Log:A Clash of Wills
Rax and Hux Take Turns Trying to Intimidate Each Other
OOC Date: February 6, 2016
Location: Finalizer
Participants: General Hux, Rax Vaelus
The hours stretch on into nothingness inside the holding cell of the Detention Level aboard the Finalizer. There is no clock, there are no port holes, there is no way one could possible gauge the passing of time unless they somehow managed to guess the patrol schedules of the Stormtroopers in the hallway outside.
The door to the holding cell opens and in steps a thin, red headed male wearing a long black coat, flanked by two Stormtroopers with blasters. He steps easily down the two stairs, and stands rigidly, watching the prisoner in silence.
The man in the cell needs no such things. In truth, the silence has been welcome. He is sitting with his legs crossed in a lotus position, with his hands facing palms up on his knees. Without opening his eyes, the man inclines his head slightly, "Welcome to the Zoo."
His eyes slowly slide open, a blazing cerulean blue, the color of lightning on Naboo. "...I expected Kylo Ren. I don't recognize your face." Turning his hands palms down on his knees, he remains seated where he is.
The red headed man gazes upon Rax with a passive gaze that at once appears to be cold and haughty. He steps no further into the cell, nor do his entourage of Stormtroopers, though they do stand at the ready for any forthcoming command.
It is a long, tense silence in the small cell before he finally opens his mouth to speak. His voice is low and carries subtle hints of a threatening intention, "Who are you? And why did you attack my troops?"
Rax Vaelus cracks a faint grin, "Ah... And here I had an entire arsenal of wry jokes ready if you decided to be an arrogant bastard." He shrugs slowly, "My name is Rax Vaelus. Your troops opened fire on a wookiee I like. So I decided to kill your entire landing force." He smirks faintly, his eyes blazing like electricity in the searing lights of the cell, "There was a Stormtrooper... She scored not one but two impossible hits on me. She deserves a medal for that." His smirk softens, "As do the members of your medical crew. Death came for me. Yet here I sit. You have my thanks."
Rax's faint grin is met with a smile in turn, though it is a joyless thing. The expression giving the red headed man a predatory and somewhat deranged look. "You decided to kill my entire landing party you say?" He nods his head and then continues, "You seem quite the confident fellow, I wonder if that confidence will persist even after I have you strung up and electrocution probes needling your body until every fiber of your being screams as if it were on fire, a million infernos raging inside that simpering smile?" His tone never changes, it being the same measured thing since his entrance, though there is an energy that seems to flow into his body, noticable in his arms, his shoulders shifting a bit restlessly as he clasps his hands behind his back.
Rax Vaelus hmms, his smile fading. "I see. Unfortunate. Here I thought I'd perhaps found someone who understands the principals of courtesy." The man uncrosses his legs leisurely and moves into a casual kneeling posture. "As for your landing party, I seem to recall having made a great deal of progress cleaving through them before that trooper landed a lucky strike." His eyes are hard as diamonds as he stares at the arrogant redhead, "Make no mistake, Inquisitor, this is not the first time I have languished in a cell, nor is it the first time someone thrilled at the notion of making me a plaything." His eyes narrow, without fear, speaking from an authoritative stance, "It did not end well for them, and it will not end well for you."
Letting the silence stretch a bit after that, he adds, "I respond well to courtesy. I am no mongrel freedom fighter, whimpering in fear at your feet. You frighten me as much as a womp rat frightens the great Krayt Dragons of Tatooine. You have as much sway over me as a carrack has over the Solar Winds." Rax slowly rises to his feet, fists clenched at his sides. "You have rescued me from the brink of death, and for that, I thank you. But if you wish revenge for your fallen comrades, perhaps you should ask yourself what made them so weak. Is it the fault of steel for cleaving through iron? Is it the fault of the flame for consuming the paper offered it?"
The passive expression slips from the red headed man's features with a number of small movements. The first is a slight furrow to his brow and narrow of his eyes, followed by a slight downturn to the corners of his mouth. A slight flush that has nothing to do with embarrassment creeps into his light complexion as his blood rises. When he speaks, his voice is even lower, a quiet promise. "You may not fear now, but the days are in my favor Rax Vaelus. You are my prisoner, and I have no intention of letting you free any time soon. I can keep you here in this single room until you starve to death. One solitary room, the last thing you will see from now until you die, alone and weak and at my mercy." His voice takes on a snarl of passion as he says, "Your pitiful lightsaber you wielded in Nar Shaddaa will do you no good here... perhaps that will even be the tool I use to cut free your heart when you beg me on bended knee to release you from your misery."
The grin the huge, broad-shouldered man gives is that of the dragon hovering over its meal. "The days are never in our favor, young pup... I have stormed ships on fire as we careened through the atmosphere, dodging blaster bolts and molten plasteel through a two-meter-wide gap. I have taken treasure ships, armed merchant vessels, Hutt warships, and the strange machinery of species I do not even have a name for. I have swam in oceans of trash, been set aflame, and shot more times than I could ever hope to count."
He leans forward slightly, his teeth gleaming as he grins hungrily, "I have subsisted on hate alone when lesser men around me perished in despair. I have sated myself on the pleasures of the galaxy and seen everything the Republic, the Hutts, or the Empire could bring to bear." He leans in just a quarter of an inch more. "I am the whirlwind, young Inquisitor. Death has no meaning for me, anymore."
He leans back fully upright again, smiling down at the man, "Bring me a meal, perhaps a woman or two. And perhaps we shall speak again." He grins, his eyes blazing, "Or don't, and take your chances with the cosmic dice. It's all the same to me."
The smaller man does not quell under the gaze of Rax as he leans forward toward him, doesn't so much as lean away. He simply stares hard with that same furrowed and furious glare. As the man stops talking, the red head smiles, the first /real/ and obvious expression to split the man's features beyond the flush of anger. He smiles, but it is a predatory thing. "I think that I will take my chances. You see, there is a difference between myself and those who seek to cling to lightsabers and other antiquated notions of guiding forces and ridiculous nonsense like that. There is no fate. There is no chance. There are winners, and there are losers. There are hammers, and there are nails. I have all of the power in this situation and you are the bug that will be squashed beneath my boot... eventually... after I have had my time and gotten my joy from stripping you of that pride you wear as a talisman around your neck." Lifting his right hand toward his face, the red headed man speaks into a comm at his wrist, "Ready the chamber. Our... guest requests a visit." His eyes never leave those of Rax, a hard and fleetingly maniacal look about the corners, where the skin lifts to meet that wicked smile. To the Stormtroopers that flank him he says, "No food or water for the time being. Pride is the mountain we will tear down first." With that, the man turns on his heel and steps back out of the room, the Stormtroopers following him out and the door sliding closed behind him.
"I once believed that as well, pup. The bit about Chance and Fate." He smirks, "Electricity, flame, it's all the same. In the end, it's only those afraid of dying that make the signals into more than what they are." He nods up and away, apparently speaking sincerely, "You should give it a go, sometime, pup. See how you fare in the crucible of worlds." He grins, his lightning eyes bright, "You may learn some unpleasant truths about yourself... Or you may learn why steel cares not for the plight of iron. Your power is ephemeral, built on the shoulders of those greater than you. My power is my own will, and my satisfaction at the life I have lived."
He's still grinning as the door closes, "See you around."
