lucetilogs | Sometimes a man goes to slay his demons

Sometimes a man goes to slay his demons

Who: Trafalgar Law, Itachi Uchiha, Adele LeBlanc, Gai Tsutsugami, others
What: The fallout from a failed(?) kidnapping
When: 28th of January ongoing
Where: House 22 moving to the Battle Dome
Summary: For every victory a price must be paid, and sometimes the currency is in blood. It’s an arrangement Law’s long accepted; one can’t move ahead without sacrifice after all. But in winning this battle, the cost might not fall on him alone.
Rating: Mature

One of them had hung back.

The world greyed, tunnelled in, and consciousness collapsed, thoughts spiralling down, down, down. One of them had hung back, while the rest had come… come… co…m…e…

Sway. Sway. There is soft moaning. Where is it? Him? Is he making sounds? He should be silent.

Sway. Sway. There is fire on him. Where is it? Fire on his back. His wing. There is fire but no flames. Torn clothing, mangled flesh. Feathers. B-L-O-O-D.

Pain. Blood. Sometimes his vision goes red. His body is… crunchy sometimes, swollen other places, under his careful fingers. Trauma. Broken ribs. Internal bleeding. Down, down, down - look down. Darts in thigh. Shiny.

His head hurts.

Concussion. DRUGGED.

One of them had hung back while the rest had come. Why, why, why? Could it have been scared? No… droid. Sleek droid. Shiny and new. Droids don’t feel fear. It had watched. But it had a brain. Do droids with brains feel fear?

Something hit him. His thigh. Fight we...nt… bad then… can’t think. "… help."

Help.

Very bad. Can’t… THINK. CAN’T REMEMBER. Lightning, parts flying… all smeared and twisted… CAN’T REMEMBER. Grappling. Fabric tearing. Wings exposed.

Agony and the world breaking.

He broke the world. He broke it and the droid left.

All wrong.

Wrong.

T-E-S-T?

(for whom?)

Maybe. Bad.

He doesn’t know.

He broke the world… the forest --- didn’t he? Where was he? This was his house. His front door. Did he walk?

Knock, knock.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey.

[Gingerly pushing himself up.]

Come in.

[Luke opens the door and steps inside]

Good to see you awake, my friend. How's your back?

[Because saying wing still sounds weird.]

Edited 2013-01-31 01:28 (UTC)

Sore... but... [And he slowly flares out the black and gold wings that few have ever seen. He was told one was amputated. Yet here it is regrown. Not a phenomenon he's unfamiliar with but still strange.] well on the mend.

Good. I was a worried.

[Luke takes a few steps over to the bed and takes a seat.]

No bad dreams, I hope. I was here daily.

Uh uh. [He doesn't remember really dreaming anything. Just the vaguest of recollections of spending a week in feverish agony.] I don't think I did have any nightmares.

Thanks.

Of course. Thought you might need it.

[He leans forward in his seat.]

Law, what happened?

Droids.

[He makes an unhappy sound deep in his throat. He won. But was it really a win? Previous experience, of the droids returning in force to take him, despite having people, an entire band of powerful people, and then...

He told Luke this part. He does not want to revisit it. There's a part of himself that is insistent that he should have been dragged from his bed.

And what he remembers of events leading up to and during the fight is deeply suspicious. And worse, he doubts himself - rightly so, perhaps. Concussion. Drugged. Who knows what is true. Except for that feeling, deep in his bones, that what he recalls is probably how it was.]

I don't remember much. Just fragments. I was deep in the forest training, when I was approached by droids. One was... different. New. It hung back while the others closed in to subdue me.

[Which isn't the end of the story. But the next part of the tale is all too easy to imagine.]

[Luke listens in uncomfortable silence. He knows what Law's thinking, it's on his mind too. He remembers the story. And his own experiences with droids last summer.

He shakes his head and folds his hands across his chest, a compassionate look forming in his eyes. Law's disquiet was tangible and palpable, it didn't leave much to the imagination. And the Jedi was not sure he really wanted to know more. Times like this, he hated being able to read emotions and sensations, that extra sense in the Force that he just couldn't switch off.

Because frankly, there were times he just wanted to know his friends were alright.]

Well. You're here now.

I'm here now. I won.

[Flat. He continues speaking... giving voice to the ugly images flashing through his mind.]

The new droid never engaged me. It just watched. Something hit me in the leg. I think I was drugged then. [Shrug.] I don't know. Things just got bad then. The fight ended up in hand to hand combat. [Grappling. Clothes tearing to reveal wings hidden for exactly the reason he was in a bed writhing in agony for a week.] Not my best area.

After... we ended up staring at each other. [It's a startling clear image amid all the muddle. Staring into the abyss of electronic eyes. The abyss staring back. Wondering, inconceivably, if the abyss was feeling as much fear in that organic brain housed in that metallic shell.] It could have easily taken me - I was a mess and you've heard the tales or maybe seen what the new ones can do.

... instead, [He shakes his head and looks away.] it just left.

I won.

[Luke leaned forward, studying Law's words and emotions intently. The Force helped give him a slightly clearer picture of what Law had experienced. The chaos of a tumble, pain, groggy images.

And those eyes. Luke isn't really bothered by them, given his own affinity for droids. He found some of them more reasonable than people. And some, like Artoo and Threepio, were all but family. But he could easily grasp how unnerving it might be to someone from a world like Law's. The odd thing about it all was the fact that they weren't droids at all, even he knew that. They were cyborgs. Enteched, in a way, like Ssiruuk war droids. Familiar foes.]

I gave up on trying to understand their motivations a long time ago. Maybe that was what they wanted, all along.

[... not so unfamiliar.

Pacifista.

Pirate killers.

But there was truth in that, if Law knew Luke's thoughts. Droids might be helpful companions in Luke's world, but they were terminators in his. Both fully mechanical and cybernetic cousins.]

Maybe. It could be.

Maybe it wasn't about me after all.

Who knows.

Edited 2013-02-02 06:32 (UTC)

Perhaps not.

[Luke rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking.]

Likely not. If you weren't taken.

In all probability, the goal was to send a message.

What kind of message do you think they were sending?

[He has his ideas if it was a message. He wonders if they match up with Luke's.]

It was likely aimed to remind us that even if we can beat their regular droids, they can overwhelm us.

Or equally likely, to show that none of us are are safe.

That's what Palpatine would do.

Well... they've accomplished sending it, even if that wasn't their true objective in this.

Do you have other ideas about what they might've been trying?

Perhaps they were testing something.

[He has ideas about that as well.]

The sabotage, you think?

[A logical conclusion]

[Slow nodding. He thinks it's possible.]

Yea. I agree.

If it is that, then it was only a matter of time before they caught on.

[If the droids that attacked him were sabotaged or not, he can't tell. The fight and the result could be used to argue both sides.

He just can't remember the specifics, and what he does remember, is again, very smeared. No way to tell. Either they were sabotaged or he has grown too powerful to be easily subdued if at all with the amount of regular droids sent.]

True enough. For you or I to take on droids in packs is one thing.

If someone like Adele were too, however, they'd know something was up.

[He smiles ruefully. A sad truth.]

How long are you in for?

At least two weeks is the thought right now. It could change for better or worse.

Pretty lucky all things considered.

Yea, that is good luck.

Two weeks isn't too bad, though. Better than the last time I was in here.

[Nodding] Yes, I remember.

February 5th.

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