Chapter 1 – This is where the fun begins

…

The wind howled with the roars of men and machine as the sky bled laser fire on the once quiet moon of Concordia. Neither ground nor sky were free of the rage of battle. On the gray, scorched soil, armored warriors fought and died at the hands and blasters of those an outsider could have confused for their brothers, dressed as they all were in the Iron Skin of Mandalore. Meanwhile, the air was choked with still more warriors bearing jetpacks, their precise formations constantly wavering as they were buffeted by screaming starfighters chasing each other overhead.

Far above them all, shining like the afternoon sun, the world of Mandalore glittered serenely, peaceful and untroubled, no matter how its sons and daughters bled and died on its desolate moon.

As one Mandalorian stared up at his one-time homeworld, his armor suddenly felt as heavy as Mandalore itself.

"Damn you … traitor," the man at his feet coughed, blood speckling his lips.

Lowering his gaze, the Mandalorian studied his foe, who wavered on his hands and knees as he teetered on the knife's edge between life and death.

"Hypocrisy doesn't suit you, Pre. Or the armor you wear," he finally responded, his voice sounding cool and crisp through the speakers of his helmet.

Without it, his voice would have sounded as cold as space itself.

"Hypocrite?!" Pre Vizsla choked, outraged eyes staring deep into the visor of his murderer's helmet. "Why?! For calling a snake what he is?!" His battered black-and-blue armor groaned as his back straightened, bringing him closer to his killer's eyes. "We are the Death Watch! Descendants of the true warrior faith all Mandalorians once knew! Cast into exile because we will not abandon our heritage! Because we will not bow to these New Mandalorians who think that being a pacifist is a good thing! Duchess Satine traded away our culture and tradition for peace, crushing our souls, destroying our identity! That is our struggle! And it is the duty of all true Mandalorians to join us in it, and to help save our people from Satine's cultural genocide, no matter what it takes! Even if it means breaking some ancient codes of conduct!" Snarling furiously, he spit on the Mandalorian's boots, staining them an even deeper red. "If you would stand against us in that, then you're right: you're not just some traitor." His icy blue eyes burned with hatred. "You have lost your Mandalorian soul."

The Mandalorian's helmet gave no hint of his expression, but his actions made his feelings clear. With a mechanical whine, his thumb activated the angular hilt in his hand, extending a shimmering blade as black as sin, but surrounded by a glittering white corona of light.

"You claim you're a patriot," he quietly intoned, hefting the legendary Darksaber into the air, "but your people have become little more than raiders and terrorists, slaughtering innocents and murdering your own people. You've seized our warrior history, but surrendered our honor, our code—the heart of Mandalore itself." With smooth precision, he aligned the crisp edge of the Mandalorian lightsaber with Pre Vizsla's neck. "Without them, one is no true Mandalorian; just an animal in stolen armor." His gloves creaked as his grip tightened on the hilt of the ancient weapon. "This is the Way."

Sneering, the leader of Death Watch bared his throat and leaned closer to the edge of his ancestor's blade, causing the skin of his neck to smoke and bleed where they touched. "Then put me down, little brother. If you can."

Seconds stretched into eternity as Tor Vizsla stared down as his kneeling older brother, ready to end the stain he had placed on Mandalore's legacy once and for all.

And as the seconds continued passing, his trembling hand simply wouldn't do it.

Pre's eyes filled with contempt. "That's what I thought," he spat.

"Commander!"

Tor saw Captain Kren stepping up beside him, but he didn't turn to face her. He simply continued staring down at his defeated brother … and the dangerously humming blade that wouldn't move to end him.

"Tor," she said more quietly, laying an armored hand on his shoulder. "Death Watch is routed. They're laying down their arms."

Pre's face twisted further. "Cowards!" he snarled, having fought until he could no longer stand rather than surrender.

Unable to bear it any further, Tor finally ripped his gaze from his fallen older brother to gaze out across the battlefield of Concordia. As his second-in-command reported, the tide of battle was shifting everywhere. The forces of Death Watch were breaking under the might of his own soldiers, with more and more of them throwing down their blasters and raising their hands in surrender as they spotted their leader kneeling at his feet.

Tor's sneer of disgust at their weak-willed display matched his brother's perfectly, though his helmet hid it from view.

"We should take him prisoner," Kren suggested, her modulated voice almost soft as it came through her helmet's speakers. "Death Watch is done for. He isn't worth killing. Let him rot in a cell with his failure."

Tor's wince was hidden by his helmet. He knew why she was suggesting this. It wasn't because of some sudden streak of mercy on her part, and it certainly wasn't compassion for this stain on Mandalore's history kneeling at his feet.

It was because she knew him better than he knew himself. She knew he couldn't kill his own brother. And she was giving him a way out.

In that moment, he loved his wife just as much as he hated himself.

"You're right," he finally agreed, de-activating and lowering the famed lightsaber. "We'll take him prisoner."

Once more, Pre spit on Tor's boots, his disgust for Tor's weakness clear to see. "You really think my people won't break me out?" he asked with a smirk.

"As I said, ori'vod," he told the fallen warrior, "without our creed, your people are no Mandalorians; just killers wearing our armor. And killers have no true loyalty."

"And what has your little creed done for you?!" Pre demanded, exploding in rage. "You and your True Mandalorians are exiled to this forsaken moon just like the rest of us! And you think spouting some ancient customs and never taking those buckets off your heads makes you better than me and my people?! It doesn't! Your precious creed just makes you too soft to free our people from Satine's tyranny! Too weak to do what must be done to restore Mandalore to what it should be!" His eyes burned with furious hate, but his smile was cold and cruel. "That's a weakness I'm proud not to share."

"We'll see how much comfort that brings you in a cell," Tor told his brother, pulling a pair of binders from his belt.

Before he could cuff his brother, though, Tor's attention was grabbed by a series of strange shadows that began passing across the gray rock all around them. Spotting them as well, Pre's battered face turned skyward. "Oh, I think it'll be a long wait before you see me in a cell," he remarked, his lips spreading into a deep, satisfied grin.

Lifting his own gaze, Tor's blood ran cold as he spotted countless dark shapes framed by the light of Mandalore in the sky.

Shapes that were quickly growing larger.

"What did you do?" Tor whispered in horror.

"I had some of my loyal 'killers' make yet another try at ending that traitorous Duchess back on Mandalore," Pre explained, his smile smug and cold as the oncoming fleet began to darken the sky. "A bit of insurance in case we lost here today. I received their final report just before we engaged. My men couldn't reach her, but the ministers in her little Council Hall weren't so lucky." By now, the roar of the incoming ships' engines was starting to echo across the charred and broken landscape of Concordia. "I imagine her guards are a little upset at the moment, but at least they know who to blame, given how the bombers were wearing the rather distinctive armor of your precious True Mandalorians … or at least, armor that was painted to look like yours." Grunting, Pre struggled to his feet. "Course, I'd be more worried about the Jedi who's always been so attached to our dear exalted Duchess … and the friends he may have called in to help end this terrible threat to her precious reign, once and for all."

He couldn't listen to any more. "Pilots! Evasive maneuvers only! Do not engage! I repeat, do not engage!" he yelled desperately into his helmet's comm system as the enemy fleet closed in.

It didn't matter. Ships bearing the crest of the Mandalorian Guard opened fire, cutting down his ships and Death Watch's alike, unable or unwilling to search for the crests marking the nearly identical Mandalorian starfighters as belonging to his faction or his brother's. To the Guard of New Mandalore, he doubted it truly mattered anyway. To them, all the exiles on Concordia had probably long been painted with the Death Watch brush; his brother's attempt to frame Tor's own people was likely just the final proof the Guard needed to see them all as little more than terrorists.

And to respond accordingly.

"Kren! Get our people out of here! Fall back!" he ordered as burning ships fell from the skies and the ground shook under laser fire from the Mandalorian Guard.

His wife needed no further encouragement, running towards the battlefield barking furious orders into her comm.

No one was listening, though. Chaos erupted as three factions battled each other at once. The once surrendering Death Watch dove for their blasters and fired on Tor's distracted people, his own people scrambled to defend two fronts at once, and all the while, the Mandalorian Guard laid waste to them both from the skies.

Tor wanted to scream at those damn pilots. To remind them that his people had never attacked Mandalore like Pre's terrorist traitors so often had! To shout at them to look at the damn armor! Pre's people wore black and blue, matching each other like some lifeless uniform. His own wore armor as unique as the people inside them, and their colors were a riot of life and personality, following the tradition of old Mandalore. How could they not see that?! Were they blind?!

A sudden roar snapped him out of his horror as Pre tackled him to the ground, wrenching at the angular hilt in Tor's numbed fingers.

"Like I said, brother," Pre snarled as they wrestled in the dirt, "your little code makes you too weak to do what must be done to save Mandalore!" Ripping the hilt free of Tor's grasp, he switched it on and raised the crackling black sword overhead. "But I'm not!"

Before the strike could land, the ground began shaking as a line of blaster fire began racing towards them from one of the fighters overhead. Without a second thought, they both fired their jetpacks and flew out of the line of fire, their warrior reflexes narrowly saving them from a shared death.

As the fighter passed them by, the brothers themselves hovering across from each other over the broken battlefield.

"It didn't have to be this way, brother," Pre called out, his cold blue eyes sorrowful. "I wish you could have stayed with us. We would have restored Mandalore together, like we had always wanted." His eyes hardened as he switched off the Darksaber. "But I suppose I'll just have to do it without you." Clipping the stolen blade to his belt, he turned and fired his jetpack, abandoning the battlefield as he flew for a nearby ravine where most of Death Watch's survivors were fleeing.

"No, you won't … brother," Tor promised quietly, heart coursing with hatred as he pulled out his blaster and prepared to chase down this disgrace to his family name.

This time, he wouldn't hesitate.

"Tor! Jedi!"

With that single word, his surge of burning hatred disappeared without a trace. In its place, an icy chill crept down his spine as he spotted a non-Mandalorian fighter that had landed nearby.

From the ship's cockpit, he watched a shadowy figure rise.

A figure wearing brown robes, and wielding a crystal blue lightsaber.

"No …," he whispered.

He had no idea what the Jedi's plans were. Maybe he was there for vengeance. Maybe he came to negotiate. He'd never know for sure. Because in the chaos and terror of the slaughterfield, panic ruled the day, and at its command, his men and Pre's both opened fire on the figure, standing together as one at long last, no matter how his wife shouted at them to stand down.

"No, no, no!" Tor cried, firing his jetpack and racing towards the figure.

The Jedi was poetry in motion. His movements perfectly efficient, his lightsaber became a brilliant protective cage repelling each and every shot that was fired at him, sending Mandalorians staggering as their armor was struck by their own blasts, or disarming them as their blasters were destroyed.

And then the Jedi stopped defending.

"Run! Get out of there!" Tor bellowed desperately, firing his thrusters well passed their safety limit.

The Jedi became a blur as he disappeared from the starfighter, reappearing amongst the Mandalorians to remove heads from shoulders or limbs from bodies with his humming, glittering sword. His movements were almost hauntingly beautiful as he deftly avoided their beskar armor and rendered the greatest warriors in the galaxy utterly helpless, cutting them down like bleeding stalks of grain.

And all around them, similar starfighters landed on the fields of Concordia, and figures bearing green and blue lightsabers stepped free.

Even still, Tor's brave, beautiful wife refused to run, standing her ground beside Death Watch and True Mandalorians alike as she fired on the approaching Jedi, determined to defend her people against even the unstoppable, as befit a true warrior of Mandalore.

That demon with the blue sword never even slowed down.

"KREN!"

Ruddy skies and crimson stone stretched before him, cruel and desolate. The tang of blood and smoke filled his throat, and his injuries screamed gruesome violence under the weight of his bloody, blackened armor.

Tor barely noticed any of it.

"Are you sure about this, sir?"

Slowly turning from the viewport, his muscles twitched and groaned as if they had already forgotten how to do anything other than stand ramrod stiff at military attention, as he had been since they had fled the forsaken fields of Concordia. The HUD in his battered helmet froze and glitched as he scanned his ship's flightdeck, passing numbly over the shattered displays and sparking machinery still belching thin trails of acrid black smoke. Instead, they landed on the ship's pilot, even more battered than their barely space-worth vessel, with crimson bandages wrapped so copiously around his body, it seemed as if he would simply collapse like some shattered urn without them.

He was one of the lucky ones. Tor's ears still echoed with the haunting screams and pitiful moans of the injured belowdecks, once mighty Mandalorians burned and broken in body as well as spirit. Scant few of his people could even stand or function, but they still did all they could to keep their broken brothers and sisters alive as they fled to safe haven.

If that is what truly awaited them. Tor somehow rather doubted it, though.

"I'm not sure of anything any longer, vod," Tor admitted, turning once more to the viewport to watch the rest of his people's ships float almost lifeless in space, mangled and burning. But by the will of Mandalore, they had managed to make it this far, miracle after miracle allowing them to escape the carnage of Concordia and follow him into the sanctity of hyperspace on a battered exodus from Mandalore's moon.

As for why they followed him here in the first place … he really couldn't say. His last command had led to their near complete eradication on Concordia, after all, doing more to aid the destruction of his people than Satine or the Jedi could ever dream of accomplishing. He had honestly expected to feel the sharp burn of a blaster bolt in his spine long before this point, and he had no explanation for its absence.

"Why do you follow me?" he decided to simply ask the man, continuing to stare out the viewport even as the skin between his shoulderblades crawled in anticipation.

"Because we have faith in you, Alor," the broken warrior answered, the fervor of desperate, almost crazed belief filling his voice as he delved deep into the traditions of their past for this title. "We are your people, your tribe. You carry the strength of Mandalore with you, and so do we all. Haat, Ijaa, Haa'it. We are with you to the end, Alor'aliit! This is the Way!"

Tor turned and stared at the man. His body was scorched, his armor mangled, but from somewhere, the man found the strength to stand as tall as any true Mandalorian as he clasped his fist to his chest in the ancient salute of their people.

Tor tried not to see the battered armor of Death Watch buried beneath those bandages.

"Haat, Ijaa, Haa'it. To the end, and for Mandalore. We will keep the faith. This is the Way," Tor finally replied, closing the ancient oath as he pressed his fist to his own chest in a matching salute, feeling the long, smooth gouge across his chestplate left by a burning blue sword. "Ready my shuttle, then, ner vod. I will secure our new home."

"As you say, Alor'aliit!"

As the Mandalorian left to follow his orders, Tor once more turned to the viewport. This time, though, he stared past the surviving ships of his people, horrifyingly few and dangerously battered. Instead, he once more studied the blood-red world that just might hold their salvation.

A humorless chuckle escaped him at the thought. After all, "salvation" wasn't a word commonly associated with the dreaded Dathomir.

"Maybe it's a sign, though," he whispered to himself, fist clenching as the crimson planet filled his vision. "After all, you always did like red … didn't you, Kren?"

The blackened, once vibrantly scarlet helmet in his hands didn't reply, no matter how he wished it would.

The shuttle jerked and shuddered as it descended through the atmosphere, the scars of their recent massacre still fresh as damaged instruments sparked and glitched. The engines sputtered and groaned as they continued descending, the vessel dancing along a thin divide between flying ship and falling metal coffin.

Tor honestly wasn't sure which side he really favored any longer.

"… trespasser …," a scintillating voice whispered, reaching even the numbed Tor Vizsla as he studied the shuttle's communications system, hoping maybe he had simply picked up an errant transmission.

He hadn't.

With a deadly whine, the ship's systems suddenly and mysteriously died, battered displays going dark as the sputtering groan of the engines fell silent.

His fingers darted across buttons and switches, filling the cabin with frantic clicks and muttered curses as he tried in vain to restore power to the falling shuttle, his stomach swooping as the ship's nose tilted downwards, and the desolate rocks and gruesome trees raced closer.

"… why so hasty? Isn't landing here what you wanted?" that inhuman voice mocked, fading out with a hideous laugh as Tor pulled himself out of the chair and raced towards the back hatch, pulling himself along panels and railings as the hurtling ship tilted further and further downwards.

Reaching the escape hatch, his ears rang with the shrieking whistle of air racing past his shuttle as he punched buttons on the door's lifeless control panel.

No response, of course.

"… are you sure you want to do that?" the voice asked as he dug into his belt and pulled out a small, dome-shaped device. "Dathomir rushes to embrace you. And with it, the peaceful shroud of oblivion itself." Attaching the device to the door, Tor's hand froze as those words finally reached him. "It's what you want, isn't it? Why fight it?"

For a long, tantalizing moment, the only sounds that filled the cockpit were howling wind and groaning metal.

"Because I am Mandalorian," Tor finally answered, pushing a button on his vambrace. The ship shuddered as the bomb destroyed the door, sending the dry, scorching wind of Dathomir racing into the cabin with almost physical weight, forcing Tor backwards as if fighting to drag him down with his ship.

But like he said, he was Mandalorian. Fighting was his nature. With a defiant roar, the jetpack on his back came to life, and he battered through the screaming wind and out the door of the doomed shuttle.

Torrents of flame clawed their way into the sky as the ship crashed, dashing itself against crimson rocks and mutated flora with a thunderous explosion. But Tor himself floated safely to the ground, landing next to the glassy trench carved by the ship as his thrusters deactivated.

"Impressive," the unearthly voice complimented him. But this time, it didn't just echo from the empty air around him. Instead, it came from a strangely dressed woman sitting delicately on a nearby boulder. "Your spirit wished only to die … but your blood chose instead to fight." Tapping a white, claw-like nail against thin black lips, she cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. "Or was it the other way around?"

"Does it make a difference?" Tor asked tiredly.

"Maybe, maybe not," she relented. "But you carry both life and death with you, stranger. So tell me this: Did you come here to live, or to die?"

"I came here to find a home for my people," he answered, looking skywards at the faint shadows of his people's battered ships in orbit. "Death chased us from our home, and we came here seeking life. The chance to begin again."

"Did you, now? How interesting," the woman replied, slithering from her stone to stand beside him with all the unnatural grace of a serpent.

It was hideous to watch.

"Few come to my world seeking life," she continued, reaching out and dragging claw-like nails across his mask with a hair-raising squeal. "Still fewer manage to find it."

Jerking his head irritably, he pulled himself free of her spidery hands. "What do you want?" he asked bluntly.

"Ah …," the woman whispered, "a worthy question." Her pale silver eyes studied his damaged armor in delighted fascination. "I do so enjoy the formalities, I admit, but a bargain …," her nails danced along the scar on his breastplate left by the lightsaber that butchered his wife, "… a bargain is a pleasure with no equal."

In a heartbeat, his blaster was free and pointed directly at her gruesomely tattooed face. "What. Do. You. Want?!" he demanded, his snarling lips hidden by his featureless helmet as the fear and rage and hatred and loss that had been building inside since the slaughter of Concordia finally reached a boiling point.

Breathing deep, the red-robed creature moaned as if inhaling some sweet fragrance. "Delicious," she whispered, heavy-lidded eyes piercing deep through the visor of his helmet to meet his own.

The blaster pointed at her forehead charged with a threatening hum.

Suddenly, his arm seized, every muscle pulling agonizingly tight as his arm trembled and shook, but otherwise remained as stiff and unresponsive as a statue.

Sweat beaded on his forehead as his wide, horrified eyes watched his arm slowly, agonizingly bend. He grunted and fought, but still his arm forced his gun closer and closer, until the cool end of the barrel pressed tightly against his throat beneath his helmet, making his skin crawl as his trigger finger twitched … and began to tighten.

"You trespass on my world seeking life," the Witch suddenly spoke, her voice and expression almost bored as his hand snapped opened, dropping the blaster into her waiting palm. "But life is a most precious commodity." Reaching out, her spindly fingers gently slid his blaster back into its holster before tracing the loop on his belt where the Darksaber once hung, now securely in the grasp of his traitorous older brother. "And it is not bought cheaply, especially here."

His heart raced as the muscles in his arm slowly loosened, granting him control of the treacherous, aching limb once more as he massaged his bruised windpipe. The surge of rage and panic that had raced through him faded as quickly as it came, leaving only a hollow shell. He was a Mandalorian, a fighter … but this smirking creature in front of him was not a thing to be fought, as he had learned with those demons back on Concordia.

Men could be fought. But against the Force, and those cursed sorcerers who dared use it … one may as well be battling a plague, or the hollow grasp of space itself.

"And why should I bargain with you, whoever you are?" he asked bitterly, knowing his helplessness, and hating it.

"Because I am the only one here who would bother to," the Witch replied, slowly circling him as if sizing up a beast for slaughter. "The others on this planet will simply kill you, and all those you bring with you. Ours is a planet of death and shadow, and here, only I offer life."

"Meaning my people can live here? Make a home, and a new start?" he asked, desperate hope tinging his voice, no matter how he tried to stop it.

He had no illusions about their chance of survival if they attempted to reach another planet, even if their ruined ships could somehow make the journey. Their people were too injured, their ships without defenders. A single band of drunken pirates would mean the end of them all. And if they didn't land soon, and give their injured the food and space and treatment they so desperately needed, their ships would be full of nothing more than frozen corpses before they could ever manage to find another planet beyond the reach of the damned Jedi hunting them.

As the hateful Witch smirked at him, he could tell that she knew exactly how desperate their situation was.

But what she didn't know was that this wasn't just about survival to him.

Here, in this forgotten backwater that even the Jedi avoided … here, his people could find sanctuary. Here, they could rebuild, become strong again, their warrior instincts honed and perfected as they battled this savage, hostile world as befit the spirit of great Mandalore.

Here, they would not just survive; they would be renewed.

After all the ruin he had brought upon his people, he owed them this chance, no matter its cost to himself.

"If they have the strength to survive Dathomir's embrace, then yes, your people may find life here," the Witch finally answered, filling his treacherous heart with a flicker of hope before the shadows of her face darkened threateningly. "But if no bargain is struck, then their ships will fall from the skies, and Dathomir itself devour them. Such is my word."

That flicker of hatred in his gut stirred once more as he met the creature's silvery eyes, and saw the same hideous cruelty that had corrupted his brother's. But she held all the cards, and they both knew it.

All he could do was play.

"And what price do you demand for this 'life'?" Tor Vizsla finally spat, his loathing for Force-wielding creatures like this curdling in his soul.

The Witch's smile was black and cold.

Desperate snarls and snapping branches flooded the sun-baked forest, its source moving too fast and too frantically to catch more than a hint of scales and drool-splattered fangs as it fled through the underbrush.

Soon after, an armored figure stepped free of the trees' shadows and into the dappled red sunlight that filtered through the claw-like treetops. Kneeling, he pressed his gloved fingertips into a splash of crimson blood that almost perfectly disappeared amongst the decaying red leaves and rot-black roots of the forest floor.

"The beast slows," Tor announced, standing as a cadre of Mandalorians emerged from the shadowed forest behind him.

"Will it reach our destination, Alor?" one of the warriors asked, his armor mottled green and bedecked with carvings and trophies from countless glorious hunts.

Raising his head, Tor scanned the empty crest of the jagged stone cliff that ran along the forest's edge to their left, its lowest point nearly three times taller than a man.

"Mandalore willing, it shall," he answered, striding into the forest after their quarry, though not before raising his hand to signal another of their party.

With a muffled blast, a warrior wearing crisp blue armor rose into the air, leaves curling in the heat of her jetpack's thrust. With an ominous whine, the barrels of the heavy blaster in her hands began spinning. A deadly hail of crimson bolts followed, tearing wildly through the ink-black shadows and gristly underbrush of the forest in front of them. With a terrified screech, their quarry burst from its hiding place in one of those shadows, resuming its desperate flight from its pursuers.

Tor never broke stride, and the others followed close on his heels as they pushed deeper and deeper into the blighted Dathomiri forest.

None turned to watch the lumbering shadows trailing after them along the top of the jagged stone cliff.

Twice more, Tor signaled for the heavy gunner to take to the skies, whereupon she sent a scatter of blaster bolts shredding through the trees. Each time, their quarry gave a panicked, keening wail as its efforts to hide and escape were foiled, and it was forced to resume its hopeless flight through the trees. All the while, the line of Mandalorian hunters continued to close in, driving it through the woods along the rugged cliff.

And the shadows stalking the hunters from atop that crumbling red cliff continued to grow in number.

As the hunt wore on, however, the trees began to thin, and the Mandalorians caught clearer sightings of their quarry. Panting and bloody, the nearly two-meter-long Voritor lizard crawled low to the ground, its stumpy scaled legs surprisingly quick as it nearly slithered through the underbrush. Over its desperate panting, one could faintly hear a sound almost like a blade being pulled from a sheath as the fan-like fin along its back sliced neatly through the vines and branches that would stop it.

That sound grew fainter as the chase neared its end, and the trees and underbrush thinned to nothing, replaced by crumbling red stone and gritty white dust.

Finally, a long, piercing howl reached the hunters, their quarry having realized its doom. Whooping victoriously, the Mandalorians exited the last fringes of the forest, watching as the Voritor darted back and forth along the bottom of the rusty stone cliff in front of them, the sharply curving bluff having literally cornered the beast before the unyielding line of Mandalorians. Snarling viciously, the beast snapped its slathering jaws again and again at the armored hunters, making it clear that it intended to sell its life dearly, no matter how its legs wavered and sides shook under the weight of its exhaustion and blood-soaked wounds.

And yet, the warriors made no effort to move closer.

The beast howled and screeched a bloody challenge at the Mandalorians as it paced anxiously along the gravelly stone, but still the Mandalorians simply stood there, weapons ready but feet fixed.

Waiting.

As one final shriek echoed out across the sheer stone bluffs, however, the wait finally ended.

Unable to bear the tantalizing screeches of the wounded Voritor any longer, one of the lumbering shadows lurking along the top of the cliff leaped, landing with a furious crash and a victorious snarl on the blindsided reptile, which howled once more, and then died a bloody death under the beast's powerful claws.

Enraged bellows soon followed as the creature's brethren followed suit, leaping after the impulsive beast and attacking it in a brutish contest for the remains of their favored meal.

Soon, the ground trembled with heavy impacts as one after another of the near identical beasts landed at the base of the crumbling bluff, snarling furiously at each other and their dead prey.

And most of all, at the line of Mandalorian warriors standing before them.

"They took the bait," one of the warriors noted in pleasure, readying his rifle.

"I guess they really can't resist the chance for Voritor meat," the heavy gunner agreed, watching the creatures savage the dead reptile with cruel, hooked tusks and narrow, pointed teeth. "But they'll find they bit off more than they could chew if they thought they could take on Mandalorians!"

Her fellow hunters cheered in agreement as the beasts started to ignore the dead Voritor and instead began snarling at the Mandalorians, the creatures' long, powerful forearms spread wide in challenge as their shorter, but no less powerful hind legs tensed in preparation.

"Mind yourselves," Tor calmly warned them. "These are no bleating lizards or frightened Brackaset. These are predators truly worthy of a Mandalorian hunt." Hefting his own rifle, Tor sighted down one of the roaring Nydak. "Because to be Mandalorian is to be both hunter and prey. So let us show these animals which of us is which."

With a fearsome war cry, his people leapt into action, loosing a deadly hail of blaster bolts on the savage Nydak, only to immediately drown out the beasts' pained roars with the thundering crackle of their jetpacks as they blasted skywards, moving as one to deftly avoid the beasts' counterattack as the creatures hurled themselves at the hunters with graceless but powerful leaps. However, one Mandalorian lifted into the air a heartbeat too late, and a wild swing by a Nydak's overlong arm managed to clip his armored legs as it passed below him. Drifting loose from their crisp formation, the Mandalorian wavered in the air as he struggled to orient himself from the heavy blow.

The Nydak recovered first, beady black eyes latching on to the vulnerable warrior with all the savage cunning of a predator of Dathomir. Its tusks still dripping with the blood of the Voritor, the Nydak's powerful limbs tensed beneath it as it prepared to pounce on its wavering prey.

With a sound like a whizzing snap, however, the beast suddenly dropped lifeless to the ground, a trail of smoke drifting from a gruesome wound where one of its eyes used to be.

Moving to cover the lapsed Mandalorian as he regained his place in the formation, Tor cast a quick glance at a distant, gnarled tree far to the right of the cliff's corner, standing tall and alone as it grew from a crack in the crumbling cliff-face.

"Well struck, my son," Tor complimented, spotting the faint glint of sunlight reflecting off of metal in the tree's crimson foliage, where the boy's sniper nest had been established.

"Thank you, Father," his son's quiet voice sounded in his helmet's comlink, another sniper bolt racing from the tree to fell a Nydak who had lingered near the downed Voritor, and had been preparing to launch itself at the Mandalorian hunters' backs.

Pleased with the boy's performance, Tor once more resumed battle with the horde of Nydak.

Breathe in. Exhale. Fire. Change targets.

Breathe in. Exhale. Fire. Change targets.

Drilled into him over hours and hours and hours of practice and instruction, this simple but deadly rhythm had become as ingrained as the act of placing one foot in front of the other.

The faint grunt of annoyance was his own personal addition to the sequence.

"You are upset," his father's voice sounded in his helmet's comm, calm and crisp as a frozen lake despite the furious battle he was a part of.

Just like always.

"I am fine," he assured him, exhaling and firing as yet another Nydak attempted to launch itself at one of the hunters from behind. The creature twitched and fell as the bolt pierced its eye and brain.

The hunter never even noticed.

"You wish to be standing beside us in this hunt," his father unerringly intuited, "not just supporting it from afar."

"Our brothers and sisters are facing danger head-on," he replied, a distant warrior dancing in his scope as they pelted a Nydak with blaster fire and dodged its furious swipes, preventing him from getting a clear shot at the beast himself, "And here I am, safe from harm hundreds of meters away." The beast's thick, horn-covered brown skin cracked and blackened under the hunter's blasts, but the creature was otherwise left mostly unharmed.

At least, until the hunter managed to land a shot to the creature's eye, one of the few weak points in the beast's leathery armor.

"Our way is to stand by our people's side, like a true warrior," he continued, frustration bleeding into his voice as he swept his scope past his father and the other hunters' precise formation to instead settle on a patch of seemingly innocuous shadowy underbrush at the forest's edge.

Breathe in. Exhale. Fire. A twitching Nydak corpse fell out of bush, proving his instincts right.

"It is indeed the Mandalorian way to fight beside your fellow warriors," his father agreed, he and the hunters circling up and firing outwards at the pack of Nydak surrounding them. "But do you think that distance means anything in this?" With a synchronized burst from their jetpacks, the hunters lifted into the air just as the Nydak launched at them, causing the rampaging beasts to collide in a tangle of limbs and snarling fangs below them.

"A true Mandalorian defends his tribe, and his fellow warriors," his father continued, "whether at their side or from a distance makes no difference. Because it is the Tribe that truly matters, not one's personal glory, or praise for his kills." He averted his scope as a round sphere was hurled at the tangle of Nydak, followed by a burst of light and sound that he could faintly hear even as far away as he was. "Being a Mandalorian is something that transcends time, or space, or individuality. This is why we always wear our helmets. Ours is the face of Mandalore, and to cast that aside in favor of one's own face is to scorn our legacy and place self before Tribe. There is no greater crime, and no greater shame."

The blinded and deafened tangle of beasts howled as they were torn apart by heavy blaster fire from the floating Mandalorians, drowning out the muted snap as he fired his own rifle, dropping a late-coming Nydak that had just hurled itself off the cliff's edge at the hovering warriors.

"So long as one follows the tenants of our Creed, and wears the beskar'gam," his father continued teaching, "As long as one bears the face of Mandalore, and never removes it before another … As long as you stand in defense of your brothers and sisters, and honor your leaders and your history … Then, you are a member of our Tribe, even if you are thousands of light-years away … and no matter how you choose to fight."

Trails of smoke curled through the air above the battlefield, rising both from the barrels of Mandalorian blasters and from the pile of Nydak carcasses lying before them.

No more of the beasts remained standing.

"This is the Way of Mandalore," his father declared, turning from the battlefield to stare directly into his scope.

"This is the Way of our lives," he completed, lowering his rifle and settling back against the crooked tree's trunk.

Even without the scope, he could still see the wild cheers and backslapping as the warriors celebrated their hunt, filling the dead clearing with the careless thunder of life itself.

His sniper's nest felt cold and dark in comparison.

"Be at ease, my son," his father continued, his voice almost gentle … or as close to it as he ever came. "Your tenth name-day approaches, and with it, your Verd'goten. You will pass the rite and receive your first sigil, and so be named an adult of the Tribe. Then, you will be free to join the hunts as you please."

Grimacing beneath his helmet, he looked down at his armor, utterly devoid of color or life, bearing only the dull silver sheen of unpainted beskar, and its only decoration the same, simple carving that branded every member of the Tribe.

"The day can't come soon enough, Father," he replied earnestly.

If he didn't know better, he would have sworn his father almost chuckled. "Rest, my son," he told him. "Reflect on this battle, and on my words. Return when you feel you have learned all you could."

"As you say, Father," he answered, bowing his head respectfully, even though his father couldn't see it. Through the branches, he watched his father direct the hunters in gathering the fruits of their labors for transport back to the Tribe, where the carcasses would be broken down for leather and meat and trophies. With swift efficiency, the dead Nydak were all soon strapped to anti-grav devices and lines attached to the hunters' armor. In minutes, the clearing was empty, the hunters taking flight while hauling their deceased prey behind them.

The sight made him even more desperate for the day of his Verd'goten to finally arrive. With it, he would receive his own personal jetpack, and take to the skies as a true Mandalorian.

Until then, he had some reflecting to do, as per his father's orders. And one didn't dismiss the Chieftain's orders lightly, father or not.

With a sigh, he settled back against the gnarled black trunk, watching the crimson sun trail across the sky.

The clustered moons of Dathomir cast an eerie light on the planet below, filtering through the crimson foliage and dancing across the blood-red stone. As always, the silvery-red glow shrouded the night in a dreamlike aura, especially as murky red fog began to rise from cracks in the rocky ground. But even still, with the light of four moons at hand, one could always manage to navigate the nights of Dathomir, even in the depths of one of its forests.

Of course, the nights on this planet held far more to fear than simply becoming lost.

At least, it did for those who weren't Mandalorian.

Sighing tiredly, he fired his blaster into the shadows once more, hearing a chittering squeal as he struck yet another Bane Back Spider that had been stalking him. His nose wrinkled in disgust as the spider's body, almost as large as he was, ruptured like an overripe fruit, releasing a foul, acidic blood that smelled like the creature had died a month ago.

Mere minutes later, he was forced to fire yet again, this time on a spider following him through the tree branches.

"Pests," he muttered irritably as he continued walking.

The rest of his journey was filled with more of the same—a tiring slog through the murky Dathomiri forest, and occasional battles with its aggressive inhabitants.

One could never afford to grow lax on this planet, especially when traveling alone after dark.

Eventually, however, the pests hounding him began to thin, preferring the crimson shadows of the forest's depths to the life and warmth that awaited him just past its edge.

He heard the village before he saw it, just as he always did. The hiss and clamor as the Armorer worked the forge. The crackling thunder of blasters in the practice arena. The boisterous laughter as some hunter or other claimed some ridiculous feat, only to be laughed down and proclaimed a liar.

It would be only minutes before the ones who shouted him down made up their own inflated story of their accomplishments, and were called a liar in turn.

It was a running game to try and claim as ridiculous a story as one could without being mocked as a liar, and to sort the truth from fantasy in everyone else's.

He couldn't wait until he could join them with stories of his own.

Emerging from the trees, he stared across the wide, empty plain to gaze on his home.

Their huts were simple, a mix of red Dathomir stone cut into harsh, angular blocks and black Dathomiri wood polished until it shone. None could be considered large or lavish, not even the ones belonging to the Chief, or the Armorer. But then, no one really wanted them to be. They were Mandalorians. Wealth and possessions meant nothing to them. Their huts gave them shelter when they slept, and that's all they needed. Their true homes were gathered around the campfires trading stories with their brethren, or battling or training at their side.

That was the revelation he had finally had back at the hunting ground. That was why he was truly so eager for his Rite of Passage. And that was why he was so desperate to join their hunts properly, and to fight at their side. It wasn't some craving for glory, or fear of being called a coward. It was because until he underwent his trial, and was named a full member of the Tribe, everything felt like this moment—watching his family from a distance, and longing to join them. It felt like staring at his home, and never being able to enter.

It felt like being an outsider.

But not for much longer, he promised himself, striding across the empty plain to rejoin his people. It's only a few more days until my Verd'goten. And when I pass, I'll never feel like an outsider again.

The landscape of Dathomir was as harsh as it was ugly, alternating between dense, tangled forests of rotten-looking black trees and wide, broken wastelands of towering plateaus and crumbling red canyons.

From one of the latter, cheers and explosions rolled like thunder across the barren landscape, countless armored warriors seated among the cracks and ledges of the canyon walls like some primitive stadium, bellowing jeers and advice at the battle raging below.

There, amongst the pits and boulders of the canyon floor, a young Mandalorian waged war against a horde of warriors wearing the black-and-blue armor of Death Watch.

The warriors moved through the air on jetpacks, and they advanced along the ground with deadly IG droids at their side. Even the skies fought on their behalf, with clusters of drones passing through the air to periodically bombard the ground around their target with volleys of blaster fire mimicking air strikes from a fighter squadron.

The young Mandalorian, on the other hand, fought alone, as befit a young warrior undergoing the first trial of his Verd'goten.

"How long has it been so far?" Tor Vizsla asked, arms folded as he watched his son dive behind a boulder to escape a volley of blaster fire from the advancing warriors.

"Long enough that I'm almost impressed," the warrior beside him answered gruffly, his matte-black armor carved like a mural paying homage to every great war that Mandalorians had ever been a part of.

Fitting for the Tribe's Master of Combat Training.

Tor watched the cluster of drones make another sweep through the canyon, preparing to bombard his son's location as per their programming. As if on cue, his son lobbed a silver sphere over the boulder and into the squad of warriors advancing on him, where it detonated in a dense burst of smoke that quickly enveloped the entire squad. As it did, his son vaulted over crumbling boulder and raced towards the cloud.

"Reckless," the Trainer muttered.

The warriors quickly burst through the top of the smoke using their jetpacks. However, before they could train their rifles on the charging boy, he managed to reach the sanctuary of the smoke himself, escaping their view.

Of course, this also left him trapped, as the warriors knew where he was, and he couldn't leave without being spotted and picked off. As such, the hovering warriors simply floated above the smoke and sent a blind volley of blasts down into it, where they were bound to hit him eventually.

"Foolish kid," the Trainer groused.

Tor, on the other hand, had his eyes fixed skywards.

"Not necessarily."

The hovering warriors were blindsided as they were suddenly bombarded in heavy blaster fire from the airborne drones, targeting the boy in the smoke, and catching the warriors square in the crossfire.

Their attention focused downwards, they never even saw the drones coming.

A narrow grappling line burst from the smoke, promptly followed by his son as he was rapidly pulled to safety, using the armored forms of the chaotically shouting Mandalorians themselves as cover to escape the bombardment. Meanwhile, the Mandalorians fell crashing to the ground, their jetpacks sparking and failing as they took the brunt of the hits, given how their backs had been facing skywards as they fired down into the smoke.

Luckily for them, all loadouts and weaponry had been powered down below killing level before the trial, including the drones, or there likely would have been quite a few casualties among their number.

"Hmm … still reckless," the Trainer decreed. "And the boy is being far too aggressive for this type of trial." Despite his words, however, the hints of gruff approval could be heard in his voice as he watched the boy ground and neutralize an entire squad of warriors.

Of course, there were still several more squads remaining, and more would just keep coming until the boy was taken down. Appropriate, given the singular objective of this trial:

Survive.

"What are your thoughts?" Tor asked as the battle continued.

The Trainer was silent for several moments, watching as as the boy's rifle was blasted out of his hands by the uncannily accurate IG assassin droid marching relentlessly towards him, while a squad of airborne Mandalorians supported it from the air.

The boy staggered for only a moment before bracing his left arm in front of him, the shield emitter in his vambrace creating a glimmering blue buckler of energy that blocked the majority of the shots by the Mandalorian squad, while his armor resisted the rest.

Snapping his right arm out, he fired his grappling line at a boulder just behind the approaching IG droid. His boots sliding across the rocky ground, he was rapidly pulled towards the droid, the speed and suddenness of his movement protecting him from the Mandalorians' fire. Deactivating the small energy shield, he extended his left arm towards the tall, spindly assassin droid, a pair of shots from the small but powerful twin blaster barrels built into the side of the left vambrace making the droid stagger as they impacted just off center on its chest.

Tor's eyebrows rose as a red light began rapidly beeping behind a plate in the droid's chassis.

By some miracle, the boy's shot seemed to have managed to activate the explosive set in the droid's chest, and triggered its self-destruct function.

As he slid into arm's reach of the malfunctioning droid, the boy snapped his left arm out once more, and the repulsor built into the vambrace fired.

Coupled with his momentum, the heavy concussive blast sent the droid airborne, where it abruptly detonated just in front of the squad of airborne Mandalorians.

As the warriors were sent careening towards the ground, armor smoking and men screaming, the boy emerged from behind the cover of the boulder, one of the droid's blasters in hand as he continued the assault without pause.

The Mandalorians watching from the canyon walls roared in celebration at the move.

"I think," the Trainer began slowly, almost drowned out by the cheering onlookers, "that your son has the potential to become a fine Mandalorian warrior."

Tor nodded in agreement.

"'Fine'?!" a nearby warrior yelled in good-natured indignation, a drunken slur to his voice. "Are you kidding me?! Just 'fine'?! Look at this kid!" On the canyon floor, the boy hurled a vibroknife with deadly accuracy, the blade flipping over a hovering warrior's shoulder to embed itself in the missile extending above his jetpack, which promptly detonated.

And so another squad was knocked out of the sky.

"This kid is insane!" the warrior continued praising, drunken hands fumbling as he attempted to feed the tube from his drink under his helmet. "It's like he always knows where to go and what to do to bring everyone down!" He paused as he finally succeeded in slipping the tube under his faceplate, and took a long, celebratory swig. "Hell, this kid fights like a Jedi!"

Tor didn't realize he was moving until he heard the ring of metal striking stone as the man's helmet slammed into the rock wall, and he felt the man's throat convulse under his hand.

His breaths came hard and heavy as the man's hands scrambled at his wrist, and the cheering warriors around them fell deadly silent.

Finally, though, he managed to speak.

"Don't," his voice hissed behind grit teeth, "compare my son to Jedi."

The drunken man nodded vigorously.

His spasming hand opened, allowing the warrior to fall to his knees gasping for breath. Turning, Tor once more faced the arena, clasping his hands behind him to hide their continued trembling.

The Trainer watched him in dry silence for several moments before turning back to continue watching the trial below.

"Oh, speak of the devils," the Trainer commented as a new combatant entered the arena.

Tor didn't need to ask what he was talking about. The bellowed jeers and insults that spread like wildfire amongst the onlooking Mandalorians made it clear already.

Entering the battlefield, flanked by squads of warriors wearing Death Watch armor, a brown-robed figure activated a crystal-blue lightsaber.

Standing across from them, exhausted, injured, and hideously outnumbered, his son stood his ground, outgunned and unyielding.

Tor stared sightlessly as they engaged, breaths coming faster and faster as his ears heard the screams of his wife and his men, and his eyes saw the fields of Concordia dripping with blood and ash.

Most of all, though, he heard the howls of men being shaken and broken by powers unseen, and the humming whine of lightsabers rising and falling … and rising and falling.

He saw his wife cut down before his eyes, while he could do nothing more than watch.

"Alor!"

His head jerked as he was pulled back to the present, his muscles screaming in protest as they held him stiff as stone, refusing to let him show weakness by shaking. Fighting to slow his panting breaths, he turned to see the Trainer nodding subtly towards the arena.

It was then that he noticed the shouts of disappointment echoing across the canyon from the unhappy onlookers.

The "why" was easy to discern, as he saw his son lying flat on his back with the "Jedi's" foot on his chest and gleaming blue sword at his throat. However, most of the sorcerer's simple brown robe seemed to have burned away during the fight, revealing the charred black droid underneath.

Crafted of beskar, the droid was fitted with their most advanced repulsor and tractor-beam technology to give the best possible approximation of fighting one of the robed demons without needing to actually have one of their number among them.

Around them, an impressive number of "Death Watch" traitors lay immobile on the ground, but the majority remained standing, surrounding his downed son with blasters aimed and ready to fire.

With a hissing snap, the droid stepped back and deactivated the lightsaber recovered from the fields of Concordia, while the warriors lowered their rifles.

Slowly, agonizingly, his son sat up, head hanging at his loss.

"Failure," a woman's crisp, amplified voice echoed from speakers set throughout the canyon walls as the Armorer stepped onto the battlefield. "A hard lesson to learn, but one every Mandalorian must eventually face." His son started at her arrival, then visibly struggled as he lifted himself to his knees at the Armorer's approach, one hand cradling an injury to his side. "To be a Mandalorian is to stand against the galaxy itself. Our numbers are few, and our opponents endless. Such is the Way of Mandalore." His son bowed his head respectfully as she drew to a stop before him. "Honor is not won through victory alone. It is earned through resourcefulness, cunning, and bravery. It is claimed by standing alone against an army, defeat certain, and fighting on regardless if such is necessary." The Armorer towered over the kneeling boy, like a judge ready to pass sentence.

"You have carried yourself with honor, Son of Mandalore," she proclaimed.

His son raised his head, visibly shocked, yet hopeful as she extended a hand towards him. His hand moved slowly, as if certain it was a trick, but hers remained, unwavering. Clasping her proffered hand, he let her help him to his feet.

"You have passed your first trial of the Verd'goten," she told him, a hint of a smile in her voice. "Congratulations."

The canyon erupted in shouts and whistles as the Mandalorians wildly cheered, celebrating his victory as if it was their own as one of their number came closer to joining their ranks. Across the field, even the downed warriors wearing fake Death Watch armor struggled to their feet to join the applause, shrugging off their injuries to show him their respect.

Tor couldn't see his son's face beneath his helmet, but he knew the boy was smiling from ear to ear as he turned to look up at him in the audience.

"Well done, my son," he praised quietly, nodding in respect as he clapped. "Well done."

He remembered asking his father once why the Armorer led the ceremonies even though his father was Chieftain. His father explained that, as Alor'aliit, he was in charge of their physical direction, while the Armorer, the Bes'alor, led them spiritually. He had thought this odd at the time too.

It took meeting her just once to understand.

Her helmet was a deep, burnished gold, with rounded eye slits rather than straight. Her armor itself was a simple, uniform red, trimmed in fur around her collar. However, that was where any appearance of simplicity ended.

Every plate of her armor bore a strange, coarse texture like pockmarked stone. If one looked closer, though, one would see that every inch of her armor was covered in fine, delicate engravings, some almost too small to see. These engravings made her armor a living work of art that told the entire history of Mandalore. Every triumph, and every failure. Every victory, and every defeat.

And only a master of the craft could have made all those carvings.

Their armor defined them, made them more than simply a clan of mercenaries. And as their master of weapon- and armor-crafting, she was responsible for preserving their entire history and culture just as much as she was for preserving their very lives.

He had never again questioned her role as spiritual leader after realizing this.

"You have tasted the bitter sting of defeat," she announced in the village square, slowly equipping him with fresh tools and weapons as he knelt before her. "Now you must cleanse yourself with victory." Looking up, his eyes drifted past her to spot his father in the crowd of onlookers. His father nodded slowly, and encouragingly.

"In these woods," the Armorer continued, sweeping an arm towards the twisted red forest, "lies your quarry: a beast, its nature unknown. It may be predator. It may be prey. It matters not. For it is your own nature that this trial shall reveal—that of a warrior worthy of great Mandalore." Extending a hand, she once more helped him to his feet. "Find this beast. Kill it. Honorably, and cleanly. Reveal your true nature to yourself and to the galaxy. Complete this last trial of the Verd'goten. And then return to us, not as a boy, but as a man." Her chin raised proudly. "As a Mandalorian!"

The Mandalorians cheered and parted as he began walking, clearing a path to the woods. As he passed between them, they clapped his shoulders and slapped his back, shouting out advice and encouragement or jokes and good-natured ribbing.

He thought his face would split from smiling so much, though his helmet hid it from view.

Eventually, though, he stood before his father, arms folded as he waited between him and the forest.

The village fell quiet as he and his father stared at each other silently.

Slowly, jerkily, his father laid a hand on his shoulder. "You do our family honor, my son." Even with his armor, he could feel his father's hand squeezing his shoulder tightly. "I know you'll do well."

He felt his breath hitch in his throat as he bowed low before his father. The Chieftain wasn't the most affectionate of people, nor was he the warmest or most encouraging. All his life, his father had been very quiet and severe, his armor reaching far beyond the beskar he wore.

From him, these simple words, and his hand on his shoulder, meant more than all the praise or encouragement from the rest of the Tribe put together.

"I won't let you down, Father," he promised hoarsely.

He felt his father's hand pat his shoulder, awkwardly, but to him, very, very meaningfully.

"I know you won't," his father replied, quieter than normal as he stepped to the side.

Straightening, he blinked his eyes clear as he strode towards the forest, his chin high and eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to shame his father by turning back to look at him, no matter how much he wanted to.

He would keep his promise, and do his father proud.

As he took another step, however, the ground suddenly began to quake.

He paused, uncertain if this was another secret part of the test, like the unbeatable droid in the last trial. But as the quakes grew larger, he heard the Tribe muttering in confusion and growing alarm behind him.

He kept his eyes fixed on the forest as he felt his father step up beside him, but this time, it wasn't because of pride, or fear of shame.

In the distance, he watched as towering treetops danced and shook as something moved between them.

Something big, and coming closer.

"What is it?" he asked his father quietly as the quakes grew larger, now recognizable as tremors from massive, loping footsteps.

"… I don't know," his father quietly replied, unholstering his rifle as the sound of snapping branches and heaving breaths reached them. "But you need to step back."

"No!" he argued, drawing his own rifle as his heart raced with dread. Something bad was going to happen. Even beyond whatever was charging towards them. He could feel it. "Father, I can help! I can-"

"Get out of here! Now!" his father bellowed.

Too late.

The trees in front of them exploded as something burst through them, sending massive shards of wooden shrapnel flying in a deadly spray. The thrusters on his father's jetpack fired, lifting him into the sky to escape them.

He had no such chance himself.

His helmet rang like a gong as he was struck. His world spun and ears rang even long after the sound of wood striking metal died away. His other senses came back piecemeal. He tasted the coppery tang of blood on this tongue. He felt his stomach roil and threaten to make him vomit. He smelled the smoke of jetpack exhaust and the ozone of blaser-fire. He felt his helmet pressing into his cheek uncomfortably as he lay on hard, jagged stone.

Most of all, though, he felt the cold grip of dread like a shackle on his spine.

Something bad was about to happen soon. Something … very bad.

His head spun and spots swam across his vision as he struggled to his knees, his stomach lurching as it threatened even more fervently to empty its contents inside his helmet.

Concussion, he realized faintly.

He continued rising. He had more important concerns at the moment. That freezing hand of dread on his spine made that clear if nothing else.

His head wobbled as he finally made it to his knees, neck uncertain how to balance a head that felt three times larger and five times as heavy as normal. He blinked slowly, groggily, as a blurry mosaic of light and darkness battled in his vision, each attempting to drown out the other.

Light finally won.

A massive, fleshy wall moved in front of him, gray and hideous. Horns littered its surface, some short and dull, others long and jagged. His bleary eyes registered two legs, thick as tree trunks with stout, cruelly hooked claws digging into the hard-packed stone as easily as mud. Behind them, a tail, long and spiked, and horribly deadly as it whipped through the air with terrifying speed.

Finally, the arms, bulging with muscles and hideously long, each ending in massive, clawed fingers longer than a person was tall.

His jumbled mind swam with words read in one of his lessons.

'Native to the dread-planet Dathomir, few creatures invoke as much terror as the deadly Rancor, and even fewer deserve it as much as they. With blaster-resistant hide and insatiable hunger, these walking collections of fangs and teeth have climbed their way to the top of even Dathomir's foodchain, and they have remained its apex predators ever since.'

His head throbbed as his eyes struggled to process the sight of the creature, passing over the looping swirls of brightly colored paint that decorated its hide to study its face, towering near the top of the trees as it snarled and snapped at the Mandalorians flitting about it like gnats.

Wait, this can't be right. His thoughts felt cold and sluggish as they reached him. This can't be a Rancor. It's too big. And it has tusks.

Its flat skull swung through the air as it threatened to gore the flying Mandalorians with the four massive, elaborately carved tusks that normal Rancors didn't have, the shortest twice as long as a man, while the creature itself towered half again as tall as any Rancor was supposed to be.

Bull Rancor, he realized. Not a myth after all.

He reeled and almost collapsed as sound returned to him all at once, his ears battered with the beast's ground-shaking roars and the screams of angry men, pitifully small and weak in comparison.

Something seized him, dragging him backwards, and he thrashed, panicked and confused.

"… -ghting! I need to get you out of here!"

He stopped thrashing as the crisp voice of the Armorer reached him, no longer quite as calm and collected as she normally was. Looking down, he saw her red-clad arms wrapped around his torso, dragging him backwards from the battle.

He started struggling once again.

"… no … can't go … gonna happen soon …," he slurred weakly.

That icy sense of foreboding had only gotten stronger, though he had no idea what it meant.

The world seemed to speed up around him as he started to regain his presence of mind, realizing where he was and what was happening somewhat more clearly. He fought the Armorer's grip and tried to climb to his feet, only to fail as the world spun and his stomach roiled, forcing him limp in her unyielding grip as she continued dragging him. As he desperately tried to make his injured, sluggish brain start working again, his slowly clearing eyes watched the Tribe batter the howling Bull Rancor with blaster fire, achieving nothing but making it angrier.

"No," he groaned. "Not there. Skin between its tusks. Ears behind its horns. Backs of its knees. Front of its hips. Eyes and nostrils. Weak points."

"What? Boy, what are you saying?" the Armorer's voice sounded in his ear as her efforts to drag him slowed.

The cold feeling in his gut now had nothing to do with the strange sense of foreboding that had been gripping him.

"Nothing," he muttered hurriedly, suddenly feeling as terrified of her as he was of the Rancor, though he couldn't say why.

He didn't know where those words had come from, or why knowing something's weak-points felt so natural and familiar to him. He also couldn't comprehend why a part of his mind was racing with an even longer list of weaknesses for the creature, such as the long, half-healed cut on the bottom of its left foot that threw its balance off ever so slightly, or the fact that its eyes struggled to see all that clearly in the bright sunlight, or that it was prone to mindless rampages that could lead it to blindly charge after something if it caused it enough pain.

Or the fact that its heart had a slight defect that had been present in the creature since birth, and which might just cause it to fail if it was placed under enough stress somehow.

His jumbled mind had no idea where these thoughts all came from, or why a part of him was absolutely sure they were all true. He also couldn't understand why another part of him was practically gibbering in terror that he was examining these thoughts, and that the Armorer had heard him speak some of them aloud.

All he did know, clear as a dagger in the thigh, was that the part of him that sounded most like himself was absolutely screaming that he did not want to know! That absolutely everything depended on never opening that door!

His internal battle came to an abrupt halt as what the strange, distant part of him had been fearing came to pass.

As if in slow motion, he watched one of the Rancor's massive, cruel hands snag a Mandalorian out of the air.

The beast's roar of satisfaction felt as final as a coffin lid slamming shut.

The man's armor was dull and bland compared to that of his fellows. Where theirs was bright and colorful, patterned and decorated to suit its wearer's personalities, his was the dull, unpolished silver of utterly plain beskar, as if he had no individuality to express beyond the simple fact of what he was.

A Mandalorian.

In that moment, he found himself hating his father's armor.

His father struggled and fought against the beast's grip, and the rest of the Tribe desperately tried to pull him free or take the Bull Rancor down, but against its colossal strength and size, it was like battling a mountain.

There was nothing they could do to free his father. He knew it. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, he knew it.

He shouldn't know. His head was clear enough now for him to realize this. But the part of him that had always hidden these things from him, that shouting fragment of himself that had always taken these terrible, terrifying parts of himself and buried them too deeply to find or be found, still felt like a stranger in his cold, injured mind.

It couldn't protect him from the truth any longer.

He knew now that had seen this moment in his dreams. Repressed and forgotten come morning, but relived again night after night, over and over again. This was why he had felt that strange sense of foreboding.

He had seen this future coming.

And he knew what was about to happen.

His dull, horrified eyes watched as the beast began lifting his father towards its gaping maw, a scene he knew all too well.

"Tor …," he heard the Armorer whisper in horror, while cries of "Chief!" and "Alor!" echoed from the flying Mandalorians, ringing in his ears like déjà vu.

"Father …," he whispered in her grasp, his hand stretching out as he had seen himself do all too many times before, straining as if he could reach across the distance separating them, and pull his father to safety.

Drool dripped from the creature's jaw. It's spike-like teeth began to close. His father's struggles grew still with acceptance.

His father couldn't see the future like he could, be he knew what was about to happen too.

"No …"

The Armorer's hand crept over his visor, trying to shield him from the sight of his father's death.

She didn't know there was no point.

"NOOOOO!"

The Armorer was thrown backwards.

I can't hide any more.

His father was ripped from the creature's hand.

I need to save my father.

The creature began to howl.

This thing needs to die.

Blood began to pour from cracks in the creature's hide. First from the skin between its tusks. Then from the ears behind its horns. Then the backs of its knees, and the front of its hips. Its eyes and nostrils came next.

Not enough.

His outstretched hand curled into a claw as his focus turned inside the creature. Before his mind's eye, the creature's organs appeared like an image viewed through broken glass, each crack a minute flaw in the beast.

The long-buried part of himself knew this type of sight all too well. He knew what to do.

His blood thundered in his ears as he began to wrench and tear at each of those cracks.

The beast's howls were almost pitiful as it began shattering from the inside out, blood pouring from its slack jaw as every invisible flaw in its biology began to grow and spread like cancer, driving it to its crumbling knees.

The ground shuddered under a monstrous impact as the beast collapsed, life fading from its bleeding eyes as its massive, racing heart finally failed, its innocuous birth defect stretched and mangled to a fatal degree.

His armored legs wavered beneath him as he stared at the fallen beast, his panting breaths scraping his throat raw with the hot, dusty air. All around him, Mandalorians slowly began landing as they stared silently between the fallen beast, riddled with gaping wounds that had appeared from nowhere … and him, still standing with his hand outstretched towards the beast.

There was no hiding anymore. Not from himself, and not from the Tribe. It was over. That shouting, pleading part of himself that had fought so hard and so long to shield him from all of this … had finally failed.

The truth was out now. And there was no going back.

The armored warriors backpedaled fearfully as his shaking arm lowered.

He wasn't watching them, though. He was staring at his father, watching as he slowly climbed to his feet near the fallen Rancor.

The beast he had just killed with the Force.

"I'm sorry …," he whispered to his father as an icy numbness spread throughout his wavering body.

The last thing he saw before his vision went dark was the sight of his father still standing there, silent and unmoving.

I didn't mean to be one of them.

In the shadows of the forest, unnoticed by all, the pale Witch stood, staring at the fallen form of her favored pet, brought low by the young, untrained Force-sensitive child lying prone in the dirt.

Her black lips spread in a gruesome smile.

"That's my boy," Mother Talzin whispered proudly.

Translations from Mando'a to English (in order of appearance):

ori'vod – big brother or sister

ner vod – brother, sister, comrade

alor – leader, chief

Haat, Ijaa, Haa'it – 'Truth, Honor, Vision'; said when sealing a pact or oath

aliit – family, clan, tribe

Alor'aliit – 'Chief of the Tribe'

vod – 'my brother/sister'; colloquially also 'my friend'

beskar'gam – armor; literally 'Iron Skin'

Verd'goten – A traditional rite of passage testing combat and survival skills to accept a Mandalorian youth as an adult

beskar – Mandalorian iron

Bes'alor – Armorer; literally 'Chief of Iron'

Author's note: Well, I already have so many incomplete stories on my plate, so I guess the only logical response is … ANOTHAH!

-slams fic on the ground-

As for the specifics, this story takes place during the Clone War era, but it draws details and inspiration from The Mandalorian (glorious gift that it is), Rebels, Jedi: Fallen Order, The Force Unleashed, and probably bits and pieces from further Star Wars stories, including Legends continuity (none of this sweeping-it-all-aside nonsense here!). I'll also likely be adjusting timelines, ages, and other such details a bit throughout the story (e.g. the Clone Wars probably won't just be three years long).

Also, I finally got my P-a-t-r-e-o-n page up and running properly (under the name 'Raolin'), so feel free to check it out if you like! I'll be posting early drafts of my chapters there if you'd like to catch a sneak peek, and any support would go a long way to helping me devote more time to my writing, and would be very deeply appreciated :)

Regardless, I'd like to say thank you all for reading and reviewing, and I look forward to seeing you next time!