Rival Serenity

[EmilyHuene]

As they got to the hanger, Aeryun took a deep breath of the foul oil-smelled air. Oddly enough, this particular smell reminded her of home. Not that her home was at all in any sort of machine-like terrain; she was actually from a jungle planet. Her nostalgia reminded her of her father's workplace where he would work on broken engines and vehicles for travelers looking for a quick and cheap fix.

"Here we are...Ah...After you,"

Aeryun would give a playful curtsy, the most girly thing she'd likely ever to do for anyone, and then walk her way into his ship once more. She walked with Cappi over to a place where they could set the man down and then waited for Cappi to do just that.

"Do we have some kind of bindings in here somewhere?"

"Is that sarcasm or do you really think I know where things are in your ship?" she would ask in a playful manner again.

"Check, can you check in the utility locker... Here. Can you hold him for a sec?"

"That's what I thought," she would chime in and then let him go do his work. She kept her focus on the man in case he suddenly sprang to life and attacked them; not likely.

Cappi would then return and bind the man with wire and Aeryun couldn't help but start rubbing her wrists subconsciously. She hadn't told a lot of people about her mishap on Serriz IV, and thankfully that rumor stayed with the upper ups. She'd been taken captive by the Sith and it still gave Aeryun nightmares from time to time. She could still feel the Force-negating bindings that held her arms together.

"Here he comes....Come on. That's it."

Aeryun snapped her attention back to where it needed to be as Cappi snapped his fingers at the man. She watched as he came to and realized where he was and what his current predicament was holding him back.

"What the? What's? Who?"

"Don't remember us? Not her? Not your savior?...Do you even want to ask him questions or should we just go in his head?"

"Unfortunately for us I'm not too well versed in interrogation. I missed that day in my Jedi training," it was obvious sarcasm. "But that won't stop me from finding the answers in his head. So it's your call really if you want to do it the hard way."

 

[Lamper]

"Well, I could show you how we did it back home," he playfully threatened with a fist clapping into palm before the memories of loss slowly melted his enthusiasm to zero, and he pouted. Pain from the loss of life, it never goes away.

"That Gand," the man viscerally recalled with a snarl.

Cappi's attention quickly returned to the agent.

"Gand? I knew that slippery bug was in on this. Was he with you?"

The agent then bit his lip at Cappi, refusing to talk. And Cappi wanted to jab his nose, but held strong. But he couldn't hold back all the way, and broke; snatching up the agent's collar with both fists and shaking the agent stiff.

"...You're gonna tell us about our double-dealing informant, if he's alive, and who's responsible for the three dead Jedi he was supposed to be protecting. You're gonna tell us with this," Cappi forcefully gripped the agent's mouth, "or with this," then pressed his forehead to the agent's forehead. But the agent just grimaced. So Cappi shoved his face away and pushed the agent's chest down into the cot to stand back up away from him, almost going right into an angered pacing.

He tried to breath more calmly and center himself, but this was hitting close to home.

"I'm going to hurt this man," he stressfully informed Aeryun, hands palming the sides of his head. "Please. Get something out of him. Anything."

"Jedi scum. You think they don't train us to resist the mind probe? Idiots."

Cappi uncontrollably lunged at the agent with a sudden right cross, knuckles slapping through the man's jaw with a crack. The agent quickly returned a spiteful scowl.

"Yeah? We didn't have any trouble puttin' you to sleep though." He looked back to Aeryun. Then felt guilty for losing his cool after everything they'd been through today together.

He took a deep breath.

"We do this together. You enter his mind. I'll ask him questions. And maybe you can dig through the images that come up."

It seemed a more strategic approach than just hitting the guy at least. Not very Jedi like.

@EmilyHuene

 

[EmilyHuene]

Aeryun watched silently as Cappi began to try and intimidate the man. But she could sense the man was strong, a true and noble soldier for the Imperium. It made her sick. Didn't he understand they weren't going to kill him if he simply surrendered over the information they were looking for? They were Jedi after all...or at least they were trying to be. They weren't making the best impression right now.

"I'm going to hurt this man,...Please. Get something out of him. Anything."

Aeryun took a step forward, ready to try an easier way. She wouldn't lie that a part of her was rather enjoying watching Cappi let loose on this guy. She understood men just sometimes had to lash out to get their feelings under control. It's not like he didn't have a reason and was simply attacking him for the fun of it.

"Jedi scum. You think they don't train us to resist the mind probe? Idiots."

And then Cappi struck him. She flinched when she heard the man's fist collide with the other's head. She hadn't expected that to actually happen. She whispered Cappi's name with a shocked expression. But she didn't need to see his face to tell he was burning with rage. She could sense the tension and hatred in the air. Hatred and anger were not good for Jedi.

"Yeah? We didn't have any trouble puttin' you to sleep though."

"Cappi!" she would whisper again, harshly this time. It was a warning.

"We do this together. You enter his mind. I'll ask him questions. And maybe you can dig through the images that come up."

She would then nod and move past her peer. She closed her eyes, a reflex, and forcefully brought her hand to his head, squeezing her two main fingers into his temples. Forcefully, she began to mold into his mind and break through whatever barriers or defenses he tried to put up to keep her out. It wouldn't be enough, however, since Aeryun was rather gifted in this line of work. It wasn't something she'd done too many times, but she found the method simple enough to grasp and then it just kind of worked.

"You will talk to us," she said slowly with authority while pushing the thought into his head.

 

[Lamper]

His frustration was more in part due to his mishandling of the Rodian earlier, now having taken it out on the Imperial. But Aeryun's reactions checked Cappi in a way he needed. He'd heard her. And he calmed down.

Cappi watched her take position and place a hand on the man's head, despite his discomfort; though there wasn't much the guy could do about it. Cappi tried not to take too much pleasure in the man's fidgeting. Cappi folded his arms over his chest and started pacing left. Finally, taking cue off of Aeryun's authoritative assertion, he began the interrogation; a new experience for him as well.

"Alright. Let's test this out. Are you an agent of the Imperium?"

Cappi waited a moment, the man's eyes flexing anger at Cappi first then lifting to Aeryun, whom he couldn't quite see fully from this new angle as he tried to gauge whether his mental walls were enough to keep his thoughts in the shadows. Only Aeryun would see those images and could give Cappi a general measure of how well she could see into his past or more inflammatory experiences. Whatever she saw, depending on the Imperial's mental strategy and training, she could be thrown into a storm of chaos that tried to block her gaze outright or could be dropped down an endless pit of emptiness that funneled into weaknesses like clear tubes she'd slide down through glimpses of worlds that detailed different times in the man's life. And this time, it was entirely on her as the man refused to verbally answer Cappi out of spite; a habit Cappi expected to break moving foreword.

"How is it?" he asked his Jedi companion as he watched her expression guardedly in case something went wrong, not out of some under-estimation of her ability but rather out of ignorance to what mental resistance training could do to an intruder.

 

[EmilyHuene]

Aeryun felt herself jump into a world of color and images. Her brain was flooded with senses she lost and no longer felt. It was the most intense thing she felt. It was also something she forgot how much she loved.

The man's defenses were strong, but not nearly enough to keep out this Jedi. She had a different way or approaching things. Aeryun supplanted her own images into the man's head as some false sense of security.

They were on a river. In a forest. Her and the man were walking along the water's edge like two friends. Their mouths moved but made no sound. She pointed to the water, he looked. The water began to show flashes of his memories in the reflections. She saw scenes of him at his job, his school, his life as a militay man. These were easy clues for Cappi's question.

"How is it?"

Aeryun would nod slowly and respond with a soft, "Yes." He could ask the next question.

For now, Aeryun was in complete control of the man's mind. How long that lasted would be he real question.

 

[Lamper]

The agent's eyes rolled into the back of his head as his mind wandered into Aeryun's little dream. He tried to stay afloat, tried to remain in control of his physical fortitude by squeezing his fists on the bed; but he walked beside the riverbed still.

Cappi's cheek pinched one eye to Aeryun's reply, a lopsided smirk warming his face. This was going to work, he said to himself happily.

"Well then. Here we go."

His hands clasped together, Cappi still pacing back and forth; chin turning down a sharper angle.

"What happened at the docks? Who was that Rodian and why did you want him?"

The agent gritted his teeth, begrudging eyes barely able now to droop down in Cappi's direction before lulling back into Aeryun's world. He tried to speak, muttering something in defiance incoherently as he recalled the three black suited agents walking up to the Rodian's arms-deal and opening fire.

Cappi's eyes impatiently searched the agent's reactions, flicking from any physical responses or twitching to Aeryun's face to see what she got. He didn't wait long. After Aeryun likely saw glimpses, Cappi pressed forward.

"What connection did he have to the Jedi? No! What connection do you have to the Jedi, the Jedi you killed?"

"I ... didn't ... kill"

"Tell me."

"Schutta!"

"Remember it! Remember the deal. Three Jedi on one side. Imperials on the other. In the middle, one informant. He played us. He played you. Pitched his schemes to the Jedi then lobbed a few to you. Both sides in the dark, he brings them all together and the bloodbath begins. Pitting each other against themselves. Why? How?"

"No! That's not ... how it happened. He was supposed to bring them to us!"

The agent writhed in Aeryun's hands, in pain only from his own struggling resistance.

"Who?!? Name! What's his name?!?"

The room was tense, the only angry words coming out of the agent's mouth being forced out against his will while his mind spilled open with flashes faster and faster. Cappi pushed harder and harder while Aeryun was left at the mouth of the falls to catch all the scattering information in a flood. And with every moment they got closer to the truth.

@EmilyHuene

 

[EmilyHuene]

"What happened at the docks? Who was that Rodian and why did you want him?"

Inside his head, she could see the location. She could see the warehouse where she'd saved the dying man. Three men all shooting at the target. She couldn't hear any words, everything was like watching a silent picture. She felt nothing as they died. Just silence.

"I see.....three men. Three agents. I think they were the buyers. They betrayed the Rodian."

"What connection did he have to the Jedi? No! What connection do you have to the Jedi, the Jedi you killed?"

"I ... didn't ... kill"

"Tell me."

"Schutta!"

"Remember it! Remember the deal. Three Jedi on one side. Imperials on the other. In the middle, one informant. He played us. He played you. Pitched his schemes to the Jedi then lobbed a few to you. Both sides in the dark, he brings them all together and the bloodbath begins. Pitting each other against themselves. Why? How?"

"No! That's not ... how it happened. He was supposed to bring them to us!"

The agent desperately tried to hold onto his memories, but she was in now. She had a hold on him and he could not manage to keep everything out. She saw a face, she saw a name she just couldn't read it and put the pieces together.

"Who?!? Name! What's his name?!?"

Finally she got it. She released the hold she had on the man and he'd fall limp for a minute as his head suffuered the pain from the headache she'd likely caused him. She would then take a step back and wipe some of the strays hairs out of her face.

"Mathias Black," she would say to him. "He's our contact. The name mean anything to you?"

Aeryun would not know it, but the man was a pretty popular name in the inner rim. He was heir to a billion dollar corporation and he'd just come into his inheritance with the passing of his father. The man was a brilliant military strategist for the IAF, but for obvious reasons left the service to run the company. He'd made quite the news article some months ago.