Nar Shaddaa - Rebel Alliance Headquarters

[Frond]

Once inside the palisade that made up the perimeter of the joint Rebel-Imperial Remnant-Jedi base of operarions, Frond shuffled up the road. They were still busy with people, the gates open to the public. This time; however there were more military persons moving with a sense of purpose. No longer were people ambling, but they marched or scurried about with their eyes directed forwards towards their targets. Chatter was at a minimum. Preparation was in full swing. As such, a shambling biped, like Frond, drew hardly a second glance outside of casual stared of annoyance as he impeded the hurried flow of war.

 

Within the shadows of the towering buttresses that made up the homes of the Jedi and some Imperial Knights, the ancient Neti stopped. He looked upwards, remembering his brief time with the Jedi, what he had learned, what he had lost, before he spoke to himself. His voice was low and quiet, yet it carried to any that passed near enough to hear it. “Stones upon the sea, thrown never to be  retrieved, I need a new blade.” Frond looked upwards, pondering how best he could procure a sacred Jedi weapon. He had a duty to these people; not the militants or the revolutionaries, no he owed it to the displaced and downtrodden, the people tormented by this war through no choice of their own. He was a Mind Walker, but more than that. He was not a Jedi.

[Frond]

The tree-being stood, his eyes gazing upwards at the Jedi bastion. His thoughts were his own as they coursed through his botanical form, touching every cell wall as his visions of how to proceed churned about within.

 

The hustle and the bustle of the world passed the Neti by seemingly unnoticed. He paid them no heed. Their ways were not his own, their goals and dreams did not align with his, and their timelines flew by compared to the horizon-breaching visions of the timber.

 

Before he could act, Frond felt a presence invading the airspace of his present world, pressing at the edges of his mind as it reached into the cosmos between the stars. In the darkest recesses of his mind, Frond knew who was touching down a mere short-distance out of sight. The Jedi that had sought to train him, that had offered him shelter beneath the protections of the Jedi. Sandy Sarna had sought to prune and nurture the tree, to guide his growth along the trellis of the Jedi doctrines.
 

She was not alone. There was another presence that tugged at Frond’s conscious as well.
 

Touching down in unison with the Mind Walker’s former teacher. There was an edge that Frond immediately recognized. It immediately associated with the memories of when Frond wrestled with the darkness that he had carried within his heartwood. It had been a darkness from beyond this reality. It  had sought to consume the Neti on Ossus and had it not been for the challenge of Aidan Darkfire, Frond may have fallen to that darkness.
 

The Imperial Knight had challenged him, called his darkness to the forefront and fought to purge it. His master had been there to support him, to seek to guide his growth and pull him from the precipice. He had survived it, but Frond had lost a part of himself that day. He had left the order with nary a word to any but the healer who had helped keep him alive. He had left what he had been learning to return to what he had known; yet he found that he had grown beyond the simple existence of being a Mind Walker. This was where Frond was, and as much as he did not desire to confront the two who had been there at his moment of weakness; he knew they could help him now. Seeing them might bring some level of closure to the chapter that had led the ancient tree here, to Nar Shaddaa.

 

Turning slowly, Frond set his eyes beyond the skyline of the cityscaped moon and began to amble down the street. He passed through the people like a ship on the sea. He paid no attention to them, their presence was the reason he was here; yet his mind was focused on the looming darkness beyond the horizon and the presence of Aidan and Sandy descending to the planet. Making his way towards the landing pad,

 

Frond watched as their ship settled to the ground. He felt the presence of his friends, or the closest thing he had to such. With his face set somberly, he approached the craft, his twisted wooden body draped in a cloak of shimmering black foliage. He opened his mind to those within, offering a silent greeting on the winds of the force, warm and gray like the light of dawn just before it burst across the horizon. It was a greeting as twisted and mangled as the intricately woven vines and roots of the wildest locations of the galaxy, gnarled and complex, yet simple in it’s measure.  “Ice melts before fire, flickering flames of friendship, warmed is my heart now.”

 

[Frond]

@Moff Lurg @Aidan Darkfire

 

Frond’s worn face creased into a smile at the Imperial Knight’s warm response. He had not been entirely sure how it would have gone and a positive interaction was warming to his soul. Yet, his old acquaintance asked a question Frond knew would have come up eventually, ‘was he a Jedi?’ and more so , so did Aidan’s newfound comrade. 
 

Frond bowed his head in greeting, before turning his eyes from Carson to Aidan and back, “Like wind on the brow, warm and refreshing to feel, so too are my friends.” He smiled as he offered the greeting of pleasure at their arrival. Frond’s eyes left the duo and drifted over their ship. Spacetravel was not exactly something the Neti enjoyed, but he understood the necessity of it in the grand scheme. He took in the crafts lines and wear, nodding slowly in approval as he turned back to the others, their questions hanging in the air.

 

With a deep breath that rustled the leaves that draped about him like a robe in the wind, he responded. “I am no Jedi, different plains and paths are mine, the same Force we serve.” Explaining his fall from the Jedi ways would be difficult at best and one that Aidan would have some understanding of. Kt was not something Frond desired to do, at least not right now. Aidan had been there when Frond had lost his lightsaber, he would understand and if Carson was turning from the dark call of the Sith towards that of the light he was delighted to see the shift; especially with the looming darkness he felt approaching. A cataclysmic event was unfolding about them. Having Sandy, Aidan, and Carson on the side of light may help balance the cosmic scale. At least Frond silently hoped.

 

”Darkness looms beyond,” Frond spoke of the rending of the force itself by whatever was bound to unfold on this world, gesturing with a knotted knobby hand towards the sky, “we,” he gestured to the group, “are the storm breaking wall.” Looking forlornly downward for a moment, Frond raised his head to look at the others, “my saber was lost.”

 

The Neti’s lightsaber had been forged from his own heartwood and carried within it a crystalized darkness. It had been destroyed and Frond had not crafted another weapon. Now, he stood on the precipice of another physical engagement and he did not have the tool he had excelled with as under Jedi tutelage. He hoped that maybe these friends might help him acquire another blade so that he could stand in the gap and protect the weak and by doing so, stage off that which he had seen in his visions: death and destruction of such magnitude that force itself wept blood.

[Frond]

Frond smiled at Carson, one of those smiles that an elder offered a child, delighting in their outlook on life. Sometimes it was accompanied by a pat on the head; although Frond refrained from such a thing. He was right. The trouble lie in parting a Sith from their blade and the echoes such an act may carry upon the force itself.

 

A response was not pondered over for long as their interaction was parted by the arrival of Frond’s former instructor. The smile on the weathered wooded being faded, replaced by a somber expression. He inclined his head deeply before Sandy, his remorse at the things to have befallen them oozing like sap from his core. Still he held the bow, probably longer than it need be to the point of awkwardness before rising; showing in his own way, the respect and reverence he still held for his former master.

 

At the sound of approaching boots Frond’s eyes turned, a twinkle shimmering in his eyes at the sight of his night strolling fellow samaritan regaled in the doorway. The officer handed a pristinely hewn, hard, and glistening gemstone encircled by chromium to the Neti before turning. To any onlooker, Frond knew the display might elicit eyebrow raises, but to he and the queen, a revelation of his own that brought a warmth to heart, he knew immediately that she had taken his musings and actions to heart. She too was doing what needed to be done for the betterment of the least of these.

 

Turning back towards Aidan, Frond tucked the valued jewel into a knotted black hole in his trunk, the wood twisting and closing around the badge of office, concealing it within Frond’s body until it needed reproduced for the betterment of the needs the force presented to the seer.

 

Even a monastic being as old as Frond knew the value a corusca gem presented. On a world like this, such a treasure could feed an entire neighborhood for years.

 

Frond inclined his head in thanks to Anne, his smile twisting upwards almost comically before she and her men hurried away and Frond was drawn back to Aidan and his words. He understood what was being said and knew that for many time was of the essence for no reason but promptness and respect. He gestured forward towards the bustling walkway where moments before the Naboo/Rebels had hurried away. He would follow along with them. To find a new weapon alongside the Darkfire was a blessing Frond would willingly embrace.

 

As they began to walk out, Frond looked at Carson, “Bows of light in rain; are Jedi, Sith, and many more,” Frond touched his own chest to indicate himself as he spoke the last line, “but a different hue.”

 

At the doorway to the hangar, Frond paused as he felt a presence seem to pass overhead. It felt like someone was reaching out on the force, searching for something. It carried hues of deepest purple and darkest black, mingled with shades of light. Frond inclined his head for but a moment considering what it might have been. Not a Jedi, nor a Sith. He put it from his mind as the Intake Officer came into sight. Frond stopped towards the back of their entourage, allowing the others to do what they needed to have done.

 

(( @Moff Lurg left it wide open for you to describe the scene. The Intake Officer is @Aidan Darkfire ‘s so let him control that fellow unless you have other arrangements with him; but here is a great spot to delve into what the scene is like and build off what others have said.))

[Frond]

Frond watched as Carson went with the recruiter knowing the young man’s life was about to change, and potentially shorten, exponentially forever.
 

He appreciated the offer of the use of Aidan’s father’s holocron. Such a tool would be quite useful, and yet; he did not have much time to consider it as a band of inquisitors came into sight and announced the arrest of Aidan Darkfire. A slight eyebrow raise was the only sign of the surprise that Frond acknowledged; standing still and firm, like a tree, as he watched the potential chaos unfold. Aidan Darkfire was a key defense against the rending of the force by the soldiers of darkness that loomed on the horizon. Incarceration would complicate things.
 

Frond watched longingly as Aidan handed over his weapon without a fight. It was something he desired for himself, Aidan’s or another. It did not matter

Such an act struck him as odd, he did not think a Jedi, much less a Knight would so willingly part with such a thing. Frond knew, with time, this too would pass by. Aidan would weather whatever storm this was. The Knight’s soul was still enveloped by the light side of the force. Frond would have to figure out the holocron on his own.

 

. . . or not. The securing of Aidan’s quarters presented another issue; albeit, a minor one. If his quarters were also under lockdown, Frond wondered what else might be at the root of this arrest. The ways of shorter-lived species sometimes confused him.

 

The whole ordeal took less than a minute before Sandy was questioning the lead arresting officer. Frond turned his head from the officers and Aiden to Sandy. Her question made sense. Her tone carried an edge that was almost cutting. His eyes drifted from the Jedi Master to the Knight and back. There was something there, something more, but he could not put his tendrilled finger on it. Yet, neither of them were fighting, at least not yet.

 

Peace. It was a grand thing. Those who preserved it were also grand. Yet peace was not always the path of the force, the path of nature. Peace would prevail, but storms would blow through and the strong would weather it. Together, they were even stronger.

 

The partial list of charges was something Frond had heard before. It was a partial answer. It was an answer that left things open for development, for ‘investigation’. Was such a thing a witch hunt? So instead of opening his mouth to question what right these force users had to take Aidan, to ask if they were blind enough to not see what storm was rolling in on the horizon and the part they were playing in dividing the forces that had to stand against it, he turned. Frond offered a reassuring nod to Aidan and a knowing look to Sandy, the twinkle of mischief glimmering in his eyes. Without a word, Frond made his way back into the hustle and bustle as the world itself readied for war.

 

Frond was not a Jedi nor was he an Imperial, bound by either’s code or law. He was a follower of the force. The force called him to this world to stand against the surge of those who sought to alter the path of the cosmos. He could not do it alone. So Frond knew what he needed to do, to preserve the unity of the worshipers of light and bind together those who sought to prevent the tearing asunder of the fabric of the force itself. Reaching out on the force, Frond searched for the font of knowledge that was the holocron Aidan had offered to him. Moving towards the lines of barracks where the Imperial Knights housed themselves, Frond moved with caution and purpose, unsure what he would meet at the end of his trek.

[Frond]

No one seemed to pay any mind to the wooden man that shuffled through the hallways of the Imperial Knights’ quarters. Just another force user, same as them. Jedi, Knights, and several other brands of mystic and religious types were not an uncommon sight about the base. Some were force users, some charlatans, some truthful devotees, to the undiscerning eye it was hard to tell; if one even cared. They were all here for different reasons, but part of the same cause. They were not going to live under the oppressive thumbs of the Sith Empire. 
 

And so Frond shuffled, his cloak of black leaves rustling in his wake, down the hallway, his head down, his eyes sweeping back and forth. His mind swept outward, searching, feeling. He could feel signs that Aidan Darkfire had been here, had been all over this place. It was not what he was looking for. Aidan had said he had a holocron in his quarters, his father’s. It was that that Frond was reaching out for, feeling for, searching for. And so he shuffled onwards until he found the quarters. The Aurebesh nameplate next to the door made his looking significantly easier to determine that he was, in fact, outside the right room. Frond was surprised that there were not any guards, Knights or soldiers or anything else, standing watch. After what had been said at Aidan’s arrest, Frond had expected something more. 
 

Trying the door, Frond found it locked. The keypad flashed an angry red three times whenever Frond tried to mash a random code. At least the agent had not been lying about the door lock.
 

Frond leaned his head against the crack where the door and wall met, the full weight of his body pressing down on the crown of his wooded cranium. Frond sighed. It could never be easy, could it? He just wanted to help his comrade. Lifting his hand, Frond ran it down the door, across the slivered seam. His viney, knobby tendrilled limb paused as he reached the lock. Inclining his head to the left, with a scraping of bark on steel, and then the right, Frond checked to see that the hallway was clear. It was. Not a camera or a being in sight.
 

As a shapeshifter and a plant, Frond’s tendrils began to grow, to creep like strangling vines into the crevice. Tiny shoots worked their way between the door and the framed wall, growing and elongating as they twisted and curved chaotically. They ensnared the locking mechanism and pierced into the room beyond. There they found purchase. There they began to grow, strengthened and quickened by the very will of the force. Frond’s limbs swelled. The wall, the frame, and the door began to creak. Their cries echoed down the empty hallway, mingling with guttural grunts of pain from the tree-man, as the durasteel stressed beneath the growth of nature and the power of the cosmic ruling force. Within minutes ripples appeared in the door and cracks in the frame, growing and swelling until with a cracking bang of sheering and releasing metal, the lock popped and the door jumped it’s tracks.

 

Pulling his hand back, Frond exhaled heavily, his leafy cloak rustling like a gust of wind had just blown by; his entire body rearing back as his tendrilled growthy hand began to return to it’s normal shape. Had Frond been able to sweat, he would have been soaked, the sheer force usage an exhaustion upon his body. Looking at the breached room, Frond carefully stepped over the buckled door. 
 

Inside, the room was a mess, as if someone had left in a hurry. Upon initial glance, the Neti did not see anything that screamed to him that is was a sign of ill-intent, darkness affiliation, or criminal mischief; yet, he knew such things might be subtle.

 

The first thing that Frond was drawn to, that which Aidan had offered him to retrieve, was the holocron. Gingerly Frond plucked it from where it sat and held it up to the light as if he was a scientist analyzing a specimen. After a moment, the tree-being lowered the device and nestled it in a freshly open knothole in his trunk. Turning, Frond surveilled the rest of the room. He began to open drawers and move the few pieces of furniture there was, searching for any hidden treasures or secrets that might be. He extended himself upon the force as well, probing the room for something that might seem out of place. He found nothing.

 

Kneeling down, Frond peered beneath the bunk. There were a few mislaid items, a bag that might have been hastily shoved there but was empty when flattened, but not much else. Not much that is, until Frond pulled the bag out and a case clopped to the floor. Frond regarded it fr a moment. It seemed heavier than one would expect; but nothing else seemed terribly odd about it.

 

Stooping, the Mind Walker picked up the case, feeling the uncharacteristic weightiness of the smooth wooden shell against his own. The thing had caught the aged tree’s curiosity. Feeling for the latch, he popped it open and flipped open the box, the lid catching halfway back. Almost instantly, Frond’s face wrinkled as the metaphysical odor of darkness wafted upwards from the inside, shrouded by the same neuranium lining that was nestled between the wooden exterior and velvet  interior. Looking downwards, Frond saw a mask and a pair of saber hilts. His eyebrows raised in shock. Something like this should not be in the possession of an Imperial Knight, much less stashed in one’s personal quarters. Frond knew that much. The odor of darkness about the items was faint, but present. Such a case could could easily condemn the man who had helped wrest Frond from the consuming power of darkness within his own weapon.

 

Frond snapped the case shut, containing the dark presence of the items within the signature containing metal. Removing the holocron from his chest, Frond swapped it for the case. It filled the void, an icy chill nestled within his core. Wether that chill was real or Frond’s own imagination knowing what he was doing remained to be seen.

 

The wood closed about the case until the knothole vanished, it’s lines blending with the grooved bark of the ancient tree.

 

With the holocron in one hand, Frond grabbed the datapad from atop the desk with the other. He did not know what might be on such a device; but seeings as how the room had been locked for investigation coupled with Frond’s own discovery of the dark-oozing sabers and mask, Frond figured it was a good bet.

 

Stepping out of the room, Frond shuffled off down the hallway. Now it was time to get out of here and address his discovery.

[Frond]

Amongst the bustle of the city-sphere, Frond moved like a foreign dignitary amongst it all. He seemed to glide, aloof and unbothered by the masses that teamed all about them, and in his wake, the Jedi-Sith Scorpio had chosen to accompany him. Amongst the citadel that comprised the Rebel-Jedi-Imperial Remnant garrison, a second world existed within the squalid waste that had accompanied the press of refugees. Here, there was a glimmer of something more. Hope. It hung faintly in the afternoon air as it mingled with the smells of dozens of meals being prepped from all cultures and corners of the galaxy.

 

Through it, Frond moved, his head ducked and shoulders stooped; his glossy black foliage a cloak about his gnarled and twisted form. Any worldly possession he might be carrying were contained within enclosed knots on his body. The Mind Walker did not even know where he was going, drawn by the growing sprouts of the force itself. He followed their viney invisible growths unsure where they might take him. He had been drawn to this world, and to Scorpio, and now they were in waiting.

 

They did not beed to wait long; however, as a solid thud brought the striding tree-being to a stop. He had been jostled. He had been bumped. He had even been brushed against. This was different. Frond paused. Slowly he turned, an awkwardly friendly old man-esque smile twisting across his wrinkled wooden face as he heard the men’s back and forth. The Neti’s eyes twinkled.

 

Frond recognized the men as clones; soldiers of a bygone era and copies of the dark destroyer who rendered worlds. He eyed them for but a moment as his attention was inevitably drawn to the coffin that trailed along with them. The force still radiated like the last vestiges of warmth leaving a dead body. Cocking his head to the side in a birdlime fashion, the Neti raised an eyebrow. “Like a river pure,” he spoke as he his eyes turned back to @Tilt07, “the last drops flowing freely,” he waved his gnarled hand and vine-musclebound arm to the encased body, ”pure Jensaarai truth.” He spoke the man’s affiliation, having trained alongside many of his kind in his time Beyond Shadows. Each acolyte of the different force paths presented themselves differently on the meandering galaxy-engulfing tangled rooted mass of the force; unique, yet bound together. Frond stood for an awkwardly long moment regarding the body, taking in the aura of the fallen warrior with a respect only feasible from one who had seen the horrors of the cosmos and understood the desire to protect their small corner of it. An aura of sadness passed over the ancient sage’s face before passing like a shadow. Death was nothing to the force; but as a living being, detached as he was, the tree-being still could feel the loss in his soul.

 

Slowly, Frond blinked, breaking the seeming moment of silence amidst the bustle around them. His composure returned, a stoic aura of calm peace. He turned back to Tilt, Riggs, and Thumper. “Warriors of yore, carrying weapons for peace, stand, protect, with us?” He queried slowly; his own words conveying his invitation to the trio to join he and @MSA‘s Scorpio. Frond reached out and his twisted fingers encircled Tilt’s shoulder plate and squeezed, tightly, like only the press of plant growth can do. “Brothers bound in blood.” He gingerly reached another hand to brush a twiggy finger across the other two troopers’ chest plates as the force rustled like a breeze through his cloak of leaves that grew from his body sending a spark of warm ancient energy from the aged tree to each of them as a way of unspoken comradeship. “Let us feast as victors now,” he slowly offered by way of suggesting the group find a meal somewhere in the teaming towering fortifications.

 

”A strand of three cords,” his voice trailed off as he uttered the line of the common phrase gesturing for another to lead their way as he would fall in behind with a warmth that seemed to radiate from his every pore.

[Frond]

Frond followed along with the others. All about them, the world bustled. Gesturing towards a jagged alley, Frond stopped the group, placing his hand atop the casket bearing anti-grav sled.

 

Inhaling deeply, Frond’s fronds quivered as his mind delved deeply transcending ancient plains and expanding out upon the force itself. It was the closest that the tree felt to being real. Not this physical mess that they pretended mattered. Then he spoke, his voice carried softly and deeply. “This world feels solid,” he stamped his rooted splayed foot on the ground, “the wind, the force, blows as truth.” He patted the coffin/crate containing the body of the clones’ fallen force-using comrade, “Jensaarai follow the truth, guided by the unseen power, hidden in plain sight, so too shall be death.”

 

Taking the lead, Frond led the group down the shadowy winding path until they came to a grungy shop with a squeaking sign covered in grime and blackened dirt. Barely discernible  beneath the years of wear and grime were the aurabesh letters for BLACKSMITH. With a push of a button, the door swooshed open with an uncharacteristically concerning rattle. The inside was equal to, if not worse than the sign. Everything was covered in dirt, dust, grease, and grime. It was practically impossible to even step inside without getting covered.

 

The place was deserted and the forge, well-stocked, was cold. A myriad of armors and medieval-styled vibro weapons hung on the walls above a workbench of intricate bits of wiring and tools.

 

Stepping to the forge, Frond, wiped a layer of grease from the red starter button. “Freedom in the flame.” Frond gestured to the clones bidding them load their fallen friend’s body into the empty forge. “Carried on the winds of truth, reborn in the force.” All they needed to do was place the Jensaarai in the forge. With the push of a button, it would be ignited and his body rapidly dried, scorched and burned to ash. A forge that could liquify Mandalorian iron would easily disintegrate the body of the Duros; with time for anyone to say words should they so desire. Otherwise, Frond would stand in silence watching the flames lick at the fallen force user, releasing his true inner being. 

[Frond]

Frond stood well back from the intense licking flames as they consumed the coffin and body within. Gingerly, he egged the fire hotter and hotter, until even the bone dissolved into ash. All the while, the ancient wooden man stood watching. The flickering shadows across his face seemed to age the tree another 5,000 years and in the gloom he looked wizened and mysterious.

 

Finally one of the clones @Tilt07 broke the silence as he turned and produced a pair of silvered hilts. Lightsabers, a matching set. Raising an eyebrow, the Neti’s deep eyes glistened in the dying firelight as his gnarled hand reached out to stroke the cool metal with elongated fingers. “Treasure most precious,” he whispered as he regarded the weapons before drawing his other hand to his chest where a knot slowly opened with the buckling of wooden fibers. Reaching into his own body, Frond removed the two hilts of the Sith sabers he had liberated from Aiden’s quarters. Holding them in his hand he extended them towards Tilt. “Born unto the darkest of nights.” Dropping one of his hilts into Tilt’s hands, Frond withdrew one of the fallen warrior’s sabers. Now clutching one of each in each hand, he ignited them. The stereo sounds of both blades igniting seemed to make the room swim for a mere moment. Orange and red.hues seemed to dance in the flickering firelight and the hunger of the Sith blade seemed to almost visibly claw for the sweet taste of blood. Meanwhile, Frond felt the surety of the Jensaarai’s blade, a lost brother to that of the Sith’s but purified in it’s origins. Drawn from darkness into the truth, the truth held the darkness at bay.  A smile broke Frond’s somber face as he looked to Tilt and his comrades, “Sunrise beckons us.”

 

Deactivating the weapons, Frond picked up all four hilts in his viney hands, holding each one up to eye level as if a jeweler surveying a priceless gemstone, before tucking it away within the open knothole in his chest. The last, one of The Mantis’ blades, he held for even longer, feeling it, searching it with his eyes and upon the force itself.

 

Turning his glance to the soldiers again he spoke, “Freed unto the force, released by the flames of truth, his memory lives.” Frond reached up slowly to touch his gnarled temple before reaching to touch Rigg’s head as well, seeing as he was the closest. “And yet the mind fades,” he added quite suddenly, turning the hilt over in his hand again as he redirected his attention to it. “In memories forgotten,”

 

Offering the hilt outwards on his palm, Frond held the weapon for Tilt to take should he choose to want it, “To touch, to believe.” 
 

It was up to the clones wether they wanted such a weapon as a memory of their comrade. To Frond, it was a tool of the force born upon this physical world, a mystical connection of mystical and material. He knew; however, that it might serve as a more potent memory for the others when the darkness grew.

 

Once their interaction was completed; wether they jet the hilt or returned it to Frond to seal within his chest, Frond would gesture that they follow, tisking and shaking his head like a slightly off kilter grandfather as he regarded their garb. Even he knew it to be outdated.

 

Leading the group deeper into the shadows of the city, Frond twisted and turned at random. Like a root seeking water that none but it might sense, he led them into the depths of Nar Shaddaa where the fringes of the Rebel/Imperial war machine rarely ventured. Underground, where the dim light of fading lamps were all that lit their path along the mucky walkways between dens of iniquity and vice until they came to a rather obnoxious glowing sign that flashed in the dimness, ‘Madam Ploof’s Exotic Dance and Massage’.

 

Frond smiled at the looks on the clones’ faces as he bid them enter. Inside was to be as expected. The sweet smells of burning spice mingled with the thick smoke of death sticks in the air as music thumped hard enough to be felt in one’s chest and at least a half dozen different scantily clad (or less) dancers plied their wares. Frond led the way to the back, his thick mangled form barely drawing a glance from the heavy Herglic bouncers at the door. Sliding past a heavy curtain the group was met by what had to be one of the ugliest Twi’lek women imaginable. Scars criscrossed her pocked face and single remaining lekku and when she smiled one of her teeth, yellow and black, quite literally fell from her mouth to the floor. The large wart on her nose only completed the ensemble. “Frondsy!” She cackled at the sight of the tree-man. “Brought me more boys to see me baubles have ye? Well come along gentlemen. Come along.” Quickly the woman grabbed Thumper by the shoulder and Tilt by the hand and pulled them down a dark creaking hallway into a small poorly lit room. 
 

Pulling them in, the woman shut and locked the door. She spun around and flicked a switch. The unseen grind of machines could be heard as the walls opened to reveal rows upon tows of military grade, illegal, and exotic weapons lined up in neat rows on one side, armors of all sorts on another, and miscellaneous tools and explosives on yet another. “Feel free to browse m’boys. Everything is for sale!” She said with a wink and she thrust a hip suggestively at Riggs with a wink.

 

And as the clones began to look, the sickening Tw’lek sidled over to Frond and whispered loudly. “Which one do I gets ta keep as payment this time? Or d’ya have something better to barter with?”

[Frond]

The unsightly twi’lek oogled unabashedly towards the fit clones. What went through her mind was known to no one but her; but most assuredly it was sickening, inappropriate, and more likely than not illegal in twelve or more systems.  Frond rolled his eyes as he leaned against the rickety counter. Humanoid as he was, Frond’s weight was deceptively heavy. The counter creaked menacingly threatening to break any time.

 

Internally, the Neti was as foreign from the majority of unique species roaming the world as he was on the outside. Where most organic being were filled with blood and organs, the Mind Walker was composed of sinewy cellulose-lined  grains of cells that were practically identical. Each carried the code of the species. Each acted in accordance with the greater will of Frond as a whole. Tucked within Frond’s form, the wooden grains flowed around several objects he had secured there; the least of which was not the trio of lightsaber hilts and a large glittering corusca gem that could purchase an entire coty block on the most exotic worlds across the known galaxy. Like a sail under power, working silently without drawing attention to itself, Frond’s body had begun to dissect one of the Sith blades, gingerly extracting the blood crystal. Where it touched his fibrosis form, the wood began to dry and rot immediately.

 

So as the arms dealer/fence began to question payment methods, she was somewhat disappointed when Frond managed to procure the glittering blood red gem in his hand. He held his palm out to the woman, her eyes enlarging with greed as she snapped the crystal up in her own greasy fingers, holding it up to the light to regard it before tucking it within the shadows of her heavy bossom.

 

All this occurred before the clones had managed to round the corner to gather their newest toys. So when the clones hefted their picks on the counter, she turned her hungry eyes to them once again. “Whatcha boys got there? I’ll need an itemized list.” She slid a grimey notepad and pen across the counter. As for pay,” she shot a sidelong glance at Frond who had shuffled back from the counter and was watching the entire exchange with the awe of a child, “looks like you’re already covered, provided you boys didn’t take my ‘ruptors or, wanted some extra company . . . that’ll be worth the extra cost.” She kicked her lips trying to appear seductive.

 

Once their transaction was complete, Frond led the group back out to the street, walking directly through the middle of the pulsating music, flashing lights and other appendages, and overall din of debauchery. The armory vanished back into the walls as they left, as if it had never been.

 

Outside, Frond turned to smile at the group of clones, “Life in the jungles, living, dying, thriving through, the force binds as one.” Looking up towards the sky, Frond exhaled deeply. The black leafy cloak that covered his body shivered as if rustled by an invisible wind. He looked to the troopers, a fatherly warmth and compassion gleaming through before he patted where a normal being’s stomach would be. “Food.”
 

 

[Frond]

Frond followed along with the clones until they arrived back at the abandoned blacksmith’s forge where they had burned the body of the clones’ force using Jensaarai comrade. After their gear was stowed, Frond shuffled along with the young clones until they came across an eclectic food truck. It’s wafts of foreign food smells was almost overwhelming. Delicious.

 

Gesturing to the food truck, Frond silently invited the men to eat as he moved to a duracrete waist-high fence where he sat and declined; inclining his head up towards the sun. The warm light shone down and Frond relished the warm life-giving energies, closing his eyes until the men had their food.

[Frond]

Even as the rays shone down, the Neti humanoid stirred, his consciousness pricked. Across the intermingling web of lives across the universe a singularity seemed to coalesce upon the very planet he was rooted to. With a flutter across his deeply lined face, Frond’s eyes opened. He inhaled, a dark wave was surging beyond sight in the skies above, a surge building into what could be a tidal wave of destruction if it was not broken upon the reef of goodness.

 

Slowly Frond righted himself from the seat he had taken in the sun. He could feel the gold and silver tendrils of the force criss-crossed across the world; the familiar Jedi and local religious leaders, the untrained carriers of life beyond the mortal coil; and newly added destructive vibrations of the Sith lords and leaders bearing down upon this world. The prophecy was being fulfilled and Frond carried by his visions stood ready to be the breaker upon which the dark tide surged. It had been so written upon the fabrics of time.

 

With a shuffling gait that did not belay any sense of urgency even as the world about him began to react viscerally to looming battle, Frond meandered away from his perch in the plaza. Back into the winding dusty roads and skyscrapers that reached into the sky like spindly gnarled fingers, Frond wandered. He found himself about the very same orphanage he and the Queen of the Naboo had visited before. The doors and windows were still boarded up, the squat structure overshadowed by the world around it.

 

Resuming his form, a large willowy tree loomed up beside the home for parentless children. His black leaves rustled in the winds generated by the shimmering force and he sat, unmoving in his anchored position until a dark swirl of chaos broke from the growing storm and moved like a snowflake tossed on the wind until it settled here, in front of the sanctuary of children.

 

The tree’s viney limbs shivered in response, his mind reaching out on the force, a wordless presence, a warning that portrayed a hedge of protection about the orphanage. Any who dared enter was promised sacred retribution and profane deliverance. It was an electricity in the air that surged to touch and repel any would be intruders. As the canine entered the home, the Neti’s mind reached out and sought to ensnare that of the simple beast, to enshroud it in fog and to drive it back. This place was sacred ground.
 

@Solus

[Frond]

The hanging viney limbs of the tree rustled within an invisible wind. The wizened Neti heard the being’s voice, felt his conflicted passions. This was no ordinary droid sent on a mission of carnage from it’s master, to leash the dog that now ground it’s face in the dirt-packed road as if that would appease his conundrum. To Frond, this was a soul borne forth upon a skeletal deception, as unnatural as the conflict and confusion that radiated from it’s chest. The crystal seemed to glow as it spoke, his feelings betrayed by his own presence, his imprisoning vocabulator.

 

Frond turned the words of the crystalline being over in his mind as the ageless warrior blanketed the area in a peaceful and strong aura of protective energies. A sharp crack, as loud and sudden as a thunderclap, cut through the air as a blinding flash of yellow light erupted from the tree to cover it entirely. It was as sudden as it was brief, an erupting whirlwind that twisted upwards into the sky, before it returned to the ancient calm that permeated the area in a soothing warmth.

 

Where the tree had been now stood a twisted and ancient humanoid. Its feet were planted firmly in the churned dirt and dust connecting it to the world and her inhabitants. He could feelnevery true soul, every life worth living, every life worth protecting. Nearly three meters tall and wrapped in a cloak of shimmering black leaves the ancient present manifested itself as a focal point in the glowing energized peace of the protective hedge of the force that covered the orphanage, plaza, and beyond like a creeping vine.  He gazed in curious fascination upon the metallic form as it stepped from the shadows of the building.

 

Extending a hand from the cloak of viness and leaves that grew from and as part of his humanoid form, Frond motioned to the world around them, to the orphanage and then the sky, “Flowers in the heat.” He spoke of the beauty of the innocence before the surge of the Sith forces and the hellfire they bore before them with few words, but his deep playful voice carried the wisdom of the ages on it. “Bloom in the waters of peace.” The peace of the force pressed outwards against the darkness that tried to invade the world about them.
 

The young and their wars. Fighting over this material plane like it was a prize.
 

Regarding the cocooned being shrouded in a prison of metal, Frond slowly and deliberately shook his head. He had so much to learn and a lifetime with which to be taught. He just needed to be offered a hand, to be shown a world beyond the dogmas he was ensnared within. “Drink.” Frond turned his extended hand towards Solus, palm up, viney fingers reaching for the darkness-shrouded creature inviting him to step further into the light of the sun and out of the grasp of evil. “from the garden.” A warm lopsided smile creased the deeply wrinkled barky face of the tree-being.  His body was open and welcoming. He hoped that the Shard would take him up on the offer. The imbalance threatened by the convergence of darkness needed rebalanced lest it fall too far to be redeemed and the souls of the cosmos be wrought. To bring another from the starless inky night into the glittering light of day would do more to right the scales than it would be to strike him down. If the young stone could be shown the truth, Frond would have found a fellow sojourner towards the truth.
 

Yet, this Shard had much to learn, to give up the shackles of this mortal existence. As open and inviting as he was, his intentions pure, Frond was prepared to rend the manacles that the Sith had placed on the young spirit of power before him. Resting within his wrist beneath his cloak, Velvueti, the redeemed Sith saber sat, a coiled cleaver cobra ready to strike in a whirlwind moment.

[Frond]

Frond’s smile grew larger, accentuating his aged lopsided face. He stared kindly at the chassis-bound Sith as he listened to his mechanized words. They were words, Frond felt, were not his actual own. 

The distant sounds of battle seemed to fade into nothingness. The din of the city drifted into the distance as if it was a lifetime away born on the galactic winds. All that mattered was right here, in this moment. It was not this physical realm. Nothing so petty. They were two spirits about to engage in an eternal battle for the fate of the lesser. It all weighed heavily in the silence that fell about them. Frond’s welcoming hand remained extended to the Sith Apprentice as he pondered over the young stone’s querries.

 

Schvrmmmmmmm

 

the saber nestled beneath Frond’s arm slid forward into his hand, his tendrilled fingers closing gingerly about the vine-wrapped blackened steel of Veivueti as it’s deep purple blade crackled to life, extending towards the bound soul.
 

“Knowledge,” he spoke simply, an answer, in the beginning. 
 

Kwishuuuuuuu

 

A second beam of light burst forth from the Neti’s second arm; a leaf-green blade pointing outward from his body angled slightly upwards like the tail of a porcuspine ready to strike.

 

”Power,” he continued as his mind meandered in a complex foreign pattern of lifetime upon lifetime.

 

The air about the the ancient force-wielding Mindwalker crackled with energy as he sank deep into the cosmic flow of the lives that pulsated all about the planet, the fleet above, and the cosmos beyond. He could feel those in touch with the force their tendrilled powers strong and vibrant. He could feel the mere shadows of the rest as they existed bound in meaningless to one plane. Letting the tendrils of the truth flow around and through him, Frond’s ancient mind and worn body were strengthened and accelerated, given over to the force in it’s entirety. The valor of the force coursed through his sap-filled form.

 

Kvrishhhhhhhhhh 

 

a short red blade arced forward from beneath the blackened leafy robes about Frond’s chest, a third limb twisted in hiding until it exposed itself bearing a Sith-chained shoto.

 

“Correction.”

 

Frond’s smile warmed the charged air as he stood motionless, the dull thrumming of the Neti’s blades all that broke the silent heavy air about the plaza. Goodness and truth, light and shadow, all were present in the moment. Frond’s answers were simple and yet what was left unspoken sought to convey volumes of that which was and could be. The knowledge and the power of the cosmos, the correction of minds shackled and bound, led astray. 
 

Frond’s smile conveyed his open offer that still stood. His blades, another story; that he would not sit by idly while this young soul-shackled Sith threatened those who could still be reached.

[Frond]

Sabers held at the ready, the force buzzed with power and anticipation before the brewing storm. Frond was awash in the flow of the ancient and eternal force. A being of the cosmic force, he maintained a deep a vibrant connection to the living force. He stood patiently, hoping that the young stone would accept his offer and avoid the wasted loss of life.

 

It was not to be, Frond felt a tingling in the calm aura of the force that bubbled about them. It was but a moment before the hard pack earth erupted before him, between them. Whereas many creatures would have instinctually blocked their eyes or batted fruitlessly at the assault on their ocular organs, Frond was different. He was not a creature, but a plant; and so he reacted in such a way. With the moment’s forewarning of the force, Frond closed his eyes, weapons held at the ready, relying on the force itself to see for him.

 

He had not been able to respond to the young soul, to answer him and bring him into the truth. The shackled Sith had chosen another path, the path of many deceived. And yet, he ran? Tearing away from the confrontation. Very unSithly it seemed. Frond heard the robotic cry of murder and mayhem between the droid-bound and his beast. He tasted the temptation to give pursuit and yet he remained still, his feet planted in and on the dry packed dirt. Outside their area of stillness and calm a battle raged for the chaff of the galaxy, for meaningless real estate and title. Even so, the balance of the cosmos hung in the balance. That was not for Frond to decide. Armies of faceless warriors and material sought to bring about peace through mutual destruction. That was not Frond’s place. If that was the path the Shard chose, Frond would mourn for him, a soul lost to the noise of this worthless plane.

 

However, if it was something more, as the force vibrated a warning, Frond would be prepared.

 

As the Sith and his dog disappeared and Frond’s eyes opened to the dust that hung in the heavy air, the Neti sighed. It was the sigh of an elder, exasperated  with the antics of the young, but not able to make them see their folly. As one, each of his sabers hissed to silence as they deactivated, hanging loosely in his hands as he brought them back to center. He stood within the center of the open plaza, the warm sun beating down.

 

Closing his eyes again, Frond inhaled deeply, an ancient and slow breath. Then he exhaled. H is mind focusing beyond his own form. In a whispered voice he spoke,

“There is none but the force.” Frond’s mind settled into the flowing stream of the force itself.

 

“I am but its disciple.” His mind emptied as he found a peace that transcended the chaos all about them.

 

“Those who seek to bend the force are still but vessels of its will.” Frond saw himself, a single thread in the infinite tapestry, a shimmering pinprick of light within the grand design.

 

“The will of the force will right all wrongs.” He felt his own aura, his body, his weapons, and the world about him. All coalescing into one as the force enveloped them all. His sabers became an extension of his being.

 

“The force guides all,” Frond sank deeper into the force allowing it to cleanse the deepest recesses of his mind.

 

“but each is free to choose right from wrong.” He was nothing more than an extension of the will of the force; his mind, body, and soul but a vessel to channel it onto this mortal plane.

 

“All knowledge and power is of the force.” The Neti’s aged limbs and mind were rejuvenated with the force’s power. 

 

“The force is life.” Feeling all about him, Frond waited, a tree along the river of the force. He would stand a millennia if he stood a day purified and nurtured by the waters of truth and life.

 

“The force is death.” He would defend this place; his body relaxed and poised to respond in an instant to the guidance of the force.

 

((Frond v Solus))

 

Augmented Force Valor from the pre-duel prep post and meditated on the force for Center of Being so as to be prepared to better defend against the next attack and respond with force-imbued quickness and reaction times. LINK 

 

((1))

[Frond]

Frond stood awash in the force. Slowly he opened his warm eyes to regard the bound young slave of darkness down the street. As the mechanized insults echoed in the heavy air, a warm lopsided smile crossed the tree’s wrinkled face.

 

He paid little heed to the insults, allowing them to be washed away in the current of the force that held him. Such profanities were but signatories of a undeveloped mind. Yet still, some of the Shard’s words did ring true and Frond took note of them as he stood silently. Perhaps he was too attached to these children. The force had called him to this world for balance. As he waited, he had intertwined his existence with these of this place. A mistake of the young and ine yet that he was bound to by his tether to this plane.

 

Yes, out of the mouths of babes, perhaps he had grown too attached to these younglings. Younglings whose existence mattered little in the grand scheme. What mattered was balance. It was a balance the Shard and his ilk were seeking to undo. That, they, were Frond’s destiny; called by the force to contain and stop. It did not matter the consequences.

 

The force swirled like a jetty, filling Frond with an energy even envied by the young, an awareness that bordered on the supernatural. As the Sith tinkered with the speeder and the engines roared to life, Frond knew. This was his test. Not the Sith, no, the children. Would he upset the balance or would he maintain it?

 

The throbbing pulsating howl of the derelict open-topped speeder filled the air as Frond set his mind to his task. He took one, two, three strides forward, weapons tucked up into the grooves of his body, ready to spring forth like hidden claws at a moment’s notice. 
 

He would be the balance. He would bring that balance back.

 

The howl of the speeder was drowned out by the sudden crash of a megaton bomb behind and overhead of the Neti. Somewhere in the distance the first of the Sith’s nuclear munitions were touching down. Instantly, Frond could feel the death it bote. It carried on the force, echoes of the dark side’s unbalanced appetite. Breaking into a swift gait, Frond charged forward carried by the force, it’s guiding hand carrying the Mind Walker as the blast of the explosive lent even more speed to his momentous purpose. He surged forward towards the inbound unmanned speeder. Leaping upward, Frond flew through the air until his knees crashed into the hood of the craft, denting it as they collided and his aged wooden-frame cracking beneath the surface of his thick viney legs.

 

He landed atop the left side of the speeder’s hood, striking with his knees as he landed hard. His weight and momentum drove the corner of the speeder downward. The prow of the hurtling vehicle sparked against the hard packed ground as it’s own momentum pushed it onward still, the anchoring point spinning it off course by a wide angle. 

 

Frond was still moving though. He stepped forward his other knee still firmly planted against the top of the speeder amidst it’s dent. His rooted lower limb stepped onto the steering column as he pulled himself forward with a grasp of the viewscreen. He  forced the speeder around even further as the accelerating vehicle righted itself;  the weight-distribution being regained by the craft’s internal dampeners.

 

As the vehicle turned back towards it’s benefactor, Frond clung to the viewscreen half in and half out of the cockpit allowing it to straighten out as he removed his foot from the steering column and planting it firmly in the driver’s seat. His knee-downed leg flexed with thick muscle-like vines to push him to a crouched stand. His warm eyes focused on the Shard with a new grim determination. So it would be.

 

The speeder bore down towards the Sith, Frond’s aged body invigorated by the force as he leapt well before any potential conflict. As he leapt the deep royal purple of Veivueti erupted in one hand as the leafy green energy of Wähanga Tuarua sprang to life in the other, both freed from their grooved recesses in the Neti’s palms and wrist to be grasped once again in his choking palms. Frond was not one for aerial acrobatics as he leapt for the Shard swinging both of his blades, one high swinging downward, one low swinging up, one from each side. His intent was as simple as the focused slash of the Djem So he had taken to committing to bodily memory and willed into manifestation on the waves of the force. He would end this here and now, and if the force-fueled blows did not dissect the Shard’s robotic prison into pieces, it was his hope and goal to overwhelm the Shard’s capacity and capacitors ability to respond.

 

An attack and response, the opponent’s energy redirected and multiplied into a response. This was the way of Djem So and was the way, in many regards, of the Mind Walker himself. He held his third blade deactivated, hidden, and ready to lash out at an attempted gutting response.

 

Not a word was spoken, the time for words had long since passed. Any prattle would be a detriment and nothing more. And as the shockwave of the not-so-distant bomb radiated about them, buildings began to shake and the empty streets roil.

 

((Frond v Solus))

 

Utilized the preparations from the prior round to aid in the defense of the rogue speeder attack and Djem So art of redirecting the attack into a counterattack. Leaping from the out of control speeder to slash at Solus with two blades in an attempt to slice him into several pieces and/or stun him using the Focused Slash of the Djem So combat form.

 

((2))

 

[Frond]

The crash of Wähanga Tuarua’s verdant herbal blade against the Sith’s crackled with electricity as Frond’s blade was deflected downward from his bisecting blow. Still as the weapons were deflected, Frond held the weapon tight, his chlorophyll-filled body crashing into the metal prisoner’s as he severed the droid’s other arm. Veivueti continued it’s descent towards the Shard’s core even as their bodies clashed. The force would guide his blade.

 

Swirling in a cacophony of colors and ripples of power, the force shone through the chaos, an order that transcended their battle. Frond winced at the mechanical screeches of pain that seemed to garble from the vocabulator of the machine. An assault

on his senses, intended or not, that seemed to gray his connection to the force. The Neti’s heavy wooden body creaked and cracked with the midair collision; their bodies plummeting towards the ground. 
 

Frond activated his third saber. Prepared for defense, Frond had not expected the mechanized being to throw himself bodily into the tree. He did not even need to swing it as he sought to drive the weapon into his foe’s  gut. The battle was fluid; however, and in the struggle the droid’s hand was shoved against Frond’s twisted grained face. 
 

He felt the rage swell in the core of the crystalline Sith. Like a volcano, a font of uncontrollable power that surged powerfully in whatever direction it chose, a dangerous aspect of the will of the force itself. It was even more dangerous in the hands of an untrained acolyte. Frond felt the claw-like appendage of the droid on his face. He felt the rage boil over in the force as the explosive surge of power erupted from Solus’ hand.

 

Frond felt his face crack and in less than a second shatter. Half of his face was immediately blown away, thrown back into the air in chunks of timber and billows of sawdust. The Neti’s back-arched as his tendrilled body sought to wrap and cling to the metal chassis of his opponent as they crashed to the earth.

 

Like the Sith’s metallic prison carried distinct advantages and boundaries for the soul it bound, so too did the mortal form that contained Frond’s essence to this physical plane. In this case, it was Frond’s flora-based composition. Unlike the greater number of animal-based sentients in the galaxy, Frond’s body did not contain organs; each cell of his body was a self-contained entirety of the Neti himself. 
 

And so, as pain wracked his splintered face and fractured body, Frond’s entire form continued to process and act; his one remaining eye and jagged half-face twisted into a horrifying sap-dripping smile as he made to drive all three of his shimmering blades into the metal body of his foe. If he was to die here, he would be free and in doing so, he would right the balance one last time.

 

 

((Frond v Solus))

 

Crashed into Solus from his attack, continued his unblocked downward slash as he sought to drive his third blade into Solus’ gut while trying to cling to the droid-bound Sith with his amorphous tendrilled body. 
Took a blast of rage-fueled force to the face, shattering half his face and cracking his wooded body as he sliced at Solus with all three of his sabers.

 

((3))

[Frond]

The Neti’s blades each found their mark. 
 

One: the amethyst blade of Veivueti continued down it’s path, slicing deep into the chassis of Solus’ mechanical body as he drew it inwards towards himself. Meanwhile,

 

Two: Cynffon Sbeislyd arced to life in a blaze of hellish red driving it’s humming destructive energies squarely into the crashing droid’s core. With the movement of an alien vine, Frond flicked the blade rending the chassis of the metal man in two.

 

Three: the leafy green fire of Wähanga Tuarua broke free from the Sith’s deactivated saber, sending it’s hilt circlibg through the air. He twirled the blade within a leaf’s width of his own body as the tip of his saber hewed Solus’ head from his body. The mechanical housing tumbling down to the hard packed earth.

 

Staying on his rooted feet, Frond’s tendrilled body released the parts of Solus his viney amorphous body had grasped. The chunks of metal clattered to the ground as Frond’s one remaining eye focused on the glistening shorn metal of the Sith droid’s skull and the crystal that glowed behind it’s fractured facemask. The pain radiated from his body, his cracked wooden limbs, his missing face, his aged form feeling it’s millenniums of life.

 

All three blades hummed as Frond held them low regarding the unmoving Sith Apprentice. The force swirled all around them.

 

Slowly stepping forward, Frond knelt in front of the droid head. His purple and green blades arced through the air as the tree-man twisted his wrists to bring them crashing down on the scattered droid parts. The smell of burning metal and electronics curled into the air as the blades impacted the ground sending plumes of burning dust into the air.

 

Grasping Cynffon Sbeislyd Frond drug the blade across the metallic faceplate of the decapitated droid head burning it away and revealing the shimmering bright crystal that was Solus, the true planar prison of the young Sith.

 

With a hiss, all three blades retracted into silence, the ever nearing planetary pummeling the only sound that broke the force-induced heavy silence that hung around the pair. Frond’s body shook. The Neti’s leafy cloak rattling like a great wind passed through it. The pain that coursed through his body verged on anger as he stared down at the young prideful Sith who had spoken to to him so foolishly with his haughty misplaced ideals.

 

With his shoto this close, it would be simple to destroy the young arrogant stone. All he would need to do was move slightly. To end this thing once and for all, to return the balance.

 

And he almost did. One thing stopped him. It was not the children. It was not the planet that was crumbling around them. It was not this pathetic stone before him. It was much more simple. It was the force. If he did this, Frond knew he would only be sealing his destiny to fulfill this stone’s fate. To feed the dark side that surged all around them already.

 

And still, Frond’s worn ancient body hurt. The blast to his face radiating with agony. His deformed face cracked into an even wider smile, accentuating thr mangled half that remained as brown sticky sap oozed over his lips. Retracting his blades into his body, Frond reached out with a elongated viney hand. He picked up the stone, mental waves of though radiating from Frond to Solus. He would show the being the freedom he could have from the chains of the Sith.

 

The force surged through Frond’s cracked and decimated body. It coursed through his form up through his fingers to where he connected with Solus; his wooden fingers against his crystalline form. Through the pain, Frond felt a sense of overwhelming peace. It was the peace of the force itself, hovering over and above the massive powers that sought to control this world. It was a healing growth that surged upwards from the ground through Frond and latched onto the life force of the crystal itself. The healing power of the force connected the Neti and the Shard, connecting focal points of injury in Frond’s body to matching points in Solus’ foreign form.

 

The force moved in a whirlwind that embraced the two. The pieces of Solus’ chassis and his lightsaber were sent flying through the air, thrown outward with such force that they disappeared beyond the rooftops. The dust whipped up around them until they were obscured from the world beyond. The force surged, the power of life, the energies of death, descended from the cosmos itself as it bridged the two shimmering lines of power, moving injuries and pain from one to another.

 

In moments, Frond’s cracked wooden limbs strengthened, corresponding cracks etching themselves through the Shard. The Neti’s face began to grow back, his blasted head reforming newer than it had been in centuries. Meanwhile, as his injuries regrew and reverted, the blast took hold upon it’s new target; Solus. A corner of his crystalline form erupting in an explosion of force power leaving jagged edges where it had once been smooth.

 

And as Frond was healed, his injuries and wounds transferred to Solus’ crystal body, his newly reformed face twisted into a warm smile as his mind touched that of the stone’s. Once he was renewed, the winds died and the dust settled. Standing there in the epicenter, Frond cradled the cracked and damaged Shard in his viney hand

 

“Clouds across the moon,” he whispered  to the pained Shard in his hand as if the doctrines of the Sith obscured the purity of eternal light that lit up the darkness. “Dragons struck down by the storm.” Every one who had flown to high and forced low by their own desires.

“Unbound by the Mind.” Frond’s thoughts turned to the few Sith he had known to give up their occultist doctrines and embrace peaceful freedom, released from their traumas, their souls soaring beyond their natural forms.

 

Slowly, Frond tilted his hand and the Shard tumbled out of it to the ground a cracked soul.

 

Turning, Frond began to walk away. The children of the orphanage having been able to escape during the maelstrom. He had nothing left to say to the Shard. He left the Sith apprentice with much to think about as he lay in the dust, the sands of Nar Shaddaa filling in the newly formed cracks.

[Frond]

All around the tree-being the world burned. Chaos rained down from above and the ground itself fractured and shattered under the bombardment. Towering structures collapsed in on themselves, built in safety measures keeping them from tumbling in domino-like effect in all but the most heinous events. One such event occurred as a rogue ship plowed into a through a series of skyscrapers before erupting in a ball of fire before the aged tree’s very eyes.

 

All that Frond could do was look away, shaking his head at the futility of it all.  Yes, he knew that here, today, in this moment, lives would be snuffed from existence, many as if they had never been. He could see the trembling webs of gold and silver shudder against the onslaught as strands that bound them to the universe failed and faded into the netherness of the force itself. He had defeated the young stone; who yet lived. It seemed as if he was fleeing the battle. Perhaps to consider their words and begin himself upon a path towards true enlightenment. Perhaps he ran a coward from the fray, unawake of the worthlessness of this mortal plane. 
 

Frond shook his head, clearing the thoughts of the Shard from his mind. It made no use to dwell on it. Each was bound hy the force and free to move as it allowed. He had drawn the life from the fallen stone to heal himself, reversing the hatred the shackled stone had sought to wreak on him in his turmoil. The Neti stood strong, fresh, and ancient now amongst the turmoil amongst the desolate long-deserted streets. Those who were not required, who had not fought to remained bound to this world were long since departed. Frond could feel it in the air, the emptiness of a world bustling with life only hours before. Such was the absolute power of man. Such was his futility against the truth.

 

It was this plane that Frond was bound to, to serve the force before he too was freed from the mortal form he had been bestowed. Someday he would walk the ways of the force not hist in mind and spirit but in wholeness of being as well. Until that time, he would serve. It was for this reason now that the Neti moved with the purpose of a creeping vibe towards water through the destruction. He moved with purpose, without fear or passion, directed by a greater call. 
 

As the world collapsed about him, Frond continued to move until he came upon a collapsed structure. It was unlike any of the others, it’s purpose lost in the carnage; and yet Frond knew this was where he was to be. With a sharp crack, drowned out by the roar of the planet’s demise, and a flash of blinding yellow light that was lost to the explosions that now dotted the landscape, the solitart humanoid figure of Frond vanished, replaced by an large amorphous muscled wooden quadrupedal beast.
 

There was no hesitation as Frond leapt forward in this alternate form and with bulging viney power began to tear away at the fallen rubble. Rocks flew through the air as thick snakelike appendages added to the maelstrom tearing at the downed structure as he began to dig past the surface; deeper and deeper within tunneling towards the collapsed basement within like a burrowing rodent. He did not stop, only slowing as he felt himself drawing close to that which drew him.

 

Bursting forth into an air pocket deep within the tones of collapsed building, a small group of monastically clad beings recoiled to the other end of the small enclosure. All above them a strange cloth-like material seemed to hoover against the collapsing rubble. The force abuzz with power in this slight area.

 

Even as the bulk of the dozen regally clad monastics recoiled, focusing their minds on their task at hand, maintaining their bubbled protection, one stepped forward, an elderly burgundy-skinned humanoid with piercing white eyes. “greetings brother. The mists have drawn you to us no?”

[Frond]

Frond stopped. He stood frozen like a cornered beast regarding those before him in the shadowy darkness beneath the surface. Overhead the ceiling rattled as bits of debris shook loose and click-clacked on the ground. The only thing that seemed to keep the world from collapsing to their end was a protective field of the force itself, a webbing held aloft on silent pillars of power to stand against the death that ran rampant across the world.

 

With a sharp crack and a flash of lightning yellow, the wooden beast was gone, Frond’s hunched form returned to the shadows. The monks did not even flinch such was their connection to the force. The elderly burnt-red-skinned shaman raised a bushy white eyebrow as he took in Frond’s new form, scorched leaves and bark; a survivor, scoured by the hellscape above. “The mists drew you to us brother, didn’t they?” He asked again, slipping an oversized shimmering cloak of every and yet no color from his shoulders and draping it around the Neti. “We have not seen one of your kind before, and yet we have foreseen your coming through the fog.”

 

Frond felt the touch of the cloak, it’s feathery weight holding him like a protective cocoon as it seemed to wrap him in it’s kind embrace, as if it had a mind of it’s own. It felt cool to the touch, contrary to the hot fiery world around them.

 

With the creak of wooden sinews, Frond’s body relaxed from the too of his branched head to the tipsnof his rooted feet. He settled without moving. “Winds of the cosmos,” he mumbled as he nodded his thanks to the elderly man. He raised his hand to gesture towards the tunnel he had come through, a tunnel other monks were already using the force to pin more of the shimmering material across. “Move rooted trees by their will.” Frond withdrew the sabers he carried, weighing each in his hands individually before collecting them in one tendrilled fist. He stooped over to lay the weapons at the feet of the sage. “Chosen to Chosen.” Slowly he righted himself, his eyes leveling with the intense compassionate dark eyes of the burgundy being. His eyes said it all. Always a learned, he had come to learn from these sages, followers, weavers of the mist.

 

Looking down the elderly mystic nodded to Frond, his sandaled foot playing with the three hilts on the dusty floor. The two Sith-tainted sabers the man separated, rolling them behind him towards the small concave of fellow monastics. “This one,” the man bent at the waist to scoop up the Jedi saber. “Keep this one. The Luminous Mist gives it as a shield.” He righted himself and pressed the weapon back into Frond’s hand. The Neti had no choice but to accept it. “Now come. You have much to learn brother. Bring your trust in the Light and see how it illuminates all around you.” Sliding an arm around Frond’s shoulders, the elder led him into the midst of the other shimmering mist-clad acolytes. The shimmering clothes and force-lofted walls glistened with light as the Mind Walker felt the force surge anew. 
 

Frond smiled. He felt . . . hope, at last.