House Call [CLOSED, Gambler Only]

[Malz]

Coruscant's ever-busy atmosphere screamed around the young Jedi Knight as he briskly walked around. Like a kid in a wax museum, his countenance was a mixture of caution and wonder. He was used to being surrounded by plant life or at least stone, not metal and and machinery. Still, the sheer amount of the population comforted Malz enough to where he still enjoyed his stay. It was exactly as he remembered it.

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About a week ago, he decided to venture into Coruscant despite the recent raid of the temple. He wasn't much of a city-dweller, but he knew that experience was key in maturity. Plus, it just sounded like fun! As he gazed at all the tall buildings and zooming airspeeders, he couldn't help but think of a few games he could play here; parkour championships, capture the flag, heck, even hide-and-go-seek would be amazing here! As he decided to check out an alleyway to get caught up on his bearings, he had stumbled upon a lone female crouched to the side.

Curious, he approached her, only to be lashed at. As she did so, she revealed a sickly-green skin tone and several bruises to her face. Her nose was red and swollen and her lips were cracked. She looked exhausted, her eyes watery and distant. Concerned for her health, Malz quickly calmed her with his calm, happy demeanor, with a bit of Force persuasion thrown in in case she were delusional. Once she was properly calmed, Malz went to work on giving her an examination. What he saw startled him; inside her was a rare but contagious bacteria. It produced symptoms similar to a common cold, but it somehow confused the immune system in a way that it would almost never be identified as foreign. Thus, it was more of a long-term annoyance than a life-threatening disease. Only powerful antibiotics seemed to work on it, but those were expensive, and Malz doubted this girl had the necessary funds to acquire it.

He smiled and told her everything was going to be alright. Closing his eyes, he used the Force to jump-start her immune system, guiding it to where each bacterium was and allowing it to successfully identify each as an invader. Within 15 minutes, the battle was over. He laid the girl to rest so she could recover and went on his way, leaving a note detailing contact information and a bit of money as well.

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It wasn't long before he received a message saying that the same infection had risen up in a friend of hers, pleading with him to help this friend the same way, whatever that 'way' was. Happy to have a chance to go out and explore again, Malz was once again in the planet-city.

Using his acute sense of Force Sight, he eventually made his way to the room where this friend was staying. A knock on the door followed by, "Hello? I'm looking for a sick person! I'm the healer guy!" Not the most professional of introductions, he nevertheless flashed a bright smile and awaited his next opportunity to spread good cheer and charity.

 

[Gambler]

The whisper of voices and the rumble of city life jolted Tanzia awake. She rolled in her bed with a low moan, pushing a pillow over her head. Her head throbbed with pain, and the noise only amplified it. Every bit of stray conversation and woosh of a passing speeder might as well have been the roar of thunder. She rolled over again, pushing her head violently onto the pillow. She'd never get back to sleep now. With a groan of resignation she stood up. The motion shook her head, wringing a grimace from her lips and haphazardly tossing her hair into her face. Would nothing be easy today?

She went through the motions of getting dressed listlessly. First came her dress, a scarlet thin outlined with black thread. It was slit up to her thigh for mobility. Then came the leggings underneath. She didn't pay much attention to the color, but the material was course against her bare skin. If nothing else, it annoyed her. She hated this routine. She hated waking up so early. She hated it all, but she wouldn't diminish the memory of her friend by abandoning it. No, he would be kept alive in her routine.

Her breath caught as she walked over to the dresser. The ragged intake of her gasp was cut short with a snivel. She wasn't crying, she never cried anymore. It was just this damn cold! She felt horrible and nothing helped. She frowned, knowing that her mind was trying to delay her again. Subconsciously, she did not want to look at the dresser. She did not want to touch what was so proudly displayed on the top.

As her eyes shifted to look at the object, her stomach lurched. One hand was on the dresser, white from lack of blood, while the other made its way to the top. The trembling fingers brushed against the surface of the object, going numb with fear. She picked it up, closing her eyes as memory after memory rushed into her.

Then, as quickly as the fit seized her, it left her. She opened her eyes to take in the object in her hands. It was a lightsaber, a silver manifestation of death and peace. When she looked at it she saw the tool of a Jedi. The tool of a murderous beast. This saber was not hers. It was the weapon of a man she had killed. The weapon of the man who killed Branshen. A small shiver shook her spine as she set the thing down, but then she berated herself for her foolishness.

I am the weak, helpless girl, she thought. The girl who only dreamed of being god. Bitterness rose up in her throat. No, she would not ever been helpless again. Never. Her grief was crushed by a rush of anger. The two balanced out, warring within one another until no clear victor was chosen. A knock on the door shocked her from her trance. Slowly, without checking her appearance in the mirror, she went to open it.

"Yes?" She asked, brushing strands of uncombed hair out of her face. What a sight she must have been! Dressed in wrinkled clothes with uncombed hair, and with the last vestiges of sleep still in her eyes, she looked quite bedraggled. That, and the lightsaber hilt she clutched in her hand. She stowed it behind her back, hopefully before the young man at her door could see it. She looked into his eyes and waited a response.

Opaque. Yes, that was the word. Her eyes were opaque as she stared[FONT=&quot]—[/FONT]no, glared[FONT=&quot]—[/FONT]at the man in front of her.

 

[Malz]

Malz let out a low whistle as the woman opened the door and revealed herself. He couldn't help but blurt out, "Wow, you look terrible...uh, I mean, you look terribly sick!" He didn't notice the lightsaber being hidden, his attention now focused on this feeling of anger emanating from this woman's being. Could this be the result of the bacteria? No, she looked like she had just gotten out of bed. He probably just woke her up from her bedrest! Ah well, soon enough she won't be needing that as much.

He smiled and took a peek over her shoulder, "May I uh...come in? I promise once I give you a checkup I'll know exactly what's wrong with you! I haven't been wrong yet! Course I've only done this once...ah well, who's counting really?" A wide grin followed by an extended hand, "I'm Malz, pleased to meetcha!"

If Tanzia accepted the shake, she might notice a bit of warm feelings surging in. The Knight's hope was to lighten her mood as much as possible. The rage of a woken woman, as he had read, is comparable only to a monstrous beast on roid rage. Still, even as happy-go-lucky as he appeared and certainly was, he couldn't help but feel like at any moment something could lash out.

 

[Gambler]

Wow, this guy was really smooth. Girls just loved to hear how terrible they looked. Tanzia suppressed a scowl, barely keeping her annoyance concealed. Against her will, her eyes betrayed her. Those light brown pools reflected her soul, and right now her soul was quite angry. She mentally ticked off the reasons: woke up with a pounding headache, old wounds ripped open, and now some stranger telling her how bad she looked. Sure, he tried to retract that statement by blaming it on the fact that she was sick, but he wasn't tactful enough to balm her wounded pride.

It took her a few seconds, but she finally remembered why the man was there. A healer. Right. A friend of hers had told her about how this young man had taken the illness away. She looked at him a bit, plainly wondering how this scrawny boy could have the talent to cure her of her sickness. Mostly, she wondered if she would even let him put his hands on her. His face wasn't bad, but the glasses were not a flattering touch. That and the fiery-orange hair made him seem very boyish to her eyes. His lack of muscle mass was another turn off. She just couldn't find anything overtly attractive about him.

Maybe she was just stingy, or perhaps her standards were far too high, but she found that she did not like this young man. Nonetheless, she accepted his outreached hand and shook it. Almost instantly, some of her irritation bled away, leaving her with a sense of tranquility. It confused her. She knew, rationally, that she was still angry. It would take more than a friendly handshake to rid her of that overbearing emotion. She found herself smiling a little, though inwardly she tried to frown. The voice in the back of her head was saying something to her, struggling to point something important out, but she couldn't hear it. Almost as if she was hearing a whisper across a canyon.

"Mm," was the first thing she said. Then what he said dawned on her. "Only once before?" She was incredulous. "When my friend told me about you she said that you seemed quite experienced. Yet here you are..." She trailed off with a slight frown. Her head buzzed, but she dismissed that as a result of her headache.

She sighed, shaking her head. She was about to let an inexperienced stranger attempt to cure her from whatever illness ailed her. Not that she had any better options. Her supply of credits were dwindling with each passing day, and she couldn't think of any way to get more. This healer helped her friend for free, so there really wasn't anything to lose. At worst she would remain sick and have to go pay for a real doctor. "Come in," she said at last. Then, realizing that she hadn't given him her name she continued. "My name's Tanzia, by the way."

That nagging feeling in the back of her mind returned as soon as she shut the door behind him. The sense of unease was reminiscent of the feeling she used to get in her days as a street urchin. Danger, it warned her. Something was going to happen. She shook her head again with a frown, rubbing at her temple, an attempt at dispelling the unease. Just a headache.

 

[Malz]

He grinned as he walked in, "Nice to meet you, Tanzia. Now just try to get comfortable and I'll give you a checkup to see what's wrong. You won't feel a thing, the Force allows me to see many things your ordinary doctor cannot. It's how I was able to cure your friend those weeks ago."

Assuming she actually did lay back, he'd concentrate and look over Tanzia's body, as if using X-ray vision to see her insides. If he were older and more attractive, this would be totally scandalous. But he was here to heal (sickness!). All he is doing is trying to locate the bacteria before he would kick her immune system back into action.

Eventually he found the bacteria, but what really amazed him was that some of her white blood cells were already making antibodies. This was unusual. No, not unusual, almost impossible. No reported case of this illness has ever recorded an anti-body count, not like this! Then again, if this were the case elsewhere, it'd probably just be misconstrued as a typical common cold and be disregarded anyway. But still, as amazing as it was, it still wasn't enough to do any real benefit.

He thought for a moment, then brought out a tiny syringe and looked at her cautiously, "Hey uh...mind if I take a blood sample? I'd like to analyze this bacteria in hopes of um...finding a better cure! Yeah. Totally." He smiled inwardly; he didn't want to tell her that he wanted to analyze her DNA to find out what could be causing this, but he didn't want to lie. So he looked at it from a different way, something he figured Jedi would surely be accustomed to.

 

[Gambler]

"Mmhm," Tanzia sighed sleepily. Her eyes blinked sluggishly, pupils heavily dilated. She took a few deep breaths, feeling her entire body loosen in response. It was like walking through a dream. Everything was thin and gauzy, almost transparent. The thunderstorm in her head slowed to an echoing drum line as her body raced to complete the healing. While the Force could mend wounds or expedite the healing process, it still ate into that person's strength reserves for completion. As her body fought off the masked virus, her own reserves were being drained. Simple tiredness a moment before began to blossom into pure exhaustion.

Through the gauze she could hear a muted ringing. The frequency of a hummingbird, it wove its way delicately throughout her being. She drifted along, her physical body seemingly unattached, moving of its own volition. Cloudy and iridescent, her mind and body separated. How nice. The pleasant sensation of a dream, restfulness and peace. Very nice. She slipped further into it, wishing to just let it all go.

Let it all go and fall into nothingness. Surely she could do that. No one would miss her, after all, and it would be quick. Painless. All she had to do was let go. It was an enticing notion. The result was perfection. She would be one with someone greater than herself. Something peaceful and eternal. Ah, there was a name for it, wasn't there? The Force. That singular, concrete thought snapped her attention back to the buzzing in her mind. As she drifted languidly, clairvoyance struck her.

Those warm thoughts of peace and tranquility dissipated, leaving the cold embers of anger in their wake. Cold and dispassionate, as if looking through the eyes of another and feeling the weakest echo of their emotions. The sensation of drifting was gone, leaving her an empty vessel. She was sure that her heart and lungs must have stopped by now. She hadn't fallen asleep. She left her body as if drugged, though her state was self inflicted and seemingly more severe. But before she could worry about the why she needed to figure out how to get back.

One thought crossed the distance between her and her physical form. She held on to it and rode it back. She kept herself separate from it, using it as a guide to find her body. She hit something solid and snapped back into reality, the thought following her. It sprung past her lips before she could comprehend it. "Jedi," it echoed, thick and heavy with venom. Her eyes opened and light bled in. Breath found her lungs and her heart remembered to pump. She gasped the thought out again, "Jedi," more concretely this time.

Reality solidified around her and the cold embers found a spark. "What did you do to me?" She demanded without looking at the young healer. She still couldn't grasp the meaning of the thought, dismissing it instead as a way her body anchored itself. Her eyes stared without seeing and her hand grasped something thick and hard. Lightsaber. Yes, that was it. A lightsaber. A tool used by the wicked under the pretense of justice. A tool used by—

"Jedi." The words were accusing, hateful. In her eyes, a dead man reared. Glassy blue eyes were reflected in her own, shining with vengeance.

 

[Malz]

As Malz concentrated on healing Tanzia, he couldn't help but notice that something was going wrong. Rather than using his own energy to heal her, as is normal in Force Healing, it seemed like her own body was using up its energy instead. This was highly unusual, and alarming. She was in no condition to give a blood sample now, and he quickly attempted to shift to restoring her energy.

Not wanting to cause alarm, he kept his smile and childish demeanor and tried to keep her awake through conversation, "So are you from here originally? It's such a nice place; I wonder, do you ever get the idea of playing capture the flag here? It seems like an awesome area to do it!" Noticing that his attempts were in vain, as she seemed too exhausted, he decided to stop and continue.

Eventually she seemed to regain her composure, but this time Malz couldn't help but notice a deep, dark feeling of intense anger and hatred. She kept on mouthing the word "Jedi," and the Knight immediately sensed impending danger. If this girl hated Jedi, for some odd reason he doubt he could understand, then he was in serious danger here. Finally she spoke, and he replied, "I stimulated your immune system to combat the illness more effectively. Usually I use my own energy through the Force to do this, but this time it seems your own body decided to take the job instead. I'm very sorry for any discomfort this may have caused, but hey, this is actually kinda interesting when you think about it!" Well, okay, not really. But he prepared himself to jump away from her should she turn violent.

 

[Gambler]

Tanzia lifted her eyes to glare at the young healer. Colors, so dull a moment ago, kindled to life. Soft reds and pale shades of blue became crisper as their hues increased in saturation. Her pupils dilated and her heart began to beat faster. Tension built in the room until she could taste it like a heavy scent in the air. Her anger, so pent up and irrational, threatened to burst. "I don't care about your excuses," someone said in her voice. She was shocked at how dispassionate her tone was, how distant. It was like hearing a strange from afar. "You're a Jedi." She didn't bother adding a note of accusation to her words. They would be a waste of breath, and that was something she did not need.

There was blood in the air and Tanzia drank it in. The silver hilt of a lightsaber clutched so tightly in her fist hissed to life. A shaft of cobalt sprung from the device, making a semicircle of light as she swung it around in front of her. Her hostility, along with her sanity, was no longer in question. That precious bubble of drowsiness popped. She met the young Jedi's words with a swipe. It was a directionless, opaque line that cut through the air with the weight of savagery behind it. Her eyes promised death.

 

[Malz]

It didn't take a fully trained Jedi to see the anger creep up in her eyes, though if it weren't for his training, he probably wouldn't instinctively know to jump back a foot or two as the lightsaber narrowly missed him by hair's length. Rather than retaliate with his own, however, he tried his preferred passive method. He augmented his speed with the force and zoomed next to her, tightly gripping her arm so that she could not swing it back to him. Being sick and in a state of blind rage, it hopefully wouldn't prove too hard, though he was prepared to Push her if merely grabbing her wasn't enough.

At that moment, he could've sworn from the corner of his eye he saw various figures, though they appeared ghostly, almost like holograms. He thought he saw fights, a cowering figure, people being struck down, and he could sense pain and vengeance. Almost as quickly as his vision appeared, it vanished, the entire ordeal seeming to last for half a minute when really it was probably only half a second.

His focus returned, his expression turned to compassionate sadness, something rare for the rarely-serious Knight. He swung around and, from behind, gave her a tight embrace, knowing that in doing so he was putting himself at significant risk. He wasn't totally idiotic in doing this, as he continued attempting to pour in his own calming feelings into her as he whispered, "I don't know what happened to you, but...I'm sorry."

 

[Gambler]

Eyes befogged with the haze of rage, Tanzia followed through with her strike, overbalancing. A hand clamped over her arm, pulling her in close so she could not attack. Soothing thoughts washed over her and for a second she felt the effects of her weakened state. Her body trembled, begging for rest. Every muscle strained against her will, struggling to simply give up. She felt her body slack in the Jedi's grasp, but had not the strength to defy him. His soft spoken words were soothing in a way that slowly brought down the fortress of her anger. Her eyelids fluttered and her conscious mind fled.

She basked in the comfort, feeling the Jedi's arms crushing her against him. There was an aura of well-being, of compassion, surrounding him. It took away her strength, giving her a sense of safety. Helplessness. The thought shook her to the core of her being. Her body convulsed, unspoken and half-forgotten horrors erupting in an outpouring of clairvoyance.

Anger so hot that it took on an inky pallor oozed like poison from beneath her skin. She snatched herself from the embrace, pushing all of her weight in one sudden lurch atop the Jedi. Her foot twisted to curve behind his ankle, using the embrace to prevent his escape. The lightsaber hummed, forgotten in her hands, beating a cadence to the life of the struggle.

 

[Malz]

The anger emanating from Tanzia affected the poor, young jedi greatly. Pouring emotions into another had the unfortunate side-effect of allowing that person's emotions to also potentially push back, and her hatred was certainly stronger than Malz's calmness. He flinched from the negativity, loosening his hold on her which eased her escape from his grasp.

His first instinct was to use the Force to push himself back and gain some distance; going at this up-close was proving far too difficult given her current mental state. Before he could do any of that, however, he felt Tanzia's foot lock him in place. It took all his willpower to prevent a curse from being uttered from his innocent mouth. Just moments ago this was just a simple healing, now this crazy woman was trying to kill him!

His hand brushed by his own lightsaber, but he clenched his jaw and refused to take it out. He did not want to hurt her, he wanted to help her! Injuring her wouldn't solve anything, it would probably just make her angrier! Finally he came up with an idea. It was risky, and could prove disastrous, but he had to try nonetheless. He forced his palm up in between the two and unleashed a pulse from his hand, a Force Push that would hopefully either separate them, or at least bring them both to the ground so neither have an upper hand over the other.

 

[Gambler]

The push sent her sprawling away from Malz. Her feet, tangled up with his, slid over the carpet and twisted as she fell. In one brutal instant, her hip cracked against the floor and the lightsaber went flying. Still active, the blade cut into the drawer a few feet away. Tanzia scrambled to her feet, slightly disorientated from the push. Stupid Jedi tricks. Weaponless, there wasn't much she could do should the Jedi attack her with his own blade, but that didn't mean she was down for the count. It would have been sensible for her to give up then, to collapse on the floor and sob quietly to herself and hope the Jedi didn't come in to finish her off. Adrenaline, mixed with a deficiency of serotonin and an endorphin spike, wasn't a rational sensation.

Her earliest memories were from growing up on the streets as a freed slave. She put those to use as she had not since the day her foster father took her in. On her feet, she charged at the Jedi, face twisted in an ugly snarl. There was a lapse of time between the push and her charge, but she hoped, somewhere deep in what was left of her rationality, that the Jedi wasn't on his feet yet. She put every ounce of strength into that short lived sprint, straining to achieve greater heights of speed as she neared the Jedi. Then, less than two steps away, she jumped to tackle him. It was a full forced running tackle, putting every one of her one hundred and seventeen pounds to work.

 

[Malz]

Malz could tell he was in trouble the moment Tanzia started flying, her foot caught with his. Bracing himself, he flew with her. The fall on his back knocked the wind out of him, and he uttered a stifled cry from the impact. Grimacing in pain, he tried to muster up the strength to get up. Unfortunately, Malz wasn't very adept in strength, and he could only watch as Tanzia started regaining her composure.

Thankfully her lightsaber was out of the picture for now, making this a battle of rage vs. Force. Easily winable...were it not for his aching back. She looked ready to charge at him, so he knew his time was short. He gritted his teeth and focused all his energy on healing his back to the point where he could bend his spine and stand again. At that point, though tired, he jumped up while Tanzia started her desperate tackle. Incredibly, he chose to close his eyes.

Relying on the Force, he waited for the right moment to side-step her attack, twist around, and deliver another Push. With her momentum, it wouldn't take a lot of effort to push her into the wall. At that point, he attempted to keep up a steady pressure to make sure she stayed there. Visibly exhausted, he panted, "Please...why...are you attacking me? What did...I do?"