Private The Dark Lady of Gunfire

[Maple Harte]

Wearing: HH Sniper Armor

Armed With: Synthetic Crystal Lightsaber (Red)

Battle Scout Rifle

Arrived in: The Silent Erika

Planet: Ossus

She had dropped Braze off at the nearest Med-Center on Coruscant and departed without fan fare or drama. Then she had gone back to her life of Darkness. One empty bounty after the next. A dungeon crawl, or two.

All meaningless. Without goal.

Without hope.

Darth Strelok stalked the jungles of this light sided world. Her target was a crime boss worth a couple million. Strelok neither knew nor cared what he had done to get a bounty so high.

All she knew was that unlike Braze, The Crime Boss would receive no clemency.

Strelok had brought out an older weapon for this job. The Crime Boss was insane to hide on a Jedi related world. Just like Strelok, a full on Sith, was insane enough to chase him on it.

It was a semi-auto of her own design that had rarely failed her. It had done so well she had brought it with her on the raid on the Avatar of War at Tython, where she Laertia, and that thing that had assimilated The Amalgam , had fought the entire Mawite army for the fate of Tython. It was difficult to say who had inflicted more damage, who who had finally destroyed The Avatar. The Nuclear Weapons House Io had brought aboard it, the combined pounding of the fleet at Tython, all had played a part.

Maple had hoped Tython might be the turning point. The point where Laertia might finally let go of her grudge against people like Coren Starchaser .

But it hadn't. Laertia had chosen to kick the Jedi by blowing up The Silver Rest on Kashyyyk. Her crime, so soon after having helped save Tython, had cemented once and fur all that Laertia cared for no rule, for no perception of reality other than her own where the Jedi was always the villain.

Laertia doing that was what had finally made Maple snap and nearly murder her, beating her so brutally she had shattered her own hands. If course, the further Brain Damage Laertia had suffered probably hadn't done wonders for her mental state down the road.

It was that instant of pure fury that had drawn Maple into Sith-dom.

It was a day she had spent every day since trying to forget...

Strelok moved through dank sweltering jungle, her tight fitting armor camouflaging her optically. He has a safe house here.

And she intended to be the one to break into it and gun him down like a dog.

She spotted a compound entrance built into a rock face, staffed by B2 Droids.

A thought of rage telekinetically crushed the Droids and ripped the entrance open like it was paper

Strelok came out of the bushes as live mercenaries rushed out and she moved like greased lightning, shooting five dead with her rifle via headshot in a matter of seconds. Her telekinesis helped absorb the recoil, essentially allowing the rifle to function like laser pointer when firing.

Without a word, the Sith strode into the compound, unaware that she was about to have another run in with the boy she had spared...

More mercenaries came out of the passages, firing at her.

She ducked after squeezing her remaining shots in the rifle before reloading, this time with explosive tips.

Men got turned into piles of burned viscera as her explosive bullets hit them. Strelok did not use anything but her gun on the living, hipfiring, scoring headshots or chest shots as she desired every time she did, her natural speed and reflexes aiding target acquisition.

The mother of all slasher villain smiles was painted on her face as she rampaged through the crime bosses men Frank Castle style...

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Maple Harte

Braze wasn't the type to stay down. The work of a Jedi Shadow was never done, especially when someone as dangerous as Eldon Karr chose to nestle deep into the sacred grounds of Ossus. Braze preferred the quiet, quick, and personal approach, each target was an art form in the careful pruning of darkness. Slowly but surely, his list of names grew, each one crossed out as they had been dispatched.

Tonight's mission was pivotal. Braze had come to sever the serpent's head from its writhing body once and for all. Eldon Karr was the poisonous core of the Crimson Coil, a ruthless puppet-master responsible for assassinations, the sabotage of critical peace talks, and the systematic corruption infecting Ossus from within. Braze understood that taking down Karr was essential.

He couldn't afford distractions, not this time. Braze moved through the dimly lit corridors like a ghost, senses heightened, his presence barely tangible. Each guard passed unaware, each camera looped silently by his skilled manipulation of the Force. Every shadow became his ally, and hsi steps were like whispers on the wind.

By the time Darth Strelok breached the outer perimeter in a violent display, Braze had already reached Eldon Karr's quarters which lied at the heart of the compound.

​

As Braze silently approached Eldon Karr's quarters, he extended his hand, channeling the Force to unlock the door with a soft, barely audible click. Inside, the dimly lit room revealed a web of holo-screens displaying clandestine transmissions, stolen Jedi intel, and flickering images of targeted diplomats all proof of the evidence of Karr's sinister operations.

At the center of it all sat Eldon Karr himself, the Zeltron's deep crimson features illuminated by the eerie back lit glow of the monitors behind him. Calmly awaiting Braze, his eyes glittered dangerously, a thin, cold smile on his lips, as though he'd anticipated the Jedi's arrival all along.

Eldon Karr leaned back, his gaze sharp and knowing, as the faintest smirk twisted at the corner of his mouth.

"You're punctual, Jedi. I've been expecting you. Tell me! Are you here for justice, revenge, or simply because you can't stand the idea of someone like me winning?"

Braze lifted one hand, movements fluid and gentle as he curled his fingers inward on the out stretched hand. Eldon Karr's arrogant smirk faded, replaced by sudden confusion and alarm. The Zeltron clutched at his throat, gasping silently as the air was gently, yet firmly pulled from his lungs, leaving him struggling in wordless panic.

The Zeltron moved to stand, but his legs gave out, buckling beneath him. He crashed awkwardly into a chair, sending it clattering loudly across the floor. His hands clawed desperately at the desk, scattering datapads and knocking holo-screens down in a messy burst of sparks and broken glass. Collapsing to the ground, he writhed helplessly reaching a hand out towards the young Jedi.

 

[Maple Harte]

Strelok was busy killing the underlings and had just finished shooting one in the head when she finally sensed another presence and went still.

It couldn't be...

It was that kid! Again! AGAIN!!!

Strelok was so stunned at sensing him here she completely missed a dodge opportunity. The blaster bolt from the nerve that hit her shoulder made her snarl in rage and she compressed him into a pulp via Telekinesis.

She felt a surge of darkness.

Strelok was racing as fast as she could, and by the time she reached the room Braze was in she could feel Karr's life dangerously close to slipping away.

She wasted no time. She had not saved the boy JUST so he could follow her into damnation.

She burst in, knowing killing the man Braze was killing would not help Braze, it would only make him an accessory to murder.

"Boy! Drop him!" Strelok barked angrily keeping the rifle on him.

"You haven't done anything yet that your bosses can't overlook..." she said, seeing Karr was barely alive.

"This is what you do after I spare you? Go and throw away your supposed ideals?" she questioned.

"Don't do it! Don't throw it all away on this piece of garbage! That's what I'M for!" Strelok said to him, not wanting to attack. But she would. She would if Braze would not see reason.

"That's all it takes huh? Getting your face shot off?! How strong ARE your beliefs anyway?" Strelok snorted in derision, hiding how desperate she was to stop Braze from embracing the Dark Side...

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Maple Harte

​

Braze didn't flinch at the voice, nor did he turn or speak immediately there after.

The air still held firm in his invisible grasp, Eldon Karr's struggles growing weaker by the second. The man's life teetered on the edge of unconsciousness—not death.... at least not yet.

But Braze had heard her clearly and well. .

Her voice, was as sharp as finely mono-molecular edged phrik blade, and just as unrelenting, as it sliced through the haze of intent he'd wrapped around himself like a shroud.

"Don't do it! Don't throw it all away on this piece of garbage! That's what I'M for!"

The admission had struck him harder than he expected It would however. She had spared him. And now she was trying, in her own twisted way, to do it again.

A slow breath left Braze's lips.. He didn't want to let go, because this man had earned something far worse than sleep.

His hand opened slightly. Just enough. The grip on the Force loosened though not gone, not entirely, but reduced to a whisper. Enough for Karr to slump into unconsciousness with a ragged gasp rather than silence.

Braze stood over him, gaze unreadable. "He's alive,"

he said without turning. The voice was his own… and yet not.

It came filtered through a vocoder, each word stitched together from fractured recordings—old reports, classroom recitations, clipped answers given to instructors back when he still spoke with something closer to innocence. The cadence was off. The inflection wrong in all the subtle ways that mattered.

It was like hearing a ghost of his past try to imitate him, like something that remembered how he used to sound when he was younger, but not why he spoke that way.

It echoed with a hollow and false familiarity, a grotesque mimicry pieced together from moments he'd long forgotten… or tried to.

It wasn't his voice.... not how it was meant to be. Just a poor stand-in wearing its skin.

"You can put the rifle down."

Then finally, finally, he glanced at her over his shoulder.

"Tell me something, Strelok…"

His voice was still calm, but laced with something colder beneath the surface. "If you're the one meant to fall… then why do you care so much if I do?"

He stepped back from Karr's prone form, letting his lightsaber fall silent as it was extinguished.

"You think I don't believe anymore just because I'm not bleeding mercy all over this room?"

He turned to face her fully, somber jade green eyes still clear. "The Code isn't a leash. It's a compass. And I haven't lost my way."

He removed a set of cuffs from his belt moving to arrest the prone man.

 

[Maple Harte]

Strelok was hesitant as Braze released him.

Her heart pounded, breath quickened noticeably as she stared at her handiwork...listened to his pieced together voice.

What scared her is that he gave the same burned out sort of presence that she was at the start of the original version of The Amalgam stalking her.

She lowered the gun. Slightly.

He asked why she cared.

"Because what you're doing is how it started for me. Easy to tell yourself it's just business. The brutal realities of surviving a harsh, next to impossible to navigate profession. I learned too late that there are prices for surviving no one should be willing to pay...and maybe I don't wanna watch somebody who is virtually the same age when that started happening to me happen to them...the code may be a compass...but like any compass, it just takes something magnetic enough to point it's needle in the wrong direction..." Strelok insisted.

"I did this exact sort of work you just did..." Strelok said. "Only I took it farther right out the gate..."

She finally lowered the rifle.

"I apologize for shooting you in the face." she said. "The apology changes nothing, of course...but I am saying it regardless..."

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Maple Harte

An apology?
Was she kidding?

He huffed out a heavy breath and looked at her with fierce eyes—then looked away. He stepped from the man on the ground and started to pace the room... he looked like a predator in a cage, aggravated and upset at being trapped.

His emotional aura flared to life, immense and overwhelming compared to the silence it had held before—but still only a drop in an entire ocean.

He drew a heavy, sudden breath and sighed, his chest rising noticeably with the motion as he paused and looked at her.
An apology. Those were... yes... exactly... that's exactly what they were for.

"A true apology..." He started.... 'Is not about how the other person responds' ; he thought, before continuing aloud, "Is about acknowledging your own faults and mistakes and taking accountability for them."

He stared directly at her before stepping forward, emboldened by his emotions, feeling the Force gather around him, intensifying his aura all the more.

"So tell me... how... how do you intend to take accountability for this?"

He gestured to his face.

Even with the scars his body had borne before, they paled in comparison to how he looked now. And for a moment, all that rage and hate subsided as those eyes crinkled and filled with hot, glassy tears. He turned away from her again, rubbing fiercely at them.

His whole form began to tremble and shake as he wrapped his arms around himself, stepping away and continuing to pace, but now it was just to get out the energy from his upset, as now he started to feel sick.

He stopped again, head hanging low, voice breaking as it came out as something ripped out from the deepest part of him.

"I didn't grow up in war times... I grew up in lasting peace..."

His breath hitched as he clenched his 'jaw', barely keeping control.

"I rise to the occasion so my peers aren't slain senselessly over millennia-long religious wars. So they don't have to be subjected to the horrors of war."

His fists curled at his sides.
"I've torn men apart so that those I care about can live peacefully—because peace is all they've ever known."

He touched his face, fingers hovering over ruined flesh.

"My body has lost so much in the endless pursuit to be strong enough to protect them..."

He finally looked up—eyes red, face wet.
"...And now I've been turned into a disfigured monster. Well and truly... No one will ever love me as I am now..."

 

[Maple Harte]

"I took quite an amount of accountability when I saved your life, when I could have finished the job and blasted you again." Strelok replied with a snort. "Kid, you do understand you won the Jedi equivalent of the lottery, right!? If the day I shot you in the face had been a casino, you'd have rolled nothing but sevens! If I had been any other Sith, the Order would be holding a wake for you! And who is expected to hold me to account, hmmm?" she questioned rather snappishly, gritting her teeth under her helmet.

"Your bosses?! The same bastards who sent a child into a warzone, and expected everything to go smoothly. The same cold blooded bastards I lost my sanity attempting to serve? You didn't just get your face blasted off by a Sith, you got it blasted off by a Sith with incurable schizophrenia! The same schizophrenia I had to fight the entire time I was treating your wound just so I wouldn't hallucinate you being a horrible monster or some crap and just murdering you on the operating table!"

Strelok pinched her trigger finger and thumb together.

"You were THIS CLOSE, boy! THIS FETHIN' CLOSE!!" Strelok snapped in a rage. "What about holding yourself accountable?! How about holding your own feet to the fire for walking into an open battlefield without any facial protection? I have seen and done some DUMB chit, kid, but even at my most incompetent I was never THAT stupid. If you had had even a piece of really cheap but thick durasteel in front of your head, you would almost certainly have been able to walk away from that shot on your own. Do NOT ask me to take accountability when the only reason you're even alive to ask that I do so is because I willingly chose to not let that day be your last."

Strelok paused, however as she saw the waterworks in the eyes of Braze .

She felt her heart quiver in discomfort as he poured out his sorrow and trauma. The fear of being unloved. Unremembered.

"Welcome to my world..." she replied quietly but bitterly. "I had the same motivation. I wanted to make the Galaxy better. Safer. But I didn't have the talent to be a healer. Or a diplomat. And my disease was unknowingly consuming me even back then. But what I did have was the ability to kill. So I tried to use that, hoping if I shot up enough of the other side, the peace would magically fall into place...but I was deceived. By myself. By the people I...I..."

Maple went quiet at the thought of The Amalgam .

"...I was deceived...and where were your bosses? Creating the very problems across the Galaxy zealots like me were expected to solve...and people ask why I still hate the Jedi, in spite of everything the other side stole from me..."

Strelok held out her arm.

"Free shot, Kid. Go on. You want accountability for me screwing up your dating profile pic, take the arm that pulled the trigger. We'll be united by pain and injury even more than we are already...go on, I don't mind! Feth it, you wouldn't be the first Jedi I've shot with this arm. Mount it on the wall. Cast it in gold--"

Strelok stopped, her senses perking as she detected something very dangerous heading their way. Something that had waited until Strelok was vulnerable...

"We have company...heading to us fast through the jungle..." Strelok said as a creature in black biker leathers raced through ancient jungles on foot to reach the compound, armed to the teeth to kill her...

Strelok refused to forget the subject she had been just discussing though.

"Look, if you want my arm, take it now, and leave me to my fate. You don't want no part of what's out there..." Strelok warned. "I'm not afraid to die. My life sucks."

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Maple Harte

Braze took a deep breath, the sound low and filtered through the faint rasp of his prosthetic. He let it out slowly as he listened to her sick little joke, an abuse of logic postured as an understanding of what accountability really was, instead offering a deflection dressed as humility.

She wanted to control the situation. This was control disguised as atonement. It was her still calling the shots, on the terms of her punishment, on the timing, and adding in some overdramatic theatrics.

He considered her briefly, his mind working quicker than it's usual terrifying speed. She wanted them to be even, but she didn't actually want to sit with the imbalance that she caused. So she was trying to balance it through bodily sacrifice, not emotional maturity, Braze reasoned.

And here she was, flaunting the wound she didn't receive, offering flesh in exchange for forgiveness she hadn't earned.

What made it worse? She meant it. She really would let him take it. Because in her mind, she believed pain equals redemption. Because if she bled, maybe she didn't have to face what she's become.


His blade hummed to life.


"You think pain makes us even. But I live with mine. You just want yours over with. Let me impart you with some wisdom."


He stated it plainly, making no real move to posture power or entertain the sick joke further.

He was preparing for the danger that was coming closer. In all honesty, in that moment, with how much clarity and focus he was wrapped in despite the emotional upheaval held just beneath the veneer of calm, that approaching threat should be worried about him.

His voice glitched with static, almost gentle through the distortion.

"If I wanted your arm, you wouldn't need to offer it. But pain's not justice. And you don't get to decide what makes us even. There's nothing you have that I want."

He saw her unraveling behind all the noise, and he was done playing into her narrative. Braze's reply that followed came in a voice glitching, with no room left for performance.

"You keep talking about how close I came to dying like that makes you somehow merciful. But all I hear is someone trying to make her guilt smaller.

You didn't save me. You spared me. There's a difference.

You act like that earns you something. Like your pain outweighs mine just because it came first. It doesn't."

He stepped closer, calm but unshakable, like gravity, not force.

"You are not a victim of the galaxy. You're a narcissist with a rifle, clinging to your damage like it's proof you're right.Everything you've done, you've wrapped in excuses. All of it framed to make your decisions someone else's fault.

But you still chose. Every time."

He gestured to his face, then to her rifle, and finally to her still-extended arm.

"Stop pretending this is about justice or redemption. That... is catharsis. You're not offering your arm because you feel remorse. You're offering it so you don't have to feel guilty anymore. That's not accountability. That's ego." He Briefly wondered what Jasper Kai'el might do when faced with someone like this.

He turned away from her slightly,

"You want to be remembered as the one who let me live. But you never really saw me as someone worth saving. Just another chance to pretend you're not the villain in your own story."

His eyes met hers,

"But... I'm not your mirror, Strelok. And I won't carry your shame for you."

"You want to know how you're supposed to be held accountable? Stop trying to punish yourself and start learning to sit with the things you've done and choosing not to be that person tomorrow... You don't have to wear the robes or carry the saber or pray in temples to follow it. You just have to want to stop hurting people, even when it's easier not to. Do you really want to be better? Start by listening. Not to me, or to the Force., or what ever voices you hear that are not your own... instead... listen to yourself. The part of you that's tired of running from guilt and calling it survival.... Because, you're not unlovable, and you're not irredeemable....You're just scared.... And selfish.... And tired....Same as me. Same as every Jedi who ever thought the Light was out of reach."

He stepped back, letting his voice fall through the vocoder static.

"You want to change? Then stop asking the galaxy to forgive you and start giving it something worth forgiving."

Maybe Ko Vuto would have encouraged him to end her suffeirng instead, maybe any number of other Jedi would have said or done something differnt. But It was time Braze made his own decisions.

​

 

[Maple Harte]

"And the Jedi Order has the nerve to ask how House Io formed. That entitled attitude right there." Strelok retorted with a snort. "Always demanding others process their guilt the way you think they should. Always defending societies that dropped them like a hot potato and turned on them a million times in the past and will do it a trillion times more in the future before the universe ends...Laertia may have taken chit too far,, and she absolutely deserved to be stopped for the things she did...but she was not wrong in saying that if you think you hate the Jedi and the Galaxy they defend...that you don't hate them both nearly enough..."

The bile and bitterness in Strelok's words were clear and present.

"And you're wrong, by the way. I never pretend I'm the good guy. Ever. Not anymore. Even my...sparing you...as you put it...I'm fully aware that it doesn't truly make up for anything. I only hoped you'd rethink your life. But you only doubled down. Just like me..." she sneered back hatefully.

In spite of this obvious vitriol, poison that had long been buried in the back of her head, now tumbling out at his accusations of narcissistic behavior on her part, when Strelok, in truth, literally, literally no longer knew how or even honestly recognized any other way of trying to apologize other than blow for blow, so warped was her spirit and thinking.

And everything Braze said just served only to anger her further.

And yet...

...she did not attack him...

...mainly because she still felt responsible...deep down...

"Your version of atonement. Real convenient for your end, huh? You've torn apart people by your own admission! Who makes you atone for all that death? Those people? I'm sure they all had friends and loved ones. But because they were enemies of the fethin uber-precious status quo this rotting pile of stars and planets pays only lip-service at truly valuing, they had to go, right?! RIGHT?!" Strelok raged. "How you Jedi get so indignant when what you dish out to others comes back to bite you in the ass...that is a mystery I doubt even Darth Sidious himself could solve.

Strelok backed off in disgust.

"Everybody else has to be better and be different...but never the Jedi, right? There's never a need for the Jedi to atone for jack-fething-chit in their heroic fight to preserve 'Life'." she grumbled. "Explain the Bryn'adul Wars, then. Explain how your Order went so completely insane to fight the Sith, when those legions of gigantic savages turned half the galaxy into a constantly flushing toilet!"

As the last words came out, her rage made the floor, ceiling, and walls crack.

"Not one Jedi, not one, has ever, EVER expressed remorse for letting those monsters destroy trillions just to help the New Imperial Order destroy the tenth Sith Empire. You bastards completely sold out!!! YOUR ORDER COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY SOLD OUT HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF PLANETS WHICH ARE STILL DEAD!!! STILL!!! DEAD!!!" Strelok roared indignantly, yet still made no move to attack.

"And I'M THE ONE WHO'S SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER???!! TO BE WORTH FORGIVING?!!! In a just world, a sane world, the Jedi Order would never have been trusted by anyone EVER AGAIN AFTER THAT!!!" The Sith Assassin raged. "I fought in those wars! I watched as smug Jedi after smug Jedi refused to even talk about the Bryn'adul threat! You were all obsessed with the Sith. You were all blood-drunk with the need to destroy them!!! And while your order selfishly engaged that empire and it's slaves, those giant crab feths made the Scar Worlds!!! I tried to save Csilla! I even tried to save Tython from getting destroyed by the Maw Superweapon, I raided that damned space station even though part of me was perfectly content at the idea of the Jedi Order getting its cradle burned! It would have served them right for letting the Bryn'adul spread!!!"

Strelok was so infuriated by this point she had dropped her weapon. She was so enraged by the accusations of narcissism from him that she didn't even realize she was cracking the foundations of the compound. The walls split. The floor and ceiling developed hairline cracks from her unconscious use of telekinesis. The desk in the office crumpled into a ball, Magneto-style.

"Tell me, boy...who makes your order atone for its mistakes? It's crimes?" Strelok asked. "Who makes your order be better? Hmm? Who's the one who gets to deliver the lecture you just gave me to the Jedi, in a way that wouldn't instantly make you dismiss it as a bad faith criticism?"

The pressure in the room only built. Strelok still didn't realize she was doing it, so lost in the pain.

"Laertia Io..." Strelok said in a deadly quiet voice, not hearing stress fractures get created in the ceiling above. "She was even more disgusted with your side than I was. She served loyally...at first. And then...after Nar Kreeta... that's when she finally understood it was all performative. That the Jedi didn't actually believe in preserving as many lives as they could. They cared about looking good. They cared more about public perception than saving the Galaxy. While I abhor what she eventually turned into...even I understood why she became that way..."

Strelok repeated her question to Braze.

"WHO MAKES THE JEDI BE BETTER WHEN THEY SCREW OVER PEOPLE?!"

The ceiling partly collapsed from the telekinetic stress she hadn't realized she had applied to the ceiling and she was partially buried under the rubble. She was still visible, her arms and legs buried.

Strelok made no further protests. She didn't beg for mercy. It was not her way.

And as if her situation couldn't get any crappier, at that moment, the Deputy that had been stalking her kicked open the door with Wookiee-like strength.

He had a faint light side aura...but everything else felt decidedly off. He seemed to be slightly older than Braze, dressed in black biker gear, with whited out eyes that gave the impression he was blind. His lower face was covered by a black bandana, dark hair matted to pale skin. His gaze was completely unsettling, like a permanent thousand yard stare like he was somewhere else, thinking unknowable things normal minds don't contemplate. Had Braze the ability to reach into the Deputy's mind, he would have found the mindset completely alien...

(Cutaway of the Xenomorph dropping down in San Christobal Medical Bay for the first time)

His movement also seemed just...almost zombie like. Stiff and mechanical, movements unnatural in how precise they were, like how his head turned.

The way the Deputy moved very much resembled how Braze had seen Nathan Bloodscrawl move.

The Deputy turned its head in an unsettlingly machine-like manner to Braze, stepped aside, and pointed silently at the injured Padawan, and then silently at the exit.

The gesture was clear.

The Deputy was giving Braze a chance to leave...

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Maple Harte

Braze listened to her screaming about wars and betrayals that happened before Braze was even born, and he's standing there, still a kid, being told to carry the weight of the entire Jedi's ancestral sins. It was 28 years go after-all. Braze stood still even as the floor cracked and the walls groaned. He of all people wasn't a stranger to a force user's temper-tantrums. The Deputy's presence loomed as he made entry in to the room. The static hum of his vocoder couldn't blunt the weight behind the words the followed as he stepped in-front of Strelok and flourished his blade as he spoke,

"You keep screaming like I made the choices you're still bleeding from. But I wasn't. I was born after the Bryn'adûl, and after the wars and your betrayals and all the righteous fury you've wrapped yourself in like armor that doesn't fit anymore. I was born in the peace you think we didn't earn, and raised in the silence left behind when those generations fell apart.

And I trained in what came after those failures—not because I believed the Jedi to be perfect, but because I still believe they can be better. But none of that gives you the right to keep making excuses for becoming the thing you hated....Stop wasting your breath asking who makes the Jedi better....

I will."
He stated simply as he fixed his attention on the new possible opponent.

"These two are my responsibility. Not yours. If you try to hurt her or him before I'm done, and I will stop you."

 

[Maple Harte]

Strelok's rage only grew.

"When you take up a cause boy, you absolutely do bare the sins of it. The same way I have to. You don't exist in a vacuum! You Jedi think you have the right to tell others what atonement is and about others becoming what they hate. To that, I only have this to say...I hate your order. I hate what they believe..." she snarled "But more than that, I hate what they trick and con people like yourself into believing about them, the same way they tricked and conned me! Because if the price of being better means the Jedi get to forget about the wrongs they've committed to get what they want at the constant, CONSTANT expense of all other viewpoints that deservedly condemn them for doing so..."

Strelok's head hung back. Her next words came out very quiet.

"Being better as you describe it? It sounds a lot like letting the Order--letting all those in the galaxy who still believe in its ideals wash their hands of their mistakes...maybe being better, if it means letting the Jedi Order get its way again... yet again...maybe it isn't worth it..."

Strelok didn't have the strength to lift up the rubble. She was too angry to focus. Too angry to care that she couldn't focus. She was mentally exhausted. By the voices. By the memories, by what she perceived as arrogance on Braze's part, even though she was incorrect on that bit.

She was just mentally exhausted with everything. Full stop.

"I don't regret sparing you. In spite of all I say, and in spite of what you might believe to the contrary...I really would choose to spare you again, if only so I wouldn't have to bear the weight of actually taking your life following me to my grave along with all my other mistakes. I really was trying to give you the chance to leave this insanity behind...let the animals wipe themselves out...it would have been better for you, in the long run, despite the bad taste it would have left in what's left of your mouth at first..."

Strelok's gaze fought past the voices and delusions, sulphur eyes locking onto Braze . She could barely think sometimes. What she said next could have been interpreted as an insult, and maybe in certain ways it was, yet at the same time...it was really just Strelok rattling off her perception of him and the situation, rather than a dedicated attempt to insult him on a personal level...

"Curious...you look exactly the way I see the Jedi...as a pitiless inhuman thing maintaining order and control at any cost, pretending to represent a higher standard that doesn't exist and never did. A thing that never once considers the idea that maybe, just maybe, it's side really does deserve the endless vendettas it inspires..." Strelok said, not knowing if it would enrage him, and at this point not caring if it did. The ruin of two decades of war showed in sulphur eyes that could be seen through a crack in her face plate. She glanced at the Deputy, not certain who would try and kill her.

"You should go..." Strelok said, not wanting to argue.

The Deputy just stared at the exchange. Whatever passed for annoyance in its alien mind prompted it to struggle out a small, broken sentence, in a very quiet voice.

"Don't...answer...to..."

It pulled out a Psychic Katana ...

"...you..." it finally struggled out to say at Braze with immense difficulty as it launched a weak rope of green light side lightning (known as Electric Judgement) at Braze. If it connected, it wouldn't even hurt. It wasn't designed to hurt, merely knock out and incapacitate for a short while to give it a chance to kill Strelok...but it would get its technically allied personnel out of the way first if it could...

There was no malice, no hate in the Deputy's actions. It was simply doing what it has been reconditioned to do since being found nearly dead and unresponsive to typical Force Healing...

The Deputy no more comprehended Braze's vow to stop it if it interfered than a cockroach could comprehend the works of William Shakespeare...

 

[Braze]

Maple Harte


Braze easily reached out and absorbed the energy with one hand. He didn’t seem bothered or thrown off by Strelok’s continued ranting. Maybe she just needed to vent her frustrations.

“Those I’ve deathlessly defeated, without killing are my responsibility. Leave me with my prisoners,” he said one last time.

He would argue with Strelok later. He couldn’t very well hold a conversation and defend himself, her, and his captive all at once—not effectively, anyway. Still, he didn’t seem remotely concerned that Strelok might stab him in the back.

Braze had been raised in the Temple. He never really got to choose whether or not he wanted to be a Jedi. All he could do was try to be better than the ones who came before him.

Trying to argue with someone—even a sane person—who hated the Jedi for their past and just wanted someone to blame was a pointless effort. People believed what they wanted to believe. Most of the time, they just looked for reasons to justify their biases. Everyone did it. Braze couldn’t blame Strelok for that.

He understood no Jedi was perfect. They made mistakes, like anyone else. The best he could do was try to be better.

And part of that meant not selfishly indulging in brutally disfiguring someone who had been mentally unwell for a long time, eventhough he might be justified in doing so; It would solve nothing and perpetuate a cycle of hate and violence.

 

[Maple Harte]

The Deputy, upon realizing the bolt had been absorbed, tried an alternative tactic.

It concentrated, and the plants and roots under the building burst through the floor, mutated and searching for Braze's limbs to try and restrain him. It was notable that the Deputy wasn't trying to kill him. It didn't even want to kill the crime boss.

It just wanted to kill Strelok.

Had Braze sensed The Deputies mind, it's thoughts and reasoning would seem totally alien in their process. Even truly inhuman and monstrous species like the Charon would have recoiled from it in incomprehension.

But he might have seen the remains of the Padawan the Deputy had once been.

Like Braze, The Deputy had been found near dead. But the price for his survival had not been cybernetics and surgery. The Padawan The Deputy had once been had been too injured even for that. Too injured even for typical Force Healing.

They were just fragments. Nothing that could reawaken the person the Deputy had once been. He was now a slayer of heretics. His existence uncomplicated, if eternally subdued.

He now possessed very great command of Plant surge. Some plant tendrils held just out of reach while others struck at the disfigured Padawan's limbs very rapidly like the tentacles of a Vaapaad, trying to foil his defense and subdue him while hurting him as little as possible.

But Darth Strelok must die, and while Braze would hopefully be distracted by the plants, he advanced on a helpless Strelok...sword raised.

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Maple Harte

Braze moved to step forwards allowing his saber spinning free in a graceful arc, guided by the Force. It hovered around him cutting vines as if knowing where they might try and attack,

Braze held two hands out... like one would for giving a hug. Braze's arms were outstretched, open-palmed, in offering. His saber wheeled lazily behind him, humming in a slow spiral like a moon orbiting a world defending him seemingly near effortlessly.

This wasn't really a man anymore. Just scraps of a Padawan who never got to finish becoming something more. Twisted into something that obeyed without thought. Something that endured. "You didn't choose this," Braze said softly. "But you still tried. Even like this." He stepped closer. The roots lashed out being slashed away.

"You fought longer than anyone should have to. That's enough." Braze opened his arms and wrapped them around the hollow shell. The Force flowed through him.... A mercy only someone like him could give. "Rest now."

 

[Maple Harte]

While The Deputy struggled against the Morichro technique (It was a sign of how powerful he was that he was still staggering towards Darth Strelok even as the technique was actively shutting him down...and keep in mind that Braze was using it at a level that might have risked knocking out even a highly experienced Knight within seconds), Strelok finally summoned the will to free herself telekinetically. The rubble floated away. She barely managed to get her red lightsaber active and blocking milliseconds before his sword would have reached her face.

She stared into dead, sightless eyes, focused and thinking only of Enforcement and Order, and realized for the first time she had actually run into a creature that was everything she thought the Jedi of being. Everything that she accused the Jedi of being, a Deputy actually was.

The difference was so clear, and so obvious that for a second, Strelok froze and the Deputy's strength, though fading rapidly as he was bodily shut down was still great enough that he was able to force her blade closer to her face, nearly scorching it. Only reinforcement with telekinesis gave her the strength to force the blade lock towards him.

The Deputy grabbed her throat and started to squeeze rapidly, building up to neck-breaking pressure...

And just as he was about to succeed...he froze completely. Braze's care-bear hug of doom had worked...but not in the way it would have affected a normal person.

The Deputy was frozen, shut down, but still locked in the posture of choking her while trying to force his blade closer. His eyes were open, still staring but he was shut down.

Strelok used telekinesis to pry his fingers from her throat, and scrambled away from the deactivated Deputy and Braze, blade still active...

She shut it off.

"I hate this fething business..." Strelok admitted, tossing the lightsaber to Braze. She had never come here to battle him. Strelok wasn't even exactly sure whether she had actually wanted to survive her second run in with him.

"So now what?" Strelok asked as she kept her distance from him. "We gonna do the whole Jedi versus Sith bit? Like everyone else does?"

Strelok's posture was one of weariness and listlessness. This was not some proud Sith Lord or sneering Sith Assassin.

This was a hamster with the Dark Side, driven mad long ago by her own inner demons.

A Hamster scurrying about at random, nipping at fingers, not knowing what to do anymore except run in any wheel provided for it.

Strelok fought back the voices. Skip. Braze was secretly a member of the Super Insects and her Spine was trying to escape her body. Skip. She was a pirate captain. Skip. She was the broke-ass dark sider in the old Ossus compound, wondering why she had tried to stop him.

She was coherent enough to ask him a question.

"Is my mind worse than that of the creature you froze?" She wasn't sure why she was asking that. For a few moments, she wasn't even certain all this wasn't one of her many delusions.

"I bet his was quieter, at least..." Strelok said quietly, absolutely no longer certain why she was saying what she was saying.

Her head drooped...

"House Io was a mistake. A horrible mistake that destroyed everyone who held it dear and believed in it..." she said in a whisper.

"In the end...it wasn't the Jedi who felled House Io. Those of us who were disgusted at what Laertia had turned into struck the death blow, aided by a revenant from the plague. A victim of The Cult Laertia took over. Someone who walks your order unnoticed..." she admitted in a whisper, removing her helmet and dropping it.

Her gaze was faltering and unsteady, darting about at random, head twitching from bad memories.

She sat down on a piece of rubble.

"I could have gone with the defectors...where they are hidden, I know not...I don't know anything anymore. About anything about anything about anything...about anything about anything --"

She caught herself, forced her mouth shut.

"I had a nephew...his name was Percival. He fought for the defectors. He was dismembered."

She looked up at him, pulled out a datapad that had the coordinates to Khemost.

"He'd have liked you, I think..." she said listlessly, tossing it at his feet, making no move to defend herself.

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Maple Harte

Braze moved with care, without force or flair, gently guided the man's body down onto the ground. There was a surprising tenderness in the way he did it, more like laying down a sleeping brother than a vanquished opponent. The Deputy's locked limbs still twitched faintly, the residue of neural resistance fading into stasis.

Then Braze turned to look at her.

He didn't move to level any weapons at her nor did he try and posture. He simply watched her staying quiet, and still, letting her speak.

Her words poured out: raw, tangled, breaking in places. He didn't interrupt. He didn't look away either letting her finish.

Only when her voice finally fell quiet did Braze speak. The vocoder buzzed softly to life,

"No," he said quietly. "I don't think so.You still make your own choices, at the end of it."

There was a long pause. Then:

"I'm not here to punish you. Or redeem you....Redemption isn't a destination. It's a direction...You don't have to get it right all at once.... And it's not anything you can make any one do... they have to choose that themselves. "
His eyes lifted back to hers.

"My advice is... Just… stop making it worse."

And with that, he let the silence return offering her the dignity of stillness, and the choice of what came next. He moved then to gather his prisoner.

​

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