???, Two Days After Arrival
May. 22nd, 2015 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
suitably_heroicTaking the ship apart for parts took more time than anticipated. It didn't help that Atton had to spend the entire time keeping an eye on Selva-or-whatever-her-name-was. He'd found some cables to secure her with, but he had no idea exactly how much training she'd had, which meant he had to check every five seconds to make sure she hadn't pulled some spy tearing-the-cables-apart-in-secret trick.
Then again, if she did know any of those tricks, he wasn't so sure she actually remembered them. His own memory was pretty fuzzy, but the patches were starting to come back - he remembered fire and steam and the Hawk descending on the planet, remembered vaguely about some pretty teenage kid and a prettier teenage princess and some Jedi Jesus figure he couldn't figure out wore a helmet or a giant wafting stream of hair. There were a lot of things he remembered how to do, but also some things he was sure he did know how to do, but not-- right now.
(There was Meetra Surik, though. She had stayed crystal-clear in his mind.)
This planet was strange. First it took your head, then it gave it back to you.
Or maybe it was because wherever they were, it was away from the epicenter of whatever had happened to this place. Which meant that if he did get back to the Hawk, he'd have to work fast, or run the risk of losing his mind again.
Going in to figure out what was causing this was a nice dream, but it wasn't happening.
"Okay," he said to Selva, at last. "We're leaving."
"Why do you bother even telling me that?" she said sullenly.
Atton rolled his eyes and dumped a load of parts in a bag. "Because you're carrying this," he said, holding it up.
---
"I thought Jedi were supposed to be kind," Selva grunted. She was practically doubled over with the weight of the bag, but Atton wasn't so sure she wasn't just playing.
"I keep getting that," Atton said. He was keeping his lightsaber on. It gave off less light than monster body parts, sure, but at least this way he could strike immediately if she - or anything else - tried anything. "See, this is what you people don't understand. You have nice Jedi, and you have less-nice Jedi. And then you have me. I'm a mean Jedi."
"Do you give this speech to everyone, Jaq?" Selva said. She sounded like she was rolling her eyes, and--
Wait.
Wait.
Atton came to a stop. "What did you just call m--"
And because the Force absolutely hated it when anyone got to find anything out in depth, that was when the creature punched Atton in the face and sent him flying, nearly burning his own hand off with his lightsaber in the process.
His back hit a tree hard, but the cracking noise that made was somehow overruled by the sound of the backpack hitting something else. At least, Atton was pretty sure that was what it was. He couldn't see.
Kark. She had gotten loose.
He scrambled up to his feet, hurting but functioning, and brought his lightsaber up just in time to parry a blow from... something. Had to be another one of those staves. He struck and caught it again. The air gave off a little tell-tale woosh as his assailant moved. He kicked out, finding someone's belly by the sounds of the sudden exhale he heard.
He swung the lightsaber over his head and cut through something, a tiny hollow light in the Force winking out in front of him and hitting the ground.
Silence took over.
No more lights. At least not in the vicinity. Not even Selva's diseased light, which meant-- "Damn it," he snarled. "Damn it!"
He ran his hand over his short hair and looked down at the ground. "Ah, space," he said.
Nai's dead eyes didn't respond.
No wonder he wasn't sensing much nearby anymore. The village must've gone all dead inside. And Selva had taken off with all of the starship parts - he was pretty sure he'd mined that ship for all it was worth, too, so going back wasn't going to help.
He gave Nai's staff an angry kick.
"I am not dying on this karking planet," he said. "I refuse to die when I don't even know where the hell I am."
A pause. "And it's creepy quiet around here, so I'll talk to myself if I want to!"
---
Going around the village wasn't an option. Going through it was... creepy. There were still one or two people left alive in there, but they weren't talking anymore. Just outside the settlement's limits, he could sense the creatures wandering around, some further gone than others.
This village had to have been here for some time. How had it disintegrated this fast? Whatever had happened here must've happened a long time ago, and yet.
Maybe he and Selva had made it worse by crashing here. Maybe they'd wrecked something on their way in.
Atton sighed, casting a sympathetic look to an old man who laid crumpled against the side of his house. "I'm sorry," he said. "I am. Wish it wasn't too late to fix it."
There was the dark side, pressing in on his mind. But he was holding this time. He thought of her weary smile, the way she had kept stopping to help even though it served their group no purpose. With that in mind, he squatted down, and put the bright end of his lightsaber through the man's chest.
Better death than a hollow half-life any day.
---
He was actually making better time without Selva at his back. It made Atton wonder if maybe she'd been stalling him on purpose, for... what? In the hopes that the hollow would get him first? Weaken him? And who was she, coming here to kill him, knowing that name?
Sith, said his brain. He wasn't sure what to make of it.
A few dead creatures later, and Atton left the poison-bright forest behind him. Back into the darkness. But the blood trail they'd left behind on their way was still here and easy to find. A clean and empty road back to the Ebon Hawk, which, he guessed, he was going to have to fix on a hope and a prayer and maybe some sticks. No idea how he was going to make that happen fast enough without losing his already slippery mind, but he had to.
"I am not," he grunted, as he caught sight of the Hawk's lights in the distance, "going to die on a planet I don't know."
His senses fired off full blast. He turned fast, feeling the air displace as a blade came soaring past him.
"Yes, you are," Selva hissed, taking another swing at him a second later.
"You really need to work on your snarky banter!" Atton said, catching her blade on his lightsaber this time. He pushed forward hard, driving her back before she got any ideas about attacking him again. "Did you drag me here?!"
"I shot you down!"
He had to duck fast to avoid getting his head cut off. "Hey! That's my move!"
She let out an angry cry. "You were supposed to be dead, Jaq!" She struck out again wildly. Okay, she had part of her memory back, that was clear, but her fighting skills were flagging. "Three times!"
"I get that a lot," Atton said, dodging with remarkable ease. What lightsaber style was he using again? He wasn't sure, but you know what, he was going for the kneecaps.
A second later, Selva was crying out in pain rather than anger, limping backwards unsteadily on a half-severed leg. "We killed you on your island!"
"No, some of you tried," he replied, stalking forward after her. "Hey, look. I remember that part." He kicked out at her healthy knee and felt her topple, even if he didn't see it.
"We are going to kill you," she hissed, "Traitor. Deserter."
"Is that what this has been about?" Atton said, stepping over her, holding his lightsaber low both for the light and to make sure she wasn't going to try to cut his ankles off. "Some of the old Sith are trying to kill me because they're still ticked off I walked away? Seriously?"
"You are not a 'mean Jedi', Jaq," Selva spat. "You're deluded. You stole our skills, and now you are--"
If he hadn't known the Sith style, if he hadn't remembered, he would never have seen the swipe of her vibrosword coming. He'd have lost his ankles, she would've gotten the upper hand with her one functional leg, and he'd have died. But some things were instinct, not easily forgotten.
He blocked it easily.
"Will you stop?" he asked.
"Never."
"You know, I really got over the psychotically determined thing years ago," he said, and stabbed his lightsaber into her throat. "But let's face it, you were never going to tell me anything anyway."
Karking Sith.
He stepped away from her body, yanked the backpack off her shoulders as she bled out. "And I am a mean Jedi," he added, "But I'm not the one who might've just doomed what remained of a planet just to take me down."
He could feel it now, the thrum of something evil right under the soil. Close to the Hawk.
He sighed.
"You better not have gotten dark side all over my ship, Selva," he said, and walked up the loading ramp.
[[ nfb, nfi, npc death under the cut. thus ends my souls-ian detour into keeping atton from spoiling The Old Republic. ]]
Then again, if she did know any of those tricks, he wasn't so sure she actually remembered them. His own memory was pretty fuzzy, but the patches were starting to come back - he remembered fire and steam and the Hawk descending on the planet, remembered vaguely about some pretty teenage kid and a prettier teenage princess and some Jedi Jesus figure he couldn't figure out wore a helmet or a giant wafting stream of hair. There were a lot of things he remembered how to do, but also some things he was sure he did know how to do, but not-- right now.
(There was Meetra Surik, though. She had stayed crystal-clear in his mind.)
This planet was strange. First it took your head, then it gave it back to you.
Or maybe it was because wherever they were, it was away from the epicenter of whatever had happened to this place. Which meant that if he did get back to the Hawk, he'd have to work fast, or run the risk of losing his mind again.
Going in to figure out what was causing this was a nice dream, but it wasn't happening.
"Okay," he said to Selva, at last. "We're leaving."
"Why do you bother even telling me that?" she said sullenly.
Atton rolled his eyes and dumped a load of parts in a bag. "Because you're carrying this," he said, holding it up.
---
"I thought Jedi were supposed to be kind," Selva grunted. She was practically doubled over with the weight of the bag, but Atton wasn't so sure she wasn't just playing.
"I keep getting that," Atton said. He was keeping his lightsaber on. It gave off less light than monster body parts, sure, but at least this way he could strike immediately if she - or anything else - tried anything. "See, this is what you people don't understand. You have nice Jedi, and you have less-nice Jedi. And then you have me. I'm a mean Jedi."
"Do you give this speech to everyone, Jaq?" Selva said. She sounded like she was rolling her eyes, and--
Wait.
Wait.
Atton came to a stop. "What did you just call m--"
And because the Force absolutely hated it when anyone got to find anything out in depth, that was when the creature punched Atton in the face and sent him flying, nearly burning his own hand off with his lightsaber in the process.
His back hit a tree hard, but the cracking noise that made was somehow overruled by the sound of the backpack hitting something else. At least, Atton was pretty sure that was what it was. He couldn't see.
Kark. She had gotten loose.
He scrambled up to his feet, hurting but functioning, and brought his lightsaber up just in time to parry a blow from... something. Had to be another one of those staves. He struck and caught it again. The air gave off a little tell-tale woosh as his assailant moved. He kicked out, finding someone's belly by the sounds of the sudden exhale he heard.
He swung the lightsaber over his head and cut through something, a tiny hollow light in the Force winking out in front of him and hitting the ground.
Silence took over.
No more lights. At least not in the vicinity. Not even Selva's diseased light, which meant-- "Damn it," he snarled. "Damn it!"
He ran his hand over his short hair and looked down at the ground. "Ah, space," he said.
Nai's dead eyes didn't respond.
No wonder he wasn't sensing much nearby anymore. The village must've gone all dead inside. And Selva had taken off with all of the starship parts - he was pretty sure he'd mined that ship for all it was worth, too, so going back wasn't going to help.
He gave Nai's staff an angry kick.
"I am not dying on this karking planet," he said. "I refuse to die when I don't even know where the hell I am."
A pause. "And it's creepy quiet around here, so I'll talk to myself if I want to!"
---
Going around the village wasn't an option. Going through it was... creepy. There were still one or two people left alive in there, but they weren't talking anymore. Just outside the settlement's limits, he could sense the creatures wandering around, some further gone than others.
This village had to have been here for some time. How had it disintegrated this fast? Whatever had happened here must've happened a long time ago, and yet.
Maybe he and Selva had made it worse by crashing here. Maybe they'd wrecked something on their way in.
Atton sighed, casting a sympathetic look to an old man who laid crumpled against the side of his house. "I'm sorry," he said. "I am. Wish it wasn't too late to fix it."
There was the dark side, pressing in on his mind. But he was holding this time. He thought of her weary smile, the way she had kept stopping to help even though it served their group no purpose. With that in mind, he squatted down, and put the bright end of his lightsaber through the man's chest.
Better death than a hollow half-life any day.
---
He was actually making better time without Selva at his back. It made Atton wonder if maybe she'd been stalling him on purpose, for... what? In the hopes that the hollow would get him first? Weaken him? And who was she, coming here to kill him, knowing that name?
Sith, said his brain. He wasn't sure what to make of it.
A few dead creatures later, and Atton left the poison-bright forest behind him. Back into the darkness. But the blood trail they'd left behind on their way was still here and easy to find. A clean and empty road back to the Ebon Hawk, which, he guessed, he was going to have to fix on a hope and a prayer and maybe some sticks. No idea how he was going to make that happen fast enough without losing his already slippery mind, but he had to.
"I am not," he grunted, as he caught sight of the Hawk's lights in the distance, "going to die on a planet I don't know."
His senses fired off full blast. He turned fast, feeling the air displace as a blade came soaring past him.
"Yes, you are," Selva hissed, taking another swing at him a second later.
"You really need to work on your snarky banter!" Atton said, catching her blade on his lightsaber this time. He pushed forward hard, driving her back before she got any ideas about attacking him again. "Did you drag me here?!"
"I shot you down!"
He had to duck fast to avoid getting his head cut off. "Hey! That's my move!"
She let out an angry cry. "You were supposed to be dead, Jaq!" She struck out again wildly. Okay, she had part of her memory back, that was clear, but her fighting skills were flagging. "Three times!"
"I get that a lot," Atton said, dodging with remarkable ease. What lightsaber style was he using again? He wasn't sure, but you know what, he was going for the kneecaps.
A second later, Selva was crying out in pain rather than anger, limping backwards unsteadily on a half-severed leg. "We killed you on your island!"
"No, some of you tried," he replied, stalking forward after her. "Hey, look. I remember that part." He kicked out at her healthy knee and felt her topple, even if he didn't see it.
"We are going to kill you," she hissed, "Traitor. Deserter."
"Is that what this has been about?" Atton said, stepping over her, holding his lightsaber low both for the light and to make sure she wasn't going to try to cut his ankles off. "Some of the old Sith are trying to kill me because they're still ticked off I walked away? Seriously?"
"You are not a 'mean Jedi', Jaq," Selva spat. "You're deluded. You stole our skills, and now you are--"
If he hadn't known the Sith style, if he hadn't remembered, he would never have seen the swipe of her vibrosword coming. He'd have lost his ankles, she would've gotten the upper hand with her one functional leg, and he'd have died. But some things were instinct, not easily forgotten.
He blocked it easily.
"Will you stop?" he asked.
"Never."
"You know, I really got over the psychotically determined thing years ago," he said, and stabbed his lightsaber into her throat. "But let's face it, you were never going to tell me anything anyway."
Karking Sith.
He stepped away from her body, yanked the backpack off her shoulders as she bled out. "And I am a mean Jedi," he added, "But I'm not the one who might've just doomed what remained of a planet just to take me down."
He could feel it now, the thrum of something evil right under the soil. Close to the Hawk.
He sighed.
"You better not have gotten dark side all over my ship, Selva," he said, and walked up the loading ramp.
[[ nfb, nfi, npc death under the cut. thus ends my souls-ian detour into keeping atton from spoiling The Old Republic. ]]
