The Jedi Crack'd

[Connor Harrison]

Holding Cells
Silver Sanctum Temple, Voss ​

Fear.

She was stripped of everything but her undergarments. The robe and boots and other attire were draped over the side table along with a lightsaber hilt that looked as dangerous as it’s owner.

Fear attracts the fearful...

It was only the two of them in the underbelly of the Temple, in the restraining cells. One of the most advanced and secure areas, along with the medbay, and a place Connor had spent in time years before. Now, his Padawan stood where he once did. Warm oranges, reds and blues light the sleek hospital white and black bay.

…the strong, the weak...

Her red lips were clamped together, and her eyes lost in some strange trance, as if she was looking at everything through distorted vision. Chastity had become infected, because she was weak.

…the innocent, the corrupt.

Connor had connected with her as she lay unconscious and fused as much Force energy as he could into her, to find the source; the fight the corruption seeping through her and feeding on the distortion in her brain. Whatever it was, he had to find out more.

Fear.

He stood, arms folded, inches from the clear wall of thick glass that separated the Master and Padawan. In a strange twist of fate, take away their sex, and they could be looking straight into their own soul that was hidden away.

Fear is my ally.

She would not leave this place until he knew she was ready. She had attacked before, and he would be ready again.

And so, it began.

"Who am I to you, Chastity Lunelle."

[member="Chastity Lunelle"]

 

[Chastity Lunelle]

A raggedly thin, pale creature paced back and forth in the detention cell. Ruts in her skin flamed where she had scratched them, masking the needle marks with trails of red. She palmed the synthglass wall, like a blind woman trying to find her way. Finally she stopped and, like a rope going slack, simply stood and stared out into space. There she remained, trying to remember something, perhaps it was her name or perhaps it was the Light. Whatever it was, it was obviously gone with the last trace of her silver irises.

Chastity remembered him, the dark-haired man who was now her warden, Connor Harrison. She remembered that her mission was to exterminate him like a virulent pest. He was a powerful Jedi, and the Jedi were the weakness that plagued the galaxy. She was not a person anymore. She was an instrument of destruction, like a forest fire or a landslide. She was an augur of the Dark Side.

There he was, standing like a sentinel in front of her, watching her with his maddeningly blue eyes. Her hands itched to encircle his throat and squeeze and squeeze until his life diminished. Instead, she simply fixed her gaze on him, her lupine-yellow eyes holding the portent of a dark harvest waiting to be sown. The Dark Side swelled through her cell, flowing so strongly it blew a few tendrils of her raven hair.

He asked her a question, and in response she cocked her head.

"You are nothing but a diseased dog to euthanize."

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Chastity looked, for the first time, empowered. It was just a shame he had fallen so easily, so soon and without a sign of resilience. Her flesh was much like his; a canvas showing signs of the Dark Side. His eyes fell to her arms again to see the red raw scratches and puncture wounds, making her look like a junkie than a Jedi.

As she answered, Connor nodded, giving little else. A textbook answer with a textbook cock of the head for the captive animal sizing up the captor as if little bothered them. The lights from above cast a warm glow over his face, mirrored by the cool blue sheen cast over Chastity inside the cell.

"Very good," came his droll reply.

He stepped closer and looked into those sickly amber eyes. It pained him to see this girl look so wracked with corruption, but if she was the same girl he had spent all those nights and days with, then she was worth his time saving. But he wasn’t restrained by much in the process. He had chocked her into submission before, and he would easily do it again.

This was what he thrived at – mind games. And he wasn’t going to play fair.

"Where have you been all this time Chast? Can you tell me that? What happened."

[member="Chastity Lunelle"]

 

[Chastity Lunelle]

Chastity’s blood-caked hand beat on the window, a slow, deliberate rhythm of her own engineering. Her jaundiced eyes locked on her interrogator's, her expression lurid. She could feel the Jedi’s revulsion through the barrier that separated them, and it fed her connection to the Dark Side. Her previous captor, not the Taung pirate who defeated her on Ziost, but the one who came after, had forced her hand to unlock the forbidden secrets of the Force. As a result, negative emotions were no longer things to resist. They were instruments to use. Fear, anger, lust, hatred, jealousy, all of these sensations, whether hers or someone else’s, made colors brighter and sounds clearer. Every organ in her body thrummed with fresh power. A new world opened up, as if it had been present all along, just forgotten in the recesses of her mind. In this fearless world, acrimony was not fought, it was harnessed.

“Where have I been?” she parroted. “What happened?"

A croaking laugh bubbled up from her throat, its tone derisive.

"Do you think I would give away all of my secrets once you encased me? Displayed me like your museum exhibit? Are you going to show me off during a lecture to the your Padawans? 'Students! This is what happens when the good ones go bad.'"

The former Jedi Padawan’s smile cracked her face like a mirror. Her cloying tone held the sickly-sweetness of rotten candy.

“You’ll have to try harder than that, Connor Harrison.”

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Conner folded his arms, tucking his hands under the armpits and just listened. His head was slightly lowered, chin teasing the skin of his chest under the vest. As this wasn't Chast he was dealing with, he didn't care for it. Not her, IT. He didn't take his blue eyes from her sickly ones.

"Oh please, Chast. You're not bad - you're embarrassing. Is this what you think defines bad? You finding new makeup to smear over your face to make you look imposing, or letting your emotions rule your head? No. That's just what the pupeteer drummed into your head."

He gently licked his bottom lip and shifted.

"To show you to others wouldn't help them, because you're just an example of what happens with a brattish, petulant Padawan takes the easy route. To me, if a Padawan does that, then let them stay on the side of the Dark - when it comes to culling them it'll be for the best."

Connor smiled gently.

"And secrets? I don't think you have any secrets. You have nothing I don't already know about. I've been there. Done that. Came out the other end. You can too, if you want. If not, then you're staying here. So," he moved a little closer, looking at the dirty hand-print his Padawan left on the glass, "I'll ask you again - what happened to you. No, not what...WHO."

[member="Chastity Lunelle"]

 

[Chastity Lunelle]

She turned her grin into one that mirrored his, that cocky upturned smirk on one side of the lips. Her hands stopped their frantic searching, and with a deep inhalation, she stood still, her posture softening. She relaxed into a vision of the old Chastity, the innocent Padawan who showed up on Voss with a single bag. Her makeup was darker and her irises were amber, but before him stood the girl who had followed Connor's bread crumbs all the way to the Jedi temple, and eventually into his arms. She ignored his question about her corruptor.

"Don't you remember what it was like?" she said, her exquisite brow bent in frustration. "When you almost fell to the Dark Side? How amazing that power felt? Does the Nexu take the easy way out when it pounces on the defenseless Keffi? Do the weeds take the easy way out when they choke the flower bed."

She gave him a compassionate blink and raised her hand to the glass, fingers spread.

"Can't you see what an ozymandian endeavor it is, the Jedi's obsessive pursuit of the Light? Look at Ziost. How easy it fell. Jedi temples will someday crumble into a pile of dust, to be scattered into some remote nebula on the edge of the galaxy. Your lightsabers will pulse red, the color of war's subjugation over peace."

Her gaze bore directly into his, arrows of longing aimed right for his heart, promises of what they had been before she was captured on Ziost.

"Don't you want to be on the side that thrives?"

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Whomever had gotten into her head, they had done it very well. Picked apart her doubt and fear and injected self-confidence and blind goals that would never be achieved but offered so much promise. Chastity was now attempting the same injection to Connor. He raised his hand to the glass to meet hers.

"I never felt power. All I felt was frustration. So much time wasted. I won't make that mistake again. The Sith can't over me anything. I am not going to be used by them until I grow useless and they cast me aside. You, Chastity, will be used until they grow bored or another, younger and easier whelp takes your place."

He let his hand slide down and away.

"If the Jedi temples fall, I will stand in the rubble and still fight. I will embrace both sides to be something neither can tough - and that is why I stand taller than you, and the Jedi and Sith. I make my own choice, fight my own battle. Yes I stand in the Light, but I can still fight fire with fire when I have to."

Connor walked to the edge of the glass, by a green control panel. He turned beside it.

"It doesn't look to me like you're thriving. Look at your arms. Looks to me like you've been forced against your will to become something you're not. Tell me Chast," he looked to her, "what would you do if I released you right now?"

He would kill her in a heartbeat if he had to, but it dawned on him sooner than later she would need to be faced with horror to make her choose the path she wished to follow or fight.

[member="Chastity Lunelle"]

 

[Chastity Lunelle]

Her gaze dropped to Connor's hand where it met with hers across the glass. The taper of her anger burned out, and she stared at his palm with remorse. When it fell, she raised her yellow eyes to him. They followed him intently as he crossed to the terminal, his hand hovering over the activation switch. His question came, and she pondered it with visible signs of distress, as if she were fighting against a grasping undertow.

"I arrived back on Voss full of hatred and rage," Chastity finally admitted, her eyes brimming with tears. "I was angry at being left to fend for myself on Ziost, despondent that I was responsible for those Rangers' Deaths, and completely heartsick that I had lost you. He insisted that you were to blame for all of it. So, yes, I wanted to kill you, and every Jedi that stood in my way."

She shook her head and wiped away the tears that paved her cheeks. Her expression was imploring.

"I know it doesn't seem like it but will is my own, Connor. Some of his Mind Tricks were resisted and I have your mental defense lessons to thank for that."

Her amber eyes blinked away their earlier savagery, and now showed only sadness.

"If you let me out I will not attack you."

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

The tears were quite effective, but Connor had seen them before whenever she didn't get her own way, or was sulking, or rebelling. She could be doing all three right now. The amber in her eyes gave her inner feelings away. No sign of redemption. The tramlines of cuts and marks on her arms spoke louder than her words, and Connor was racking his brain.

Mind-control serum? Poison? Drugs?

"Don't think I didn't feel pain when I saw that Taung carry you away. It was either risk losing you to a blade, or let him take you and I try to save you. I failed. Again - no surprise there."

His hand still rested on the control panel as he looked at her, the wave of emotion not breaking through eye contact.

"I had a E'ron Class Corvette out from Ziost to find you. I even docked on the pirate ship and was about to bargain for your release until they broke their word - doesn't say much for scum like that, like what you say you are yourself - and I had to retreat, but then...you were gone. Cut from the Force and lost in the Unknown Region."

Connor swallowed and rubbed his teeth with a hard tongue to suppress the emotion rising in him. Anger. Upset. Fear. But this was the best time to test her; see what was real, what was an act.

"Never ending duties here on Voss wore me out. I've spent so much time without resource to find you, but where would I start? Taeli even offered to help me, but I couldn't tie her up with dropping out of the Republic."

He moved from the panel to stand in front of her, a desperate look on his face, but he was in control. Something he doubted she was.

[member="Chastity Lunelle"]

 

[Chastity Lunelle]

Her yellow eyes shot upwards, as if deeply lost in thought. "Taeli. Taeli. Where have I heard that name before?" Chastity scoffed with the barest trace of a smile at her lips, her tone mocking.

"Oh yes, the former Sith Lady turned Jedi Master who always meddles in your affairs? I'm sure she had more important things to do than to help you find your little lost Padawan."

The young woman wrapped her arms around her body as if she wanted to fold in on herself, fragile, like paper origami. She looked to the wall terminal then averted her gaze to the floor.

"I don't blame you anymore, Connor. What happened on Ziost was my failure, not yours." Her head raised sharply. "I accept that now."

She placed both palms on the glass again, as if desperately reaching out for his help. Her voice choked in her throat as more tears came.

"I'm here now. We can be together again. Start over."

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

A touch on the panel would open the cell glass, like slow jaws releasing the danger inside. He could call for assistance, or lock down the entire room. But, yet, he didn’t. He just stood before her and watched the show. From being compared to a dog to now someone to be with, Chastity was using all the tricks in the Sith playbook.

A small chuckle came from him, and he looked to her, a grain of pity in his tone.

"This diseased dog has learnt a few things in its lifetime, and right now what you’re doing is good, but not great. Why do you want to be with me when you can slay me and have EVERYTHING?"

He didn’t reach for her palms, instead leaning his head closer to hers.

"Taeli has always been there for me, even before you came along. And you know what? She was willing to offer her time, but I knew it would be wasted on you so I declined. And from the junkie marks on your arms, it seems everything I say is wasted on you. You know what you’re doing, you’re not listening to me – you need to get out, get your next fix of reckless anger and hatred out so will say what I want to hear. Well give me what I want and I may allow it."

Connor turned his body slightly, his voice slow and clear.

"Who did this."

[member="Chastity Lunelle"]

 

[Chastity Lunelle]

"I can see right through your bluff, Connor," she said with a careless laugh. "You miss me. You would like nothing more than to open this barrier and feel me in your arms. You may tell me that I'm not worth your time, but I know it's pretense."

She drew in a breath so sharp and deep, it seemed like her lungs would burst. Two dirty fingers pinched her brow. Chastity eyes squeezed shut as she tried to recall everything.

"He never told me his name," she said, blinking furiously. "I only remember his pale face and the place where he experimented on me. I never got the name of the world either, but I remember the whole planet smelled...coppery, like blood. I was strapped down to a hover table in a laboratory along with other creatures. Many of them had been twisted into monsters, but you could tell that they were formerly human, like me. I guess I should consider myself lucky."

Chastity shook her head, clearly disturbed by the memory. She locked her amber eyes on his, irises still threaded with resilient flecks of silver. Her voice was hoarse with frustration.

"Is that enough information for you? Will you let me out of this blasted container already? I feel like a caged animal."

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

He couldn’t gauge her. She wasn’t stupid; he didn’t train her to be. He brought up his hands, wrapped around each other and rested his mouth on the knuckles of his thumbs; thinking and watching her every move and every word. She gave little away for her “captor”, and hid behind a pinch of the nose and blinks of those amber eyes.

Connor smacked his lips and dropped his hands, holding one out as if pacifying her.

"That’s all you give me? A pale face? You came here equipped with robes and a lightsaber not of your own, arms full of needle marks and bruises and god knows what else with a rouse to try and, what, kill me? All you can say is he had a pale face?"

He shook his head, a little tut following.

"That’s not enough for me. You knew what you were doing when you raised the blade to me, and I’ve tried to sooth you whilst subdued as best I can but I’m not a sorcerer. If I can’t help you, then I’m going to have to become more to do it alone."

Connor waved his hand to lock down the control panel cover.

"Last chance – who did this, and why did you want to kill only me?"

His boots started to walk backwards to the stairs leading up and out of the cell room, one slow step at a time, watching her amber eyes as he did.

[member="Chastity Lunelle"]

 

[Chastity Lunelle]

"Stop!"

As Connor got midway up the stairs, Chastity's palms smacked the glassteel partition with a desperate-sounding thump.

"He was human or near-human, thin and pale-skinned. He had brown hair and brown eyes that turned a deep crimson when I fought back. There was something not-quite-right about his arm. Like I said, the Sith never told me his name, and for the most part he kept me in a state of...unreality."

Her posture wilted like a dead flower, and she hung her head in remorse.

"He convinced me to kill all the Jedi, but to start with you, my Master. He told me that it was my destiny and somehow I believed it."

Yellow eyes crawled over him with despair. In her aura was a fierce battle between the two sides of the Force. Her soul was in the middle, torn and confused.

"I need your help, Connor. Now more than ever. Don't let me fall...please."

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

The pale skin, the brown hair – near human – a Sith knowing Connor by name, and an arm that wasn’t right.

Connor stopped and nodded slowly, lowering his head and flexing his shoulders while he swallowed a breath. Sage Bane had sent another message. The Jedi’s skin crawled; another failure, and another reminder how much the Sith was laughing in his face.

"That’s better," came a solem reply.

Starting back forward, across the gleaming floor of the room, Connor felt desperate eyes on him and it was his duty to let her face the demons within, as she had requested. He moved across the glass to the control panel. He pulled up the hatch, the glowing green square cast a small light over his face as he placed his palm over it and looked at her.

He nodded again to her request. He had a duty, and she had asked for his help. If there was one person in the galaxy he would not hurt, intentionally or otherwise, it was Chastity. He pushed down on the button that fit his palm.

With a low hum, the glass started to move heavily down, stumps coming down from up inside the ceiling to provide as much protection as possible. Slowly it came down, and Connor’s eyes didn’t leave Chastity’s amber irises as the screen came down to a dull thud below the floor. The cell was open; she was out of restraint. Her dark robe and blade rested behind Connor. The hand came down from the control panel and he walked towards her to face whatever would come from the confused predator he had just set free.

"I never gave up on you and I never will."

[member="Chastity Lunelle"]