Ask Reluctant Duos

[Oren Zapan]

Oren felt his heart skip at the mention of a map, it seemed that the night had taken a turn for the better finally, and the two of them needed all the luck they could get. The Jedi Master would slowly push himself through the pitch black darkness of the vents, it was a disturbing feeling to know that the claustrophobic thin layer of metal that they were in, was most likely the safest place in the whole factory. Unless, they have one of those crawler things like from that movie.. He shuttered at such thoughts and pushed them away from his mind.

It seemed that the noise that filled the halls, had slowly began to quiet, but a rampant stench of death and decay began to fill the nostrils and the shaft. Oren would close his eyes as he forced himself forward with some reluctance. "I haven't smelled a stench like this.." he'd cough and gag as he neared the vent that lead into the bathroom, "..since the time Nara crashed my ship into the backwater muck on Ajan Kloss.." He'd form a soft smiled on his burned face, hoping that it would reassure the officer, but deep down he knew he needed it just as much.

He would pull the vent up with his mechanical hand, causing the metal to groan as it was pushed to the side, a steamy warm smell of death would rush up the vent, nearly smoking them out. Before Oren's lone eye would lay a mountain of dead bodies and limbs strewn about the room, brown blood smeared across the floors and walls as the light in the room flickered. Chaos, yet harmony. He would tell himself, as he slowly readied himself to descent.

Something didn't feel right, and as the man's feet stepped onto the bloated corpses that laid on top of the bathroom, the pile would slowly begin to rumble, as a bubbling sound of a groan would begin to radiate from within the pile. Oren would quickly jump to the side as bodies began to tumble and fall, revealing a heavily deformed gamorrean, whose face was swollen with tumors and leaking bile. "Trys, be careful!" He'd ignite his blade, as the creature pulled itself up, and let out a gurgling cough which sent a thick bile towards the Jedi Master, he'd jump to the side, though a bit of it would hit his synth hide jacket, with a scorching sizzling burn. He winced as he felt it begin to eat through the jacket, and instinctively he would begin to pull his jacket off. Kriffing hell, my saber can't deflect these shots.. He would look around the room, yanking a bathroom stall door from the hinges and would use it to shield the Officer's descent from the shaft. "Do you have a lethal blast on that gun?"

tag: @Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

The smell was almost overwhelming as Oren pried the vent open. She grimaced and looked down after he descended. She could already see the pile of bodies, “Oh kriff me…” She groaned in frustration before she prepared to lower down. Trys heard an audible squelch as Oren stepped down on some bloated bodies.

However, that was when there was a ripple of movements and her eyes widened. Within moments, something ascended from the pile and sent a blast of bile towards Oren. Trys already had her gun pointed, but she had no clear shot from here. Once Oren blocked off the creature for a moment, she quickly hopped down and ignored the nasty burst of flesh under her feet.

“What the kriff is that?!?” She hissed as she quickly rushed to stand next to Oren, “And no, it’s stun only…” Trys groaned in frustration, always hating how worthless the damn gun was becoming. She shook her head, “I’ll….distract it, you need to try and get behind it and use your saber.”

Trys thought about using the stall door, but she needed to be agile. She jumped out from behind the door, egging the creature on. The bloated monster wobbled on its feet and gave out a loud gurgle before barreling towards her. Trys watched it lean back slightly as it did so, working up another pile of acid to spit. She was standing in front of the opposite wall.

Last minute, she jumped out of the way and started running in the opposite direction, barely missing a spew of projectile acid. She hoped it would give Oren an opening to rush in and attack it from behind.

 

[Oren Zapan]

Just our luck..that thing looks deadly as all get up. His eye shifted towards Trys, who offered up a distraction, ready to protest it as a stupid action, but knew there wasn't any time, and Trys had already jumped out from behind cover and began to beckon the clump of flesh her way. Oren would drop the bathroom door with the force, and dashed out from the other side of the door--blade in hand.

As the oozing zombie arched back to prepare a shot, the Jedi master would flick his wrist, igniting the blade as he dashed parallel to its back. With a quick and effective motion he'd slash his blade towards the creature's neck, tearing through the flesh, which sent a yellow oozing vile to begin to spill from the neck. He'd slide along the blood, nearly tripping as he turned back to see if the creature was dead. He could see the body begin to pulse and a gurgling sound began to fill the stomach of the beast. "It's about to explode, get down!"

He would dive into the pile of meat flesh, and he felt the bloated meat of the corpses ooze and creek as he crashed down, his hand's reaching to cover the back of his neck and head. He heard what sound like a burst, and the sound of flesh splash across the bathroom. parts of the bile rained onto his back with a sizzling burn, as tiny holes began to rip through the back of his shirt.

Once he felt it was safe, the Jedi Master would pull himself up from the rotting flesh, with a grunt of annoyance. His once pristine shirt was now covered in innards and bodily waste, and his back was burning from whatever the force that monster was. "You alright?" He'd ask with a heavy breath.

tag: @Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Explode?! Trys saw the beast beginning to bulge and pulsate strangely and she grimaced. She remained on the move, using her run to propel herself to drop to the ground on her back. She grabbed onto the bottom of a stall door and pushed herself into the stall, the blood on the floor easing her movements horrifyingly…

She heard the explosion and could smell the stench even from here. Everything went silent and she rose to her feet, opening the stall door to take in sight of the grizzly aftermath. Trys spotted a moving lump and saw Oren pulling himself up. He was a complete mess and had acid holes in his clothing. Trys walked towards him with a grimace.

“I should be asking you that,” She grumbled, reaching over with her gun to push a bit of intestine off his shoulder. Trys looked over at the mess, shaking her head, “There’s no way we haven’t caught some sort of disease from all this…” She had zombie blood all over her back and she was inhaling all of this in.

Trys looked over at the pile of bodies and noticed they were all stacked against a section of the wall. With a groan she walked towards it, “I think I found our exit,” She said, preparing to move the bodies. However, she paused then, turning to him and quirking an eyebrow, “Wait, can’t you use your magic to move the bodies out of the way so we don’t have to touch anything?”

She hoped against hope he could, and once he did it, it would reveal a hole in the wall that led to the sewers.

@TWD26

 

[Oren Zapan]

Oren wasn't quite positive on who looked worse, sure he had a few bits of the creature's large intestines on his shoulder, but Oren was pretty sure he saw bits of the thing's liver on her chin, or maybe the force was playing tricks on him. His eye would peer towards the barrel of the blaster, as she pushed a few bits off of him.

Awkwardly, the Jedi would wipe at his own chin a few times with a slight smirk, "Maybe we'll end up like zombies..kind of like the characters in that film," he'd pause as he tilted his head for a moment, "You know, I actually never did see the end of that..I hope it was happy." Sure, he was a Jedi everything had to have a happy ending right?

He'd peer towards the clump of bodies, in all of the chaos he hadn't stopped to think about it before, it did seem they were covering something up. "It's not magic, it's called the force." He'd moan playfully, "It's inside of you, though not everyone can use it..I think the galaxy realized you'd be too overpowered if they gave you the ability to use it."

He would raise his hands, as his eyes closed. Slowly the bodies would begin to push to the side, though the sound of their flesh would squirm as their bodies began to slide. "Ladies first." He'd say as the two of them would depart back into the familiar sewer system. He'd turn back, as he peered towards the large gaping hole. He would begin to pull a few of the concrete slabs that had caved in, floating them in the air and placing them against the hole. It wouldn't do the best job to prevent anything from escaping, but it would be better than nothing. "We need someone to blow this facility up, and we need to figure out how big this thing really is."

tag: @Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys saw him wipe his chin off a few times and she took it as a subtle hint to do the same. What came off made her almost gag, and she realized she wasn’t as unscathed as she thought. Trys tried not to think about what it was, pondering his words about the movie. She scowled at the bodies, “Tell you what. We make it out of here alive, we can watch that damn movie. Pretty sure my son has it on his illegal cloud drive he thinks I don’t know about,” Trys grumbled quietly.

She rolled her eyes when he explained it was called the Force. She cut him off when he began to explain how it was inside of her, “As disturbing as that sounds, let me stop you there. I don’t want to think about some weird heebie jeebie magic all up in my business.”

Trys stepped through the hole and found herself oddly relieved to be back in the sewers. The smell in the sewers was actually pleasant compared to the bathroom hell, and she switched her comlink on to make her way through. Trys nodded at his words, “I want to call in a damn airstrike to wipe this place from the map. That’s what it really needs,” She sighed, though she knew that wouldn’t be possible.

“We can’t let this get out to the media or anything yet. It’ll cause galactic wide panic,” For how horrific this was, it needed to be handled delicately.

@TWD26

 

[Oren Zapan]

Oren contemplated the news of the disease breaking out across the galaxy, with the problems with the red sabers in the galaxy, the galaxy was already on edge, and a virus would cause more of a divide than they really needed at this point. But, this factory would be a problem, the whole place had been infected, and someone would be bound to come looking around the place eventually.

"Are you able to secure a warrant? Using the Stuff we caught on Lee as a way to quarantine that place off?" If they could manage to tape the place off, it could buy them sometime. "We'll need to download the data on that datapad and figure out everything that was on it. This, could be bad..really bad."

He'd take one last look towards the building before turning back to join Trys, "What's a cloud drive?" He'd ask with some curiosity, it seemed the old Oren was slowly coming back as they got away from that horrid place.

tag: @Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys thought about his idea and had to admit it was sound, “Yeah I can probably swing that,” She turned to him to grin, “Look at you, sounding like a freshly minted Ranger,” Trys reached a hand over to pat him on the back and regretted it immediately, getting some viscera on it. She promptly wiped it off on his arm and withdrew her hand back, grimacing to herself.

“Not could be, it really is bad,” She explained as she thought about the datapad, “I managed to skim through some of it while we were in the vents. There are threads connecting this to worlds in the Inner Rim and Deep Core. Metropolitan targets,” Trys thought about the potential repercussions, “If this gets released out into a congested planet, it could be catastrophic.”

She was distracted from her thoughts when he asked what a cloud drive was. Trys sighed and began to explain, which led to more rambling about how terminals worked. She started to get into slicing when she could begin to see the stairs that led back up the path they came from.

“Well look at that,” Trys said, her eyes widening, “We’re coming out alive!”

 

[Oren Zapan]

All this talk about technology, with slicing, terminals, how the holonet worked, it was all so dense. Whenever he had a problem he would make Nara type it up for him on the holonet, or he would have the librarian on Ajan Kloss troubleshoot and pull up the files for him to read. He appreciated Try's attempt to teach him, but he suspected that he was beyond the age to learn such things now.

The two of them had been through the ringer, they smelled like and looked like kriff, but they survived and so would the galaxy--hopefully. "I need a drink," he'd groan, as he sniffed his shirt, "And a few showers..." He'd yawn as he stretched his arms out into the air, "I think I'm going to grab a shower, and grab a few bottles of wine." A wide grin would form on his lips, "Let me go do that, and then how about you hyperconnect into the flux-capacitor on the remote terminal station and boot up this movie, and we see how it compares to the real deal?" The last thing he wanted to do was get back to the temple anytime soon.

tag: @Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys was more than surprised when he actually brought up seeing that stupid movie. She was about to point out that she wasn’t serious, but she glanced back the way they came and all the shit they had been through. They were both covered in viscera, grime and he was peppered with acid on his clothes. Trys smiled then, “All right, come by my shitty rental ship,” She gave him the location, shaking her head at his complete jargon use.

--​

Accessing her son’s drive was actually more complicated than she expected. She caught several things in there that she wasn’t too thrilled about, but she knew she couldn’t exactly breach his privacy. Trys turned a blind eye to the questionable content and found the zombie movie in question. It was older, and the graphics were almost comical at this point, but it was a classic.

She popped back on the couch in the main compartment of the crappy ship, hooking up the datapad to the Holoscreen to project it. Trys had also ordered some takeout in the form of some extremely unhealthy bantha burger sliders that were extra greasy. But they were really kriffing good and infamous galaxy wide.

In case Jedi ate like rabbits, she got a bag of carrots for Oren and would happily eat all the sliders herself. Trys was thrilled to have showered and was now in more comfortable attire, popping a few fries into her mouth as she waited for him. In the meantime, she entertained herself by watching old school movie trailers that never ceased to amaze.


@TWD26

 

[Oren Zapan]

Oren wasn't quite sure if he should feel bad for relaxing after everything they just went through, but the bags under his eyes, and the shadow forming on his cheeks were just a sign that he hadn't taken a chance to breath yet. He had a trip planned for Rishi within the coming days, and he was ready to sulk it off and spend the time drunk on the beach. Maybe, I'll invite Nashyr, heh..if she even remembers who the kriff I am. He'd splash a bit of water against his face, as he took one last look with a soft smile, he wore a simple black undershirt and a pair of grey utility pants which had been tucked neatly into a pair of black boots. I don't think she cares about fancy, I guess we'll see..

He'd quickly sling his bag over his shoulders, the bottles of wine clanking within the bag, as he picked up a warm box of Astro Pizza, Nara said that her and all the other padawans raved about it, so it had to be good. It would only take him a few minutes to find the old beat down ship, he'd step up the ramp, making sure to close the door before he entered, pizza in hand and booze in bag. He could hear the sound of explosions and dramatic voices echoing through main area of the ship, and would find Trys relaxing against the couch, as food was placed out along a small table--ah Kriff...I shouldn't have brought food, the markings on his face would glow a gentle red as he made himself known.

"I didn't take you for the weight watching type," he'd point out towards the carrots on the table, a gentle smirk on his face. He'd quickly slide the sheet pizza down on the remaining room on the table, "Yeah I know it's overkill, but after that kriff...I'm hungry." He'd peer towards the holo projector, with a nod--still standing there, ready to watch the movie--totally unaware of how awkward he had to look.

tag: @Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys didn’t react too much when he walked in, and she continued to munch on her fries. When he mentioned weight watchers, she quirked an eyebrow, “You calling me fat?” Trys mock scowled at him and paused to make him uncomfortable before glancing over to the carrots, “Oh, these are for you. I didn’t know if you tree huggers only ate leaves or something,” She flashed him a grin before scooting over to make room for him. She then pointed to the infamous little burgers, inviting him to help himself if he wanted.

She was thankful for the booze, pouring herself some wine as she turned the movie on. It began with an over the top intro with spooky music and theatrical screams. Trys shook her head, helping herself to a slider, “When’s the last time you sat and watched a horror flick?” Trys couldn’t even remember the last time she had.

The drinks were a nice addition as they allowed her to loosen up a bit more and not think about the horrifying experience they just had. The zombies in this movie were slow moving, and she shook her head as she saw them move at a glacial pace, “See now that we could’ve worked with. I could have gotten the info on the datapad, taken a nap and walked out by the time those kriffers reached us from the level below.”

@TWD26

 

[Oren Zapan]

Oren would peer towards Trys as she munched down on some fries, his eye shifting towards the fries and back to her with a shrug, "You're the one munching down on those fries like a Jerba in heat," he'd say as he plumped down into the seat beside the woman. He'd use his left hand to call one of the little burgers off the plate and into his hand. "I know I'm in good shape, and all, but carrots don't scream movie night..." He'd munch into the burger a bit, Who the kriff are you fooling you've never watched a movie.

He'd rest back against the couch as he poured himself a bit of wine, watching the screen with wide eyes. The graphics seemed amazing and nearly life like, "How are they allowed to make movies look...this real?" He'd ask as he pointed towards the screen, "You can like..see their teeth and everything, and the blood..It looks real!" He'd say with some excitement. It was clear he hadn't seen a movie ever if he thought this was the pinnacle of cinema.

"Nara always said sequels upped the stakes, maybe that's what we experienced back there," he'd chuckle as he watched the film, "You uh...kicked ass out there today." He'd quickly bring his drink towards his lips, to hide his awkwardness at the compliment.

tag: @Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

“Um, have you tried these fries?” She shoved one of the bags over to him. They were objectively irresistible and just the right amount of salt, which was hard to master. Trys was into her second slider when she heard some of the commentary he was making. Her jaw dropped and she was convinced he was joking. However, as he kept going, she realized he was actually serious.

“What?” She said, dumbfounded, “That blood literally looks like ketchup,” Trys was fascinated and turned to look at Oren instead of the movie, “Holy shit, have you never actually watched movies?” She thought he had been joking about no real Holomovies at the temple. He was as enthralled by this as a little kid boy seeing an R rated flick for the first time.

She took another drink and shook her head, wondering what other normal people things he was entirely clueless about. Was Talak the same way? If he was, he definitely managed to cover it up so far. Trys grinned at his compliment, “I normally kick ass, but I’ll be honest,” She had a more serious look on her face then, “I was genuinely afraid out there. Doesn’t happen to me very often,” Trys also didn’t often admit that, “But I’m glad I had you and your magic,” She knew he didn’t want it called that, so she enunciated it more, “I thought this community service thing was going to be awful, but you get scared shitless too, so I feel better.”

Trys grinned as she looked back at the movie. This was where it got to the group out in the woods. Instead of sticking together, they made the decision to split up, as was often the case in these movies. She looked over to see what opinions Oren had on their decision making, as he was taking all of this very seriously.


@TWD26

 

[Oren Zapan]

Oren took the greasy bag, peering down towards the fries, he hadn't seen them before, at least not in the temple cafeteria. He could smell the salt and what seemed to be a potato. He'd pull his mechanical hand into the bag, pulling a whole handful of fries which he brought to his mouth--chomping down for a bit.

"Woah..where can you get these things?" He'd chuckle, "I think I could eat the whole bag!" His eye would quickly divert back to the screen as he heard screams, as he saw the comedic character slowly getting torn apart--a small frown forming on his face. It seemed he was taking it personally, or well rather that he was heavily invested in the film.

"Aww..I liked that kid, he was hillarious," he'd shake his head, "Why did blondie here have to recommend they split up? What kind of kriffin' plan is that...like, could you think of us splitting up back there? No..kriffin'...way." His face flushed red a bit, as he listened to her speak.

"I was nervous as well, it's just..well I didn't think seeing such a thing was possible, and it just left me shaken, knowing that those people went in there not knowing they'd end up like that..It's just disturbing to know that this is out here, on top of the Red Sabers. I'm just nervous for the galaxy, I think things are going to get a lot worse here before they get better." He paused, realizing that she probably didn't want to hear all of that.

"I uh..well there are movies at the temple," he'd change the subject, "I just didn't bother to watch them, I uh..well I just trained all the time."

tag: @Sreeya