fandomhighdorms | The gym [Sunday afternoon]

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The gym [Sunday afternoon]

After calling Jaina to let her know that her great-grandkid or something had just showed up, Ben decided that his normally insane workout routine on the weekends hadn't been enough to get all of his ~~repression~~ energy out.

So he was back in the gym, hitting a punching bag like it had personally offended him.

It hadn't--no sentient gym equipment here today!--but he was giving it a good whalloping anyway.

[OOC: So very interruptable.]

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"Ever sliced someone up with a lightsaber?" Ben asked.

"Does that matter?"

He'd seen plenty of people slice other people up with lightsabers, but he wasn't sharing that.

"It's a lot easier to throw judgments around about how things should work when you haven't actually done anything," Ben said, going back to his sit-ups, "that's all."

"Yeah, it's real easy when the people you're judging have been claiming to be the be-all end-all of good guys for years and then fail to deliver when they're actually needed," Atton shot back. "What I have or haven't done doesn't really come into it."

"We aren't the military," Ben shot back. "There's more to justice than killing people."

"How about defending the Republic?" Atton sat up and shot Ben a look across the room. "Do Jedi still pretend to do that in your time?"

Several different emotions flashed through Ben's eyes. "We don't pretend," he said. "We protect, to very little thanks."

"Could've fooled me," Atton retorted.

"I'm sorry about your homeworld," Ben said quietly, moving from sit-ups to free weights, "but even at the height of the Order, we couldn't be everywhere all the time."

"Except when you're battling out whatever religious argument you're having with each other this time," Atton said, sending him a dark look. "Then suddenly you don't mind being everywhere all the time. But hey, I guess you're excused. It's only been, what, thirty years since Exar Kun kicked up the last Jedi civil war?"

Ben knew that name, and his expression sharpened before he took a deep breath and calmed himself down. This guy needed to express his frustrations at someone, and it was better for it to be Ben than, say, Anakin.

"Sith are more ruthless than Mandolorians," Ben said.

"Not the point," Atton said. "The point is, you're in no position to complain about having to fix the galaxy when your own people keep breaking it to begin with."

"Sith aren't my people," Ben said heatedly.

"Yeah? Then why do they all have biographies starting right at the Jedi Order?" Atton asked. "Don't kid yourself. The galaxy doesn't work that simple."

"They all don't," Ben snapped. "There's an entire planet of them in my time who, in typical Sith fashion, are ready to take over the galaxy, but they've had nothing to do with the Jedi."

Ben never thought he'd thank Vestara for anything, and yet...

"You sure about that?" Atton asked. "But it doesn't matter anyway. My point is, you can't say 'there's Sith over there, they're the bad guys, and then we've got Jedi over here, they're the good guys' and expect history to back you up on that. Jedi fall all the time, and when they do, the galaxy pays."

"When they fall, they aren't Jedi any more," Ben retorted heatedly. "And if you can show me an instance of a Sith saving adorable puppies and ushering the galaxy into a time of peace, prosperity, and not being crushed under their endless need for power and control, I'm all ears."

"Ulic Qel-Droma. Exar Kun. Revan. Malak," Atton ticked off on his fingers. "That's just in the past forty years. Never mind all the Jedi who went with them. You think they-- what, magically stop counting because they're not calling themselves Jedi any more? There's a point where you can say 'it was just one rotten apple', and the Jedi passed it a long time ago." He snorted. "At least the Sith don't claim to be about peace and prosperity and then drop the line whenever it's convenient."

"When they stop being Jedi, they stop counting as Jedi, yes," Ben replied a little heatedly. "If a police officer stops protecting people in his jurisdiction and instead goes after them with a blaster, he's not a cop any more."

"If that happens, then damn right someone's going to that cop's boss and demanding a full investigation," Atton replied. "Jedi should be held accountable." He shook his head. "You and the Sith - you're both just kids with more power than you can handle."

"There's not exactly a way to turn it off at the spigot," Ben retorted.

Unfortunately. If there was, Atton would've run down to his own and given that spigot a good hard twist before he got killed or, worse, turned into some lightsaber-wielding flunkie. For either side.

"No, but maybe you want to stop pretending you and the Sith don't have much in common."

"We're opposite sides of a credcoin," Ben said, "looking out at the galaxy in two vastly different ways. Other than lightsabers and Force-sensitivity, we don't have a lot in common."

"Keep telling yourself that," Atton said, bringing up his weights. "I'm sure that's how Jedi sleep easy at night."

Ben snorted. "Who told you we sleep easy? Or at all?"

The gym [Sunday afternoon]

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