla. His mind was trying to destroy theirs to spare his own.
 
[member="Solan Charr"]

"Of course," she said, not surprised at all that the Netherworld had truly been the driving force behind his mind starting to shatter. That place had been creepy enough as it was ... and then Solan's subconscious lashed out at them. Interesting development that and one Toralla and she had not been expecting.

"His mind's defenses seem to think we are an outlet he can channel the negativity and destroy us with it," Toralla grunted, a cringe passing across his face as they were assaulted.

"He always has to be difficult," Taeli said, gasping as a razor sharp probe hit her own mental defenses. Oh no you don't Solan. Channeling the light side of the Force into herself, she began pushing back. Shoving the memory back further and further towards the geode and being sent away to be dormant or destroyed. This one might need to be destroyed though, she recognized the Field of Blades from the Nether and Solan would not be able to heal if that placed continued to reside in his mind.

A rush of the Force left her, Toralla adding his own expertise to direct it, and it began shredding the memory of the Field of Blades, wiping out everything attached to it except for being a past event he would have a hazy recollection of. With that threat neutralized, they cautiously continued the menemotherapy, moving the memories and removing the remaining negative parts as best they could.

With a sigh, Toralla pulled back and so did Taeli.

"You may wake," he said to Solan, setting the geode containing the memories on the table. Taeli could still feel them, and she suspected it was because she and Toralla were still connected to the geode. The Theran Listeners did not like to destroy memories unless necessary or no one truly wanted them.
 
[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Solan could immediately tell something was wrong, he couldn't figure out what but he could tell something was very odd when he tried to figure out what it was. It took him a minute his eyes drifting to Taeli as he still laid there. He knew who it was, her name, everything they worked on and even what he did just before they came here. But he knew something was missing and he couldn't put his finger on it while he laid there. Then it came to him, the silence, the one thing he had not heard in almost a decade. "Its... quiet."
 
[member="Solan Charr"]

"They are in here," Toralla said, gesturing at the geode on the table. "You should thank your friend, without her, you may have died soon enough from the amount of pain we found inside."

"No thanks are needed," Taeli said, waving away the comment and looking a little tired. That process had been quite draining, but she had learned something new at least. "Well, maybe learning your listening techniques once we help with the other problem. Anywho, Solan, you need to make a decision about what you want to do with these memories in the geode."

"Indeed, they must either be preserved or be allowed to fade," Toralla said.
 
[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Solan's eyes drifted to the geode and for a few moments he stared at it before then turning his eyes to Taeli. Lastly his eyes found the Theran Listener. "Preserve them for now... a person's history should not be so easily forgotten, those things made me who i was when i came here and its important i remember what they did to me. Unless you guys took that out too, if so then why are we here again?" He smiled a little, it wasn't a full smile but it was clear that the memories were gone. There remained a difference in him though, a sadness that seemed to be brought on not by the loss of the memories but a single memory that he could actively recall now. "Shall we help out our hosts Taeli?"
 

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