Escape from Palpatraz

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Oh, I fully expect our entire route to be closed, after this," Hal replied with a carefree shrug. "They don't know I have the chit, yet, but they will, and I'm prepared for that."

His stride remained casual as he maneuvered through the tight confines of the access tunnel, possessing a vague memory of where to go, though he could see much had been changed. Had things not changed in over a hundred years, Coruscant would either be a miracle of engineering, or home of the laziest technicians and servicemen in the galaxy. "Not that way," he minded Onika as she peered down a side tunnel they passed. "That goes to the water reclamation channel. And not the nice, clean water, either."

The Nehantite continued to lead, taking Onika well beyond the perimeter, through twists and turns in the access tunnels, even heading down a level via a service ladder, before coming to an unfamiliar forking path. There he stood, eyeing each direction as if attempting to recall some tidbit of information that would tell him which way to go, or spark some memory of the correct path. For some time, only his tail flicked, growing uneasy before Hal eased down to one knee, placing his right palm on the floor in front of the fork, and closed his eyes.

From his paw, he directed a pulse of energy through the Force, into the floor and surrounding walls. It raced forward, rippling over every surface before him at breakneck speed, and in his mind's eye he watched, mapping everything as he reached out further and further down each channel, studying the twists, turns, and doorways as he registered their molecular structures. At last his eyes snapped open, and his pulse of energy ceased as he stood up, dusting off his paw upon his thigh before picking the doorway to the right. "This one," he announced, and set off without giving Onika a chance to argue.

[Onika Zepparah]

It had been a joke. Funny how something like intent could be determined retrospectively. If they ended up caught, then Onika will have been coming out of adolescent curiosity, or maybe just to keep an eye on the troublemaker the Knights obviously had singled out for special surveillance. If they didn't, and she spotted a lane to cut and run, well...

She'd been considering the water line. Really considering. It was the fastest way to the underlevels where there would actually be access underneath the skylanes to the next district. Yes, it would be disgusting, and her uniform would be only fit to burn afterward, but she'd have to do that anyway, right? But she pulled away and let Kyle continue to lead her wherever he was heading. He seemed to know these tunnels well. Surprisingly well, actually. It wasn't like he was recalling blueprints, but like he remembered being here. But that wasn't possible, was it?

And then he knelt to the floor, apparently stumped. Onika folded her arms, another smirk on her lips. Like this choice even mattered - either way was away from the Citadel. What was he gonna do, put his ear to the ground to listen for a hovertrain?

No, that wasn't what he was doing. It was... something Force-y. Onika narrowed her eyes, focusing in with her second sight, curious what she'd--

A starburst of bright green exploded from Kyle's paw through the floor, through the walls, through her, and she swore she saw every surface ripple like a pool disturbed by a stone. She clutched at her stomach, half-expecting it to be turned to mint jello, then spun around to watch the wave race down the corridor they'd just come. She felt stunned, her senses buzzing, as if she'd been peering through a telescope at a flashbang, or straining to listen to a firecracker. She almost didn't notice when Kyle started down the right path.

She stumbled after him, still feeling a little less than solid. "What did you do?!" she hissed. "Are you crazy? They probably saw that green flash all the way back to the Citadel!"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Huh?" Hal turned and shot a curious, yet suspicious look at Onika, his brow crimped. "Green flash? What green flash?" He then glanced around, closing his left eye to see only with his right, in case there was color somewhere his left one had missed.

"I asked the hallways where they went, and they told me. That's all," he replied with a shrug, as if it were nothing. "What the heck did you think I was doing?"

[Onika Zepparah]

Onika shook her head, incredulous. "Come on, don't tell me you didn't see it! It was like, blinding bright green. Big pulse from your hand, went everywhere. I saw it before, on the door out of the library, but it was nothing like that. I mean, if I could see that, I'm sure the Knights..."

She trailed off. He was staring at her as if she'd sprouted pink fur and started speaking Shyriiwook, and it was making her uncomfortable.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Blinding bright green?" Hal asked, thoroughly nonplussed. "And you saw it on the door? You can... literally see the Force?"

In an unusual circumstance, it was a first for Hal. Even in his searches of old and obscure Force technique, he'd never heard of anyone visually seeing a Force effect. Sensing, sure, but seeing? That was some new shit, and Hal didn't know if he was comfortable with it.

Still, it needed to be tested. Taking a deep breath, Hal attempted a skill he'd been working on which wasn't related to his telekinesis, just in case he could only see the residual effects of that ability. Instead he focused strength into his paws, ready to clench them into fists. If he were doing it correctly, he could punch a hearty dent into the durasteel plate paneling alongside the wall, but he kept himself still for now.

"If you can see it, what am I doing now?" he asked, suddenly unsure if it was wise to continue associating with Onika, lest he be found out.

[Onika Zepparah]

Onika's first impulse was to step back, as if from a snarling massif, though she didn't really know why. Kyle's fists and forearms were coated in shimmering green, very close to his fur, like some sort of protective gloves, and at first she thought that was the extent of it. And then she squinted and saw the green wrapping itself around his muscles, his tendons, and his bones. Her stomach twisted when she saw his muscles shift beneath his skin.

"I don't... I don't know what I'm looking at," she confessed. "It's in your arms. Uh, your muscles and bones. What, does it make you stronger? Protects you? Can the Force do that?"

Then it dawned on her, and her face paled. "Wait, you're saying you don't see that?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Raising his paws for a good look at them, attempting to focus hard enough to see... anything other than his paws, but that was all he could see. Allowing his focus to fade, he could feel the Force leave him as he dropped his arms once more, shaking his head. "Nope, I got nothing," he shrugged.

"Do you, like, always see the Force in use? Like, say, even in training and stuff, with the other cadets?"

A thought dawned on him, and he dared to use a skill he knew that neither of them were going to enjoy terribly much. Focusing, he allowed his next words to be projected by thought instead of his muzzle, telepathically focusing upon Onika with a brief message which should only cause the mildest of headaches.

"What do you see now?"

[Onika Zepparah]

A green haze closed in around the edges of Onika's vision, and she winced and rubbed at one temple. "Gah. Thought you weren't supposed to do that? I see..."

Her vision cleared, and she stopped, regarding the Nehantite with suspicion. Old walls slammed back down into place.

"I'll answer your questions if you answer mine," she said. "Where'd you learn how to do that?" She pointed at the floor behind them, the spot where he'd pinged the whole tunnel system.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Nar Shadda," Hal replied without hesitation. "From my old master, Abin Sur. Basically you just connect with a place, and ask it where it goes. Ask the right way and it'll answer you."

The Nehantite knew most of the tricks in his bag relied on interesting applications of his telekinetic abilities, but in order to mask his mastery of such things among the Knights, he had developed lies to cover for them. Onika simply managed to ask about one skill he had a ready-made answer for.

Reaching up to rub his head where it still ached, he then chuckled, "And, I'm not supposed to do telepathy. Heh, big difference between that and not being supposed to be able to do it."

[Onika Zepparah]

Even before he finished speaking, Onika was shaking her head. "That's not what it looked like to me," she said. "I saw a wave. Like ripples in a pool. It moved through everything, even me."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Of course it moved through everything," Hal snorted. "That's the Force. It's a non-physical energy, moves kind of like neutrinos. Passes through solid matter. It's in everything, so when I pinged, it all answered. I know that's kind of weird to wrap your head around. I know it took me a while to get it, but that's how it works. That's how you and I can do what we do; because we have access to that power."

He took a step forward, towards her, as he continued. "Of course, there are different ways to use it. I was trained in the light side. You ask, rather than command. That way, if you can convince the Force that you are just, the power it returns you is amplified. Through the dark side you demand, and you burn through the Force against its will, exerting your dominance over it. That can give you power as well, though it takes a toll on you. Look at Alexia, for example. I dunno about you, but I like keeping my boyish good looks, so I stick to the happy friendly rainbows and unicorns light side approach."

[Onika Zepparah]

Kyle's explanation still didn't ring true... about half of it, sure, and the rest clashed with her own perceptions. But then, apparently those perceptions were a lot different from Kyle's. Maybe even unique? Onika had no idea. This wasn't just learning a new language, it was like learning for the first time that language exists.

She opened her mouth to ask more, when she realized her quid was looking paltry next to Kyle's pro quo.

"I don't see it all the time," she confessed. "Usually just when I'm focused on it. I see it in class if I pay attention. Everybody has a different color. Except me. I can't see my own, uh... Force. Weird, huh?"

Slowly she fell back into pace next to him. "So what was it like? Learning from a Jedi? Was he super-religious on you?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Nah," Hal shook his head. The conversation turned at that point as if it had been about little more than the weather, nothing truly important at all, and his casual, jovial self emerged once more. "It's not actually a religion, you know. It's more like... a set of life values? Not that I would have changed religions, anyhow," he shrugged. "I believe in Garfife, after all. He created all things, and eventually created Nehantites. I see the Force as His power that He allows me to access. That's why I ask for things instead of demanding them. I don't want to know what would happen if I demanded things from an almighty god, after all. Oh, we take a right, here."

He angled down a side corridor, then continued his rambling. "He didn't make us perfect, of course. Lots of problems with us Nehantites, but that's just a challenge to overcome, y'know? Kind of like being here, in the cadet program. It's not perfect, but it's a challenge. Gotta keep trying, push yourself, and adapt to overcome. The fact that we get these super-sexy uniforms for free is just a bonus."

[Onika Zepparah]

Onika was fairly certain she wasn't even a little bit religious. Her mother burned incense for the Twi'lek goddess every night, for all the good that did her, and her father's household, though secular, held the Empire in such high esteem it might as well have been a religion. Onika had never seen a point to devoting herself body and soul to something so vast and incomprehensible when it couldn't be bothered to help her with her own problems. Of course, now her problems included the vast and incomprehensible Force. She dearly hoped gods weren't next on the list.

"'Not perfect,'" she repeated. "I mean, you get your choice of service or get hunted down like a roach-rat. What's not perfect about that?"

A soon as she'd said it, she bit her tongue. What was happening here? What had happened to staying quietly compliant, not making any waves? Here she was, breaking out of the Citadel with a known troublemaker, just to get lunch with a stolen credit chit, and now she was getting dangerously close to actually speaking her mind!

And yet she was finding she didn't care. Creeping through maintenance tunnels, slipping past security nets... this was the closest she'd felt to home since she'd started at Tarkin Memorial. So what if Kyle really was a mole for the Knights? She wanted... no. She needed a break from all the pretense.

"Did you want to be a Jedi?" she asked, not meeting his eyes. "Or did someone make you do that, too?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

It was a question which stopped Hal in his tracks, hitting him on a deeper level than even he could have anticipated. In all his life, no one had ever asked him that, and over the past few years he had been too consumed with trying to remember what a Jedi should be, to think on whether that's even what he wanted.

His paw came to rest on a pipe strapped to the wall as he considered his answer - not only for the sake of cover, but to determine how he truly felt.

"I didn't really get a choice, no," he replied at last. "I was different, and because I was different, I was told I needed to make something of myself. My master and I didn't always get along. In fact we were at each other's throats fairly often, but we needed each other, so there we were. Until he wasn't there anymore, that is. Then I was on my own, having to take what I'd learned and try to survive. Jedi, Imperial Knight, they're not diametrically opposed. The Knights have a poor view of history, but what they're becoming now is much like how the old Jedi Order used to be. Except fascist. But I can play along as best I can, as long as in the end it helps people."

Hal turned to Onika, honest sadness reflected in his eyes. "That's what we should do. More than following orders, more than some religion or code, we should help. Help those who can't help themselves. Defend those who need it, even if it's from ourselves. I've broken rules, or bent them to the point of breaking when I knew it was better to save a life than take it. I don't want to be an instrument of hate. I'm not one. I stand for hope, and for justice. The Empire does many things wrong, but so did the old Republic. There is no perfect structure, but we, with our abilities, can do more than most to stand up for what is right. Even if we have to do so within the confines of a system we may not thoroughly enjoy."

His shoulders squared as resolve filled his lungs, voice growing firmer as he continued. "I was not meant to be a Jedi, I was made one. I was not meant to be a Knight, but I am one of those as well. Perhaps I am both. Perhaps I am neither. But I do know that I am not someone who wishes to harm another. Knights Vissica and Alexia have both accepted too much of the Dark Side, and it will be their downfall. Knight Baastian and I see things in some similar lights, but disagree on others. Knight Jibral sees things in a different way as well. Just because we are Knights doesn't mean we all have to be the same. I simply hope for more... hope... in the current class of Cadets. The Imperial Knights can be a force for good, provided we maintain a morality which will not allow us to simply be a weapon in the Empire's arsenal."

His pink eyes turned to lock on to Onika's own, as he concluded with, "That's where you and I come in. We must remain ourselves, and not become a part of the soulless machine. And I, for one, choose to maintain my individuality through a nice, juicy nerfburger with cheese, and one is waiting for us just on the other side of an access hatch ahead."

Seriousness melted away with a smile, and the old Kyle Rayner was back, pressing on before mounting a ladder with ease. The hatch above was sealed with a four-piston lock, opened by a specific physical tool from the other side, and Hal did not possess that tool. What he did possess, however, was a means to reach into the unit and spin the lock tumbler, disengaging the piston locks, and granting entry to the free world beyond. Placing his paw upon the hatch, he closed his eyes, located the tumbler, and grumbled, "Open, Sesame!" before it clanked open, and he pushed up.

The warm, fresh air of Coruscant's surface rushed down the hatch and into the tunnel as a welcome breeze, and Hal grinned while squinting against the sudden, bright light of day. There, about forty yards away, gleamed the chrome and neon trim of the diner he had so often spied from his room in the Citadel. Scrambling up out of the hole, he then moved aside and offered his paw down to assist Onika with her exit as well. "Lunch awaits us, madame," he grinned.

[Onika Zepparah]

That was... a whole lot more involved than Onika was expecting. When she'd been in school, Jedi and Sith were just terms from her history textbook, as far removed as the Rakatan Infinite Empire or wooden sailing ships. Joining the Knight-cadets brought them only a little closer, as alternate approaches to harnessing the power that she was just beginning, haltingly, to understand. But she didn't really know what they meant. They were other factions, sure. The enemy, according to the Knights. But what did they want? What was different about them, other than which side of the border they stood on?

Kyle seemed to know, and what was more, he seemed to care. And he hadn't let it go, even now that he was a Knight--

Onika sucked a breath in through her teeth. He'd said he was a Knight. Not Knight-cadet.

But she held her tongue and let him lift her out of the hatch, moving gracefully to keep her pristine white jumpsuit from brushing its filthy edges. The garish, flickering glow of the neon signs ahead and the distant smell of fryer grease set her stomach rumbling again.

"So how long were you with your... um... master?" The word felt dirty on her tongue, given her people's history with slavery. "Sounds like you learned a lot from him."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Relying solely on his own body strength to lift Onika from the hatchway, Hal surprised himself with how much stronger he'd grown since arriving. Yes, he'd been no stranger to the gym, but it was the first time he truly could tell a difference in his own natural ability, not augmented by his predisposition to use the Force.

Tipping the hatch closed with his booted footpaw, he thought for a moment, then replied. "It was about five years or so. Maybe six? We moved around a lot, it's hard to remember. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do, at first, and, heh, I blew up a lot of stuff. You've seen me at telekinesis, right? Seems I haven't gotten much better," he chuckled. In each attempt at TK thus far at the Citadel, Hal had obliterated whatever it was he had been assigned to lift or move, to the point where he was banned from attempting telekinesis any further. "He was a hard man, but I knew he was a good man when he had us step in to protect people, even if it brought danger on us. It's what ended up killing him, and starting me on my own journey."

The explanation had taken them from the hatch to the diner's front door, where Hal scooted ahead to open the door for Onika, as a gentleman should. "Ladies first," he smiled.

[Onika Zepparah]

Onika stiffened, if only for a moment before she reminded herself that some men were simply polite.

Her senses burned from dozens of directions the moment they stepped into the diner. Strictly speaking, aliens weren't an uncommon sight in the Government Sector, but a hybrid was generally an embarrassment to be kept hidden, and something as furry as Kyle was to be kept on leash. Onika acutely felt every single stare, ranging from bemused to disgusted, and she tightened her fists as the air began closing in, thick and cottony.

The handsome chestnut-skinned man at the host station paused at the sight of them, then glanced at their uniforms and smiled brightly. "Good to see you, cadets!" he said. "Table for two?"

The air turned fluid again, and she breathed out in relief. "Yes, please," she said. "Near the jukebox?"

They slid into a booth next to a technicolor display boasting over six million forms of musical entertainment, but more importantly, it was against the back wall and not in easy view through the windows from outside. The waiter, Ando, took their orders - for Onika, a medium rare nerfburger with sauteed mushrooms and onions and crumbles of houjix cheese, and a buiberry milk shake with whipped cream in a tall, frosty glass. In moments she was drawing hard at a thick metal straw, and her efforts were rewarded with a gush of thick, fruity, frozen ambrosia against her tongue.

"Mm. Mmph!" She swallowed, eyes closed, savoring. "Oh gods, that's good."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Hal placed his own order, a medium rare double nerfburger, with cha'dar cheese, tomato, hardwood-smoked bacon, a fried egg, Kashyyk lettuce, grilled onions, Trandoshan pickles, and a slathering of mustard and spiced mayonnaise. His fries were ordered extra crispy, and he passed on the additional whipped cream on his own buiberry shake. While they waited for the shakes to arrive, Hal tested the chitcard on the jukebox, drawing up an old funk favorite, grinning as he sat back down.

"Worth the risk?" he chuckled, then took a hearty pull at his own chilly straw. In a wave of cold, creamy sugar, fat, and fruit, he knew his own answer was an emphatic yes, and he let the magical concoction roll around on his ample, flexible tongue, before leaking back against the creaking, glossy vinylplast covers of the booth's seating. "Oh yes, I have missed you, but daddy is home," he murred to his milkshake.

"Don't go too fast," he then warned Onika as she went in for another pull from her own shake. "This is something to be savored. And, you don't want to get a brain freeze, either."

[Onika Zepparah]

Onika winced even as he warned her. "Don't care," she said. "It's just too good to stop."

But she did about a third of the way in, shivering from a pleasant chill all the way down into her chest, and licking some purple pulp from her lips. Only then did she realize the tension had all gone out of her shoulders. She was leaning forward, elbows on the table, not caring who was looking at her, or who was looking for her, or where she was supposed to be in an hour. She knew it wouldn't last. She just wanted to enjoy it while it did.

There was just one small thing. She should wait, she knew, until the meal was over and paid for. But it was on the front of her mind, and she was done holding in her thoughts.

"Kyle, what do you want from me?"