Ain't that a shot in the head (Ordo)

[Arage Bao]

Levantine Space​

Planet of Tabaqui​

[member="Ordo"]​

A man in my position knows certain things and if he doesn’t know them immediately… he can find out eventually. Ordo had died on the planet of Teta, shot in the head by his own apprentice, when he tried to give himself into the custody of the Mandalorian Invasion Force - shows that when push comes to shelf that a Sith… shoots first and asks questions later. Officially Ordo had died, his lifeblood seeped into the dirt of the planet and his corpse taken by the Horde back to Mandalore.

But sometimes… when a man was lucky - though in this case, I ain’t sure if I would call it luck - a shot to the head didn’t kill a man, if a man was lucky… he might just survive the encounter. Such things weren’t all too uncommon in a world filled to the brink with all powerful Masters of the Force, so it wasn’t exactly strange that I kept my agents on the outlook.

Santhe had made contact with MandalTech in the past, spoken with Ordo on a few occasions and if you wanted to believe her… the former Dark Lord had been smitten with her. I knew not if those claims were based in fact or not, but the connection between the company and Ordo hadn’t been tough to remember.

When my men caught wind of a certain operation on a certain planet in a certain space… well let’s just say that even in my self-admitted exile they knew how to grab a hold of me, some things were more important than the quest for knowledge.

So here I was, sitting in the corner of a dark room, a cigarro perching slightly from my lips with its point lightning up every time I took a pull. I waited for my… friend to return from a day of hard work in this little big project.

Finally, the door opened and the man himself, Ordo - the Dark Lord or at least the vessel for him - came into the room and here… was the reason why I thought it might not have been luck that guided him back to life. For Ordo lost the ability of his legs and rumor had it more, when he clawed his way back to the living.

‘Ordo, good to see you alive and relatively well.’ I spoke simply, tugging another pull from the cigarro.

 

[Ordo]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Ordo looked at the man from his chair. His armor no longer a constant as most knew that face better than his natural one. The chair hovered forward to stop at the table and turn slightly so he could sit nearest the edge as possible.

"Relatively," Ordo said simply with the air of a man who knew his condition all to well. "How'd you find me Jared. No, let me guess. Gavin?"

Ordo moved his hand slowly and awkwardly as if his control was still being recovered. He rested a heavy hand on the table and drew the full glass of alcohol to his waiting hand. They were in the little community he had built outside the many farms that MandalTech was still building and establishing. This particular pub near the Roba pens and maize fields.

"What's this about anyway." He said spilling booze on himself.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Ordo"]

I hadn’t known Gavin was somehow connected to Ordo, but neither was I really surprised - my cuz. had more than meets the eye. Yet I didn’t show my surprise and kept this tiny nugget of information to myself for now, instead I gave a noncommittal nod and responded.

‘How else?’

For a while I watched him play around with his glass, it was worse than I had expected, with a subtle appliance of the Force I guided the glass to his mouth - stopping anymore of the fluid to be wasted around.

Then I replied again to his question. ‘Knowledge.’ he was one of the few vessels that had come of relatively unscatched, still with his mental faculties intact - perhaps Ordo knew things, or perhaps not. But knowledge… was worth a trip.

 

[Ordo]

Knowledge...it was funny the way a simple word could with the right inflection and in the right context could make a mind react.

"You're close enough to a Master of the Force that you have the right to watch the universe respond to your sense of purpose, to your right to know" Ordo said eyes distant as if looking at something only he could see. "Knowledge...there is little worth in anything else."

Ordo ignored the help of the drink. Maybe it was anger at not being able to control his own hand. Maybe it was anger at the creature beyond shadows that hadn't let him die. Maybe he was just in need of more to drink. It was had to say.

"What do you need to know, Ovmar." Ordo said looking at the table and wishing he could tap his fringers, "I can't imagine I have much anyone would want." It was a lie of course. Ordo had learned a lot had put his useless fingers into a lot of gearboxes and no one knew the Dark Lord of the One Sith more intimately. There were secrets many, many secrets but nearly no one would know.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Ordo"]

I didn’t respond directly to his question, truth to be told I wasn’t sure if he had what I wanted - it was a gamble, can’t ever know for sure if it’s a true dice roll or not… yet I thought I saw something in the glint of his eye. Perhaps it was simply me reading into things, but we would see about that soon enough.

A younger, more arrogant version of myself would have asked him how his legs were. Just to show that I was more powerful, more in control over this situation. Years had passed though and situations had changed me from that brash youth into what I am today, I knew the pain he was experiencing, the anger… it had been part of me, as much as it was now part of him.

So I didn’t say that, instead I did something else.

‘What would you say if I could give you your legs back? Your body? What… would you do if I could give you your strength back?’

Strength of the mind was a beautiful thing... yet the strength of a healthy body was in some ways as important.

 

[Ordo]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Ordo looked up at the man anger and shame coloring his features. His hand flexed, a spasm, a reaponse to a natural urge, but, still uncontrolled. Tempest of thought and emotion floated in his grey-green eyes as he found himself torn between the desire to give the man nearly everything and the desire to throttle him to death, pull him back from the shadows and throttle him again.

He bared his teeth breifly, scarred lips pulled back exposing the man's teeth as if he had taken a shot of bitter alcohol. It wasn't aggressive, no, it was a broken man swallowing his pride and remembering how few friends he had left.

"I'm surprised it took this long for someone to come to play that dejarik piece." He said as he looked up at the ceiling, "For my legs I'd give you a hand shake and send you on your way. For strength, I'd give you information on our former associates that you may find interesting. You know what I really want Ovmar?" He paused to swallow and looked at the other man, "I want to be able to walk down a street and not be recognized, I want to look my wife and children in the eyes and not see the edge in their eyes as they wonder if I'm me or if it's a trick. I want my clan Sister Ashin to call on me as a trusted friend. I want to look out at the stars and not know what's waiting just a hyper-jump away.....I want to hold my wife's hand and not think of.....anyone else. I want my life back. And for that I would give you knowledge and power that you could not possibly imagine."

Ordo sighed and shook his head.

"Come on Stud," Ordo said at last, "push me out of this damn place and tell me why you decided to follow a trail to a dead man and try to make a deal. I can promise I'm a lot more reasonable than folks you aruetise deal with most days."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Ordo"]

I had forgotten a simple fact.

Ordo wasn’t like all the other lackeys, or slick Sith Lords running ‘round the Galaxy - he was… different, I didn’t want to say genuine or simple, but the basics were more important to him than finely-crafted arguments.

Air escaped my mouth as I sighed and stood up to roll him out of the building into the air again. I had been used to dealing with treacherous individuals, men of power who always wished to gain a better hand, men who in essence… weren’t all that much ‘bout honor and your word.

It had poisoned me, made me forget that not all folks were about that.

So while we walking I nodded to myself.

‘You want it straight? You were the vessel of the Dark Lord, I am gambling that during your time you found out about things. Learned… much of value. I ain’t sure if it’s buried deep in your subconscious, readily available or a mixture of both.’ I waggled my hand. ‘I can’t turn back time, can’t make ‘em forgive you - fact is though, you were a tool. Doesn’t make it better, doesn’t make it prettier, but it still changes things. I can make you whole again, I can put in a good word or two with Varanin, but besides that?’

Didn’t finish my sentence, just shrugged.

 

[Ordo]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

That was it...that was the draw. He had expected as much from a Man of Ovmar's caliber. He wanted growth, he wanted to elevate his mind beyond the petty back and forth of the Sith and become something more. Who could blame him really, Ordo too had wanted to move on from the weaknesses inherent to all beings. He looked at the trees around the little levatine community he had helped design. Technically he owned it as the founder of the farm, but there was something about a man considering a piece of ground his own that seemed small minded.

"Oh, I found out a great deal. I was fully aware through the ordeal." Ordo said recalling it all, "I know more about him than anyone person could and it wasn't our first meeting. What do you want to know?"

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Ordo"]

‘Ain’t that simple.’ I told him while pushing the chair forward, until we reached the end of the slope and could look over a wide portion of the valley. The sun was just setting; painting the horizon in a mixture of red, orange and yellow - it was a… beautiful view to be honest and it made me think back on the thoughts that had been plaguing me for quite some time now.

With a wave of the hand an apparition manifested itself in the form of a simple, sturdy chair next to the former vessel. It pushed itself into reality, weaved itself into the river of reality and then became real; at least for a little while. I sat down and spoke again.

‘Sometimes… I wonder what it would be like to simply vanish. Build a cottage on some remote, unknown planet and live out my life in a less… stressing manner.’

Immediately after that I shook my head. ‘I ain’t naive, Ordo.’ referencing back to the subject at hand. ‘I have no clue what kind of limits the Dark Lord had, what kind of information he possessed… information you have right now. What do I want to know? Everything.’ I continued speaking, while slipping out a simple looking crystal from my sleeve and playing with it a bit.

‘Do you know what I can do?’

 

[Ordo]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

"It seldom is, Jared." Ordo replied quietly as he thought of the things he knew, the things he'd seen, the memory of thoughts and feelings that weren't his own. Sometimes, he wondered if death would have been better. He looked out over the valley and the fields. People here and there were working and tending fields before the light failed but for the moment they had something that no amount of money could give him back, they had peace. He looked at the man and saw him through the eyes of one of his most bitter memories. The way he had broken Anaya, plagued him nearly as much as the memories of Rosa Gunn. How would he explain, would Ovmar even care? He was a man, he had feelings, emotions like other men, would he be able to handle the images of the things Ordo had done and not be broken? Then there was the dark lord and more importantly Velok rattling around in his head.

"Yeah." came his deep gruff voice. Would Ovmar be able to handle the fact that Ordo had been in control when he tried to ruin the man's lover? Or that Ordo would have at one time made love to her himself? Then Evelynn...he would have given the girl a new life with joy if she had only allowed it. What would Ovmar think of him?

"I know what you can do Carach..." Ordo said, "do you know what I can do? Do you want to? Can you walk away and not think in the back of your mind of what I am capable of now? Or will it torture you?"

Ordo shook his head his eyes flicking to the crystal.

"I'll give it all to you but you're the one that has to live with your choice. Do you understand that?"

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Ordo"]

The former Sith Lord stared out into the distance, his eyes roaming the scenery, but in reality the Ovmar wasn’t all too concerned with the environment right now. Other things were on his mind - he had come here with a mission, a goal which had been… important.

But now that he was getting exactly what he wanted Ovmar was starting to second gues-- it wasn’t second guessing. It was healthy consideration, because the Elder wasn’t a fool, he realized the dangers of this experiment. The Dark Lord wasn’t a thing to be trifled with, the collective sum of knowledge that Ordo might pass onto him now… could very well turn him insane or maybe even worse.

Yet.

Yet…

It was the inherent weakness in Jared Ovmar, the one flaw that would always haunt him, that would never leave him alone. The curiousity that stemmed from his very soul and influenced every single step he ever had taken and was taking right now.

‘I fully understand, begin.’

And if it would prove too much… if it would start to overwhelm him… he still had something up his sleeve, again Ovmar brushed the crystal in his hand as he started to clear his mind. This was going to be painful, for the both of them.

 

[Ordo]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Ordo called on the self same memories that the man was anxious for and closed his eyes. He was untrained, that was true, but the force was a tool. Sometimes it was a hammer and sometimes it a microspanner, but in either case it required only knowledge of how it worked and the proper leverage to work. The technique was not the issue however, it was the time and effort to relive every memory even in brief until they were transferred to the man. Ordo closed his grey-green eyes and took in a deep breath then one by one he force the memories toward the man's mind. All he asked for, one by one, would play across the man's thoughts and painfully embed in his psyche. Ordo's eight years of searching for his lost lover, the year he spent as a slave to a Sith woman, Sixteen year old Anaya Fen looking at him held by his wrist 2 meters off the floor as her Master and his tested weapon after weapon on him scaring his tan flesh and recording what sounds he made. The return to Manda'yaim, meeting his closest friend and Sister Mia, helping rebuild Keldabe that was there. His marriage, his children, all would fill the man's mind, and then the battle of Coruscant, the fight with the dark lord, the loss he suffered, and the pain that followed. His treatments of so many...the way he broke Anaya, a woman, who's only real crime against him was watching his suffering and doing nothing. He had premeditated his way to break her long before the dark lord had ever entered his head and the wicked spirit had used that.

Then the visage of Rosa Gunn filled his mind as he sent the memories of the dark lord, her parted lips and heavy breaths as she had held him, Isolda too her smiling ruby lips gasping for breath as her inky fingertips gripped shimmersilk sheets. Odium and his secret confession of plots against the Sith and galaxy as a whole that he had told Ordo after his trip to beyond shadows. Then came the memories of Velok...and the labyrinthine mind that held so much knowledge.

Through it all Ordo clenched his teeth to hard that blood began to spill from his gums and finally the last memories transferred his body convulsed and he fell from his chair to the ground.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Ordo"]

Some men could throw skyscrapers across worlds, others were well-versed in chucking an asteroid across space. There were those who could not be damaged by bullet nor laser, yet others could control machines by the power of their Will alone.

The Elder was none of those, very early in his days with Jacobs she had told him that every man had his own path, his own way of accomplishing things. It had been offered to him to learn the ways of Lightbending, to disappear from the eye through manipulation of the sunrays. Yet others offered to teach him the might of Alchemy and the powers that came with that.

The Elder declined and chose the path of the mind, his Lightning was strong, he could create a construct of pure hatred and impale his opponents with it, balls of kinetite were created with only the flick of a wrist. But it was the esoteric arts of the Mind that had been his proven ground, his Magnus Opus.

And it had only been this dedication to the Art, that allowed him to survive the encounter with Ordo just now.

For Ordo was in fact right in his craftiness. Memories were not simple things which could be separated and shared at the behest of their owners, at least not when they were untrained to a high degree. They were muddied items, mixed and mingled with the feelings of other memories - so it wasn’t strange that when Ordo tried to impart Ovmar with his knowledge of the Dark Lord… that other things followed in its wake.

Even for the Elder this was becoming too much, blood seeped from his nostrils as his mind tried to comprehend and order everything in its particular point. He tried to separate the memories from himself and retain his identity.

Knowledge was separated and siphoned off to the crystals, with more time he would have been able to absorb it all… but right here and right now this was all he could manage.

In the end… there was one word that managed to stand out…

Blackguard.

This brought a smug smile on his lips, but then he saw Ordo’s prone form and his expression softened. The former Sith Lord reached out towards the former Dark Lord and coaxed him into a deep sleep, a slumber from which he wouldn’t wake for some time to come.

In his current state Ovmar would have been able to erase all traces of the memories of the Dark Lord, of Velok and all the other bad things that had happened to the Mandalorian, yet he didn’t do that. Every man… had a right to his suffering and Ovmar wouldn’t remove Ordo’s, at least not without being asked.

Instead he did something else. Time healed all the wounds, it was said, it corroded materials, aged men and it could also provide perspective. So that was what Ovmar did, he blunted the memories, made them more vague and eased Ordo’s mind that way.

He couldn’t make Ordo’s family forgive him, he couldn’t even make Ordo forgive himself… he could only shorten the journey by a small degree. That would have to be enough for now.

Something else happened too, Ovmar modified the memories of this current event. It would not do if too much people realized the knowledge the Elder had gleaned this day, instead… Ordo would remember Ovmar coming to him in this meeting and asking for a partnership, of which the details were a tad vague to be fair.

Ordo had said he would considered it and that was all, from there Jared had extended his offer to fix his body and there they were now.

Out from the distance men appeared to the scene, carrying Ordo away, Ovmar whispered to him in his mind.

‘Sleep… Ordo. By the time you wake up, you will have your body back to you.’

 

[Ordo]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Ordo's eyes fluttered open and he found he was laid on the couch of his office. He slowly looked around and noticed he could feel his feet and legs. They hurt like dar'yaim but he could feel them. He looked around the room to see if he was alone...he wasn't so he didn't move.

He looked up at the ceiling and pretended to be imobile.

"Ovmar?" he said his deep voice booming in the square room, "that you?"