desistance / perpetuation

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

...wake...

In an impenetrable time and place unique to himself, Kar'h'tzen Shaed sat at the table and thought. I've never had to eat a sandwich with a spoon before, yes, and I hope Sparkly didn't chew up the new holo, did I turn off the light when I left? I wish Davill would open up more, and what if... no. That one was definitely not his own thought. His glazed (and totally obscured - constant ward to the protective guidance of thick, black goggles) eyes wandered across the quiet room, fixed but for the focus of their peripheral vision. That last thought's owner was a woman ten meters away, nodding in agreement with the conversation of her companion - yet obviously not paying attention to it.

Shaed's focus shifted to his meal, which was indeed a rapidly-moistening sandwich. The recipe was unique to this particular half-hearted restaurant and a small handful of opulant and immaculate eating establishments across the galaxy, so it was to be expected that the exact same result would not be making an appearance at both places. The ingredients were, well, unstable, and you had to keep them together just long enough for the patron to get them down his throat... this mudhole didn't have the proper preservatives, but the old chef had done his best, bless him. He also had a splitting headache, the reminder of what he couldn't remember. Shaed had that effect on people... almost unconciously, these days. He wanted things done, and they just happened and sometimes people had aneurisms but usually Shaed ended up with something like what he willed them to do. It was easier in large cities, there were less of the strong-willed kind there.

His own mind... he didn't think about that. Too much. An outsider would tell you it was an antigrav train that had flown off of the guideroute a long time ago, and someday it was going to run into something stronger than itself and a mess would be made. But that hadn't yet happened, and there was at least someone at the helm. Probably a lunatic.

So he WAS thinking about his own mind! Ha. Shaed smiled, and ladled the remnants of lunch into his mouth as he did so. Almost tasted like the real thing. Texture... it needed texture badly. The RIGHT texture. Life needed texture. Minds... minds had all sorts of texture. There were few kinds of minds left that he hadn't run his fingers over, savoring the feeling of. He was terribly bored with them all, in fact, but he couldn't stop from doing it anymore. It was unconcious. He did like the sensation, after all. The feeling of... control. The control he perhaps lacked over his own mind, he could exercise with diamond-tipped precision in the minds of others. It was power.

Sometimes his fingers shook. He didn't know why. In fact, some of his sandwich had spilled onto the laminated surface of his table. It smelled delicious.

[Banestone]

...breathe...

The old, hooded man on the other side of the space port's only restaurant bent over his own meal, and exhaled. The food here was terrible, but he couldn't help enjoying it. Enjoyment... there was no purpose in it, but he was finding a lot of it in life these days. The salt-and-spices shaker was, for instance, shaped like the lifeform he was now enjoying in roasted form. The old man smiled as he fingered the shaker, even as his thoughts turned dark. His former student had grown so powerful... and had foolishly warped himself so much. Could he still be helped? ...Could a bantha fly?

Considering the flexibility of the Force, the old man had to admit the answer was "yes". He grinned again, ruefully this time. Mixed with hope. There was a lot of that going around in his thoughts these days, as well. He hadn't deserved it, but the Force had granted him it just the same. Just the same... and how much "just the same" was he? So much had changed, but always he could feel how he had always felt - his darker side, still inside. Even though he had changed. So... would he ever truly change? Could he forge... NO. He could not afford to forget what he'd once been. It would be an inescapable trap, for if he forgot his past then he also would forget what he had learned from his experiences. He would fall right back into his old life - his old death - and he would be feared, and powerful, and terrible, and... he would be nothing. Eventually he would weaken - or perhaps die in his strength - and the Force would pass him by. It would forget. Nothing he had worked so hard to achieve would last, and nothing he did would ever matter. He didn't like these thoughts... they brought him close to sadness, which he was already so full of that it would surely drown him if he succumbed to it. Regrets... he had so many. Life... it was an uncertain thread. His eyes had been opened. Really opened, at long last. He was... free? And now life terrified him, even as he delighted in it. Not life, really, but... the future. Yet, hope remained. After all, the simple fact that he was still living was a ludicrous impossibility. And after you managed a ludicrous impossibility, everything else simply HAD to be easier in comparison.

Hoping that the worst was indeed over and his dark thoughts could always be safely tucked away, Banestone's mind turned again to the thing he came here to do. His massive, dark hand briefly rubbed the spot where his eyes had been before resuming the sacred task of bringing steak into his mouth.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

...I wish I was a holostar / Oh Sparkly, I'm SURE you've chewed it up by now / Mmmm / What line shall I use... / Wish it was about two hours from now, I'd be home and relaxing in a tub full of / These prices are outrageous! / And then I / sure I should get the Dantooine Swishtle Soup / if he looks at my chest one more / ah, my head / who his tailor is / fell from Alderaan? / rather be dead / really should be going / chef looks awfully pa- / -hy won't she / dunno why tha- / -ll me, baby, you-...

He was terribly bored. Was he always this bored? His days ran together so seamlessly, he wasn't sure if he even slept. No... he was sure, because the screams always woke him up in the end. But his recent past seemed muddled with the present, and hell, maybe the future as well. That was the power of the Force, for you.

Shaed's mind stole the thoughts of those around him, taking without regard or caution. He liked it. Didn't he? He needed something. He craved a certain definable thing that would satisfy him. He didn't know what it was, but maybe someone around him would know and he could take that knowledge from them. ...

......

...He was going too fast. He suddenly realized that he'd missed someone, an old cloaked m... man. How did he know the man was old? He hadn't touched his mind, hadn't seen his face. The old man had, in fact, been here when Kar'h'tzen had arrived. Shaed hadn't seen anything but a big, hunched mass of cloak and hood where he was unreasonably certain an old man was sitting.

The other thoughts vanished, and Shaed touched the weapon by his thigh as his eyes narrowed behind his blackened goggles.

[Banestone]

...better breath again, you may not get very many more...

Shaed's presence sharpened, his loose thoughts suddenly collected and his focus gained. So, now was the time.

Shifting his bulk and still masking the impression people had of him with the Force - an old man, thickly bearded with pale skin who clearly was to be left by himself and not really noticed - the tall, thick and ebony-skinned Banestone rose from his seat. His appearance wasn't actually altered, just his presence - people wouldn't see what he looked like beyond the impression they were given. Why look, when they already knew? It was a bit tricky and he had very little practice at it, so this situation was quite a testament to what shape the mind of Kar'h'tzen Shaed was in. Banestone planted his fingers against the table - metal and blunt on his left, soft and blunt on the right - as he stood, then used them to gather the edges of his cloaks back together as he licked the vestiges of taste from the corners of his mouth.

He wasn't trying to fool people about his looks for any reason other than it was neccessary, of course. He sort of stood out in a crowd, and undoubtedly anyone who saw him would start thinking about him. And as a result Shaed would be thinking about him, too, before Banestone had finished eating. He would have hated to have to leave his meal to cool... he enjoyed hot meals. The old man thing wasn't even a lie, he felt every inch an old man. Inch, hm... every hour an old man? Well. He felt old.

...he ate every meal cold, unless it was still living. he ate what he wanted, when he wanted, but he did not eat before a fight. a warrior fought on a stomach that hungered, just as he hungered for victory and the blood of his enemies. a meal would dull the senses, lull the mind to complacency, take the edge off of adrenaline, sicken a warrior under the right amount of stress, and more...

Yes. That had been how it used to be. Banestone lifted a thick, wooden pole from the floor where he'd laid it. He had been born for war, bred to fight. Enhanced to win. But he found life to be so much more appealing. The upper corners of his mouth turned up in a smile, the cold durasteel of the bottom corners unable to respond in kind. Well. Time to see what would come of life in the next ten minutes...

The walking stick made thickly soft, tapping noises as he walked towards Kar'h'tzen's booth. His head remained down, the over-sized hood obscuring his entire face in a way that those with sight who wore it would not have tolerated. But the living Force was better than any eye, and it flowed through him as surely as the blood and metal in his veins.

Kar'h'tzen... his state of mind was unclear, shifting from intense fear to intense poise to intense anger. Ferocity underlaid it all, and his future was uncertain. He sat like an animal that had just realized it was trapped, staring from a frozen slouch with a spoon in his mouth.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

...who is he who is he who is he...

Kar'h'tzen's teeth clenched his forgotten spoon, his hands otherwise occupied (one inside his coat, yes, a trick for a trick maybe, one on a lightsaber, not his own lightsaber, this was his latest lightsaber from the pretty Jedi on Marath'lizon Fen, his own lightsaber was in a sheath on his other leg and he'd have trouble getting it out sitting like this, frell, what had he been thinking).

Who was that thing... Jedi? Dark? Sith? A Force-user, a big one and with no fashion sense but carrying a big stick, heh. It didn't even matter what allegiance the creature was, they all would try to have his heart out in a minute if they felt like it. He was alone. He was all he needed! Frell. Frell this fear, frell the Force-user and his twig. Should he say something? The being was getting closer. Should he just kill it now? Indecision flooded Shaed, bring a mix of curiousity, fear, and hate.

"Kar'h'tzen." So said the man covered in brown cloth, but now he was so close that Shaed could see up his hood - his light-starved eyes saw metal, but only darkness above it, but OH ALL THE BLEEDING HELLS IT WAS A METAL JAW, IT WAS and then his fear made his table explode. His hatred snatched every weapon in and around his long, black coat out and FLUNG, his desparation took him towards the black demon in an impossibly fast lunge, his right hand brought an ignited lightsaber twisting upwards to catch the devil through the chest, his other hand was somehow holding his own lightsaber already in a guarding position that would, given Shaed's velocity, take off Banestone's right arm before it had the chance to actually guard against something, but he had to guard, it was BANESTONE and the fear that shot through Shaed as he did all of this shocked him with its pain as it flooded every vein in his body.

[Banestone]

I don't think he's going to say anyth... Banestone's thought ended a moment before the room erupted into violent action. The Force is my ally. Time slowed to a crawl, but of course it didn't. Shaed was fast. It was, in fact, probably faster than Banestone could have managed it, in the old days. His apprentice was nothing if not skilled, and dedicated to the brink of insanity when his mind was set to it. One thing Shaed was not faster than, however, was the Force. He grasped it and it did his bidding, but Banestone let it flow through himself. His use of the Force did not react to Shaed's, no, Shaed's actions were preceded by the knowledge and nudges the Force left with Banestone as it flowed.

A trio of sharp throwing stars spun at him, as well as a thin-bladed dagger, two long (and also thin, and also sharp) wires that curled toward his neck as they flew, a... live grenade?, five hollow-tubed darts (filled with only the finest and deadliest toxins, no doubt, although probably one or two had other uses), something that looked like an otherwise featureless sharp-pointed metal stick, two more throwing stars from another pocket, and finally, several of some kind of thin-shelled capsule filled with a powdery substance, and two eating utensils (yet no napkin). Yes, they would all do a fine job of killing him many times over before he had a chance to fall to the floor. But carefully, they were all nudged off of their flight paths, and ended up embedded in furnishings all over the restaurant after barely missing him. All but the grenade (had the lunatic just thrown a LIVE GRENADE two feet in front of himself?) and the capsules, the latter of which he stopped in midair some distance behind himself so that they wouldn't break open. The grenade was also held gingerly aloft, ready to explode upon impact. One of the darts had an explosive liquid in it, it turned out, and caught the booth Banestone had used on fire; but the lightsabers were more important. A fork ricocheted off of his jaw.

The bright blue lightsaber aimed at his heart was shut off; Shaed was moving so fast by now that the blade still almost hit him even as it was reduced to nothing. The other saber, Shaed's lightsaber, was twisted backwards and pointed directly over Shaed's shoulder, near the neck. And, finally, Banestone shifted his weight forward as much as he could in the remaining time, which was none.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Kar'h'tzen's right fist slammed into rough cloth and hard muscle and bone, holding a lightsaber that looked like it had done what he intended - but he knew it had been shut off. His left hand frantically grabbed at the length of his own lightsaber, which was treacherously angling back at him, when his elbow slammed into Banestone's stick and started ringing with pain. Lastly, the rest of his body joined the party and crashed into the huge alien briefly, then bounced off. Shaed found his feet as he rebounded, landing with his left arm awkwardly in the air trying to pull his lightsaber away from Banestone's Force grip. The only nice thing that happened was a little explosion in the background, as the rocket fuel dart hit a squishfoam-backed chair.

Shaed rocked back on his heels, then forward to his toes again as he hoped something good would come to mind. Sadly, he drew a complete blank.

[IG-88e]

There were many indignities in the universe.

Of them, the greatest surely was that biological sentient life preceded that of droid sentience. Chief of all indignities, that the greatest minds to ever exist would never have existed if not for the lesser minds that had brought them to life.

And while it was not the greatest indignity, the task of pretending one's head was a kitchen appliance surely was a very great one. Paying off the restaurant attendant, convincing him through bribery that he should let a droid hide in the kitchen? Credits only had worth to the self-serving biologicals currently permeating this universe. In the end, these bits of electronic data and their hardcopy representations would mean no more to anyone than sand did now. Cutting a hole with a laser drill in the countertop, folding his own lanky body into the cupboard beneath, sealing shut the cabinet doors and staying there - utterly immobile - for the next eleven local planetary hours? Child's play, in applicable equivalent terms, for a droid. Having the restaurant attendant destroyed by an automated garbage craft, after being sure he'd told other employees about the new and-as-yet-inoperable appliance? Now that... that was a pleasure. And a necessity, when target FS.0173 could have discerned the attendant's thoughts, found out about an undignified plot designed with the target's demise in mind.

Putting up with idiotic employees constantly prodding and fiddling with the protrusions on his head, trying to make him "work". That was the worst of it. Perhaps they would find out, much to their dismay, that they were annoying an assassin droid and sticking their fingers into his weapons ports, advanced sensory arrays, and electrical input/output sockets. If they lingered long enough, or ran slowly enough, they surely would. IG-88e had already revised his plan five times, to incorporate as many restaurant employee destructions into it as was reasonably feasible. To a droid, "reasonably feasible" meant that the plan still had a 95.00 percent chance or greater of reaching a satisfactory conclusion. In this case, IG-88, body model e, was unwilling drop the odds below a 97 percent chance of success. He had standards, after all. And Force sensitive targets always dropped the standard odds by two percent as it was.

The rest of the day had proceeded with acceptable normality, until an unclassified FS series target had started a fight. IG-88e easily watched it progress, as the kitchen had three large and unblocked openings - two windows, one door - to the dining area. It was certainly an impressive struggle on FS.0173's part, while the other FS - likely FS.0119 - just stood there and made FS.0173 look incompetant. He also lowered the success probability of IG-88e's mission considerably, by an entire seven percent. He would have to be dealt with, even for just the standard bounty. Even now, FS.0173 was rebounding from his useless and impressive attack - in danger of destruction by FS.0119. That didn't bother IG-88 in the least, but it appeared an oppurtune moment to take the greater threat out of the scene.

IG-88 angled a high-powered disrupter rifle from behind his cabinet, and shot the live ArmaCore X7 grenade that was dangling in the air. That and everything within 2.5 spherical meters of it, to be more accurate. The pleasant thing about disrupter rifle emissions was that Force sensitives had very little they could do about them.