Galaxy's Edge Space Bar

[Darth Revan]

Garreth was relieved, though not surprised when Raile withdrew his hand. He answered, "If you don't let your emotions go, if you don't follow the teachings of the Jedi, you are helping to kill the Jedi. By giving in to your hatred of your enemies and holding onto your anger, you abandon the Jedi way. You abandon everything your master taught you. You disgrace him, for vengeance. For more killing, blind, hate-filled killing." He puts his lightsaber away and bows his head shaking, defeated. He turns to leave saying, "It is clear you will listen to no one. I fear you are already gone from us. Lost, only within yourself and your sorrow." Garreth then walked around the bar and exited out of the back door.

He found a clearing where there were signs of a great battle. He sat on the ground in the middle of the site and began to meditate. He could sense great darkness here. A place he could practice his cleansing technique. He concentrated and placed his hand together in front of his chest. A dim light began to emanate from him and pulsed outward, covering the battleground.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

~Raile~

Raile recoils as if slapped physically.  The harsh words are not as he expected.  As the other Jedi leaves, anger replaces shock and he follows the other out to a place of long-past carnage.  He walks up to Garreth as he sits and begins doing...something, a technique Raile himself is not familiar with, perhaps one lost to history.

"How dare you?  How DARE you?!  You who say you are from some other time, you who knows nothing of me or the sorrows of my time.  How dare you say such things?!  I did not feel the anger, nor the sadness, nor the hopelessness before.  I controlled them, kept them dormant.  Yes my control was not perfect, but it could have been with time."

He stares down at the other Jedi.  "Then you tell me to feel them, to experience them.  Your words so mimicked those of my old Master that I thought you to be as wise as he once was.  So I followed your advice, and I felt, though I knew what waited, and feared what it might do.  And just as I embrace your advice, you turn on me and tell me that I am lost?!  Tell me, Knight Garreth...are you Sith in your time, or are the Jedi merely so callous and self-righteous as you?  I thought I sensed caring and compassion within you, I felt...I felt my old Master in you.  But it appears my senses are not so well-attuned, as my old Master would never have done what you have done.  Tearing emotions raw and then abandoning the one you have left, injured and bleeding."  Angry tears again grace Raile's eyes, but he doesn't even think of lashing out against the other.

"I had hoped you would be a friend, Garreth...I am Jedi, I will always be Jedi, and if I must rebuild the Order from the foundations I shall!  But I had hoped to find a friend, someone to share the burden with, and to confide in.  You gave me this hope...the hope that the Order might survive.  That perhaps one day I might be able to train others.  And then just after, you condemn me!  Is it your goal to turn me Garreth...?  Ripping me open and leaving me for the Darkness?  It won't work.  I will die before I embrace the Dark Side."

After Raile's speech ends...he continues to stare down at Garreth a few moments before turning his back.  A strange calm wafts over him...something he cannot explain.  He feels suddenly at peace, his warring emotions merely echoes.  What was this?  Was this Garreth's doing?  He glances back at the seated Jedi.

[Darth Revan]

Garreth listens intently, continuing to attempt to purify the darkness from the grounds. He feels it wash over Raile some, but concentrates on the grounds. When Raile finishes his sentence, Garreth smiles warmly. It had taken time, but as a trader had once told him, 'Sometimes the only way to close the deal is to show you can walk away.' He opens his eyes and discontinues his previous actions. He stands up and looks kindly into the other Jedi's eyes and replies, "I apologize for making you feel as though I was abandoning you. I apologize for being rude to you. There seemed no other way to get you to leave the bar and your realm of depression. No, I am not a Sith. Were I a Sith, I would not try to help you rid yourself of your anger and hate; but encourage you to contain it and draw from it. The pain and anger you felt inside the bar was only a small step towards truly exercising them. I had to get you out here so I could help you exercise them further. Out here, there is less chance of a bystander or innocent from accidentally being harmed."

Garreth places his hand upon Raile's shoulder once more and continues, "It warms my heart to hear you speak of more for your future than just revenge and violence. I would find myself lucky to be called your friend. You are making great strides. Even just now, you move closer to ridding yourself of your fear and hurt. If you would like, I can help you further."

[Chad32]

Suddenly Jocun heard movement, and he heard Parker tell Salem to watch out. He was still at a distance, since he had been walking towards Salem, but he drew his dracon. Grass blades crushed under an invisible foot, and he tried to judge where the enemy would be, given the speed he was traveling. He took a few shots, hoping that even if he missed the enemy would be off center. As he shot, his body started changing. His limbs grew larger, and his skin hardened as he began morphing much faster than anyone from a hundred years in the past. What once took two to three minutes would take forty five seconds to one minute.

[Terenia]

All around Zorish the noise and movement - some at seemingly impossible speeds - seems to be escalating. The alcohol in Tamora's system is still making it difficult for him to focus, but he has the sense at least to pull away from the armored man named Parker and maneuver herself into a more protected stance behind him and away from the possible enemies. He grasps again at his holster, but his Dracon is no more there now than it was moments before when Jocun first appeared.

"Dapsen," Zorish hisses. Things have begun to get far too complicated. He reaches into one of his holster's pockets and pulls out his comm link. Working the Imperial machine takes far more effort than it should, and his attention is drawn away from the flurry of activity as he glares at the familiar device, trying to get his fingers to pull up the holoscreen and uncloak his ship. It takes several tries, but finally a ship materializes about a hundred yards to the left. It is clearly an Imperial ship; the logo stamped in crimson along the black living metal hull.

[Darth Revan]

Parker turned back to find Tamora and saw a ship appear in the distance. He asked her, "Is that your ship? Would you be opposed to me carrying you now?" He was hoping she would be willing to swallow her pride in favor of staying out of the firefight.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Salem grinned as Parker re-holstered his weapon. He was definitely a soldier- Salem would never be in danger unless he became a threat. Soldier-types always managed to amuse him. Disciplined and predictable.

"Sure, okay," he nodded. "Keshin and I'll just..." he cut off as the beeping, indicative of Rathien's proximity, began to increase in frequency. His hair stood on end- Rathien was making a move. Without being able to see him, though, Salem couldn't do anything. He turned his head, trying to get some idea of where the hunter might be.

Parker yelled that something was "behind him." Salem's first reaction, however, was surprise, rather than caution. He turned to look at Parker and ****ed his head curiously, if only briefly. The soldier appeared to be using combustion-based projectile weaponry- laughably outdated by any standards- but apparently he had some sort of sensor on his person capable of seeing through Rathien's cloak, at least partly. The gap between the two technologies was... ridiculous.

As it turned out, his poor decision to not immediately look behind him saved him. A dart grazed his tilted head, just underneath his left ear. Salem instinctively ducked and spun, but before he'd gotten far, a second dart embedded itself in his right shoulder blade. Salem managed to spin into a crouch and draw his weapon from its holster, leveled in the approximate direction from which the darts had come.

Time seemed to slow as adrenaline kicked in. There was no visible sign of Rathien, but the beeping in Salem's skull was rapidly increasing in frequency. He noted dully that Jocun had fired a few wild shots- the Yeerk seemed to be a bit of a loose cannon- and some part of him, in the back of his mind, took note of the fact that Jocun began morphing, and quickly. Might have to talk to him about that later.

Still too slow, though. All far too slow. Parker, Jocun, Keshin, Salem, all right here, and Rathien might still be fast enough to get away before any of them could touch him. The hunter was very good at his job, and merciless.

Salem elected not to snap the stabilizing blades of his grav-pistol into place. With them forward, the weapon fired a needle-thin, concentrated beam of antigravity, but with them back, laid along what would amount to being the "barrel," the weapon fired a spotty pulse of antigravity that affected a wide area a few meters in front of the weapon itself, pushing everything away. Salem didn't have the weapon set terribly high, and there wasn't time to change the setting, but the weak pulse he was sending out might be enough to at least throw Rathien off balance.

At the moment Salem judged that Rathien would be nearly on top of him, based on the beeping he was hearing, he pulled the trigger and let loose a pulse. As he did so, he dropped to the dirt, trying to ignore the fact that his right arm was already going numb.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

~Rathien~

Rathien feels a small thrill as one of his darts takes Salem's shoulder...if it had not intersected any decent-sized blood-carrying vessels, the toxin would probably not be enough to contain the Trader's unfortunately outstanding health (by most standards).  And those little nanites..they could clean things up even faster for him.  The neck would've been much better.

His peripheral vision catches movement as the controller whose ship Rathien had fired upon levels a Dracon and fires, perhaps seeing the advancement of feet and dust in the gravel-grass mixture.  He pivots, changing his angle, the new one carries him more in the direction of Salem as the old would've carried him past and several feet behind Salem on a tangent.  AS he pivots he performs a series of acrobatic leaps, incorporating his hands and feet to avoid the somewhat wild shots of the controller.  He had misjudged just how much Tobias had ingratiated even these few.  The fact annoys him, but perhaps he could still make this pay off.  He draws both of his fighting blades in hopes that he can perhaps disable Salem a bit further than the dart would, but just as he begins a whirling leap that would draw a long gash along Salem's weapon-hand, a blast of energy catches him and throws him back before the blade can make contact with flesh.

He flies back several feet before catching his feet in the gravel, transforming his backward falling motion into a controlled backward flip.  He crouches, silent and unmoving, the dust kicked up from Salem's weapon discharge and the scuffle obscuring the crushed grass under his feet and the downturned palm still gripping the hilt of its fighting blade.  He's barely winded as he waits.  The armored one begins moving away and the area around Salem begins to clear.  Rathien grins to himself, running his tongue over a fang in desire...if enough distance opened up...well any matter the Entroper touched at this range wouldn't be far from pure elements after.  He waits, assessing the situation, poised like a large cat ready to pounce.



___________________ ___________________ ___________________ __________________

~Raile~

Raile stands in stunned silence as Garreth speaks.  He was partially angry at the other for manipulating him so, and partly angry at himself for letting it work.  He never claimed to be a Consular, he had always drifted toward the so-called Guardian-class of Jedi.  Yes he had some training in negotiations and politics, but they were not his specialty, not by any means.

"I...I apologize...I spoke from pain and anger."  Raile forces himself to meet Garreth's eyes, sensing the compassion there again.  Here there was no war, no Sith, no darkness.  Only himself, and a few random bar patrons from strange places, and Garreth.  Whether from another time or no, he feels a new-found kindred, perhaps a brotherhood, with Garreth.  Not as strong as a Bond between Master and Apprentice perhaps, but some sort of link.  Perhaps he was merely desperate for that kinship after feeling the death of so very many brothers and sisters all at once.

"I...will accept your offer of assistance."  Subconsciously Raile's hand drifts toward his old Master's saber hanging at his waist, squeezing it as if that provided a link to reality in this strange place.

[Darth Revan]

Garreth smiles widely. He clarifies, "Now, I will no longer deceive you, nor treat you in a sideways manner. The only true assistance I can give, other than advice and an ear, is a technique taught to me called Force Light. It removes the taint of the Dark Side from people, objects, and sites. It is very difficult, and I have only been able to cleanse small objects so far. I've cleansed lightsabers and powerful, tainted, objects belonging to Sith from the Archives. This technique may be able to help you in some way. I truly fear that the extreme pain you felt and the overbearing anger you have held for so long, may have left a mark within you. I believe that my light may be able to weaken that mark, if not remove it all together.

"The success of your purging depends completely on you. How much you share, how much you feel, how much you are willing to forgive, how much you are willing to let go." He instinctively looks to the lightsaber Raile clings to. He does not mean to indicate it as something he must give up, it only catches his eye how much Raile seems to regard it. Though it would be understandable if his motion were misinterpreted.

[Terenia]

Zorish stares at Parker in drunken disbelief for a moment. "I said I can walk," he says in a surly voice, beginning to make his way forward. Despite his host's incapacitation, his own mind is working fairly normally. He merely cannot make his commands translate smoothly to the human body. It is incredibly frustrating, but certainly not so irritating that he is willing to be carried by a complete stranger.

"Jus'....cover me," he manages to get out, staggering off in the general direction of his ship and away from he scene unfolding. He is dimly aware of the heat of Dracon shots warming his back, but he avoids the temptation to look behind him and throw his host's delicate balance off-kilter.

[Chad32]

Jocun was glad the invisible enemy had been hit, though it wasn't one of his shots that hit him. "I don't suppose that strike would damage his cloak so we could see him better?" He asked in a deeper, more gutteral voice  than usual due to his morph. Sharp spines grew on his skin as he continued, but he worried about that gun from before. How useful would this morph really be? "Are you going to keep playing hide and seek, or are you going to stop being a coward and show yourself!?" What he wouldn't give for e Leeran right about now. Obviously the armored soldier could detect the enemy, but he was leaving. Would he even come back after his guard duty was done?

[Darth Revan]

Parker continued to support Tamora, helping her to walk upright. He kept an eye on his motion detector as they continued to walk toward her ship.

[Midnight_Huntress]

Silver watched them and leaned against the wall of the bar as Julian began to make small talk while sparring. "Focus, Julian. No showing off." she said scolding him, but the smile on her face said she meant well enough.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

~Raile~

"I already feel quite a lot better, Garreth.  Thank you.  I am always willing to learn.  It must've been that that I felt just now?  I am not the strongest user of the Force and I have not practiced as much with it as I have with my lightsabers, but I am willing."  He allows his hand to fall away from his old master's saber.  Ever since Nev'An had died, Raile had taken to incorporating it with his own saber-style.  Controlling two blades diverted the attention and required more concentration, but he had practiced hard to become proficient with both since he'd lost his old master.  He always felt it was like fighting alongside his Nev'An once again.

[Darth Revan]

Garreth nodded, "Training with two sabers takes much practice and discipline indeed; but to be able to fully quiet your mind and cleanse yourself of such hurtful emotion is much more challenging. Learning to forgive yourself and to let go of the attachments you've made requires more than just determination and focus. It is good that you are open to this." He gestures to the spot he previously sat and says, "If you are ready, we can begin now."