Somewhere Out On The Grounds, Wednesday Morning

[unborn_renegade]

Jak was one of those typical Fandom kids who heard 'smoke!' and thought 'let's go quell a fire!'.

Or something. Symbolic talk wasn't really Jak's strong suit. What was, though, was taking out bad stuff. And the fog was definitely bad stuff. Sure, he could've taken a hint from radio last night and realised that maybe heading out into the smoke wasn

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[weetuskenraider]

Yes, Tahiri had had a bad feeling about this since late Monday night; yes, she'd been avoiding staying out in the fog too much. Common sense was one thing. The persistent and nagging, if subtle, tug of the Force was something else. Something that led her to the weapons locker for her lightsaber, first, and then out onto the grounds. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, really. That was the drawback to following up on nebulous feelings that you should be out there for some reason.

. . . some reason that had her wandering into this particular patch of the grounds and reaching out in the Force to see if anyone was around. If so, she wasn't sensing it with the usual clarity -- just a vague, staticky awareness. Just like her Vongsense, actually.

And that didn't make any sense, but . . .

"Bos sos si?" Tahiri called out in the fog anyway.

[unborn_renegade]

Noise he didn't recognize.

Jak slammed the Blaster barrel in place with a reflexive grace. The laser aim sprung to life, cutting a red swat of red light through the fog.

The dark eco in him kept crackling, though, as if drawn to something in the air. It made it harder for him to focus, his emotions coaxed into a slow boil.

Where was it?

[weetuskenraider]

The innate paranoia and suspicion of her Yuuzhan Vong heritage was coming to the forefront, and while Tahiri was usually better by now at keeping it in check she didn't bother this time; not in this fog, not with the undercurrent of danger seeping into her physical and Force senses. And anger, too, unfamiliar but it resonated with her somehow.

There -- red light, too focused to be natural, generated by some kind of made-thing device. Her attention snapped in that direction, and she peered futilely into the murk for its source, one hand dropping to the lightsaber hilt at her belt.

"Qe'u!" If that had come out intelligibly at all, the implication of Hey, you there! would be clear enough.

[unborn_renegade]

Hey, you there, that was enough. Enough to get his aim. Enough to get his attention. That red dot shot sideways immediately, seeking out Tahiri's position in the fog and focusing on it.

Jak was holding his fire.

For how long, though... "Come out of the fog!" he growled. When he closed his eyes for a second to clear them, he saw violet.

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri didn't have to look down to know the red dot was dancing on her chest; she could practically feel it. The lightsaber was off her belt and in her hand almost as soon as she'd been marked, then thumbed on with the familiar snap-hiss.

The ice-blue glow of the blade normally cut through fog more effectively than this.

Switching to Basic, she took one stride forward, following the beam, then another, and called out, "You do know you've given yourself away now, don't you?"

[unborn_renegade]

Daxter would've had something snarky to say about how Tahiri was doing the same, or she was a Betty, or something - Jak could recall his best friend's voice, but he wasn't really feeling very creative right now.

Especially not with that soft hum of eco (was it eco? It didn't feel like eco, but it was too far away to tell) cutting through the darkness. Whatever it was was armed. He could make out.. contours? Of sharp edges, four legs--

Without even thinking about it, he let his reflexes kick in, pulled the trigger, firing four precise bolts of clear yellow eco in her general direction.

[weetuskenraider]

Corran would have backed Daxter up on that, had he been around, and had Tahiri been in any state of mind to think about her Jedi Master's lecturing.

Snarling a sharp Tusken curse under her breath she brought her lightsaber blade up to intercept the first bolt and felt the second and third whiz just over her head as she deactivated the blade and dove into a forward roll. The fuzzy presence was somewhere in front of her, still imprecise and hard to pinpoint in her Force-sense, or her Vongsense, whichever it was, but if she squinted through the fog it looked almost reptilian. Like a rancor? Only smaller.

Flinging her left hand out, she exerted a mostly blind Force tug in the general direction of the creature.

[unborn_renegade]

Jak felt something yanking, pulling, shoving at his knee and suddenly--

Suddenly he saw the fog spread out above him, the back of his head aching like someone had slammed a rock into it. Pain sparked off his already barely-contained reserves, and he was seeing violet again-- violet, violent anger, sparking off of him as his skin began to bleach white like the clouds.

His back dragged over the floor, but he didn't feel it any more.

[[ next one for a furnaceface! ]]

[furnaceface]

Since yesterday, Jono had been walking around with the itch of paranoia scratching around the back of his head, all but screamed from psionic mountaintops from every direction except, apparently, his own. Last night had been an unpleasant excursion, but whatever seemed to be messing with the minds of the people around him, it seemed to be leaving him alone, and so he'd figured that a walk to Groovy Tunes to pick up the guitar he'd so brilliantly left behind yesterday wouldn't hurt.

He wasn't going to make it that far, apparently, before the itch turned into a full-on throb, a familiar resonance that he'd only been around to witness a couple of times before. His bandages were torn from his face before he could so much as think about it, and his feet were hitting the ground at a run.

//Jak!// And somebody else. Oh. Oh, bloody hell, they were going to kill one another, weren't they? //Both of yer, stop it!//

Because reasoning worked so very well last night when Didi was freaking out at him. Right.

[weetuskenraider]

She'd brought her lightsaber back up and reignited it, gathering Force energy to spring in a high leap, but -- Tahiri bit back a snarl of very Yuuzhan Vong defensiveness when the voice just cut into her mind.

"Stay out of this," she snapped, and she should be calming herself, not giving in to the battle rush, but it was so easy and right now it was the best thing to do so the lightsaber was up over her head in a two-handed grip and she was jumping --

[unborn_renegade]

-- and Jak was snarling, climbing back onto his feet with unnatural speed, lashing out - eco-first - at where Tahiri had been standing only a bare few seconds ago. He was a mess of claws as he moved, in the wrong direction, but out of the path of her lightsaber.

[furnaceface]

They were going to kill one another. This wasn't Didi, seeing things that weren't there and trying to get away. This was a pair of people who were made to fight, and they would do so until one or the other wasn't standing anymore.

//Can't stay out of it,// he replied, sounding a little more sharp-edged than even he was used to hearing from himself. //Yer about t'kill my friend.//

Or the other way around.

Toward Jak, he didn't project a voice at all. To the both of them, instead of words, there was just a wave of wrong, as though he was gathering up every ounce of that uneasy feeling the island itself had been throwing at him, and now he was giving it light and focus and trying, trying like hell to convince the both of them to at least stop and take a moment to blink.

Sort of like the psionic equivalent of a rolled-up newspaper.

[weetuskenraider]

Thank the Force for enhanced reflexes; Tahiri had spun and launched into a fresh charge when what felt like a hundred beings' distress lanced in right between her eyes and into her brain. It cut through the mental haze straight to the part of her that would always respond to a call for help and pulled her up short, lightsaber out mid-slash.

"Kriffing hells?" she bit out, gaze darting between Jak and Jono, not quite looking yet like she was ready to stand down -- just momentarily distracted.

A moment might be enough.

[unborn_renegade]

A moment was enough to leave Jak severely bewildered, caught between two or three things all at once. The energy pouring off him died down, like someone had turned off a switch.

He paused in place, wavering, his skin flickering pink, then white, then pink again. "...Jono...?"

[furnaceface]

//Jak.// A beat. //Gel with the glowy sword-thing.//

He'd get around to learning the names of people once he was certain that they weren't going to chop one another into messy bits.

//Please don't kill one another. It'd send my day straight to hell, yer know?//

If he sounded a little like he was begging, what of it? The fire that was creeping up around him tinted to a mellow shade of blue, and he pointed between them. //Gel. Boy. No... monkeys or little horses or whatever th'hell yer seein', here. Now stop acting like complete bloody lunatics, th'both of yer, and get yer arses indoors out of this fog like sensible people before I grab yer both by th'ears and march yer inside myself.//

[weetuskenraider]

Well, she'd arguably been a complete bloody lunatic for a while . . .

It wasn't working as well as usual, but Tahiri tried a basic Jedi technique to clear her mind. "You're sure," she began, darting an uncertain look back toward Jak. She still thought he might be something else, but it was getting harder to tell, and maybe getting in out of the fog would help.