Private Learn Something

[Arris Windrun]

CORUSCANT
INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT
Acier Moonbound
​

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The monotonous march of industrial machinery was as common an ambiance here as songbirds in spring on Talus. Or, so she was told. Arris had seldom left the slums where she was raised until fate took her from that world altogether.

It was time, the cyborg felt, to finally teach her apprentice something.

But the idea daunted her... Was Arris Windrun a teacher? Had she taught anyone? Anything at all? She tried to teach Nilira Vornix how to shockbox - a first lesson that turned into a lecture, which in itself became a heartfelt argument, with Arris on the losing side. She tried to teach Kirie how to stand up for herself, but that lesson started with a beanbag round straight to the chest, and had it helped her? The last time Arris saw her, Kirie was punished and collared. In better spirits than she would've thought, but all the Triumvir could offer was a walk and a cigarette.

So, when it came to teaching her own apprentice, doubts began to swirl within her mind.

The cyborg invited him to find her in The Works, at the heart of an energy yard which powered what few factories remained. She knelt in meditation, at the center of charged pylons, where tendrils like lightning stretched across the distances between them, thundering and crackling. It was... surprisingly peaceful. Extremely lethal.

Just as Neriah activated the final pylon, a tendril of electric energy danced forth and made contact with her chest. It immediately seared and blew open her synthflesh, striking the thin armor plates underneath and dissipating deeper into the body.

A good place to be. A place to get stronger. Hell, the thought drew a smile. She really was starting to think like a Sith - chasing death and danger just to raise the bar.

Her head tilted slightly, turning an ear towards the sound of footsteps approaching from behind her.

"Took you long enough," she teased.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Industrial District

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

The thrum of machinery beneath the floor. The heat bleeding through old metal. The constant industrial noise layered so deeply into the sector it stopped sounding like noise at all after a while. It all reminded him too much of the Vergeworks.

The deeper sectors specifically, where infrastructure got old enough that people stopped trusting the walls completely. Places where everybody instinctively watched where they stepped because one bad conduit or overloaded line could kill you faster than any gangster could. Honestly, it felt more familiar than most of the underworld ever had.

As he moved deeper into The Works, his eyes tracked the environment automatically. Elevated walkways, fault points, blind spots, conduction paths. The charged pylons ahead spat violent arcs of electricity between one another hard enough to bleach the yard white-blue for a split second before darkness settled back in. Of course Arris picked this place.

Ace stepped into the yard itself and finally spotted her near the center. Then slowed slightly. She was... meditating. That actually caught him off guard. Not because he thought she lacked discipline. But meditation implied a kind of stillness he'd never associated with her before. Seeing her kneeling calmly in the middle of enough unstable energy to erase somebody from existence in under a second felt strangely contradictory.

Though maybe it wasn't. Maybe this was her version of calm.

"Took you long enough," she teased.

Ace stopped near the outer edge of the pylons, eyes flicking once toward the lightning cracking overhead before settling back on her.

"You're in a good mood." The observation came flatly.

Another violent arc snapped across the yard. His gaze drifted around the sector again before returning to her.

"Guessing the usual spots weren't fatal enough for you?"

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

Arris grinned at his question and slowly rose to her feet, then turned to face him. Her arms were spread, somewhere between a shrug and a wide gesture.

"Haven't you heard?" They dropped to her side. The same line she fed Vestra during their final showdown. "I'm unkillable."

More and more, that thought was starting to feel true. The axiom of Arris Windrun. Absent her attire - cropped muscle shirt, slacks - were the holsters on her gunbelt. No revolvers today.

She looked to where he stood, eyes drifting across the space between them. "You uh... Gotta stand so far?" She raised her voice, the final syllable deafened by another snap of electricity.

The cyborg walked a clear path to close the distance between them. Another tendril ripped outward, impossibly arching around her as if even the lethality of nature avoided her. Of course, the Force stretched outward from her, touching everything around them. The pylons, the wiring, even the not-so-nearby factory that churned out heavy industry. The product of her meditation.

She finally stopped half her body's length away from him, placing a hand on each hip. Her grin widened, and there was an unusual fire in her eyes. Of course, inside her chest, that heart pounded with anxiety. Her doubts hadn't vanished at all; she just pushed past them.

One hand left her hip - the arm stretched outward, palm open. "Give me your arm. The metal one."

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Industrial District

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Unkillable. Ace rolled the word around quietly in his head as he watched her rise to her feet. Arris said it like fact now, maybe that was inevitable after surviving as much as she had.

A dry scoff left him quietly. "Guess you would think that. You're mostly droid."

His delivery was plain, very matter of fact. Still, the thought lingered for another second afterward. Metal endured longer than flesh did. That much was true. But he'd spent his whole life around scrapyards and industrial sectors. Everything broke eventually. Didn't matter how expensive it was, how advanced it looked, or how indestructible people claimed it to be.

Machines lasted right up until they didn't. Not that he was worried about Arris specifically. It was just math.

"You uh... Gotta stand so far?"

Ace's eyes slowly drifted around the energy yard again before returning to her with a faint lift of his brow that practically asked seriously? Lightning cracked violently overhead. The entire place looked one bad mood away from detonating. Arris, apparently, either forgot or didn't care that unlike her, Ace was still mostly flesh and bone. Minus one forearm.

Though that distinction stopped mattering when she closed the distance herself anyway. Ace stayed still as she approached, though his attention sharpened slightly now that she was closer. He took a brief moment to actually look at her properly. The grin, the energy in her eyes, the strange excitement underneath it all.

And beneath that? He sensed anxiety. It was subtle, buried so deep that most people probably would've missed it. That alone made this entire interaction feel off balance. Arris wasn't uncertain very often.

One of her hands extended outward and she asked for his arm. The metal one. Quiet settled for a moment and Ace looked down briefly at the offered hand before his eyes returned to hers again.

There was hesitation there this time, although it was small and controlled. The memory surfaced immediately: corrupted circuitry, mechu-deru interfering with his prosthetic during their fight on Coruscant. Part of him immediately assumed this was some kind of setup. Maybe not hostile exactly, but dangerous in the way Arris tended to define the word.

His jaw shifted faintly as he weighed it. Then, finally, he reached up and handed her the prosthetic arm. If she tried something, he'd deal with it.

"Are you going to do that thing again?"

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

"I'm not a droid," she replied calmly. Her grin faded. "That comparison harms everyone with a prosthesis - yourself included... and not to mention, what does such a comparison say about droids?" Difficult to say how serious she was.

Arris took his arm as soon as it was offered. A quick snatch, but gentle, without urgency. Her eyes flicked up to meet his as soon as the question was asked. Her expression softened, and she answered with a shake of her head. Her eyes returned to his arm, and she placed her other hand over it, fingers tracing the beskar.

Metal to metal. But in a flash, something changed. The Force extended from her touch and into the arm. The neural link was impressive, nearly real-time, but it paled in comparison to the real thing. Cybernetics had come a long way, but no matter what, they couldn't exactly replicate the organic experience... until now, in a way, when that connection caused the link between machine and nerve to synchronize 1:1.

The surface, despite remaining hard and metal, would awaken like flesh, rejoining the Force. And the presence of Arris Windrun touched that connection, too. But it wasn't so invasive. She wasn't trying to read his thoughts or influence the way he felt, even if she could do such a thing.

When she finally let go of his arm, the connection ceased instantly. She took a step back, eyes drifting from his arm back to meet his gaze, and her arms folded over her chest.

Arris said nothing. She wanted his reaction to be plain, knowing how well he hid such things; it was probably the only way she wouldn't miss the subtle details.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Industrial District

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace didn't respond to her correction, but the words lingered longer than he expected them to. The prosthetic had never really become normal to him, not fully. Practical and functional, yes. It was maintained well enough that he rarely even thought about the mechanics of it anymore.

But underneath all of that sat something harder to name. Loss. The lingering feeling that something had been taken from him and replaced with an approximation.

And somewhere beneath even that sat the quieter feeling he almost never touched directly. Inadequacy. The awareness that despite how well he adapted, despite how naturally he used it now, part of him still instinctively knew it wasn't truly his.

Arris took the arm quickly, though not roughly. The softening of her expression after his question gave him pause almost immediately. Then the slight shake of her head followed and the confusion only deepened.

It didn't fit. Not because Arris was incapable of restraint or subtlety, but because softness from her always felt translated through strange angles. Distorted somehow. Like she was speaking a language she understood conceptually but didn't use often enough to be fluent in it. For a brief second, Ace genuinely questioned whether he was even reading the situation correctly.

Then she touched the arm, and immediately something changed. Ace blinked hard and his breath caught slightly before he could stop it.

The shift ran deeper than circuitry or sensation. Since losing the arm, there had always been a separation there no matter how advanced the prosthetic was. A disconnect between machine and body. Between body and Force. The neural link compensated well enough to make movement natural, but the Force still flowed around the absence differently. Like water adjusting around a stone in a river

But now... the prosthetic awakened beneath her touch. Not flesh. The beskar plating remained hard and the mechanics unchanged, but the separation vanished anyway. For one brief impossible moment, the disconnect dissolved and the Force flowed through the limb the same way it flowed through the rest of him.

Whole. Or at least something close enough to make the difference hurt.

Then she let go. And instantly the separation returned. Subtle compared to before now that he'd felt the contrast. Ace instinctively pulled the arm closer toward himself. His other gloved hand ran slowly across the plating while his eyes studied the prosthetic in silence. His expression never fully changed, still focused and controlled.

But behind his dark eyes, something flickered briefly. Relief. The quiet stretched between them for a moment before Ace finally rolled the sleeve back down over the prosthetic and pulled the glove back into place. When he looked back at her, the wall had already settled into place again across his expression.

"What was that?"

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

She absorbed his reaction with quiet fascination. Her soft expression had remained unchanged.

"How I feel," she answered.

It was her gift, always had been, even before the incident that changed her life forever. It gave her a wicked edge that set her apart from the rest, whether it was in crime or shockboxing. Maybe that's why she always had a compulsion to keep replacing bits and pieces. The implants and the cybernetics always felt more right to her.

Many force-sensitives went through life with something or another that made them different, unique. Wasn't always pretty. But in her case, beyond the heightened senses and reflexes, it was that. She was a technopath. Machines always spoke to her in a way that felt... natural. Easily passed off as a quirk or a blessing, whatever people wanted to call it.

But with the Force... with training and awareness... Arris was able to extend that reach beyond her cybernetics, into anything that was a machine, really. Anything mechanical.

Of course, she knew her answer wasn't enough. 'There has to be more to it,' she imagined him thinking.

"Technopathy, mechu-deru, whatever you wanna call it... I wanna pass that along, if I can. To you."

When the words left her mouth, Arris glanced down - her anxiety flared up. This is what she was afraid of. If I can. The words haunted her as soon as she said them.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Industrial District

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace turned the answer over quietly in his head, eyes still fixed on her. At first it sounded vague, almost evasive, but the more he thought about it, the more the meaning started settling into place beneath the wording itself.

For Arris, the machine wasn't something external she controlled. It was integrated so completely into her sense of self that there wasn't really a distinction anymore between body, circuitry, and the way the Force moved through either of them. The prosthetics, the implants, the wiring beneath the skin... none of it felt disconnected to her because she didn't perceive it as disconnected. It was all just her.

Then she elaborated further. Technopathy, that word he understood immediately. Mechu-deru, though, was unfamiliar. But his attention drifted less toward the terminology and more toward her instead.

Arris's hesitation hidden inside if I can, the glance downward, her subtle flare of anxiety. Ace watched it all quietly, putting the pieces together faster than she probably expected him to.

So that was it. Fear she might fail? The realization sat oddly with him for a second, but then he looked down briefly at the gloved prosthetic before lifting his eyes back toward her again.

"Show me." The response came without hesitation now. "I'm a fast study."

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

Arris cracked a nervous smile. "Feels kinda like asking me to show you how to blink or breathe," she said.

But she intended to try anyway. "Well..."

There was a flash and a crackle, another energy tendril stretching across the space. She looked at the Pylons, then scanned across the horizon at the factory. All around them - machines. She looked back at him.

"Think about the moments you first felt the Force. Remember what that was like. Bring yourself back to the beginning."

If Ace could get the hang of that, then maybe her next step would be more helpful.

"You need to reach out - realize how big, and how small everything else is. The pylons aren't just one thing. There's a whole heap of moving parts inside them. Each serves a purpose. But all those parts work together; they talk to... or manipulate each other. Their condition matters as much as their purpose, too. Maintenance... quality... complexity."

The cyborg sighed. She wasn't sure where she was going with this anymore. It was easier to do than to talk about.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Industrial District

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

The nervous smile looked wrong on her, unfamiliar enough that Ace instinctively cocked an eyebrow at it before the expression disappeared again behind his usual composure.

Still, he understood what she meant. How did somebody explain something that had always existed naturally to them? Trying to describe instinct probably would feel like explaining how to breathe.

Another violent crack split the yard. Ace's eyes flicked briefly toward the pylons as energy snapped across the space before his attention settled back onto Arris again. Then she told him to remember the first time he felt the Force.

That part was harder. He'd been feeling it his entire life without realizing what it was. His instincts, timing, how danger sometimes brushed against him half a second before it happened.

But then, slowly, his thoughts drifted back toward Denon. The Lower Spire, the old datapad, sitting alone in the dark with the holocron open in front of him while Khados' voice echoed through the apartment.

"The Force is not muscle, it is motion. Connection. Feeling."

Ace remembered sitting there in silence trying to follow directions he barely comprehended, until eventually something shifted. The city. Denon had stopped feeling like background noise. The traffic, the machinery, the endless movement between towers and lower lanes. None of it had felt random anymore. There'd been structure underneath it all. A current running through the chaos he hadn't noticed before.

Like the entire planet was moving together somehow and he'd finally gone still long enough to notice it.

Ace stood quietly in the Works as the memory resurfaced fully. Then Arris kept talking.

"You need to reach out - realize how big, and how small everything else is. The pylons aren't just one thing. There's a whole heap of moving parts inside them. Each serves a purpose. But all those parts work together; they talk to... or manipulate each other. Their condition matters as much as their purpose, too. Maintenance... quality... complexity."

His eyes slowly lifted toward the structures around them again, and instinctively, another memory surfaced alongside Denon.

Mira standing over his shoulder back on Bonadan. Explaining power flow, systems, and how machines weren't singular objects but conversations between moving parts. One component affecting another, maintenance mattering as much as construction, tiny failures spreading outward into larger ones.

The two ideas touched each other. The Force, mechanics, connection. Ace slowly closed his eyes and reached outward.

The hum of the machinery deepened around him. The pylons no longer felt singular either. He could almost sense the layers beneath them now. Current moving through conduits, pressure cycling through generators. Heat, motion, and thousands of tiny interactions all speaking to one another simultaneously to create something larger.

Ace's brow tightened slightly.

"I feel... something."

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

'I feel... something.'

That statement stole her attention. She was a little surprised, hopeful even. Lightning continued to dance between the pylons, from one to the next. There was a pattern there, but at first glance it might appear random. There wasn't repetition - a single path followed.

"Listen to the pylons," she said softly. "Really pay attention to them."

Arris herself took a deep breath and focused based on her surroundings through the Force. Then, she turned her head towards one pylon in particular and pointed at it.

"I want to know when the energy will reach that one. Before it happens."

A test.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Industrial District

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace's eyes opened, shifting toward the pylons again as Arris spoke. The arcs of electricity continued lashing through the yard in violent flashes, at first glance the movement looked chaotic.

She told him to listen to the pylons, pointing to one in particular. Ace let out a slow breath through his nose and closed his eyes again. The hum of the Works settled around him almost immediately now that he knew what to reach for. The generators beneath the floor. The vibration inside the conduits. The constant transfer of current through aging infrastructure. He could feel the systems layered across one another now, though only faintly.

At first, instinct immediately tried to approach the problem mechanically. Track the visible arcs, predict the sequence, find repetition. Somewhere inside his head he could almost hear Mira telling him not to overcomplicate circuitry logic.

But the longer he focused, the faster the pattern slipped away from him, there were too many variables. The energy snapped suddenly toward the pylon Arris indicated and Ace's eyes opened a fraction too late. His jaw shifted faintly. Failure barely registered emotionally before he reset again, this time he wouldn't try to calculate it.

Slowly, Ace stopped chasing the arcs themselves. The electricity was only the result, the movement started earlier than that. Deep inside the grid, pressure shifted through overloaded conduits and rerouted current before the discharge ever manifested visibly. He stopped looking for patterns and started listening for strain, imbalance, and tiny fluctuations rippling outward through the network before release.

The Force moved through it strangely... different from living beings. Sharper, more rigid, but still connected.

Then, he felt something. Not the arc itself, but the intention before it. Ace's eyes snapped toward the marked pylon a split second before the electricity violently cracked across the gap and struck it.

This time, he spoke first. "Now."

The tendril collided against the pylon almost immediately afterward.

Ace stayed still for another second, eyes fixed on the structure before they shifted sideways toward Arris again. He wasn't smug or excited, he was just focused.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound
​

All she could do was wait and watch. Her own mind followed the machinery subconsciously. She heard everything, all the time. Her challenge was - as it has always been - a problem of isolation. To separate the noise from the moment.

When it came time for the tendril to fire towards her pylon, Arris paused. She didn't even look his way, or change her posture, lest she give it away somehow. She needed irrefutable proof, not a clever trick.

The tendril shot, and saw his reaction in his periphery. No time to register failure, it seemed, but her heart did not sink. If anything, she was pleased that he took this exercise seriously, given there was very little of Windrun that he respected... at least, that's how she felt.

His attention snapped to the pylon right when the surge built up. She grinned, sensing that he knew, in what precious fractions of a second they were allowed to catch it. His mouth moved just before, and by the time he finished speaking, the electricity had struck and run down the machinery.

"Good."

She placed a hand on each hip. "Very good. Good shit."

Arris was happy. Excited even. In Acier's success, she found vindication. Her fear of failing as a teacher lessened in that very moment; she picked her confidence right back up.

"That's the start of it, anyway." She said. "Try to do stuff like this whenever you get a chance. Keep that part of you open. Might give ya a nasty headache, might lose some sleep, but it's the only way this works. In a fight, you won't have the luxury of patience to figure things out. Feeling, instinct... They'll keep up with you."

She wished she were a more eloquent speaker in these moments.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Industrial District

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace watched her quietly as she spoke. The excitement looked strange on Arris, and that alone held his attention longer than the lesson itself for a moment. Arris looked relieved as much as pleased.

His gaze drifted briefly toward the pylons again as she continued explaining. Keep practicing. Keep that part of himself open. Instinct over hesitation.

Ace nodded once, this was familiar territory. Most of the things he was actually good at had started this way. Somebody showing him the foundation of something, then leaving him alone long enough to break it apart and rebuild it into something that fit him specifically. Mechanics. Fighting. The Force itself.

Truthfully, Arris' way of teaching probably worked better for him than something cleaner or more academic would've. She taught through sensation more than explanation. Demonstration instead of lectures. Pressure. Immersion. Instinctive metaphors rather than strict structure. A more traditional teacher probably would've lost his attention faster.

"Thanks."

The word left him simply with no excessive weight placed onto it. Then Ace turned away slightly, eyes lifting toward the endless industrial skyline surrounding the Works.

"I learn better this way. Unorthodox."

The lightning cracked again overhead and silence settled briefly afterward before Ace spoke again.

"...Why are you acting weird?"

He still didn't look back at her when he said it.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

Arris snickered at his question. It wasn't what he expected him to say next, if she expected him to say anything at all. Usually, he never asked, unless it was a productive question - like he was always trying to get to the bottom of his tasks, or establish mission parameters. This was... personal, and more strangely, he initiated it.

"What do ya mean?" She asked dryly.

It was a genuine question, even if she was at least a little aware.

"Turn around." While she waited for him to elaborate, Arris reached out again, asking for his arm. This time it was only the gesture. No words.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant - Industrial District

Equipment:
Apprentice Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace let out a quiet breath through his nose at her response. Of course she was going to make him elaborate. That was the problem with asking personal questions around people like Arris. The second the conversation stopped being practical, suddenly there were layers to navigate, implications to explain, emotions to define. Exhausting.

His eyes drifted briefly toward the factory skyline again before returning somewhere vaguely in her direction.

"You know what I mean."

He didn't explain further than that. Truthfully, he figured if she stopped for more than five seconds and actually thought about the last twenty minutes, she'd realize she'd been acting differently enough for even him to notice.

Then she told him to turn around. Ace hesitated for only a second this time before doing it. The suspicion from earlier had dulled somewhat now, replaced more by curiosity than wariness. He rolled the sleeve back again and removed the glove before handing the prosthetic arm back toward her without looking directly at her.

This time, he wanted to see where she was going with it. Or more specifically, what exactly she intended to teach him next.

Arris Windrun​