Wheel of Fortune!!

[Grrwunhoooll Agaburry]

Saverok held a confident smile as if he was not worried now though inside he was conflicted about what to do. Part of him wanted to fight till his last and another part wanted to leave and go along with whatever was going to happen only to strike later. Examining the Large creatures on leashes and the Vong warriors around he could only think to himself what his options were. And is options were few to none. Now whole again Saverok could understand slightly through the dark sides eyes. A chance would arise if he would just be patient.

Bring Connor Harrison and in exchange [member="Keira Ticon"] would be set free? Interesting. It tickled his fancy in many ways. Without wasting anymore time the Gen'dai growled once. [member="Dredge"] would have to wait till later.

" Well played.... Agreed!" he said aloud. What other choice did he really have?

 

[Keira Priest]

"Don't call me sister." The word felt distinctly alien coming from the pretender, and Keira didn't bother to disguise her loathing of this imposter even as he continued to speak. It seemed this was to be a journey back through her memories, and it was one even she wasn't looking forward to beginning. There weren't entirely too many pleasant things she could immediately recall from years past. No, her best memories were those that had transpired recently, and she knew those would be pushed aside in favor of those of the more dismal sort. Death would be the subject of the day, something she had touched on too many times to count, nearly traversing through its doors herself a few times, though always coming back from the brink.

When the phantom of her brother-in-arms faded she pushed herself to her feet, leaving the bottle of whiskey and mask both forgotten on the table. Instead she turned to face the apparitions of those whose lives she had unceremoniously ended, recognizing some for who they were while finding others entirely foreign. Some were identifiable by uniform while others still retained the features they had in life, all of them holding about them a haunting quality of impossibility, as they crossed boundaries only made possible by the pliability of the brain in the first place. The mind of a sentient truly was a beautiful thing, even if it did withhold horrors such as the like that would no doubt be revealed in the near future.

For a few moments she studied the various dead men and women walking, some kills awakening recollections of a different time and place altogether while others evoked no emotion at all. There were Jedi from Kashyyyk and Republic soldiers from Ord Mirit, along with Mandalorians from Wayland and, finally, numerous individuals that affiliated themselves with the Sith from most recently. Each represented a different stage of her life, and many of them she was thankful to have left behind. But that wasn't to be the case for very long, as now would be her opportunity to step backwards in time, something she wasn't looking forward to while knowing she would be given no choice in the matter. At least her physical agony didn't project into this waking dreamworld.

Finally she turned to the girl that had spoken, walking the rest of the way down that shadowed path without pause until she was standing in front of the walking corpse. "What do you want to show me, then?"

[member="Dredge"], [member="Saverok the Unleashed"]

 

[Dredge]

"You." the girl said simply to Keira.

There was a blinding flash of light then everything came into view. The two women were on the streets of Corellia before the netherworld, the hustling bustling city they were in carried on with pride and strength as most Corellians did. A pack of kids ran past them and among them was a young twelve year old Keira, at play with her gang not worrying about a single thing in the world.

"There you are, look at you. It's almost hard to believe that becomes such a monster, funny." The girl looked over to Keira and continued to speak.

"I want to show you something, something you wouldn't of noticed as a child. No I'm not here to show you how innocent you are, I'm here to show you something that will make you understand." The girl lifted her finger and pointed at a particular speeder.

Inside of it two men were sitting inside, two thuggish looking men. They watched the young Keira pass them by and when she did they drove off into nothingness fading out of reality. Everything flashed again and another day of Keira running with her child gang went through and again that same speeder watched the child as she was blissfully unaware of their presence.

"Those two men, they followed you in your last days on Corellia. They used you to find a way into your parent's manner, every other Ticon was doing what they were supposed to be doing. But not you, you had to run the streets, be wild. And you know what that got you? Nothing, but it got someone close to you a bullet." The girl said as everything flashed again.

This was a memory that the girl had buried, it was Keira coming home from a day with her gang. Unlike most days there were police cruisers outside and the two followed younger Keira through the front door. There they were, the two white cloth covered bodies of Evelyn and Carter Ticon. On the staircase Dani had her face buried into her hands along with other Ticon siblings crying and sobbing at the sight. Their parents were dead.

"They died because of you Keira, and I wish I could tell you that things got better. But they don't. I'll give you a minute, just say when." the girl vanished from sight giving Keira time to process the memory.

Outside in the real world.

"Lord Dredge thanks you for your compliance, until we meet again Gen'dai." The Yuuzhan Vong moved aside and the gates opened to the man.

Outside the arena there was a small Yuuzhan Vong transport ship with a pilot within it ready to take the monster anywhere he pleased, the pilot was briefed that this was more than likely going to be a one way trip but as any good Vong would do he accepted it.

Now all the monster had to do was bring Connor back in order to save the woman he so desperately cared about.

[member="Saverok the Unleashed"] [member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

To watch her younger self at play was a disarming experience, and Keira appeared to only be half-listening to what the specter was explaining as she was pulled back fully into the memory. The girl was right, it was difficult to believe that carefree child would become one so readily capable of taking life, a weapon honed perfectly for war. But she was here now, looking back on her adolescence as just that, one forged entirely for the battlefield. These had been the simpler times, and she found that she still recognized minute details on the streets, from old haunts to what had once been urban playgrounds, and everything in between. Now Corellia was split in two, and this was gone, though her chance at a normal life had disappeared long before.

With narrowed eyes she studied the men in the speeder, attempting to discern some kind of familiarity. Momentarily she had to remind herself that this had already happened, and she could get as close as she wanted to watch them without interfering with the current events. Still, it felt somehow wrong to move from her current position, and so she settled for observing from a distance. Nothing about those figures rang any kind of bell, but she knew full well from her time working with and among criminals that those who eventually did you in were just as often personal associates as they were complete strangers. Besides, those that had done the deed had likely been killed themselves in short order. Retribution was always swift and terrible.

But that retribution would have to wait, and her hand covered her mouth in order to stifle a sob that wasn't audible to anyone other than herself and her guide. After years of being repressed the memory cut like a knife as it resurfaced, and she soon found herself sliding to sit down against the wall next to the staircase where her siblings had collapsed in their grief. Tears cut warm trails down her face, and she soon let her head fall to her knees as her arms wrapped around them, the physique of a hardened warrior reduced to nothing as her body shook while she sat and cried. This marked the very first time in her life death had become an entirely too personal affair, but she knew full well it was only the very beginning of a very long downward spiral.

Eventually she managed to regain a fraction of her composure, head raising as she wiped away her tears, whispering a quiet farewell in Old Corellian, "Doaba ol'val tru." Unsteadily she pushed herself to her feet, this time speaking to the apparition that had brought her here in the first place, voice still tremulous, "I don't want to be here anymore."

[member="Dredge"]

 

[Dredge]

[member="Keira Ticon"]

"Very well then." with the sound of an audible snap everything went dark once more.

The void consumed Keira and soon the spotlight shined down on her once again. Materializing into existence the girl in the mask looked over to the red eyed Keira and tilted her head slightly, she stared at the woman for a few moments saying nothing letting the silence between them grow.

"Let's move forward." There was another snap and soon a half asleep twelve year old Keira came into existence.

The child slept in her bed and soon voices would drift into her subconscious mind. From outside her room in the hallway of the Ticon manner Dani stood speaking to another person that could not be seen. From the crack the woman looked stressed, her eyes teary, and her hair a complete mess.

"We need to stand together, if we start drifting now then the other sets on the planet will muscle in on our turf. We need to show strength right now and doing that the best way is to have unity. I don't care if Diego wants to run off and do whatever, our baby sister is in the hospital. We can't just pack up because mom and dad died!" Dani yelled at the unseen figure.

"It's over Dani, without them we don't have an empire. We have to just walk away before they come to us." the voice sounded back as heavy footsteps walked away down the hall.

"Kark!" Dani yelled and soon after punched Keira's door.

The door swung open and Dani looked in to see that it had not woken the girl completely, younger Keira still lay half asleep in her bed caught between dreams and reality. Dani let out a soft sigh then sat on her younger sister's bedside and began to lovingly stroke her hair as she silently cried.

"I know you didn't know mom and dad all that well, and I'm sorry. I wish you could of known them better, but right now this family needs you. You are special Keira, you are going to be something great I just know it. But more than just this family needs you Keira, I need you. Tabitha needs you, everything is just coming down on me and I'm trying my best to keep everyone together but they all seem to just want to leave." Dani let out another sigh and wiped a tear from her eye.

"Don't leave me too Keira, I don't think I could take it. I have to go now, I'll see you in the morning." The woman leaned over and soon kissed the side of her sister's head before walking out and closing the door behind her.

"You left for the Jedi a week after this. Every Ticon left leaving Dani to pay for Tabitha's hospital bills. The Ticon crime empire collapsed and Dani resorted to bounty hunting to pay for your sister's medical care until they lost her to the galaxy. Something in Dani died when you left, you turned your back on her and she struggled to care for your family. While you did nothing, you even failed at being a Jedi. You left her for nothing." The girl said as she stood next to Keira.

"Are you ready to continue?"

 

[Keira Priest]

Almost hesitantly Keira stepped forward to sit down on the bed next to her older sister and her younger self, remaining there even after Dani had departed, looking on as the girl drifted off to sleep. Somehow that girl had turned to a woman even before she had passed adolescence, making decisions that would entirely change her life and ripple outwards to alter the existence of everyone close to her. The Jedi were a decision she hadn't been prepared to make, but life had a habit of triggering events when they were the least ideal. In some way the Order had functioned as a way out for her, one she hadn't stopped to consider before taking, going along with what seemed the wisest choice at the time. Even that had turned to ruin, leaving her with nothing once again.

Leaving had been something she regretted for as long as she could remember, and some part of her knew even in the past that she was doing nothing for her family by abandoning them. Slowly she had learned to rationalize it, and those pangs of regret had ceased. Now was no different, even if this had been dredged up from a past she had long since attempted to bury. Releasing a sigh through her nose she glanced about her childhood room, managing a slight smile despite the circumstances, though it faded soon after. Everything was as she remembered it, and it felt comforting, returning to these four walls after so long. If only it were this easy in reality, then perhaps things would have been far different.

"What else was I supposed to do?" She spoke aloud to herself, standing from the bed and running a hand through her hair. "We didn't have anything, after mom and dad died. The empire was gone, and we weren't going to make it much longer if we didn't get out of there ourselves. The Jedi were something better than waiting around and pretending everything was going to be alright, even if they didn't work out in the end. Even back then I knew damn well that it was all over." It was something she had been aware of ever since she had returned home to sirens flashing silently outside what had once been her home. Time had only cemented her knowledge that there wasn't much of anything left for her there.

"It might not have been the greatest choice, but it was my best one in the moment. Sure, we're family, but at heart we were criminals as well, and somehow still are. Those sorts of people aren't meant to stick together." She looked to the masked girl. "Let's go."

[member="Dredge"]

 

[Dredge]

[member="Keira Ticon"]
"I'm not here to tell you that you made the wrong choice, I'm here to show you the person you truly are through the choices you have made. The choices you have made throughout your life have caused many great events, I am but the chauffeur to your memories." The woman said speaking away from Keira.

Her head turned back over to Keira and she stared at the woman with the lifeless eyes of her mask. Blood ran down her cheeks and she didn't bother to hide the gaping hole in her head, it was for Keira to look at and make of it as she pleased.

The void flashed and soon it came to an image of [member="Cryax Bane"] in his office drinking and crying. Jalek and himself had split, he had been tortured by two Sith Lords, and he was an alcoholic drug addict who sought only to numb the pain of his existence through booze and other illegal substances.

"After Dredge took him from Teth and tortured him, Cryax became a heavy user. It ruined his relationships, his friends began to push him away as they sought peace with the rebels, until he eventually had to step down as president. But before this, before Dredge took you as well you could have gone to him. I know you saw him suffering yet you did next to nothing for the man. Cryax's choices were his own, but when someone needed you, you weren't there for them."

"You abandoned Cryax, you abandoned Chiasa, you abandoned the Jedi, you abandoned the clones, you abandoned the Republic. How long until you abandon the rest of your friends? How long until you abandon the mandalorians? there was a slight pause before the woman spoke once more.

How long until Slade and the kids, Keira?" She said with a haunting voice.

 

[Keira Priest]

If there was one individual Keira had no pity left for, it was Cryax. The man had done enough and more to be deserving of death in her eyes, and so no visible emotion was evoked other than an overarching sense of nostalgia and desire for things to return to those far simpler days. Life among the Ravens had been all too easy compared to the war games she played now, dancing between galactic powers in order to prevent this or that war from breaking out. Now she was reduced to sifting through memories in order to find some semblance of a carefree life, and even those were few and far between. This hellish purgatory was the only recompense she had received lately, and even it would end on the whim of her captor.

A beat passed where she simply watched the Chiss, head cocked slightly to one side. "The only thing this bashard deserves from me is a bullet between the eyes. I might have felt bad for him once upon a time, but that's over now. We were like family, and he burned that bridge himself. I was there for him, believe me. More than anybody else, I was there for him. He took that and threw it all away, not me." Another attempt at rationalization perhaps, but she held those words as truth. The Ravens had begun their downward spiral in part because of what Cryax had done while not thinking quite so rationally, and that had only continued at a more rapid place once he betrayed them. It was one thing she wouldn't take credit for.

It was that last inquiry which pushed her too far, and without warning she lashed out to punch the wall, that singular violent act restoring a fraction of equilibrium to her. It felt good to hit something, even if this wasn't the physical realm, not that she was capable of much more than lying on the ground half-conscious in reality. "I'm not leaving them. Not the Mandalorians, and never my family. That includes the clones." They would always be dear to her regardless of where they stood, and nothing would change that. "I've messed up, you think I don't know that by now? I've messed up a lot, and I probably don't deserve half the things I've come by. I'm a monster, but you've already told me that before."

[member="Dredge"]

 

[Dredge]

"We could be here for years, Keira. We could be here going over every poor choice you said you'd never do, but I can't stomach being around you for that long. So instead I'm going to show you one last thing." With another snap everything faded out once more.

A very very familiar setting began to form in Keira's eyes. An arena with a wrestling ring in the middle, and all around her a black fog began to materialize hundreds of cheering Graug and Yuuzhan Vong. On the stage ahead dead bodies hung and children were placed on their knees with a firing squad behind them. But most importantly there it was as clear as day, as if she were there witnessing it.

In a dirty bloody pink sundress a woman no older than her stood with Keira pointing a blaster pistol at her head and Dredge standing over the both of them. He looked down at the two of them with a grin spreading across his lower jaw and bearing his fangs.

"This was where it happened Keira, this was when you died." The girl said as she stood next to the woman.

"Keira. This was the first time you caved, all your life you had been a rebel. All your life you defied the odds and fought no matter what even if you could die, but not here. No here you proved that you are not what you say you are. All your life you have claimed to be a warrior, a pillar of strength and bravery. But that's not true, and despite that front you put up for most people we both know you're still that scared little girl who walked in on their parent's bodies. Trying to hide it. You are not a warrior, Keira." Everything went black for a moment and all that was left was a spot light shining down on a horrifying image.

The woman that had been escorting Keira now stood in front of past Keira with that same bloody pink sundress and mask that was now healed. Reaching up the woman took it off to show she was that girl, the one from all those years ago in the arena. The young woman looked over to present Keira and gave a few last words.

"You're a coward. I was pregnant."

And with one flash of the blaster everything went red and soon there was only Keira in the darkness of her own mind.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

For a long while Keira merely stood there in a half-dazed state, caught up in the gravity of the situation and unbalanced from all she had been shown in such a short period of time. Without seeming to notice her legs all but disintegrated from beneath her, and she found herself on the ground with her legs drawn up to her chest, the same position she had taken on all those other times when she fully realized she was entirely defenseless and unable to do anything but wait at the mercy of another being. It was a theme that had become all too common in her life, and one she had never been able to entirely leave behind, no matter how hard she tried. But she refused to let herself be broken completely, and at this point that virtue was all she had left.

No matter what she witnessed from her memories it was still nearly impossible to make the label of coward synonymous with herself. Defiance was in her blood, and it would be slow in leaving. Regardless of the acts she had committed she still saw herself as some kind of warrior, even if she was broken down and beaten in more ways than one. Sometimes that meant making choices that others would cringe at, picking the lesser of the two evils from odds that seemed impossible to beat and oftentimes were. It was that which she would always hold herself to, and that which she did in that moment. All of her life up to this point had been a conglomerate of bad decisions, but at least she was doing her best to make them for the greater good.

Still, she couldn't help the tidal wave of emotion that overwhelmed her from the resurfacing of all that latent trauma, and her previously unshakable from crumbled as she shook with every sob, curling in on herself where she sat. Even when the tears slowed after long minutes she still trembled visibly, that being a physical manifestation of the anxiety and PTSD that had pursued her throughout the years, the worst of it all finally catching up to her all at once. Holding a hand out in front of her she found it shaking near uncontrollably, and without a word reached up to wipe away her tears, barely managing even that small task. This was her at the absolute weakest she had ever been since the day she had found her parents dead, a state she had sworn never to return to.

How times changed.

[member="Dredge"]

 

[Dredge]

[member="Keira Ticon"]

After what seemed like hours passed the woman was left alone in complete darkness, lost in the void that was this mental prison. But things wouldn't get better for Keira, no that was only the tip of the iceberg of what Dredge has planned for the woman. So as the hours passed soon materializing in front of Keira standing above her holding his massive sword in one arm rather casually like a walking staff, he looked down at Keira and although his face couldn't be seen the tension around them was that this was Dredge without the lights and cameras.

"I'm going to give you a choice. Your purpose has been fulfilled and soon Connor will come for you, but until he arrives we can decide how this can go. The voice inside my armor wants me to torment you for eternity, and I of course am inclined to listen to it. However I have worked out a deal rather than continuous mental torture I can suppress the memories of this trauma and have the Yammosk place you in a reality where you will be happy, where you are with your friends, hell I'll even let the clones go free. I don't want to hurt you if I don't have to anymore Keira." Dredge kneeled down to look at the woman with his one red eye.

"But in order to get there I need you to beg me for mercy, I need you to admit what you are, a coward. If you do these things then the pain can leave, child. If you don't then this Yammosk will slow time in this reality, you will be here for hundreds of years rotting in a black void of nothing. You will be forced to watch every person you killed, every bad choice, and I'll be forced to do things you won't enjoy. Beg me Keira, and I can grant you momentary peace." Dredge said as he let out a sigh.

He wanted Keira to take the deal, despite the spotlight outside of it this version of Dredge was a broken and tormented man. He wanted death and he wanted to see the world burn, but he also had sympathy for a wounded creature such as Keira.

 

[Keira Priest]

Mercy. After everything Keira had suffered at the hands of this monster, after all the torment - both physical and psychological - he had subjected her to, he was granting her mercy. Or, well, an opportunity for it, at any rate. As with anything he offered, there were terms to abide by that would allow her this relief. They were of a nature she would have found laughable in the past, but it seemed time had granted her some kind of wisdom and hindsight, or perhaps she had simply suffered too much and been broken down to nothing more than her base desire for survival and an ultimate peace. It was anyone's guess as to which held true, but all she knew was that she wanted an end to all of this, and soon.

Her eyes screwed shut, jaw clenching as tears flowed freely once again. Everything within told her to remain obstinate, but even that was fracturing, a whisper in her subconscious warning her that she wouldn't be capable of surviving much more of this same treatment. This was life-or-death in its most raw form, and as always, against all odds, she chose life even when that void of nothingness would have been a kindness. Life was the single thing she had left to cling to when all else was lost. Because to remain alive was her ultimate defiance, the last and final way she would ever be able to say that she beat the odds. And sometimes that looked a lot like surrender, however momentary it might have been.

"Please." That first word was barely audible as she was once again overcome by her own inner demons, and she shook where she sat. "Please, make this stop, take it all away, just--" Again sobs poured forth, even they carrying a tone of ultimate defeat. "Let it be over. Just let it be over, make it go away, I don't-- I can't take any more of this. Not again." To admit to her own weakness and shortcoming provided a strangely cathartic release, even if she did wholly despise it deep down. "I'm a coward, I'll admit it. I always leave when things get hard, but that's because I don't know what else to do. I'm a coward, I don't want to be, but I am. Please, let me go. Let them all go." There would be no more words, tears replacing it all.

[member="Dredge"]

 

[Dredge]

"Very well then, child. Thank you." Dredge said to Keira.

"The girl, I'll have her reformed then set her free as well." With that last comment he snapped his fingers and everything was blinded by a bright light.

Memories were repressed for now and Keira would find herself at home on the back porch with a cigarette in her hand and a drink next to her on the bench. The night sky of Voss shined down upon them with its beautiful stars and moons, and soon the back door opened and Slade stepped out to sit down next to her.

"Bum one off you?" he said as he sat down next to her.

"The kids are finally asleep. I can't help but wonder why you leave me with these handfuls of joy on a daily basis, Reid just loves climbing on my back asking me where you go. Oodles of fun." Slade said then plucked the cigarette from Keira's hand.

"So does this mean we're, quitting on trying to quit?" Slade said as he took a long drag.

[member="Keira Ticon"]