Spiral Journey

[Dakota Black]

Day 1


What a barren place this appears to be. I've been here for half a day and no one has said a word to me or even glanced in my direction. I feel so out of place. Maybe this was a mistake. What if I'm wrong about everything I have heard? I ought not to be discouraged however. If there really are Jedi hiding right before my eyes, then finding one shouldn't be this hard...should it? I just pray that all this isn't in vain.

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Dakota Black set his pen down for a moment and slowly shifted his dark eyes from the leather-bound parchment before him to the faces of those socializing in the bar. Each time he locked eyes with a patron, the man who gave up everything to come here questioned the actual existence of the Jedi. "I'll give it three days," he thought to himself as he adjusted his weight in the wobbly seat he occupied.


A sigh full of heaviness and contemplation seemed to fall from his lips as the young man shook his mid-length mane into place on his back. After resuming a comfortable position, he flagged over the waitress in the small hole-in-the-wall and asked about drink specials. "If you have Adelyanna, I'll have a double shot of that. Stuff's as thick as Bantha blood." The waitress made a disgusted face but then smiled, informing Dakota that his order would be up in a matter of minutes.


Settling back into his chair, the wanderer in all senses of the word, decided to be still for that very moment...and to allow the great forces of the galaxy to make the next move.
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[Xel-Naga]

The door was pushed opened, and with it's opening the world shifted into slow motion. Everything slowed, the details becoming so much more clear. A man entered through the opening, dressed in drab nondescript colors. A black shirt, faded trousers, heavy dark leather boots, and a thick gray trench coat. As he moved through the door he dropped a wedge of hard plastic. A subtle movement of his foot slipped the wedge under the bottom of the swinging door to keep it open. The man continued his walk inside, never missing a beat as he moved. His head was bicked and his face was hidden behind a pair of smoked glasses and ratty facial hair. What little of his face that was visible was nondescript and average, although one might noticed his boxed ears; a clear sign of a fighter.

The man progressed through the door, his footfalls heavy and precise. He moved like a man on a mission, with purpose and authority. He moved through the room, his head turning left and turning right, taking in every detail. Nothing escaped the blue-gray eyes hidden beneath the dark lenses. A smirk formed at the edge of his lips as he approached a seemingly random wall booth, at which sat a man along with his wife and child.

The man's fingerless gloved hands were already dipping into his coat as he approached the table. The hand emerged just a moment later, holding an archaic slugthrower. The man at the booth looked up as the man approached, his eyes widening with surprise and shock as the weapon was drawn on him. Words started to form in his mouth, but never escaped as the slugthrower was leveled on him and the trigger pulled. Not once, not twice, but three times. Each round pounded through the air, piercing the man's chest in three places. His heart, his right lung, and his stomach.

Blood oozed from the smoking holes. People screamed.

The shooter quickly slipped his gun back into his coat as he turned on his heel and began his sprint to the door...

[Dakota Black]

After just a few moments, Dakota received his double shot and downed it without blinking. The burning in his chest was welcome in the coolness of this strange new planet he found himself on. The man's dark eyes wandered about the room and just then, fell on the face of a stranger entering the establishment. Curious, he watched for a few moments until a bloody scene unfolded before him and he gasped.

"What the..." but the thought that entered Dakota's mind went unfinished as he realized that he was now standing and running after the shooter. "What am I doing?!" however, his conscience wouldn't let this go. He could not just close his eyes and accept that this was the way of life here.

"Hey you! Stop right there now!" Dakota's powerful voice boomed as he sprinted with nearly inhuman speed. "I need a change of wardrobe," he concluded as his eyes shifted down to a simple set of black robes he had been wearing since leaving the monastary. Despite the trouble of running through packed streets and nearly tripping on the flowing fabric, the stranger from another world chased after a man he knew nothing about...and he didn't know why. "It's too late now! I saw what you did and you're going to pay for it!" he shouted after the mysterious killer, wondering what motive he had to kill those innocent people.

[Xel-Naga]

Footsteps behind him. The footsteps of pursuit. His heart ramped up a gear, and his body reacted in kind as his legs propelled his even faster through the door of the tavern and out into the streets of Coruscant. He had no fear of authority, of armed pursuit. This was Coruscant, the Imperial Center, but despite that the Empire was not so large as to have a soldier on every street corner. This was one of the many gritty areas of the city planet, and a place that few Imperials set foot in, except in the case of some threat to the government. And he was far from that.

His heavy boots thumped across the ground as he sped away, his pursuer right behind him. He was doing remarkably well for a man of his age. Once you hit a hundred you were suppose to either go crazy or die, or both. Usually the former before the latter. Cryogenics is a bisnitch. Still, it let him 'live' through the meanest point in recent history, but he kind of wish he could have seen the intense action of the Imperial takeover and all that shiz.

He skidded around a corner and ducked into an alley, only to stop just inside it, weapon drawn. Not his archaic slugthrower, but a obviously modified heavy blaster pistol, the kind that looks like it could blow a hole the size of your head through your chest. Pity they did not stand up to popular rumor. The weapon itself was pointed the way he came, ready to take his pursuer as he came. If the man was polite and stopped his mad chase he might live. If he kept coming he was going to get a mouthful of hot energy.

[Jackson Mcgraves]

Jackson watched a man duck into the alley that he was occupying at the moment. He had been watching a local drug dealer across the street for a few days. Today was going to be the day he put a stop to that nasty trade. The streets of lower Coruscant where his to protect being the last of the Jedi and all.

He was more of a vigilantly with few neat tricks then a Jedi now. Yet still he choose to protect the innocent when ever he could. As he saw the man turn the corner and take out a weapon Jackson quickly ducked behind a garbage can. For now he would just watch this man only stepping in if and when trouble arises. He did however upholster one of his heavy blasters.

[Dakota Black]

Dakota continued charging after the stranger, pushing past drug dealers, dumpsters, and death in the lower streets of Coruscant. "This is most definitely not the same place I saw on the holonet," he thought to himself as his eyes took in the terrible conditions around him. The sight angered him and caused a pain in his heart for the people being oppressed by the twisted government in power.

Suddenly then before him, the man he was pursuing turned quickly on his heal and pointed a large gun at him. Dakota found himself staring down the barrel of death and his heart skipped a beat in fear. "Do you think that's going to stop me?! Do you honestly think that I'm afraid of dying and moving on to greater things than this place?" His words were full of an honest confidence. Truthfully he was terrified of the events unfolding on the first day of his visit here...but in the same sense, the wanderer knew this would give him an opportunity to make a difference.

"I have a feeling that he doesn't want a talk," and just as soon as the thought entered his mind, Dakota found himself diving and rolling across the ground to take cover behind a few waste cans. For several minutes he waited in silence...the only sound he could hear was the uneven beating of his heart, which he prayed would continue beating in his chest when the day was through.

"I think I should have gone through a travel agent."

[Xel-Naga]

The little punk came sprinting around the corner, only to skid to a stop when he saw the weapon pressed into his face. People always had the inkling that someone who shoots up a poor sap in public and runs for it is a coward who won't turn and kill you for chasing him. Heroes are so pitiful and shortsighted. They made great martyrs, but the sacrifice is worth nothing if your foolishness gets you killed.

The man stopped and dived aside, hiding behind a collection of garbage recepticals that would hardly protect him from blaster fire. Metal melts away easy when heated, and blasters put out intensely hot lasers. Even if he couldn't hit the poor bastard, the melted metal would drip or fleck off on to him, and burn through clothing and flesh.

He could almost smell it already, the scent of burning flesh.

"Woah! What the frell are you doing?" He exclaimed, raising his gun and pointing it upwards. "Your going to get yourself killed, kid. Your crazy!" He smiled a little, "My kind of crazy" His smile widened, and then disappeared entirely. He had to keep his dark side under wraps. No sense in going on a bloody rampage here. He was not suicidal... usually. "Why don't you just go home, kid. I won't tell anyone you ran away."

[Dakota Black]

For what seemed like several minutes after the pursued spoke, Dakota held his breath unsure of his next actions in this intense situation. "Go home? Kid? What does he think I am - seven?" the words crossed the young man's mind momentarily but were fleeting as he attempted to focus on a dignified way out.

However, before he realized it...Dakota was on his feet and walking toward the pistol waving maniac. "Put down your weapon sir. I am unarmed and just wish to talk." "What am I saying?!" Dakota's heart rate increased with every step toward the dangerous man. He swallowed hard and felt a lump form in the pit of his stomach.

"I'm screwed." A heavy sigh escaped the man's lips as he inched toward the shooter and his gun. There was no way out of this one and the only thing Dakota could hope for in that moment, was that he came off crazy enough to be left alone. "You don't have to run anymore. Embrace the serenity around you!" he shouted while raising his hands up into the sky.

"This blasphemy had better work."

[Jackson Mcgraves]

As he shout Jackson slide out from behind the dumpster he was hiding behind. Coming up slowly behind Xel-Naga and pressing his blaster gently to the back of the mans head. He looked at Dakota for a second revealing his masked face.

The Mask was a bit goofy looking on Jackson’s face. It was a black hood that cover everything but his eyes. Of course the Hero of Coruscant didn't want his face plastered all over the streets that’s why he was wearing the mask.

"Drop your gun sir!" He spoke with a bit of aggression in his voice to Xel.

[Xel-Naga]

This guy was definitely my kind of crazy

"Very well. I'll let you say your piece." He said as he slipped his large blaster into the rather unique holster that was hidden beneath his coat. The holster was reinforced in strange ways to account for the modified weapon's unique weight points. But enough of that. Now his hands rested on his hips, as the stranger spoke about serenity. It sounded nice and all, but he was waiting for the guy to get to the point.

He was just about to say something back, his hand raised, finger extended, ready to use his hand as a prop for something he was going to say but completely forgot when he felt cold steel against the back of his shaved head. "Now, this could be a bad idea," He said, now speaking to the man behind him. "As you can see I have no weapon in my hand my good sir. You cannot say the same, however." He began to turn, slowly of course, so that he was facing the gunman. Now the barrel of the blaster was against his forehead, the bottom of the barrel resting on the frame of the smoked glasses that masked his eyes.

It took more then a blaster to the head to frighten the infamous Xel-Naga of Nar Shaddaa.

[Dakota Black]

"Who is that and why is he helping me?" the thoughts crossed Dakota's mind over and over again. For several moments, he stood in a stunned silence as he watched the events unfold before him. "Look at that! Seems like the tables have turned on our mystery killer."

Dakota quietly backed up a few steps from the scene and crossed his arms over his chest, cocking his head to the side to observe. "Why did you kill that innocent man? He was enjoying a day with his family!" there was an urgency backing his voice and the words fell heavily on the ears of the killer and the unidentified hero.

"I've never seen such a raw disregard for life before! This kind of action absolutely infuriates me." Dakota felt an angry sting in his heart. He thought that the rules of life were simple enough for all to understand. Treat others as you would like to be treated...and respect the life given to you and all other creatures.

Taking in a deep breath, the wanderer took several steps toward the killer until his breath could be felt on the back of the man's neck. "It's time that you take responsibility for your actions, sir. Clearly you have no respect for yourself if you can terrorize others as you do." With those words, Dakota shoved the man slightly, disrupting the glasses on his face as the barrel of the gun was pressed into his face further.

"Any man who can take the life of another has no regard for such a gift and so it would seem to me, that you have forfeited your own." With these words, Dakota's voice lowered and an ominous feeling took over the three men. It was at this point that the nomad slipped a hand into his robes and emerged with a small but powerful modified handgun. The barrel was quickly pushed into position at the back of the man's head and Dakota smiled darkly.

"Start praying."

[Jackson Mcgraves]

"Give me your weapons and then I will lower mine."

Jackson said as the man came around to face him. Then the man behind Xel shoved him further into the barrel of the gun. Jackson didn't say anything though just kept his eye's on the man in front of him. Waiting for the man to hand over his weapons.