To Return (Rugs)

[Dutch]

Sparks spat and hissed off the lightsabers as they collided, red attempting to ward off shining silver. Throughout the clarified Force around them the Sith's confusion and panic wafted off the Zabrak. He cursed repeatedly under the unrelenting assault delivered by the Jedi pursuer. Levin's face was a stark contrast to the twisted one of the Sith. Serene yet resolved, the Jedi expertly parried any attack made by the enemy. Only to be followed quickly by a counter, over and over he gained ground while the darksider lost it. In the narrow stone hall of the cell block, the crisp smell of burning ozone cut through the musty damp smell of the facility. Occasionally the tip of a lightsaber would graze the walls to leave bright orange marks quickly replaced by scorched gashes. Levin could see the Sith glance repeatedly at his fallen comrades, where they lay with sabers extinguished and bodies limp.

It was already over, and they both knew this. The Force was clearly with Levin, its crystal clear energies fueling him endlessly. His presence would shine brightly, a clean knife slicing through the ropes of darkness created by languish and torture. From the moment High Charity had entered Nex Humas' atmosphere, Levin could feel Locke's presence. Though it felt strained, tired and weakened it was enough for him to quickly lock onto his friend's presence. The healer had doggedly pursued it, cutting through swaths of Imperials and cleansing every Sith in his righteous path. The buried temple was clearly dark in origins, some lost domain of some forgotten cult. With the Sith as new tenants, the tech was outdated by decades and only a select few of the overhead lights faintly glowed.

This was the last Sith that stood between Levin and Locke, the Jedi could feel that. Though all around he could feel Sith reinforcements converging towards them, they wouldn't make it in time to stop the Jedi. A faint glimmer of hope flickered from within the Zabrak, clearly thought he could hold Levin long enough for his allies to end his foe. Yet a single wrong strike, and the silver bladed counter attack swiftly cut a horned head from shoulders. The body fell lifeless to the cold stone floor with a thud, the rolling of the head quickly stopped by its own horns. Before Levin was the door, the last barrier in his path. With his lightsaber he would flick the tip of the blade through the access latch, sparks showering off as the door slid open with an audible shush.

There hung Locke, suspended in the air by thick metal cables attached to heavy looking cuffs and a high tech neural inhibitor clamped around his skull. A small frown would touch Levin's lips at the sight. Even if it appeared Locke was uninjured, the bags around his eyes and pallor of his flesh signified dehydration and likely forced injections of some chemical agent. With a ripple of the Force Levin wrapped his presence around his friend's, gripping his telekintically as a throw of his saber cut the cables clean. He approached just as his saber deactivated and returned to a waiting hand. Now he gripped Locke by the shoulders, guiding his Jedi comrade into a sitting position. Once certain he wouldn't fall over, Levin removed the neural inhibitor and pushed reviving energies from his presence into Locke's.

"Suffer no more, Locke. I've come to return you home..."

[Rugs]

Light, dim and dusty, filtered to his perception through a crack in the darkness.

Locke shuddered as reality came rushing back to him at once. His body, cold beneath his dingy clothes, shivered against the cool air. His muscles instinctively tried to draw him in on himself, to warmth, but the metal cords linked to the cuffs around his wrists prevented this. His mind, weary from the weeks and weeks of stress and strain, reached for the Force, for glowing warmth and comfort, but the neural inhibitor clamped around his skill, denied even that.

Locke squeezed his eyes shut again, wishing he could sleep back to the quiet depths of unconsciousness, but he could not. He’d been there so long, and his body, though weary and aching, would not cooperate.

Scenes flickered through his mind. The fight against the woman at the spaceport. Novus, he’d later learned, was her name. The cut, burning across his arm. An explosion, the knowledge that something had gone horribly, irrevocably wrong. The sickening, terrifying feeling as his mind seemed to detach from his body, losing all control as his muscles gave out beneath him.

After that he’d been her prisoner. She hadn’t been an overly cruel captor — much less so than he’d expected a Sith to be — but the conditions of his captivity had hardly been luxurious. She’d seemed more fascinated by him than disdainful, more intent on pressing information out of him than crushing him for the sake of crushing him alone.

Locke had learned, mostly from her, that something terrible had happened at that spaceport, but he could not recall what. The explosion… Yes, that was probably it, probably the source of her quietly-simmering fury.

Jazen, he thought, body sagging wearily, I just hope you got away safely.

Some loud sound from the door arrested his attention. He looked up, brow knitted as sparks erupted from nowhere out of the door. It swished open with and in strolled…

“Levin?” Locke coughed, though whether from surprise or his scratchy throat, he could not say.

The master rushed to him, and Locke felt a glow unlike anything he’d felt in weeks as Levin cut his bonds and gently sat him down. He sagged against Levin, weary, until the master pushed a strength into him he hadn’t had since his capture.

“You magnificent son of…” Locke’s words trailed as his mind struggled to come to terms with what was happening. He wasn’t a prisoner, not with Levin there.

I’m free… the words came, timidly at first, before repetition hardened his will. I’m free.

He instinctively reached for the Force, but the inhibitor around his head still denied his mind that pleasure. He scowled, as he reached up and lifted the device from himself and threw it at a wall with such force that it a piece of it went bouncing across the floor.

Everything flooded back at once. The joy, the strength, these came first, followed immediately by the chaos, the noise of the disarray the prison facility had been thrown into.

Locke wincned, clutching his head against the sensations that battered at the senses that were left raw from disuse.

“It hurts,” he whimpered, before he dove into the Force, drawing so deeply as to drown everything else out beyond the calming light. “It’s been so long…” he muttered, looking at Levin with wonder in his eyes. “It’s been so long since they…”

A fist of fury tightened in his stomach. His look of wonder turned to an angry scowl. “Since they took it from me. Please… Please Levin,” he scooted forward, looking intently at his friend, “we have to make them pay.”

[Dutch]

Levin reached forward to grip Locke at the base of his neck. Firm enough to help steady his friend and nothing more. Through the bond he had linked with Locke, Lev could feel the young man's pain and exhaustion. Even with the Force freely pouring into him now, it was clear the prison's conditions and his treatment twisted and stained the pure energies. His cool grey eyes would meet Locke's fiery ones, not voicing the quiet anxiety that tried to build within him. The younger Jedi was in a dangerous place at that moment, and it wasn't the prison that posed the worst danger. In the Force Levin almost thought he could see Locke's skin turn into crumbling ash, cracks like veins webbed over his comely features and eyes as red as a laigrek's. Yet to refute Locke his justice would likely exacerbate the raw emotion that muddled his friend's presence. Levin regarded Locke serenely, eyes shining with concern as his other hand moved to grip the other man's shoulder.

"Your incarcerations ends, Locke Nemsee. They will know our justice as we leave."

He responded, nodding once in hopes that Locke understood. Levin would not risk their lives purging the compound. The entire point was to free his fellow Jedi, to excise him from this diseased body and raise him from darkness. He would not lose Locke to a Sith's blade nor the evil that threatened to make root within his friend. Levin remembered that Locke wouldn't have a lightsaber on him, his likely taken as some trophy from the Sith. Thinking quickly Lev turned his gaze from Locke to glance back over his shoulder at the dead Sith in the hall behind. He reached to the nearest one he saw on the ground with the Force. With a flip the glinting hilt would fly to the two Jedi, Levin letting go of Locke with one hand to catch the lightsaber. The Jedi held it up in front of Locke, an almost fatherly look in his eye as he spun the blade to rest flat on his palm.

"We use this to protect ourselves and one another. I know the pull to strike down our heretical brethren is strong, but you must not feed into it Locke. You must promise me that if you take this blade, your whole purpose will be towards our exodus and not for vengeance..."

[Rugs]

"Your incarcerations ends, Locke Nemsee,” Levin said, in the stern way he usually did. “They will know our justice as we leave."

Locke nodded, conviction hardening in his belly. Justice. That was a funny word, at times, but one he’d take right now. These people were his enemies, right? They’d imprisoned him. Cut him off from the world except for when Novus decided to pull him out for her word games. They’d cut him off from the Force; the very thought of it had him reaching further into its embrace, drawn to it like a Corellian summer fly to a blooming river lilly’s sweet nectar.

He relished in the Force’s warmth for a few blessed moments, then let his hold relax and his mind to return to the matter at hand. Levin’s presence, deep in this prison was about as assuring as having a tank to shelter him, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

And he still didn’t have a weapon. What did she do with mine? he wondered. No way to tell; he’d been without the Force in his captivity and hadn’t been able to feel their presence on her, and now they were too distant to tell.

Levin drew a blade from a fallen Sith out in the hallway. Locke reached out instinctively, wanting to clutch the weapon like a lifeline, but the master’s hands were quicker. A sternness grew in Levin’s presence as he looked Locke in the eye, holding the weapon with a seriousness the Knight hadn’t expected.

"We use this to protect ourselves and one another,”[/i] Levin said. “I know the pull to strike down our heretical brethren is strong, but you must not feed into it Locke. You must promise me that if you take this blade, your whole purpose will be towards our exodus and not for vengeance..."[/i]

Locke was silent for a long moment. He looked at Levin, then at the weapon glinting faintly in the dark dim lighting. A part of him wanted to hurt them — wanted very badly to subdue them and make them where that hell-cursed inhibitor around their heads. Yet he knew that wouldn’t fix anything, and any joy it brought would be both tainted and temporary.

He sighed, relenting, and nodded. “Yeah, I know, Lev. I’ll be a good boy,” he muttered, offering a tired smirk to his friend. “I just want to get out of here.”

Still, despite his attempts to lighten his mood, his experiences weighed heavily on him. Too long stuck in a cell, with only his own thoughts to keep him company. Too long to wonder at his own failings and worry at what was happening in the world beyond.

And, after his talk with Novus, after seeing Vance…

“I want to know, thought,” he said, taking the saber, “did Jazen make it home? Is he still okay?” His fingers curled around the hilt, the subtle grooves and grip feeling foreign. He hoped his skills hadn’t atrophied too severely during his captivity. His thumb found the ignition and flipped it. A ruby red blade flared to life, throwing a sanguine hue over the room as Locke’s expression grew momentarily grim.

“And… there was a student here,” he said quietly. “One of ours. Vance Asano.” Locke’s voice grew quiet as he let the blade die again, shaking his head sadly. “I don’t know where he is now, but… there wasn’t anything I could do for him. I’m sorry.”