Chandrila

[Menthu]

The source of the voice had a blaster pointed at him, long before Procs registered what he was pointing at. He raised an eyebrow, at the sight of the towering figure that even suprassed his own height.

 

He seemed familiar, but it didn't matter. What mattered was the man was here, and was mighty close to being blasted. His hand tightened on his blaster. The force was warning him of something. This man felt... more powerful.

 

"Well after watching a sun go nova on me, I figured I would stop for gas, in my galaxy spawning sight seeing tour."

 

He smirked. Perhaqps it wasn't wise to get a force user mad at you. Yet he had dealt with and handled them before when he had to. Best way to judge their temperment was to push a few buttons.

[Xentar Kentam]

Xentar continued to march towards the intruder until he was only a few meters from him. His cloak was parted enough that his lightsaber could be seen on his belt, but his senses told him that this man didn't need to see it to know that he weilded the Dark Side of the Force.

 

"You've made a mistake, then," he said. "This is not a public facility. I suggest that you leave and head for a more appropriate location." He tried to be reasonable--though he detected the challenge in the man's voice, he was determined not to get too angry about what was possibly just a mistake. Still, the Serpent Order's facility was rather difficult to find when compared with one of the planet's many cities. Hence the emphasis on the word "leave".

[Menthu]

He calmly waited as the man strode over to him. As he watched him approach he thumbed his blaster to stun, if only because in a fire fight, he really didn't want the blaster bolts reflected back at him.

 

He raised an eyebrow as the man came to stop a few meters in front of him. Given the nature of most force users, it was still a relatively safe distance, that would allow the man to spring at him within a moment's notice.

 

Different distances sprang to mind, comparing how far he could jump, with aid, and he quickly came to the conclusion that he was indeed with in striking range by this obvious Sith. Something he didn't feel too comfortable with.

 

He calmed himself, the last time he had went off on a Sith lord and his learner, he had won a saber, but escaped with a nasty scar. He strongly doubted the man was alone, yet he clearly felt powerful enough to handle himself.

 

"What can't stand a kid on your lawn? Place looks deserted, you should be glad I even came here, so you wouldn't be so lonely."

 

His hand didn't waver from his blaster pointing at the center of this opposing man's mass. Yet he let his other hand visible inch downward, to a concealed weapon, clearly giving the impression that if push came to shove, he would be more than willing to shove.

 

”œYou force types are all the same; here you are trying to get me to leave when I told you a Sun went Nova. So wrapped up in your pathetic gain of more power that you can't even be shocked to hear of a crisis. If I told you the force guided me, hear you would be all ears I bet, instead me telling you I was here by chance, gets you all worked up over nothing.”

[Xentar Kentam]

Xentar was growing impatient, but he didn't let it show just yet. The man before him was so full of arrogance that Xentar wondered if he had been trained by a Sith. He had been aware of the massive disturbance in the Force when another planet had been destroyed, and Procs' mention of a supernova was consistent with the capture of Centerpoint station. It was not surprising, though it was disturbing.

 

"I am well aware of the events transpiring in this galaxy," the Serpent Master said, partially lying. He didn't care to address the man's incorrect appraisal of his character--it showed weakness to be defensive. "If the Force led you here, as you claim, then I should like to hear why you think that is the case." He tried to sound patient. He really didn't care why the man was here, only that he left.

[Moric Thian]

As the two Serpents ran to intercept the intruder, Moric faded back while Xentar ran ahead. They reached the man's location and at the last moment, the Archserpent dove behind a conviently placed bush. Xentar could obviously handle himself, but if push came to shove, Moric could rise out of his location and offer a little surprise. Even though the Serpent Master could tell this man's power did not match his own, underestimating him could destroy that advantage. Hense the precaution.

 

The two men began to talk, the new comer exhibiting more attitude than one intruding on private property should. As the conversation progressed, the intent of violence diminished with each word. Still, Moric would remain in his current location just in case. If anything, he can see just how much of a diplomat Xentar could be. Even with his many strengths, diplomacy was certainly a weakness. Moric fingered his silver lightsaber, keeping his presence with the Force as silent as possible.

[Menthu]

His eyes narrowed, he gun hand never wavering just continually aiming for the easiest to defend spot. He considered his options. The man had bluntly ignored many attempts to get information out of him. A trait that he somewhat admired but was more or less annoyed by. He could pull the trigger, ending this man's current intrusion on his life. Yet as if he had mused before, chances were this person wasn't alone. Add his response time to that, and he wouldn't be surprised if he was completely surrounded by Sith that were simply hiding. Something he had never learned or needed to do.

 

Therefore, he was at a huge disadvantage. While he was positive he could take down this particular person, and possibly one more, he had seen acts in the force that would put any attempt made by him to shame. Given the general vibe he felt from this guy, chances were, he would be somewhere near that dreadful level.

 

His free hand was close enough to take out the saber he had taken from the last Sith Lord who had pissed him off. However, given his general distrust in swords, as well as his massive amount of inexperience with the lightsaber, he doubted he could defend himself with it beyond a few strokes. His best chance would be to engage in hand-to-hand combat, though that was highly unlikely given the current situation and the obvious power the man held. Pulling the trigger might take this guy down, well it would take the guy down, but then he was back in the same problem he had come up with before, that of being outnumbered. Granted he had never let that stop him before, but perhaps witnessing the death of a star had changed something in him.

 

It must have, otherwise he would have pulled the trigger by now, and faced whatever consequences came with it. He could attempt to use the force, seek out all the other beings, a think of some basic strategy to combat what would surely happen. It had been a while since he ha, had a real challenge after all. Then again, what was the point?

 

He mentally slapped himself, there was always a point. Ridding the galaxy of deadwood would be more than enough. Yet, what if he was the deadwood? He mentally slapped himself again. This wasn't conducive to his current situation.

 

"You are well aware, yet you don't care. I guess that rules you out as Jedi or Sith. Both of those groups care when it is convenient for them, and I am pretty positive it is convenient for every one to care right now..."

 

He paused again, this man seemed so very familiar to him, it was almost disturbingly so. He couldn't have shot this man before, or done any violence to him. For if he had, chances were this man would have a grudge. Then again, maybe this man did have a grudge, and was stalling long enough for his capture. That wouldn't make sense if he was already surrounded, so then it was possible that he wasn't surrounded.

 

That would mean, if he took this man out now, he could easily escape, with a fuel tank of gas no less. His grip could get no tighter on his blaster, yet his trigger finger began to flex back.

 

Why won't I shoot him? What is keeping me from pulling this damn trigger? Is it fear? Do I fear him? No, that is not it, maybe it is something else.

 

"Predictable to the last, even with the galaxy losing entire systems, you only care about my visit if the Force guided me here. Maybe there is something to this force. There has to be something mighty addicting about the force if it can keep you holed away here while entire systems blink out. Or maybe it is just an excuse to keep away the fear that for all of your learning and training, you can do nothing against a machine that could wipe out a Star."

 

He paused and visibly struggled with himself. He had concluded. He had figured out why he couldn't shoot.

 

"The force guided me here. After the death of a star, through the echoes of the dead, I heard the force calling out to me. Calling out, yet I didn't comprehend. In my mad flight, I escaped, only to arrive here, infront of you. I feel... I don't know changed. As if watching such an event and feeling it in the force began to shape me in some new way. Much like the phoenix who is born anew out of the ashes, I find myself in the midst of ashes. The remains of the serpent Order I was going to join so long ago. An order I saw destroyed, yet here I am, looking at the man who walked away. Perhaps I am here to be reborn out of what remains of the serpents. Perhaps I am simply here to be here. All I know is the Force guided me here, and force once... I listened."

 

His gun hand began to drop its fierce grip began to slacken. Then a wild fire seem to reform in his eyes and he raised it once more at the man.

 

"Then again I could be here to finish you off. I'm not too good at reading in to these kinds of things."

 

He smirked; he felt one other in the room. He was surrounded, but he was outnumbered by one. He could live with those odds.

[Xentar Kentam]

Xentar considered, actually listening for perhaps the first time in the conversation. This man knew that he was a Serpent. He also expressed a desire to join the order. There was no doubt in the large man's mind that another member of the order would be useful. He and Moric were powerful, but they were the entire order in themselves, and that didn't mean much.

 

Still, he had his doubts about the intruder. He was excessively arrogant...of course, Xentar had been the same way not too long ago. His willingness to be malleable was a good thing--it had been all Xentar himself had needed. If he was willing to be reborn, then he could likely be purged of his defects.

 

It was a long journey, perhaps, but one that this man, this intruder, was capable of making.

 

"Very well," Xentar said, perhaps surprising the intruder. "If you wish to become a Serpent, then there is one thing you must learn first."

 

The Serpent Master flicked his finger, and Procs' blaster leapt from his hand. It skittered along the ground for a few feet, then burst seemingly spontaneously into flame. "The Serpent order works together. We don't point blasters at each other."

 

He then communicated with Moric via the Force, telling him it was time to reveal himself.

[Moric Thian]

The bushes rustled as they parted to reveal a man of much different stature than Xentar. He was shorter and far less physically boisterous. His arms and legs sported muscles the size of an average man who took a liking to combat. The strength he carried was not displayed by physical appearance, but by much more dangerous means. And only to those too stupid to distinguish between the two.

 

”œI am Moric Thian and I believe you have already met Xentar,”

[Menthu]

His hand ached where the blaster was yanked from it. Though he had accepted its loss as soon as he hadn't pulled the trigger. This might have been a good thing too. While This second one had manners, he also seemed to be on a shorter fuse then he was.

 

First a tall one, now some new Hutt spawn emerging from the bushes. Typical. He was hiding and things he can make demands on me after emerging. I would blast him where he stood if I still had my blaster.

 

He calmed himself. He didn't need to stab a vibroblade into everything that moved. Including some Hutt spawn who had been hiding in the bushes. Now that they were both out, he felt the playing field had been even up a bit. After all he could see both threats now.

 

He paused in his train of thought. Had the reason he hadn't shot the first one. Xentar. Wasn't the reason he hadn't shot Xentar was because of the force guiding him here. If that was the case. What was the point of killing this new guy. Could he kill the new guy?

 

A moment of hesitation crossed his face. He decided he would try something new. The idea of thinking of them as allies or even assets instead of threats would go along way here. Or so he hoped anyway. He would have hated sparing the first person and letting the second guy get a drop on him for nothing.

 

What gives you the right to adopt such a high and mighty roll? What a terrible place the galaxy can be, where a person who knows something considered trivial can take such a tone with a man who would flay him alive, if the situation was any different...

 

”œIf you were any other man I would kill you where you stand. Yet”¦ To do so would extinguish this newfound spark burning with in me. I won't say you need me, nor will I beg or placate you for my life. I shall simply bow to your will. I can learn from you if you let me.”

[Xentar Kentam]

Xentar furrowed his eyebrows. "You are a strange man, to flaunt arrogance and pretend that the galaxy is your silver plate, only then to pretend to submit to us," he said, slowly taking a few steps more towards the newcomer. "You did not answer Moric's question.

 

"What makes you think that you are worthy to study the ways of the Serpent Order?"

 

This wasn't a matter of whether they accepted him or whether he submitted to them. But ever since he had arrived he had shown nothing but arrogance and disobediance--two qualities that were out-of-place in a potential student as well as a Serpent. Why should they train him?

[Menthu]

His eyes narrowed slightly. They were evaluating him. Watching the first one come ever closer. He resisted the urge to suddenly leap at him vibrodagger in hand, slashing through neck just to see if he coudl reach the spinal cord before the other guy reacted. He calmed himself again. The last thing he needed was to broadcast every single one of his hostile intentions to two Force using Masters. If there is one thing he has learned. Thye pick up on that rather well.

 

"Fire it is my way of life and the purpose of my existence. It tears down old to bring in the new. Burning ever-upwards it can't itself be polluted. This is what the super nova taught me.

 

Now I am here in front of the masters of fire. If anything the force deems me worthy. If you are looking for my combat prowess. I have humbled many Sith including a Master and apprentice pair. I have killed a mighty kyrat dragon, gone up against Trowa Barton, and lived.

 

If you are trying to determine my cunning, I have escaped from the heart of the Jedi temple. A former prisoner who is now and will always be free.

 

If you are searching for my experience, I have been from one end of this galaxy to the other.

 

If you are searching for power, I have studied under Tarrian and Trowa. I may have never been granted the title of a Sith Lord. Yet even with out such trappings I have done what few others have.

 

If neither the force nor my track record makes me worthy, then tell me what I must do."

[Moric Thian]

Moric chuckled to himself as this newcomer listed his accomplishments. He certainly did think like a Sith, reciting his resume as if his words held any significance. He waited patiently for him to finish, humoring the man with great amusement.

 

”œThose names mean nothing to me,”

[Menthu]

"Even though a man is merely the sum of his experience and the combination of his genetics. I think you have vastly misread me. I have never once said i follow the teachings of the Sith. Past present, future, are all the same to me. Life and death, creation and destruction. No Sith has ever taught me anything I didn't already know, expect how to use the force."

 

He kept a straight face. The man was callous yet poetic. It was a strange combination. It seem to spark inside of him, a need to break his neck. Such contrasts needed to die before they could be brought into the light.

 

"My heart has always belonged to myself alone. If you wish me to give that over to your order, then what you ask is akin to blind devotion. I follow nothing blindly. I will give you my heart, and devote myself to your order. Remold myself like the way the phoenix rises from the ashes. I will do all of that if only for the chance to become that which I desire."

 

Even so, I shall always be behind both of you. Waiting of course to clear any dead wood

[Moric Thian]

((Sorry for taking so long to post. I was away for a while and I PMed Xentar to start training you, but that wasn't his main account so he didn't check it.))

 

"Good," Moric said with a smile on his face. "I do not care which cause you align yourself with or how you orient your life, only that you adopt and accept your teachings over any Sith teachings you might have recieved in the past. The Jedi are rarely correct, but they are right in that the Sith only bring destruction.

 

The Archserpent turned to his partner, who had been standing motionless for a time. "Begin training this man. You know of what to teach. If we are to make a dent against the Arch'tar as you prepose, we must expand our numbers. I will begin to search for a new member among the Sith recruits...before he is corrupted by their foolish ways. What say you?"

 

As the Archserpent, Moric could order Xentar to perform his request. Yet given the duality and friendship of the two men, doing such a thing out of blind arrogance would be stupid. No, Xentar was not a suboordinate but a trusted friend. One whom would be asked rather than ordered.

[l:BlueVortex:l]

Somewhere high above Chandrila, Avres was getting excited. He had seen the two, large grassy continents of the planet from high up in the transport, pressing his face against the window next to him to stare in awe at the planet that lay before him. Even without never actually being on the surface of this world, Avres could already tell that this was one gorgeous planet.

 

The planet of Chandrila was no ordinary sight, indeed. Earlier, the captain of the transport had used the intercomm system to message back to his passengers.

 

He had said: "Attention passengers. We will be landing very shortly in Hanna City, the capital of Chandrila. Please, stay seated until the ship comes to a complete stop."

 

About ten minutes after the captain's announcement, the transport had arrived, just like the captain had said, at the Hanna spaceport. The ship came to a rickety stop, and the passengers are scrambled out, some looking as eager as Avres to get off of the ship, and out into the fresh, Chandrilan air. Avres followed a group of excited Ithorians out, along with T6 at his side. The two of them stepped out of the ship, and out onto the landing platform. Around him, he could see several Chandrilans greeting the arriving passengers by quick nods, and Avres even had a nod thrown his way from one of them.

 

T6 started to warble excitedly as they exited the landing platform, and made their way through the spaceport. The Hanna Spaceport was incredible. The entire building itself was made of stone on the outside, but on the inside of it, it seemed so modern. Large windows covered every single wall, the windows themselves stretching up to the celing, allowing a dazzling amount of sunlight into the main room which was very spacious itself. Avres made his way across the beautifully panneled floor, heading out of the building with T6 still ad his side.

 

As soon as they made it the the exit of the spaceport, Avres cast his glance at the scenery before him. The landscape, he had learned, was nothing but rolling grassland. However, Hanna was near the main ocean that covered half of the planet. Avres stared in awe at the ocean now about a mile away from him, wondering how far away the other continent was. Even though he was so far away, Avres could still see the gigantic waves of the water that were crashing against the shore. He was still eyeing the water when T6 let out a questional beep.

 

Avres nodded, hypnotized by the ocean, as he said, "I don't know what we're going to do, but I think that we're going to have to find somewhere to stay for the next while. Come on."

 

And with that, Avres and T6 headed off, away from the Chandrila spaceport, and off into the capitol of Hanna, hoping to find someone who could help them.

[l:BlueVortex:l]

((Accidently double posted. Sorry guys.))

[Xentar Kentam]

Xentar nodded at Moric. "Very well," he said. He then looked back at the newcomer, who was still unnamed. "Follow me."

 

He turned and headed towards the nearest building, which had many training rooms. The Serpents were devoted to improvement and the search for true understanding, and their facility was extremely slanted towards helping them achive their goals.

 

The former Sith entered a room of his choosing, which was a nondescript training room with no apparent implements of destruction waiting on hand. When he got there, he waited for the hopeful to enter, then looked at him with an intense gaze. "Defend yourself," he said.

 

Calling on the Dark Side and Serpent lore, he created in his hand a sword of flame, burning fiercely but not writhing as would an open fire. It was in the defined shape of a scimitar, and it gleamed with more than the supernatural light of flame.

 

With a surprisingly graceful movement for a man as large as Xentar Kentam, the Serpent Master spun forward and attacked with every intent of killing the hopeful if he could not defend himself.

[l:BlueVortex:l]

((Newcomer.. me? Or Moric?))

[l:BlueVortex:l]

After walking a long distance with T6 at his side, Avres stopped and looked around.

 

There were people everywhere around him. However, no one looked his way, or acknowledged him in any way at all. Avres had found out that the people in Chandrila were either too busy to associate with each other, or had just chosen to ignore each other, him especially. Everyone that Avres passed seemed to be lost in their own worlds, completley oblivious to the things happening around them.

 

Avres was starting to get worried. What if he could find no one to help him? Then he'd have nowhere to go. Nowhere to sleep. Nothing to eat. Already he was feeling a bit hungry, despite eating some free food back on the transport that brought him here.

 

What was he to do now?

[Menthu]

He simply followed the man much akin to a child follows their mother through the story. Looking around, yet still being dragged around as if he was tied on some sort of invisible leash.

 

Yet, his entire attitude changed as soon as he heard the words defend himself. He felt it, the dark side of the force; it was being fashioned into what seemed like a flaming scimitar. Though the man was huge, he wasn't clumsy as he suddenly spun forward and launched into an attack that was clearly designed to be a killing blow.

 

He didn't so much as hesitate, he could still remember the force. When and if it suited him of course. He drew on it, pulling the man closer as he reached for the hidden weapon and activated it all in one smooth motion, well smooth by his standards anyway. The force usage was a bit rough, yet he manage to cause the slight unbalance he sought, and in that moment, he used his stolen saber to catch the fiery blade upon it.

 

The seemingly heavier man, with the added momentum of a spin, caused Procs to involuntarily grunt, the heat far to close to his flesh for comfort. Giving no thought to the burns that could have formed, he shunted the blade to the side, in order to strike out with his left hand straight towards his attacker's solace plexus. Not in an attempt to simply knock the wind out of the large man, but to actually, damage his celiac plexus. If there is one thing he had learned, the force needed some amount of concentration to use. It was simple in his mind to draw the connection that if the weapon was entirely force based. Then there must be some constant connection, if so, disrupting the connection silences the blade, and he can then move in for the kill with greater ease.

[Xentar Kentam]

Not too bad... Xentar thought as he felt the subtle Force energies used to disrupt the precision of his attack. He watched the parry like a spectator fully expecting it to occur through one means or another, then saw the following strike coming as though it were telegraphed tremendously. He twisted his large form and the blow glanced off, not performing any damage or, unfortunately, providing much pain.

 

The Serpent Master dropped back a step, deliberately pacing the fight instead of keeping the tempo so fast that he could accidentally kill the apprentice. He stepped back into the fray with a quick three-stroke combination that his opponent managed to survive, then dropped low to perform a leg sweep.

 

As expected, the other man hopped over his sweeping leg but found his legs had failed to stay under him when he came down on an invisible current of Force energy that Xentar had summoned. As he hit the ground, Xentar half-smiled. "The thing that you will learn about the Serpent Order is that we do not use the Force as the Sith do," he said. "We are not sorcerers, drawing upon it to the point of self-destruction, and we do not rely on it to win our fights for us.

 

"We earn our victories by our own strength and skill, and the Force is our trump card," he said.

 

Xentar then dropped back into a fighting stance, extinguishing his flaming scimitar and drawing instead a lightsaber, which he lit to reveal its crimson blade. He then indicated for the apprentice to initiate the attack.

[Menthu]

There were some problems. It was the only way to describe his current situation. He stood facing a trained Sith Lord in Lightsaber combat. It was a type of combat he was not proficient in. This meant there was the fact that he was out skilled in this area. Would that stop him? No, of course not. It would however, be a problem.

 

After all, the first step toward your death is believing you were an unstoppable being. If you didn't at least deal with facts as they were, you could never progress ahead. He took a step forward. What had this man said?

 

We earn our victories by our own strength and skill, and the Force is our trump card

 

He could draw upon the force, he could use it to a degree. However, could he make it his trump card against this person? It would be interesting to be sure. He looked at the saber in his hand. He had taken this one from a Sith Lord. Could he take another one? Why was he even doubting himself in this?

 

He tighten his grip on the saber humming in his hand. Then with a roar he tossed it away from him, in the direction of the Sith Lord. Yet an attack this was not. It harmlessly clattered against the ground, coming to a stop at the left of the Sith blazing away as if it was swearing at him.

 

”œFine you earn, your victory with strength and skill. I will simply take mine by killing you with my bare hands!”

[Xentar Kentam]

Xentar focused on the moment before the present, the present moment, and the next moment all at once. It was like expanding ones senses forward and backward in time so that one existed in all three at the same time. It allowed him to analyze the intentions of the previous moment, observe the present moment, and react to the next.

 

Even as the apprentice sailed past him, Xentar felt him summon the discarded lightsaber. Although he followed his intuition and tracked his opponent's flight, he brought his own weapon not into position for a killing strike, but into a parry. It was something no ordinary human could accomplish, but Xentar Kentam, the Serpent Master, made it look like routine.

 

After the parry he immediately riposted, rebounding off the block as though it had contained an electric charge. He extended his reach a very precise amount and felt then, in a moment of time that seemed to stretch into infinity, a pure moment of savory paradox. This was the art of combat between two Force users--the moment when each relied on momentary precognition to the point where one combatant was sensing the incoming attack and compensating while the attacker was sensing the defender's attempt to avoid the blow and was also compensating.

 

Xentar was slightly faster this time and left a tiny burn upon his opponent's chest--it was an incision about an inch long and a sixteenth of an inch deep. It barely existed at all. But Xentar's arms weren't extended fully.

 

All this without the conscious implementation of Force power.

 

Time seemed to resume its full pace as he spun and delivered a blindingly fast roundhouse kick that sent the apprentice back several meters before he met the unforgiving wall. "Very good," he said. "You are indeed capable of becoming a Serpent Lord."

 

He turned his back on the other man and deactivated his lightsaber. "I have seen where you will start. Now you will learn the Serpent Code. You will recognize parts of it from the Sith Code, but you will find that the Jedi have not erred much more than the Sith, and elements of their ideals are embedded here too.

 

"There is emotion, there is peace

Through knowledge I gain strength

With strength I am feared by foes

Fear is random; only Chaos is absolute

The Force is my tool and I its servant."

 

Xentar looked sternly at the apprentice. He did not forget the time when he had been taught that code. It had come from the mouth of a man he had hated then and hated now. But that didn't matter. "Repeat it," he instructed.

[Menthu]

The searing tip of a saber shocked him, almost as much as the response of the Serpent. The difference was he had resigned himself to being cut in half, half a moment into the counter provided by the Serpent. He had been defeated in that one moment. So much so, that there was no guard when the round house kick came.

 

He slipped down into a heap as he slammed into a wall, and stared upward with eyes burning out of both shame and a lust for vengeance.

 

”œThere is emotion, there is peace”

[Xentar Kentam]

Xentar watched the apprentice get up off the ground and recite the code. He seemed to be embracing it, judging by what Xentar felt in his thoughts. It proved that perhaps, unlike most Sith, this man could be a little open-minded. The Serpent Master himself had made that transition, but it had been easier for him because of his dissent with some of the Sith teachings from the start.

 

He still didn't know enough about this newcomer to be an accurate judge of how the transition would proceed if left to its own means. He would simply have to craft it.

 

"We are the Force's servants and it is ours," he said. "The Force is a thing of balance. Some say that its will lends towards order and justice. Both the Jedi and Sith speak in such a manner, and in this way they are both half blind. For every spark of order the Force pours into the galaxy, it meets it with an equal amount of Chaos.

 

"There can be no true order while chaos exists, and that is why the Force is balanced and the galaxy remains in constant unrest. While the Sith may look for a dominating order and the Jedi may look for a just one, we, the Serpent Order, serve the Chaos that is the Force's answer for both the Jedi and Sith," Xentar explained.

 

"The Force is our tool because we can command it and it can be manipulated on our whim to bring fear to our enemies and chaos to the galaxy. We are its servant because we embody the other half of its will, and it has empowered us to take on the task that is laid out for us."

 

Xentar finished and lowered his eyebrows sternly. "You must learn to embrace this paradoxical mantra or you will fail in your path to Serpenthood. There is no other way."

[l:BlueVortex:l]

Unaware of the fighting nearby, Avres continued to wander aimlessly across the city of Hanna, eager to find someone who could help him find something to eat, and shelter. Most of the citizens of Hanna were friendly, and smiled down at Avres and he wandered past them; but so far, none of them knew that he needed help. Nor did Avres ask for help from any of them, afraid that if he asked someone for help, they would either not provide him with help, or turn him over to some sort of authority figure.

 

T6 warbled tiredly as the two of them traveled down the busy city streets. Avres looked over at the droid and tried to reassure him.

 

"Don't worry, T6.. I'm sure that we'll find somenoe who can help us.."

[Menthu]

He calmed himself; he could get useful information out of this.

 

”œThat is all you deal with huh. These paradoxical mantras. That is evident by your obvious weapon of choice of fire. Flame, brings chaos to order and order to chaos

It brings life from death and death to life. I guess it makes sense. Yet it seems the compromise between Jedi and Sith ideals.”

[Xentar Kentam]

"You are a fool if you think the Serpents are a compromise of opposite ideals," Xentar nearly spat, putting a little loathing in his voice. "The Jedi and the Sith are nearly the same--they wish to make the galaxy see only their differences, but these are in fact small.

 

"The Serpents are different. We are different."

 

The Serpent Master's eyes seemed to bore into the newcomer's very soul. "Perhaps you are not yet ready to become a Serpent," he said. "You seek too hard to analyze what I put before you and in the process miss its true meaning."

 

Xentar Kentam was silent a moment before continuing. "But these truths have been thrust upon you. Perhaps rather than attempting to indoctrinate you intellectually," he said, "I should bring you to conceive this doctrine for yourself."

 

He turned and started walking towards the hangars. "Follow me," he said. "We're going to Myrkr to train."

[Menthu]

The rebuke didn't sting like he might have thought it would. Only the thought that he was currently unable to beat this man into submission. Like a lost puppy upon hearing its name, he decided to follow what could only be decribed as one of his new masters.

[Xentar Kentam]

The Serpent base was rather small and very hidden, but it had a few shuttles and such for the members of the order to use when their personal crafts didn't suit their needs. Xentar led the way to one of these, gesturing for the apprentice to enter. They would go together and come back together...unless the apprentice did not survive what lay ahead.

 

"On Myrkr you will be forced to fight without the Force," Xentar said when he reached the cockpit, the apprentice trailing him. "We, the Serpents, submit to the will of the Force, but we do not wallow in it like the Jedi or Sith. The Sith are the more foolish of the two, for they, in their use of the Force, let themselves be pulled farther and father into reliance upon it, and while they pretend to control it, they are dominated by it.

 

"If you take away the Force from a Jedi or Sith, what you get is worse than a human who never felt it," he continued, lifting the craft off the ground and blasting out through a waterfall, then heading for space. "But when you take the Force away from a Serpent Lord, you have a warrior minorly inconvenienced by the loss of a few tricks."

 

As soon as the coordinates for Myrkr were laid in, Xentar pulled back the levers and the ship was catapulted into the alternate dimension that had allowed civilizations to break the bonds of solar systems and have an entire galaxy to explore.

 

((You can post our arrival. Unfortunately, the last post was by an alias of mine, whose trip there coincidentally coincided with our own.))