Dominic stood at the edge of the small crowd that had gathered to listen to the man, his hands hidden in his pockets beneath his cloak. With Arai standing by his side, dressed likewise, they looked nothing out of sorts. Just another pair of wandering spacers stuck on Nar Shaddaa.

But when a couple of thugs made some unpleasant comments - and the small gathering caught sight of the blasters they were waving and their drunken gestures - the crowd began to break up. As everyone drifted away, including the thugs, Dominic and Arai stayed, without moving.

"Pauel." Dom called, not doubting that he would be remembered.

NAR SHADDAA, COMMONS

The preacher, recognizing the voice of one of the Truth's most faithful Pilgrims, raised his right hand high in greeting. "Fellow traveler!" he called. "Seeker of the Truth! I am glad to see you again, Dominic. Come, and tell me what in the name of our holy Creator happened to Seeker Adeline! Why did she fail, along with the Coruscanti? The Jedi could not have been the only ones to take her down. She took her life like a coward instead of facing me or the Prophet that we serve."

Pauel was a very strange man, but stranger still was the fact that he neither preached nor traveled with any more fellow Seekers. He was second only to the Prophet, known to the crowd as the Apostle. Only the worthy knew his name.

Dominic raised his own hand in greeting - the tattoo proudly on display - as he crossed the few paces of space that separated them, Arai tailing after him.

"I believe it has something to do with what we came to speak to you about." he said, clasping hands with the Preacher when they came within range. "My companion," he released Pauel's hand to indicate Arai, "Is interested in joining our ranks. But we had a few questions about ostanovium first. Do you know a place where we can talk?"

"Certainly, Pilgrim Dominic," replied Pauel with a small smile. "I always have time to converse with and guide one of the faithful." He motioned for Dominic and Arai to follow him. "Even though I don't like to visit cantinas because they're sinful places that encourage drunkenness and depravity, there is a private room I have paid for in one of them that serves only non-alcoholic beverages." Another smile. "It's called Geeda's, owned by a Rodian female merchant who expanded her business opportunities as soon as her opponent--a thug--was duly displaced."

The way Pauel said displaced suggested another word altogether, and an altogether different method of getting rid of Geeda's entrepreneurial opponent. However, the Apostle said nothing more of it, and he entered Geeda's Cantina as a polite and respectable patron would. He ushered Dominic and Arai to a table.

"Now, then: How may I advise you, Pilgrim, and you, Friend Arai?"

Arai was a little put out by the fact that the rented room was in a cantina that served non-alcoholic beverages only. She felt like she could use a drink right about then, but it couldn't be helped. She had decided that her best course of action would be to remain completely silent, focusing all her energy on finding Pauel's shatterpoints and subtly manipulating them as Dom did all the talking. But it was not to be. They had scarcely sat down when Pauel turned directly to her and asked in rather elusive terms what it was she wanted.

"Ostanovium," Arai said quietly. She closed her eyes for half a second, trying to see his shatterpoints through the ostanovium-induced haze. "What happened on Coruscant is that all the Found died. Poisoned by ostanovium. Now, Dom suggests that the difference between them and him, and the reason he's none the worse for wear is that they ingested the stuff in capsule form. I need to know if that's the case or if it's dangerous to some extent in any form."

Pauel sighed disgustedly and shook his head. "The fools! They should have known better! Seeker Adeline was misleading them. From the reports I've heard through the holonews and my...better-informed sources....that she insisted her Pilgrims take the metal in its capsule form as extra protection against the attack from those wicked and amoral Jedi." He took a sip of his drink. "The truth is that extra doses of ostanovium are only effective, and non-debilitating, if they're inhaled. Breathed in as a gas! That's why we Apostles take our message directly from the Prophet and do not contradict it: "you must be inspired, breathe the breath of life, and so on. That applies to ostanovium as well! Why didn't they listen? Oh, the poor, murdered fools!"

The Apostle seemed about to cry, but Force knew he was beyond such things...

"So it would be safe, then," he said, turning to give Arai a quick glance. "For my companion to be exposed to it. In gas form, at least." It would appear that his information had been as incomplete as Seeker Adeline's. He was lucky that he had been absent for the start of the preperations of the compound's defenses, or he too might have died at Coruscant.

For the longest time, Dominic hadn't understood why he had survived the Coruscanti slaughter. With his tattoo, he had been directly exposed to ostanovium for much, much longer than many of the Pilgrims that had died of its poisoning. When he saw his Brothers and Sisters begin to drop like flies, he assumed that it was only a matter of time before he died, as well. So he sat upon the Throne of Gain and waited. His vision grew dark and he lost consciousness...but he woke up again when the fumes had cleared, and heard the approaching voices of the Republic investigation teams. He gained enough strength to flee just as they came into the Throne room; with his extensive knowledge of the compound, he was able to escape before any of the investigators could give chase.

The ex-Jedi licked his lips. He could really go for a drink right now.

Looking up at Pauel again, he folded his hands on the table and leaned slightly forward. "So, you said that the gaseous state is the only safe way to ingest the mineral. Is it powerful enough to sever a connection to the Force? Or is there a better way?"

The Apostle nodded somberly. "Yes, on both counts. The sublimated, or gaseous, form of ostanovium is enough to sever one's connection to the Force if one inhales it. However, there is also a better way to do so, yet only the Prophet knows it. Khristoff himself is an expert on severing connections to the Force without using it himself. I do not know what his method is, as he does not share all of the secrets that are a part of the Truth with his disciples."

Pauel turned to Dominic and Arai after meditating a moment. "I have a personal vessel," he said, "meant for me and a maximum of three others. Shall I take you to the white world of Cocyta, where the Prophet lives? There, he can tend to you and teach you. Of course, it will be a long and dangerous journey, but are you willing to risk it?" He looked at them with his piercing, yet not unkind, eyes.

That was it; that was what Dominic had been hoping for. But it seemed almost...too easy. Seeker Adeline always said that Khristoff was a very private - perhaps even paranoid - person that wanted his location kept secret from even his followers. He looked at Adeline, uncertaintly. Was he telling the truth?

- - - - - - - - - -

As the shuttle landed on the Nar Shaddaa dock, Salvatore turned away from the pilot's console, turning around to join the others in the main hold, where Mika was reloading the overview of the briefing Admiral Onasi provided for them on this Pauel character. With hands in his pockets, he looked on as the map of the city section unfolded on the rotating holographic projector.

"Pauel has been preaching lately mainly in this area." Mika said, a yellow dot blinking in the indicated position. "We are currently here." A blue dot appeared over their docking location after he fiddled with the controls. "If he isn't preaching, he's often been found here." Three green dots began to blink over buildings near by the yellow dot. "You heard Captain Starr's orders; if he isn't preaching in the streets, we split up and go after each of these three locations." A rotating portrait of Pauel took the place of the map. "Upon locating him, contact the others so that we can bring him safely into custody aboard the Millenial. Violence is only permitted if there is violence answering us." He looked around. "Any questions?"

Arai's instincts screamed that she shouldn't accept Pauel's offer, that to do so would change her in ways that would ensure she wasn't herself anymore. She was just preparing to do her worst to Pauel, to find and exploit his most sensitive shatterpoints, but the expression on Dom's face pulled her up short. That had been the information he was hoping for? She didn't even have to go searching for his feelings on the matter.

Turning back to Pauel, she changed tactics. She looked into his mind as best she could and caught his mental picture of how a Force-user would act. Comparing it to her own understated behavior to this point, she found that if he'd identified her as a Force-user, he probably thought she was using deathsticks.

Time to correct the misconception.

"Wow, that's something," she said sarcastically. Crossing her arms over her chest, she shot Dom a smirk before turning back to Pauel. "We haven't been here ten minutes and you're already..." she snapped her fingers and pointed skyward, "... directing us higher up the chain of command?"

Looking very unimpressed, she turned back to Dom, ignoring Pauel for the moment. "Dom, I thought you said this guy had all my answers. Is this what you meant? That he knows the one who really does have all the answers?"

((Dom couldn't have been looking at Seeker Adeline--unless he was literally seeing a ghost! ;) With her not being a Force user, that's rather impossible!))

GEEDA'S CANTINA, NAR SHADDAA

Pauel gritted his teeth. And here I thought you were walking the same path as Pilgrim Dominic, he thought, a lost soul wanting to be Found. It appears that you are just another scoffer, one who mocks the Truth instead of seeking it. I shall address myself no more to you, unless it is absolutely necessary. I sense that you are callous, young woman, and also arrogant.

"I repeat my offer once more," he said to Dominic, "and your...friend...may come along if she needs treatment for ostanovium poisoning. As for the Prophet, he has studied the Truth for far longer than I have. There is a central tenet of our faith: 'No student is greater than his teacher, and no servant is greater than his master'. I have served the Prophet for many years, and yet in no respects do I consider myself greater or more knowledgeable than he is. He alone knows the final secrets of the metal that..." Pauel trailed off. "The metal is an instrument of the Truth, and he knows how to wield it."

COMMONS, NAR SHADDAA

"I can't believe it," mumbled Jedi Knight Perdante Dareva. "There's no one here! No Khristoff, no Pauel, no crowd of unwashed masses waiting to hear what kind of bantha dung is pouring forth from his so-called 'holy mouth'! We must have just missed him." There were several passersby milling around the Nar Shaddaa Commons, but it didn't look like any of them had been part of any makeshift congregation. "Where do you suppose Pauel could have gone?"

((Semi-sorta JP with FFWM. She contributed a line :) ))

It wasn't quite the response she was expecting, but Arai could most certainly work with it. She glanced at Dom, reached over and gave his hand a brief squeeze, an unspoken plea for him to trust her...

... but when they were younger, it had communicated a double meaning and the second meaning was that she was probably about to do something incredibly stupid, and she would need his help. Turning back to Pauel, she addressed him as though he'd still been speaking directly to her.

"Hey, apostle," she said sharply. "If I'm not mistaken, the term refers to a messenger, a sort of religious ambassador, right? So when it comes to ostanovium, that makes you an expert, right? I'm not talking about the all-consuming fount of knowledge on the stuff. I get that your Prophet has a higher claim to that title. But thus far, you haven't given me anything I can wrap my mind around, so let's try this again, shall we?"

She raised her right hand and sparks began to play across her fingertips. "See, I have this little trick at my command. I'm told it doesn't feel all that great..." Glaring across the table at him, she growled softly, "I'm losing control, Pauel and I've already lost patience. Go into as much of the technical detail on ostanovium as you can in ten seconds. At the end of that time, I'll decide whether you've earned freedom from pain or not..."

"Raia..." Dominic said quietly, warningly, shifting his hand ever so slightly to touch her arm.

Arai jumped as though the sparks on her fingertips shocked her and they vanished. She let her hand fall to her side and closed her eyes as though fighting an intense wave of darkness. In reality, it hadn't been quite that intense, but this was a show for Pauel. When she opened her eyes again, she couldn't look at Pauel.

"Oh, Force," she mumbled, staring at her hands as though in disbelief. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry."

When she looked back to Pauel, there was no anger in her gaze, but it was extremely intense. "Do you see what I'm dealing with?" she asked him, her tone soft and urgent. "This is how ostanovium has presented itself to me. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. I need reassurance and I'm sorry, but you're not giving me any."

To tell the truth, Pauel had encountered many users of the Dark Side of the Force--mainly Sith, and those who were going through training to become Sith--but he had never met one so cunning and unstable as the young one sitting across from him. Trying to keep his hands from quivering and finding himself unsuccessful, he reached into his satchel, the only traveler's bag he carried with him, and pulled out a stainless-steel inhaler. He handed it to Arai.

"Inhale this, and quickly," the Apostle said. "It's a dose of ostanovium, a small one. It shall begin to sever your connection to the Force so you won't be able to do that for at least seventy-two hours, but in order to sever it permanently, you need to be exposed to the gas in a hyperbaric chamber. Do you want to come to Cocyta with us, or shall I give you all of the inhalers I have in this bag?" He shook his head. "Whatever happens, after this is over, I never want to see you again. Are we understood?" He looked at Dominic. "I...if you can't keep your companion under control, we might need to part ways also."

Zen had followed Perdante through the streets of Nar Shaddaa for quite some time now. He couldn't help but agree with Perdante's statement regarding Pauel. Though he was a former member he did not recognize the name. He had only known of Adeline, the one who took him in. He hung his head in silence for a few seconds in honor of her. She had given him a second chance and he wished he could have done the same for her. He then looked back over at Perdante when she questioned where Pauel could be. He could be anywhere in Nar Shaddaa by now. An idea suddenly popped into Zen's head. They knew where he preached, if they could get him to that spot they could surround him when he got there.

"Perhaps we won't have to worry about that, that is if we can force him to come to us. If one of us were to preach under his name he would have choice but to come and see why the name Pauel is being chanted and he is not there. We would be able to surround him and take him with us without harming him...unless he gets violent," Zen said stating his plan. "If we go with my plan I would like to volunteer to be the speaker. I was once a former member and I have given many speeches in order to rally my troops back when I was in the army," he added in.

COMMONS, NAR SHADDAA

Perdante's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Brilliant!" she cried. "I couldn't have thought of a better plan myself. I completely agree, and if the rest of us do, then we could act to re-incite the crowd that was once here--or start a new one," she added after thinking a moment. "If Pauel's still somewhere in or near the Commons, he's going to want to find out who's preaching in his name. Although," she said warily, "will he recognize you from the holo-news reports about the Jedi attack on his Coruscant sect, or has that blown over by now?"

Zen thought about what Perdante had said regarding the incident on Coruscant. Though Zen did not know Pauel, there could be a chance Pauel knew Zen.

"Do not worry about my appearance. If need be I can cloak myself before he arrives only for him to find himself in an ambush. Or I can stay on the same level as the crowd we draw in and force him to push through them until it is too late." He said to Perdante in order to reassure her. "Though I am not sure if he knows who I am. I only knew of Seek...Adeline. She brought me in and guided me along the way." His head dropped down again. "I am quite confident we won't have to worry about that though," he said in an attempt to raise his own spirit.

"That won't be necessary."

Salvatore had gone on a bit of a recon mission, and was returning now to the group. In his hand was a datapad with the same image of Pauel rotating behind the glass screen. Evidently, he had been asking around.

"A group of guys over there say that Pauel is a frequent of Geeda's cantina," he indicated the building behind them. "And that he has a private booth there. They say he went in with two others about fifteen minutes ago."

"And they didn't say anything about seeing them leave?" His brother - who had automatically taken oversight of the mission - asked him. Sal shook his head 'no', and he turned to look at the others. "Alright, in that case, we won't waste any more time. Sal, you're with Zen. The two of you go into the cantina and secure the room from the door-side. Tysy, you come with me to secure the back of the building - to make certain that he doesn't escape. Sal, you have permission to get inside as soon as you can. Any questions?"

When no one answered, Sal moved for the front door of the cantina and Mica moved for the back end. The pilot was bristling with excitement; it wasn't often that he got to pull a mission like this...

Arai accepted the inhaler without a word, but her mind was racing. She could not give up her only advantage, however slight it might be, and yet she couldn't simply walk away from this chance. With only a slight hesitation, she put the device to her lips and pressed the activation button... or so it seemed.

In reality, Arai executed a little "Force trickery", cutting through the ostanovium-induced haze undoubtedly in the room because both Dom and Pauel had used the stuff in one way or another. It was the simplest of mind tricks, just enough to make both of them think she'd done what Pauel wanted her to do as she lifted the inhaler up and ejected its payload over her right shoulder.

When it was done and she was satisfied neither of her companions had realized her trick, she dropped the inhaler and put one hand to her stomach as if suddenly sick, and the other to her forehead as if she was fighting a massive hangover. "Feel like I got punched in the gut... and the face," she groaned. "With a hydraulic battering ram or something..." She glanced over at Dom and a twinge of concern entered her already sickened expression.

"Is this what it's like?" she gasped. "Loss of Force-sensitivity?"

COMMONS, NAR SHADDAA

The Jedi Knight followed Sal toward the exit they were going to cover together so Pauel wouldn't have a chance to escape Geeda's Cantina. Even though her heart was racing at the thought of the upcoming assault, a small doubt worried her: What if we scare him and he won't talk, or what if he takes hostages? If this Pauel character is anything like the late Seeker Adeline, he won't give up without a fight. Also, he might commit suicide rather than surrender, like she did. If that happens, then all is lost! She propped herself up against the door, waiting for Sal's signal to charge.

GEEDA'S CANTINA, NAR SHADDAA

Pauel's steel-gray eyes suddenly grew wide. "No!" he cried. "That's not what it's supposed to feel like. It's supposed to feel like nothing at all, after a brief sensation of oneself being...emptied..." Quickly, he reached into his satchel and brought out a syringe full of clear liquid. "An antidote," he announced. "Sometimes, sentient beings have averse reactions to the metal, and this solution immediately counteracts the effects of it. Hold still, miss," he said.

Dominic immediately responded to Arai's sudden illness, half-standing from his seat so that he could steady her with one hand on her bicep, the other on her side. "Just sit down," he said gently, guiding her back into her seat. Losing his Force sensitivity hadn't been fun for him...though it wasn't really a sense of pain that set in. For him, it was as if he had gone deaf, like someone had suddenly pushed the 'mute' button on the galaxy's voice, that communion of voices that played a constant music to the backdrop of his existance. Gone. The nausea had set in later.

That her reaction was so sudden made him worried, and it showed in his eyes. "Just breath. You'll be--"

And then Pauel interrupted, Dominic's worry multiplied into fear on his face. An antidote? The Pilgrim had never before heard of an antidote, and so was immediately suspicions and moved to try and head off the needle before it could get to Arai.

But he never quite got far enough to complete the action for, just as Pauel was reaching across the table, the booth's only door opened. Sal's voice came before his body did.

"Pauel the Apostle, you are under arrest for public endanger--" The Republic officer stopped in his tracks when the door fully opened and he saw Pauel's two companions. At first, the only thing that occurred to him was that he had seen the second man before, and that alone caught him off-guard. But what really made him stop was the realization that he recognized the face because it was flashed on the computer consoles and datapads of every Republic official and soldier at the start of each day, along with the other visages of the Republic's most wanted. His eyes widened. "He's a Republic fugitive!"

Several things happened at once. Salvatore drew his blaster and made a lunge for Dominic, but the Pilgrim anticipated the move. He made his before the young officer was even certain of who he was; grabbing Arai by the arm, he yanked her to her feet and climbed onto the table that separated them from Pauel. With a heave, he pulled her into his arms, tucked her head under his chin, and made a fantastic leap for the small window above the Apostle's head. He went crashing through, back-first, and dropped with Arai into a trash receptacle two stories below.

With Zen standing behind him, Sal could do nothing but just stare at the window, his face betraying his incomprehension of what had just happened. A human being, he thought, shouldn't have been able to move that quickly...

- - - - - - - - - - -

Down below, Mica had been readying himself for Pauel to come crashing through the door - but instead, he found his blaster turning to a dumpster that was stacked high with trash bags - or had been, at least. A moment ago, something fell from a window that caused them to flatten them out quite effectively, a few bursting, and the item that had fallen had been vaguely person-shaped. Signaling for silence and caution from Perdante, he slowly moved towards the trash. If they were quiet, they could keep the element of surprise...

((JP with FFWM. Real one this time, with more than a one-liner from her :) ))

Arai laughed softly as they crashed into the garbage bags. She'd been too preoccupied with her sick-act to fully realize what was happening until she was tumbling through the air with Dom. Now that her mind had caught up with her body, she found the situation rather entertaining. Then her mind recalled what had been said and she pushed herself up onto her knees, staring down at Dom with an eyebrow arched in partial amusement.

"Republic fugitive?" she asked, the faint trace of a smirk on her lips. "That's an element of your past you hadn't gotten around to mentioning yet." Shaking her head, she went on, "No matter. I'm sure it'd have come up eventually... probably along with my own less-than-sparkling status."

Unlike Arai, the tension wasn't broken by their flight through the window. Instead, he became supremely aware of the position that their fall had landed them in - what with her straddling his hips and all. It took him a while to detach that thought from his mind and until he did that, he didn't even register that she had been talking. "Um, yeah, I uh..." What was he trying to say again? Something about 'Republic fugitive...'

Hang on a moment. Had she been...laughing?

Dominic pushed himself up on his elbows and eyed her suspiciously. "You made a surprisingly quick recovery."

As if suddenly realizing how right he was, Arai's smile faded. "I... yeah... a bit of subtle trickery..." Hurriedly, she added, "Had I known I'd need to, I'd have tried to tell you in advance, but... he didn't exactly give me the time."

He narrowed his eyes a bit, and began to shift out from underneath her. "You used the Force on me." He said quietly. He knew Arai, and had seen her use the same scheme before - so deducing what she had done was a mere matter of connecting the dots.

Her mouth opened and shut at least three times before any noise came out, and then twice more before she got out any words. "It... I, I had to be a bit... imprecise. With both of you in something of a haze put off by that ostanovium, I had to cover both of you or risk failure. Plus, your reaction..." Her cheeks reddened. "Would you have done anything to that level if I hadn't?"

He looked at her for a long moment before shaking his head. "Just get up, Arai." He said quietly. "We need to get out of here--"

Arai's head swiveled abruptly toward the front of the dumpster. "You're right," she said softly. "We've attracted attention... and one's a Jedi."

BACK ALLEY AT THE REAR OF GEEDA'S CANTINA, NAR SHADDAA

The Jedi that Arai had mentioned, however, was not going to make the opening move toward capturing either Arai or Dominic. For starters, neither person really seemed to be Pauel--their true target--and for another thing, she was following Mica's lead, and he had signaled for silence and caution from her. Thus, she waited. Perdante was not a fan of striking first, unless she knew that her opponent was armed and ready to strike in return. Dominic and Arai? They looked more like people who had just taken a huge leap into some smelly garbage bags in a waste receptacle and needed to recover for a bit. Although...now could be the perfect time to capture them, if indeed they were allies of the Prophet's Apostle...

Still, Perdante held her ground, watching for Mica's signal.

((It's Mica she's with, Tysy =P))

Mica was close enough to hear the woman's comment - though they weren't being particularly careful about not drawing attention to themselves. Perhaps they actually thought that their pursuers weren't smart enough to bring back-up, the fools.

"Stand up slowly," the officer called, still about a yard away from the dumpster, for his own safety. "With your hands in the air. And no sudden movements; we are both armed and authorized to use deadly force."

The truth was that the elder Caraway twin had no idea who was hiding in the trash - but they had jumped through a window on the second floor, and the second floor was where the VIP rooms for most cantinas and clubs were located. Pauel was supposed to be in a private room, according to Sal...and if they needed to dive out of a window, he could only assume that it was in an effort to escape his brother. This could easily have been Pauel hiding in the trash before him.

But as the man rose slowly, with hands in the air as he had been ordered to do, it became evident that he wasn't. Instead, it was a man that had been appearing on his datapad for at least two years now, and unlike Sal, his brother could remember names.

"Dominic Travesty, isn't it?" He kept his blaster trained on the man, who kept his eyes trained on him.

By way of answer, the fugitive said, "I'm going to get out of this dumpster, and then my companion is going to follow me." Slowly, cautiously, he took his first step towards the edge of the container. "So just don't shoot."

Dominic knew that his vibroblade would swing into view when he hopped out of the dumpster - in fact, it caught on the edge as he did - but it was something that he couldn't help. He heard the Republic officer's blaster click in response to the exposed weapon, and set his jaws together. He hadn't given him any reason to shoot...yet...

When he straightened up, Dominic cast a quick glance at the two aggressors, first at the Republic officer...and then at the Jedi, where his gaze froze for a moment. He recognized this one; it was their third time meeting.

"I see you recovered from the Throne quite well." he said to her, a slight note of disparagement in his tone. Mica growled.

"No one gave you permission to speak, schutta!"

"Relax, relax." Dominic said, turning to him and holding his hands up defensively. "We know each other." And then he turned back to the dumpster to help Arai hop to the ground behind him.

As Arai dropped to the ground behind Dominic, she turned her full attention to the Jedi. When Dom mentioned he'd met the Jedi before, Arai's examination of the woman intensified. The thought that there was a Jedi that Dom knew and Arai didn't struck her as a little surprising, especially since she had been exiled after he left the Order. At the Republic soldier's snarling rebuttal, Arai scowled.

"Fugitive or not, this is my best friend you're talking to," she said and though her tone was quiet, there was a distinctly sharp edge to it. "You would do well to remember that, Republic."

The Jedi unholstered her twin silver vibroblades, but did not ignite them. "I will not attack either of you," she announced, "unless I'm absolutely forced to." She suddenly realized who had spoken to her. "You? I can't believe it! The last time I saw you, I was shackled to the Throne of Gain, fearing for my life whilst being irradiated by that blasted ostanovium. I see the tables have turned..."

She stood tensely, waiting for Mica to give the signal to charge toward the two.

Zen found himself at a loss for words. It seemed he had underestimated both Mica and Sal's abilities. He dropped his idea and followed Sal into the Cantina where Pauel was. He hand his right hand on his energy sword in case Pauel had anyone with him. He was going to suggest to Sal they go in quietly when the human took action. Zen moved in with Sal and was shocked at what he saw. He saw a man who had to be Pauel, a woman...and Dominic.

Zen couldn't believe his eyes, as he was unsure what had happened to Dominic after the Jedi attacked the Found. He was glad to see that Dominic was still alive, but sad to see him with Pauel. Zen suddenly heard Sal say that Dominic was a fugitive and then pull out his blaster.

"No!" was all Zen could get out before he watched Dominic's impressive stunt.

With everyone distracted Zen made his move on Pauel. Zen slammed Pauel's head into a table in an attempt to stun him long enough for Sal. Considering the job done he could focus his attention on Dominic. Zen saw Dominic as true family, much like how he viewed Adeline.

Zen forgot about Pauel and darted over to the window to see what had happened to Dominic. Dominic was okay from what he could tell, and the woman seemed okay as well. He turned his head to the right and saw that Mica was approaching them with a blaster in his hand. Zen couldn't just stand there and let something happen to his former comrade, especially after Dominic had helped him escape with Perdante. He left the cantina without saying another word.

He followed the path he saw Mica take before he went through the front of the cantina. it didn't take him long to find the window Dominic had jumped out of and sure enough there was he was with Mica pointing his blaster at him.

"Do not point your weapon at my brother!" Zen barked at Mica. "Are you alright Dominic?" he asked regarding his stunt.

"Then we set up our trap to take them into account as well." Garren pointed out. "Let's get started. I have the data, along with footage of the victims, where's the projector controls?"

GALACTIC SENATE OFFICES, CORUSCANT

Carth pointed. "I think they're right over there," he said, glancing over toward a door that read CONTROL ROOM: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. He, Atton Rand, and Garren Shain snuck toward it, but were met by another security droid:

"I'm sorry. The Control Room is only to be used by authorized personnel only. Unless you have the proper documentation to prove you are authorized, I myself am authorized to escort you out of the building and bid you good day."

"Have any other plans besides punching this droid in the 'head'?" asked Carth.

Mica glanced at Perdante with contempt when she said that she wouldn't attack them. She didn't even ignite her damn blades!

"You'll never be any help to the galaxy if you keep up like that." he snarled at her, casting a sidelong glare at her before Dominic's companion attracted his attention again. She seemed familiar, too...

He listened with an expression that grew steadily darker the more that the woman scolded him. Scolded! As if he were a child! His blaster immediately swapped Dominic's head for the woman's.

"You say that as if you'd actually be a threat to me!" he snapped back. "But I don't have time for this. Both of you, disarm yourself and throw your weapons--"

And then the alien butted in. Mica's nostrils flared in annoyance and anger, and he sidestepped slightly so that the newcomer and the fugitives would all three be in his line of sight. "Stand down, Sangheilii!" he ordered. "The man you are addressing is a Republic fugitive - continued cooperation will be seen as treason and accessory!" His trigger finger was tensing against the metal. Just one pump, and that would be it. Just one shot, and the woman would drop; a second, and so would Dominic. He only had a vibrosword. He had no defense, no way to hide.

But the man in question wasn't entirely aware of what was going on. The last five minutes had been spent blinking at the side of Arai's head, uncomprehending. It was a fairly impressive snap, especially considering they were both staring down the barrel of a gun...

And then Zen arrived, and Dominic stepped slightly forward, holding out a hand. "Leave it, Zen." he advised. "You have nothing to do with this now."

((GOD that was a confusing post >.>))

Perdante scoffed. "They'll be no good to the Republic, or the people who are sick and dying from the ostanovium if they're dead," she growled in Mica's direction, "and alive is going to be the only way they'll ever lead us to Pauel. After all, the Apostle who were looking to bring down, and not these three. I say bring them in for questioning, not immediate execution. That, my dear comrade, would be pointless." She put her hands on her hips. Her pride had been wounded, but true Jedi Knights did not let such things affect them.

Besides," she continued, stepping forward and looking at Zen, "you're with me. Not only did you rescue me from the Throne of Gain, but you're also with me and Mica aboard the Millennial. Shouldn't we stop this nonsense and see if our squadmates need backup? For all we know, either they or Pauel himself could be dead by now."

In one fluid motion, almost too quick to be visible, Arai drew her own lightsaber, the familiar snap-hiss producing an emerald green blade.

"I am a threat to you, soldier," she said softly, "just as long as you are threatening my friend." She shifted slightly, moving her lightsaber from one hand to the other as her eyes bored into Mica. "You recognized Dom from a Republic watch-list, I'm sure. Even if they didn't have my image, they'd have my name with how I left the Jedi Order. Roll it around in your head a bit, soldier, see if it rings a bell. It's Arai. Arai Elan."

She turned her gaze to the young Jedi. "What of you, Jedi?" she asked. "Did your Masters tell you my story? Did they explain to you how the High Council tried to exile me? Have they admitted that I saw shatterpoints in even the members of the High Council? That I was able to manipulate those points, effectively turning the High Council into quarreling children as I made my escape?"

She scowled. "Of course they didn't!" she spat, her tone full of contempt. "My departure from the Order was their greatest failure since they lost the original Dark Siders. They wouldn't tell you my story, or of any other failure lest you begin to believe they are flawed."

She shifted again, putting her lightsaber back in her right hand, where it was most comfortable. "Let me ask you one question, Jedi. Do you trust the Order with your life?"

The Jedi pondered this for a long moment. When she finally managed to put words to all of her jumbled thoughts, thus bringing clarity to them, she said:

"If you want to hear the truth from me, before my comrade Mica possibly kills you, then I will freely give it. I was a Sith Initiate before I became a Jedi Knight, and many within the Order, among all of its ranks, are still suspicious of me. It was only through the intervention of my trainer, a Cathar Jedi named Juhani, that I was not slain on sight. I intended to duel her to the death, but she spared me instead of giving me the fate I truly deserved. For that, I trust her with my life, alongside a handful of other Masters that Juhani herself trusts. Those few people do not constitute the entire Jedi Order, and so my answer is...no. I know it should not be, but that is the truth as I see it, miss."

She stepped forward slightly. "You say you were exiled? On what grounds?" A slight twinge of a memory clicked into place. "And what are...shatterpoints, as you call them?"

Arai's eyes narrowed slightly. To hear the young woman's entire life story hadn't been exactly what Arai had been expecting. Maybe she'd been away from the Jedi too long to fully expect what one of them would do. As the Jedi asked her for her own story, Arai scowled and shook her head.

"What's this?" she asked, "pre-spy training? Keep the crooks chit-chatting while your best buds surround them? I don't think. We have a ship to find and I'm not about to let a trigger-happy communications officer and an inexperienced Jedi stall us."

She turned to Mica, stared at him for a moment, then said, "Perhaps you'd like to check on Sal. Pauel may not be my caliber of dangerous, but I'm sure you know how dangerous he is."

Then turning to Dom, she said, "Come on, let's get out of here."

Dominic just stared at Arai for a moment. He was starting to wish he'd found her sooner.

Mica's eyes widened, not in amazement, but in fear. The woman was right; Mica had sent Sal in with Zen to capture a leading operative of a subversive, violent terrorist organization...and now Zen was here, with them. Which meant Sal was alone...

...with a fat, lazy man that did more eating than fighting. Arai was just trying to distract him.

"I'll give you trouble!" He growled, and raised his blaster again, finger on the trigger, to aim right between her eyes--

But his moment of hesitation was his undoing. He'd barely aimed his blaster when it was torn forcibly from his hand and compressed to about the size of it's power pack. Indeed, the majority of the blaster had essentially been turned into a fancy metal case for the pack. Arai smiled faintly, tilted her head to one side and shook her head.

"Somehow I don't think that worked out quite like you expected," she said softly. "Go your own way, Republic. We're leaving whether you like it or not."

She paused, turning to Dom and gesturing to Zen. "So the big guy's a friend of yours?"

Now Mica stared in amazement. He had heard that the Jedi's Force powers were capable of doing such things, but he had never seen it done before. It was like...magic.

Dominic just grinned, shaking his head. She was going to have this officer pissing in his pants before long. When addressed, he turned to look at Arai, and then at Zen. He nodded. "He's another--" he cut himself off, immediately editting his language. "He's a former Pilgrim." The look that Dominic now gave his old comrade was not one of mistrust or hate; it was one of simple, nonverbal understanding not unlike the one they had shared on Coruscant. He had done his job well, it seemed. "Zen, the Sanghelii."

((By the way, what's Pauel supposed to be doing while all this is going on? I forgot...:())

((Well Zen slammed Pauel's head into a table before leaving the cantina))

Zen wanted to draw his blade at Mica's words but he knew that would be foolish. A drawn weapon demanded blood, it was part of Sangheili code of honor. He remained a bit more silent as he realized he had almost gotten himself shot for acting without thinking.

Things seemed to calm down as Arai spoke with Perdante. Zen felt that this little conflict could end with both parties being satisfied. Once Sal was mentioned things began to pick up. Zen found himself in awe at what Arai had done to Mica. He wasn't sure whether to be impressed with her abilities in the force or her words. Zen looked over at Arai at the mentioning of his height and nodded his head when Dominic introduced him.

"It is a pleasure to meet you Miss Arai." Zen turned his head over to Mica who was still in shock at what happened. "You can go check on your brother if you wish, though I doubt he'll need help. I hit Pauel quite hard before I left to come out here." Zen turned his attention back to Dominic and Arai. "Do either of you still need to speak with Pauel?"

"The pleasure is mine, Zen," Arai answered with a faint smile. "Any friend of Dom's is a friend of mine."

When Zen asked if they were finished with Pauel, Arai glanced at Dom before turning back to Zen. "No, we're finished with Pauel. The Republic can do as they wish with him now." She shifted and looked back to Dom. "Speaking of which, I think it's time we move out, hey Dom?"

Dominic nodded stiffly. "Yes, we should." It felt wrong to be tossing Pauel up like this, but what choice did he have? By now, he was already in Republic custody - he wasn't exactly the strongest or most aerodynamic of men - and for all he knew, they already had backup on their way. He wasn't about to let Arai get captured for the sake of a loyalty he felt. No, the best move now was to find the Prophet, and ask him for guidance.

He turned to Zen and nodded to him, beginning to back towards the Sangheilii. He would be the one to let them leave before either of the other two. Once he ascertained that Zen was making no move against them, his eyes turned back to the Republic officer.

"Well, this has been a charming time, sir," he said, "But now, I'm afraid it's time for us to take our leave." And with that, he grabbed Arai's arm, turned tail, and ran.

Mica's nostrils flared, watching them run. He turned his cold eyes on Zen. "You," he said, pointing a finger, "I'm reporting you to the captain." He turned around to face Perdante. "And you! How far did your Code get the Republic during the Mandalorian Wars? Hm? Do you think Revan became so great and did so much by playing by the rules all the time?"

He turned to Zen. "There's a back up party joining us momentarily. I want you to go back upstairs and secure Pauel with Salvatore. And if you screw up this time," he growled, stepping closer, "It will be your honor on the line. Perdante, we're going after those two."

And without looking back at her, he pulled out a hold out blaster he had stashed in his boot and took off down the street. They had only a few minutes' head start...

Perdante followed Mica, sprinting down the steaming-pavement streets of the commoners' section of Nar Shaddaa, which reeked of urine and litter. No matter. Jedi put such things out of their minds when it came to pursuing the enemy, or in this case, people who were believed to be the enemy. Her own opinion of Dominic was that he was indeed a member of the Found, but he was merely misguided, not evil as she knew that Mica would like to claim. As for Arai? Arai...That woman "stuck in her craw", and the Jedi knew it. Do you trust the Order with your life? Did they explain to you how the High Council tried to exile me? Ordinarily, those would have been questions over which she would have challenged the querent to a duel, and not a sparring match either. However, she had not wanted to kill or "rough up" Arai, merely to understand her and get more information on Pauel...

Understand? Understand WHAT? That you're chasing two people who are on Pauel's side at the moment, if only because they need the ostanovium? That you practically let them get away? Mica's right. The Jedi Code and its naive pacifism aren't doing any good for you right now. You didn't use your lightsabers, and thus that snobbish little neophyte of a Force user gained the advantage over you. You! You were once 'la Gagnante', and right now? You really are a loser. You're nothing but a shadow of your former self, your SITH self. Show a little spine for once!

Igniting her twin silver blades, Perdante sliced a waste receptacle clean in half as she rushed past it using the Force to bolster her speed. It was in her way.

Revan let nothing get in his way in his quest to save the galaxy...

As they ran, Arai laughed softly. "Question what they stand for and every Jedi reacts more or less the same," she said. "She and the soldier are in pursuit."

She took the lead, guiding Dom toward Pauel's ship, which she had managed to locate in his mind in spite of the ostanovium haze. They came to an intersection and Arai sent Force projections down one street while turning Dom a completely different direction. With his ostanovium tattoo, he would be harder to pinpoint, so she simply masked her own presence in the Force, leaving the projections behind as a nice distraction.

"I've done what I can to throw them off our track," she told Dom, "but it won't last long. We're just under a minute away from Pauel's ship and we'll have to do a cold-start." She grinned. "Just like last time we came to Nar Shaddaa together. Think you can still pull it off?"

There they are! The Jedi Knight's pulse quickened as she spotted two figures, presumably Dom and Arai, up ahead. However, no matter how fast she tried to run, Perdante never seemed to close the distance between herself and them. It was like one of those diabolical paradox problems she'd encountered while taking Force Metaphysics as part of her Jedi training: You can never truly catch up with someone who is running ahead of you. First you have to get 1/32nd of the way there, then 1/8th, then 1/4th, then 1/2, and it never ends. At least, that was how she remembered it. In practice, that was absurd, as you could often outrun your opponents and catch up to them. That made the paradox absolutely absurd. However, the paradox was also true in a theoretical sense. This maddening thought plagued her mind as she continued pursuing the two.

Come on, Force, help me out here! My legs aren't the fastest, and my body's not the strongest, but I have to catch up to Arai and Dominic. If I don't, then I've lost my chance to find out more information about Pauel, the Found, and its Prophet, Khristoff. I don't care what I have to do in order to catch them--just let me do so! Indeed, the Force seemed to give her an extra burst of speed as she continued running and running, appearing to passersby as a flash of fleshy color and silver light. However, unbeknownst to the poor young woman, the figures she were chasing were Arai's projections. She was becoming more hopelessly lost by the moment, not even knowing it...

Dominic offered only one half of a laugh, which sounded more like a cough than anything else. He could feel his chest tightening the more they ran...

"Don't remind me." he muttered, breathing through his mouth. After a moment, he glanced at her, and shook his head. "My ship might just fall apart under that. Let's just hope that Pauel had more cash on hand than I did."

The outlaws might have been running faster, but they had chosen the wrong person to run from. Had it been Sal, he might have been worried about losing them completely; as it was, Mica wasn't worried. He was always the fastest runner in their boot camp, and he had been constantly training to keep that title.

Perdante was faster, though, and she took off ahead of him, rounding a corner after to fleeing shapes. Mica reached the same intersection a moment later, and was about to follow after her...but he stopped when he saw a trash can knocked over. A can came clattering down, indicating that the trash hadn't settled into its new horizontal position...indicating that the trash had only just recently been knocked over. He narrowed his eyes. Perdante was too far gone to call her back now...

He would have to overtake them himself. Mica headed off in exactly the opposite direction of the Jedi.

"I'll deal with it." Garren told Carth and Atton, approaching the droid. "I am lying. Is what I just said true or false?" He asked it. Understanding the overly logical design in droids' programming, he understood that the droid would attempt to process his query, and break down due to the inherent paradox in his statement.

((JP with FFWM))

Arai sensed the change of tone in Dom, but she had no time to consider it yet. They made it to Pauel's ship and Arai used the Force to trigger the ramp open. She ran up the ramp, calling back to Dom, "Hurry! Soldier boy's on our heels."

Wordlessly, Dom charged up the ramp behind her and headed for the engine room. During their first trip together to Nar Shaddaa, he'd fumbled with the engine controls. Since then, he'd learned a little more about the controls themselves and was a little pleased to find that this ship wasn't terribly different from most of the others he'd worked with.

For all its dangers, bypassing the standard startup procedure was a simple process. Flip this switch, press that button, cross these wires with those wires, type in this little string of code. Once that was done, all systems would read false-positive, allowing whoever was at the controls to fly off without so much as consulting the computers for anything. Admittedly, it was dangerous. There weren't many people who could fly a ship that was only half functional. Thankfully, Arai was one of them.

"Ready!" he shouted.

Sluggishly, the ship lifted off the ground, its engines screaming in protest at being used before they'd fully warmed up. On the ground, Mica heard the noise, recognized it for what it was, and charged toward it, fishing a tracking device from his bag as he ran. If he couldn't catch the fugitives, at least he could keep track of where they were going.

The ship wobbled just a little and as Arai worked hard to steady it, Mica hurled the tracking device. He grinned in satisfaction as it stuck, half a second before the ship lurched skyward. Then his grin faded and he turned back in search of Perdante. Foolish girl, running off after phantoms...

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

In the cockpit of Pauel's ship, Arai fought with the controls, keeping the ship aloft while the computers finished their startup processes. Several long seconds later, the computers seemed to realize the ship was in flight and they began working with Arai; the flight path smoothed significantly and it wasn't long until they left Nar Shaddaa's atmosphere. She cut the engines and checked the navicomputer, only to find that it was still pulling up.

As she waited, Dom entered the cockpit and sat down beside her.

"Just waiting on the-" she began, but then the navicomputer beeped. "Never mind." She pulled up a list of coordinates the ship had previously flown to. Most of them were easily identifiable. One stood out as utterly unknown to her and she showed it to Dom.

"I think that's our heading," she said. She gave the navicomputer instructions to create a safe flight path to those coordinates from their current location and waited. Minutes later, the computer chimed that the course was laid in, and Arai sent the ship into hyperspace.

It was only then that she realized that Dom had barely spoken a word to her since they crawled out of the dumpster...

The Pilgrim was determined that the only reason why he had fallen against the sides of the ship's corridors was Arai's struggle to get the ship airborne and even; it shifted from side to side several times. Most of the time, he was perfectly fine with keeping his balance - he was a long-time martial arts student, after all - but these shifts must have been more like bucks, because they sent him jolting into the wall every time.

Finally, he made his stumbling into the cockpit...and he was no longer able to fool himself. The room was spinning; he couldn't catch his breath. The more that he tried, the more his chest locked up...he could feel his eyes starting to bug, hear himself wheeze...

The kolto. Thank the almighty Creator he had thought to bring some with him! But his hands were shaking, and he fumbled with the clasp of the belt-bound pack for several seconds. "Shot," he gasped out, talking more to himself than to Arai. He heard her say something, but he couldn't discern what the words were. As the wheezing turned to coughing, and that coughing became a fit, he managed to get the needle out...but it dropped out of his fingers almost immediately. He couldn't hang onto it.

It was the coughing fit that finally made Arai turn to see what was happening. They had just entered hyperspace, so there wasn't much for her to do anymore anyway. Dom clearly not in good shape, pale and fumbling with a syringe. As the syringe clattered to the floor, Arai sprang into action, catching it up with the Force. Kolto.

"Force, Dom," she breathed, spinning the needle around and pressing it into his neck, gentle but firm. The kolto began working almost instantly, but it took almost a minute for his coughing to subside. When he was finally breathing more easily, Arai turned her chair to face him and sat down again, the syringe still in her hand.

"From where I'm sitting, that doesn't look all that good for the Found," she said. Her tone was soft, but the words conveyed a sense of betrayal. This was what he wanted for her, for anyone who was Force-sensitive?

Perdante continued chasing the figures, which were nothing more than Force illusions from Arai, which suddenly lost their footing...and dissolved into the bottomless chasm that was the central pit of Nar Shaddaa. The Jedi almost followed, before she realized she was teetering on the edge--and ledge--of eternity...Once she became cognizant of what had really happened, she swore.

"I--I can't believe I almost killed myself over Force projections!" She clenched her hands into fists, climbed down off of the ledge, and gnashed her teeth. How could I have been so stupid? I'm a Jedi Knight, and I'm supposed to be trained far better than this! Rage and hatred began to fill her heart. They got away, both of them, and unless Sal and Zen have captured Pauel, our mission is a hopeless failure. Where was Mica now? Where was she?!

Great. I'm completely lost on this Force-forsaken planet, and for WHAT?!

His nostrils flared, his teeth set, and he sucked his breath in sharply as the needle punctured his neck. It was all he could do to stay still long enough for the kolto to be delivered and the needle removed; he just couldn't stop coughing. When it pulled free of his neck again, he immediately collapsed downward, sitting now with his elbows on his knees and head hung low, letting the coughs come out. Finally, they began to subside, and he was reduced to wheezing, wheezing to labored breathing...he could feel sweat beading on his forehead.

It hadn't been what she said that sparked his temper; it was the tone with which she said it. When he raised his head to look at her, the anger was clear on his face. What she was suggesting was an insult to him.

"This has nothing to do with the Found." he snapped through gritted teeth. His breathing still hadn't quite returned to normal, but he could speak at least. "This is a problem with me. Not ostanovium."

- - - - - - - - - -

"Perdante!"

The communications officer stood at the mouth of the alley that had led her here, his blaster stowed and hands in the pockets of his uniform pants. His eyes were sharp, his expression somewhat dark. When he had her attention, he jerked his head behind him. "Come on."

She was furious, she was insulted...she was completely and totally open to manipulation. Perfect.