Boost THE FIRST GALACTIC KAGGATH - RUMBLE ON RUUSAN

[Xoff Chantin]

Xoff Chantin — In a heartbroken Mood

"I trusted you."

Outfit: Something Nice

A low rumble left the Hutt's throat. A sudden intake of air from the pain. He shuddered.

Xoff's mascara had been running for a while now. In the stands, even with the collapsing of the tree, he had come to support Whottoomuzz Chantin , to be with Jobbi Chantin if this was where they would see their parent's last moments.

But this? This was sick. He was enjoying this. He could feel Whottoomuzz's emotions. He was no longer stoic, no longer doing this for pride.

Jealousy and betrayal stung as the Zeltron looked at the rancid display of violence from both Lirka Ka and Whottomuzz. This was... Obscene. And for the briefest moment, he had felt that Whottoo... Whottoo knew they were watching. Just after the fall, just for a moment. And now, he was far from the Hutt's thoughts.

He could forgive the violence, he empathized with Whottomuzz's ambition to bring honor to his clan. But this... This wasn't honor, this was base instinct. This was crude and sadistic and...

Xoff covered Jobbi's eyes. She shouldn't see this.

If this was what Whottoomuzz wanted, Xoff would have gladly played the part. What did this... Lirka have that he didn't?
He pulled Jobbi's head to his breast, hugging the huttlet close as the sting in his heart cause another flow of tears.

If it was just physical, it wouldn't hurt so much. They e had arrangements in the past. But watching Whottoomuzz be hurt, brutalizing back, and enjoying the process... It was like he didn't know his own spouse at all.

Even worse was the publicity of it. In front of a live audience, Holonews coverage, people gambling. This was the monster Xoff married.. and apparently, it took another monster to stir that kind of emotion in the slug he loved.

Xoff couldn't watch any longer. When he could move again, amidst the scraping sounds of bark and armor and flesh, Xoff stood, pries the ring from his finger, and threw it at the arena.

"I Hope SHE KILLS YOU, schutta Sleemo..."

The ring bounced off the audience protective shield. Jobbi seemed confused. She couldn't sense the emotions like Xoff could. Jobbi... Jobbi would be fine.

He looked at the ring, engraved in Huttese, rolling to a halt on the stadium floor. It could remain there.

He sniffled, dabbed at the tears in his eyes, though his mascara was long since run down his cheeks.

The Zeltron turned and rushed out of the stadium, the click of his thigh-high heeled boots slightly too fast to maintain the illusion of composure.

Xoff still loved the hutt. That was why this hurt so much.

OPEN/potentially exit​

 

[Spencer Varanin]

//: "Templar" //:
//: VIP Section //:​

---

Spencer sat beside the child as she watched the fights unfold. It was an interesting event. A sacred Sith tradition was transformed into a tournament hosted by criminals on holy Jedi lands. The thought made the woman smirk as she saw how the modern world was eroding tradition. It was something the Echani had enjoyed during her time. A tradition was meant to be bent and broken - molded into something better.

While tradition was something beautiful, if it didn't change with the times, it would eventually become something else. She had seen it more often than not.

Her eyes trailed from the combat to the child beside her. The Templar's emotions rolled off of her like fog over a mountain. Emotions were thick with annoyance and then recognition. The waves of memory that flickered through the Force made Spencer raise a brow. It seemed, despite not being able to see the girl's face - she knew something was triggered in the depths of her broken mind.

Maybe it was good she brought the child with her - there was a brief moment when Spencer felt guilty bringing her to such a loud and brutal event.
Leaning back, Spencer let her hands rest gently in her lap, fingers threading through the loose fabric of her silken robes.

"We can speak freely here; it's good to practice your voice." She reassured the girl, knowing her struggle.

"A Kaggath is a tradition the Sith have had for centuries. Dating back to the Old Republic." Spencer started, not looking at the Templar as she spoke - her eyes focused on one of her own.

"Typically, the tradition is a duel between two Sith till death or humiliation. It was intended as a means to settle disputes, in a sense. Both Sith would employ everything in their power: armies, bases, even fleets to outmaneuver their opponent to defeat."

A hand gently rested against the curve of her jaw as she listened to the commentary.

"Nowadays, it's more to the likes of just duels between the two Sith - which at times is more entertaining than a full-scale war the old ways demanded. Less loss, especially in the fragility of these Major Factions."

Spencer shrugged and finally looked at her apprentice, tilting her head with a small smile.

"Thoughts? How do you feel about these Kaggaths now that you have an understanding of their reasoning?" Her question was simple, but in a sense, it was a careful attempt to uncover what had caused the reaction the girl had moments after she had asked the question.

"Speak freely; despite being surrounded by Sith, none of them would dare put a finger on you."

 

[Viers Connory]

//: Lucette //:
//: CT-312 //: Jacen Breska //:
//: Attire //:

While Lucy had busied herself with talking to the troopers she had sponsored, Viers had other plans. The prospect of a tournament of fighting made the little Corellian's eyes brighten. This was everything she had ever dreamed of, and with the wide variety of fighters - her heart fluttered.

Running around the outside of the locker rooms, Viers desperately searched for the organizers. She wanted to sign up; she wanted to fight someone.

She moved through the crowd with ease, pausing only to question a few along the way. Each person she stopped seemed more suspicious than the last, their vague answers only deepening her doubt. By the time she reached the final one, she could tell—this was the person who had the answers she needed.

The answer was no.

Viers was too late, and the answer was devastating. It seemed the time it took her to wander, the sign-ups had closed, and the fighters were preparing for combat. The man shrugged and said something about better luck next time. Viers didn't hear it and just wallowed in her sorrow.

A small chirp echoed from her pocket, and Viers retrieved the comm device, answering it. It was Lucy, and her sadness began to fade.

"Oh, I'm not far. I'll be there in a second." Viers responded, and instead of waiting for Lucy to respond, she turned off the comm device and shoved it into her pocket.

Once more, she moved carefully through the crowd till she arrived back at the locker rooms. Hands in her jacket's pockets, she wandered inside to listen to Lucy call her grandmother. The woman sounded important if she was able to do things like provide stuff to people Viers had never met.

Pursing her lips together, she wondered what made the troopers cool enough to participate in the tournament. Viers looked towards the shorter of the two and eyed her a bit - the small trooper seemed scrappy like the Corellian monk. Her eyes then followed the larger man as she mentally began to dissect him.

He would be fun, too.

Another pain of sadness, but Viers figured if they knew Lucy, she'd get a chance to fight them down the line.

"Hi, Lucy," Viers chirped cheerfully as she looked at the two troopers and waved.

"Hi! Good luck! I wish I could join, but the staff told me no." She frowned and tried to think of something to say - something she had heard in a holofilm.

"Break a leg out there, kid." Happy with her encouragement, she looked to Lucy.

"Can we get good seats? I want to watch - I tried to sign up, but they wouldn't let me…you think your grandma could help me get into the tournament?"

It was a stretch, but she could try - especially if Lucy's grandma, whoever she was, could get the troopers some fancy gear to live.

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Munch.

Munch.

Munch.

"Fortunately for you sir, I'm not here for pleasure. No hunting for me today. I'm here looking to discuss business, if you'd be interested. The Guild has long been in need of some reliable transports. And from what I've heard through the datawires was that you happen to know where to find some 'less-than-legal' ones."

The munching made Jerec hungry, distractedly hungry, and he was formulating an Ithorese response to Lynch when-

"Oh my! Looks like someone

BROKE

THE​

TREE!" ​

"My oh my, will our duelists survive that whirlwind of broken branches and shattered wood?! Either way,

the top half of the Wroshyr tree is gone!"​

Now this was kind of a come-to-the-Mother-Jungle moment for Jerec because, while born and raised Corellian, he bled sap like any true Ithorian, liked a nice bonsai in his engine room for luck, that kind of thing. The vast tree's vast damage hit him far harder than it felt like it should have. The mouths on both sides of his neck hung agape. Wrath boiled up, the most utter wrath.

He pointed at the duel in question. He pointed at Delsin Shaw .

"Kill or maim that man, today or any day," he told Lynch in Basic, "and I'll sell, rent, lease, or middleman you all the reliable transport options you could ever need. Nothing but the finest pre-owned vehicles and vessels. Reasonable rates. Very reasonable."

Wedge Draav would perhaps recognize the voice of that one Ithorian smuggler from that one time with the starweirds and the comet storm.

 

[Wedge Draav]

​

Munch.

Munch.

HOLY SHIT THE TREE FELL-

"Pfft. Whatya guys know about flyin'?"

He said to the two, the duo in front of him. Wedge was widely known as one of the best pilots in the galaxy, however, that was Captain Draav, now removed Alliance pilot. However, he was still the pilot who felled the Crimson Liners, among other notable aerial victories.

And, more importantly, two outbursts that garnered GNN attention- the first telling the entire Senate that their plan was bullshit, and then calling the Mandalorian Empire some unpleasant things to their faces.

He was also, drunk and spilling popcorn on the two guys in front of him.

​

 

[Lynch]

Jerec Asyr | Wedge Draav | OPEN​

"Kill or maim that man, today or any day," he told Lynch in Basic, "and I'll sell, rent, lease, or middleman you all the reliable transport options you could ever need. Nothing but the finest pre-owned vehicles and vessels. Reasonable rates. Very reasonable."

A twisted, yet subtly hidden grin crept onto his half cybernetic face.

"Consider it done."

Bounties and hits were in Lynch's area of expertise. While he did not do much hunting anymore, contracting other hunters was what he spent most of his time doing. Hunters that were more than capable of taking care of a Sith. Force sensitivity started to mean less in the galaxy these days. Those who were not born with that gift still had the opportunity to be just as powerful as those Jedi and Sith, maybe even stronger. You just had to know the right person to talk to.

The promise of business was something that caught Lynch's interest as well. All of those ships could mean a huge shift in operations for the Black Sun and Bounty Hunters' Guild. Quekko's was a very reasonable business, so the man would be pleased if a deal could be made with the boy's ( Delsin Shaw ) elimination from this tournament.

He was also, drunk and spilling popcorn on the two guys in front of him.

Sighing, and trying to make the best of this situation, Lynch grabbed a few pieces of the falling popcorn and popped them into his mouth. If it had been any other day, the contractor would have quickly assigned a new bounty to the Underworld.

 

[Amara Zambrano]

Sister​

Terrain changes in the middle of the fight was something she would've expected from her own people - seeing it happen as a result of one Delsin Shaw 's actions was both a surprise and a tad bit alarming. She was safely out of the way, having expected something carrying the name of Kaggath to be quite a bit too dangerous to be watched from up close - peering down she didn't envy whoever it was sat close enough that the canopy of the Wroshyr tree fell on them, crushed or not. Things had steadily heated up in the bouts between several of the fighters, hitting a fever pitch now for most of them, and she wondered how many were still as confident as they had been when they entered the tournament that they were capable of coming out of things unscathed - or, at least, with all of their belongings.

The small personal datapad was already on in her lap, cradled in her left hand, while she leaned forwards, to the sides, and back again trying to figure out which of the people fighting for their place in the next round were most likely to make it. "Amara?" A voice asked, sounding surprisingly close to her own voice if a bit more matured. "Mother? Oh, I didn't realize you'd answered already. How are you?" She asked, glancing down at the screen to see how long she'd left her mother waiting for her to notice she'd picked up the call. Normally there'd be some sort of miniature hologram but she'd opted to go without video for the call for privacy reasons - she wasn't sure how many people in the galaxy knew her mom wasn't actually as dead as they might've been led to believe.

"I'm doing rather well, I wasn't expecting a call from you until later tonight, is everything fine? Your father isn't with me at the moment if you were trying to get ahold of him." The voice belonging to Darth Alekto - that is, Braith - said.

She shrugged, shaking her head a moment later when she remembered that there wasn't a video feed to relay her reaction. "Oh, no, mom, I was actually calling to talk with you about something." Amara said, her attention back on one of the other fights - she caught sight of CT-312 and Kudau going at it and let the conversation enter another lull. "Well I'm here, what did you need?" Her mother asked, sounding just a little impatient. "Sorry, I'm actually watching some kind of tournament. They've apparently called it a Kaggath, whoever enters puts everything they've brought in with them on the line for each round and they're fighting kind-of-sort-of for their lives like the real thing - I think they can forfeit and just lose the round, but I'm not entirely sure." She explained, lofting a brow at the way the two she'd caught sight of were fighting, but turned her gaze towards Taregh Garon and Delsin Shaw soon after out of curiosity for how they were faring with the fallen Wroshyr tree.

"Amara you really ought to take up your father on his offer to teach you if you're thinking of entering that kind of thing, or I could if you're afraid he's going to be too hard on you."

She shook her head. "No, no. I was actually wondering if maybe, uh, I could convince you to maybe consider crafting something for me - make that fifteen somethings - that I could give to all of the first round losers?" There was an awkward silence that followed, and she could hear her mother making a few deep breathes as the two considered how the conversation was going to go - it was obvious by the pregnant pause that Braith wasn't exactly ecstatic about the ask. She couldn't blame her, Amara hadn't exactly been the best daughter in the galaxy and their relationship wasn't really the best, but her parents were quite a bit more forgiving and lenient than they probably should have been with her.

"Absolutely not."

Okay, maybe she wasn't going to get her way with no strings attached. "I'll take your lessons, and dad's." There wasn't an immediate response to that, which told her she needed something else to be convinced, and the pained expression that came across her face suggested she knew what her mother wanted. "I'll be home for dinner for a week.. and I'll practice alchemy with you every weekend." She said, sounding a little less than thrilled about it, which she just knew elicited a rather big smile from Braith that she simultaneously couldn't see and could feel across the stars like a disturbance in the force - only it was just a cringe parent that was way too excited to "bond" with her adult daughter. "I'll make your favorite the first night you're here."

Braith didn't cook, so she had no idea what her mother was talking about, but she nodded along anyway - glad her mother couldn't see the look on her face.

"So fifteen somethings?" Amara asked. Another pause. "Mom I can't see you." She reminded her. "Yes, yes, anything you want as long as it isn't alive." Braith said. "Do these people know that they're getting this from you?" Her mother asked, which caused a slight shift in her daughter's demeanor. "Er, well, I haven't exactly asked, or really offered..." She answered, her voice trailing off to let her mother come to her own conclusions. "And how do you expect to get any of this to them?"

"I just kind of figured I'd ask you first, figure things out later. You know, give as many people as I can a good impression of me before people find out I'm your kid." Probably not the best way to phrase that, she could hear the air being sucked up through her mother's nostrils in irritation. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, I just prefer not being hunted down every time I go hiking." She offered right away, as if that would somehow soften the blow of suggesting her mass-murdering parents were anything but the most ideal parents in the galaxy. "You could defend yourself if you - never mind, we'll get your lack of discipline sorted when you're home. Figure out what you need and then I'll take care of whatever you need from me, provided I'm not making any sithspawn."

"Thanks mom, I'll see you next week when I'm back. Tell dad I said hi." She said, ending the call as her mother said goodbye.

Now she just needed to figure out how to get in touch with everyone that was going to end up losing their fights.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

At the centre of the commentator table, in the context of Darth Kentarch , Gat Tambor , Aether Verd , Darth Empyrean , and Mauve , Ashin watched the fights unfold.

"Have you noticed," she said, "that the pyrotechnics are not about power so much as about...genre? I look at these fights and the scope and flamboyance of them varies so widely, not just between matches but between combatants. This event has something suitable for every taste. Some of it's even to mine. One area where I think some of our fighters have a great deal to learn is how heavily they're overcommitting — sinking everything they have into what they feel a Sith Lord or a...galactic-kaggath-scale combatant should be able to do. It's leaving them open, it's draining them, and you can start to see good sense win out. Not restraint, necessarily, but efficient use of violence rather than overconfident, self-indulgent camera play.

"And it's not always on the side with the most experience. Personally, I'm appreciating Gida Luroon 's creative use of the shifting environment against significant odds, while wounded.

"I'll turn the question to the table. Is there anyone doing work today that impresses you — within the scope of their capabilities, of course? Who stands out?"

 

[Merion Oreno]

Up on the cliffs of the Valley of the Jedi, recently rewilded by Ithorians into their natural and appealingly bleak desert state, the death cultists kept watching the fights. Always, always they asked each other—

"Has anybody died yet?"

Nobody. Not among the combatants, anyway.

Someone had a datapad out and was tallying moments of bloodshed, serious hits taken, to compile a general 'blood rating' relevant to the cult's interests. Kesh Hevro versus Kyric , for example, was currently rated at four blood splatters out of five, vornskr interference not included. There had been high hopes for Balun Dashiell versus Fenn Stag — a five-splatter fight — to end in death, and real disappointment tainted the cult's formation.

Murmurs rose and cultic attention focused on Whottoomuzz Chantin versus Lirka Ka , a respectable four-splatter which seemed to have come to a conclusion, both heavy-armored combatants locked together and out of steam. Potential death? Potential death?

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Spectating: Lysander von Ascania vs. 5-WCH (Switchblade)
Wearing: Nondescript black traveling cloak, hood up.

It was an ugly helmet.

Cora had made the mistake of gripping the railing with her mechanical hand. The longer the match went on for, the tighter her fingers clamped around the low-grade durasteel bar.

Lysander's letter had inspired a full-blown panic. Perhaps he was being theatrical as their family was wont to do, but the tone of his message was dour. Like that of a man who had already given up - perhaps not on life, but on something.

She dropped everything and caught the next shuttle to Ruusan. The match was already underway when she arrived, and she had to bribe a Herglic security guard double the spectator fee (along with her copy of The Nagai's Duel of Love she'd been reading on the way over).

Idiot. How could be put himself in such danger?

It was more than the danger, really. Surrounded by raucous cheering for blood, Cora could only see the angular, crimson lines of the helm. Suspicion had been creeping up her spine in the months that Lysander had left for the Outer Rim, but now it took root in her bones. In reality.

Sith.

Cybernetic fingers warped the railing they clenched. He was a vicious combatant, but so was the droid. Each blow to her brother reverberated in the Force, another drop in a bucket that was already overflowing.

Then came the lightning. Brilliant blue arcs discharged from his fingers, trawling along his arms and chest. A feedback loop of pain. She was far enough away - having wormed her way into a midsection standing area - to not feel the heat discharged by the electrical onslaught.

Yet, the fractal scars branching up her arm began to burn.

Pain. How long has he been…

Lysander was falling, and she screamed. Cora’s voice was lost to the bedlam around her.

A sentiment imparted unto Lysander, riding on the threads of the bond that connected them: I will not bury you beneath that oak tree today.

Perhaps it was just another cry into the void.

 

[Isar]

Perhaps it was just another cry into the void.

"Hate it when you cry, love."

Rings of smoke hazed the air. A smell of lavender.

Behind her stood a tall man, indigo tattoos webbing up his necks and arms.

He just stood there, pants and shirt black. Baggy. Loose. One hand stuffed into a pocket, the fingers of the other held a cigarette to his lips, tip aglow. Flat, dead eyes the color of wilting heliotropes watched her.

Wisps of smoke interposed the distance between them.

"Not quite a day on the lake."

The background was a photo of them with Lysander von Ascania Lysander von Ascania - the day they'd gone fishing on Naboo. Both young men looked bright and happy, their smiles infectious as they posed for the camera. Cora stood between them, halfway caught between irritation and disgust as she awkwardly held her catch with stiff hands, lake ooze dripping from one side of her face.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"Hate it when you cry, love."

For a moment, everything became still. The terror of watching her brother fall to his potential death was suspended.

It was still there; it just didn't evolve. Trapped in a singular moment of agony.

Cora's flesh hand had remained motionless at her side. Now, it trembled as she brought it forward to clench around the railing. She drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of cigarette smoke.

"You're not real," she murmured. It might've been a declaration, or it might've been wishful thinking.

Her back was turned to the pink devil. Her guard still raised. Cora wasn't the same after they'd fought, after he'd violated her memories. Time, patience, and the Light had healed her enough - but some pains couldn't be eased.

"Leave me be."

Isar

 

[Isar]

A long drag on the cigarette. Another ringlet of smoke drifting. Aimless. Pointless.

Just like him.

An empty shell, living because what else was there to do but to just keep on living. However much he sometimes wished it would all just come to a screeching halt.

“Afraid not,” Isar said, taking a few steps forward until he stood at the railing, elbows resting on it, leaning out over the side. Her plea to be alone with her guilt and her fear ignored.

“I think he’s still alive,” Isar said, staring through the burning, dismembered foliage of what was left of the Wroshyr tree.

“Looked like he hit just about every branch on the way down.”

Tough break.

Isar flicked his cigarette out into the arena, adding littering at a Jedi holy site to his list of offenses. If this place even still counted as holy now.

“Don’t think it would matter for much. If I said I was sorry. Jedi do forgiveness these days?”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora kept her gaze forward, fixed on Lysander's body. He was so still.

Her senses stretched out, down into the arena, catching the flicker of his heartbeat. Weak, but present. She cradled it for a moment, her metaphysical touch akin to that when she held him as a child. She couldn’t imagine being anything other than gentle and loving towards her brother, even if the revelation rocked her to her core.

Cora began to exhale in relief.

That breath caught when smoke and lavender dredged her focus back to Isar, now beside her. Now real. She wrinkled her nose, upper lip curling into the start of a sneer.

"A good apology is given not in anticipation of being forgiven, but because you are sorry for what you did."

Isar

 

[Isar]

“Yeah, I guess so.”

The man frowned down at the body. Still alive eh? Well, lucky him.

Footage replayed, showing the moments of the fight. The lightning splaying from Lysander, fueled by… well. Not fueled by any Jedi teachings, that was for sure.

Isar felt the lingering darkness. If he walked backward in time, he could feel that moment. That pivotal juncture where Lysander chose…

Drawing deeper from the reservoirs of energy, he cast it outward in violent torrents, unleashing electric wrath in every direction. Not a flicker of restraint registered, nor a thought spared for collateral damage. There was only the need to destroy everything that dared stand in his path.

Isar sighed through the nose. Heavy. Tired.

Listless.

“I am sorry. For whatever that’s worth to you.”

How did one apologize for trapping a woman in a recurring Force-made nightmare with her abusive ex after rifling through her memories?

No easy feat that.

“Sorry about him too, love.” Isar shook his head toward the body. “He’s walking the tightrope now.”

If he fell, gave himself fully… there would be no path back. At least none Isar had found. Not that Isar deserved a path back at this point.

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris hopped onto a collapsed branch and began to compose a message to Tilon Quill .

i think i won?? dunno where they're taking us between rounds but i want you to be there

will bribe them if i have to, can you come?

The casualness in her message betrayed the sheer confusion between the rush and her fear, how the two intertangled, and that feeling she experienced when Vagabond let out a scream that shook her to the core.

 

[Tilon Quill]

i think i won?? dunno where they're taking us between rounds but i want you to be there

will bribe them if i have to, can you come?

on the way

Tilon had many weaknesses as a Jedi, but his skill with translation made up for most of it. A few key questions in a few key languages — and a dinner date arrangement with a svelte Weequay — put him in the room where Arris was meant to wind up. Underworld chic, newly constructed, with a med droid here to patch her up.

"You did good out there," he said. "That scream — I caught the edge of that up in the bleachers. Can't imagine how it felt at close range."

 

[Arris Windrun]

When Tilon entered, he would have found Arris lying on an angled table.

The medical droid worked in tandem with a droid of her own, which stood next to a crate of spare cybernetic parts. The two worked quickly--perhaps dangerously so--to replace and repair as much of the damage as they could.

Her eyes were glazed over. Not from an anesthetic, but from the sheer crash now that her hormones were either drained or suppressed. Only when she heard Tilon's voice did she turn her gaze to greet him with a smile.

The smile faded. "I..." Her arm popped off with a loud thud, and came with it a memory.

Still, he was quick, his weapon deadly--the blade managed to slice her hand at the wrist before she could slip it free, and cut half her forearm off with it. This left her with a red-hot, pointy piece of metal for an arm below the elbow.

"It threw me off balance... I don't remember," she paused. No, she did remember, just not what she expected to. "For a second, it felt like I was the whole building. I really can't explain it." She remembered seeing it all, hearing it all, feeling it all, and then nothing when she fell into the abyss of that rage.

Her hair was wild and burned in some places, and there was exposed subdermal armor and cybernetics along her stomach, shoulder, neck, and face. The droids attached a replacement arm. This one didn't have the added benefit of shocking hands, but it was at least the same model by a different brand, and matched in dimensions. She winced when they hit her with electric stimulation to connect to nervous system to the artificial wires.

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

She winced when they hit her with electric stimulation to connect to nervous system to the artificial wires.

The sense of her pain flinched him out of focus from his current task, which was harmless but delicate. It was an old Jedi trick of thought, a technique attributed to Luke Skywalker. If you poked a mind just so, they wouldn't feel it. If they had the potential to learn the Force, an instinctive reflex would knock you back a bit.

The Force jolted him. He staggered but kept his balance. Arris, if he understood the technique right, wouldn't have felt anything, just seen him stagger.

"I just did a test," he said, excited despite the moment but also worried for, well, everything. "You're Force-sensitive. You could learn to use it. Rule number one is don't be an authoritarian jackass — no thrones, no fleets, no jackboots. I think you're probably good there."

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris blinked. "Are you alright?"

"I just did a test," he said, excited despite the moment but also worried for, well, everything. "You're Force-sensitive. You could learn to use it. Rule number one is don't be an authoritarian jackass — no thrones, no fleets, no jackboots. I think you're probably good there."

She blinked again as the droids worked on further repairs. They didn't have time to fix the aesthetic damage, but they could at least repair servors and flush the excess hormones and other compounds out of her system. She spent the next minute or so contemplating what he said, processing it.

"I'm not sure I understand," she replied.

Although at that moment, she was vividly taken back to a conversation they had in the sarlacc's stomach.

Most people can learn it with a decade or two of the right training. A few have a gift to pick it up much faster. Like most Jedi, I'm somewhere in between.

She shuddered at the thought of the rest of that memory. "So, what's rule number two?"

The medical droid turned to her. "Your liver is damaged. A temporary implant can offset it." The one downside of having an artificial liver was that no amount of bacta could fix the problem.

Arris gave the droid a curt nod. "Proceed."

Tilon Quill