This doesn't belong to you...

[Julius Sedaire]

Credits... Credits were always a need, if one that Julius wished he could ignore at times. The Corellian Jedi movement needed some, so they didn't have to rely solely on handouts and charity. Luckily for the one time Republic Jedi, he had made contacts on the Outer Rim during his smuggling period, however brief it may have been. And that was what he needed now. Fortunately, the Galactic Alliance was much less uptight about its' members personal activities so long as they didn't fall under the Dark Side.

That was what had brought Julius to this Force-forsaken and near derelict space station out on the Rim. There was a less than savory contact of his awaiting his arrival, and as he stepped from the Turhaya he smirked. The man, a Mandalorian of dubious birth species, was definitely scum, by the galactic definition. But he paid well, and what he was asking of the Corellian wasn't terrible, from a certain point of view. Not really. Just general mass-market arms and armor for resistance cells in the Outer Rim.

As Julius stepped towards the armored form, he raised his hand in greeting, and then stopped cold. He wasn't one to sense things through the Force much. Premonitions and funny visions and prophetic dreams and the like. But something faintly radiated from his some-time associate. And as he did a quick assessment of the man, he saw what. Aran, as he was called, was known for hating Jedi... Yet a lightsaber hung from his belt, one that called to him in the Force, and one whose form he and almost any Jedi knew on sight..

Dispensing with formalities, Julius pointed at the Mando'ad and then to his belt.

"That doesn't belong to you...."

 

[Julius Sedaire]

"Oh? I wasn't particularly aware such things had laws regarding them, Julius.. Are you back to your old ways, wearing robes and thumbing your nose at the common folk of the Galaxy?"

Here the Corellian hesitated, for only a moment as he formulated his reply. After his declaration, there had been a shift in the feel of the room. A shift in the feel of the Mandalorian standing before him. This wasn't a simple supply run so much anymore. Something was lurking in the mans' mind, a shift in intent. It was the sense he got before a fight, that warned him danger was lurking. But he was trying to keep the situation calm and diffuse, without injuries. Too much aggression and he might start down a darker path than he wanted. And his skill in combat already put him too often on that tight rope as it were.

"Hardly. That not ever me... But certain things belong to certain people... That saber, it belongs to the Jedi. To the Skywalker line, if any would take it up. Or to whomever it calls to. Not to some schuta of a mando'ad..."

As he spoke, his stance shifted, hands drifting to tuck into his belt casually, but a keen eye would notice each were near the weapon on the hip, one towards his lightsaber, the other towards the MP1. And that his narrowed gaze was watching the armored form in front of him with suspicion. He hadn't intended to be so bold, so declarant, but something upon seeing how the other acted drove him, spurred him on. It felt wrong to see such a piece of history worn as a trophy somehow, just wrong.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

"Cute... Cute that you think it matters... Fact is I got it on a job and I like it... If you lot can have them, so can I... Nothin makin you special over us except a lot of fancy mumbo jumbo...And I don't particularly like the tone... Deal is off... But we're taking the guns anyway..."

As the two trandoshans moved in from the flanks, Julius felt the familiar rush that always accompanied combat the moment before he cleared his mind. The mercenaries were lightly armored and had simple blaster pistols, nothing extravagant. Aran had apparently fallen on hard times, or these lot were considered expendable and new to his band. No matter. He was not here to end lives, slavers and criminals or not. As they drew bead on him, he tried to speak, to caution them against their course of action. Truthfully, he wasn't here to do anything but a smart bit of business, and it was only at the last second that the blade at his hip snapped to his hand along with his pistol in the other.

At first, the bolts were deflected with almost childlike ease, Julius barely shifting or moving the humming blade to deflect them side to side. He tried to plead for the two to stop, assuring them of his intent. There would have been an offer of an even trade, some sort of compensation for the group, even if they had come by the artifact through less than honest ends. However, they seemed hell-bent on ending his life, and so he shook his head, trying his best to resist the growing frustration he felt, which would lead to anger and worse if he were not wary.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

As it became apparent the two would not be satisfied with anything less than his untimely departure from this mortal coil, Julius just shook his head in resignation. Deflecting the shots wide turned into something else entirely with a faint shift in focus of his attention. A quick spin and swing, instead of a shift to block, sent the bolt directly back to the mercenary firing it, the bolt knocking him down, though likely not killing him as it hit his shoulder, the recovery sweep of the blade over his head almost like a practice kata and repeated the deflection, again with the result of the bolt impacting the target. This time though, it pierced the throat, and the aggressor fell holding his shredded wind pipe, gurgling and whimpering almost pathetically.

Aran merely idea the Jedi with something approaching respect and definitely wary. It wasn't like it used to be, that was for certain, Julius had begun to revive the old him, in part. Just like with restoring a classic car though, it was hardly ever a complete revivification of the original. The temptation to try and fix 'mistakes' and make the project 'better' - whether it be personage or product - was just too tempting. And so he stood, waiting, blade held low and to the ground in a relaxed guard. Aran would move first, the Corellian knew his counterpart well enough to know that about the man. He was wildly impatient, and grew easily frustrated if you mocked him, like Juliues was now.

Indeed, a few seconds later the others gauntlet was wreathed in a thin puff of smoke as a mini-rocket flew towards Julius from it...

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The reaction time was... Insane... Julius hadn't been idle lately in his life, hardly.. If anything, for the first time in his life, he was actually paying attention to his gifts. Learning about the Force, in ways the Jedi Temple had made him feel a failure for not meeting their checklist of qualities, he was realizing he was hardly that. Indeed, as the mop-headed hero saw the rocket come to him, in his mind and in his gut, he perceived time to almost slow to a crawl. Possibilities leaked and eeked from the moment.

Parry it, obviously... But it would likely detonate the warhead on the rocket.. Messy business, and he wasn't one to know tutaminis or force-barriers to mitigate the fall-out from that bit of dancing. And while he was fast, even for a Jedi, he was not that fast. He wasn't sure anyone was, or could be. Telekinesis was never his strong suit either really. He had a few limited applications of it. And suddenly, like a light going on in a room in total darkness, he saw the solution, and... Well.. He acted without hesitation.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

He stepped a few quick steps back, and pushed with the Force on his own body. Force Jump.. He was always okay at that.. And indeed his body soared up in the hangar as the ignited saber suddenly hurtled from his hand on a dead center bee-line for the rocket. Twisting, he managed to land on his freighter several meters away and immediately pushed again, hurtling forward. His lightsaber had exploded to small bits in the subsequent actions. That was unfortunate, but expected. It was, after all, just a tool.

The course he was on took him like a rocket through the exploding gas and smoke next to Aran, and he yanked the MP1 from its' holster on the small of his back. Several quick, snap-shots from the pistol were intended to distract the man as he reached up and utilized the Force in a quick, minimalist twitch. Rather than soaring through the air to him, the saber began to fall from the belt of the one carrying it, and Julius rose from his landing crouch. There was almost a sprinters stance to his body as he surged forward, twisting with the Force to grasp the saber as his opponent riddled the air with blaster bolts from a wrist-unit.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The slide through the legs of his opponent was perhaps not the most graceful, but one hand managed to catch the saber as it fell. The other emptied the magazine of the MP1 at his opponent, causing them to leap away quite agile like. Unfortunately for them, Julius had expected it. Whilst the man had put his helmet on, at the least, he was still not expecting the level of response from Sedaire that had came out. Aran had known him at his lowest, at his most base form. This was a new form of the Corellian, and it was apparently off-putting the mando'ad.

So as Julius rose from the ground, there was no real reverance shown for the saber in his hand. It was a tool, and there was a job needed doing. Though he would rather his old friend leave this alive, the gout of flame that suddenly erupted from his other wrist showed Aran had other plans. So he spun to the side, breathing a bit heavily as he reached his hand out. This time he avoided using the Force. Use it too often, too much and you got fatigued. Not only that, but it became a crutch, and without it you weren't worth a two-credit chit. So this time he merely hurtled the empty gun at Aran, hoping it would distract him.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Standing whole and defiant, he even managed the wry, cocky smirk he was famous for as he took in the dirty hangar around him, the gagging-rich smell of accelerant and fuel filling the heated air, almost scorching his clothes. The skywalker saber, if his guess was correct as to its identity, and it was not a convincing fake, ignited in a sibilant and dangerous hiss, and something in the man changed. The Corellian felt a tremor in the Force, as if something were reaching out to him, speaking to him. It was an immense feeling, for the man who was not prone to such.

Flashes came, of another time on Coruscant, another set of hands wielding this blade. Of a battered box on Tatooine, and wrinkled hands filled with regret passing it on to young hands full of innocence, and then more and more rapid. The flashes were bits of this, bits of that. Different lives, different wielders, all with different aspirations and wants and needs. Really it was quite intense and purifying. They brought about a sudden and crashing realization to the rogue jedi. In the space of mere minutes, his Force connection pushed into his mind a sudden burst of random, unwilled and uncontrolled psychometry.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The gaze that met the sinister t-visor as his head rose from the humming blade was not the same as moments before. There was a sudden weight and gravitas to it, a realization of responsibility. The smirk was still there on his lips, true enough. It likely would always be there, nothing would change the core of Julius from a swaggering Corellian who was full of himself and quite sure of his destiny. But, could it direct that confidence, mold that energy and passion? Sure it could.

Before hand, he had always viewed the Force as just a tool. A way to enhance his fighting, and do a few neat tricks. The buying into the religious and dogmatic aspects of it... The whole mysticism and such that so many focused on in the Temple and the Order.. Well that was just silly.. You didn't worhship your hyper-drive on your ship, or your bladder when you vacated it... Why worship the Force. In this moment, though in the future he might back-pedal on occasion out of stubbornness or habit... He understood... It was much, much more. Much more.. It was destiny, it was life.. But it was also the destroyer, and death itself. There was no life, no death. No good, no evil. There was the Force. And what you did with it, how you acted... That was the key...

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The Skywalker clan had been faced with this truth generation after generation, so many of their members falling and being redeemed. But the Galaxy at large had forgotten this truth. Everyone had a darkness to them, everyone. To deny it was to deny ones own self. Ones failings and triumphs, their strengths and weaknesses. That was the flaw inherent in the Jedi Orders, in their philosophy.. They denied the darkness because to them, the Light was the more important of the pairing. But what they didn't realize was, if you cut off half of a see-saw, it didn't work for crap as it was intended after that. The same way with the Force.

That was not to say it was ok to go around choking people with your mind, or torturing them. No, that was wrong, inherently evil and twisted. Nor was it solely intent that made up a good person. But what you did was important. Both the end and the means. And when you crusaded to wipe out life, good or bad, and made that your inherent mission... Even if the cause behind it was just, righteous and pure... Then well.. Why not just admit you wanted to kill those different from you, and be done with it? Were you any better than those who did the same, but at least had the balls to admit their reasons? The short answer was no, and so what Julius said next came from a sudden moment of Clarity burned into his very soul by these visions.

"Leave now. I won't kill you. Should I see you again, I might even buy you that beer I owe you. You don't even have to leave the guns, I'll cover the contract on my own. This is your one and only chance Aran... See to it that you take it..."