Of a Curious Meeting at the Crossroads [OPEN]

[Jenson Koraz]

[member="Kresslyn Cantor"] [member="Laura"] [member="Hana Celeste"] [member="Boo Chiyo"]
OOC: This is Atiniir alt

When the Silver Jedi Temple alarms sounded, Jenson Koraz was not at the Temple. He was away, deep in the forests of Kashyyyk, sitting cross-legged on a thick tree branch, his eyes closed, deep in meditation. Jenson was a Jedi of the intellectual sort; he often spent hours away from the Temple, lost in his thoughts, communing with the Living Force. Kashyyyk was the perfect place for a Jedi such as him, as filled as it was with life, hope, and light. It was so perfect, in fact, that Jenson had not left the planet for several years, ever since his last off-world mission to a war-torn planet from which he had rescued a desperate refugee. He'd simply lost himself in the trees and in the beasts, in the rhythms and patterns of nature.

This day, however, something happened that he did not expect. Something he did not foresee. Something he did not appreciate. Jenson Koraz, Padawan of the Silver Jedi Order, was distracted. A flare of something-fear, rage, frustration, he could not specify-broke the silence of the forest and shook Jenson out of his meditation. His eyes flew open and he extended the tendrils of his Force senses, searching for the source of the flare. When it pointed like a cantina sign towards the Temple, Jenson knew something was wrong.

As the various Mandalorians made their sneaky and not-so sneaky approaches to the Temple, triggering the security systems and sending the Rangers to their battle stations, Jenson began speeding back, covering distance faster than a starving howlrunner, his mid set and his hand resting comfortably on his lightsaber. Jenson did not like conflict, having seen far too much of it in the past, but this was a circumstance in which conflict was very necessary.

His home was under attack, and Jenson was going to defend it.

When he finally reached the Temple, Jenson joined the squads of Rangers headed for the upper levels. He heard the sounds of explosions and blaster fire, and his heart began to race. The first thing he saw when he finally reached the source of the alarms was a strange girl being held at saber point by one of the Temple Guards.

"KILL HER! KILL HER NOW! SHE'S TOO DANGEROUS, YOU MUST COMPLETE THE JOB, LAURA HAS BEEN SEE-"

Jenson's heart leaped a barricade and continued to race on the other side. This wasn't just some random attack, someone was being hunted. Someone here; someone under the protection of the Silver Jedi.

"Get some cuffs on this one, now!" yelled the Temple Guard to the squad of Rangers that had accompanied Jenson, "Padawan, there are two hostiles somewhere up ahead, Rangers already on site. Help them!"

"Yes Master!" yelled Jenson as a Ranger from his squad ducked aside to slap a pair of cuffs on the curled-up girl. He ran ahead, pulling to a sudden stop on a very confusing situation. A single hunter, dressed in Mandalorian armor, was standing over a girl who Jenson recognized as having come to the Temple some time ago. He did not know her personally, but her Force-signature was familiar, and that was enough for him. A squad of Rangers was recovering from some unforseen event, though Jenson had a feeling it had somethind to do with the massive hole in the wall he could barely make out in his peripheral vision. [member="Tulan Kor"], one of the Ranger commanders, was down another hall, another squad of Rangers running up from his direction.

As Jenson took in the situation, the various gathered Rangers, fifteen or so in all, cocked their blaster rifles at the single lone hunter left in the hallway. Jenson had no idea what had happened to the other hostile, but he sure wasn't here anymore. Drawing his lightsaber, Jenson activated the shimmering blue blade and assumed a Soresu defensive stance.

"Mandalorian," he said, "I don't know why you're here, or what your intentions are, but I must insist you power down all your weapons and submit to arrest. Immediately."

 

[Gryylarc]

EDGE OF SILVER REST
BENCH BY A PATH

"Snuh-huh-whuh-" He apnea-snorted his way awake, jolted by distant weapons fire. Stiff, sore, he felt every one of his centuries.

Gryylarc the silverback, madclaw, Sith marauder, had drifted off.

On the plus side, the Sith sorcery that hid his Force presence wasn't dependent on his focus; it wasn't even his spell. The Elder had set it up before sending Gryylarc back to Kashyyyk. So far as anyone here was concerned, Gryylarc was just another Wookiee, an old one who'd fallen asleep while sitting on a bench.

A good deal of chaos was unfolding. At one level, Gryylarc very much wanted to wade in. At another level, though, maybe now was a good time to just be an old Wookiee on a bench.

 

[Zak Dymo]

He didn't need to be Force Sensitive to sense the confusion and chaos.

Emerging from the hangar bay, he saw a commotion that seemed to be unfolding. Temple guards had their lightsabers out, and it looked like the Antarian Rangers were even backing them up.

Granted, Boo hadn't been to Kashyyyk in about the last eight years but damn. Just what kind of high alert were the Silver Jedi on these days that security response time was that quick?

...wait, hadn't he heard something about an attack on Kashyyyk lately? Maybe?

To be honest, he supposed that he'd noticed tensions were running high, but he'd ignored it. He had his own anxieties about being here. He just wanted to pack up the bacta and kolto, and then haul ass back to Coruscant before a Heavenshield rolled through.

Sensing the boy relax, the amphistaff uncoiled along the boy's arm, traveling up to his shoulder and then draping across him like a shawl or scarf. The biot's head was raised up, staring around with its black eyes, as if looking for another vole to chase.

 

[Laura]

More words flitted back and forth, and still Laura did not understand. She was beginning to panic, and as she began to lose her grip on the situation, her grip on herself, the world began to blur around the edges. Trapped between the two warriors, Laura flinched and recoiled as one of the armoured figures raised his arm, and an instant later she felt a sharp jab as a long needle buried itself just above her breast, bringing with it a sudden warmth, like that of a soft blanket, a bed of leaves, or a spring in the summertime.

A moment later, the man spun and fired down the corridor, the rocket screaming past and detonating with a deafening crash, filling that half of the corridor with dust and tangled metal. Ashen-faced, she watched incoherently as the man's jump pack blazed with life once more and he hurtled away into the dim. The din would have terrified her, had it not been for the drug already flooding her system, further inhibiting her already dull senses, rocking her gently into a narcotic sleep. Vaguely, she realised she'd lost sight of the other Mandalorian too. Perhaps they'd been in cahoots all along. Maybe now that they'd poisoned her, there was no need to stick around.

Because that's what this was, right? It had to be. Maybe that was for the best. After all, she was slowly fading away as it was. Wouldn't it be for the best if she just succumbed now? Really, it would have been better if she had simply died on Arkania like everyone else. The plague had taken everything for which she cared after all. All of this extra stuff seemed like a cruel joke, especially considering she stood to lose that too.

The drug continued to work, and the sounds of fighting down the hall failed to make an impression on her. Laura fought for consciousness.

That didn't really seem fair to her. It was not the first time she had thought that, in fact, it was starting to become something of a theme for her existence, but in that moment she felt an incredible surge of frustration and anger at the universe, the Galaxy, and even the Jedi who could do nothing to help her. She felt her vision beginning to clear, the scene beginning to sharpen, and that only angered her further, something stirred in her belly, a strange rising heat that she had felt before.

Make up your mind!

She was rising to her feet, casting off the grogginess of the drug like a dog shakes off water. Inside herself, she felt the great reservoir of power once again, for the first time since she had revived herself on Arkania. It felt somehow less restrained, ready to spring, unstable.

Sucking in a breath, she was filled the wild urge to let the power out, to unleash it, and her frustrations, on everyone and everything around her. She desperately wanted to relent, to relinquish her control, but Laura allowed herself a few moments to explore the sensation. She felt connected to everything around her, and she discovered with some satisfaction she could even keenly sense the presence of those around her, feel their auras and their temperaments, know their condition.

Was this the Force? No wonder the Jedi guarded it so jealously. This was amazing, it was a whole new way of being. Laura felt entirely remade.

Grinning, wild-eyed, she let it all out, and in that instant everything seemed to collapse.

Laura was falling, falling through a void that had opened beneath her and swallowed her whole. The darkness, the rushing wind, dark rock whipping past her. She was on a beach, a great wave looming above, waiting to crash down. She was back in the hospital, the gown trailing past her legs, running like water into a groaning drain in which she crouched, huddled over a mass of bubbling flesh-

Then nothing.

She felt so empty, the energy that had been popping and fizzing inside her moments before was gone, replaced by a yawning, aching chasm of pure nothing. It felt as if it were eating her from inside, unlike anything she had ever felt before. In desperation, she instinctively reached out with ethereal hands, and greedily she took what she could, bluntly and recklessly draining power from those around her. She felt them react, felt the pieces of them leave their bodies, she even felt one of the wounded dying as she took from him the last vestiges of his life.

Finally, it ended, and Laura found herself on her knees in the hallway as normalcy returned to her. Shaking, she groaned and sat up, her fingertips tingling, and waited for whatever came next.

[member="Boo Chiyo"] | [member="Gryylarc"] | [member="Jenson Koraz"] | [member="Kresslyn Cantor"] | [member="Atiniir Starrider"] | [member="Tulan Kor"]​

​

 

[Jenson Koraz]

[member="Laura"] [member="Boo Chiyo"] [member="Gryylarc"]

Everything happened so fast, it was almost like it was moving in slow motion. When he'd arrived, Jenson had thought the girl was down. She had been on the floor, after all, and the slight weakening of her signature in the Force had indicated some kind of drug or other toxin-induced sleep. He'd been preparing to send his men to apprehend the Mandalorian when suddenly he felt a massive surge of Force energy. Attuned as he was to the Living Force, Jenson could sense life energy, and the absence thereof, with impressive skill. What he was sensing now was wrong, unbalanced; deadly.

"Take cover!" he yelled to the Rangers, throwing up a Force shield to protect as many as he could. Jenson's skills had increased greatly since the last time he had been in combat, but he had had little practical practice, and he hoped what he did know would not fail him now. When the blast of Force energy hit, Jenson barely held the shield in place. He felt it like a crashing wave, swamping his defenses and pounding against his barrier. At first he thought his shield might just barely hold; then he felt death.

The young Jedi screamed as voices, so many voices, cried out in terror as their life force was suddenly stripped from their body. The tearing of the Living Force was like a knife in his heart, and it wasn't long before his shield faltered and failed. Then the pain was real, as he felt the life force being pulled from his body like the claws of a great beast. His vision blurred, its edges darkening, but Jenson didn't notice. He simply screamed, and wished for death.

Then the pain was gone. His vision cleared, and Jenson felt his body recovering as his sturdy Sorian biology kicked into gear. He was on the ground, lightsaber cast aside, staring up at the ceiling. He could still feel the death, and the pain, but his own body was struggling back to life. As he lay in silence, a masked face appeared above him.

"Padawan!" the voice of a Temple Guard yelled, "Padawan Koraz, are you all right!?" Jenson barely managed to nod as strong hands lifted him to a sitting position. Jenson looked around, his heart sinking like a rock in the ocean. Out of the fifteen Rangers that had been prepared to serve, only the four or so that had been behind his short-lived shield were still showing any semblance of life. The rest were nothing but corpses, their eyes empty, glassy, and staring.

At the center of it all knelt the girl.

"She..." Jenson managed to choke, "She did this."

 

[Gryylarc]

[member="Jenson Koraz"] [member="Laura"]

Gryylarc sat bolt upright on the bench, all trace of drowsiness washed away by a tide of adrenaline. Life forces were being drained, stripped away. If you'd ever tasted Force Drain, been on the receiving end, you never forgot it. It was one of the Elder's favorite techniques, and Gryylarc had his reservations about bringing the Elder a new friend who had similar skills.

Because this was obviously what the Elder had meant. This had to be the human child, the target of the bounty. A lifestealer. No wonder she'd survived the plague or plagues or whatever the Elder had said.

Brylark walking stick in hand, Gryylarc hustled toward the swelling disturbance in as straight a line as possible. It peaked, then began to fade just as the ageing Wookiee dug his glossy black claws into a fiberplast wall and ripped it apart. Behind the wall were two young humans or close enough, a quartet of incapacitated troopers, and another dozen or so dead ones.

Gryylarc focused on the girl and toggled a small module at his belt.

"HRRYRRRRWARRGH."

"Come with me if you want to live," the belt module said.