revivalproject | 001 ✪ parallel space and time

Once again Kylo had arrived and in such a short time span. Yet, this Kylo seemed different from the last on they had encountered. He seemed more calm and controlled verses the angry one that lashed out so easily. In ways it caught him off guard. This was a new side to Kylo he wasn't used to seeing.

Warily, Hux left the Power Plant to go and seek out the Supreme Leader. His instinct told him to remain in hiding and not seek him out....but he had to see what was going on and get a better picture.

He made his way toward the main part of the city, disregarding his cane not wanting to look weak in front of Kylo Ren or show signs of what had happened back home. When he walked it did show he favored his right leg. He also made sure to remain in his civilian clothing that resembled a dark buisness outfit with his long sleeves rolled up. He wished he had Altair with him at his side, but no this had to be done by himself.

Easily he spotted the Knight of Ren at the hotel.

"Supreme Leader," Hux greeted. "I had assumed it would be best to carry the conversation in person instead of over the network."

This was not Aden's usual haunt- but occasionally, he would go searching for supplies, even in places that already seemed like they'd be more than picked over already. Never knew what people might overlook as useless after all. It could still be something he could make use of.

A makeshift bag slung over his shoulder, he poked around, until he spotted something very unusual indeed.

The outfit, the attitude- they all cried stay away.

Even so, he couldn't help his quiet little "Yikes."

More to himself than anything else, and yet- this was not the type of place made to be survived alone. And while he didn't think he had any moral obligation to call out to the man, he knew it would be the socially acceptable choice.

"You okay there, buddy?" He asked, approaching cautiously and- Abort. Abort. Abort.

That was a lightsaber. So this was either a Sith or a Jedi and he had an issue with both. Too late now though. He'd already called out to him.

Edited 2020-05-30 18:57 (UTC)

The man is a walking warning signal if ever there was one. While his encounter with Kylo Ren had been relatively tame, Cal felt like it was a careful dance. The meeting had been tense and yet both had kept their cool, and having been given some warning about him from Hux, Cal especially wished to avoid giving the man an excuse to use the lightsaber he so freely displayed.

Naturally with the city being so devoid of people it's impossible to really avoid anyone for long, especially in the main square. The padawan's passing through with his droid buddy, the latter hanging off his back as usual. A worn pack is slung over Cal's shoulder, ready for another day of scavenging.

Steps slow out of caution, out of habit as he senses that heaviness in the Force, that frustration that ripples through the otherwise peaceful area.

No good. The elevator just won't respond to the kicks he keeps giving it. Chikai sighs and scratches the back of his head, glancing towards the oversized flight of stairs with a grimace. This was apparently the best place to spend the night, but who would bother installing steps that big? There had to be a less annoying way to the upper floors somewhere... maybe he should try scoping around outside for a fire escape or something. Might be easier to climb.

Just as Chikai heads back out the hotel door, though, he's greeted with the sight of some guy cracking the wall. He could just mind his own business and go back inside, but instead he laughs a little at the sight. "Whoa, careful there! Don't wanna send this place tumbling down." He says it lightly, jokingly, but he keeps himself well out of arm's reach anyway.

Armitage Hux. Loyal to the First Order to the last, the consummate officer. Ren has come to believe that the First Order is merely a tool to reach his final goal and he isn't nearly as enamored of maintaining and being a general of a fleet but an ally is an ally - even one who isn't quite the perfect ally.

"General Hux. You're right about that damned useless network but are we standing on ceremony with no Fleet? Seems a bit superfluous between us at least. Among the others, though, we should."

Intimacy breeds weakness. Ren knows first hand through Rey.

Hux merely raised an eyebrow and gave a nod. "Old habits are hard to dispose of. I believe you've already gathered the basic information by now of what your purpose here is and what this is all about?" Hux questioned getting right to the point of things.

As he spoke an orange tabby cat carefully stepped her way up toward Hux, having followed her owner from the Powerplant to here. The cat gave a inquisitive stare up toward the new face.

Ren knows of the Chiss even if he's only ever met them in person since coming here. This is a different Chiss than the one he'd seen over the network, though, and he narrows his eyes, trying to assess him.

Ren has the advantage of height and weight, yes, but there's no telling how this Chiss can manipulate the Force; Rey had been small but too powerful to overcome.

"All right? I'm in a system that has no name and a planet that has no reliable resources. It's not okay."

"You do have my sincere sympathy."

Definitely not. But his voice, his expression, neither suggested that it was a sarcastic response rather than sincerity. And his mind was closed off, as Chiss minds tended to be, betraying nothing.

"I'm guessing you're not the type of person to be comforted by the fact that we're all stuck on the same disintegrating ship."

He certainly didn't seem like it.

Ren, too, can sense a Force sensitive. It isn't difficult on this planet because there seem to be so few people and even less that have a Force signature of any note. He knows Cal is there and when he turns, he recognizes his face. There's a droid with him and it makes him feel sour; his uncle was always prattling on about droids.

"How many Force sensitives are actually on this planet? It's strange to have so many while there's so few people here."

He's saved the decision of a greeting as the other man addresses him without preamble. Cal lets his hands lift and fall with the slight shrug he offers as he turns to face him completely. Casual as he may act, he's still on his guard.

"Three counting you, so far as I'm aware," he says. Altair definitely has his own presence that it would be pointless to say otherwise. "Maybe it's not so strange as how many from our known galaxy in general." That seems a more impressive if troubling ratio to him.

Ren huffs a little at that, turning a little to see who he's heard. Considering the circumstances, he isn't particularly concerned with property damage in this forsaken place. Property damage might actually improve it, considering; tearing down the old and rebuilding it new is always better.

"I could take it down if I wished it. I don't, entirely, but I might at some point. It would be a vast improvement for this backwater system."

"I've gathered it. It seems strange that I would be brought here for such a thing but sometimes a firmer hand apparently is needed."

When the cat wanders up, Ren is a little taken aback. He's seen personal pets before, naturally, but he'd never associate Armitage Hux with something soft and furry.

"You've gone native, haven't you? You don't seem like a pet keeper."

"I've not had the pleasure of being on one. I tend to keep my ships maintained since they're actually useful when they fly, not collecting rust on a planet."

Rey might like such things but he doesn't. There's no point in repairing one when a ship can be replaced with credits in the right hands.

"The hows and whys don't impress me. I'm more impressed by seeing a Chiss here. How did that happen? Same way?"

"Ripped from our galaxy to this one with no warning and told to correct a problem. Makes perfect sense, actually. I'm surprised no one has thought to exile us before."

Sarcasm can be a keen weapon even if Ren is better at overt threats than wordplay. He at least has his weapon on him if nothing else. Lightsabers end tedious conversations.

"How many, then?"

"Maybe because they figured it was better to kill us instead." Cynical, perhaps, but that did seem the preferred method for dealing with them back home. Cal's also gauging reactions from the other. Didn't Hux warn him that this man did such things as well?

"It's unknown how the Agrii have done it, but apparently it works not only across space but time as well," he continues. "Anyway, there are...about ten of us now from our known galaxy, I think." He'll keep the Mandalorian's charge off Ren's radar if he can.

So he was from the future then. After all, no one would be impressed seeing a Chiss in his time- considering how the Ascendancy was allied with the Sith Empire, with many Chiss in Imperial territory. They weren't common- but they weren't completely unknown.

He said nothing about that though, instead focusing on the actual questions, "If you mean being at home one moment, and in this hellhole the next, then yes- same way."

Aden himself wasn't exactly comforted by the fact that he wasn't alone here either. He only found comfort that he had Vector, and beyond that, constantly felt like screaming, the environment much too busy for him to properly focus most of the time.

"Story's the same for everyone here."

Chikai hums a little, eyeing the wall again. The idea of a person being able to level a building without explosives was one he'd laugh off back home. But there were a lot of things that seemed less absurd after being abducted by aliens.

"Well then, lemme just say, thanks for not feeling like it right now. Y'know, on behalf of all of us who don't have another place to crash yet."

Hux gave an idle shrug. "There's a lot you don't know about me. If I had my way I would have had a cat on board the ship with me." Hux answered as he reached down to pick up Millicent.

"Well....when you first arrived you threatened to take away all our supplies and destroy them. So don't be surprised if many look you with disdain. Right now most of us are trying to get this place put together enough so it's habitual with out the tools and equipment many of us are used to having."

"Ten? That's a sizable number for what looks like an abandoned place." If there are ten of their number here, Ren has to determine what alliances are in place and if he can break them or sway them to his cause. It won't work if too many people are going their own direction. Chaos has a purpose but not in a place like this.

"Is there a place you usually gather, then? Or do you rarely interact with one another?"

"They have some sort of power that I've never heard of before, then. It's something we should try to harness ourselves. Find our galaxy, turn us back. Probably more complicated, though."

The engineers had taken ages to develop the power system in Starkiller so Ren doesn't expect answers soon, not in a place that seems devoid of any great technology or society.

"Has anyone tried going home or have they not bothered?"

Cal has to agree with that, especially now that he's had to put an actual number to it. There weren't all too many people here to begin with, and given so many of that few are familiar with the same territories, it strikes him as curious, if not a little concerning.

"Not really, no," Cal admits with a shake of his head. "There aren't any places aside from maybe the diner, although I think someone's also making a bar. It's not difficult to get in touch with people- we have communication means, and if some have chosen places to live or work at, so it's not like they can't be found."

Ren exhales sharply both at the cat and the fact that Hux had called out his blunder with the network. Keeping a pet is a liability, so far as he's concerned, but he shouldn't be concerned about Hux's habits in this precise moment.

"There's not that many of you here and I am a Sith lord. It tips the odds in my favor if I did want to destroy supplies or stage a coup. I have cards to my advantage."

Something about that kind of power in this man's hands made Aden's skin crawl. But then, maybe it was just because he was a Force-user of some sort, and Aden couldn't stand his kind.

"Probably more complicated, yes," He agreed, with a slight shrug of a shoulder.

"When people here go home, it seems less... Voluntary. They can be here one day, gone the next. So far as trying to go home goes, I honestly don't know. Wouldn't know where to start searching for a way, either."

Not like he has any special powers, after all.

"Quite welcome," Ren says. Still, he steps back and decides it might not be for the best to destroy this building if it is actually one that serves a purpose. He can say little else for this place thus far and restraint is something he should practice far more often even if it seems...odd to do so.

"How many people sleep here, then, and how many have sought out shelter elsewhere?"

It's a strategic question, wanting to know how most people have chosen to settle this place, but it also is out of sheer curiosity.

"So what do you do? Just live here as if it's what we're going to do? Keep going like it's our lives for perpetuity?"

The idea of it rankles. His uncle had sought out that life when he'd failed and while Ren feels as if he's slipping from the Dark Side more and more each day, he's never thought about isolating himself from everyone to nurse his failures and pretend he no longer exists. It's weak. It's weak of Luke and while he hates his father, his father never gave up.

"Or is there anyone that has been working on it? If not, someone ought to start."

"So it's a settlement. An outpost."

Ren has been to such before even if they're not his preference and he feels the muscle in his jaw tightening a bit as he contemplates this new, boring existence. There must be a way to build a ship and get off this planet. He's not as good at it as his uncle or Rey but he isn't terrible.

"We'll use it as a base as we work for a way off this planet."

"It seems generous to call it those things, but I guess it's as close as one can classify it." The city is still in such a state of disrepair and with maybe less than a score of people, if that. It might also be that there's just much more city than any of the people currently here can try to do anything with.

"Not like we have a choice anyway," Cal points out, smirking just a tiny bit as he shrugs.

"You forget our wonderful hosts here. They will not accept any sort of violence among the people they brought here. Unpleasant repercussions will happen." Hux replied with a slight challenge in his tone.

"You are also not the only one with the Force here or with special abilities. There are quite a few people here from our universe but different time points. Many are military affiliated."

"So not only am I not the only Force sensitive, I can't even use it as leverage. I've been trapped in a cage. I'm powerful. It should be me putting people in cages, me putting pressure on others."

Ren's frustration had been building from the moment he'd met Rey and dueled her, found her his equal and been stuck with her in his head. It's only coming to a boiling point now. She's supposed to be the weak one, not him.

"Men without choice are men who are broken," Ren says tightly. "No hope means no exit. That's how they've truly trapped us, then."

He has to stamp out hope in the galaxy to truly control them but here, it seems their captors have perfected it.

"What freedoms do they grant you?"

Those words strike a chord in him, and for a moment Cal says nothing. Yet he finds that smirk returning, a rueful one at the thought that the one he's been warned about is the one making sense then.

"We're pretty open to whatever we do here in the city, its outskirts, probably. I haven't gone too far out and the furthest has been to the mountains, although that required use of the ships." His brow furrows. "But we appear to only have access to use those when the Agrii allow it."

"Dang, didn't know I should've taken a survey. Just got here myself." He chuckles a bit, but he's weighing the pros and cons of giving what little information he does have. Knowing something someone else doesn't can be beneficial, but what he knows wasn't exactly hard to find out. And it never hurts to make someone think you're useful. "I have heard there's about two dozen folks 'round here total, though. Haven't seen that many around this place, so maybe some of 'em got other digs."

"It's something I'll leave to someone with actual powers, at any rate," Aden said, understanding where the other man was coming from, but also thinking there wasn't much he personally could do.

After all, he didn't understand how the Agrii could pluck them from their worlds, he didn't understand how time or dimension wasn't an issue for them, and he didn't even know where they were so he could punch their faces in.

Ordinary men like himself were the worst off here.

"You could probably ask around on the network though. Might be more useful answers there."

"So we can't always go into the ships. They restrict our ability to leave planetside," Ren says, thinking that through. "They're afraid we'll figure out how to chart a course outside this system and get home."

That's not something he likes but if he were these Agrii he would do the same. He has a grudging respect for that, in a way, but since he's on the side with no power he doesn't particularly like it.

"Do they send us missives? Tell us why we're here?"

"If only we'd thought to poll people," Ren says drolly. "Then we might know everything. If there's only two dozen, that's a small number to hold on an entire planet. It also isn't so many that we couldn't try to see what the common factor is."

Solving this mystery is more important to him than anything else. He's always had a tendency to focus on things excessively, toy with them until he found the hows and whys of how they came to be. He's had his focus on Rey now for years and he has yet to understand why she, an outcast same as he is, would align herself with the useless and redundant Jedi Order when she could hold power with him. Together, they are stronger.

"I tried the network," Ren admits. "Much of the same there. No one seems to know how to voluntarily leave this place or challenge these Agrii. They seem to be content in their captivity and I've never been one to do that."

When he was younger, yes. He'd been brainwashed by talk of the glorious rebellion and the notion of a new Jedi Order but Luke had ruined that. He'd decided that Ren was tainted by sins of the past, sins of his own grandfather, and sought to attack him for something he hadn't even done. The Jedi Order was useless and cared nothing for individual talent, only that of the whole. Ren had always sought to be exceptional in himself alone.

"I'll end up frustrated but I have to try."

There's no point in arguing that when it's true, so Cal nods. "Not so sure that they'd be afraid we'd be able to go home that way though, but there are probably definite concerns that we'd just leave if we had the chance."

He looks around, gesturing back towards the center of the city. "They cover that in the datapoint where you first arrive. Aside from that, direct communication has been pretty sparse, but they also don't seem to have a solid grasp of Basic, so things definitely get lost in translation."

"Of course they don't know Basic. Can't make it easy," Ren says, rolling his eyes. There's a part of him that says Be patient. He doesn't know anything." and he knows it's Rey even though they're not even in the same galaxy. Is it really her or just his mind tricking him? He shakes his head to clear it.

"So what do we do if we're not trying to get home? Terraforming the planet? Seeking out resources? Dividing into factions?"

Cal arches a brow at him. If things were easy then none of them would probably still be here, nor more incoming, unless the Agrii had ulterior motives, which the padawan wishes wasn't a possibility. It is one all the same, given how little anyone knows.

"Basically? Surviving," he replies. It would be pointless getting frustrated with the questions- they're all reasonable ones, and Cal doubts they'd be the last time any one of them might be asked by anyone. "Seeking resources is one thing. Working together is another. I'm going to assume you weren't serious about the factions."

They were little enough as it was, and he sees no point to having to divide anyone up. They'd be stronger together anyway, and he has a feeling that's the only way any of them will get through things.

Hux gave a nod. He was pleased that Kylo was at least understanding things, but the anger and frustration was still there. Now the question was, how long would that control will last?

"You can either take my advice on how to handle things here, or go it your own way. However, this will be my only offer to help since I know how well you choose to listen to me." Hux stated.

"I might have been. I might not have been. It depends on what resources there are and who needs them the most."

It might be for the best to go about this magnanimously and cooperate. The voice of Rey in his head seems to be happy with that and he's not sure if she's actually there yet again. It's easier to think it would be her and not his own miserable conscience.

"It depends on what the other people are like."

Ren exhales sharply but in the end, it might serve him well to follow Hux. He doesn't feel anything from her in his head one way or another so it seems he has to trust his own feelings and intuition; is the Rey in his head just a manifestation of another part of himself long gone? It's too complicated to work out.

"If listening to you means procuring a pet cat, I'm not sure how well I'll be able to follow those orders. The rest of it is acceptable...for now, at least."

As much as he'd like to sigh, Cal holds back on it. It's as good an answer as he can expect, he supposes.

"It shouldn't. We're all here for the same reason, and everyone's been trying to lend assistance where they can, whether it's in repairs or what sort of natural resources are available. Some have been here a little longer than others, and they've already managed to handle things like the power and the water purifiers."

The idea of living in some sort of commune hearkens back to the idealistic Jedi to Ren and he's not sure that he can be that any longer. Part of him wants to be - he doesn't know that he's happy as he is now - but he's not sure if that's because he's separated from Rey's mind telling him some ridiculous morality or because he's changing.

"I guess it's best to settle with the status quo until things change. If they do, which is a big if."

The padawan lifts his hands with a shrug. "Depends on how frequent the storms are. Which thankfully don't seem to be too frequent." He frowns as he thinks about it.

"...it's an unusual storm, the one that came through last. Physically it was a threat as much as one can expect one to be, but it was able to do other things that surpass natural occurrence. Makes you see things. People you might have known. Ghosts of the past."

He lets that sink in before continuing. "...it also cut us off from any special abilities we had. Like our connection to the Force, or at least our sensitivity."

"Wonderful. It's not like I needed that or anything. Well, as much as I hate it, it looks like I'm going to have to work with Jedi."

The echoes of Rey in his head make him see this as not such a bad thing and perhaps it isn't. His uncle and his mother aren't here so the idea of the old Order isn't an issue. There's no constraints. He can tap into the Force the way he wants.

Cal smiled crookedly at that. "Is that such a bad thing?" he asks, unaware that he might be voicing the same thoughts. He finds it a little amusing though. If anything, it'd make more sense for him to be the one having qualms about working with this stranger.

At least the man doesn't seem bent on killing him. Cal's willing to give anyone a chance so long as they can talk without drawing a weapon on him, first thing.

"So, anything else?"

001 ✪ parallel space and time

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