Atton's Coruscant, Saturday

[suitably_heroic]

Okay, if Atton could've chosen a way to spend the night before Sparkle Training Day, it wasn't exactly 'locked in a seemingly endless meeting about closing the net on pirates'. But he couldn't exactly skip out, either-- the Republic had sent a fair share of bigwigs to discuss the problem, and he had to play nice and be the model Jedi.

But eventually, the meeting wound down. People started to leave. And that meant this was now his opportunity to do the other thing he'd attended the meeting for. Or, well, talk to the guy he'd partly attended the meeting for, at any rate.

Admiral Carth Onasi. A hero of the Republic. Fought in the Mandalorian Wars, but didn't go with Revan-- instead, his mentor Saul Karath had betrayed him and bombed his home planet. Onasi had stuck with the Republic, and then joined Revan on his quest to put an end to Darth Malak and his Sith Empire.

If Bastila wouldn't answer his questions, maybe Onasi would.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Atton asked, intercepting Onasi right on his way out.

Onasi blinked. "Uh, sure," he said, "Anything for the Jedi. What's up?"

"I did a run last week, out in the Mid Rim," Atton said conversationally. "Minor pirates, waste of my time, except they had a Mandalorian on board."

There was visible confusion on Onasi's face. "I don't think Mandalore is involved--"

"No, I know he isn't," Atton said, rolling his eyes. "The guy was bitching up a storm. Talking about how a Jedi called 'Avner' was really responsible for Canderous Ordo's meteoric rise up the Mandalorian food chain. You know anything about that?"

Onasi rubbed the back of his neck. "I know Revan went to Canderous right before he disappeared," he said. "But Bastila could've told you the same."

"Bastila doesn't really want to talk to me anymore," Atton said. "Something about old ghosts, yadda yadda."

"Old ghosts?" And oh, look. Something akin to understanding dawned on Onasi's face. "You're still looking for Revan. I thought your people said he was dead?"

"No, we know Meetra is dead," Atton said, ignoring the pang of pain in his chest. "Revan, we don't know anything about. I thought maybe if I retrace his steps, we'll find something. Somewhere. Maybe something that explains all of this." Nathema. The system that had swallowed two Jedi, and yet didn't turn up on any star maps.

Onasi looked about to protest, the same as Bastila had. But then his features relaxed. "That's all I know," he said, "Revan went to Rekkiad to see Canderous. Next thing I know, Canderous is Mandalore and Revan was gone. Didn't tell anyone anything, but I understand that's just a Jedi thing."

Atton let out a snort. "Yeah, let me tell you something ab--"

Suddenly his instincts flared and all the alarms in his head went off. He tackled Onasi to the floor, hitting it hard, but not as hard as the blaster bolts that buried themselves in the wall behind them. "Space!"

Whatever had just fired off those bolts was already running-- he could sense that. He crawled onto his feet and dashed for the window, putting his feet to the sill. Then he launched himself into incoming traffic. You're not getting away from me!

Onasi was left on the floor, blinking.

"...Jedi really don't change, do they."

---

There was a white girl sitting in the waiting room of the Portalocity station, waiting quietly and with just a hint of disapproval. 'White', in this case, didn't refer to the color of her skin, but the color of her everything: she had a white hood pulled up over her white hair, a white robe over her white tunic which led into her white boots.

You could say much for Brianna, but at least she was easy to pick out in a crowd.

She was also distinctly unamused about having to do this, but unfortunately Mira was out on a mission, and Rand was an idiot.

[[ for sparkle, la. ]]

Comments

[myownface]

Sparkle had the requisite bag over his shoulder again today, with the requisite Pop Tarts, as he arrived at the Portalocity station.

The 'um' look on his face was probably kind of requisite too, considering the sort of familiar face that he saw once he arrived was not at all the one he'd been expecting to see once he got here.

Well, nothing for it, he supposed, but to make his way over anyway. He was here, after all.

"... What kind of shit is Atton in this time?"

[suitably_heroic]

"What he wants me to tell you is that he is in a meeting, but he'll be with you shortly," Brianna said. She got up out of her seat and walked towards the boy. "By which he means a sniper tried to kill him repeatedly, but only succeeded in kicking him through a window into a skylight. Mical is picking glass out of him now."

A beat.

"The 'be with you shortly', however, is true."

[myownface]

Sparkle needed to take a moment to just sort of sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose.

"He's making all kinds of friends, isn't he?"

[suitably_heroic]

"It's Rand," Brianna said dryly.

She turned towards the door with little fanfare, expecting the boy to follow her. "If he had been smart enough to leave the assassin alive, we might at least know who his latest friends are."

[myownface]

Sparkle ambled along behind, yes, though it felt weird to be tailing her and not Atton.

... Who had apparently killed a man today, so, that was interesting. In fairness, the guy was trying to kill Atton first.

"No clues, huh?"

Small talk time with Brianna was... awkward? Was awkward a good word for it? Kinda awkward, then.

[suitably_heroic]

Well, it was Brianna. The only small talk she was usually interested in was the kind that happened while you were beating up on each other in your underwear, so she wasn't about to put in any kind of effort to make things more comfortable. She wouldn't know how.

"No clues, some suspicions. Either it is someone upset over the Order's recent efforts against pirate gangs, or someone took offense at Atton for some other reason, which is entirely possible, or they were attempting to kill Admiral Onasi, in which case their timing was as terrible as their assassin's skill at his craft."

At least the walk back to the Temple wasn't very long when the other party wasn't purposefully trying to get you lost.

[myownface]

There was that! Though Sparkle would take getting lost with Atton over not having the faintest clue as to how to talk to Brianna any day of the week.

"Well, at least they picked a shitty assassin," he decided, looking up at the temple as they walked. "Is this the first one?"

[suitably_heroic]

Brianna's quick step ensured that they were already walking onto the Temple's sizable square by the time she answered.

"As far as we know," she said. "He hasn't mentioned anything else."

[myownface]

"Cool," Sparkle sighed, scratching the back of his neck. "Then maybe this one will be the only one. Or at the very least, the next one will be just as bad at his job..."

He could hope. Not that he put much faith in wishful thinking, but sometimes it was the better option for his sanity.

[suitably_heroic]

"It might be useful if there was a second one," Brianna said, as she walked up the steps of the Temple. "We could then question the assassin. There are several nerve strikes near the elbow that can be very coercive."

[myownface]

Sparkle's mouth did a little bit of opening and closing like a fish while he tried to puzzle out exactly what somebody was supposed to say in reply to that one.

...

"I might have to learn how to do those sometime."

There! That seemed like... a thing to say? 'Hi, Brianna. Teach me torture.'

Hooboy.

[suitably_heroic]

It was all right, Sparkle. Atton would assure you Brianna only knew, like, Baby's First Torture. Maybe Intermediate Torture. Torture for Softies.

"Sit here," Brianna said, gesturing towards a small seat near the inside of the Temple. "I will go to medbay and see if he is done yet."

[myownface]

Ooh! Ooh! Sparkle was a softie!

"Sitting," he announced, making his way over to that seat and pretty much immediately depositing his behind in it. Okay, so he wasn't usually this obedient, but seriously, meeting with Brianna at the Portalocity station instead of Atton and then finding out that somebody had made an attempt on his best friend's life had a funny way of throwing a guy off of his game. "Siiitting."

Lookit him, sitting there, kind of wide-eyed and looking sort of lost!

[suitably_heroic]

It was another ten minutes before Atton showed up, wearing a loose white tunic and a mildly cranky expression.

Look, Brianna, when he told you to lie to people, he did it for a reason. Like, say, avoiding giving people expressions like the one Sparkle had going right now.

"Sorry about that," he said. "Hey."

[myownface]

"Noooo worries, man." Sparkle sat there awkwardly for a moment more before holding up his bag. "Pop Tart?"

... Shut up.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton let out a snort.

"Smooth, Sparks," he said. "Walk with me, we'll sit down in the training area and you can stuff as many Pop Tarts in your face as you like."

[myownface]

Hey, Sparkle was nothing if not slick.

"Sure," he replied, pulling himself to his feet and shouldering his bag again. "So. Meeting, huh?"

This was something somewhere between calling Atton out on trying to get Brianna to lie to him, and wondering how he was doing now that he was presumably glass-free.

[suitably_heroic]

Covered in kolto-patches underneath the tunic, so they wouldn't be doing anything particularly difficult in training today, but in Atton's estimation he'd live just fine.

Even if Mical's bedside manner was really damn patronizing.

"Yep," he said. "Started last night, bunch of bigwigs from the Republic military and some other charming agencies showed up to talk about the pirate problem. Don't mind me if I start guzzling caf."

[myownface]

Mical, patronizing? Never!

"Hey, if you need to be one with the caf, don't let me stop you," Sparkle decided with a shrug. "This isn't, like, a really shitty time or anything, is it?"

What with the whole assassination attempt and all? No? Yes?

[suitably_heroic]

Oh, Sparkle. Okay, Atton had never been thrown through a skylight before, but otherwise...

"Are you kidding me? It's great," Atton said. "I could use a distraction anyway. Kicking your ass's a bright spot of the day."

[myownface]

"Hey, if you're sure..."

Really, it wasn't like Sparkle was in any hurry to leave, either. Lewis had, like, some sort of neighbourhood meeting thing tonight that he wanted the group home kids to attend if they could, but that wasn't for, shit, hours and hours by his own, time-going-slower standards. That meant there would be plenty of time here before he had to take off, anyway.

"What's on the agenda for today?"

[suitably_heroic]

"I figure I should probably teach you some more blocks," Atton said. "You know, just in case you run your stupid face into something."

He shot Sparkle a sideways glance. "Speaking of which, drop the puppy eyes already, I'm fine." Beat. "I mean, I'd like to start receiving nicer brands of welcoming committees again at some point in my life, but..."

[myownface]

"Yeah, man. I don't know what it is with you and getting the shitty kind..." Sparkle pursed his lips a little, and then shook his head. "You know I worry less when you don't try to get your Jedi buddies to lie to me, right?"

Like, generally? He expected a few fibs from Atton, and some blatant avoiding the truth and all, but if he was up and walking about in more or less one piece, why try to get Brianna to lie at all? It wasn't like Sparkle didn't know Atton did dangerous shit on a regular basis these days.

[suitably_heroic]

The lying was partly compulsive these days. It was hard to unlearn years of being overly paranoid.

Plus, if Brianna had just done what he said, there wouldn't have been a problem.

"Hey, I didn't ask her to lie for me," Atton retorted. "I was in a meeting. The rest of it wasn't that important."

[myownface]

"Right," Sparkle replied, though he was willing to let it drop. "I guess so long as nobody tries to shoot at us while we're training, there's not really a problem, then. You're kind of like a cockroach that way."

Hard to kill and prone to bathing infrequently?