Secrets In The Dark

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Vrak wasn't perfect. He'd trained for half of his life to use a lightsaber, the other half to use the force, but he couldn't stand against this many people, even if only one of them was a Jedi. Deflecting bolt after bolt, protecting himself, moving so that he didn't fall, all of it simply required too much concentration.

When the Jedi stepped in to strike he hardly even noticed her.

The bright yellow blade went slashing towards his back, and by the time he noticed it's sound it was already too late. He tried to turn to catch it, but as he did a bolt caught him in the side. The burn singed against his ribs and blackened his skin, pain stinging through him. His fingers unfurled from around his lightsaber, his hand dropping the weapon just as he moved to block. Jamie's lightsaber came falling down onto his shoulder, cutting into him as he turned and causing another hiss of agony.

The Blaster bolts stopped, for half a second Vrak looked as though he were about to strike Jamie, and then he fell.

With a rather sudden and comical thud Vrak landed on the floor.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

The guards rushed forward, but Jamie held up a hand to halt them. For a second she simply stared down at the man, glaring at him with an accusatory glare. She was furious that he simply refused to acknowledge her. That he would rather risk death than to simply speak. She hadn't come there to kill him, or arrest him, or whatever else he likely had going through that big stupid head of his. The woman turned to the men, their blasters still very pointed towards Vrak.

"One of you go and fetch some medical supplies. The others stay here." Injured or not, she wasn't about to leave herself alone with this man. Her thumb released the activator, and she replaced the blade on her hip before kneeling beside Vrak.

"Do you want to talk now?"

Her voice was surprisingly calm, despite the small coughing fit that followed and the bit of blood running from the scrapes on her arms and legs from the abuse she'd endured.

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

His lightsaber had rolled half-way across the hall. For a brief moment he considered trying to use the force to call it to him and impale the woman, but he knew that the soldiers would likely shoot him before he even had a chance to ignite the weapon. A frown settled on his lips as he glanced towards the girl, then towards the soldiers. This was...this was embarrassing. If anyone on Athiss ever learned of this he would be entirely humiliated.

His fingers tightened, on hand moving to the wound on his side. "No."

Came his simple, and rather truthful answer. Vrak obviously didn't really have much of a choice. He had three blasters pointed at him and the girl still had her curious lightsaber. She should have sliced him in half, instead she had stunned him however, just brought him to the ground.

"You could have killed me." He said the words with a sneer, almost like an insult.

As if he were disgusted with her behavior.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

She chose to ignore his lack of desire to speak, and instead carried on all the same. His words he did offer were sharp, obviously intending to insinuate something likely along the lines of her being weak for not killing him. Nothing she hadn't heard before though. In fact, more often than not it was a much more vindicating victory when they were angry for not being killed, as stupid as that was.

"Could have. Yes. Still could." She reminded him with a coy wink. "But won't." She patted his shoulder twice, before sitting beside him. All the same she was still incredibly curious about him. It wasn't like his kind was common place in the galaxy. In fact she had only heard of his species very recently. Until then she'd always assumed Sith were simply the opposite of Jedi. Force users that were assigned that title.

"Want to tell me why you were so intent on killing me for simply taking photographs?"

They had a few minutes to burn before the other guard returned.

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Pain lanced through his side. A glance spared for the soldiers, then back at Jamie. He had to stall, figure something out. "I didn't want you to alert the soldiers."

It was the simple truth.

He hadn't really been interesting in killing Jamie for any reason other than keeping her quiet. Walking around that corner and finding her there had been as big a surprise to him as it had been to her. Perhaps she thought that he had some sort of plot that revolved around killing her, but...well that simply wasn't true. Vrak simply hadn't wanted the Troopers to come calling because he'd known exactly this situation would happen. An unfortunate fact for him.

"I needed to keep you quiet." He shrugged, hissing in pain as his ribs flared up.

Killing her had simply been the easiest option.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

She blinked. "You wanted me to die because I might have panicked?" Jamie didn't understand this method of thinking. It was alien to her.

"That's an odd outlook to have." That still didn't exactly explain what an incredibly rare type of person in the galaxy was doing there on Prakith, in the citadel, right then and there. "What are you doing here?" That was really the biggest question. Jamie still wasn't quite certain what to do with him past tend to him medically. He was after all, literally Sith. The Alliance would have quite a few questions for him, likely hold him over the magma pits and interrogate him for a few years. Even she didn't know if that was quite the best use of their resources. She questioned the effectiveness of the method. Seemed kind of like torture to her.

"You'd think with how few there are of you lot, you'd be a lot less inclined to rush into death than you are."

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"I was taking the sights of my ancestors." That was a lie. Darth Andeddu wasn't even a Pureblood, he had been a human, but Vrak was banking on the idea that this Jedi was either too ignorant or too uneducated to actually know that.

"Is that wrong?" He continued on. "These ruins are sacred to my kind."

Vrak of course entirely ignored the fact that just a few seconds ago he had blindly attempted to kill her, but he had used this play before the last time he'd talked to a Jedi. It had worked surprisingly well. For some odd reason all Jedi felt this odd sort of guilt for actions they neither had control of, nor actually perpetuated themselves. Vrak couldn't really explain it, but at the very least he could abuse it to try and wiggle out of this situation. That was helpful.

"I was afraid. The Jedi Slaughtered my kind by the billions. I know what the Jedi do to Sith." That was true enough.

Taheera had threatened him with Magma cells, though he had no idea if she had been serious.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie had specifically read about Andeddu before she stepped foot into the citadel. She'd learned of the Malevolence. He was no pureblood, no ancestor of Vrak. At least not in that terminology. She had come to learn that Sith were liars through and through, at least until they were pressed to the very edges of their will. The blonde stood up slowly, shaking her head at the man.

"You're lying to me. Andeddu was not a crimson skinned Sith like yourself." Jamie's tone was very matter of fact. "The Sith have killed just as many Jedi."

She shrugged. "And both sides will kill many more of one another before any kind of peace is ever achieved unless we become the change."

Perhaps his words would have fooled other Jedi, however Jamie took quite an interest in learning of Sith culture, their ruins and artifacts, and their ancestral people. People that Vrak was not delivering the greatest of impressions of in that moment.

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

He smiled. "Perhaps not just as many."

Oh they had killed plenty, he wouldn't argue with that. His people had slaughtered their way across the galaxy on more than one occasion. Not to mention the fact that the culture they had created, the 'Sith' religion had carried out countless genocides and atrocities. He couldn't say that they were blameless in that, he would never do so. Instead he would sit and smile. It seemed that this girl was a little bit better educated than the last Jedi he had encountered.

Pity.

"Peace is a lie." He quoted the Sith code, a small test. His eyes glanced towards the troopers. They seemed rather...tense about the whole situation. Perhaps they knew of his kind as well as she. He frowned for a moment and then looked back up at her.

She seemed incredibly young to hold a command position, surely younger than he was.

This was certainly turning into a far more interesting day than he had originally planned. He had wanted to get into Andeddu's inner sanctuary, he had wanted to see what lies the man had told his subjects, but instead it seemed he would be captured and carted off to the Alliance. He frowned slightly, there had to be a way to escape, a way to lull them enough for him to get out. Vrak frowned, and decided to keep talking, if only to see how the girl would respond.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

She rolled her eyes. "Sure. If you say so. Until there is a definitive method of tallying every death ever caused directly by Sith or Jedi towards the other words are simply he-said, she-said." That wasn't her point, though. She only wanted to remind him that his embarrassing complaint was not well received, nor had it served to sway her guilt from within. Jamie wasn't even born into being a Jedi. She had simply fallen into the role. She could have easily been Sith under the right circumstances, though she would likely still carry herself in the same mindset, simply calling on the corruption of the darkness instead. But that was a debate for another time.

She scoffed when the man recited the Sith code. Like those words held any meaning whatsoever. Jamie didn't even pretend to follow or recite the Jedi code, or codes. There dozens of them anyway.

"You still preach that word vomit to one another?" She said rather accusatory. "Peace is only a lie if tyranny reigns."

That code was nothing but words fed to war mongers doing the bidding of their masters.

Jamie knelt down, picking up the man's crimson saber, examining it before latching it to her hip with her own. "You won't need this right now. Don't want you trying to kill my friends while they see to your injuries."

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

He would try that anyway of course, but she didn't need to know that. The smirk on his face didn't go away even as she scooped up the weapon. Vrak didn't mind her taking it, not for any reason besides the fact that he needed it to fight. His lightsaber didn't mean very much to him, there was no sentiment attached to it, it was just a weapon to be used for killing.

Another failing with the Jedi. They cared too much about their tools. Vrak glanced to the soldiers at the thought. "Of course."

He smiled, that same smug smile.

"The code does not speak of literal peace." At least not the kind between nations. "It speaks of inner peace, the emotional blank that Jedi so often preach about. Conflict, though sometimes constructive, is not always the best means to achieve ones goals."

He would readily admit that. "I was being pedantic."

His tone made it sound as though he were lecturing her.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"The principal is the same." She quipped. "Your code is as tiring as it is old. Nothing more than words to dignify acts of evil."

She rolled her head, from left to right, to try and rid herself of the pain he'd caused. "Like trying to murder me, for example, simply for my existence being a minor inconvenience to you." For that I'm thankful it was me you found, and not someone less prepared or gifted. He would have easily killed someone unarmed, or a single lone guard. He had even done a pretty nasty number on Jamie before he was forced into submission. "However, that being said, you still haven't answered what you were doing here. At least, not without blatantly lying to me. Another Sith specialty." She smiled the fakest smile towards him.

"One of you have restraints?" She asked, her eyes still fixed on Vrak. "Yeah."

One of the guards stepped forward and passed them to her. She knew he could escape them, but it wasn't meant to keep him trapped, but more so to give her a bit more of a moments notice the next time he decided to get all murdery on her. The blonde knelt back down in front of Vrak. "Give me your hands, please."

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"It's more than a minor inconvenience." Vrak pointed out. Conversation was good, they were putting him in restraints, but it would hardly be enough to hold him when he actually decided to break free...or so he hoped. "You're arresting me, and eventually you'll probably kill me."

Again he spoke so matter of fact that it was hard not to believe him.

In an odd way Vrak actually was fairly certain that he would end up getting killed by one Jedi or another. It may not have been the Alliance or someone close to them, but he was almost certain that his eventually end would happen at the end of a Jedi. Oddly enough it was a reflection of what Jamie herself had said, dozens more would die before there was any lasting peace. Though of course, Vrak wasn't really after pace. Not in anyway that she would want.

His hands came up, the metal restraints slapping into place with a loud click.

He frowned for a moment, looking up at the trooper that had given Jamie the manacles to place on his wrists. For a moment he found himself wondering exactly what was under that helmet. "I imagine my reason for being here is similar to yours."

Vrak finally answered.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"Why would I kill you?" She was genuinely curious why he thought she would kill him. "If I wanted to do that, why would I waste my time not killing you with a lightsaber?"

Her nose scrunched, lips pulled back, and her eyes squinted a bit as she shook her head. "As unhappy as it makes me that you would have just thrust that pretty red blade through my chest, I'm not going to kill you." She wagged her finger. "Nor am I going to torture you, or leave it to someone else to do." Jamie figured she needed to extend that offering as well, as he likely assumed she was using some kind of foul word play. "I'm not like you in that respect, or most other Jedi I suppose." She shrugged. "I see no point in killing you. What will it prove?" Other than that he was right, that Jedi and Sith continue to kill one another.

The other guard finally returned with a number of small bacta patches, though looked rather hesitant to either get near the man, or apply them. Instead Jamie held out her hand, still kneeling. Her eyes focused on his for a moment, wiggling her nose. She set the patches down beside her legs, reaching for the hole made by the blaster bolt that struck him earlier.

"I need to either tear this open a bit more, or I have to remove your clothing. Take your pick."

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

He considered her point for a second, but then frowned slightly.

"Perhaps you will not kill me." He glanced towards the Troopers for a moment. "But they would, other Jedi would within half a heartbeat. As soon as you bring me back to the Alliance my clock will begin to slowly count-down."

He held up a hand and made a ticking motion with his finger.

Vrak didn't actually know whether or not the Alliance would kill him. From what Taheera had said they didn't actually execute Sith all that often, usually threw them in 'magma' cells or tossed them in Carbonite, but this was different. Unlike other Sith, Vrak could not be reformed. There had never, never in the history of Purebloods been a single one of his kind that had turned to the lightside, and for good reason. They were born with the darkside in them, it sustained them, fed them, allowed them to never sleep. Corruption poured through their veins as readily as blood. Turning him was impossible, and thus keeping him alive was pointless.

The Sith Acolyte shifted slightly as he saw the bacta patches knowing that the pain in his side would at the very least get some relief soon. The force allowed him to ignore the wound, but that took more effort than he would have liked to expend. "Perhaps even your own Master will execute me."

It was a probing statement.

"Removing any clothing while wearing restraints is rather difficult, perhaps you could take them off?" He asked with a smirk.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

The slew of words did not change her expression.

"I'm sure they would. You guys would kill him, right?" She asked, turning to the guards. They all gave a quiet affirmative nod. "See? Look at that. You're right. They would kill you. But they won't."

She smiled back to Vrak. "As for other Jedi? You're probably right. They might very well kill you. Though they would have done it during that little scuffle, and when I had you behind your back. That would have been it."

Her blue eyes rolled back, finding almost no amusement from the man's suggestion. Instead she reached forward with her hands, taking each side of the fabric and tearing it a bit more so that she could fit her hands in to apply the bacta. "There." She said, returning the smirk. "Now, who said I was taking you back to the alliance, either? I never said anything about that. And also," She tapped him on the forehead. "My master wouldn't kill you either. So let's not make assumptions, shall we? Though." Jamie spoke as she peeled away the bacta patch and began to apply it to his skin, slipping her hands between the torn garment to press it against his skin. "You would probably find yourself dangling above some really hot magma in a cage for a bit if it were her choice."

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"How barbaric." Vrak said as he looked at the girl, watching her get just a bit closer.

The bacta patch pressed against his skin felt...well like instant relief. Bacta was one of the few things that was imported to Athiss, if only because of it's miraculous healing properties were simply too valuable to ignore. Once upon a time the Council had tried to deny any sort of imports from the greater galaxy, but as they had aged they found that Purebloods...medical practices were simply lacking. The darkside did not heal, not really anyway, it just sustained.

Thus as the population aged, so their minds opened to more medical technologies.

"Sounds practically like torture." He winced slightly as Jamie pressed the patch a bit against her skin. "I'd never thought the Jedi would condone such things."

That was a lie of course, but really just a distraction.

As Jamie leaned into him further to make sure the edge of the patch stuck to his skin, Vrak moved. It was likely foolish given the troopers just besides them, but at this point he really didn't have much of a choice. His arms snapped up and forward like vipers, retracting quickly as he sought to grab Jamie and pull her towards himself, wrapping the chain of the manacles right around her throat.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"Rehabilitation." She said, wagging her finger again.

Well. She knew he would try and escape, but she didn't quite see that coming. At least not in the very moment she applied the bacta to the man's skin.

He was a persistent one.

Muffled shrieks came as he pulled her into his chest, the cold durasteel shackles finding their way around her neck. Her hands pressed against him, searching for the injured spot as he tightened his grip on her. It took her a few seconds of struggling, but she eventually found the hole in his shirt, thrusting her hands inside to quickly pull away the patch and dig her fingernails fiercely into his wound in an attempt to dissuade him from further choking her.

The guards all raised their blasters, but it was hardly a shot they could take without possibly hitting the Jedi.

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Vrak let out a loud hiss as her fingers dug into his wound. Blood would cover her palm almost immediately, but the pain was dulled by a sense of sheer determination that he felt. Perhaps the Jedi wouldn't kill him, perhaps they would let him live on in a cell for the rest of his life, but that could be centuries.

He would not be captured.

"Stop." The word was punctuated with a tightening of the chain around her throat, cutting off all air to her lungs. "Tell them to put down their weapons and I won't snap your pretty little neck."

The chain tightened again, marking his words even as agony streamed from the fingers pressing against this wound. "Now."

Vrak hissed into her ear.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

She felt her face swell as the blood was cut off from circulating through her body. Her cheeks instantly puffed, lips swelled, neck bulged. She held her breath to prevent herself from passing out then and there.

The guards shouted something, their voices overlapping one another as they barked orders at the Sith. Her hands frantically pulled away from his shirt, the warm liquid running down and off her fingers as she tried to pull his hands free of her throat. It was all rather hopeless. He had a far better position than she, and the fact that his arms were locked to the shackles made it even easier to hold her in place. She couldn't pull back to see what was going on behind her, and she knew if she opened her mouth to speak she would lose the rest of the air in her lungs and pass out.

He would kill her. He would kill them. The Force couldn't help her in this bind. The pain of her fingers in his chest didn't do it.

She would either have to try and relay the order or...Her hand reached to her side, blood covered hand feeling the smooth wood surface. She fumbled with it in her panicked state before getting it free. The woman pressed it along the outside of his back and slid her finger over the button.

[member="Vrak Nashar"]