[member="Ardgal Raxis"]
The air of Commenor reeked with the stench of bodily filth, garbage, and poisonous gases. Puffs of smog floated here and there like dirty, grungy little clouds that would kill you with one inhale. Trash littered the streets, where the only light was from the neon signs advertising their enticing offers of sin. Despite the late hours, there were still bodies ambling around, souls of sinners and the lost, whose only direction came from lives of crime. Mutterings from the crowd mingled with the distant wails of sirens and, on occasion, the cries of a young child.
Perched above the cesspool was a crouched figure, garbed in a dark, tattered cloak looking like it once belonged to a Jedi. Beside it sat a fat blob of some sort, motionless. It was this blob that the figure reached over to pet.
"Relax, Maxi, nothing's going on yet." Key word being "yet." Having grown up on Commenor til my parents shipped me off, and returning at least four months ago, I knew this area of Commenor like the back of my hand. I had a love-hate relationship with my homeplanet that had only been magnified by my reasons for coming home.
Ah, yes, my return... After leaving the Order, I'd spent at least three or four years travelling the galaxy, searching for my Master and turning up...nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Though my credits demanded I give up, Karr had done too much for me to simply give in and stop looking. At the same time, though, I couldn't ignore my need for credits, so... I returned to my home planet, intent on building a home base for myself while building up the resources to keep looking. I wasn't quiet about my presence, either. I couldn't be. Now that I wasn't moving around, I needed to leave a bread trail, in case Karr came a'looking.
In the meantime, I'd been busy. In need of credits, I'd not only started pickpocketing people, but I organized a bunch of street urchins and began to employ them under my leadership, teaching them all the tricks of the trade. When I ran into trouble with the local gangs, I merely used my Force abilities to either scare or persuade them into leaving us be. After what I'd been through, they no longer scared me. My actions invariably earned me some notoriety, but that was ok. The more the merrier.
Now, though, I was observing the streets for...something. I'd first sensed it, an anomaly in the Force, if you will. It was as though there was a pebble blocking the flow of the Force, and it was my job to investigate.
"Is it just me, or does it seem too quiet tonight?" I glanced up to see my ever-present annoyance, Grey, hovering in front of me. I instantly went on alert. Usually - not all the time, but usually - Grey only showed up when there was potential danger.
"What do you mean?" I stretched out my senses, both in the Force sense and physical, trying to see what she meant. But my hallucination merely pointed down the street and faded away. I sighed. "Typical Grey. What do you think, Maxi?" But my Blarth - no longer a pup - merely let out a whine. He was used to my conversations with thin air, not that he cared either way.
Taking the advice of my craziness, I focused my attention on the street she'd pointed to, before sitting up straighter. There it was! The anomaly! "Come on, Maxi. It's time to go." The Blarth scrambled into my arms, where I fastened him to a homemade harness. I never went anywhere without my baby, including the rooftops. His tail wrapped around my waist and the little nubbins gripped onto my belt. Once I made sure he was snuggled in, I gathered the Force about me, and ran.
I leapt from building to building, relying on my skills to keep me from going splat! on the pavement below. It wasn't long before I drew close enough to observe the anomaly. Actually, "anomaly" was too much of an understatement. I had no idea what this thing was.
It looked like a droid a Sith might employ, with bits of metal sticking up from its armour like the fashion trend from my heyday. There was an ethereal blue glow to it too, but that wasn't what attracted my attention the most.
No, it was the fact that this thing couldn't have been a droid. Droids I could still vaguely sense within the Force. But this thing? It wasn't hiding in the Force, it wasn't sinking in the Force. Oh no, it was completely removed from the Force. This thing, whatever it was, was like a, a...
"Like a pebble blocking a stream," Grey said quietly. "Be careful."
"I don't need a hallucination to tell me that, thanks."
Grey scowled. "But you do need one to warn you not to go down there. This is going to lead something you'll regret, trust me. Just turn around right now."
I shook my head, still clinging to the side of the building. "I can't. It's... It's my duty to find out what that thing is. I can feel it."
"Please. Since when did you ever care about duty?"
"You know the answer to that," I said quietly. In a louder voice, I added, "I'm still going down there. Either way, it's in my territory, and not welcome."
Grey merely shrugged. "Suit yourself, then. I'm just trying to keep us alive." With that, she faded away again, and I looked back down on the figure.
"Maxi, I'm pretty sure this is a trap. Oh well." With a sigh, I released myself from the building and sailed down to land in front of the dead droid, unhooking Maxi so that he landed next to me with a soft thud. One hand on my lightsabre, I held another up to the figure. "Stop. You are in my territory. State your name and business, or so help me I will kick your metal butt from here til next year. Understand?"