Private The Brain Demon

[Starlin Rand]

“Cool, because the only accommodations I got is my starfighter.” Granted, he had meditated in it before, but it wasn’t particularly comfortable.

Only when they were standing outside the door to the hotel room, Amani fumbling with her keys, did it occur to Starlin the implications of a girl inviting him back to her room. He went a little pink, quickly looked away and hid the blush behind a nose-scratch, then laughed at himself for even thinking about it.

Upon entering the room, he took in the bare bones furnishings with a shrug. Next to nothing was better than a mess, in his humble Jedi opinion. “Good place to meditate.”

While she busied herself gathering her things, he sat down cross-legged on a bit of rug beside the bed. “Do you know any good jokes?” he asked. A smile crossed his face. “I find it easiest to channel the Force when I’m laughing.”

Amani Serys​

 

[Amani Serys]

Starlin Rand

“Better than nothing,” She shrugged at the barebones interior as she opened the door. The less distractions, the better. That was how it worked for her anyway, even if nowadays she’d find the lack of stimuli distracting.

“Take your time,” Amani left him to his own devices for a moment as she gathered her things, eventually plopping a bag down on the bed and opening it just as Starlin spoke again. “Uhh, gee,” she gave an awkward laugh, “I get that laughter is the best medicine, but you came to the wrong doctor if you’re looking for comedy.”

She leaned against the bed in contemplation. When was the last time she even heard a genuine joke? The funniest things always seemed to come natural, rather than being an artificial setup and punchline. Her search for a joke ended in a groan, “Ugh...What’s brown and sticky?” A brief pause, she deadpanned, “A stick.”

As quickly as she’d said it, Amani threw up her hands as if to relieve herself of any culpability, “Look, you asked, that’s the best you’re getting out of me. Now get to it, will ya?" She smiled back. What she would not admit was that she actually found jokes like that funny.

 

[Starlin Rand]

“That’s, uh… that’s cute, I guess.” He did chuckle, more at how stupid it was than actually finding it funny. His body acquired a faint glow, warmed by his good humor.

“Let’s see… Oh, I got one that’s right up your alley, ‘cause you’re a Mirialan medic. What do you call it when a Mirialan contortionist breaks a bone?” He waited, grinning, before providing the punchline: “A greenstick fracture.”

If Amani found stupid jokes funny, Starlin was the kind of idiot who would laugh uproariously at his own lame joke. Glowing brighter, his cross-legged form started to rise up off the rug, levitating in midair.

“Okay, okay…” He gradually quelled his giggling, though he was still smiling as he closed his eyes to concentrate. “Gotta find the least funny place in this whole town…”

It didn’t take long for him to feel the corruption radiating from the victims in the medcenter. From them he traced feelings of despair and suffering further out, beyond the limits of Mos Eisley, out into the open desert… deep underground… and there lay the heart of darkness.

They sensed him, too. It was hard to miss such a blaring beacon of the Light in their midst, even if only in spirit.

Starlin sank rather abruptly to the hotel room floor, his inner light fading. He opened his eyes and looked at Amani. “Good news is, I found the place. They’re in a cave outside the city. Bad news is, I think they know we're looking for them now.”

Amani Serys​

 

[Amani Serys]

Starlin Rand

“Don’t say I didn’t want you,” she shrugged, going back to searching her belongings. With Starlin’s own attempt at a joke, Amani paused.

“Greenstick fracture.” She repeated the punchline, letting the words linger on her tongue. “Seems a little, I dunno... racially charged, don’t you think?” A shifty-eyed look turned his way, “We’re not all green, y’know.” There was another moment of silence as she glared at him, until finally she cracked a smile before it got too far out of hand.

“I’m kidding. I don’t care.” It was certainly clever, and certainly up her alley. “Greenstick fracture. That’s pretty good. I’ll keep that one in mind.” With that she relented, not wanting to distract from the task at hand any further.

As Starlin finished his meditation, Amani sat back and watched patiently, ready to move on his word. When he gave her the run-down, her tone had quickly turned serious once again. “It’s just one thing after another, huh?” Now all business, Amani opened up the bag on her bed, revealing the contents inside: most notably, a slugthrower pistol, and the hilt of a lightsaber. She pulled out the slugthrower, checking its magazine and pulling back the slide to load in a fresh cartridge. “Let’s get it over with then. Ready when you are.”

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Your mom’s racially charged,” came the half-assed, immature comeback during Starlin’s meditation. “I’m only half human, so I can say chit like that. I have s-word passes viable in multiple systems.” He peeked one eye open. “Also, ‘don’t say I didn’t want you’? Methinks you meant warn, not want, but nice Freudian slip.”

Anyway, back to serious business.

Starlin rose to his feet just in time to see Amani pull out a lightsaber. His eyebrows rose. “Hey, where’d you get that?”

In all this time, he had not guessed that she was or had ever been a Jedi. Perhaps this made him dense, or oblivious, but the sight of the weapon took him by surprise.

Amani Serys​

 

[Amani Serys]

Starlin Rand

“Wow, nice one. And I thought my humor was lowbrow,” Amani snarked back. The urge to reveal that her mom had been dead for a decade was held back only by her desire to return to the business at hand. His Freudian slip comment only elicited an eye roll from the mirialan. What even was a Freudian, anyway?

She raised the lightsaber to admire it for only a moment, not even considering the possibility that he might a: notice it, and b: have a lot of questions. Amani set the hilt back into the bag, and tucked away the pistol in her waistband. “Not your business,” was all she offered in response, stepping out of the room and pushing Starlin out too if need be. “We need to get the drop on these guys before they have time to counter.” Amani stepped out into the heat of Tatooine’s twin suns, eager to get a move on and leave the previous topic behind.

 

[Starlin Rand]

Obviously Sig’mund Freud was a famous Rodian psychologist, known for his psychoanalyst theories. Many phrases were credited to him, such as “Freudian slip”, “Skywalker complex”, and “sometimes a lightsaber is just a lightsaber”. The latter of which Starlin apparently was unaware of, given that he kept asking questions about Amani’s saber.

“Did you kill somebody for that lightsaber?” Starlin whispered as she pushed him out of her room. “Or… are you a Jedi too? But like, undercover?”

He did get a move on once they were back outside. It was late afternoon getting into early evening on Tatooine, so it wasn’t as blisteringly hot as it had been earlier, though it was still stifling. The Padawan led the way past the city limits and toward the entrance to the caves he had seen in his meditative visions.

Amani Serys

 

[Amani Serys]

Starlin Rand

Starlin’s first theory earned him an indignant glare. “I’m not a Jedi. Not anymore. It was a gift, from someone who was close to me. And we will leave it at that.” She huffed.

It was clear the lightsaber was a touchy subject Amani had no interest in pursuing with him further. For her it was already too much information for someone she had only just met, and she spent most of the walk in silent concentration, intent on reaching their destination as quickly as possible.

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Okay, okay,” Starlin muttered, dropping the subject. He was glad she hadn’t killed a Jedi, at least. That would’ve made things real weird between them. And if she was a former Jedi, her training would come in handy. Maybe he wouldn’t have to worry about defending her in battle as much as he thought he would.

Upon reaching the cave entrance, he paused for only a moment for a quick sense of the area. There was no life nearby, not even animals. In the Force, it was creepily still and silent. He resumed walking, entering the cave, assuming Amani would follow him.

His lightsaber ignited, the blue glow dispelling the darkness. In his other hand he held his shoto, but didn’t activate it. The caverns were bigger than he thought, filled with distinct rock formations… or at least, they looked like rock formations. They seemed to radiate the Dark Side, but Starlin knew from experience it was just on the surface, a thick layer of corruption from all the dark deeds that had been performed here. The only sound was the echo of their footsteps and the dull hum of his saber.

Until he began to hear rustling and scratching. “I have a feeling that isn’t just sand bats,” Starlin murmured. He held his ground, unmoved, certain that this was a trap.

His danger sense flared. In an instant his shoto was on, orange light joining with blue as he whirled to meet the threat. His blades crashed into a violet saber, then sickly yellow, then red as half a dozen figures rushed at the pair who had dared to enter this hidden sanctum.

Amani Serys​

 

[Amani Serys]

Starlin Rand

Amani followed close to Starlin as they entered the cave. Even without her connection to the Force, an eerie sensation that permeated the chamber was all too noticeable. He took notice of the threat before her, and in a matter of moments, flashing beams of color sparked to life, crashing together and illuminating the cave in momentary bursts of light.

The medic reeled from the action, keeping herself away from the swinging blades. Despite not having a lightsaber of her own, Amani had her own advantages in this fight. Starlin’s weapon acted as a beacon, drawing their enemies to the source, while she could hang back and strike from the shadows. And with a slugthrower, not only would the bullets be near impossible to track in comparison to a blaster bolt, but trying to block them would only serve to strike the saber wielders with molten slag instead.

Amani wasted no time getting to work. The first few rounds went off with an echoing explosion, guaranteed to surprise anyone who wasn’t used to the sound of a traditional firearm. The lightsabers made her targets easy to track, and two shots hit their marks, incapacitating them and giving Starlin some room to breathe.

A third cultist caught on to the source of the attack, splitting off to engage Amani up close. The sudden engagement left little time to counter, and Amani was quickly forced onto the defensive, forgoing the pistol and focusing instead of her natural agility. The swings of the saber were easy to track, but without a lightsaber to block, one well-placed strike was all that would be needed to take her down. Still, if you asked Amani, she was better off without one. Making use of her own body as a weapon always came far easier than the use of a sword. When the openings revealed themselves, Amani hit back with brutal, but efficient strikes, using the environment to keep them on a level playing field.

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin was quite used to slugthrowers. Each shot from the gun was as loud as a crack of thunder, echoing through the caves. Two of the cultists went down, blown away by slugs.

Four remained, one going after Amani while the other three slashed at Starlin. The Padawan blocked and parried, waiting for an opening in which he could breathe fire upon them. One was engulfed in flames and fell down screaming. Another was blasted on the arm, but managed to put the fire out, jumping back into the fray wounded and snarling like a vicious animal. He gutted her with his shoto, a molten gash opening up her torso with surgical precision, like a corpse undergoing an autopsy in the morgue.

One left. Their blades locked, raw plasma shrieking as they scraped together, but it didn’t last long. He flung her off and lunged, removing her head from her shoulders.

“How ya doing, Amani?” he called out. More cultists lay ahead, witches and warlocks nastier and more powerful than these.

Amani Serys​

 

[Amani Serys]

Starlin Rand

The cultist had her corner, his saber cutting wildly into the stone wall, leaving glowing scorch marks in its wake. He swung wide, leaving Amani with the chance she needed to finish it. A punch to the gut brought him keeling over, and she knocked him unconscious against the rocks with a heavy thud. “Better now.”

There was little time to recover. Amani reloaded her pistol and joined back with Starlin, “Seriously, how many people can possibly buy into this brain sucking nonsense?” Cults always seemed like a ridiculous concept, until the number of equally ridiculous people she met throughout the galaxy continually proved her naïveté.

 

[Starlin Rand]

It was difficult to see by the colored light of his blades, but the bodies of the witches who had died from slugthrower shots lay in pools of white blood and sickly yellow gore. They appeared to be human and Twi’lek, but something had changed their insides, turned them into something else.

“People who want to become more powerful,” Starlin replied, already moving further into the caves. The sight of the mutated viscera came as no surprise to him. “They gain all their victims’ knowledge, probably drain their life energies as well, making themselves stronger in the Force…”

He wasn’t sure if she had trouble comprehending it from a moral perspective or a logical one. Maybe a bit of both? “Sure, we find it reprehensible, but most of these cultists don’t care about right and wrong, only what benefits them. The ones who buy into the supposed ‘enlightenment’ of the Dark Side are really just hungry for power and sadistic enough to feed on the suffering and destruction they cause.”

Hardly a minute passed before they encountered another group. These cultists were more obviously corrupted—four women, prematurely aged by the darkness they inhabited, now bore the appearance of hags. Their strength and agility revealed they were not as old as they appeared as they launched into combat with the intruders, one wielding Force lightning. Starlin took her on, grinding the electricity against his saber.

The room they were in harbored other bodies, some dead, others alive. Starlin saw glimpses of their faces, bound and gagged or drugged, people of all ages, all species, brought here as sacrifices. He made sure to direct the combat elsewhere, pushing the witches away from them.

Amani Serys​

 

[Amani Serys]

Starlin Rand

Amani shrugged. If the cult did in fact have the wacky powers to back it up, there was at least some tangible motivation, she supposed.

Philosophies of the how and why had to wait, and the hags presented a whole new threat to the duo. They leapt into action, and Amani fired at them indiscriminately, managing to catch one by surprise. The second hag was more prepared, and launched Amani into a wall with the Force, pinning her against it. The pistol slid out of her grip, leaving her defenseless. “Uh... a little... help?” She strained to form the words, her lungs feeling as though they were being compressed against the wall. Starlin had his own troubles to deal with, but without her weapon and without the Force, Amani could do nothing against her opponent.

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin slashed at the lightning-wielding witch, bisecting her diagonally with his blade. At the sound of Amani’s choked cry for help, he turned, facing the other two hags. He needed to get rid of them quickly in order to reach Amani. That meant the big guns.

“Hello ladies,” he said cheerfully. “You look like you spent too much time in the tanning bed.”

As he mocked them, his body began to glow, radiating Light. The hag nearest to him screeched in pain as it hit her, burning her corrupted flesh. It cracked and sloughed off in a profoundly disgusting manner, but Starlin refused to let it disrupt his sense of humor. Doing so might prove deadly for his imperiled companion.

“That’s what happens when you don’t moisturize!”

The other hag began to howl, trying to shield herself from the Light. Starlin cut her down and moved on to the one that had Amani pinned. The hag whirled, only to be blasted by green lightning that arced from Starlin’s fingertips. Good ol’ Electric Judgment.

Surrounded by dead bodies and tied up prisoners, Starlin’s attention was totally on Amani. “You okay?”

Amani Serys​

 

[Amani Serys]

Starlin Rand

Being helpless to do anything as the life was slowly choked out of her gave Amani some perspective, to put it mildly. Namely, how hard it was to do this kind of thing without the Force at your side. Not since her connection was severed had Amani run into any confrontations with dark siders, and this served as a grim reminder as to why she was so intent on avoiding such troubles.

With Starlin’s quick leap into action, Amani was freed from the hag’s clutches, falling to her knees and gasping for breath. She clutched her chest, her concern eventually shifting away from her lungs. That much action had flared up her heart condition, and Amani had to spend the next minute calming down and slowing her breath. As the adrenaline faded, she lifted her forehead off the cool stone floor and sat up a little straighter, “...Chit… I’m okay. Not the first time.”

Not wanting to linger too long on her own troubles, Amani pulled herself onto her feet and trudged towards the still living prisoners, “We need to get these people out of here.”

 

[Starlin Rand]

Out of breath himself, Starlin nodded. He had been thinking the same thing, but wanted to be sure Amani was uninjured first.

“We also need to make sure… these caves are cleared,” he remarked, stooping to cut the bindings of a prisoner. "Can't really take them anywhere so long as there are still cultists in here." Once the gag was removed, the man stammered out his thanks. The witches had taken his entire family captive, abducting them from their farm in the middle of the night, he explained in a babble of words. His wife and children had already been killed, and he would’ve been next, and—

Starlin listened but also didn’t quite hear, busying himself with freeing the rest of the survivors while they thanked him and told of how they had been kidnapped, seized, and stolen by the Cult. They spoke of strange rituals, sadistic tortures, and how some of those taken prisoner were set free as zombies, apparently to generate further fear, paranoia, and suffering among the populace.

“These people were planning on taking over,” one middle-aged woman insisted, her eyes aglow with all that she had witnessed. “They were gonna have all of Mos Eisley in their grasp in no time…”

When the last prisoner was freed, Starlin turned to a hopefully recovered Amani. Something had been bothering him ever since they began fighting. He had resisted bringing it up until now, but curiosity had become necessity.

“Hey, Amani—” he began, his tone casual. “Do you, uh… do you not have the Force anymore? Or do you just not want to use it?”

Because it would be really helpful right now to use it, he thought, but didn’t say that.

Amani Serys​

 

[Amani Serys]

Starlin Rand

After that experience, the thought of more cultists still lurking in these tunnels made Amani groan. The stories the prisoners relayed had done some to strengthen her resolve, though eager to jump into the fray once more, she was not. Snatching the pistol back, Amani got to work helping free those held captive. The thought that people could inflict this kind of suffering on others disgusted her to no end, but by now the galaxy had jaded her enough that it wasn’t all too shocking.

With the last of the captives released, Starlin finally asked the question she had been expecting for some time. Her lack of any notable Force presence was sure to raise that suspicion. “I haven’t been able to feel the Force for a while now. It’s complicated. Stuff happens.” Amani was more frank this time around than she had been so far, but obviously still chose not to explore the details. She reloaded the gun once more, “Can you tell if there’s any more in here?”

 

[Starlin Rand]

“You mean, like what happened to Meetra Surik?”

The name was dropped and the words were out of his mouth before he could think twice about them. It occurred to him then that Amani might not have even heard of Meetra Surik—she was a medic, not a history buff. At least, not as far as he had noticed.

“She was, um… a Jedi from a really long time ago, who stopped feeling the Force because she was at a battle where they destroyed an entire planet.” He knew the names and the details—mostly because there were nutty people in his family who believed they, and by extension Starlin himself, were directly descended from this woman who had lived thousands of years ago, fat chance as it was—but he deliberately left them out to avoid seeming like a nerd, and because he was afraid her eyes would glaze over if he got too much into it. “She couldn’t handle what had happened, so she sort of cut herself off from the Force, I guess. But then she got better, a few years later.”

He let the subject drop, clearly unsatisfied, though not with Amani refusing to talk about it so much as the fact that he didn’t think he could do much to help her. She didn’t seem to care anyway. It wasn’t as devastating for her as it would be if he lost his connection to the Force, so what was the point?

Closing his eyes, he sensed the area. “I don’t think there are any more, but the Dark Side is so strong in this place, it’s hard to tell.” With his eyes still shut, he knelt on the ground and started to draw the corruption into himself. It rose like a plume of smoke or steam from the earth before him; he drew it into his lungs and breathed out… a purified being of Light.

“Hi,” he greeted the spirit, slowly opening his eyes. They had a strange, eerie glow in the dark, like the tapetum lucidum of a wolf. “Would you mind looking around for any more prisoners, maybe sabotage any dark rituals you happen to stumble upon? Thanks.”

The being floated away to do as it had been bid. Starlin rose, a little unsteady on his feet, and waited for it to return.

Amani Serys​

 

[Amani Serys]

Starlin Rand

Amani was aware of the figure, her comprehension of Jedi-specific history was notable but outside of the Order her knowledge was hit or miss. She nodded along, “Something like that.” The end result was the same, anyway. She spent a long time trying to get it back, but in time the broken down padawan just gave up. There were more important things to worry about in the galaxy, and she had chosen to spend the last several months running away from her past rather than look back.

For all her efforts to disregard the Force in its entirety, Starlin’s trick with the luminous being had impressed her, “Fancy.” It was an ability she had never seen before, but other than her passing acknowledgement, Amani had lost her fascination with the many facets of the Force. While they waited, Amani gave herself a quick pat down, checking for any untended injuries. Other than some surface level cuts and bruises that had originally gone unnoticed, there was thankfully nothing drastic. “You good?” She looked over to Starlin to see if he had any particular injuries to report.