Alice, Meet Katarn. Welcome to the Dark Side...

[Zach]

Several years ago...

Alice stumbled through the ally, lost and confused. She tried to remember what had happened. The blood, the screaming, the panic, it was all so chaotic. She could barely remember what happened. She knew there were bodies. Four of them. She remembered that it was because of her that there lie still now. She remembered that she'd beaten three grown men to death and strangled the fourth with her broken shackles, just a little girl. She remembered the panic and the fear that she felt when she knew they were going to sell her into the slave trade... And she remembered the fury... The absolute rage and anger she felt towards those men when she broke her hands free from the iron shackles and grabbed a rifle with an illegal-looking extension to the barrel and shoved it into the nearest man's eye. When she'd lunged at the man and gouged her thumb into his other and punched a hole through his neck.

Her memory flashed back and forth between the cargo hold of the smuggler ship and the dark ally she wandered through in the rain. The brownish walls of the cramped room, boxes and weapon racks surrounding her. One man already dead beneath her shaking body, two more watching in horror as another stood in the doorway, his vision blocked by the others. She lunged from the man's bleeding corpse and punched him in the gut, making him buckle over and crumble to the floor. When she kneed him in the stomach as he fell, she put her arm around his neck and squeezed tight, hearing a loud crack and throwing his body into the stack of boxes. Reaching back to the rifle, she pulled it out of the man's eye socket and threw it into the man who stood in the doorway and caused him to fall, kicking out at the nearest smuggler's knee and shattering it at the same time.

She flashed back to the ally way and collapsed, shaking and crying. She couldn't get those faces out of her head, the shackles still dangling from her wrists, now chafing the smooth tender skin. She clutched either side of her head and screamed, remembering how she'd beaten the third man to death with only her fists and wrapped the longest broken end of her shackles around the last man's neck. She felt the twitch of his body as he struggled for breath and stopped completely.

When she'd run from the scene, she didn't know where she was, what city she was in, or even what planet. She just wanted to run. Run from the ship, run from the slavers, run from the corpses that haunted her thoughts. When she'd collapsed in the ally, she hadn't noticed that a hooded figure stood only ten yards away. When Alice looked up into those cold pale eyes, all she knew was fear. Then acceptance. She thought it was Death, come to take her away from this torment, to take away the pain and suffering that engulfed her mind when she'd lost control of her new found strength from the Force and the mental pain that ensued.

As Death seemed to approach, she began to shake, but soon realized that the grey-eyed hooded figure was standing still. In fact, Alice found she was crawling toward her. She could now see the slender curves of a woman, and her crying had lessened to hiccups. Alice clutched the hem of the woman's cloak and opened her mouth to speak, but no words would come. Her vision began to fade, blackness surrounding the alley and woman in front of her. Soon the blackness blended with her cloak and all she could see were her eyes, those cold, grey, emotionless eyes that would haunt her for years. The eyes that would teach her everything she would ever know. She fell to the ground and released the cloak, unconscious and shivering from the cold rain.

 

[Zach]

((Bump due to character approval))

 

[Keinushi]

((actually katarn has no anger in her heart.))

Katarn drew her blade on pure reaction and lit it. The blade flew to the neck of the ruffian before stopped herself. The blade lit the girls face. She had not faired well on this planet. She had probably not had the same connections Katarn had had as an orphan on Corescant. Sheathing her blade she called to the other assassin with her and together they carried her to the ship. They would leave her there till they had finished the task at hand. Returning to the slums they quickly removed the target, a local gangster that had dealings with the bogan in the past but had decided to be less helpful of late. They returned to the ship, the other bogan going to the cockpit to fly them home while Katarn went to wake their guest.

"Welcome to my ship small one," Katarn asked the ruffian as she opened her eyes. "Do you have a name?"

 

[Zach]

Alice awoke with a start and looked up at the cloaked figure, her hood now around her shoulders. The first thing she saw were those grey eyes again, but they looked different. They weren't as empty and cold as she remembered. In a way, they were welcoming. "Alice," she said quietly, curling up and wrapping her arms around her knees. She shook lightly from the cold metal of the ship beneath her, but tried to suppress it. "Where am I? Who are you? I thought I was dead," she said, her eyes darting back and forth, trying to take in her surroundings. Her memory was fuzzy from blacking out, but she remembered the faces of the smugglers all too well. The bloodied, mangled corpses of the men who made her truly feel fear.

 

[Keinushi]

"You are on my ship." Katarn smiled. "I am a ruthless assassin for an evil organization that is currently building an army to take over the galaxy, and your not dead yet."

Katarn turned and got a datapad and scanner off the wall and began to scan the girls vitals. "I see your healing ok, I'm still not good with the healing technique, so I'm glad I did it alright."

She replaced the scanner on the wall. "Now, how would you like to work for me? I have a great dental plan." The joke was to loosen the girls smile, see if there was anything worth salvaging in the poor soul."

 

[Zach]

Alice had little reaction to Katarn's words until she mentioned working for her. Her eyes stopped darting in random directions and settled on those grey eyes again. "A- an assassin?" she asked, her voice shaking. She didn't know what that meant or what she'd have to do, but this woman had taken her in, and she felt relatively safe with her. All she could manage was a nod, but she'd lessened her grip around her knees and let her arms slide down to the floor. Alice looked back up into the woman's eyes when she cracked the joke and her eyes softened a bit at the attempted humor, but refrained from smiling. "What... What's your name?" she asked hesitantly, wondering who she was.

 

[Keinushi]

"My name is Katarn." Katarn smiled. "And don't worry, you won't be doing assassination right away, I'll have to train you first."

 

[Zach]

Alice furrowed her brow, not knowing what it meant to go through training. She wondered what she would be trained for, but put it from her mind for the time being. She nodded and rested her head on her chin. "Thank you," she said softly, before sliding over the metal floor next to Katarn and resting her head against the woman's shoulder. For some reason she couldn't explain, she felt safe around her. She knew on some level that Katarn would look out for her and teach her to be able to look out for herself. Until then, she would do whatever she could for Katarn to show that she could make her proud. "What kind of training?" she asked after a moment of silence.

 

[Keinushi]

Katarn went to a locker on the wall. She pulled from it a 4 ft long rifle, it was in perfect condition and was obviously a new model. "First I'll teach you to operate one of these." Katarn then went through the work need to prep the rifle for fire, throwing a bit of flare in at the right moments to make it look more magical than it really was. She the raised it to her should and looked down the scope. "This is a top of the line rifle. Some would kill just to get their hands on this alone." She then tossed the rifle towards the girl. "You get one for free."

Katarn then turned and closed the door to the locker. "If you do okay with that, I may start teaching you some of the darker arts I know, that is, if you are capable of learning. I'll have to run some tests when we arrive at the temple to see if you can actually learn all I have to offer."

 

[Zach]

Alice watched carefully as Kataran took apart the rifle and put it back together with such grace. She knew her way around a rifle due to her past hunting trips with her father, which she hated. She loved animals, but she had a certain fascination with long ranged weaponry, particularly sniper rifles. She walked over to the locker and took the rifle, propped it against her shoulder, and pulled back the peg, unclipped the magazine, cocked back the shoulder brace of the rifle, slid the barrel of the weapon off the body of the gun and snapped the shoulder to the side of the weapon. "A perfect long range-to-short range weapon transferable in a matter of seconds, most excellent for defending a position after sniping out targets from afar and releasing a burst of ammunition into an enemy force with a lack of cover. The barrel extension can be used more specifically with a triple burst of fire or attaching a silencer. The shoulder brace for longer range targets and an extra layer of padding for the higher recoil of the firepower when it fires," she said professionally, systematically breaking down the rifle into each purpose. She put it back into the locker and went back to where she sat before and looked up at Katarn.

 

[Keinushi]

Katarn blinked, completely shocked. "I seem to have misjudged you." Katarn smiled. "Now do you know what this is?"

Katarn drew her lightsaber from her belt and showed it to the young girl.

 

[Zach]

Alice looked at the slender hilt held in her hand an lowered her head closer to her knees. "That's a lightsaber... she answered quietly, slowly becoming angry. "Two men who came to our house had them when they took my brother away," she told her. Her facial expression did not change, her voice did not falter. For a split second, the thought of an ignited lightsaber, the green and blue glow of them angered her more than she expected it would. She remembered when the man kneeled in front of her brother and activated it to show him what it was. She remembered the anger she felt when he walked out of their home for the last time between the two men and never seeing him again. Lastly, she remembered the hatred she felt for the Jedi, and for a fraction of a second, her face become contorted with a snarl, her nose scrunched up and her eyes narrowed, before returning to the plain face of the innocent, pained little girl she was.

 

[Keinushi]

Her brother was taken away. Probably by the jedi, the bogan never kidnap, we don't need to. Katarn thought to herself. "It is the weapon of the jedi." Katarn's smiled took on a darker glimmer. "But it is also the weapon of the Bogan."

She ignited the blade. A pink tube of plasma appeared between them. "With these we kill the jedi, beating them at their own game."

 

[Zach]

The scowl that crossed Alice's face returned at the mention of the name and she glared at the floor. Jedi... she muttered to herself. She gazed at the reddish glow of the ignited lightsaber and focused on it. Everything around her seemed to not matter anymore, her thoughts filled with the image of the blood-red light of the saber. "It's different," she said, entranced by the light. She stood slowly and approached Katarn, looking down at the blade in awe. "The Jedi do not deserves such a weapon. They should be destroyed by the very tool they carry, a symbol of hope," she said, scoffing at the last part. It was what they told her brother when they'd shown it to him. A symbol of hope. It was a tool for their personal use, a weapon to ensure their power. "The Bogans..." she repeated. "They're right to use it against them," she said, her voice getting angrier, not able to control the emotions she felt for the Jedi.

 

[Keinushi]

"The jedi kidnap children and indoctrinate them into thinking their way is the only way." Katarn smile returned to its normal gleam. "You will find we bogan are more likely to kill you in your sleep, but also more likely to allow you to spread your wings."

 

[Zach]

Alice nodded and smiled lightly when she saw the smile on Katarn's face. Then she realized it was the first time she'd smiled since she left home. "You'll teach me? How to be a Bogan? Like you?" she asked, beginning to think that she might have found what she was looking for since she ran away and stowed away on the smugglers' ship.

 

[Keinushi]

"I can't promise you'll be able to use all the techniques I know, but if your brother was good enough for the jedi to want him, you'll be good enough for the bogan."

 

[Zach]

Alice smiled a little more and looked down to the lightsaber. She narrowed her eyes and put her hand on Katarn's. "I'll make you proud, my master," she said slowly, eyes focused on the glow of the weapon. She decided at that point that for the rest of her life she would make it her duty to fight the Jedi and to serve the Bogans.

 

[Keinushi]

A week later the ship landed at the hidden bogan temple. As the landing ramp lowered Katarn held out her hand to indicate Alice should go down the ramp first. "Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life."

 

[Zach]

Alice watched intently as the ramp lowered, a crack of light seeping into the ship. When Katarn held out her hand, she looked at her and nodded, taking a deep breath. She carefully took a step onto the ramp and hesitated, wondering what would await her at the temple. She walked down the rest of the ramp and stood outside the ship, looking around at her surroundings. The temple was vast and ancient looking. The stone walls towered above her and gave off a kind of aura that she could sense, but only barely. She imagined that the temple was built on top of an area with a strong connection to the Force, but this was only speculation. She'd have to ask Katarn about it later. She turned around back to Katarn and asked with a smile, "When do I start?"