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Who: Kylo and you!
What: Mini-missions
When: Various
Where: Various
Content Warnings: Presumably violence. Will update as needed.

1. Rescuing New Arrivals - Open

With Kylo's powers back in full force, this mission has so far been relatively easy. Attempting to not raise alarm on the way in, he has tried to avoid being spotted whenever possible, though his general lack of a need for stealth is obvious. It's inevitable for some Sylphid to find and question him and whoever might be with him at the time.

Fortunately for him, he has an answer to that. He looks the guard in the eye, raises a hand, and speaks slowly and clearly, "There is no need to worry about us. You will let us pass."

Given the nature of Sylphid inhabiting many different sorts of bodies, he does have some concern that he will encounter one that's resistant to this sort of mind trick, but clearly this is not that time. The guard replies, "You can pass," and lets them by without any further trouble.

2. Sabotaging Sensors - Open

Rescuing people from the research facility came with a nice bonus: the familiar crossguard lightsaber that now sits clipped at his hip. What better to do with his newly reclaimed weapon than go wreck some Sylphid?

He and his present companion are hidden in the trees, sizing up the situation at the nearby tower. Having spent a good moment studying the site from a distance, all there is left to do is attack. He pulls the saber from its spot at his belt, gloved hand tightening around its hilt, though not igniting it quite yet.

"Let's go."

3. To the Troop - Leaks

Given what he's been told about this particular mission, he's a bit more selective in who he chooses to take along. It isn't that he trusts Leaks--far from it, in fact--but that he finds him understandable and therefore perhaps more predictable than some others might be. That, and he'd noted the other man's curiosity. It's easy to guess he would have a similar interest to himself in a place like this.

He pauses at the edge of the Troop, his senses immediately picking up on how different this area feels.

"Interesting. It seems... alive." Far moreso than the passive existence of the plants in the forest.

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Codi gives the guard they pass the smallest of appreciative nods before striding ahead, keeping pace with Kylo. Someone else might've balked at how easily and casually he manipulated a person's mind - she's reminded of the look of sheer disgust on Juhani's face when she did the same at the truck stop - but all Codi can think of is how useful it is. That's part of the reason why she's been taking Enchantment classes. If she had a deeper pool of magic to cast from, she'd be flinging Friends spells around like they're going out of style, damn the consequences.

As it is, Kylo here will do just fine. Relying on his more blunt approach also gives Codi the freedom to dress for the future stages of the mission, sporting black fatigues puffed with a ballistic vest. She wants to keep herself healthy so she can save her healing magic for the team, after all.

They pass another group of guards, already primed to let them pass after the first one gave them the go-ahead to approach the gates. Codi barely spares them a second glance before gently leaning towards Kylo, getting within whispering range.

"How often can you do that?"

Link is...less certain how he feels, about whatever it is that just happened. He looks from Kylo to Codi as he walks behind them, a faint frown on his face. How had Kylo done that? He just says a few words, and then people...do whatever he said?

He doesn't say anything, however. Just walks along, feeling vaguely unsettled but not really knowing exactly why.

And while Codi ignores them, Link does eye the second group of guards as they pass. They aren't going to fight them? Or even try to distract them?

"As much as I want," he replies just as quietly. It's an easy answer. Some things take significant exertion, but a simple suggestion like that isn't one of them.

"The problem would be if we find someone who can resist it. Someone with unusually strong will, or some kind of natural immunity." Species that consistently have the latter are rare in his galaxy, but they do exist. With everything else the Sylphid might have pulled in here, he wouldn't even be able to guess just by looking.

In his mind, there's no reason to fight when all that would do is draw more attention, and no need to distract the ones that seem successfully convinced. He does turn into what appears to be an empty corridor as soon as possible, though, to get out of their line of sight before anyone decides to second guess the situation.

Codi nods with an appreciative smile, completely glossing over Kylo's qualifiers. Very convenient. She turns her grin towards Link as they round the corner, turning it into something more sympathetic and placating once she notes his worried expression. In her mind, Codi assumes his concerns are related to being caught rather than Kylo's methods - but, see, they're in a clear stretch now! No need to worry!

It's at this point that Codi realizes, looking down this blank hallway with a series of unmarked doors, that she has no idea where they are. A natural consequence of not stopping to get directions or a map. No problem, they can adapt.

She turns to Link again. "Keep an eye on the doors," Codi directs in a low voice. "We're looking for cells. Kylo can lead, and I can watch our flank."

Somehow, Codi's smile fails to reassure Link. But he's not really sure what to do with this vague, unsettled feeling. Or how to articulate it.

Best to focus on what they're really here for. It's the Sylphid he should be worried about.

He looks to the doors, then back to Codi.

"We watch while he opens doors?" Link's not sure he likes that plan. He's used to being the one running around, opening doors and finding secrets. Standing around watching while someone else does it instead isn't nearly so interesting.

He eyes on of the doors at the far end, away from where Kylo is. Perhaps Link could open a few doors, while Kylo is opening ones at the other end...

An uncanny feeling descends on them both once they're within proximity of the Troop. There's something like an atmospheric shift as they approach, a detectable feeling even through the mask's filtration. It's less about the air's quality, perhaps, and more about the space between each looming mushroom cap, the hazy path that meanders out ahead of them, the stillness of all of it. When Kylo speaks, Leaks can feel that sensation travel through him too; his ears prickle with a feeling of self-awareness. In the eerie quiet, absent of birds or rustling leaves, the mushrooms are almost too tranquil for the feeling that they offer, like watching sentinels.

Leaks makes an amused sound at Kylo's comment.

"You feel it too, then. That feeling that we aren't alone."

Leaks gives his companion a sidelong glance, his mask concealing his expression.

Being part of a 'team'... even if it's merely a group of two, it still feels somewhat strange to him. For all the warnings about the Troop and the dangers of going it alone, there's a part of Leaks that finds the idea of company more daunting than facing such perils by himself.

But going with Kylo Ren is also an easy decision, when considering all the other factors. They find commonality in their wariness, and then there's those compelling abilities of his... Leaks wouldn't mind seeing more. Kylo has Leaks's curiosity, at least as much as anything else about this mission.

"Ignore it. Such feelings are little more than a natural deterrent. In the end, this is just another forest."

Of course, this is coming from a cat who made his home forest a magically-cursed death trap, but nevertheless...

He tightens his grip on the supplies at his shoulder, stepping forward confidently.

"Come."

Learning it could be possible to recover his saber had been an unexpected highlight of this mission but in reality, Vader - now that he had his chip removed - was a weapon in and of himself. Sure he'd traded some time repairing devices at a shop for some plate armor to throw under his clothing, but otherwise?

Nothing - other than putting the dome back on his helmet to protect it.

He let out a slow exhale, rolled his wrists, extended his fingers out as he poured his Force presence over the ground, a cold and menacing air warning others away. "Let's show them their mistake."

"She meant watch them to make sure no one's coming out." Him opening every single door here while they watch really doesn't seem like much of a plan, after all. There's a judgmental edge to his voice, though it's ultimately more to do with just how much Link seems to be radiating a desire to open doors.

That corrected, he directs his senses, tangible and otherwise, to the hall around them as they walk down it. After a moment a particular door does catch his attention. Nothing immediately marks it as the right way to go, but Kylo has long learned to trust where the Force leads him.

He gives a slight nod toward the door in question. "If you want to open a door, try that one."

Codi's only visible reaction to Link and Kylo's back-and-forth is a very slight raise of her eyebrows. On a more established team she might step in and clarify her precise instructions to make sure no poor decisions outside of her purview are made, but in this case, she's still getting to know what kinds of people these two guys are. It's more interesting to her to get a bead on their priorities and personal tics than to make sure everything proceeds exactly as she sees it in her head.

For example: She's getting the impression that Link wants to do something, and Kylo would very much prefer that Link do something that doesn't draw a lot of attention to them. Codi considers an alternate set of instructions to set them both at ease when Kylo interrupts her train of thought. Her head swivels to look.

"Good place to start," she murmurs, gives Link a nod to indicate her blessing for this new plan before parking herself against the wall across the hallway to the door - a decent place to keep watch around the corner, as well as make herself the first visible target for anyone approaching from that direction. Then she turns her attention to Kylo. "Got a good feeling?"

Codi doesn't know a whole lot about the Force. But, she's had the chance to talk to a few Jedi (or Jedi-adjacent) folks here, which has done enough to build a general picture in her head about what the Force is and what it does for people sensitive to it. Having a weird, innate sense of your surroundings and what's interesting in them seems to be one of those things.

To be passed over once is unpleasant, but understandable. Different teams have different needs and plans of attack. To be passed over another five times, and left alone at base camp while his comrades risk life and limb, is far more difficult to stomach.

Rokuro heard the whispers and saw the side-long glances. He is aware of the reasons for his rejection, and for the most part... they're valid. Rokuro has an extremely low understanding of technology, little to no experience with the majority of modern weaponry, never mind explosives, and his small stature and slender build are indicative of his physical strength.

Logically? Rokuro knows he shouldn't take the appraisal personally. It is what it is. Emotionally? He is angry. At himself for not being of value to the mission, and the rebels for perceiving him as such. However accurate their judgment of him may be.

Nobody at base camp asked for Rokuro's assistance, but it's easier to ignore the sting of rejection if he keeps himself busy, and so Rokuro has spent the morning carrying what provisions he is able to carry, ferrying medical supplies between infirmary tents, and loading/unloading incoming and outgoing hovercraft.

Link doesn't even wait for Codi's approval; he just starts moving before she even opens her mouth. Really, though, it was a good thing Kylo did direct him towards this particular door - otherwise he was going to start opening other ones up.

Link wasn't exactly used to sitting around waiting, while other people explored. But given a direction, he was happy to follow up.

Unceremoniously, he flings the door open and pokes his head in. It looks like a kind of storeroom, filled with various crates and storage boxes. Naturally, since Link never passes up the opportunity to open up a mysterious box, he wanders over to one and kicks it open.

Inside is a haphazard mess or various items - clearly not much care went into how they were shoved in - but Link manages to spot a familiar scrap of fabric in amongst the mess. He gasps, and reaches in.

"My paraglider!" he cries out happily, holding it up.

It's no surprise to Kylo when Link takes off to the door the moment he points it out. Fortunately for all of them, his feeling is proven correct. In reply to Codi's question, he simply gives a nod and makes a vague gesture toward Link happily rediscovering some of his prior equipment.

That isn't all there is, though. His attention is drawn to a particular corner of the room, and that's when, even without being able to see it through the haphazard piles of other objects, he understands what had called to him. He doesn't bother going in to search the room. He just holds out his and a few things on the floor move aside to let the familiar hilt of his lightsaber fly into his grip.

He takes the briefest moment to savor having it back in his hand before he turns to Codi. "Anything you were missing that you want to look for?"

The commanding tone Leaks has rankles, but it's something he's enough used to dealing with. For now, he's content enough to let the cat-eared man think he has that authority. He still doesn't know much about Leaks, but just enough to view him as far more a peer than most others who've spoken to him that way.

Just another forest. He wonders about that, even as he does follow Leaks closer. It wasn't wariness so much as fascination that had made him pause as he had. There's something aware about it in a way he's never felt from any forest he's been in. Even the tree-bounded cave on Dagobah, heavy with dark energy, didn't feel as alive as this.

"It's not an illusion. We aren't alone here." Kylo trusts the Force, and his senses tell him that much even at the very edge of the Troop. His own mask is firmly in place, and certainly they haven't gone far enough for whatever effect it protects against to have taken a hold on his mind. He knows what he knows, and the statement is merely an observation. "This place has consciousness."

It also is doing little as a deterrent, if that was the intent. If anything, Kylo is spurred to move further into the forest out of pure interest. When the regular forest begins to disappear and they find themselves surrounded by the towering mushrooms, he pauses again.

"Let me try something." Exactly what he wants to try will not be too clear, but it involves him holding a hand out toward the nearest large mushroom in what seems to be deep concentration.

Codi arcs an eyebrow between both of them. How did he know...? She shakes her head at herself. Probably another Force thing. Maybe something he recognizes from--

She watches out of the corner of her eye as Kylo's lightsaber flies out of the pile and directly into his waiting palm.

--Ah. Like that. With the smallest hint of a smile, Codi turns so she's peeking through the doorway directly. "Not that I can think of," she shrugs. "I've already replaced most of my things with better stuff here. I can--"

As Link pulls out his paraglider, some of the items in the nearby stack are knocked over. One of them hits a little plastic crate in the corner. The crate meows, pitifully.

"--The fuck?" Ignoring her duties at the front of the door, Codi brushes her way inside and marches for the back of the room. She recognized that meow. "Is that--they took my fucking cat! What the hell?!"

Link too had watched the lightsaber float across the room with facination, momentarily distracted from his paraglider by it's movement through the air. It was like his magnesis! Only Kylo didn't look to be using a rune, or a giant mystical magnet.

He might have asked about it, but then Codi found a cat. An actual cat, here in the storeroom.

Following Codi across the room, he comes to stand beside her and look at the cat. He's found a lot of interesting things in hidden rooms and chests and whatnot - but never anything alive. He stares at the creature.

"...Are they hungry?" he asks, uncertain what to do in this situation. Have the Sylphid been feeding it? Should Link get it something to eat?

"If it's survived this long in here, it's probably been given food and water." It's a practical observation, but carries an appropriately baffled tone, considering how haphazard everything else in this room seems to be. He would have imagined this was all just tossed into the room and then forgotten about, but the discovery of a live animal seems to throw a wrench into that theory.

Kylo had felt that presence the moment Vader had removed his chip--combined with the sense of pain and distress that had sent him searching for his grandfather in concern. He had known in an instant who it had belonged to, but even now, the sheer iciness of that energy surprises him. Kylo has edges of the same, being as attuned to the Dark as he is, but his own anger is like a flame, hot and unpredictable.

If any Sylphid here are sensitive at all to such things, he imagines they'll be quaking in fear at the mix of those two presences approaching.

He says nothing else for now, lighting his saber as he follows his grandfather's lead.

There had been a time when anger in ~~Anakin Skywalker~~ Vader had felt hot, unstable, and sudden - like a scoring sandstorm, like the strike of a greater Krayt - seemingly sudden but in reality building and traveling, like lightning. But not now. Now, it was a seething glacial cold.

But despite the generational difference between them and Vader's lack of personal experience with sensing of familial bonds, the link between him and Kylo were abundantly clear. Almost more screaming than the one between him and Luke - but Vader assumed that was simply due to their similar alignments and Luke's tendencies toward his mother's temperament. He didn't (yet) recognize the shadow of Palpatine ghosting about his grandson, too enthused to be whole again and with his family. It was the first real taste of joy he'd had in over twenty years.

But that joy was also tempered his desire to hold onto it, with possessiveness that made clear to anyone who could sense such that he'd shred anyone who harmed what was his. Kylo, in this case.

Hearing the lightsaber ignite, he turned a little to look at it. Crossguard wasn't his preferred design, but it was a statement and well done for all the external work the saber had. He nodded approvingly.

The little black cat with wide, yellow eyes staring back at the three of them from his pet carrier doesn't look like he's starving, at least from a casual observation. Codi kneels down to get a better look.

"We don't have time to feed him," she says blandly, reaching out her hand to try and tickle the cat's nose through the grated front hatch that he's pressed against. "I'm sure there's a guard rotation coming around the corner any minute--ow!" Codi recoils and clutches her hand, now oozing blood from several clawmarks on her fingers. "Little bastard--ugh, whatever, let's get out of here!"

In a huff, Codi snatches up the cat carrier under her arm and stomps back towards the door, the creature inside howling plaintively the entire way.

"...Your cat doesn't like you?" Link says, trailing after Codi. The blood certainly suggest dislike. Not to mention the howling. The cat certainly doesn't seem happy to see Codi again.

Which seems odd. Aren't pets supposed to like their owners?

Kylo, likewise, finds himself a bit baffled at the strange relationship between animal and owner. If not fondness, then he would at least expect some level of obedience--though he supposes the latter could easily degrade after some time of the animal being isolated like this.

More importantly, that noise its making is akin to carrying an intruder alarm along with them.

With all his powers back, and now also his saber, Kylo has no doubt about his ability to fight off whatever Sylphid might find them. That doesn't mean he's currently enthused about the prospect of being swarmed by them when they've thus far avoided it.

"Can't you at least convince it to be quiet?"

The crossguard design of the saber had been born out of necessity as much as aesthetic, but it has proven to suit him. It channels his crystal's unstable energy into extra points capable of cutting--a fitting enough metaphor to the goals he's set for himself.

The appearance of anything remotely like a smile on Kylo's lips is rare, but there is a hint of one when he notices that nod. He's used to his accomplishments going unnoticed at best, and more often being criticised.

The Sylphid, of course, have taken notice of their approaching foes and started to strike back. After having gone through those first battles without the aid of the Force, it is intensely satisfying to simply stop a bullet aimed at him in midair.

Vader is all too used to the same. His efforts met with criticisms, with scorn, with corrections. Rarely with praise. Except Padmè. She'd always noticed, her hands ruining through his hair as soothing a balm as her words. And then their children. He'd made a decision to be a parent like his mother, praising, proud, protective, instructive. It's one he's trying to hold onto now, even if it was difficult. But come easier with Leia and Kylo. Leia due to her age, Kylo...Kylo Kenny because they were so similar.

Being able to make the boy smile...that was a lot.

Vader focused, not just on the enemy Kylo had targeted but further out. Pouring over the area to seek out, feel their mindset, thier fear, their anger, their excitement. Those who felt fear, he focused on, pushed his presence at them save the painful death he promised. At least one broke ranks, dropped their weapon, and fled.

Vader shifted attention to the intact front, marching at it with the confidence of someone for whom victory was already predetermined. Being fired upon, slugiron, plasma, the weren't stopped but deflected back at the enemy. Howls of pain and rage sparked through the underbrush like beacons.

Ezra has been stretch his senses out into the Force in an effort to pick up possible distress from any of the prisoners, and hopefully figure where the occupied cells where.

That the spike in upset he senses doesn't feel like it's all human, well, the Sylphids rounded up all kinds of sentients, didn't they?

He picks up the pace when he hears yowling, and then other voices, and he rounds the corner with his slug thower drawn.

...ok, that certainly looks like some of his fellow rebels.

"Oh, hey." He lowers his gun. "...is that a cat?"

In her frustration, Codi ends up ignoring the questions and complaints of her fellow rebels at first, instead focusing on getting herself and her distressed animal out of this miserable facility as quickly as possible. She speeds out of the storage room with her shoulders hunched, spins on her heel towards the turn in the hall--

--and nearly runs head-first into Ezra, already lowering his gun. Codi freezes in surprise. But it's fleeting; the cat in the carrier at her side yowls again and her expression promptly settles back to one of irritation.

"Unfortunately yes," she glowers. Behind her narrowed olive eyes, the gears are spinning. Kylo has a point - her cat is definitely going to give them away. She turns to look back at him and Link.

"--You two should keep going," Codi offers. "He's...upset. I'll need to remove him. Ezra!"

She suddenly turns back to face the young Jedi, mouth split into a too-saccharine grin.

"Great timing! You wanna help me and Iggy get out of here?"

Link, hot on Codi's heels, blinks at Ezra. "...Hi?" he says, before looking back at Codi.

There are a lot of them in this corridor now, isn't there? Four people now, plus a cat. Not exactly a great combination for a stealth mission, was it?

"Okay," Link agrees. He glances at Kylo briefly, then back to Codi and Ezra. "Bye," he says, before setting off down the corridor.

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Wildcard - Sabotaging Sensors Part 2 Electric Boogaloo

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