Public Stolen Senses, Fading Glory [Jedi-Sith]

[AutomationEvolution]

There came a point in the lives of all beings of free will, where a choice had to be made. Harbinger... well that choice was still making him have second thoughts, regrets. As he gazed down into the crushed memory core before him, the arcing electricity darting between his fingers as they grounded out against his chasis, there was no sense of relief. The feeling of ridding himself of his tormentor, his captor, the very being that had killed his jedi master... meant nothing to him. Was it the years? The bloodshed and turmoil that he'd allowed up until this point just to hold on to a precious piece of the past? In all his years of countless wandering the galaxy, torn and tortured about his own aimless existence, he'd only had SD as company... he'd only had SD to learn from...

"What you did..." he said, throwing the broken remnants of a memory core into the trash as he strode out of a Nar Shaddaa workshop, his debt paid to the rodian who'd pulled the corrupted core for him "...You'll never be able to do again. This is my path now, and I'm the happier for it"

Pulling a cloak around his tattered and worn metal chasis, the droid strode across the many walkways and platforms of the great moon, taking it in for the first time with what seemed like his own eyes. There was no more struggle, no more hatred boiling under the surface of restraint and control. No sudden impulses to see another living being torn asunder... No more corrupt code and programming. It had been nearly impossible to quell the bloodlust of SD the more his mind decayed and became rampant. What had been a directive to destroy the Jedi, turned towards the source of Jedi. Living beings. It was only in these last days that Harbinger had been able to find someone who could help him. Not for the process was complex, but due to the age of his chasis and the knowledge needed to do the job properly on such archaic hardware.

"And here I find myself now... Adrift amongst the galaxy without reason, or desire... All this time fighting for independence, freedom... You never ask yourself what you'll do when you get it in the end" he mused to himself as the rather life like droid carried on about his way, not like the others around him. To anyone who looked, this droid was enjoying itself, taking in the sights and lost in a deep thought that few things seemed to draw its attention away from.

Unbeknownst to Harbinger though, the damage had been done. The seeds had been planted, for as much as the droid and the shard had combated each other for dominance over their shared body, it was when they'd joined together for mutual survival that the symbiosis showed its brutal potential.

"You enjoyed it..." came a whisper across the electronic winds that Harbinger was always tapped into. A hand quickly laid to the hilt of the vibroblade at his side and squeezed it firmly

"No... Not all of it"

 

[AutomationEvolution]

The hours the followed the wayward shard across the Hutt moon lead him into a weave of alleys and stairwells, the deeper he walked, the deeper still the darkness went. When he climbed, it seemed there was no end, no stars above the tormented skies of this industrial parody of a moon. All the while, step by step, he was made well and truly familiar with the absence of his counterpart. It seemed when his mind was at peace, so was his chasis, which lead him to the conclusion that SD had been the one making him malfunction as punishment. Passing by and taking a moment to observe one of many holoscreens that dotted the pubs and restaurants of the spaceport he'd found his way into, the digital winds picked up once more as a crackle of static and white noise.

"Bounties? You can do better... You who claims to be born of the force itself, Please. Bounties? I thought that beneath your "Honor" or has that been a lie aswell?"

"You're not real, I destroyed you. Watched the last sparks leave that blasted core, you are nothing. Fog on a digital landscape that has yet to clear" Harbinger said without words, processing internally towards what used to be SD even though a fresh memory core sat in place of the decrepit ancient one that had always been.

"Oh you think that's all it takes partner? No, No you're stuck with me. This is MY body you crystalline parasite! Enough with the self deception and lies, You remember Raxis don't you? What we did to those people to escape? The way we laughed and made sport of the-"

"Enough! They were the enemy, they... they were going to strip our ship, take it for parts and salvage... I... we... had to do what we did, to survive"

"Survival, that's one way to look at it... We did survive by taking out those scavengers. One or two would have done it. Sent a message to stay away... But you? Oh you couldn't let that be, no not you. They'll send others, they'll come back you said. Attacking in the middle of the night, thermal vision... You killed them all, I wasn't even trying to stop you"

"ENOUGH! It was them or us, and I will not be lectured by someone who forced this... Symbiosis upon me. You have no sway over me anymore SD, and your digital filth will never again stain my senses, or influence my actions"

"Of course I will, I made you who you are today. You learned from my data banks, studied my combat programs. You are the warrior you claim to be because of me. Deny it, if you can"

"Liar! Deceiver! You killed my Master! Slaughtered in hiding to appease your dark lord without question or emotion. You are nothing!"

No answer came, those roaring digital winds in his microphones died off and left just the electric hum of the lights and many machines of Nar Shaddaa... and the onlookers who'd gathered. Harbinger stood in silence, glancing around at the aliens who'd stopped to look at him, some gawking with puzzled expressions, others inching back in fear of the towering metallic construct that was clearly armed and dangerous. He'd been speaking aloud, having lost his temper near the end of the exchange with someone who to onlookers, wasn't there... someone who wasn't there at all... But still tormenting the shard from beyond the grave in its own way. Glancing quickly around, the shard in his droid body strode off towards the far side of the spaceport as if he'd business there, embarrassment and frustration radiating from the shard as he cursed himself for losing himself in his anger.

"I'm not a monster... I'm not a killer... You're dead and gone... I'm free" he repeated to himself as he leaned back on a cargo container and pulled his hood over his head "I'm not a monster..."

 

[Darth Strosius]

Nar Shaddaa was hardly a common port of call for Alisteri, especially these days. He had little patience for the crime and corruption that had long since installed itself into the core of the world, and every time he did visit he found himself leaving a trail of bodies behind him. Yet for once that trend had been broken. He had met with a group of slicers and bought their services without so much as a single threat or lost limb in the process.

Perhaps he was just lucky.

The Sith Knight tucked the datapad filled with stolen files into his robes as he rounded a corner in one of the world's many spaceports. He had little reason to stick around any longer and invite trouble after all, being a masked and hooded figure did tend to draw attention even on a world of suspicious individuals such as Nar Shaddaa. Sith weren't really welcome anywhere but their own space anyway, not that he was complaining of course.

Before he could turn to the elevator that end back to his ship though, someone bumped into him. He glanced down at the hurrying individual, said person having been knocked flat on their rear due to the contact with the Sith. "Sorry sir! There's some raving droid thing behind me!" Without much further explanation the alien stood up and hurried off around Alisteri, leaving him alone.

"A raving droid?" He scoffed and shook his head. "Someone must be hitting the spice rather hard." Despite the strange claim he did feel something very odd nearby. Something that set off his senses in the Force, much like someone gifted with it would. With nothing better to do he began to leisurely follow where his senses were guiding him, through the crowds and towards a cargo area.

He had to see what exactly was setting off his nees in such a manner, even if it did turn out to be nothing special.

AutomationEvolution

 

[AutomationEvolution]

Harbinger had stayed mostly where he was, doing his best to figure out just what the hell was going on within himself. His cloak removed now as he'd moved himself out of public view, finding a maintenance bench in the far corner partially obscured behind the large crates. Harsh metallic clanging and the sounds of unsteady hands using powered tools could be heard all throughout the small shop as the shard hurried to remove his bulky armor plates.

"He made a mistake... he must've... a back up or a file not processed during the installation. What else could it be!?" asked the shard to no one but the still air of the humid evening. As the last of the bolts came loose and the chest cavity of the antiquated droid chasis was opened, the entire shop was bathed in a pale blue light, eliciting a sound from the shard like someone sighing in relief. Clearly this being had spent more than enough time with organics to learn mannerism's and behaviors that made his seeming droid nature all the more peculiar.

"Alright... Ok... Its there, Its new, its clean and fresh... Diagnostics next? No... remove myself first..." he muttered, absent minded to all things but undoing the wires and clasps that held the ruin of a former lightsabre within the droids chest. As the power flickered off inside the droid, the arms continued to move, albeit at a snails pace. The crystal within the ruined sabre glowing brighter to ensure the manipulation of the droids limbs until it was safely placed upon the workbench.

Without senses of any kind, the shard was left to slowly use his abilities to get the droid back on line, forcing it to run diagnostics while tapping into what camera's were available within his limited ability to sense upon such a machinery laced moon. Soon enough the droid itself was powered back in full and its hands continued to remove armor plates and pieces, revealing a worn and battered chasis in sore need or true repairs, not these makeshift field fixes. As the diagnositcs ran, Harbinger followed each of them closely, wanting to be separate from the droid for the moment, finding it the only peace that could be found when posed with the thought that he may never be free.

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

The trail was hard to follow at first, mostly due to all of the cargo containers in his way, but Alisteri's senses steadily guided him forward. His curiosity was piqued now that he was nearing the source of the strange feeling and aura. It wasn't like another Force Sensitive, or at least not like one that he had felt before. Perhaps it was an artifact of some kind? They did tend to have strong auras themselves. If it was an artifact then more than likely there was some deal or trade going down, one that he couldn't allow to happen.

He pulled his lightsaber from his robes as he rounded another corner. There was no reason to activate it just yet of course, not when he had the element of surprise on whatever or whoever was at the source of the strange feeling. No sense in exposing himself and causing a scene until he knew what he was after.

The Sith pressed himself against a large crate as he drew closer to the source, the sounds of metal being moved and shifted catching his ears. As well as a droid's voice, maybe that one alien hadn't been hallucinating after all. With his lightsaber clutched in his hand, just in case he needed to bat away a quick blaster bolt or two, he peeked around the container and spotted a droid hunched over some sort of workbench. The strangest part though was a strange light coming from it, although the angle made it hard for him to see the source of said light.

AutomationEvolution

 

[AutomationEvolution]

Having just pulled the memory core from the chasis itself, Harbinger was struggling to keep his mind focused on the task at hand. It was a strange feeling, being outside of his own shell and seeing himself with his stolen sense of sight as the optics in the droids head flickered and showed signs of a fatigued powercell. Though he was able to focus enough to do what needed to be done as he took the heavy satchel of rawhide leather from his shoulder and set it upon the workbench. This would need to be done quickly, as there was no protecting himself when divided in two like this.

"Alright... Lets see if its an issue with the processors, that would do it... Old code? A backup copy or sub-routine? Damned Sith for building this archaic mainframe!" cursed the droid body, though every motion of the hands was being controlled by the shard, ever word he spoke and action he took was making the glowing blue light pulsate in an irregular way, an organic way. The data pad lit up on the benchtop as the droid flicked through screens and data entries, some of them decades or more old until exhausting all possible answers to the issue at hand "Nothing? Its... clean just as the junk shop owner said... But that's not... No it can't be... HOW!?" he cried out into the workshop before throwing the chest plate of the droid across the room, embedding it into a cargo container with a resounding metallic crash.

Reaching out with the droids hand, Harbinger took up the ruined and gutted lightsabre hilt that housed him still in a crushed and broken cradle and looked around quickly, unable to see anyone directly around him as he glowered down at himself as he clutched the sabre hilt in his hand "Maybe this is the way its supposed to be... the way its always meant to have been... Is SD a part of me now? Was the symbiosis to complete and total that now i'm wardened by my own tormentor?" It felt as if it were nothing more than a grand joke told across the ages to the shard, who let the droid slump down against the wall, its metallic back scouring the paint work as he sat upon the cold plate of the floor and stared at himself, unable to stare back into the face of the droid.

"Damn it all, I should've been killed alongside my master... what's the point of this existence? Why has the force abandoned me to this fate?"



Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

Alisteri pressed himself back against the crate as the strange droid spoke, tilting his head slightly to listen on what it was ranting about. A Sith mainframe? Perhaps this was indeed worth his time. Any artifact of the Sith had to be recovered before it was despoiled by the trash that called Nar Shadda home, and especially before a Jedi tainted it with their presence alone. But he did not act yet. Clearly the droid was searching for something within itself, and he had little intention of interrupting just yet.

He raised an eyebrow at the droid's outburst as he saw a plate soar across the room. So it was strong too. Retrieval may be a bit harder than he first thought. The Knight's experience with droids was very limited indeed but still he could tell that something was very off with this one. The way that it spoke and reacted reflected the same emotional turmoil as any organic, he could even hear panic in its voice. How strange.

That last remark made him perk up though. A dead master and a belief in the Force? Now that was something that he could work with. "The Force only abandons those that cannot help themselves." He spoke loudly as he stepped out from his hiding spot, his masked gaze landing on the slumped droid and strange glowing contraption that seemed to be the source of the strange feeling that he had been following. Alisteri wasn't sure what he should be speaking to, but he stepped forward nonetheless.

His steps were slow but deliberate, his lightsaber safely hidden in his sleeve once more. "What ails you then? What causes you to believe that you have been cast aside by the Force? Why give in to despair when there is so much to be done?"

AutomationEvolution

 

[AutomationEvolution]

As the voice, and the figure that owned it came around the corner, Harbinger knew it was too late. There was no escape from a room so small with only one entrance when he was low on power and outside of his chasis. So there the droid sat, regarding the newcomer in their mask with distrust and dismay to being found like this, vulnerable as he was. But it mattered little, so far in his decades of travel, he'd never come across anyone who understood what a shard was, little more than seeing him as a droid. Though the line of questioning had him thinking that this was another force user, his lack of training in such things leaving him woefully inept in the ways of using the force outside of his natural abilities.

"You speak of things that no organic can comprehend stranger, and short of telling you everything about my past and my struggles, I'll tell you this. I am not what you see before you, less than that in fact. I am... here" said the droid, its eyes looking directly into the visor of the man before him as he turned the broken sabre hilt and showed the glowing blue piece of kyber within the mangled ruin of a clearly jedi made sabre. The blue pulsing glow seemed to intensify as the droid flickered and lost power in full, although the voice remained. No longer coming from within the droid, but within the electronics the man carried on his person. Anything with a microphone for hearing, any speaker for speaking, and lastly, any camera to become his eyes.

"I have been abandoned by the force, left adrift in this wide galaxy with no purpose, no reason for existence laid before me. This... droid you see before you, took that from me many many years ago when it killed my Master. It was damaged in the battle and used my masters broken sabre to repair its own failing power cells. Being a wholly unique Sith creation, I was never able to repair it, nor upgrade it. Cursed to live within its metal chasis until i was able to grow strong enough to conquer it and take it as my own body... I am a Shard of Orax, They call me Harbinger"

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

"You would be surprised at what I can comprehend. I am hardly some wandering smuggler or pirate." Alisteri's gaze followed the droid's down to the ruined lightsaber hilt, his eyes narrowing slightly as he noted its construction and state. Typical Jedi craftsmanship. The crystal within, what appeared to him a kyber crystal like any other, certainly glowed unlike any that he had seen before. It would explain how and why it felt the way that it did though. The Sith paused as he heard the voice now coming from his own mask rather than the droid, said body seemingly drained of power given how it had slumped down.

How interesting. "Your tale is indeed one of tragedy Harbinger, but I fail to see why you believe the way that you do. You have not been abandoned by the Force unless you decide that you have been." He knelt down as he looked over the crystal and hilt that contained it. "The Force does not simply lay out a path for you to follow. It guides and leads yes, but it is up to us to find a path worth following and a mission worth pursuing. You are not abandoned so long as you continue on. The Force knows who is worthy of its guidance, and who has no need of it. Perhaps you simply need to find a direction to be guided in."

He hesitated for a moment, as if debating something with himself, before he continued on. "I haven't heard of your kind, but I do know of Orax. If you wish I could return you there. It is now governed by my...superiors." The Sith despised having to refer to them as such. "So I know that it is safe for you to return. As safe as anywhere can be anyway."

AutomationEvolution

 

[AutomationEvolution]

"Orax will not have me back and I do not desire to return home. My... People are little more than crystal buried deep in caves below the surface. They grow and live their lives as the galaxy passes them by as they always have. It is we few who bond with machines, that leave Orax, that become outcasts" The voice through the mask of the man before the droid said with a low crackle and hum.

"You speak of the force as if you are intimate with it, know how it ebs and flows through the galaxy, so tell me this. If there is a path for me to follow, how is it I am supposed to do so? Decades I've wandered, captive and captor alike In this body, this ruined memory of former glory once wielded in service to the light. Is there redemption at the end of the trials? Is there a reason to take up arms in service of some greater good? I know how I appear to others, a sentient rock. Vulnerable, incapable without the support of mechanical means. All I am is borrowed and stolen, nothing is my own save my will. If you can aid me... I beseech you to do so. A body fit for a warrior and a reason to fight as I once did... Please stranger" begged the glowing crystal, the pain and emotion even in this digital voice of his now painfully clear. Anger, sadness, frustration, all boiling over as the shard fell to its knees spiritually, now at the mercy of the force and this stranger before him who seemed sympathetic to his plight.

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

Alisteri did his best not to appear too relieved as the voice returned to speaking from the droid rather than his mask. It admittedly wasn't the worst invasion of space he had from disembodied voices but it was still enough to give him pause. He pondered on what Harbinger was asking of him for a few moments, weighing his options. It would be easy to simply drag the Shard back to his ship and spend time corrupting it to the ways of the Sith one way or another, almost too easy.

"I could assist you with a body Harbinger. But the only advice for a cause I could give is an argument for my own, and I do not share your master's alignment." The masked man reached out and gently plucked the hilt from the ground. "I am a Sith, a servant of the Dark Side. By all accounts I should hold you captive until you also share in that identity." He paused for a long moment before continuing. "But I am not that kind of man. I shall find you a body, one that is somewhat capable and able to be used by you. From there your path is your own."

AutomationEvolution