First Reply First Stage - Denial (Jedi only)

[Brennus Faran]

Coruscant, Immediately Post-Invasion
​

"No."

The whispered word was more prayer than protest, desperation rolling from Brennus' split and bloody lip as he cradled the limp, broken form of a Kel Dor Jedi Knight. It wasn't real, everything around him was a nightmare, if he closed his eyes he'd be back in his bunk and Thoril would be knocking on the door to wake him instead of lying in pieces against him. Brennus forced his eyes closed, stifling the stinging flow of salty tears over fresh scrapes, but as much as he pleaded, the world around him did not melt away.

Rescue teams zipped overhead through curling black smoke, their bacta-laden dropships rushing to deliver life-saving aid to those who could still benefit from it. They'd landed and then left a few minutes before, taking the still living troopers and residents from the decimated apartment complex the Imperials had turned into a battleground, they'd even taken the prisoners. They hadn't taken Thoril though, they knew it was already too late, and they'd given up trying to pry Brennus from him. They'd send one of Brennus' own kind to get him when they could.

The Padawan rocked back and forth, his master's corpse moving unnaturally in his arms as he tried to will away the tears, to suppress his anger at the thought of the prisoners, to force himself to act as a Jedi ought. But he couldn't. Brennus felt his body seize as he choked out a sob, anger and grief warring for dominance inside his mind. He was no Jedi in that moment, just a boy robbed of a mentor and friend, no- a brother.

"No." Bren whispered again, to nothing and no one.

 

[Tyrus Vastor]

Tyrus strode through the chaos of a war-torn Coruscant, his silhouette cutting a miniscule figure against the backdrop of mass destruction. The entire planet seemed to be engulfed in flames, with buildings crumbling and fires raging uncontrollably. Tendrils of black smoke twisted and coiled into the sky, blotting out the sun and casting an eerie, flickering light over the ruined cityscape.

Despite the Coruscant search and rescue efforts, refugees and citizens, held faces etched with despair and fear. Crying out for help as they stumbled through the debris. Searching for some sense of order and structure. The air was thick with the acrid stench of burning metal and toxic ozone. The sensation over the planet was overwhelming: the wail of alarms pierced the air, mingling with the grinding of twisted wreckage and the roaring inferno that seemed to consume everything in its path.

And yet Tyrus remained, but not alone.

When the invasion came, the large Korun was deep in the Coruscant Underworld. Go deep enough and its safe for though seeking refuge. That was his only mission during the crisis. To keep anymore innocents from a unneeded death. But I am only one man. What originally was a mission to clear a path for those trapped below turned into something else entirely.

An exodus of young, old and many injured.

"No." Bren whispered again, to nothing and no one.

Though the world was in chaos itself, the force granted and heightened the Koruns senses. On the breeze of smoking chemicals and burning flesh the utterings of simple words could be heard. Words and a presence that did not taken Lor Pelek much time to discover.

A master and his apprentice. Though now only one remained.
I did not know either of them. But I knew loss and could see it on the young mans face and this was not the place to mourn, but it was what the young man needed.

" Use it." Tyrus's large frame came from around a dumpster fire. Un sure if the young man heard him to spoke again but slightly louder.

" Use it." Heterochromic eyes looking down at him and the one he held.

Tag: Brennus Faran

 

[Brennus Faran]

He should've sensed the stranger coming, Thoril would've scolded him for the lapse in his awareness, but Bren was too engrossed in his grief. He heard the man the second time, though, and he slowly turned towards the voice that emerged from around the curling flames at the corner. Some selfish part of him had wanted to see a friend standing there, felt entitled to it even. Hadn't he done enough? Could the universe not even spare him a familiar face?

Wretched thoughts, ones that would've disappointed the dead if they were given voice.

The man doesn't make sense. He understood them as they were spoken, but the process of making them reality was lost on him. Brennus subdued the tears long enough to stare back into the man's mismatched eyes through a mess of matted silvery hair. "But we're not-," The words come out in a stammer, equal parts confusion and exhausted desperation. "We're not supposed to-,"

His gaze falls away and back to the corpse of a man that had been so much larger than life all the years they'd spent together but now seemed so small now that the life was gone. The tiny flicker of hope that he might see his master miraculously draw breath dying for the hundredth time. He was gone, and Brennus was lost.

"How?" He asks, looking up from the face of death and back into that of the stranger.

Tyrus Vastor ​

 

[Tyrus Vastor]

The korun tilted his head and sighed. A gesture that his people knew as a shrug. Not because I did not know how to help. I knew how, but it seemed he did not.

"But we're not-," The words come out in a stammer, equal parts confusion and exhausted desperation. "We're not supposed to-,"...."How?" He asks, looking up from the face of death and back into that of the stranger.

" Think you no understand, but what you understand you do not yet believe." Tyrus approached speaking in Korunnai and slowly crouched down across from Brennus Faran . " You will always remain jedi, But stop looking at the world as one. Stop looking at the galaxy as one." The man did not look at the corpse, no it was too late for them, Even through my perception the corpses intersecting lines and fractures across the force was almost noisy. It reminded me of when I poured all my power into a shatterpoint. A mess in the force.

" On Haruun Kal, an old saying they keep. The Jungle promises nothing, It exists. Not because the jungle kills you, its because that is its nature." Finally Tyrus stared at the body grasped by the apprentice but only briefly. His expression was unreadable but his single sulfuric eye was a blaze. A contrast to the other eye, A light brown iris, glazed over as if he was feeling the immense weight on the entire planet.

With a squint Tyrus considered the apprentices mental state and his question of "how".
" You ask how...I can show you. Like the jungle, I can promise you nothing, but if you truly want to know..." He said and furrowed his brow. He could not give this answer to him, but he could pressure it with the truth. The raw unadulterated truth.

" Get up and bring the Keldor." This time Lor Pelek did not ask. He commanded. Rising to his feet Tyrus began walking away and toward a nearby ally way.

Tag: Brennus Faran

 

[Brennus Faran]

Still Brennus understood nothing, the sentences went in one ear and out the other, yet the sentiment somehow managed to take root. The man spoke of jungles, and stirred memories of a mission two years prior, when he and Thoril had ventured into the jungle at a world's equator in search of a pirate safehouse. The jungle hadn't tried to kill him then, the blasters had, or rather the men holding them. Places didn't kill, people did. Animals hunted, seas raged, storms ravaged, but only the sentient truly killed.

Impulse told him to rise and follow; pain bid him sit and sob; in his mind, the two warred as fiercely as he had in the moment of his master's death.

"But he's in-,"

Pieces

Bren couldn't bring himself to say it, not all the way. Though his armor and robes kept his body from sliding into three, great tears in Thoril's body made him anything but whole. It was an excuse, and he knew it. He adjusted his grip, hugging Thoril to him in order to keep him together, and rose. In dead, stony-faced silence, Brennus followed behind.

Tyrus Vastor ​

 

[Tyrus Vastor]

"But he's in-,"

Tyrus gave a glance back behind him and kept moving. The Lor Pelek moved through patches of debris and rubble and then paused to inspect his surroundings. Everything looked so different and wrong with Coruscants current state, especially down here. In his minds eye he could sense and see the young man behind him awkwardly carry what was left of his mentor, master and friend. His aura in the force felt scrambled and mixed. A concoction of emotions and fractures. The pain of the master carried by the apprentice.

He was not the only one. Some of the undercity refugees that I led did not make it. Dying of their wounds, taken out by undercity wildlife or otherwise. Even in all my power, I could not protect them all. Some survivors outright refused to go on. They did not want to leave their loved ones or they were too exhausted to continue. A sentiment I overstood.

The Korun was headed back toward the mass of refugee's he brought with him. His eyes scanning the crowds with a squint as if trying to find something. There was only hurt though. Pain. Unified pain. Fathers holding their limp sons, daughters and lovers in arms. Others gave space to the dead or attempted to comfort the ones close to passing through the veil. All waited for medical evac to return.

" Open yourself up to them. Do not join in or embrace the feelings. Notice and merely accept the flow." He said and kept looking and searching the crowds of injured. " Observe and tell me what you feel."

Tag: Brennus Faran

 

[Brennus Faran]

Blood soaked through his mentor's robes and into Bren's own as he followed after the stranger. All around them were the dead and dying, praying for the medivacs speedy return. Tears ran down cheeks darkened with soot and slick with blood. He did not want to feel what the Korun insisted he should, Bren knew what he would find waiting if he opened himself to it. It would be pain added to his own, agony atop agony. Why would he want that? Why should he listen?

Because following instructions was all he knew, he supposed.

He braced and eased open the door within his mind, and in came a tidal wave. Suffering swept in and dragged him down into its clawing embrace. It took all he had to brace himself against the storm. He did not want this; he did not want to be open; how could he accept the flow when the current itself tried to drown him? Bren closed his eyes as though it would save him, it didn't.

"Pain," Bren muttered.

"Sorrow," A father's hand slipped from his daughter's, a mother wept for her son, and a sister searched desperately for her brother amidst the rubble.

The agony was of the living, but in death, there was something else.

"P-peace?" He was confused. An old man's tired, aching body finally went to rest, a trooper with her guts spilling out felt an end to her pain in the embrace of something warm. The force welcomed them home, one and all, even as the living grieved. "I don't understand."

Tyrus Vastor ​

 

[Tyrus Vastor]

"Pain," Bren muttered.

"Sorrow," A father's hand slipped from his daughter's, a mother wept for her son, and a sister searched desperately for her brother amidst the rubble.

The agony was of the living, but in death, there was something else.

"P-peace?" He was confused. An old man's tired, aching body finally went to rest, a trooper with her guts spilling out felt an end to her pain in the embrace of something warm. The force welcomed them home, one and all, even as the living grieved. "I don't understand."

" Good." Tyrus replied firm and continued his search. Though this time it was a more active one. " Your sense and feel of the world relates you to it. Do not forget how it feels. It is your ally in this. Come on." At first his walk toward the refugees was slow and then the pace quickened when the sight of Galactic Alliance soldiers were watching over Dark Empire POW's. Sith Acolytes, dark jedi, cultists and stormtroopers. Their numbers were small and sense in the force distinct.

Coruscant was already caught in a dark presence of its own making but these darksiders? Some of their presences were stood out like signatures. Natural dark and then there was this...

Let's see if he will finally understand.

The Korun halted within three meters of the GA guard detachment and their POW's. And Lor Pelek sized up each one of them, Tyrus felt a coldness from most of them, yet others there was a fiery star burning within. Paired with Coruscants own pain, opening himself to these new presences was overwhelming. They were the ones who helped cause to much death and destruction and for what end?

Only I knew to what end. I had lived it before. I was them at one point.

" What the-" The trooper's shielded gaze went past Tyrus and onto the pieced together corpse of a Keldor being held.

" At ease soldier. I am taking this prisoner under my care." Tyrus didn't ask and did not wait for answer either. The large Korun grabbed a dark jedi by the scurf of his battle worn tunic and lifted him to his feet in one strong movement. It was a male zeltron, short and rather stocky in dark grey tunic that ended at his makeshift belt and separated into long pants with armored shin and foot guards.

Tyrus nodded to a direction and guided the zeltron toward Brennus Faran and the corpse he held in hand. " You asked me how to use it. This is it. Now try to prepare your mind. Look down at your mentor and tell me what you personally feel. Then when you are ready, tell what you feel when you see this one here." Tyrus kept a acute awareness open and a firm grip on the zeltron.

" What you feel is like a river. Do not get lost in the river, feel it, acknowledge it and accept it. Accept how it makes you feel and ease into it." he instructed once more. This was it. Either he will understand or he will not. That is the way of Vaapad.

" Sithspit. Who was that supposed to be? Heh. Really picking up the pieces there." The Zeltron scoffed

The zeltron scoffed and began to snicker at the scene. He cursed, he insulated and attempted to make threats but physically would go nowhere. Not with Tyrus's grip on his arm like a durasteel clamp. As the slew of harsh words continued, Tyrus himself appeared only slightly annoyed. His true attention and excitement rested on what Brennus Faran would say, do and see.

" There is no wrong answer." He added and jolted the zeltron once to try and get him to quiet down for just a moment. The effort gave a brief respite.

 

[Brennus Faran]

"Loss, sorrow," Bren still waited for Thoril to move, for his mask to wheeze as he inhaled deeply and shot back up wounded, but alive. It did not happen, and it never would. Silver eyes moved from the dead to the living, and as they settled on the Zeltron, they burned.

"Anger."

The answer felt like a sin, and his confessing it somehow made the wrong greater. The Dark Jedi was mocking him, mocking Thoril, and it took evey bit of his lifelong training to maintain his discipline. Bren was fast, he'd always been fast, when the other younglings had the force to guide them he'd always fallen back on physicality. He could close the gap, he could take the Dark Jedi's head off at the neck. Bren could see it in his minds eye, the Zeltron's head rolling across the duracrete, self-satisfaction writ across his face.

The vision filled him with disgust. It was not who he was, and it was not who the Jedi were. They were protectors and defenders, not executioners.

"Purpose?" He looked away from the enemy, and back to Tyrus. He said there were no wrong answers, but how could that be right? Bren pushed into the feeling, trying to capture it before it could slip between his fingers. The Zeltron must've thought himself a beautiful creature, he carried himself with indignant pride even in submission. It seemed so pointless, so stupid. It was pathetic. A quiet, tired chuckle escaped his lips as he looked back down at the Dark Jedi.

"Yeah, purpose."

The wound would not heal in a moment, it would ache across years if not decades, but there was something in the pain worth taking.

Tyrus Vastor ​

 

[Tyrus Vastor]

To each word spoken Tyrus nodded his head up and down and repeated the phrase under his breath. The loss and sorrow is his own, enmeshed with the planet. The anger was also his own. He is starting to see. Tyrus began to explain. " Do not be ashamed of your anger. You anger is more than justified. It may feel entirely alien to you as a Jedi but I'm going to let you in on a secret." Tyrus leaned in, looked at the Zeltron and then at Brennus Faran . " There is nothing natural about being Jedi. Far from it actually."

" The only natural setting for Jedi is alongside order and civilization. There is absolutely nothing natural about civilization. Deny it all you want. Deny yourself. But deep inside you know this to be true." The Korun cracked smile with his next comment. " Peace is a lie. As in it is not natural to nature. The Korun now spoke from a place of passion. A fiery passion. Look around you! What you feel coming off the planet, from this zeltron and even within speaks to your natural condition." He shook the Zeltron to make emphasize his point and then curse him before a snarky remark could be made.

" Stop looking at the world with your Jedi eyes! See what is! Accept what is!" Without notice Tyrus aggressively shoved the dark jedi forward and back towards the other wounded, injured and grief filled refugee's. A move that tangibly shifted the entire area's presence in the force. Slowly the environment began to bleed. Anger and hatred for that the Zeltron represented to each one of the surviving citizens. For what he had done. Some growing so bold to even stand up and ball their fists or arm themselves with duracrete chunks and durasteel rods.

" Find that purpose you mentioned, hold on to it and let it be your anchor in the river of emotions. Your emotions and theirs. Let go of your masters corpse and embrace the flow, Now! Let it take you and then redirect its flow around your anchor! Trust your Jedi training, trust your character and allow yourself to unwind!" Tyrus then shoved the dark jedi to the floor and drew his lightsaber. So far it remained un-activated. Actions that seemed to energetically move the crowds adjacent to them with a ill intent. A subtle bloodlust coated the air and it empowered the crowds but Tyrus, though involved and motivated by the same flow, remained somehow rooted in place.

" It wont be easy.... You will feel what is natural. What is dark. If you can see and fully overstand, then it will not taint you." Tyrus ended and took in a deep breath. His gaze leveled to those around him and the apprentice he was now instructing.

 

[Brennus Faran]

“What are you doing?” Bren’s tears had dried, and his master’s corpse had been gently laid at his feet, all around he watched as the commons armed themselves with makeshift weapons, their hateful eyes during on the helpless Zeltron. His anger mutated into confusion and frustration as a miasma of hate seemed to wash over the people around them.

“I can’t stop looking through Jedi eyes, I am Jedi, all of me.” Bren protested, a disgusting concern for the imprisoned Zeltron welling inside him. He shouldn’t have felt sympathy for the vile excuse of a man, perhaps that wasn’t what it was, but he could not let the mob simply tear him apart. That was wrong. This was a wrong.

“All of you, back!” Bren commanded harshly, the anger flaring in his voice, only to be throttled by his better nature. He was in control, no matter the pain or the anger, he would not lose himself to it. There was an impulse to go for his saber, but Bren ignored it.

Tyrus Vastor