I Sold It To Rule The World

[Onley Xiangu]

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Tython
Mid-Day

It was eerily quiet.

For the last few months he'd spent his time in warzones and every ecumenopolis imaginable. The two weren't mutually exclusive if he really thought about it but nonetheless, they made him acutely aware of the very peaceful quality of Tython's nature. Though bursting with undisturbed life it retained a sense of calm and quiet at odds with the bustle of creatures underfoot. The soft sound of bugs singing filled the air from high in the treetops, beams of sunlight filtering through those places leaves had not filled in an attempt to worship it.

He had come to learn about the roots of the Jedi, but instead the quiet was only drudging up old memories.

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Death wasn’t something she’d accounted for, not really. Of course they all said that: ‘it comes with the territory, I’ll face it bravely.' Bravado was the name of the game and Zhaad was a master of boasts and brags. Wouldn’t she have to be, leading the sort of strikes she did against a pirate who’d weathered hundreds of years of swindling? And she was even good at it. She’d pulled off all those things she said she would. But…for all the territory, for all the accepting the inevitable as part of the risk, she really hadn’t bet on dying so soon. And not like this.

She’d still fight. Of course she’d fight for the slim chance of survival.
But oh, it was getting ever slimmer.

She could hear something behind her, gaining impossible ground as it bore down on her trail. Zhaad purposely wove through the most overgrown parts of the harsh napalm-forest, using her long legs and natural grace to her advantage in leaping gnarled roots and swinging through low-hanging branches that would trip up a less agile species. But whatever it was behind her matched her step for step, losing nothing of its pace despite her desperate attempts to trip it up. Gunfire lit up the woods on either side of her though none seemed directed at her – mostly at her men and women dying in droves if the screaming was any indication. Panic clawed up her throat as whatever was chasing her got closer and she nearly started laughing with hysteria as she realized it was that same feeling from when she was younger, that gooseprickle fear of looking over the edge of her cot and seeing something looking back up at her, of the endless dark hollow in the closet from which something might stir. That thing she’d forgotten was chasing her now. (Just turn and fight. You never died back then, and whatever you’re scared of is killable now. Just turn. Just turn and fight.)

So after she leapt one more tangle of jutting tree roots she turned to face it.
Him.
He was human.

Springing her claws, she swiped a long arm towards him as he barreled out of the shadows. He hadn’t slowed at all despite her turning to face him and she assumed he would run straight in to her counterattack, but instead she found nothing but air. At first she was confused – time seemed to be moving too slowly, as if he should have reappeared by now. But adrenaline had her misjudging, and soon she couldn’t breathe as both his feet connected with her stomach and sent her flying backwards. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him hit the ground, roll, and spring to his feet. She couldn’t breathe; he’d knocked the wind out of her, and she was still clutching at her abdomen with one hand as she struggled to lift herself with the other. She could hear the metallic grind of a pistol being cocked and fear forced her guts to relent and let her suck in a breath.

Springing off the ground, she twisted herself mid-air to land on her feet crouched low. Slit pupils wide and taking in every minute movement and color, she narrowly avoided a bullet through the head as she dodged, instead holding back a scream as it tore through her left shoulder. Leaping towards her opponent with claws sprung, she landed on him with little finesse, instead hoping to disorient him when he slammed to the earth. Those hopes were quickly dashed however as he reached up with the pistol in his fist and whipped her across the face, several of her teeth flying through the air to nestle in the dead, dry sand beneath their feet. It was all the man underneath her needed to get a leg underneath himself and roll her over, her struggle to stay upright landing her instead on her stomach underneath him.

Static relayed through the commlink clipped to the vest that covered all the vital things she would have liked to tear from him in that moment. (He can’t be human. How is this so easy for him?) Another male’s voice carried over it, nearly inaudible if she hadn’t been so close to the human pinning her down: ‘all targets neutralized’. For one moment she felt despair, a pang of pure sorrow at the thought of every single one of her crew gone. Many she hadn’t known, but many more she’d been friends with, and Garron…handsome, quiet, kind Garron…he’d been so warm beside her all those nights…

“Wait, wait!” she cried, her thick accent even worse for the sand choking her as he held her face against the ground. “Let me go and I can give you more money than anything you’re being paid to do this. I don’t care who it is – I can outdo them!”

Maybe he didn’t even have a mouth underneath that mask for all the sound he made in response to her plea. She offered her resources, her knowledge of pirate’s stashes, even her body in the moment she felt cold durasteel pressed to her skin. Maybe he was entirely deaf for all he seemed to care. If she’d lived after the bullet he put through her head, right at the temple only an inch above her ear, she would have been too.

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Zhaad had been the first, a rebel attacking pirate shipments he'd been paid to help put down. Jared Ovmar had forced him to learn the skills of a hunter, a fighter - a survivor. And when the old man had disappeared once more in to the cold depths of space Onley had done the only thing he could do: sell his violent skills for credits. Finding his mother and father had only come later.

The woods was reminding him of that night, leaving with Zhaad's braid slung over his shoulder as proof of the prize.

He was distracted though when he pushed through a particularly dense copse to find old stonework in tall clusters of grass. Creeper vines wound around taller structures, old bronzium still shining through tarnish. An ancient Jedi temple? He could feel the power of the place, and that was all he needed to push him to explore.

[member="Auron Song"]​

 

[Aiwaz Khath]

Tython. The planet sighed with an unusual calm. With every turn of the breeze, its ancient breath pulled along its surface; across its fields, steppes and deserts, weaving through it colossal mountains, gliding along its vibrant waters. An old, proud sun fluoresced in a mid-afternoon calm, and the cries of animals could be heard in the long distance at every direction. It offered an unusual sensation of peace and strength to one wandering along the planet's surface, and an equal sense of intimidation from uncontrollable strength and weight. This planet was ancient beyond words, and it boasted an endless list of tales that had long been lost to time. It held an unspoken power from its core that hummed so powerfully it could have ripped itself open entirely. The power of the planet could almost be intoxicating. Yet, amidst all of this, its lands were beautiful. They promoted calm, peace and wholeness.

Maintaining a stern, heavy silence, Auron Song strode across expansive planes of grassland and stone, between valleys and beneath mountains. Days passed, and with each hour hope dwindled, for without direction there was little apparent chance for success. The Jedi thought back to the visions that had plagued him some days earlier, and of the ancient apparition that revealed itself to him. Go to Tython, it had told him, and see what you must, feel what you must. The words were cryptic and undecipherable, and now that he had arrived there was little direction to take him further beyond such a point. He had even called upon the ghost that pushed him to this curious planet, but he had been returned a silence.
But then, in the distance ahead, he caught sight of dense woodland, and an unmistakable warmth from it that seemed to glisten through the Force to him. Something rested deep within, Auron knew it, and he eyed the forest from afar. But what, he silently mouthed, pulling his backpack closer to him and trekking down into the copse.

[member="Onley Xiangu"]​

 

[Onley Xiangu]

Much of the structure was ruined, its ceilings lost to the ever-constant trudge of time. There was beauty in that though, at least in Onley’s opinion. It made him feel small and big at once to walk among places like this. Once they must have been so important; any ancient who’d walked through those halls when they were new and strong must have thought them the entire world, a symbol of the galaxy, their people’s highest achievements. And now they were gone, their memories ground to dust with their magnificent temples forgotten in some copse of trees. Onley felt the same when he walked the halls of his Mother’s temple on Maena, and one day that too would be ground to dust, both his mother’s memory and his own forgotten with time despite their atrocious mark on the galaxy. It made him feel small to know that even such a large handprint would be washed away. But it made him feel big because he was strong enough and important enough to exist at all, and with the Force at his call no less.

His mind wandered, lost in his silence and solitude until-...a ripple, like someone else slipping in to the pool unannounced. The Force warned him.

He felt no immediate threat like the kind he that might ring in his head were the intruder actively hunting for him. No, it was more just the sensation that someone was there. Immediately Onley hunkered, a predator at his core, hunting something he could not yet see. He preferred to ask questions first and shoot if necessary - not out of some pacifist belief system, but merely because he liked to learn before he destroyed something.

“Hello?” he called, though he was hidden within the tall ruins of the old temple.

[member="Auron Song"]​